squirrel watching

Today kicks off Super Cheap Adventure Week. My inspiration? A recent bout of poverty. But these adventures are not merely for the scarce of cash. Anyone will find them empowering. I'm not setting a price limit on exactly how cheap these adventures will be, but trust that whatever your mom used to pay you for mowing the front lawn would cover it. The first adventure costs nothing- so you can start saving for something really special come the end of the week.

Squirrel watching. This idea is compliments of my mom. She was visiting on Saturday and her attention was instantly drawn to two squirrels on the window sill of my third floor apartment. The squirrels are old news to me. I think they were figuratively (literally?) squirreling around in the same spot the day before. I always feel uncomfortable when things mate right in front of me. Hence, my aversion. They are the same squirrels that lived next to my air conditioner last year. The reason there are pieces of hamburger buns and doritos and pizza crusts rattling around inside it. Anyway, mom has a hard time simply watching a wild animal. She insists on interacting with them. So she stuck a piece of sandwich out on the window sill. Within minutes, the squirrel was pawing at the window for more. It was entertaining. Not quite enough to make up for the fact that I can never open my screenless window without fearing assault. Today I watched a squirrel polish off the bottom half of a waffle cone. I can honestly say that I have never seen Jon eat a cone with as much decorum.


(squirrel with waffle cone)

A pleasant byproduct of squirrel watching is the squirrel-related conversation it can provoke. Dad mentioned that squirrels don't have rabies. The context was that I should never be afraid to feed one right out of my hand. Sometimes I get the distinct feeling that Mom and Dad wish I wasn't such a wuss. Dad said that his mother used to constantly warn that they would get rabies some day from the squirrels. Mom had the same childhood experience.. She was bitten by a squirrel as a girl and her parents worried she might die of rabies. They decided to just wait and see. Mom was a triplet = expendable. Mom asked me if I would be sad if the squirrels weren't around. I said, ' I guess.' I could tell it was one of those questions where there was a right answer.