Irresistible Nectar

Our beautiful weeping cherry tree in front of our house died suddenly last month. My date and I cut it down because I wanted to save it and use it inside an 8 foot diameter outdoor aviary for the squirrels. I had grand plans to make them the habitat of their dreams until reality set in.

For one, the aviary I wanted to get for them was close to $4,000. That is our family medical deductible which has already been met with my recent surgery. (Now we have to pay 20% of the remaining endless bills...). Second, it would have been so large it would obscure the view from our very open back of the house. And third, it could only go outside so that meant I could only watch them if I wanted to be outside. In the summer I do not like to be bitten by bugs so I prefer the protection of our screen porch.

So my plans were scaled down. The squirrels have a five foot indoor aviary that we will put on the screen porch. It arrived yesterday and when my date e-mailed me most solicitously to see how I was doing I told him I unloaded it from the truck myself and put it together. It weighs 450 pounds. He had to ask me if I was kidding.

The tree was carefully placed into a very heavy Christmas tree holder by my sisters and me prior to the flesh cutting. It is absolutely gorgeous. After I came home from the hospital we went to the local Wild Birds Unlimited store and got all kinds of great things to hang in the tree. (What was I thinking???? I should have been lying on the couch!)

We bought a small chickadee feeder, a peanut feeder and a suet/bark butter feeder for the woodpeckers, a Nyger thistle seed feeder for the finches and I had a small bird house (actually poor Amelia's previous house, filled pitifully with straw and dried potato peels when I cleaned it out) and two hummingbird feeders. I added a fake nest purchased from a craft store to one of the top branches and filled it with regular bird seed for the bigger birds. We set up the tree and I moved several of the planters of lantana and the passion flower vine nearby. This morning my date moved the bird bath under it as well.

It has been innundated with greedy hummingbirds, tufted titmice, chickadees, finches, baby cardinals and sparrows but surprisingly, no squirrels. (Maybe it is the five predators keeping watch from the porch and the windows...) At night I bring in the feeders to prevent masked bandits from eating the food and leaving nasty gifts like the one they left my older sister near her computer mouse pad.

The hummingbirds show up at dawn and dive bomb my head as I hang their sugar water feeders up. They like for it to stay up until well after dark and if I try to take it down early they dive bomb my head then, too. They like to sit on the branches of the tree which makes for great watching with binoculars. They cannot resist that homemade nectar.

Neither can my date, apparently.

This morning yet another glass of Miralax-tainted pink lemonade was sitting on the counter. I watched as he approached it and reached for it... and then jerked his hand back as if he had been burned. He exclaimed, "Close call!" and allowed as he had almost partaken of that irresistible nectar.

At least he did not dive bomb my head although I think he would have been bombing something else if he had actually done what he had intended to do. I guess raccoons aren't the only ones you have to watch out for getting into what is not theirs!

View from the "Hospice Recliner" July 30, 2010

Surprise!!!

In our never-ending quest for a better relationship, my date and I try to practice good communication.

It is not always successful but attempts are made anyway.

One of my pet peeves was that he would take something I had in a glass to drink and without asking, take a drink. Or if he poured it for me, he would drink part of it before handing it to me and say, "Drink tax". I found this profoundly irritating.

If he had asked first, I would never have denied him a drink. It was the presumptuousness that bothered me, and the sense that he felt entitled to take whatever he wanted, a la Helen Keller.

So we had a painful discussion about how I felt about this and he has been very, very good about not doing it as of late. But then something happened, and I was really hoping he did not have a relapse into his old habits.

Here is the background. I recently had surgery and have had some narcotic pain medication to take. As you may know, this kind of medication slows down the intestinal tract and can lead to unpleasant "traffic jams" if one is not careful to stay hydrated and take the appropriate actions to prevent said traffic jams.

So I had been mixing a full dose of Miralax into a glass of juice every morning and drinking it. Miralax is tasteless, dissolves completely without causing a nauseating thickening of the liquid and is quite effective for those taking opiates. For those not taking opiates, it is INCREDIBLY effective if you catch my drift.

I had been using juice that he drinks with breakfast (meanly nicknamed "Infant Juice" by me).

Yesterday I mixed the magic potion up but did not drink it right away. I left it on the counter. I remembered it later and thankfully it was still there, all intact. I sought out my date and asked him if he had been tempted to partake of the glass of "Infant Juice" left on the counter. He said that he had, but had refrained due to our prior conversation.

I was so proud of him. Then I told him what was in it. He expressed a great deal of relief at his restraint.

What a surprise that would have been! But it would have reinforced the learning, kind of like a shock collar. I bet he is cured forever now.

NEXT!

As you know, my date likes cars. (Probably as much as I like shoes.) Friday he sent me picture of a car from his cell phone. I knew he was excited about it because he hardly ever sends me e-mail during the day. So I knew this would be interesting.

7 speed automatic with the AMG sport package

Retractible hard top

The top puts itself up and down automatically. And tucks itself neatly into the trunk.

The next day he drove back to see the car again in his Corvette with the huge engine and came home with the other car. Good bye, Corvette. You were fast and fun. I will miss you a little.

But not too much. The new car has heated seats.

I hope he does not decide to trade me in.

Because then who would scoop the cat box?

Moth(ing)

My older sister sent me this picture of a moth she found outside her door. It made me think of something that goes on in our house nearly every night. I call it "mothing". Let me explain.

I like to read in bed.

I have a nice light that adjusts so my book is illuminated but not much else.

My date goes to sleep before I do so I politely angle the light so as to give him maximum darkness.

So what does he do? He turns toward the light to go to sleep. It is so annoying. I feel like I have to turn the light off sooner than I would like to. Actually, that is not really the most annoying part.

That would be the honor shared by two other things he does while mothing. One is he holds on to my arm and as he has his hypnagogic twitches he will suddenly grab my arm with a great deal of pressure and that HURTS.

"Just a love squeeze, honey. I promise I won't do it again. But you made me do it."

The other is that he has his head about six inches away from my face while he is mothing and when he coughs or clears his throat, it's right in my face.

Of course he doesn't mean to do this (or so he says).

www.sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com

At least he doesn't talk in his sleep like this guy does.

Say goodnight, Gracie.

Goodnight.

Ara? Nan da?

The other morning my date and I woke up in our typical brain-dead states.

As per usual, Mr. Perfect leapt out of bed, made me a cup of tea and came back to our bedroom with the newspaper, my tea and his coffee.

Then as per usual, he went into the bathroom to shave.

I opened one eye.

Then shut it again. I had remembered a particularly annoying patient who was coming to the office that day.

But in the short time it took to perform that avoidance maneuver, something caught my eye and registered in my brain.

There was something on the carpet. And that something looked like a small cat turd.

We have a rule in our house that whoever sees the errant (insert item here: turd, vomit, etc.) shall clean it up. So under the guise I had not yet opened my eyes I called for my date to bring me a section of the newspaper. Being the sweetheart he is, he obliged.

As he came into the room he exclaimed, "What's that?"

I said, "What?"

He pointed to the item on the rug. I opened my eyes and leaned over the side of the bed and opined that it looked like a cat turd.

We wondered who would have done such a thing as none of our boys has ever done that before. I blamed Josephine, the Boston terrier who loves nothing more than a stolen snack from the cat box. My date hotly denied that possibility, defending his best girl against my accusation.

I am slightly nearsighted so I cannot see details from afar.

My date is slightly farsighted so he cannot see details up close.

At our respective positions, neither one of us could identify the foreign object. There was silence. Then he got a piece of toilet paper and picked up the object. He held it out to me and said, "Look!"

I saw two beady little eyes, a pointed nose and well, not much else. It was the head of a mouse. I laughed and asked my date where he thought the rest of it was.

He has a favorite cat who is our great grey hunter. My date proudly gave credit for the kill to this cat, Cooper.

The mouse head was dispatched down the toilet and the morning went on as usual.