J.P.

I think the woods out back have become home to a gang of very feisty squirrels. A couple of days ago I noticed that our new cedar bird feeder was lying around the ground. I figured it was a victim of the storms that blew through over the weekend and really didn’t think much more about it, until I went out this morning to hang it back up.

Upon closer inspection, our National Geographic bird feeder looked like it had been run over by a truck and then beaten to death for extra good measure.

The little stopper that keeps the rain away from the feed had somehow been relocated to the inside bottom of the feeder. The little stands for the cute little chickadees to use as a booth at their favorite diner were ripped out of the plexiglass. And the nylon rope that held the whole affair together had been shredded into a purple mess.

Either we have some birds that are telling me to buy them some better seed or we have some squirrels telling me to put a squirrel feeder in and don’t go light on the mounted corn cobs, bucko. While I was making this discovery early this morning, as I was staggering around the lawn trying to pretend I’m a morning person when I’m really not, I had a fleeting thought that perhaps the birds were mad because the feeder didn’t have an orange roof on it. Years ago my grandfather had painted his bird feeder, quite massive in size now that I think about it, to resemble one of those fine Howard Johnson restaurants. It sat right outside the dining room window, where it provided hours of entertainment by watching the birds come in and out and seeing a few make a wrong turn and consequently smacking into the window. That feeder was always quite busy with many bird families having to maintain a holding pattern until those eating had cleared their dishes and left.

Now that I think about it, Ho Jo’s had some pretty feisty waitresses back in it’s day. Maybe the squirrels are learning something from them.

This evening I made the trek to Syracuse on one of my computer excursions, this time the lucky family member was my mother.

My mom has been cranking along on an old Pentium II running Windows ME with a dial-up connection for a long while. I told her enough is enough and it was time to upgrade, so tonight I installed a respectable refurbished Pentium 4 we had found for her at a great price and it came with Windows XP Professional pre-installed. I’ve been getting it ready for her over the past couple of weeks, installing anti-virus and Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird for web browsing and e-mail. She picked up a Roadrunner DIY high speed connection kit so tonight was pretty easy as far as dabbling in computer land goes. With the right tools, Microsoft Windows XP can be pretty acceptable.

We took the opportunity to go to dinner beforehand with my sister and her boyfriend and his little toddler of a son. It was all good. We went to a restaurant called “Plainville Turkey Farms” where they serve, well, turkey. I ate entirely too much at the buffet, especially since I had worn a pair of my “really skinny” shorts on purpose to keep my food consumption in check. I did manage to make it through the evening without my pants exploding off of me, so I guess I did show a small bit of control.

One of the nice things about living a little bit of a distance away from my relatives is that it makes getting together that much more special. It’s a shame that Earl couldn’t join us tonight because of work obligations. My sister told me that she’s caught up on my blog and that she skips over the parts when I rant about the president, since she already knows how I feel about that subject. See? I have a big mouth in person too.

So now I’m online and I see Mom is logged into several different instant messaging clients. I guess I need to keep my clothes on if I’m going to use the webcam.

As I was crossing the street from my office building to the municipal lot we use, I was formulating an absolutely brilliant blog entry in my head. I was mentally grabbing a clump of ideas, scattered amongst the organized chaos that floats around my gray matter on a minute by minute basic, and I was just putting these clumps together into a dialog that would be witty, spontaneous sounding, engaging and entertaining. I was so impressed with this blog entry that I was actually chuckling to myself, as I often just crack myself up, being zany and all.

Apparently this superb blog entry floated right out of my head because I have absolutely no idea what I was going to write about. No sir, as I sit in front of my PowerBook, I have not one shred of a clue as to what I was going to write about.

Could it be that I was distracted by the construction workers working on the theatre across the street? Did I get sidetracked when I listened to “Fresh Air” on NPR while driving home? Is it because I’m feeling cocky today?

That’s it! I was feeling cocky! When I got to the parking lot, there were two young guys checking out my Acura. I don’t think they were going to steal it or anything; they had that look that guys get when they admire a vehicle. It’s not quite the same as the look straight men get when they look at a well endowed chest, but it’s close. They have an eye for appreciation, just two steps back from salivation, and they are just wishing they can just put their hands on it and call it their own.

Not to be a braggart but “it’s mine, it’s mine, it’s miiiiiiiiiiiine!”

I love my car.

As they saw me walking up to the car, they nodded their head in approval as they walked away. I noticed the older of the two was rather handsome with his beard sans mustache. He had a cocky air about him that I appreciate.

I nodded back with a hint of a smile. I feel cocky today too.

Be careful what you wish for, isn’t that what they always say? When Earl and I got home from Philly this afternoon, it was 98 degrees in the front yard. That’s a whole lot of hot.

It’s one of those sticky, sultry summer nights. The air isn’t moving and the humidity is high. In a house with no air conditioning whatsoever, it makes for an interesting night of sleep.

I went for a ride through the local area to run a few errands and to strut the Acura around a bit. Every ice cream stand had a line to the road. I didn’t stop for ice cream; instead I opted for some all-natural unsweetend iced tea from the local grocery store. It had a touch of lemon-lime to it to make it interesting. I’m hoping the scale will agree with my choice in the morning.

Local citizens are getting fired up about a proposed run of power lines from our area to downstate. Everywhere you look there’s a front yard sign prominently displayed, silently voicing the concerns of area residents. I can’t figure out why the company that’s building this line is not simply adding to the existing corridor of lines that already go to the same location instead of following a set of railroad tracks right through the center of many towns. Talk about alienating the natives.

Tomorrow it’s back to work. That’s not a bad thing, after all there’s air conditioning there.