onomatopoopa

Aww, look at that cute little furry-tailed squirrel eating a delicious White Cheddar Cheez-It® cracker, right? WRONG. Think again, more along the lines of vicious and aggressive.

We're down in DC, having a picnic on some shady grass next to Judiciary Square and the National Building Museum this afternoon. An adorable little squirrel comes along, and we toss it a piece of strawberry. (Do squirrels eat strawberries? Well, in any case, this blood-thirsty villain doesn't.) We toss it a cracker. It ignores the offerings, but stares at us. And stares. And stares. [Que scary music.] It comes closer, and closer. When ole fuzzy-wuzzy is about three feet away from me, Katie starts to get uneasy. When it's one foot from me, Katie is timorous. My male dismissiveness of danger kicks in, and I off-handedly ask if she wants me to get rid of the little guy. (Does this attitude remind you of pigeon poop? Maybe it should.) So I swing my water bottle in its direction to scare it off. Scaring happens, but not to the squirrel. Instead, it jumped toward us, landing on my leg. Katie screamed. Other picnickers looked up. I swung again with my water bottle (why oh why did I already set down my plastic mayo-spreading knife?!), but missed. He bounded out of range, and picked up the previously-tossed Cheez-It®, crunching away as if nothing had happened. I took a picture.

Feeling like the victor for having braved this onslaught, I return to eating. Wrong decision. Every time we turned our heads away, he'd come a few inches closer, preparing for a second sortie. We eyed him closely, watching our food but little. Then, our attention diverted, reinforcements came bounding through the grass behind me. Katie sounded retreat, and we hastily gathered our remaining food and beat a shamed withdrawal to a distant patch of grass -- abandoning the couple thirty feet away to their fate....

Come visit us, as Diane did, and this is how you can spend your week...

Second emergency room visit: they drilled a hole in Katie's fingernail to drain the "massive subungual hematoma" -- the tremendous amount of thick, black blood that was collecting under her fingernail, causing tremendous pain.

Freddie: the splint she wore for the first 10 days.

Susie: the splint she wears now, after visiting the orthopaedist.

Leftie: for comparison.

My first trip to the emergency room.

My first broken bone.

Ouch--who knew a finger could hurt this much?

Tell me about the first time you broke a bone... Misery loves company, right? :-)

Granted.

Why do people tell me things I really don't want to know about? This particularly happens with coworkers and people in our branch. I have learned about:

women going through menopause
periods
breastfeeding habits (are you noticing a trend here?)
Note: this happened after I posted this, but someone just spoke to me about their son's pubic hair development. What is WRONG WITH PEOPLE???

But it doesn't stop there, I've also learned about coworkers who are going to get fired and why certain people hate other people. Is it the nature of my job? I do not gossip with people as I've learned from experience that it is NOT good for anyone. But how on earth do I get people to stop telling me things? Advice would be appreciated--for my own sanity.

What happened to the dignity of privacy?