Little Squirrel Lost

Near the end of the workday yesterday, HLM sent me a really cute email (and picture) telling me the story of a young squirrel that had gotten marooned on our window screen off to the side of our (second story) porch. He took some pictures of it, then removed the watching cat from the porch so the squirrel could get back, but the squirrel was too afraid of him and, edging away onto the house siding, fell to the ground. It was okay, and when HLM went out to the gym he found it on the first floor porch, seeming much less afraid. Then as he watched, a dog out for a walk ripped its leash out of its owner's hand and chased the squirrel up a tree (apparently a narrow escape, but again, squirrel okay).

When I got home after two hours of TKD, I found HLM up on our porch with a flashlight, saying the squirrel was still out in the tree (which is right in front of our house and extends up past all 3 floors). I went up and looked, and yes, it was curled up in a high branching of the tree where the trunk basically split in 4 directions. HLM told me it couldn't get home, because home is in the floor of the porch right above ours, and the way there is to jump there from a high, narrow branch. This little one was just too unsteady on the small branches and had given up for the night, even though one of its parents had come down for a while and played with it. Awwwww, poor little squirrel. HLM had propped a 2x4 up from the lower porch to our porch for it, but I thought a better idea would be to grab the branch that led to squirrel-home and tie it to our porch with a rope so that it rested securely against the 3rd porch. That would make it a lot more stable and easy to climb. So we did that, and we left a handful of shelled almonds in a tree branching we could actually reach (the squirrel was 15ish feet up), and finally after much discussion we lobbed a winter hat over from our porch into the branching where the squirrel was, for nesting material if it got too cold. HLM was impressed that I made this shot and so was I. But the squirrel, which we thought we'd scare half to death, only chittered a time or two and didn't move. I guess it was really zonked.

That was about all we could do for it, so we went to sleep. This morning at 7:00 there was no little squirrel anywhere, the hat was on the ground, the almonds were completely gone (as were the hazelnuts HLM had put on the lowest porch, which the little squirrel had not taken the day before), and... that's it. So we think it is home again and we probably won't see it again until it's older.

Oh yeah, this is something weird

So ever since the weekend, in fact ever since I stopped being super tired, I haven't been very hungry (and this is no subtle signal, rumgirl, I really haven't felt like food). I was eating anyway for energy, some, and not seeing a pattern to it; until yesterday, when it became REALLY clear that I'm feeling horribly ill and plugged-up after eating fibrous healthy stuff. The salad I ate at lunch made me feel awful until I drank a lot of caffeine to push it through, same for a pear I had later. Cheese and crackers went down okay. Coffee pretty much saved my gut. This morning's egg and cheese on a biscuit caused no problems, while orange juice made me slightly nauseous.

So I guess I'll be off my usual 5 A Day habit for a couple of days at least. Anyone have any idea what's wrong? This is a new one on me.

Yes daddy, I'll do anything you say

Two days ago the Motley Fool told me to sell WFMI (they own Bread and Circus) because it's gotten overvalued even though it's a great company, and I just did it. I did some poking around to see how to get a Roth IRA going, too, just like that Amex financial advisor dude said to do. Independent little "I make my own financial decisions" me, yeah right, before I lost all that money. I did make 33% on WFMI, which is by far the most I've made on any stock yet... most of 'em have dropped like very heavy rocks. The Fool got me in and now the Fool has gotten me out. I still own one or two things that I think will rule the world someday and nobody else has happened to notice yet (Conceptus, CPTS, fer example, down 25% since I bought it, but damn is their procedure ever better than tubal ligation), but... yeah, I've lost some of that drive. A lot of that drive.

There really was a time I thought I'd be good at understanding the business world, but too much of it comes down to herd mentality, which I'm not so good at grokking. Think I'll sign back up for the Fool stock advisor newsletter, when I'm done saving for the condo.