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Stories from the deck:

Good things: Since he has been unable to get rid of me (surveillance and staring me down don’t work), Chippy has decided to befriend me. He now visits me on the deck, and I think he is interested in negotiation for shared occupancy…perhaps with a shared meal or two in the mix. Chipette, of course, is avoiding me as she is wimpy (and may still be miffed about my making fun of her a couple of years ago when she kept running up the pole to the bird feeder and repeatedly bonking her little noggin on the preventive inverted pie tin halfway up).Chipmunks can be rabid. Don’t get too close. If they approach you rather than run away from you, it could be problematic.Okay, I am already really old; there’s a deadly virus lurking; there is horrendous social and political unrest all around; and now I’ve gotta worry about an otherwise friendly but potentially rabid chipmunk???!!!
Hmmmm…he has approached me for a couple of days now with no incident (ran under my chair once)., sooo….

Good things: a cool morning on the deck. A handsome cardinal has joined the group of onlookers. Chipette and Chippy are scurrying about on the hill attending to some important munky-business or other. There are other things I should be doing, but hete I am… (Actually, I seem to recall it was Albert Ellis who thought we did not need shoulds and oughts. I second that!)

Just spotted Quirrely who apparently snagged a treat from somewhere and ducked into a patch of weeds to enjoy it privately.Good things: Two — yes, two! — visits from the shy little Chipette. Chippy must have given me a positive review. Wow!!Good things: lunch on the little deck. (Lately have been adding aji amarillos (yellow chilies) to sandwiches. Does a good job of mitigating allergies and stuffiness! And quite yummy.

Am wondering, however, how it is that a chipmunk can covet food from a distance if someone else is eating it….but can’t seem to find food put out in plain sight specifically for her? Although this is Chipette to whom I refer. And, as I mentioned previously, she is the one who used to regularly bonk her little noggin on the upside-down pie plate on the bird feeder pole as she’d repeatedly try running up the pole to get food (the whole run up-bonk!-run down-repeat cycle). Not sure if she was always this ditzy or just since the closed-head traumas. So far she has zoomed right by her proffered meal twice! ?Woohoo!! Chipette finally claimed her peanuts and strawberry tops!! We are forging a relationship (although she did wait until I was napping).

Good things: Chipette ? is sitting in the vegetation by the little deck trying to muster the courage to come to the wall for her peanuts. (I told her she only gets 4 because I have heard that squirrel kin have a tendency to overeat, and I don’t want to give her a tummy ache.) But wait!! Said chipmunk moved a bit further away and proceeded to do some scratching (apparently had an itch) which provided a brief profile view which leads me to suspect that today’s visit is actually from Chippy. (Thought “she” looked bigger than I remembered. Hmmm….) Actually, now that I look closer, I can see that the eyes are bigger and rounder than Chipette’s. So maybe Chippy doesn’t know where to look for the peanuts. It took awhile for his girlfriend (wife?) to figure it out. Thought it was just her personal ditziness, but maybe a characteristic of chipmunkness..Well, Chippy never found his peanuts, so Chipette has out-munked him. Sbe apparently overcame her shyness, and he in turn backed off his bravado.Good things: cooler on the deck than indoors after power out all night — again. A couple of nigjts ago it was out due to a car hitting a pole. This one was caused by a tree that came down. It would really nice to have a longer break between stressful events. Chipette did visit briefly this morning. She waited for awhile for me to go in quest of peanuts, but I guess she got tired of waiting. Haven’t seen her since I came back out.

Well, the wildlife seems to be harboring a bit of a mean streak today. There’s a feisty mosquito trying to work its way around the peppermint oil mist to take a nip at me. There’s a kamikazi fly. And Chippy and Chipette have engaged in some kind of tiff in the yard. (I think she won.) I am beginning to suspect a foot fetish with Chippy who occasionally attempts to sneak close to mine. Once-shy Chipette, however, has come to enjoy posing on the tie wall.

Sadly, my breakfast deck party with Chipette and Chippy is rained out today. However, my sunflower is getting a drink!

Good things: learned something new from the auto mechanic. Apparently mice like to ear the wiring on vehicles because the wiring has a yummy soy-based protective coating. Who knew?! (And apparently Irish Spring soap shavings sprinkled throughout the engine block will ward them off!)

Good things: a quiet morning on the deck so far. Damn Groundhog has not shown up; one chipmunk (not sure which) skulking in and peeking through the shrubbery; a minor squirrel tiff.

Chipette is a bit lighter in hue, has smaller narrower eyes and a scrawnier tail, and lacks some baggage that Chippy seems to boast.

Chippy has rounder eyes, darker more reddish coloring, a bushier tail, and some additional accouturements which Chipette seems to lack.

Apparently chipmunks will engage in fisticuffs over a juicy strawberry. Pretty sure it was Chipette that won the skirmish.

Okay, who invited the Damn Groundhog? Apparently I do discriminate as I do not welcome him. Perhaps I am stereotyping, but he or his kin were responsible for digging a hole under my son’s deck once upon a time which partially collapsed it and required expensive repairs. And it was a hole into which my then-three-year-old grandson almost fell and got lost!! So I attribute bad manners at the least and destructiveness at most on the groundhog ilk. And this particular groundhog has made no effort to learn English — specifically the key phrase “go away”. My biases are fairly obvious as evidenced by his given name, Damn Groundhog.

Good things: brunch and a bit of napping on the deck till the heat bullied me back indoors. Chippy and Chipette decided to visit simultaneously and had a small spat over who got to be on their favorite spot on the tie wall. They trounced one another briefly and then both took off in different directions. Interesting. Despite their kerfuffles, I am thinking they have better manners and social skills than many of the (alleged) humans I’ve witnessed lately. (Not referencing my friends and family, of course).

Good things: when I came out to the deck today, Chippy came barreling down the yard to greet me…and skidded right past his fruit snacks I had provided. I had thought Chipette was the ditzy one, but I am leaning toward the theory that ditziness and chipmunkness are synonymous. Actually, I am beginning to wonder if Chippy might be on uppers as he is prone to zooming around a lot and is rather twitchy. Hmmmm..

Damn Groundhog is back and has apparently decided the birdfeeder seed is his…which is frustrating the squirrels and chipmunks who know it’s theirs (even though the birds keep eternally hoping the term “bird” feeder actually means something).

The squirrels are a feisty lot, however, and may band together to protect their turf. Heck, they’ll rumble over an acorn! And I wouldn’t discount my dainty little Chipette’s ability to give ol’ DG a quick nip in the nuggies to drive him off (the aforementioned Rhonda Rousey syndrome).

Hmmm….just had a brief visit from a squirrel who happened by the deck. It was a comparatively smallish one, so not Burly Quirrely or Quirrelette. Rather bold, though. (Actually, it appeared to have some sort of bluish chip stuck to its nose on one side, so maybe it came to take issue with the distribution of Irish Spring shavings in the engine block.)

Been out here for awhile now and nary a chipmunk. Quirrely and his gang have disappeared, too, but high, high above, I have seen the broad wingspan of what is likely the evil redtail hawk… Well, no sooner than I noted his absence, Chippy paid a brief visit. He did skulk about very tentatively and close to the tiewall, though. Safety first!

Things (not necessarily good); DG (Damn Groundhog) sighted hanging out under the bird feeder, gleaning. Am pretty sure he was the bigfoot responsible for dislodging a wood block from the tiewall by the little deck (since it would have taken multiple little chipmunk and squirrel legs in a flurry of improbable team effort to accomplish same). Grrrr…..

And so, the inaugural collection of the Munky Stories (not to be confused with the Monkey Stories)….

As kids (oh, about 7th grade or so) we were all amused by tongue twisters. “She sells sea shells down by the seashore” and the like. Which one tripped you up the most?

Here are some of my favorites from years gone by:

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Rubber baby buggy bumpers.

Big black bugs spit big black blood on the barn floor.

If a sheet slitter slits sheets, how many sheets can a sheet slitter slit?

Give ’em a try. Whaddaya think?

My mom, my aunts, my cousins, my oldest friend’s mom, my foster mom, my mom where I did live-in babysitting, my moms-in-law — wow!! What an amazing cross-section of women influenced my life.
Despite the fact that, after my dad died, she and I were pretty much a diad living in a city at some distance from other relatives, my mom instilled in me a strong sense of family. Several times a year we hopped a Greyhound bus, rode the “rolly-coaster hills”, and went “down home” to visits aunts, uncles, and cousins on the farms of central Ohio. As a city kid, I was not fond of outhouses, spiders, geese that chased me, chickens that defended their eggs with their beaks, or dung that required careful navigation of the fields and barnyard. But, oh, I loved the people! And sheep! And dogs and cats! When my mom, widowed and thus a single mom, needed a break, I had warm and welcoming places to go.
My mom encouraged my interest in drawing, designing doll clothes, pretend play, singing and reading. She made sure I went on school field trips to orchestral concerts and took me to a few plays. These events fed into my lifelong love of the arts.
When my mom had bouts of illness and mental health issues, a whole cadre of women stepped in.
My friend from Belgium (the Brussels sprout) had a mom who was friends with mine. She took me in on a couple of occasions when my mom was hospitalized. I learned to love rare steaks and garlic. And to parle francais un peu.
An aunt who lived half an hour away in another town took me in for a number of weeks and drove me back and forth to my high school daily. (I learned twenty years later that her daughter, my dear cousin, had begun to make plans to adopt me should it be necessary.)
Eventually, arrangements were made for me to live with a minister and his wife in a mansion that would later be razed to construct a nursing home. So, for much of my junior and senior years of high school, I lived in a 28-room mansion on eight acres of property with two ponds and a stream. (The minister and his wife were to become the administrators or the nursing home later on, so were living in the mansion and showing a sample room that had been built on one of the porches.) These folks had been missionaries in Egypt for a number of years, and the woman’s elderly father lived in the home as well. I learned a lot of elephant jokes, a teeny bit of Arabic, saw “Lawrence of Arabia” with them, and fell in love with camels. (In fact, I can do a rather impressive camel imitation — facial features, vocalization, the whole works!) My “foster mom” encouraged my writing and had me enter poetry contests for the two years I stayed with them. I won a third place prize and an honorable mention! Wow!
I began to do babysitting my senior year for a family with five kids, and became a live-in babysitter for that family for about a year. The mom was a librarian and fostered my love of reading. She also introduced me to the music of The Weavers and Bob Dylan.
Mothers’ Day has certainly dredged up the memories for me. And they are precious.

As Mother’s Day approaches, my thoughts go back to my mom.  She passed away when I was 25, and there was so, so much that she missed.  I wish she could have been here to share in all that I am proud of.  She only knew my son until he was five so never got to see the ornery all-boy rough-and-tumble kid growing up, the motorcycle racer who eventually raced the Grand National dirt track circuit, one of the best motorcycle racing motor builders in the country, and eventually the multi-talented entrepreneur managing apartment rentals, planning and implementing construction and design projects, owning  and running pizzerias, and fathering five sons.  Mom never got to meet her bright, handsome, wonderful great grandsons and her superhero great great grandson.  And, sadly, they never got to know her.  My mom always supported me, the shy kid, and prodded me to get my education, have friends, and create; yet she never got to be involved in my adult life of theatre, racing, writing, social work, and more.   

She worked hard as a single mom (my dad passed away when I was a little over a year old) to ensure my needs were met.  She had a unique sense of humor that I keep tucked away in my heart.  She was renowned for her indecisiveness over major purchases (e.g. had me take piano lessons from 4^th through 6^th grade but couldn’t make up her mind on which piano to buy until I was 14).    My mom loved fashion and glamour.  She taught me to love the color blue (almost exclusively, actually, until I finally figured out there was a rainbow out there).  She taught me basic morals and values – don’t lie, cheat, steal, etc. – to the point that I was pretty much a goody-two-shoes back in the day.  She taught me to be kind to people. She respected me, and I in turn respected her….at least insofar as obeying rules.  Being an only child, I was also a spoiled brat and believed that tantrums were the way to go.  They always worked with my mom.  With others, not so much.  I learned that quickly! 

My mom had some wonderful recipes!  I wish I had kept up some of those traditions better over the years.  She would bake fruitcake bars (NOT to be confused with yucky fruitcake) at Christmas time along with gingerbread cookies, rum and bourbon balls (I didn’t eat those), and stuffed dates (of which I ate a lot!).  Her recipe for chocolate chip oatmeal cookies with semi-sweet morsels was the best, an amazing blend of salt and sweet that was so delicious that I consumed a lot of cookie dough back in the day.  (Hint: be careful with that – not so much due to salmonella as to the fact that raw cookie dough will expand inside a human stomach just like it does in the oven and can produce a bit of a tummy ache.)

Because my mom, in her later years, had many health and emotional health issues, she was unable to attend my high school graduation, and that broke my heart.  She did, however, get to attend my first college graduation—although we nearly missed it due to a flat tire on the way to the university.   Mom, I miss you and love you!!

With my mom’s health situation and a number of hospitalizations, I was fortunate to have a string of “second moms”:  my aunts, my older cousins, the mom of my closest friend (the Brussels sprout), a foster mom found through our church, the mom of the five kids for whom I lived in and babysat, and a couple of mothers-in-law.  These women were instrumental in my life at the times when my mom was unable to be, and I thank them wholeheartedly.

Once upon a time my husband and I were fortunate to be cast in a local production of Amadeus. I was cast as Teresa Salieri, wife of the protagonist, a non-speaking role which allowed me to wear an elegant blue gown and to attend the opera. (Admittedly, my ADHD tendencies came into play at one point and I, along with several other performers sharing a lively chat in the green room, was UNfashionably late for the opera. Oops!)

My husband was cast as one of the two Venticelli or “Little Winds”, whose job it was to keep the story moving through narrative and whispers which took them from past to present in the action. (We lovingly referred to them as the Vermicelli, of course. How could we not!)

Salieri took the audience through the chain of events with a series of lengthy soliloquies which also alternated from present to past to present. This vacillating chronology required several quick costume changes for the Venticelli, who had to go from foppish 18th century court attire with satin, lace, knickers, wigs, and makeup to everyday 18th century street clothes. And, at the time of this production, the theatre’s dressing rooms were located on the second floor — with two long flights of stairs and no elevator to help. Timing is everything! During a long monologue in one performance, as the Little Winds were upstairs halfway between street clothes and wigs, they heard on the monitor as Salieri jumped ahead two and a half pages in dialogue (did I mention l o o o n n g soliloquies?) which indicated an imminent entrance for the Venticelli. Somehow, they managed to scramble to come up with the costume change and fly down the steps without injury, hoping to arrive in time for their entrance. Just as they prepared to go onstage, they were brought to a screeching halt (amazed they didn’t leave skid marks!) as they heard Salieri loop back two and a half pages in his dialogue to the very place from which he had jumped ahead a few minutes prior. Whew!!

Another aside regarding Amadeus, during the run of the show one of the Venticelli (not my husband, thank goodness!) had managed to fall off his icy roof while cleaning gutters and broke his wrist. Luckily the costumes involved very long, lacy sleeves, so his cast was obscured…although his hand gestures were just a bit stiffer than usual.

Well, as they say, the show must go on….

Dominic was telling his brother Luigi about his honeymoon trip:
Aah, Luigi, the wedding was-a beautiful. And for our honeymoon-a, we scheduled a train trip down-a the east-a coast-a to Florida. My beautiful bride-a Virginia, she pack-a a beautiful picnic-a basket with a delicious lunch-a and a nice-a bottle of wine-a and a big-a cigar for me. We get on-a the train and ride-a for awhile. Then my beautiful bride-a Virginia, she take-a out the picnic basket and start-a to fix our lunch-a. And the conductor, he come-a by and clap-a his hands and say, “No, no, no! You can’t-a eat-a in this-a car-a. You have-a to eat in the dining car-a”. So Virginia, she pack-a the lunch-a back in the basket, and we go-a to the dining car-a and have our delicious lunch-a. After lunch-a I start-a to pour-a the fine-a wine-a, but the conductor come-a by and clap-a his hands and say, “No, no, no! You can’t-a drink wine-a in the dining car-a. You have-a to drink in the club-a car-a”. So me and my beautiful bride-a Virginia take-a the wine-a to the club-a car-a and enjoy a nice-a drink-a. After the wine-a, I take out my big-a cigar and start-a to light it up. But the conductor come-a by and clap-a his hands and say, “No, no, no! You can’t-a smoke-a in the club-a car-a. You gotta go to the smoking car-a”. So we go to the smoking car-a, I smoke-a my big cigar, and-a we decide we are gonna go to the sleeping car-a. So we go to the sleeping car-a, and just as we’re about to consummate our marriage, the train-a stops-a suddenly, and the conductor yells-a on the loud-a speaker, “Norfolk-a, Virginia!” Next-a time-a, I’m just-a gonna drive down.