15:32 - October 18, 2002
wukka wukka!
The path back up from Mike's house, over the creek, is steeper than the Chatauqua trail in most places. You have to keep your body well ahead of your feet or you will fall backwards. And forget about carrying too much stuff in your backpack, or you'll be forced to crawl up on your hands and knees. The ducks down in the creek are psyched whenever somebody falls down. 'QWAK! QWAK!' they chorus in glee as a middle aged biker tumbles into a pricklebush with her baby seat, fortunately, empty. They paddle over to the nearest edge of the creek and look on, chuckling and wondering if some food might have fallen over along with the biker.

It's not just the ducks that have gotten attitude around here. The squirrels are catching on as well. They walk right in front of you, cheeks full of nuts, and squat in the middle of the bike path munching on them. However, at the top of the hill, I am breathing so hard that even the squirrels scatter. I follow a slow one along the side of the Rec Center. He climbs a tree, but they're baby trees, so even the highest one isn't quite level with my head. Since he's trapped, he looks for a second like he's going to attack my face, but instead, he suddenly flips upside down over a branch, hanging on with his little feet. 'WukkawukkawukkaWUKKA,' he scolds, upside down, simultaneously grabbing a berry from the lower branch, and then swinging himself upright. He holds the berry and nibbles on it. 'WUKKAWUKKA,' he adds.
'Don't talk with your mouth full,' I say to the squirrel, 'it's bad manners.
'Wukkawuk,' he says, and drops the berry.
'That's better,' I say.
A few professors from MCDB Biology stroll by, glancing over at me teaching a squirrel better manners.
While I'm smiling at the professors ('hi! i'm not stoned! really!') the squirrel grabs another berry. By the time I've turned around he's munching loudly. I have never before been close enough to a squirrel to be able to hear it chewing; but this one is chewing like my grandpa eating potato latkes; read: loud and messy. Little pieces of berry scatter the ground, loud enough that I get paranoid people will think I'm shitting in the bushes because of the noise. I dig in my pocket for a Snickers bar and offer a piece of it to the squirrel, sleeving my hands in my shirtsleeves in case the bad-mannered squirrel decides to scold with his mouth open while chewing on my skin.
Instead of taking the Snickers bar, though, he sees the distraction as an escape route. While I'm pinching the bar between finger and thumb and making sure it doesn't fall out of my hand, the squirrel stuff his cheeks full of berry, leaps onto my shoulder, then off of my shoulder onto the much bigger tree across the path before I can even process that anything is happening. By the time I've realized it, he's ten feet over my head in the bigger tree, eating the berry again. 'Wukkawukka Wukkawuk,' he snickers, from his safe height.

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