5033 Bits

Thursday, December 10, 2015

"[T]he more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be a desirable condition, 

the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum. 

The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable, 

the further to the right he or she will be. 

-- Roderick Stackelberg,  Hitler's Germany, Routledge, 1999, pp. 4–6 --

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Cat Allergy

When Jay and I started dating, I had Siddy Kitty. Jay was highly allergic to cats.  The membranes in his nose swelled, the whites of his eyes turned red, and the membrane that covers the eyeball, the conjuntiva, would swell so badly it actually hung out over his lower eyelid in a blob.  All he had to do was walk into the house.  This was a bit of a problem.  I also had two dogs at the time, but they didn't bother him.

I found some kind of stuff somewhere, I forget what it was called (it was probably similar to Allerpet), a liquid that when put on the cat did something to reduce the allergens.  I scrubbed Siddy down with it about every other day at first.  I'd put some in a bowl, sop a sponge in it, then rub her all over with the sponge.  She LOVED it!  There's no way you'd ever get her into a bath (and live), but she thought being rubbed down with a sponge was wonderful.  It was like Mommy was licking her all over with a sponge tongue.

It worked beautifully.  Jay's non-reaction was immediate, and he and Siddy got to be best snuggle buddies.

Gradually I reduced the scrubbings to every three days, then every four days, then once a week, trying to find out how long the effects lasted.  Within another two months or so, I was frequently forgetting to do it, then one day I realized Siddy hadn't been doused in months, and Jay still wasn't reacting.  We stopped, and even after we got Miss Thunderfoot, a long-hair with skin problems, Jay no longer reacted.

I have no idea what happened.  His earlier reactions were so extreme, and he said he'd always been that way around cats.  Did his allergy simply go away?  Was there a psychological component to the allergy such that when he fell in love with Siddy it went away?

I'd still love to know.

--------------------------------------------

Christman Lights

They've been going up all around here since the day after Thanksgiving.  Nugget and I have wandered around in the car looking at them.  She gets so excited.  I noticed something new this year.  In previous years I had seen nets of lights that people spread over shrubs and small trees.  This year some houses look like they have nets of lights spread over the whole front of the house, hundreds of tiny green and red lights.  I wondered if you hang the netting from the eaves, or what?  Then my neighbor across the street got them.  The front of their house is narrow, and the web covered the whole front, including across the front door.  I wondered how they'd get in the house.  Then I saw someone walk up to the door, and the lights were across his back --- oh, it's a projector!

Silly old lady.  Get with the times!

That seems so easy.  If I did Christmas stuff at all, I'd definitely go that route.

There's some weird overspill from the projector across the street.  I have seven or eight tiny dots of red and green on the north end of my house, running up the garage to the house roof.  I wonder, if you point the projector up to the sky, what would it look like from a plane?

------------------------------------------

Squirrels

I like to give peanuts to the neighborhood squirrels.  I used to stand on the porch and call them, "Squiggy!  Squiggy!", and they'd come running for the peanuts on the lawn and driveway.  Some were getting bold enough to come within a few inches of me to beg.  Then the blue jays figured out what "Squiggy" meant, and they started showing up, within seconds of my calling.  The jays would call each other, and pretty soon it was getting nasty, with jays dive bombing squirrels and squabbling over the peanuts.  So I had to stop calling.  I just threw peanuts when I saw squirrels nearby, and stopped when I heard the first jay call.

This year there's something strange about the squirrels.  There don't seem to be many big chubby mature squirrels.  They all seem to be very small and young.  Where did all the older ones go?  Hercules says a fox has been seen, but foxes would seem to have an more of an effect on the cat and rabbit population than on the squirrels.  There's one little squirrel who has a thin scrawny tail.  I worry about him.  That stick of a tail isn't going to keep him warm when it gets cold.  I try to throw peanuts to him, but he always runs away.

--------------------------------------------

Other Stuff

I have lots of opinions on lots of stuff, but I try not to write anything that will just upset me more.  Gotta wait for it to simmer down a bit more.  But there's the van, Met Life, France, politicians, aaaagggghhh!  I'm getting annoyed already.  Need more time to pass.

[Drops mike....]
.

3993 Squirrel Heaven

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Love is the only beast that bites after it's dead.

(Except for reptiles.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a squirrel who comes to my porch sometimes to beg for peanuts when he sees me outside.  This afternoon, I heard him running through the drifted leaves, but then he took a sharp right turn and ran for the tree on the other side of the driveway.  There was something about the way he was moving that signaled major excitement, not his usual stop-and-go scamper.  He seemed to have some difficulty climbing the tree.

I walked across the driveway to see why, and saw that he was carrying something in his mouth.  Something beige, about half his size.  Something with long dangly things on each side.  Oh good grief - it looked like he was carrying a baby rabbit!

I got closer and discovered that he was carrying a small ear of corn.  The "bunny ears" were the husk.

He was so excited, and so obviously happy, and so determined to get that thing up to the top of the tree.

Somebody may have lost part of their door wreath.
.

3668 Daily blessings

Friday, November 23, 2012

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired

signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,

those who are cold and not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat

of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." 

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower --

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I guess I've been pretty clear that I'm not big on holidays, partly because they are commercially perverted and exploited, but also because we as a society seem to have forgotten the true purpose and reason for those holidays.  Kinda like Sundays.  I get very annoyed by people who are all pious and holy on Sunday morning, and then forget it all for the next six and a half days, 'til it's time to be publicly pious and holy again.  I think the sentiments of Sunday, Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, and all that should be an every day thing.  Like, ONE day for being grateful for our bounty?  ONE day to get together with family?  Bull poopy.  We should be grateful every day.  Stop complaining on every other day of the year about what you don't have or want but can't get.  Every time you go to the grocery store, give thanks for what the earth gives us.

I had told The Man that I don't enjoy giving or receiving gifts on those days when they are expected (and in some cases demanded).  I prefer it to be a more natural spontaneous "I saw this and thought of you" type thing.  I never ever want a "gift" that someone felt they had to give me because the calendar said so.  He seemed very relieved by that.

A cynic could interpret that as that I want every day to be Valentine's Day.  Well, uh, yeah.

Hercules has yesterday and today off work.  Daughter didn't cook yesterday.  They decided to relax and enjoy life instead.  I think she had intended to do the turkey bit because she had invited me to dinner, but I turned her down.  She knows I don't like holiday fuss, but what I didn't tell her was that a) I dislike turkey, and b) I had a 2-hour shift washing pots at a Sandy shelter.

So anyway, she's cooking today and will bring me some leftovers.

--------------------------------

So far I have still seen only two squirrels since the hurricane.  Normally one sees six or eight in the trees, and you can hear many more scolding cats and each other all day.

Sqiuggy came by yesterday morning for his peanuts.  I can put out only one at a time because he takes one at a time and disappears to bury it (I guess), so if the blue jay is around the jay steals the rest.  Yesterday I had thrown a peanut onto the driveway, and squirrel #2 ran up to investigate.

Squiggy had a fit!

He chased #2 in circles on the driveway, up onto the porch, around behind me so close their flailing tails brushed my ankles, through the railing and around the side of the house.

This morning #2 is digging around in George's front yard, carefully keeping his back to me.

I haven't seen Squiggy since the chase.  I guess he won the argument, but I wonder if there was a price.
.

3666 Squiggy Squirrel

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

"The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous."

--  Shana Alexander  --

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That first squirrel to reappear after the hurricane?  I've been feeding him peanuts in the shell, early mornings.  I don't know if he's hungry, friendly, brave, or stupid, but he'll now come within two feet of me and sit up and beg. I don't know if I want him to actually touch me, like sit on my knee or something. If I ever run out of peanuts, that could get very annoying.

I've named him Squiggy, like Laverne and Shirley's Squiggy.

It fits.
.

3260 Durn squirrels! And cats!

Saturday, May 2011

It's almost always dangerous to be right too soon.
David Gerrold, The Martian Child

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I put some peanuts, in shells, on the porch railing for the squirrels and for Jasper's entertainment. Then I went to the Wawa (I hate that name) to get some Greek yogurt. I was gone maybe 20 minutes.

When I returned, all my potted impatiens had been dug up, and a peanut planted in each pot.

Ok squirrels. No more nuts for you!

--------------------------------

There's a very ballsy black feral cat who visits my back yard and scares the beans out of Jasper when they see each other at the window. Last night Jasper was on the dining room window sill when the black cat visited and startled him.

There was an explosion.

There was a traverse rod on the floor under that window, waiting for curtains to be chosen. You know, the kind with all the cords?

Well, when Jasper exploded from the window sill, he got tangled in the cords somehow, and in his panic he dragged the heavy rod out of the dining room, across the breakfast area floor, knocking over a stool which scared him more. The 7-foot long rod somehow got airborne going over the stool, came down on his food tray 6 feet further on, spilling his food and water all over the floor, and it then jammed in the hall doorway, with one end somehow stuck behind my desk. The other end knocked Roomba off his power base and turned him on, and with a "ta beep ta bah" Roomba took off after Jasper, who tore down the hall and up the stairs, trailing traverse cords the whole way.

The whole thing happened in an instant. All was quiet, and then suddenly three rooms were destroyed. Jasper is now afraid of the dining room. Poor timid little chicken. He did not have a good night.

-------------------------------

I'd been considering befriending and semi-adopting that black cat, but you know, somehow I don't think it would work out.
.

1758 Squirrels

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Fourteen years ago, when I first moved into this house, there were two populations of squirrels in the back yard. The grays lived on the south side, and the reds lived on the north.

Then I started stocking the bird feeder. The gray squirrels, being more aggressive than the reds, decided they owned the feeder, and they started pushing the reds out. Within a few years, there were no reds left.

I haven't stocked a feeder since Jay died, so I didn't really notice when the change started, but I've noticed this past year or so that there are NO squirrels in the back yard. It was sort a subliminal awareness that popped to the surface today, when I noticed that the ground under a neighbor's pines was heavily littered with cones. Usually the squirrels take them. Is the whole neighborhood short on squirrels?

I thought a bit about that as I rounded the curve, and by durn right then a black squirrel ran across the road, right in front of my mailbox.

Mystery solved.

The black squirrels have moved in.

They're even more aggressive than the grays, and will chase them out wherever they find them. (Actually, the local blacks are just a color phase of the grays, but increased aggression seems to go along with the color gene.)
.