Squirrel!

You can't really tell from the picture, but that faint shadow on the windowsill behind the curtain is a squirrel. I was sitting in my bed yesterday afternoon and saw something run by on the ledge. I could just make out a fluffy, waving tail, so I knew it wasn't Ghost of the Possum. He ran back and forth, back and forth. I could hear him brushing against the screen. At one point I could see him sitting up, and I could hear him gnawing away on a pecan. Nom. Nom. Nomnomnom.

I got up and carefully made my way to the window, drawing the curtain back. He scrambled for the safety of a branch on the pomegranate bush, about two feet from the window, then turned around and glared at me. I opened up a space between two slats of the blind to get a better look. When he saw that I wasn't going to leap through the window and eat him, he very cautiously inched his way forward. I cooed nonsense to him, and eventually he stopped a little over a foot away and just looked at me. I've never had a wild thing make deliberate eye contact with me. It was a sweet moment.

I have a distinct memory of being three or four, out on the patio or back step of my Aunt Meb's house. My uncle had halfway tamed two or three of the squirrels in the neighborhood, and one of them came up to me looking for a handout. I dashed inside and firmly declared from the opposite side of the storm door, "I'm not afraid of squirrels. I'm not afraid of squirrels." I was terrified of them, because they moved so quickly, and I didn't know if they would bite me. Now that I'm older, I love them, and I'm always sad to see dead ones in the road. I'll brake for them, if it won't cause an accident with the car behind me, and if I see a little daredevil dashing out ahead of me, I'll holler, "Run, squirrel, run, you can do it!" and say a quick prayer of thanks when I don't hit him.

Today was another deliberately quiet day. I turned the heel on the current rose baby sock and gladly abandoned it for a nap when I got home from church. Middlest and I watched "August Rush" after I woke again, and I cast on for a LittleFee knee sock for Hope. I've just begun the calf decreases. She's been barefoot all the days that I've owned her, and eventually I want to buy shoes and maybe even boots for her, but at least she will have socks to cover her tootsies.

I still haven't sewn the snaps onto the bloomers that I made last night. Not likely to happen before I go to bed, either. I had a five hour nap after church (!), so who knows if I will sleep tonight, but I'm trying to wind down enough to make it a possibility.

It feels good to be writing regularly again.