Squirrel

I normally bike to where a campus bus picks me up for work. I purposely don't check the schedule because I like sitting outside and the stop is rather peaceful [don't tell MChes]. I get some good reading in there since the bus comes every 20 minutes which means my average wait is 10 minutes.

For the last week I've been watching a squirrel from the bench I sit on. He has been systematically stripping one small oak of all of its acorns. He pulls each acorn off the branch and, while dangling upside-down or downside-up [whichever one fits his mind-set] pulls the cap off off of the acorn and takes a nibble of the nut to see if it is acceptable. If it isn't, he drops it [there is a large circle of detritus around the bottom of the oak]. If the acorn is acceptable, he climbs down the tree and crosses the road, which is often jam-packed with students on bikes. When he gets across he searches for a suitable spot to bury the acorn in a small thicket of imported shrubs. He is just as picky in selecting a spot to bury his prize as he is in selecting a proper nut in the first place. After the burial he returns to the tree again.

This seems like rather tedious work, but I've seen him at it every day for nearly a week.

So, even though you are conditioned by speeches, talks, commentaries and articles to expect the great motivational tie-in at this point, I don't have one. The squirrel is a squirrel, one of billions, and he is doing what he thinks he needs to to survive the fantastically [literally] brutal Bay-Area winter. No observations on human nature, life, or futility.

I just have found it interesting to watch the squirrel. I don't often get to see wild things being wild in my sterile cubicle deep in the gizzard of the marvelously sterile monstrosity of a scientific edifice that is the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center [SLAC]. So it has been fun.

I mention this because... I can. It's honestly one of the most exciting moments in my day. Here's the list, if you're keeping track:

1. Waking Chuckwalla up in the morning [if she doesn't wake me up first]
2. Waking Chuckwalla up from her nap after coming home from work
3. Reading at the bus stop and on the bus
4. Watching the squirrel

You should see my weekends!