Winter Visitors and Catching Up

Some SWR4 Baden-Württemberg and photo editing today. I wanted to do some baking but there is a reason that I took today off. I've some some lingering Winter crud going on and I need to be bundled in the warm and sleep a bit. Unfortunately, keeping the bird feeders full means there is a lot of singing outside of my window. And one angsty cat at the foot of my bed. If my room had a door I would lock her out. But for now, she is chattering at the singing flutter bugs outside and I am writing.

To be honest, I probably need the time alone today to write as much as to rest. In the chaos that has been my work environment I have slowly started to slip into the drudgery that I always feared would come with a regular job. I eat sleep and work. Little else has happened. And it does take a toll on my personality and temperament. I have a shorter fuse when I can not do the things that I like to do.

So today, with the doctor's blessing I am home. With fate's blessing I am alone. With birds and cats but that isn't the same as being surrounded by people who need something form me. I miss writing. I miss my camera. I miss cooking my German foods. Eventually it will all settle down and I will be able to get back to some kind of regular writing schedule.

So today I will just catch up with the things that I love: listen to some German radio, catch up on the news from Matthias' new album, Phoenix, and wait impatiently for the album to come to me, make my own coffee drinks and watch the yard. The peace and quiet is good for me. I need to do this more often.

I am also contemplating a name for this guy.

Though he has a bit of rust in him, this is a grey squirrel. In the tradition that I started last year, I want the name to be punny. I was thinking Charles Grey Squirrel. Charles Grey was Mycroft in the Granada production of Sherlock Holmes. Joel Grey Squirrel would be to name him after an American actor who appeared in Patrick Stewart's Christmas carol. For obvious reasons he won't be named Christian. I might go with Dorian. It is classic and since I will never be able to tell one grey from another in a pack, much less during my lifetime then the one that shows up will always be the new young model and keep with the legend of the story. I haven't decided yet.

I came home in the middle of a snow storm the other day to find him frantically bouncing the snot out of the box feeder I got from ALDI. He'd already shaken the seed mix out of it and apparently thought that a temper tantrum would produce more. When I pulled up he scampered into the tree and found a limb to perch on. Then he screached at me, waving his tail and pumping his fists after stamping his feet. I've been cussed at by a lot of animals and people who seem to think that I live to serve without need for food or peeing my self. But this is the first that a squirrel actually had the nerve to yell at me.

How does one not anthropomorphize in those situations?