Whatever Flavour of Great

Roadtrip Z

Happy Monday! Cotton Crossing is $.99USD in ebook at AmazonBarnes & NobleApple, and Kobo; the entire Roadtrip Z series is deeply discounted in ebook until 3/22. (Details and links are on the Monthly Sales page.) A little bit of madness in March, as they say, and She-Wolf and Cub is still a Kindle deal for the rest of the month as well.

The weekend was…productive, at least. Another couple short stories brushed up and formatted for the anthology, which is coalescing quite nicely, and I even got some serial wordcount in. I managed to detach and spend Sunday afternoon on the couch with Emily Wilson’s Iliad translation, which is absolutely wonderful. Greek is singing through her English, and it’s marvelous. I’m glad I held off on her Odyssey until I could finish this one, which won’t be long. I wish I could find something comparable for the Aeneid, but my Loeb will have to do.

In fact, I’d love to retreat to said couch with the last quarter of the Iliad, but there’s work to be done. I’ve got the protagonist of the Sekrit Projekt in a bit of a pickle, where they’ve been all weekend, and it’s time to get that sorted. I’d love to do a bit more of the serial today, since there’s about to be another knives-in-the-dark moment. I think it’s time for someone other than our favourite sellsword to get wounded, which will scare the stuffing out of her.

Always a good time.

The backyard is quiet; I am uncertain if Deathwish Bunny is the parent of the nest Boxnoggin found in one of the ferns. At first I thought he’d found a rabbit corpse, since it was before dawn and I was pre-caffeine; however, I glimpsed something moving in the depths after dragging his snoot from the hole and realized what was going on. The dog is quite upset that I won’t let him Be Great, for whatever flavour of “great” requires him attempting to eat newborn rodentia. The tender-hearted may rest assured that we’re keeping him away from the nest; if the kits are still in there, they have remained unmolested. I did notice that something or someone covered the hole back up, so I’m assuming Deathwish (or some other bunny) has attended to whatever’s going on inside. In another week or so I’ll check the hole again, hoping to find it vacant.

In the meantime, Boxnoggin will just have to suffer. He also got a bath this weekend since the weather was warm enough to permit him drying in rapid order. We make do with dry or damp-towel scrubs during the winter since he is slick-coated and suffers the shivers if he gets chilled, but climate change has given us a few very warm sunny days so we’ve made the best of it. Of course, he’s quite upset that his familiar stink is missing and doubly put out that I washed the comforter on my bed so he can’t regain said stink from it, but we all have our crosses to bear in these trying times.

…this post has turned into a Doge Report, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He was an utter goofball this morning, requiring more than the usual cuddling and bellyrubs before deigning to let me get out of bed. Possibly he felt the dual inconvenience of bath and refusal to let him snack on bunny-nests necessitated a great deal of Speaking to the Manager, which would be me. Alas, he will remain unsatisfied upon both points, at least until he reeks of dog instead of the fancy anti-allergy oatmeal shampoo.

I’d better grab some toast and get going. The biggest decision will be which ankle to put the brace on; getting older is full of such quandaries. At least once I return from shambling about there’s a prospect of more coffee, and I can get a few plot twists ironed out while moving.

And awaaaaaay we go.

Dual Garde and Pointe

I suspect today would be trouble, and in fact could have spent an hour or so sunk in a book rather than freeing myself from a warm bed-cocoon, achieving verticality, and staggering for the Moka pot. So far Thursday and I are proceeding in what appears to be a truce. The quiet is not quite ominous, yet I am still en garde and en pointe.

It probably doesn’t help that I’m reading some rather depressing history (as usual) and yesterday was a 7k writing day. The Sekrit Projekt is halfway, near as I can tell, and I was able to hole up in the office, free of administrivia, to concentrate on getting over that mark.

I am cautiously optimistic. That’s all I’ll say, for fear of jinxing it.

Yesterday also saw Boxnoggin bound and determined to catch a rabbit; coincidentally I have found the place in the nor’eastern fence the ferals are slipping through and I have a rather bruised arm. Lord van der Sploot would absolutely adore to break every barrier in his way while chasing Deathwish Bunny (as I have christened this new visitor to our backyard) but so long as I am capable of deterring him from making Extremely Bad Choices his ambition will have to remain (alas!) unfulfilled.

Deathwish Bunny is so named because he seems to have grasped that the dog is strapped to a lumbering biped uninterested in chase, capture, or homicide, and has taken this to mean he is the ruler of the backyard. In fact, Deathwish the Bun-Bun gives me rather filthy looks while sitting by the Venerable Fir, as if to question what the hell I’m doing in his demesnes. All while Boxnoggin quivers at the end of a leash, nearly vibrating inside his harness with the desire to please omg just once, just let me chase it once.

Even one time would be too many. I have a healthy respect for just how silly the dog can be when left to his own devices. Consequently His Majesty Bun-Bun is laboring under the dual misapprehension of inviolability and immortality; as spring advances we’ll see how the squirrels feel about his claims. Of course they can climb, so the ground floor doesn’t matter too much–but if he starts competing for certain resources we might see a bit of jostling. And of course both love taunting a certain square-headed canine.

You know who isn’t taunting him these days, though? The local corvids have discovered that doing so, as well as buzzing me to demand things, does not get them what they want. A system has evolved wherein the crows wait patiently (albeit loudly) at certain points for largesse, and if I am in a giving mood roasted peanuts in the shell are scattered after a two-tone whistle. And before anyone starts bleating about feeding wildlife, the rewards are random and please take it up with those who scatter peanuts for the damn squirrels first, since the crows manage to get a substantial portion of those without my feeble efforts, thankyouverymuch.

…that sounds rather bad-tempered of me, but there’s been a positive plague of Reply Guys and finger-waggers lately. Fortunately they are outweighed by the very nice people, especially those writing to me now about liking A Flame in the North. Thank you, my beloveds–I keep meaning to do a From the Mailbag post, and keep getting sidetracked or having no time because there’s writing to get to.

Speaking of which, I’d best get underway. Boxnoggin is going to adore today’s sunshine even if we both dislike the chill, and I’ve my own corpse to shamble through something approximating exercise as well. I have big dreams for another uninterrupted chunk of writing since there’s a daring escape to pull off and a major character’s demise to plan for. For those of you who just gasped, you know that’s always a risk in my tales. I’m not looking forward to it any more than you are. (I already cried twice yesterday at an imprisoned protagonist’s emotional nadir, fa cry-eye.)

Time to drain the dregs and get some toast. There might even be some blueberry-lemon crumble left, we’ll see. All in all, there’s room for cautious hope.

But I’m still wary.

A Shoe, Any Shoe

The new year has started out with good news and the stove being fixed, yet I’m a little caddywumpus. I’m ever braced for disaster–all my life, really, but especially since 2016–but am hardly prepared for things to go well. So my nerves, while re-wrapped a bit from the time spent from Boxing Day to New Year’s, are fraying in an entirely different way. Just waiting for a shoe, any shoe, to drop.

I suspect this isn’t healthy. In any case, it’s a relief to get back to real work. There are sample chapters for House of the Fan to brush up and send to the agent, subscription stuff to get out the door (including the first bit of Tomb of Night for my subscribers’ delectation), Boxnoggin to walk (eternally), and yoga to do since I’m on a recovery break from running. Of course recovery is my least favourite part of the process, since I devoutly desire the endorphin hit from hauling my weary corpse along at just above a shamble, but needs must.

Fortunately, it’s raining. It feels like I spent forever in drought–all the way through last October–and have just now shaken off the parched sensation. Boxnoggin is irate every time he has to go outside, even if walkies are the joy of his existence, but after a while he settles down. I would hope he’s beginning to grasp that the weather does as it wills, but I know he considers it my fault and doing specifically.

I wish I had even a tenth of the power my dog attributes to me. So many things would be sorted in a right bloody hurry.

I also want to get the discovery of a few bodies written in Highlands War as well as an assassin’s practice with her shiny new weapon in House of the Fan. taking time away from actual writing to deal with Other Stuff is always upsetting. I just want to goddamn well create, for fucksake. I feel like yelling at the world to settle down so I can go back to telling my weird little stories, but alas, that’s on the same level as Boxnoggin wishing the weather would cooperate with his preference for dry paws.

At least the coffee tastes very fine this grey gloomy morn. Oh, and I should mention that the Battle of Crunchy Discord seems to have convinced Trashmouth!Squirrel that the way to gain access to a magical pile of peanuts is to play chicken with vehicles upon a specific piece of road.

I’ve seen him playing in traffic twice now. Boxnoggin has not lunged for him, seeming instead rather puzzled that a fuzzy, ambulatory snackable has taken it into its head to Frolic Upon the Road, which is a behavior Box himself gets scolded for. So he’ll peer past me as we walk along the fence and the boulder embankment, glancing up every few steps to check my expression like a toddler who sees another kid about to get in trouble.

Maybe he even misses ol’ Trash screaming from the top of the fence, who knows? I have not scattered any peanuts on that particular slice of paving since The Incident1; Mugshot and her crew now clock us before and after that part of walkies, hoping for the two-tone alert whistle and a handful of treats. I keep the rewards relatively random so they do not grow dependent or importunate, and the corvids have largely left off taunting Boxnoggin in the hopes that peaceable conduct will gain them more crunchy calories. Some of them, especially the Littlest, will even hop from one foot or the other, or do small fluttering tricks to catch my attention.

All in all, the year’s started out rather well. I’m hoping the trend continues, and taking deep breaths while I can. Now it’s time to get started on Thursday. There’s a lot to clear before I can get to what I really want to do today.

See you around.

Stove to Squirrel to Work

The stove might–might!–be fixed by noon, and She-Wolf and Cub is a Kindle Daily Deal. There, in one sentence I’ve done the marketing for the day. (Hardly. ‘Tis a chore that ne’er ends in late capitalism.)

I’m ever so glad the holidays are over. I don’t mind saying they were stressful as fuck, and being startled awake by fireworks several times as the year circled the drain was unpleasant at best. Poor Boxnoggin shook and drooled until I let him under the bedcovers, at which point he promptly curled up, nose and haunches both attempting to snuggle into my armpit, and passed out without a single further care in the world. Even the big booms got barely an ear-flicker. I suppose by that point he was exhausted from all the feasting and excitement too.

Unfortunately, with the dog under my armpit and artillery going off, it was not a restful eve by any stretch of the imagination. Even last night there were a few pops and booms elsewhere, but Box decided those didn’t matter since he was busy lobbying to weasel his way under the covers again. I gather that dark cave is seen as safe, especially if he can get his nose into my axillary region.

All that aside, the first of the year was a success. I did a little work on a paying project (the serial), something that pleases me (House of the Fan), and a little revision (Chained Knight). I did a few year-beginning tasks that soothe me with their habitual nature, busted out an old yoga app, and finished up the day with a bit of Chaucer on the couch as well as a few episodes of Word of Honor, which I am giggling my way through. (Wen Kexing is 110% That Bitch, and I love it.) Begin as one means to go on, I suppose; Boxnoggin and the kids had their own rituals to observe, and we all went to bed as early as possible.

The holidays were exciting for everyone else here too.

I have very little to report, other than being back at work and yesterday seeing Trashmouth dart across the road in front of another car–this time a white SUV instead of a black one, and the driver was (hallelujah) not absorbed in their livestreaming this time. I did stop and stare, heart in my mouth, though the damn squirrel was never in any danger and made it to the bushes across the street from his usual fence in good time.

I decided to walk on a little further to give the call for Mugshot and the FedExers to come get a few peanuts. No use in provoking the SquirrelTerror.

Oh, yeah, and since it’s a new month as well as a new year, the Monthly Sales page is updated. See, I told you marketing is eternal. *sigh*

In any case, I’ve got to get Boxnoggin settled before there’s a chance of appliance repairman. Like toddlers and very tired writers, dogs need to be set up for success. The good thing about the appointment so early in the day is that it gives me plenty of time for a knife fight (in the serial), a duel (in House of the Fan) and maybe a couple chapters’ worth of revising later, and I’ll be in just the mood for the first two events.

Welcome to the New Year, my beloveds. May it be better than the last…

Mugshot and Trashmouth, Round Three

I don’t even think the driver saw the interspecies melee.

…maybe I should back up.

So Trashmouth was getting his ass beat by the Mugshot and the FedExers (save for the Littlest Corvid, who was making off with ill-gotten gains), while Boxnoggin and I were staring in utter disbelief (me) and quivering incomprehension (the dog). A giant shiny black SUV was creeping up the hill, half in the parking lane, and as it got closer I could peer through the privacy tinting to see…well, if not to see what the hell, to at least make a guess at it.

Behind the wheel of this tall, waxed, and probably still reeking of new-car chemicals pedestrian-murdering machine was a woman holding a cell phone–but not to her ear, oh no. Instead, she was staring into its face as if she’d just found her soulmate, and as the gods are my witness I believe she was livestreaming. Her makeup was truly Instagram-incredible–contoured to the max–even through a rain-dotted windshield and the faint glow of foglamps1, and her lovingly lined and lipsticked mouth was moving quite a few miles-per-hour faster than the vehicle. To call her a “Karen” would probably be an insult to other perfectly lovely people bearing that name but also incredibly, deeply accurate. She looked like the sort of lady who would run a waitress’s ass off with this and that before leaving less than a dollar tip or, worse, one of those Jesus Tickets.2

Perhaps my description is needlessly cruel, but one thing’s for certain, my friends: Bitch wasn’t looking at the road.

In the passenger seat slouched a what was probably a middle-schooler with their own electronic brick held up like a shield, staring at its bright face with something approaching rapturous boredom. All this reached my horrified brain just as that piece of overworked grey matter finished totting up physics, relative speed, and other conditions, returning the verdict that Boxnoggin and I were safe enough but the battlefield in the parking lane was about to undergo a drastic readjustment of forces.

All this took far less time to occur than to type. Anyway, the SUV crept inexorably forward. The Littlest Corvid hadn’t even reached the other side of the street, my horrified “JAYSUS CHRIST,” was still ringing in the drizzle-damp, and Boxnoggin’s tail began another tentative wag. He was on the cusp of realizing just how he could make this situation worse, which in normal times would lead to him plunging directly upon that course of action.

He never got the chance.

I don’t know which of the Fed-Exers noticed approaching doom first, but someone yelled “SCATTER!” in Linguae Corvidae, and there was an explosion of feathers. The entire crew took off pell-mell in any direction that seemed advisable, more than one performing a last-minute beak-plunge to gain a peanut. I do know Mugshot was the last to leave–as befits a good commander–because she didn’t have much time to gain altitude and the path she chose was directly aimed at my face.

Or so it felt like at the time.

A snap of wings, a brush of rainbreath, and the crow skimmed over my head as I ducked reflexively. Fortunately I did not hit wet pavement, as a youth misspent in bar brawls might have rendered both advisable and instinctive, but I can’t claim any prize for that grace for the simple reason that Boxnoggin was in the way and I didn’t want to flatten my dog.

The SUV rolled majestically on. Its passing breeze arrived a few heartbeats after Mugshot buzzed me, and I got a good look at the kid in the passenger seat as well as Karen Driver, who did not deign to look at the road or even notice I was staring through the window. My estimation of trajectory, speed, and relative mass was indubitably and thankfully correct, as the vehicle continued on for about a quarter of a block before its right-hand front tire finally kissed the kerb.

I can only imagine the flurry of activity inside the car at that point, because it swerved back out into the roadway and sped up, vanishing over the crest of the slight hill. Presumably the driver’s attention had been redirected, but I’m not betting on it. It occurred to me–the sort of inconsequential thought that happens during a disaster–that the kid was probably either late for school or had some kind of doctor’s appointment, since even though my own spawn are safely graduated I still know the school district’s morning schedules.

Having to dodge buses on morning runs will do that. Anyway, back to the story.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered, in tones of surpassing wonder…and then I realized I hadn’t seen Trashmouth’s escape. Which provoked a wondering, “Did that bitch just kill my squirrel?”

Yes, friends and neighbours, I said that aloud, in public, after escaping both being flattened by Karen Driver and hit the head by a crow. Boxnoggin craned to look up at me, and his tail was now going furiously since if I was talking there was a prospect of treats, pets, or something new to stick his nose into as we sashayed onward.

I turned back to the road, and what do you think I saw?

Feathers. A lone cracked peanut shell. Slick drizzle-drenched pavement…

…and one dazed squirrel, whole and presumably unwounded since the clearance on that SUV was well above tree-rodent height. Trashmouth huddled amid the wreckage, for once too stunned to yell obscenities.

“Holy hell,” I breathed. Boxnoggin’s tail went harder, if that were possible. I only had a few seconds before he noticed the presence of a fuzzy-assed snack-sized foulmouth, and I found myself reaching for my coat’s peanut-pocket. “You furry idiot. You lucky little tree-shitting nincompoop.”

Box thought I was talking to him. Trashmouth fixed me with a beady sideways stare, and I’m not sure if he thought he had won a Pyrrhic victory–since, alas, all the Crunchy Nuts o’Discord were gone and he’d just been o’erpassed by the shadow of death–or if he’d been briefly scared into what passes for sanity among creatures of his ilk.

I tossed a peanut, and my aim was pretty accurate. It landed amid scattered feathers, and Trashmouth twitched. Boxnoggin’s head whipped around; sixty-five pounds worth of furry predator stiffened, ears perking. For a moment we were en tableaux: squirrel warrior, dumbass terrier-brained dog, and middle-aged woman undergoing heart palpitations despite her prefrontal cortex assuring the lizardbrain the SUV had indeed missed us entirely.

Then, the tension broke.

Trashmouth darted for the peanut. He had his prey in a twinkling and took off for safety, which in his just-rebooted little noggin was not across the street, oh no, because that would have been altogether too easy. Plus, he’d just been visited by the Shadow of Chevrolet Death out there, and the trees on the other side were probably forgotten in wake of that disturbing incident.

What this all adds up to is that, of course, the doughty dipshit streaked back the way he’d arrived, to what was now my left since I’d half-turned to see the SUV go uphill. Boxnoggin twitched, more out of surprise than the urge to chase (for once) and in a flash Trashmouth had leapt onto the mossy boulders of the embankment like Errol Flynn with his swash tightly buckled. He gained the top of the hill in a series of bounds, and stopped to glance back at us, his mouth full of peanut.

“MRPHLE-MRGH!” he yelled, and I didn’t need to know squirrel-ese to translate, no indeed. Then he scampered away, and I heard a scrabble of claws on the board fence at the top. A low-hanging cedar bough was briefly shaken, and I looked down at Boxnoggin, who for the second (or third) time that day was too stunned to chase something. I patted at my pockets, verified that the dog was okay–he wriggled with glee under a shower of pets–and made sure I was still wearing shoes, because these things almost always end with me shoeless and screaming.

This time I had my footwear on and (bonus!) had not been run over, so we were two to the good. Boxnoggin evinced much interest in the site of the fray, but I didn’t feel easy about standing in the street so I hauled him onward. thankfully, he completely forgot the whole thing since there was a fire hydrant about twenty steps away, one of a few he is absolutely dying to make the daily acquaintance of.

I was a little less lucky. It took a long while for my pulse to come down out of the red, and the morning run after I brought him home was almost entirely cortisol-fueled.

So we left the feather-strewn site of glorious victory and despair behind as a thin line of golden sunshine peeked through lowering clouds. Mugshot and her crew didn’t find us again until we left the park the next day, and it took a couple more days for Trashmouth to recover his usual volume and speed of shouted insults while running along the board fence. All in all, we escaped that incident rather lightly; I’m just glad the FedExers seemed to understand the SUV was wholly unconnected to me.

Instead, they seem to hold a certain loudmouth squirrel responsible for the loss of feathers. I swear they have it in for him, especially the Littlest Corvid–but that’s (say it with me) a whole ‘nother blog post.

Thus endeth the tale of Mugshot, Trashmouth, and the Crunchy Nuts o’Discord…
…until, that is, some-damn-thing else happens.

Mugshot and Trashmouth, Round Two

So the damn squirrel had zoomed in front of us, close enough for Boxnoggin to catch if the dog hadn’t been so utterly taken aback. It’s not often a boxer-terrier mix is too flummoxed to chase something–usually all the circuits in his head fuse, triggering a mad scrabble of pursuit, when he sees anything of the right size or shape twitching.

Well, something of any size or shape. Or sometimes nothing at all if the wind is up and invisible fingers are tweaking his tender tuchus. This is after all the same dog who will, on the regular, assume his own tail is a deadly threat deserving utter destruction.

Anyway, Trashmouth made it to the handful of unsalted peanuts-in-the-shell I’d just tossed. No doubt the squirrel was congratulating himself on his own boldness, aplomb, speed, and daring. No doubt he felt a tickle of glee at once more evading the giant smelly predator attached to the puzzled biped, or perhaps he considers Boxnoggin and I a single creature of the hellish-abomination sort. No doubt he thought he was going to grab at least a few of the nuts and spirit them away to a cache, or bury them in some forgotten corner marked with squirrel-pee.

I’m not joking. That’s how they find a lot of what they bury.

In his glee, Trashmouth had forgotten or misplaced the fact that Mugshot and the Fed-Exers were working this side of the street1. The crow was all business as she glided up, and I will swear I saw the moment she realized some fuzzy wingless bastard was trying to muscle in on her corner. There may have been a glint of hellfire in one beady corvid eye; a whiff of brimstone might have been apparent.

What is absolutely definite, though, is the fact that she decided in a millisecond she was gonna beat this squirrel’s ass.

Have you ever seen a crow perform wingsnap-buffets like a hawk attempting to disorient prey? Gods as my witness, Mugshot hovered above that fat little squirrel like a helicopter dropping a SEAL team onto a kindergarten. Feathers flew, the sound was akin to locker-room towels being snapped in quick succession, and Trashmouth stopped short amid a scatter of peanuts, letting out a piercing scream that was, I surmise, equal parts rage and (quite reasonable) fear.

And because I have been translating squirrel for a long time, I am fairly confident it took the form of, “MOTHERFUUUUUUU–“

Yet this was not the end of Trashmouth’s problems upon that drizzling morn. Oh no, not even remotely. Because where there’s one crow about to throw down, there’s almost certainly reinforcements. (Remember Bartholomew at the old house, and his Legion Corvidae? Like that.)

Mugshot’s crew had already been on their way since I’d given the two-tone alert whistle, but the sight of their fearless leader laying a smackdown on an interloper lit a fire in their avian souls. I swear a few bars of Ride of the Valkyries sounded in the damp mist-mizzling air, and am also pretty sure I heard a lean juvenile crow yell, “AH LOVE THA SMELL O’PEANUT IN THE MORNIN’!”

You might be wondering at this point what was I doing, since I had thrown the Crunchy Nuts o’Discord2 and all? Well, dear gentle Reader, I was standing frozen in horror watching this go down, my head still tilted at the exact same angle as Boxnoggin’s. The dog, confused past the point of his usual response (which is, don’t forget, to lunge at whatever has caught his attention, screaming at the top of his lungs) actually turned a little to glance up at me, as if to confirm what the fuck we were seeing.

Boxnoggin: “MUM? THIS, UH, SEEMS A LITTLE…”
Me: *through gritted teeth* “Don’t…move.”

Since I made no motion, he decided–for once, amen and hallelujah–that discretion was the better part of any option, and remained stock-still save for one tentative wag of his long, very fine tail.

What we were faced with now was a full-on, no holds barred interspecies bar-brawl melee. Let me see if I can remember a few highlights.

Trashmouth was quick and vicious, but unlike my one-eyed friend3, he did not know kung fu. Instead, he laid about with knuckledusters and a whipping tail, and actually managed to catch Mugshot in the side, which set off a flurry of vicious cawing. Mugshot was relying on speed, beak, and wing-buffets to confuse and drive off the interloper, but after getting pasted by a tail-bop she visibly decided “OH HELL NO” and set about work in earnest. Her two largest lieutenants dove into the fray, screaming obscenities–I think I heard, “THOU BASE FLIGHTLESS ROGUE,” yelled by the slightly smaller one, which just goes to show even crows are fans of Shakespearean insult generators.

And the smallest of the crew, a quick and somewhat ragged tyke, busied himself with darting in, grabbing a peanut, and taking off across the road.

Now, all of this was interesting enough, and might have just been a regular morning walkies incident. But if there’s one thing we all know about SquirrelTerror, it’s that things can always get worse.

While I was busy bracing myself in case Boxnoggin took it into his otherwise-empty head to add himself to the brawl, while Boxnoggin for his part was visibly trying to decide what the hell he should chase first, while Mugshot was whaling on the dumb furry little shithead who had probably insulted her more than once before, while Trashmouth was attempting to fight off all comers and become King of Peanut Hill, while Mugshot’s lieutenants were spitting bars and clawing scars, while the other crows were aiming to be a part of the excitement and the Littlest Corvid was busy heading across the street with a mouthful of ill-gotten gains…

…an engine revved.

Coming up the hill was a shiny black SUV, and at first I thought the driver was drunk, because it was veering awful close to the sidewalk.

Yes, that’s right. The sidewalk Boxnoggin and I were standing upon.

I wasn’t particularly worried about the dog or my own bemused self, since there was the sidewalk itself and a strip of decorative gravel before the kerb, and we had plenty of time to get out of the way. The road at that point is wide enough for parking on either side as well as two-way traffic, so I had tossed the Nuts o’Discord4 into the deserted park-lane; unfortunately, the SUV was merrily creeping uphill half in said lane.

Of course, this being a SquirrelTerror incident, I had to let out at least one Graham Chapman-sized “JAYSUS CHRIST” while watching in utter horror. Unfortunately, there was so much other ruckus that Mugshot, Trashmouth, the FedExers as a whole, and the Littlest Corvid–who was hopping instead of flying, his mouth weighed down with the prize and the rest of him slightly discombobulated–paid no attention at all…

To be continued…

Mugshot and Trashmouth, Round One

It’s not often one sees a boxer-terrier mix too perplexed to chase a rodent.

…maybe I should back up. I’m low on sleep due to wildlife screaming in the backyard last night, so bear with me.

Ahem. So, egged on by the children–who have both brought home bags of unsalted peanuts in the shell–I have started training some of the local murders to show up when I whistle a particular two-tone call. We went back and forth as to what trigger should be used to alert the birds that there are treats available, with my daughter lobbying for “pretty birds” and my son holding out for something unrepeatable. I told both of them they can take their own damn peanuts and train their own flock of deathbirds, but that’s a story for another time.

Anyway, it’s not every day I dispense largesse, because corvids tend to be a trifle importunate if a habit is gotten into. But often enough, I’ll have a pocket full of peanuts on walkies now. Carl, Sandra, and Jerry get a few on days Boxnoggin and I start out downhill, yes, but the other murder near the park has a discrete territory-line, and once I’m over it the goodies are for them. I have named very few of them other than Mugshot, the crow who likes to eye me sidelong and, as a bonus, will flit down to taunt Boxnoggin and has for nearly a year now.

You’d think the dog would learn, but no, apparently something happened to him in Texas and now he views my feathered friends as deeply suspect. He does a Big Protec whenever possible, of course, but the local crows absolutely love winding him up. (It’s a good thing he’s never allowed outside unsupervised.) He looks to me for direction before lunging now, which is a distinct relief and the result of about two years’ worth of patient work.

Whew. All of this is to say there I was in the misty drizzle, a pocket full of peanuts and 65+lbs of dog strapped to my waist, as Mugshot came gliding over to perch on a streetlamp she often prefers. Boxnoggin snorted warningly.

“Ease up,” I told him. “These are friends, remember?”

“NO FRIEND.” As usual, he was deeply underimpressed. “ONLY BORK.”

In any case, I shortened up on his leash and gave the two-tone call. I tossed a handful of peanuts behind us and pulled Box along, encouraging him with coos of you’re such a good boy and a mighty protector, let’s leave them alone, good job, focus on me. I needn’t have bothered, because the real rustling and trouble was ahead.

We were, in fact, being watched. And not by avians.

My signal been not only associated with Good Things In A Shell by Mugshot and the FedExers–her murder’s other favorite game is playing tag with delivery trucks, but that’s (say it with me) another blog post–but it has also been noticed by a certain fat brush-tailed arboreal rodent, who likes to run along a particular board fence as Boxnoggin and I pass, before leaping into cedar branches and chittering deeply uncomplimentary things in Box’s direction.

For obvious reasons, I have named this squirrel Trashmouth.

It has taken about a year to teach the damn dog not to go up the fence after the tree-rat raining insults upon us both, and Box refrains not because of any blandishment, threat, pleading, or action on my part but only because in the musty recesses of his canine brain, he realises he is strapped to me and, barring a critical failure in the harness or some change in our relative sizes, cannot take me up the fence with him.

The drizzle kept coming, and we approached the fence. Trashmouth appeared, as is his wont, but he did not do laps along the top of the boards as usual. Instead, he watched me with a beady gaze I have seen upon many a squirrel suddenly suffering the advent of a Dim Realization, or worse yet, a Bright Idea. I eyed him in return, somewhat nervously, but was otherwise occupied with keeping Box on a short leash and rewarding him for paying attention to my cues instead of other stimuli.

It’s an uphill battle. Anyway, Trashmouth watched our approach, scurried along the fence-top to pass us, and–most alarmingly–did not chitter some version of your bipedal mother wears army boots in Box’s direction. Instead, he vanished at the end of the fence, and I was too distracted to notice the cedar boughs didn’t move as if a small bundle of chaos had plunged into them.

Anyway, we continued downslope, reaching the end of the fence. Along our left side was now an embankment of granite boulders bearing a fine crop of moss, revivified by autumn and winter rains; Mugshot and the FedExers were of the opinion I could stand to give a little more and two or three of them took their usual places while asking for more–Mugshot on one of the boulders, craning to keep me in view, one of her lieutenants on a denuded apple tree at the corner, another across the street on a rooftop. The rest headed for the cedar and a few nearby firs.

“Oh, what the hell,” I muttered, and Mugshot cawed back. She seems to understand that tone of resignation as well as Boxnoggin does. Or maybe she grokked that I was reaching for the pocket that usually carries the peanut cargo. “All right,” I continued, “but we’re all going to behave, right? Especially you, *Boxnoggin’s Real Name*.”

Yes, I am the lady who walks the neighborhood talking to her dog and other wildlife. Quite possibly I am some kind of cryptid to the locals.

In any case, I got out a handful of unsalted, held them up so the corvids could see it wasn’t a trap, and gave the two-tone whistle. Then I tossed them into the wet street, out of car range but also far enough to keep Boxnoggin from Getting Ideas.

However, I had not reckoned on another factor, one of surpassing importance. Trashmouth had made it down the back edge of the board fencing and found a good vantage point among the boulders. He must have witnessed the largesse being thrown to the crowd, and I have to assume he did a number of swift mental calculations arriving at a decision bereft of logic, good sense, or self-preservation, as squirrels are prone to.

Because as I turned back to our route, a greyish blur leapt from the boulder wall with a hearty cry of what I can only think was, “YOOOLOOOOOO,” scuttled in front of us, and darted into the road, intent upon securing something tasty.

It may be overly gracious of me, but I have to assume Trashmouth had grasped the fact that Boxnoggin was not free to do as he pleased in this particular situation, particularly since for months he had witnessed the biped discouraging Box’s big, loud, smelly self from attempting to climb a six-foot board fence atop a three-foot earth embankment. Having oft treaded the line between foolhardiness and bravery myself, I tend to attribute the latter where perhaps the former is more accurate. But like me, the rotund, twitch-nosed, foulmouth little bastard had–in his deep and abiding excitement–forgotten one critical factor.

He’d entirely mislaid the presence of at least half a dozen crows. So while Boxnoggin was strapped to my (I’ll admit it) utterly gapemouthed-in-amazement self, both our heads cocked at the same angle as we witnessed this extraordinary feat of speed and daring, Mugshot and the FedExers were already en route to harvest the fruit of their labours.

And Mugshot–fairly large for a crow, I assume she’s near the top of the pecking order–got there first.

To be continued…