sunflower mist

sunflower mist
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

The squirrels have been eating my tomatoes and knocking down my sunflowers; I haven't woken up early enough to walk the dogs since Monday; the book I ordered hasn't come yet and I have a headache, cramps and a sore throat. It's a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

When I got home last night I found a ripe tomato sitting on the side of the garden bed with a big bite out of it. It looked like a human sized bite and I was sort of nonplussed - I mean, who takes a bite out of a tomato and casts it aside? - and then I saw another one, still on the vine. A human might pick a tomato and take a bite and throw it down, just out of meanness or weirdness or a sudden realization that they hate tomatoes, but nobody is really weird enough to lie down on their backs and wiggle their way under the tomato cage and scrooch up to a tomato and take a bite out of it on the vine. You see how my inner Sherlock Holmes goes to work, there. My inner Sherlock, though, was still baffled as to the identity of the culprit until I came back out the front door and found a squirrel climbing a sunflower and in the process knocking everything down. He was a ballsy little fuck, too - I had to shout and wave my arms and chase him across the lawn to get him out of there and a couple of times he stopped running and looked at me menacingly, as if he was considering launching an attack. I don't care what people say, squirrels are scary. Now I know why so many of the sunflowers have become horizontal and where my tomatoes are going and also I have these half chewed tomatoes that I'm a little afraid to eat. I cut off the bitten parts and I know they're fine but, eeep, ewwww, squirrel saliva. Last thing I need now is squirrel flu.

Last night I went and listened to a speech by Gordon Smith who is a friend of mine (we cofounded the Asheville Drinking Liberally chapter, actually, long ago) and is also, as you probably know if you live here, running for City Council. In yet another political post I am now going to urge you to vote for Gordon. Vote for Gordon, y'all. He's cool and not only that, he's strongly focused on affordable housing and better public transportation and since you also should be all about those things, go forth in a couple of months and vote for Gordon. Vote early, vote often (okay, okay) and vote hard.