Helmet Head the Squirrel and some 'golly gee whiz' nice flowers

I woke up Saturday to construction noise BUT a sunny day. So, good day to see the squirrels. Maybe squirrel mothers were a) desperate for food for childbirth or b) desperate for food for babies. I got dressed with help in a corset with my Lip Service hoodie and arm warmers. Here I am reading Tea for Two (thank you the person who got this for me a present, it is a very nice Boy Love story about an overly active guy who gets sent to the Tea Club as detention, and meets the refined President. The reactions to the traditions of the tea ceremony are laugh out loud, and his attempts to become refined and dignified and good too. We find that the President has been taught to act as an adult and be distant and refined since a child, and this ‘wild child’ is teaching him how to smile – he hasn’t worked up to a laugh yet, that might be in book 2!). I just talked to Cheryl and she recommends it too. The lesbian side story at the end of the book about the sisters has no influence (lie!).

We saw a lot of people, a couple 2 to 4 year old boys chasing squirrels with sticks and lots of crows (like hundreds). So not a lot of squirrels, and the ones we saw were mostly young and twitchy. Now, looking at my face, does my desire and focus to feed squirrels make me look like a squirrel? Same teeth and hand positions. Odd. Despite the giant squirrel in the wheelchair they came and took peanuts anyway. But one grey squirrel kept retreating up a tree nearby, going out on the branch and then eating his peanut while pulling off bits and dropping shell bits on me. I am not sure if this is squirrel humor or not? When we visited the the Hoh Rainforest, we saw young black squirrels swinging around on the moss. And the rangers said we were lucky as they, due to the uniform, get pelted with cones from the squirrels when they walk in the woods (cheeky squirrels).

Despite the fact that it snowed yesterday, SATURDAY was sunny and Linda stole the camera while Cheryl and I enjoyed a break and a chatand went off to take pictures of the flowers that have come up (hope they are still alive after the snow). I could use some help from readers as I show you this, um, blue (purple?) flower that looks nice. And over here are a bunch of yellow flowers that had come out into bloom (I know roses, carnations, lilies, daisies, lots of flowers, okay, it just turns out there are a few hundred flowers around where I live!). She also took a picture of me beneath the Sakura tree.
I found another squirrel who was brave enough to go through the crows and kids to get a peanut, who then acted like I did not bring the high quality peanut she usually demanded. She however was not the oddest squirrel of the day. Hands down, that would be Helmet Head, a squirrel who seemed to think that life was made of American Football (there are also some males during football season who seem to feel this way, if beer is included). Helmet couldn’t do a straight line if his hunger depended on it (guess he never learned a 10 yard buttonhook), but rather did complex feints to the right and left, bobs and weaves just to go an inch forward. So, after a series of blitz attacks, Helmet had reached the goalposts (you can see him standing up by the tree). I am holding out a peanut maybe 2 feet away, pretty easy right? Haha, that’s because you don’t see life as fourth down on the 30 yard line! Helmet leapt IN THE AIR forward, the velocity skidding his body forward over the scattered nettles.

Helmet is only a foot away, but instead of coming forward, in a blinding bob and feint to the left he then leapt to the right, completely fooling the opposition! (I am still holding the peanut out with sort of a dazed look on my face since Helmet I think got a few too many hits on the head). Arriving, he spins,and instead of going right or left, he does a shuffle step and bounds pretty much EXACTLY where he was before. Only now, with the momentum carrying him forward he immediately launches into the air again and leaps left atop the peanut which, after watching this squirrel burn up about 5 times the energy in the peanut, I have dropped.
Helmet is VICTORIOUS, touchdown! And though only 4 or 5 leaps to the left and right, he managed to get 18 inches forward. In true Helmet Head style, after the peanut is safely tucked in his teeth he bounds, getting some significant air time as he bounces a rebound off of the side of this tree to make his getaway. Good luck Helmet!

"Every party needs a pooper and that’s why they invited me, ‘Party Pooper! Party Pooper!’" – that is the odd song which means we went home after this because I had frostbite in two of my fingers. But I got to see the outside world (it is big and has a very high ceiling!). At home, we worked on the postcards for this week for part of Saturday and Sunday and did 60 postcards. That is a good number, sixty! (of course 61 sounds MORE impressive...but sixty is good too). Thanks to several donations of postcards from different people over time, I was able to meet some rarer requests. Thank you very much for both the requests and the assist with the postcards. This week due to some connectivity issue, both Cheryl and I were taking more time and being a bit more careful with the cards, so these are really postcards of deliberate care (after dropping lots of things, from toothbrushes to drinks, making sure I wasn’t stamping on my fingers instead of the postcard was a high priority).

So, was it a good weekend where you were?