Saturday night:
We ate at the Dugout in Eitzen, MN tonight. Does anybody remember the dugout in Thorp? Well this dugout was quite the same except it was mostly an eating place.

The weather was rather nice today. I tried to track down the fat, and I mean FAT, squirrel that ate all the seeds out of our birdfeeder this fall. It was so fat it looked like a cat. Now that the weather warmed up, it is looking for more food but it didn't look so fat anymore. I can tell it's the same one because it has the same orange sheen to its fur. I was tracking it down with an old pump pellet gun.... You might ask why? Well because a shotgun in city limits would be too loud. You're probably asking why I was tracking it. Well, the odds are that I will never get it and I am waiting for Bob to come back down and finish some stuff. You might be asking why Bob needs to finish some stuff.

Well, do you remember the remodeling job Dad started in the bathroom and didn't finish, or the porch that he added on to the house that he never finished, or the corn crib that he started and didn't finish, or the fields that were only half planted, half plowed, or half harvested (or not harvested at all). Well I think that gene was passed down to me. I think it was also passed down to Bob. In fact, I think everybody has that gene. Now you know.

What does this have to do with the squirrel? Well, I was doing something on the computer this morning and saw it out the window. Like a normal person with adult ADD, I picked up the gun and pumped it 9 times, I thought 10 pumps would be too much, and 8 might not be enough. I loaded it with a pellet and walked around the house looking for a good window to open to try to get a good shot. Well, after about 4 rooms and deciding that the only ones that would work are the 2 windows that don't have screens on, I decided to put the safety on. Pretty smart. Anyway, no harm, no foul....yet.

I was carrying around an extra pellet in case I needed another shot. Well, I didn't want to carry the pellet in my hands, or my pocket so I held it in my mouth. I saw the squirrel but it soon vanished out of sight.

I stopped and waited. While I waited I was thinking of things that I should do during the day, waiting for the squirrel to move. Who knows, at this time it was probably on the other side of the house. Well, while I was thinking, I was wondering if the pellet was really made out of lead. I then thought about lead poisoning and how it affects the brain. I figured out that lead doesn't have a particular taste, it just tastes like it looks; nothing. I figured I've already ingested more lead in my life than most people so I didn't think a lot more would be ingested just by holding that lead pellet in my mouth.

Why don't I use copper BB's? I thought of that. They just don't seem the same. Sure, I've carried BB's in my mouth before. Is copper bad for you? Maybe.

Anyway, the gun is outside the front door, loaded of course, and the extra pellet is still in a pant pocket of my jeans after I took it out of my mouth.

I might have seen the squirrel if I wasn't distracted by the 5-6 deer running up the hillside on the other front side of the house. Somebody just got in their car after exiting their house and the house door opening and closing must have scared them to run up the hill.

My feet were getting cold through my untied tennis shoes so I came in the house. (after leaning the gun against the house outside the front door).

Opposum are really ugly animals. I dare anybody to find a picture of a cute Opposum on the internet and e-mail it to me. They are the ugliest animals in the world. I saw one on the way back from Eitzen. I don't even really know where Eitzen is. Deb just tells me to turn right or turn left and I just do it. I don't think I could find my way back if I needed to. I did find out that they do combine derbys there, so I might have to find my way back.

Again, it is late and I am thinking I should shoot out the pellet out of the gun so it doesn't remain loaded. The sad thing is, that the main purpose for doing it is so the gas chamber inside doesn't become stressed and leak (not because I worry someone will get hurt). Does leaving it pumped really cause the gas chamber to be weakened. I don't even know....it might just be a myth.

When Sarah and Ellen were here last, we lit off some fireworks. These were the ones I purchased in Tomah, which of course, are illegal. They are not only shoot into the air over and over, but they also explode. I like fireworks and the smell they give off. So does Sarah. In fact Sarah says she likes the smell of gasoline too. I think gasoline smells good too.

The other funny thing is that I was eating at a Chinese restaurant with my work group and an independent adjuster and as I was looking at the signs on the paper place mat such as monkey, rat, snake, etc. I found that my birth year said that people who were born in 1996 are very similar to me. That's odd because that is Sarah's birth year.

One of my co-workers was at this luncheon and he has a whole side bowl (the bowls you put sweet and sour red sauce into) loaded with hot mustard sauce. He said it's not hot and he would likely finish the bowl and get another refill to continue dipping his egg rolls. Well, I noticed that this mustard was not very much consumed. I asked him if he was going to eat the rest. He said no. I said I will bet $10 that he won't. I asked if anybody else would up the ante. Annette threw in $10, so far we had $20. Then I offered to double if anybody else would enter. Tom, the independent adjuster added $10, so now the pot was up to $40.

Tim, ate tea spoon after tea spoon until it was gone. He very much earned the $40, he also earned a little of my respect, not much, but more than he had before.

Has anybody ever had that hot mustard sauce? It is deadly. Anyway, I sometimes think I have adult ADD, not as bad as some but I sometimes think I have it.

I just learned a few things today from the recent events. They are:
1. I should just buy more bird seed because the squirrel will keep eating it and we need enough for the birds too.
2. Church is as fun as you make it. (We went tonight at 4 before we went to the Dugout)
3. I have incompletion genes
4. Don't bet or gamble unless you are sure of the outcome
5. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree