My day: Ninja Squirrel, Dim Bulb and I want to be a Cat

I was having a pretty funky day: Seizures, Linda ‘lost’ my $100 check from the government and the closest I got to compliment was “You look exhausted!”

Since we couldn’t cash the check, which meant I couldn't go online buying much needed Yuri postcards and stickers (Is this what the government gave me the money for? Mine is not to question 'Why' but to follow the spirit that leads me to buy girl with girl pretty anime stuff!), nor could I go down to the video shop because I owed them money and had none. Linda decided we should go to the park. Cheryl and I had gone the other day and found squirrel being traumatized by kids playing capture the flag, someone turning up a clarinet (this can be VERY traumatizing!), and a boy trying to knock them unconscious with pine cones. We hoped today wasn't WORSE.

Actually it was pretty good, we found that the ‘new generation’ of squirrel need a little bit of schooling. Or rather there is a big difference between the ‘new generation’ (slightly twitchy, will often run PAST you several times), and the older generation who run at you, in fact who tend to go all Ninja on you! Did we see Psycho? No, and I think Fiona is up in a nest, but I think we might have met Psycho’s half brother (sort of the Billy Carter to President Carter: one goes on peace missions around the world, the other…makes beer.). Let’s call him Dojo because he reminds me of some of my brother’s friends who would buy ninja stars, or nun-chucks but never actually JOIN a martial arts school. Instead they’d watch Bruce Lee movies and yell and think they were so bad ass until they threw a ninja star into their foot and had their mom (22 and still living at home), drive them to the hospital.

I distinctly remember one, J., who considered himself the ultimate bad-ass and bought a gun (shot himself in the foot, then shot out a window, mom said, “The gun goes or you go” – so off he went....and lived in his car in the drive way, because no “bad boy” like him was going to give up his GUN). He also practiced with butterfly knives and ninja stars and watched the film Repo Man over and over again. We got a call from his parents one night that he was emergency because he had been “stabbed in the eye.” Question abounded: Does this mean he actually GOT a job? Or did try to reposess a car? Turns out he annoyed his nine year old sister who stabbed him with a pen in his eye. Well, that’s Dojo!

Dojo saw me, and with no looks to the left or the right, he ran at me and assessed me for potential gain. I have no idea what he saw, but I think it went like this, “There’s peanuts in them hills!” Because then he….um…..well, I don’t want to say he “mounted me” because I am sure sex with squirrels is illegal but he definitely decided to “advance and conquor!” or "Assault!" or "MINE!" People ask me about how do I get the squirrels on my lap. With squirrels like Dojo the question is, how do I get RID of them?

Actually after batting two peanuts from my hand he took off. We moved to a grove and there was this cute girl called H. who was five and trying to give something to the squirrels, so I gave her some peanuts and told her to hold them out to the squirrels. While I was talking Dojo had returned and seeing me giving peanuts to HUMANS (small humans but still bigger than him) he went after the soft target…..Linda. So Linda was on the ground making this sort of “help” and “erp!” noises and I told the girl H., “Um, DON’T hold your hand out to THAT squirrel (the one trying to leap onto my partner's face!), try ones OVER THERE!” because Dojo had decided he was going in “Ninja Mode!” I am NINJA SQUIRREL!!!
I’m not sure if he was trying to stare Linda down or sneak up on her but after climbing all around her, he FOUND HER BAG of peanuts. And claimed it! The problem was that even though the ziplock was open Dojo was a fighter, not a thinker (understatement!), and couldn’t get to the peanuts, but nor would he let Linda open the bag for him, at times throwing his entire body across the bag to stop her potentially taking it away from him. Linda filmed the whole thing and I will put it up on the blog tomorrow. Seriously, there are some hard core trailer-trash squirrel brothers in this park.

After that we got the “new generation squirrels who have thinner tails and were friendly enough but you had to be patient. Sometimes very patient and then they would come up and you could feed them. Like this guy of the scrawny tail (D. B.). They didn’t have really enough personality to name them, except for one who was paranoid of crows (why do I always get the squirrels with disorders – is it because like attracts like?). Mr. Jitters wouldn’t come close, just false starts and mostly hiding under a tree so I would throw him “pity peanuts” and then the crows would come and he would run away with cries of “You see, you see, they’re always after me!”

This is one of the regulars from last year, big body bushy tail, you can see my newly trained friend sneaking in the back of the wheelchair to wait in line for coming up for his peanut. If I had to name the thin tailed one it would be Dim Bulb, because his habit was this: TAKE two peanuts, go 25 feet and drop one (then found by another squirrel), stop and then chew INTO the shell of remaining peanut to open up the peanut inside to make sure it was okay. After exposing the inside peanut, he would then…..bury the shell. So either he LOVES decomposing peanuts or…….Dim Bulb. Because he has obviously not figured out WHY exactly every time he goes back to get one of his peanuts, they are all rotten. The poor guy has such BAD LUCK, right?

Well, that was my hour. And then I went home and drank my Gatorade and slept and woke up in a locked spasm where after 10 minutes I was able to sort of make noises for help to Linda who was napping beside me. She found that my left side was locked (but kind of “fun locked” in that I was like a giant Barbie in that you could move my arm to a position and then it would just stay there, same with my leg: I don’t know why she didn’t do like, “Barbie the Teacher” and put chalk in my fingers and have my arm extended to the blackboard? Well maybe because she is my Care Giver instead of a seven year old. But I bet she thinks it!). So I got sat in front of the air conditioner until enough neurons worked for me to move both sides.

Other than that my giant decision of the day was I want to be a cat. Because a) I get to do what I want, and listen to no one, even if they are doctors or my owners, b) I teach OTHER people what I WANT and then train them how to do it, c) I train MY owner when I want to wake up and ignore whatever they say about going away by then sitting on their face, d) I get petted a lot, but only when I WANT it, and e) I get access to a lot of groins, and if people annoy me, I then ‘decide’ to stretch and knead my claws right into their groin – ha!

Those were the high points: Ninja Squirrel, Dim Bulb and I want to be a cat.