50 is the new 90
Friday December 04th 2009, 7:15 pm
Filed under: Life,Wildlife

Greaaaat… Nope.  Can’t. At least not yet.  Broken? Let’s see, try again. Nope. “MICHELLE!” hoping she can hear from inside.  Waiting, all dignified-like, (splat, more like) dressed for the occasion in a (thankfully long) black skirt.  Car drives by–yo? No?  Well, this is embarrassing.

“MICHELLE!”

She’d been just on the other side of the wall in the living room and heard me. She came out and down the walk at about the same time the neighbor across the street came out and, seeing me being rescued, ducked gracefully away.

No, can’t get up that way, hon, that hip, that arm, nuh uh.  Let’s try that. Slowly.  Gently. Thanks.

“Mom, I know you don’t use the cane around the house, but maybe you should start now.”

I seem not to have broken anything after all. Maybe 50 is just the new 50.

Meantime, *brushing myself off, icepacks in place*, I do need to report on those squirrels. Those pistachios?  They were all gone the next morning.  Curious. So I put some more out to see; they’re a bit stale but not so much so as to feel guilty over feeding them to the wildlife.

It has been very entertaining and I’ll be sorry when they’re all gone.  A little black squirrel went YEEhaw! and came leaping the moment I pulled that sliding glass door shut behind me.  So much for the picky eating of the day before.  It was, though, watching it go at it, clearly a tough nut to crack; the little thing finally grabbed it in its teeth and ran for the grass and started digging furiously. Toasted Pistachio trees, here we come!  Grow your own!

Today they’d all gotten the hang of opening them and there were strewn shells for the first time.  What quite surprised me was the bluejay swooping down and grabbing one, its jaws pried wide open around that thing as it flew off. It hadn’t deigned to give those shells the slightest glance the first day but now it was all about the panache of the pistache.

It takes the squirrels awhile to get at their Crackerjack prize inside the box. Today, they mostly didn’t want to work at it out in the open on the porch. I wanted to watch them at it, and it became a game: I sat in front of the window reading, and they would wait till the moment I was engrossed in the page and then they would sneak up, grab one, and run for the trees.  I would look up and count one shell gone and even my peripheral vision had missed it, but they’d be up there, gnawing away.  I was only entirely sure that that was what was going on when I caught one at it.

Maybe I should only go out to get the mail or paper with a bag of pistachios in hand, so the bluejays can levitate me as they try to thieve the things out of here. UP!


12 Comments so far
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Whaddja do, faw down, go boom? Your hollering for Michelle was like me hollering for Cliff.

As to the squirrels grabbing the food when you weren’t looking — do you want someone watching YOU when you’re swiping something? Pardon me, you don’t swipe.

Humor –

After putting her grandchildren to bed for a sleep over, a grandmother washed off her makeup, changed into old slacks and a droopy blouse and began to color her hair. As she heard the children getting more and more rambunctious, her patience grew thin. At last she stormed into their room, putting them back to bed with stern warnings. As she left the room, she heard the three-year-old say in a trembling voice, “Who was THAT?”

Comment by Don Meyer 12.04.09 @ 7:58 pm

Birds of a feather, Don. Yup, hit the side of the car in the driveway on the way down to the ground, too, apparently, unless the ground leaped up and hit me first.

Comment by AlisonH 12.04.09 @ 8:04 pm

THAT’S it. One of those California earthquakes tossed the car at you, and then tossed the sidewalk at you. It had nothing to do with you at all.

Comment by LauraN 12.04.09 @ 9:05 pm

As Bill Cosby was famous for saying “that tree jumped out of the woods and hit my car!”

Just don’t hurt anything that would affect your blogging and knitting. Priorities straight?

Comment by Barbara-Kay 12.04.09 @ 9:26 pm

ouch from one Klutz to another —

Comment by rho 12.04.09 @ 9:36 pm

Ummm, gravity works, okay? Checking to make sure it is fully functioning is a job for little kids on a slide, not you! Glad to know you’re okay.

Comment by Kathy in San Jose 12.04.09 @ 10:21 pm

rho made me laugh. Yup, klutz at any age but I notice (at45) it’s getting just a little harder to un-klutz. Glad you had back up.

Silicon Valley squirrels are pampered little things aren’t they? Toasted Pistachios, very nice! The ones in the forest behind my house have to settle for the beechnuts that fall from the trees for free. (Note to self: add pistachios to shopping list.)

Comment by LynnM 12.05.09 @ 1:40 am

I agree with Michelle :-}
I am very glad nothing was broken, more of a wake-up call, I’d say.
I sound tough, and unsympathetic, but I DO sympathize. With your newly discovered osteoporosis it could so easily have meant a broken arm or wrist, then what about all those glorious shawls and the people they bless?
My mom broke both shoulders in the same winter. She was miserable.

Comment by Diana Troldahl 12.05.09 @ 9:23 am

Oh, be careful….no broken bones allowed. Those squirrels have made in the shade!!! :>)

Comment by Joansie 12.05.09 @ 10:57 am

Ouch! When you are feeling better, check with your Dr to see if some gentle jumping on carpet might help. Re: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/phys-ed-the-best-exercises-for-healthy-bones/

In brief: “In the meantime, the current state-of-the-science message about exercise and bone building may be that, silly as it sounds, the best exercise is to simply jump up and down, for as long as the downstairs neighbor will tolerate. “Jumping is great, if your bones are strong enough to begin with,” Dr. Barry says. “You probably don’t need to do a lot either.” (If you have any history of fractures or a family history of osteoporosis, check with a physician before jumping.) In studies in Japan, having mice jump up and land 40 times during a week increased their bone density significantly after 24 weeks, a gain they maintained by hopping up and down only about 20 or 30 times each week after that.

If hopping seems an undignified exercise regimen, bear in mind that it has one additional benefit: It tends to aid in balance, which may be as important as bone strength in keeping fractures at bay. Most of the time, Dr. Barry says, “fragile bones don’t matter, from a clinical standpoint, if you don’t fall down.””

Take care, please!

Comment by Debbie 12.05.09 @ 11:11 am

So… black and blue and sore all over today? I hope not… We have snow, by the way!

Comment by Channon 12.05.09 @ 2:03 pm

Aww I hope your knees are feeling better today!

Squirrel shenanigans. They must know you want to see them open the pistachios and they don’t feel confident enough showing the blog just yet 😉

Comment by Alicia 12.07.09 @ 1:00 pm



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