random thoughts – Day 1,564 – (Saturday) – groundhog day

Another Saturday, another day possibly misspent. Unlike last Saturday, which had about fifteen events taking place including one in which I was dancing with Troupe Salaamati, today had one potential event of interest. Unfortunately, it was happening at 10:00 a.m. and I had forgotten about it until the little reminder popped up while I was drinking coffee and doing the morning email and Facebook checks. I had 45 minutes to decide if I wanted to hustle up, get dressed, and get my arse downtown for the guided historical walk. Or not. The pendulum swung to “not.”

Instead, I spent time in the bedroom finally dealing with the seasonal clothing changeover. The piles of winter sweaters can sit out for only so long, you know? Things were tried on. Things that were thought to have been donated already were discovered and restacked to go out the door. A couple pairs of pants that should have been donated long ago were added to the stack, but unfortunately, the hugely unflattering photos of me wearing those pant that were inspiration for joining the gym are still out there in the world and having donated them can't undo that. 

In the backyard, there was a show underway. The week has seen a baby bunny, a baby groundhog, and the big groundhog. There was one instance of the baby bunny and the big groundhog in the yard at the same time and I wondered if they were aware of the other’s presence and if there would be an interaction, but nothing happened.

Groundhog day.

Today’s featured backyard performers were the big brown groundhog and two littles, one brown and the other lighter in color. For a while, the two groundhogs were interacting in what seemed to be play fighting/ wrestling. They tumbled, they rolled around, they disappeared into the plants and remerged, they chased each other and disappeared under one side of the shed and reappeared at another side. 

Meanwhile, the big groundhog sat nearby during all the playing and tumbling, facing in their general direction but not interfering unless it was in some groundhog language I couldn’t hear from inside. Of course I was trying to get photos, but the positioning of the play and shooting though the window and screen made it nearly impossible to any great images.

In what felt like a total betrayal of Kiki, I wanted nothing more than to run outside and hug a baby groundhog. Because she likes to hide, Kiki is more of an imaginary pet who runs away from me, lets me only occasionally stroke her face, and won’t let me close enough to even try to hold her. After a week-and-a-half of lounging on the stairs, she is back to hiding behind the couch, so I may not see her for another week or more. I don’t want to say it’s her fault that my attention is wandering to other critters and manifesting as a desire to pet them, but … At least I haven't acted on it. Is petting a neighbor dog's head through a picket fence a form of pet cheating? (Asking for a friend.)

To complete the task started earlier, following the afternoon matinee of the groundhog show, the bag of clothes was taken to St. Vincent DePaul Thrift Shop along with a bag of jigsaw puzzles bought from Amazon and built during the stay-at-home times of pandemic. The impact on space was minimal. The psychological impact was considerably better.

Of course, I can’t be anywhere near St. Vincent’s without crossing the threshold into the store (lather, rinse, repeat). There was lots of glassware I don’t need and none of the ideal size water glass I am looking for because some of the ones I have broke. There were two cute end tables that looked great, but there is no room in the house for them. And yes, despite having donated a bag of clothes to alleviate the first-world personal problem of excess, the clothing racks were browsed. A few summer items were bought, most with the 99-cent tag color (red), not that the unavailable closet space cares about the bargain price. And the shopping serves as a distraction to the loneliness.