Squirrels, squirrels, squirrels

Congrats to Andrea Dale, who has been chosen to be the Interfilk guest at Conchord 2007!

I've been highly entertained by the lively LJ discussion about my squirrel Blatherings. Some offer useful suggestions like using chicken wire to cover my bulb plantings, Nella Darren/Christine helpfully suggests Chia-izing a squirrel's head, others have rallied to the defense of the squirrels (from Taunya: "POWER TO THE SQUIRRELS! DOWN WITH THE LITTLE CHIRPY EFFEMINATE BIRD THINGYS! Fur over feathers!!!!").

From my friend Bruce M. (one of my friends from university days), in a mailing list discussion:

"I had always believed that Debbie was a helpless dupe of the hideous creatures. It sounds like she had quite a narrow escape in Queen's park - a few seconds more with one clinging to her leg and it probably would have injected its venom, paralyzing her so that she could be dragged down into the hive where the bloated squirrel queen would lay its eggs in her still-living body."

From my helpful friend John C.:

"The other day, as I was getting ready for Hallowe'en, I came across a bag of stale Reese's Peanut Butter Cups from some Hallowe'en long past. I put it in our generally raccoon-proof blue Rubbermaid wheeled garbage can and forgot about it. The next day, I found that a team of squirrels had managed to gnaw several squirrel-sized holes through the lid and the PBCs were all gone. Sadly, theobromine is poisonous to dogs but not squirrels. I checked: if you Google for theobromine and squirrel, you get a bunch of pages listing the nutritional value of squirrel meat, and listing their theobromine content as zero. So the moral of the story is to leave your peanut butter waste on top of your garbage can, and your bulbs on top of your flower beds. That will keep your squirrels happy."

Incidentally, there has been something digging or chewing on the walls of my basement office recently. When I bang on the walls, it falls silent for several long minutes, but then starts up again. I've checked outside but can see nothing.

It sounds bigger than a mouse.

Could it be that the SLF has sent one of its minions after me?!?

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Artsy/tech hybrids

Every so often I'm struck by the irony of what I do for a living (writing, now getting into some freelance illustration) considering the fact that my degree at the University of Toronto was in the sciences.

I don't regret my time at the U of T at all. I learned many useful skills and truths that greatly enhanced my life long after I quit my computer programming/analyst job. Also met some very cool people with whom I am still good friends. Including my husband. :-)

But as I was doodling the picture above in Corel Painter, I couldn't help but think how similar drawing is to computer programming in many ways, at least the ways which drew me to both. The creativity involved, the focus needed, the losing of oneself in the act of creating and problem-solving. I know my friend Parki understands, being an accomplished technonerdboy and inventor/designer as well (check out the Design section of Whatevernot). And Jodi, Technonerdgirl Extraordinaire...who not only has her own Internet marketing company but also songwriting resource The Muse's Muse and her education resource, Find Schools Online.

Who else out there considers themself an artsy/tech hybrid? And to which side do you lean?

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Demon squirrels

Looks like the mothballs and mulch didn't work...the squirrels got to my crocus bulbs. In theory, they left the daffodils alone since squirrels aren't supposed to like eating daffodils. I hope this theory's right, or that little plot of ground is going to look awfully empty come spring.

I've always had a love-hate thing going with squirrels. They're darned cute but sometimes they drive me around the bend. In my Animal Behaviour class at the University of Toronto, I did a study on their eating habits, foolishly taking a bag of peanuts and a notebook into Queen's Park in Toronto. Note: a bag of peanuts. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?



No one had told me about the squirrels in Queen's Park. Back in my day, the Queen's Park Squirrels were drooling, voracious creatures the size of cats, likely to chew your head off if you weren't paying proper attention. Ok, so maybe this is a SLIGHT exaggeration. The part about the size, that is.

To make a long story short, I ended up fleeing Queen's Park with a squirrel steadily clambering its way up my leg with the determination of a psychotic mountain climber bent on making the summit before the big storm hits; thankfully I smartened up and flung the peanuts behind me as a distraction while I made my escape. Some of my friends from university still mock me about this traumatic experience, the unfeeling cads.

While living in our condo, squirrels were a non-issue. But now we're back in the same territory, pretty much face-to-face every day. I've already ticked off some of the local squirrels, I'm sure, when I bought my Squirrelbuster feeder. None have yet figured out how to get to the seeds; instead they each periodically make their pilgrimages halfway up the tree trunk where they cling for several long minutes staring balefully at the Squirrelbuster, their tails twitching in fury, while I cruelly guffaw from behind the window.

So THAT's how I know that the crocus bulb vandalism was an act of revenge!

Speaking of Evil Squirrels, I never did post the wonderful Eichhörnchen that Christine ("Nella Darren", whose Demons CD was recently released) drew for Urban Tapestry after Filkcontinental. The word means "squirrel" in German, though Christine initially tried convincing us it was a swear word. :-D Anyway, here's her drawing:



As for my poor, desecrated crocus bulbs: you just wait until NEXT year, you demon vermin!

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Savoring

These days I'm feeling incredibly helpless and frustrated while a good friend out there is going through challenges about which she was given no choice. She was recently given a pamphlet by her doctor; apparently doctors are required to give it to all patients who've been given a diagnosis of breast cancer (in Beckett's case, precancerous cells have been found). Inside near the back was this quote from the National Cancer Institute: "Cancer might rob you of the blissful belief that tomorrow stretches into forever. In exchange, you are granted the vision to see each day as precious, a gift to be used wisely and richly. No one can take that away."

I know the flyer was meant well, but I found it incredibly insensitive and somewhat patronizing, given the context. What's ironic is that Beckett enjoys life more fully than almost anyone I know, already savoring each day to the fullest.

But I have to stop now.

Time for some silliness...

Skimper experiment update: Two days after posting, my page is now #3 out of 22,700 results in a Google search for 'skimper', behind Skimper.com and Skippy The Bush Kangaroo. Don't know if I'll get ahead of Skimper.com, but Skippy is going to relinquish his #2 spot! What the heck is that furry little guy DOING in the search results for "skimper", anyway? The word is nowhere on his site.

Skippy The Bush Kangaroo, you're in for a fall...

(Update: after posting this, Google's robot checked Blatherings again and discovered that my Skimper post was no longer on the main page. Confusingly, one of the follow-up pages has been ranked #8, with no sign of the original Skimper page. Aha, a true challenge! Skippy, you're not out of the woods yet.)

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colourlust

The leaves on the Japanese maple beside our house have turned a brilliant red. I find myself stopping by the windows near the front of the house; I can't help but stare, soaking in the pure colour.

I'm very much a primary colour person, drawn to splashes of brilliant hues against an otherwise humdrum background. Our kitchen windowsill is chocolate brown, and a few days ago I bought some apples to line up along the sill simply because I enjoy the contrast of the red against the dark brown. Occasionally I will let myself eat one. :-)



One reason I love my office is because I'm filling it with colour, from the tree I painted in the corner to the wonderful scarlet silk scarf that Andrea sent me. There are still white spaces on the wall, but I'll remedy that soon enough. :-) Nothing matches; my office will never be featured in one of those home interior magazines. Jeff hung up my office spider a couple days ago...a wonderfully garish purple thing with blue and yellow and red spots, a completely frivolous purchase at a craft show years ago. I love it.

Now that things are settling down and I'm happily sequestered in my home office all day, I find I look forward to time spent with friends more than usual. Back at the condo, I interacted with people on a daily basis...smalltalk with people in the elevator, chatting with the front desk security guard (to ask if there was any mail), for instance. Although it's nice NOT to have to talk to people when I don't feel like it and I tend to ignore the phone during the day when I'm writing, I do find I get conversation-starved sometimes by the end of an intense work day, and crave talk about silly things.

I'm hanging out with Jodi tonight, yay! Poor Allison's sick :-(. Jodi and I are seeing Wallace and Gromit's Curse of the Were-Rabbit. As a kid, I think the animation would have creeped me out a bit (esp. the Evil Penguin in one of the episodes) but as an adult, I love Nick Park's stuff.



Something else I like doing at the end of the day: play my harp. It's SO good to be able to play again. Because of my tendinitis, I wasn't playing many instruments for a long while. Now that we no longer have a piano, I'm turning to my harp for pleasure playing. I do still play guitar and flute but for me, these aren't as fun to play on my own (fingerpicking on guitar is still too much for my poor tendons since it focuses entirely on my right hand) as the harp.

With my harp, I can lose myself in my music the same way I used to do when I play piano, and occasionally on flute. So far I like Kim Robertson's arrangements the best (see my harp music collection below) because she tends to lean toward more interesting chord choices and progressions.

Writing's going well, I'm pleased to report. And my comic strip contract with Offpanel Productions is being finetuned. Their terms are extremely reasonable, especially the fact that I keep all rights to my work. Now that the administrative stuff is mostly complete, I'm working on getting the first six strips ready.

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