Lions and tigers and bears OH MY! It's been like a real zoo at my house lately. Don't know if it's because it's spring time, the birds have finally discovered our bird feeder or a combination thereof. We've had lots of little visitors, feathered and furry, running all around the patio. There's the perch family with mom and dad and at least two or three other chicks who occasionally stop by. I usually get two or three blue jays, but one in particular has come to sit on my whicker chair lately and likes starring at me through the kitchen window. He's FAT and it's totally my fault. Who knew blue jays liked peanuts too? Since I'm not exactly a bird expert, I don't know all the species I'm seeing out there, but there's a pretty little robin-sized bird — white feathers with black stripes and markings — that I call Little Woody because he looks like a wood pecker but thank god I haven't busted him trying to peck at our patio posts yet. We also have a very pretty female cardinal who has a perfect spike of red feathers on top of her head. I'm positive she must visit the hairdresser daily to achieve that or at least goes to bed with curlers on. I'm impressed that she doesn't get it all messed up when she's being chased by our two horny male cardinals. Poor chick, literally, just gets her claws into the screen of the bird feeder when the two guys start flying after her and chase her off to the roof of the house. I can only imagine what goes on up there. I yell to her, "Good Girl! That's how you play hard to get!" Eric usually comes out and asks what all the commotion is about and I complain that two guys are literally chasin the tail feathers of my girl cardinal, and he's like, "What's wrong with that?" I'm like my lil' birdie is a whore that's what's wrong with that! I don't feel I'm qualified or have the right resources to run a birdie brothel anyway. In our furry little world there's Alvin, who has been very active lately. If Alvin is close to the kitchen window I usually yell at him to start singing if he wants to earn his peanuts. "Chrismas Christmas Christmas time is near..." I try to encourage him, but no luck so far. Guess he just can't get the lyrics down. I love watching him because he looks like a wind up toy when he runs. He darts so fast that the only way you can keep track of him is by keeping an eye on his wagging tail. No it's not a wag like a dog, but that little thing is wiggling 100 mph when he wants to get away from that squirrel. And yes, there's the creatures I mentioned in one of my blogs last week. So if you've been reading, you've got a pretty good idea of who actually runs our household. And yes, there's the one in particular, Roxy, who I can tell had a very bad encounter with a moving vehicle at one point in her career. Got some missing fur at the tail end. I can always tell her by that tail and her little pink nose. Well, unfortunately I had to scold her the other day. Alvin was out and I went to give him and her a peanut and she started to chase him away. Poor Alvin is very intimidated by Roxy. I tell him size doesn't matter, but he hasn't caught on yet. Perhaps he doesn't speak English. It's like all your sci-fi shows like Star Trek where all the aliens from millions of light years away just so happen to speak our language. What a coincidence! Well anyway, I told Roxy we share at the Elliott house and she just kind of looks at me and smiles. Then I start raising my voice and start giving her the pointer finger treatment "You bad bad girl! Naughty!" Then she kind of gives me that "What the hell is your problem?" kind of look and then tries to jump on my window screen. I can only imagine that's how teachers must feel each day in the classroom, at least teachers in Utica schools. I'm sure my brother would agree. They probably might as well be talking to squirrels too. They'd get the same response if not worse. At least my squirrel hasn't flipped me off yet or hoped to kill me with fire. YET. I tend to be a bad influence so that might be part of my lesson plan in Squirrel Talk 102 or 201: Things we shouldn't do or say to those who give us peanuts. Then Monday evening Roxy was being particularly naughty. Not only was she pissing Eric off by jumping on the window again, she was also climbing up the patio posts and trying to jump on the bird feeder when she saw all the little birds gathering around. Now I know it's nothing unusual to have squirrels trying to get into bird feeders. But no squirrel, not one, has noticed that bird feeder before, until now. When Roxy happens to be there and at least 10 birds come up to it or wait under it for the seeds from another bird to fall. I have to listen to, "Look! Look! See what YOUR squirrel is doing!" Of course, when they're bad, they are mine we covered this already. So I knock on the window glass, give a glaring stare and shake the pointer finger again....then give her a peanut through the take-out window as soon as Eric walks away. I always have to be very careful too because I'm always being accused of rewarding the squirrels when they've been bad. Hey, I can't help it if they impress me. I told Eric he shouldn't be so impatient. She chases the squirrels away, chases Alvin away, pees on the chairs and picnic table because she has declared this to be HER HOUSE and she's just lashing out out of jealousy. She can't help herself. She's also female so that doesn't help. We tend to be a little possessive, but you didn't hear that from me. So then comes Tuesday and I see on the AP wire a story about a very adorable bull dog who got crowned prettiest or most handsome bulldog something of that nature in some Hickamazoo town. I was so impressed at how proud he looked with his crown. So I clipped his picture out of the paper and put it on the refrigerator, right under my picture of Martin Brodeur so I could look at both of them every day. Ahhhhh...I go Eric, I want to show you something. Yeah what? Isn't he adorable? It's a dog. But it's a very cute dog and it's small and you would want a small dog for our tiny house so see he would be the perfect size. It's a dog. He's adorable! It's a dog. Ok so my temper, ready to flare is like, listen you've cried for your Super Soaker this week so you can torment all our little creatures outdoors. If we got a dog, we'd have no more squirrels and no more Elliott Zoo! And he goes, I quote, "Yeah right. There's no way you'd let a dog go chasing and eating your squirrels." So since I'm a dignified woman who admits when she's wrong, I said, "You know dear, you're probably right. But I would teach them to love each other and live in harmony." And I channeled my inner Stevie Wonder and began singing, "Ebony and Ivory...They be livin' in perfect harmony!" And I kept singing it over and over and over again. The pitches got 2-3 octaves higher. Ebony and IvorYYYYYYYY. I was like I'm going to break him. I'm going to BREAK HIM! I may not get a dog out of the deal but he'll stop bullying my little animal kingdom. Instead he walks away and pumps up the volume on the computer so he can listen to ESPN. Fine pal, don't put a kink in my harmony chain and you could at least update me on my playoff hockey game score asshole! So the lesson I guess today is this: Don't be dissin' my bud Stevie have some respect for the music and have some respect for the animals who are really smarter than you! P.S. Eric is really paranoid that I'm using my blog to talk about him. So please feel free to mention this to him next time you see him. Thanks Love Peace!
No comments:
Post a Comment