Friday, September 13, 2013

Up-close & personal, bird & squirrel & me


I find myself wanting to write--just because it's Friday the 13th, which is my lucky day. & it has been. First thing when I got up this morning, I was standing in the doorway to the deck & a bird took off & flew right at me--took a U-turn a foot from me. I'd been thinking about birds & how nice it would be to sit outside looking at them. Didn't expect it to be so up-close & personal.

So I sat down in my ergo-Adirondack (very comfortable) & what appeared but a young squirrel climbing around on the deck. When it saw me, it froze & darted. For a little while I thought it had gone in through the open door into the house, but if it did, it has been very quiet. Hence, I think it did not go in to the house, but raced down a deck post without me seeing it.

I've never had a squirrel on the deck before--this deck anyway. My sons used to, at the house they grew up in, when they saw a squirrel, race out the front door & each take a different direction, racing onto the deck yelling to scare the whatevers out of the poor squirrel, who would then make a semi-suicide maneuver to escape. They always escaped. I did not attempt to startle this squirrel in any way, but startle it did. That's the way of squirrels. Still, it was fun seeing it on the deck.

I also found out that my friend Terry Garey won a Rhysling Award for best short poem! Yay, hurray.

Various & sundry other good things, as you might expect, knowing it was Friday the 13th.

& now it is late & I am going to bid adieu to you in this first blog post of the fall. (September is officially fall.) Oh, except to say that I have hired a social media goddess, the esteemed Cathy Tenzo, who will set up a public Facebook page for me & that sort of thing.

Blog alternative:
267. Sit outside in the morning & greet the wildlife. Unless it's a mosquito. If it's a mosquito, you can beat a retreat, or beat the mosquito...