Bedtime Stories

The weather turned warm again with highs in the mid-70s. It is because Michigan’s weather is so unpredictable that I always check the forecast. I need to know if the weather will be cold, hot, sunny, rainy, snowy–or all of the above–so I know what to wear and how to plan my day.

I have a lot of unique Michigan t-shirts. Last night, knowing that the weather was going to be warm, I spent several minutes hunting through my drawer of t-shirts for my plaid Michigan shirt. It just seemed the appropriate thing to wear on a warm autumn day. I found the shirt a month or so ago at the thrift store and only wore it a couple times before the weather became too chilly for t-shirts so I was glad to have the opportunity to wear it today.

For those who aren’t aware: The state of Michigan has two peninsulas: The Upper Peninsula (called the U.P., pronounced “yoo-pee,” not “up”) and the Lower Peninsula. The peninsulas are hand-shaped so we can use our hands to represent them, such as in the photo of my shirt. We often use our hands as a map to point out locations within the state. Years ago, a guy at church who had moved from Chicago said, “People in Michigan are weird. Whenever you ask them where a place is, they pull out their hand and point.” This is true.

It stays dark until about 8 a.m. now so when I get up at 7 a.m., I take my shower, feed the cats, and sit down with a cup of coffee or two and wait for the sun to come up before beginning my outside chores. Hannah Joy always sits next to me on the couch. Once in a while, she puts her head under my hand and flips up her head so my hand flies up. It is totally random and days or weeks can pass before she does it so I’m never prepared for it. This morning I had picked up my cup of coffee to take a sip when she put her nose under my hand and flipped her head up so that my coffee sloshed all over my plaid Michigan shirt. Grrr. I didn’t want to have permanent coffee stains on it so I immediately took it off, rinsed it, and got a different Michigan t-shirt to wear. I put together a load of clothes to wash with my plaid shirt. The forecast is for another warm day tomorrow so I will wear the shirt then–being careful that Hannah does not flip the coffee on me.

Hannah Joy has her quirks.

Hannah loves to sleep in the bed with us. The dog I had as a child always slept with me and I loved it. EJ’s Mom never let animals live in the house. One day she finally relented and got a cat neutered, which was rather expensive, with the intention of it being an inside cat. A few hours after she brought it home from the vet, someone came into the house not knowing there was a cat. The cat immediately escaped outside and ran into the road where it got run over by a car. That was the end of inside pets. So I love Hannah sleeping with us because it was a part of my childhood and EJ loves Hannah sleeping with us because it wasn’t a part of his. It’s nice having her cuddle with us…most of the time.

The problem with Hannah sleeping with us is that she takes her half out of the middle so EJ and I are pushed to the edges on either side with very little room. Hannah also loves to sleep between us under the blankets in the winter. When she gets too warm, she crawls out for a while to cool off but later she scratches to be let back under. I think it was in the wee hours of Monday morning that I woke and noticed that EJ was gone from the bed and the light in the living room was on. I peeked out and saw him sleeping in his chair. Sometimes he sleeps in his chair when his back is hurting or he isn’t feeling good so later when we were all up for the day, I asked him why he slept in his chair. He said that Hannah was between us and she kept kicking him to get more room for herself so he finally gave up and left. LOL. Hannah is such a bed hog.

EJ works four 10-hour days on night shift so for those four days, he is gone when Hannah and I go to bed and Hannah sleeps on his side of the bed. On the three nights when EJ is home, Hannah won’t budge from her (his) side of the bed and EJ can’t get into bed until we bribe her with a treat. She never expects a treat from me when it’s just her and me. We suspect she purposely positions herself on her (EJ’s) side of the bed when he is home, knowing that if she does so, she will get a treat. She’s pretty clever.

Besides Hannah’s night-time shenanigans, we have to deal with Timmy the cat. When we first got Hannah in late 2017, I kept the bedroom door open at night, but Hannah isn’t too fond of Timmy so she gave a shrill bark whenever Timmy came into the bedroom. This kept waking me up so I began shutting Hannah in the bedroom with me and Timmy out when I go to bed. Now Timmy occasionally meows outside the door and then puts his claws under the door and rattles it. It reminds me of a ghost moaning and rattling a door. Usually, Timmy just does it for a short time but if it goes on too long, I bang on the bedroom door. Saturday night he rattled the door for an hour or two, which is exceptionally long. I finally went out to the kitchen and put more food in his bowl to shut him up. But that’s not a thing I want to encourage.

I decided to start trying to teach the squirrels to take peanut butter crackers from my hand. When I was 16-years-old, I taught the squirrels to do this and I’m sure I can do it again. Back then I spread peanut butter on saltines but EJ suggested we get Cheez-Its instead because they are smaller and more squirrel-sized. I thought that was a good idea so we bought two boxes on Sunday. I spread a few with peanut butter each day and set them out so the squirrels develop a taste for them. Gradually I will move closer and closer until they get familiar with me and take the Cheez-Its from my hand. It will take patience, but I have patience. I’m calling this “Operation Squirrel.”

I’m trying to figure out the best time of day to set out the Cheez-Its for the squirrels. This morning I took some out when it was not yet fully light. I thought it was too early for the birds to be about, but as soon as I stepped out of the door, a chickadee flew in and hovered in front of me. I set the Cheez-Its out and went into and through the house to let Theo out of the garage and the chickens out of their coop. By this time It was fully daylight so I went back into the house, poured some seed into my hand, and stepped out on the deck. I had taken only a couple steps outside when two chickadees landed on my hand. This morning 27 birds ate from my hand. Yesterday I had 40. The number fluctuates each day.

The chickadees are my most frequent visitors, but the nuthatches now often take seeds from my hand. Some of the nuthatches have red breasts and some have white. I thought they were male and female, but I looked it up recently and learned that they are two completely different types of nuthatches. I discovered that nuthatches hiss when they want to warn off another bird. My next goal is to lure the tufted titmice onto my hand. They are flying closer, but are still too timid to land.

This last weekend I told EJ that if the fairy tales are true then, because I’m making friends with the animals, someday they will save our lives. He said he’d be happy if they did our chores. I told him that I don’t want them to do my chores, I want them to act as our security force and drive off intruders. Who knows? Maybe someday I will befriend bald eagles (we saw two soaring overhead on Friday) and they can drop rocks on the heads of unwanted visitors. LOL. We like invited guests, but not salespeople, orcs, or goblins.

I told EJ today that I’m finally fulfilling my childhood dream of being like Snow White. Who says dreams can’t come true?