Of Squirrels and Men

I met Jesse late yesterday in Aptos at Zameen's. We ate their version of Mediterranean food. Jesse's the ex-bf's son and in spite of that connection, Jesse has turned out to be a thoughtful, compassionate young man - must have gotten the good traits from his mom. I've known Jesse now since he was 13 years old - we stay in contact though we don't see each other often. He is very tall. I'm 5'8" and shrinking so you can just imagine his height - if you're bored. We had a fun time, shared a lot of laughs and some sadness. We talked about our dead relatives, his mom, my husband. We talked about relatives that may as well be dead. He offered interesting gossip about one relative (of his) in particular though I mention no names. ;-) I'll simply reiterate that I seriously dodged a trailer-trash, alcoholic, pot smokin, unconscious, not-that-there's anything-wrong-with that bullet. Everything makes so much more sense to me now.

Not to change the subject but...
Lately when I take Bella for our before-work walk, it feels as if I'm accompanying her on her own version of  grocery shopping. We walk down the dead carcass isle first, then we hit the assorted wild animal poop piles among the other gross, smelly, on-sale foresty things in the "store." I quickly scooted kicked a squirrel fur carpet - laid out just like a fancy bear rug right before Bella scooped it up in time to put in her cart (so to speak) and underneath the squirrel carpet was another layer of carpeting - maggots. We escaped just in time though Bella would have lingered - longingly, lovingly, devotedly after all the other shoppers left the store.


The weather has been super-de-dooper. Last weekend, I was filling cracks in the driveway with tar. (You're right, I don't get out much.) Bella was really interested in what I was doing. She was sniffing tar and standing between my legs as I bent down to fill each crack. Ultimately, she got tarred on the back of her head, one ear and under her chin which you can kind of see in the photo. Now everyone who pets her has to be forewarned that her fur is crunchy and that I am a bad pet owner though someone offered feathers to go with the tar just yesterday, and that sort of seems like a fun idea especially with Halloween around the corner. Another helpful person suggested I use peanut butter to remove the tar when I know scissors will work too. Bella would try to eat the peanut butter and she'd be covered with tar and peanut butter. I can't use scissors because Bella is allergic to anything remotely clean-related (broom, vacuum, rake, shovel, hand vac etc.). Scissors would cause a frenzy while tar (or maggots) near her fur don't seem to bother her at all -- along with the poop stench she purchased earlier while on our walk through the (store-est) forest, toting stink like a reward. Don't get me wrong, Bella's still cute as can be as long as you don't pet her much. It's a relief to know that she is crate-trained for sleep at night so she can keep her stinkin, crunchy, tar-covered, poop-smelling body to herself -which brings me back to the some memories of the dodged bullet in the paragraph one.