Books and Squirrel
Two new books out today from friends of mine.
Feed [B&N | Mysterious Galaxy | Amazon], by Mira Grant, also known as Seanan McGuire (of Rosemary & Rue fame)[1. She’s been talking about the book on her LiveJournal, so I’m assuming the pseudonym is an open secret]. From the Publishers Weekly Starred Review:
Twin bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason and their colleague Buffy are thrilled when Sen. Peter Ryman, the first presidential candidate to come of age since social media saved the world from a virus that reanimates the dead, invites them to cover his campaign. Then an event is attacked by zombies…
Bewitched & Betrayed [B&N | Mysterious Galaxy | Amazon], by Lisa Shearin. This is Shearin’s fourth book about seeker/sorceress Raine Benares. Lisa has posted sample chapters from all four books on her web site. Check ’em out!
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Thanks for everyone’s input last week about discussing/sharing family stories and such online. I talked to my wife and both kids about it, and I have a better sense how I’m going to try to go about this. The current plan is to use the cut tag for these, since not everyone is interested. I also let the kids choose pseudonyms for themselves. (Clara and Jackson, if you’re wondering). I’ll probably reevaluate as I go.
So anyway, this weekend I brought the kids to Michigan State to feed the ducks…
…partly so my wife could work on a paper for class. Turns out there was a football scrimmage this weekend, so the campus was packed. The ducks were either watching the game, or else they had already done some tailgating and were stuffed. We fed a few, but it wasn’t the crazy flock I was hoping for.
However, there was a squirrel who kept getting closer and closer to my daughter and her bounty of stale bread. She was very patient and very gentle with him/her, which eventually resulted in this.
Clara really loves animals, so this was one of the highlights of the day. Her only complaint was that she didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl squirrel, so she wasn’t sure whether to name it Neil or Nellie.
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zollmaniac
April 27, 2010 @ 10:19 am
Nice Picture!
I love squirrels. I’m not really sure why, but I always have. I even have a little toy squirrel sitting on my desk (the one from Ice Age… I got it at McDonalds).
When I attended the University of Houston (briefly), I once ate in the out door section of the University Center. I soon found out why no one else was out there. My friends and I were mobbed by 3 squirrels and a crow, demanding a toll of French Fries and Chips for sitting in their carefully maintained seats.
And yet, I still love the little rascals.
Sewicked
April 27, 2010 @ 10:34 am
Ask Clara if she’d like to use a non-gendered name; like Leslie. As far as squirrels go, I used to like them. Then I almost got mugged by one. After that, I started cheering for the hawks.
Lisa Shearin
April 27, 2010 @ 10:59 am
Thank you so much for the shoutout, Jim!
Aww, what an adorable pic. I just love squirrels; I just wish they’d leave SOME seed in the feeders for the birds. ; ) Then again, some of those sparrows do stand up for themselves. And I wish the crows would stop washing their chicken-leg lunches in our birdbath.
Lisa
Stephen Watkins
April 27, 2010 @ 4:59 pm
I have a picture I took of myself (or actually of my hand) doing the same thing, from my college days. Except it was a Crispy M&M (back when they still had Cripy M&Ms) that the squirrel was so interested in. This was also back before I had a digital camera (in the earlier days of those devices) so it’s not one I can readily share without access to a scanner.
Cy
April 27, 2010 @ 6:29 pm
That’s amazing! (the pic) Your daughter must have a very calm spirit to be able to get a wild animal to come up and take food from her hand like that. Squirrels especially seem to be extremely skittish (at least, every squirrel I’ve ever met), so this is quite impressive~ Hope she will keep that gentle spirit for a long time.
Jim C. Hines
April 27, 2010 @ 6:42 pm
Not entirely wild anymore. The squirrels that live on campus have adjusted to 40,000 students running about, so this one was much less skittish than the ones we get in the backyard. She still did a great job at being patient and quiet and not scaring it away, though.
Jim C. Hines
April 27, 2010 @ 6:44 pm
You’re welcome! I hope book day is going great!
Yep, I like squirrels, but they can be punks. We actually had one in our house when I was growing up. He had fallen out of a tree and damaged his brain, so we ended up raising him in an oversized cage. He climbed around, had random seizures, and lived a good long time. He was tame enough my mother could bring him down to the school to see the kids.
Jim C. Hines
April 27, 2010 @ 6:46 pm
They’re fun little guys. Rodents with big tails and attitude to match 🙂
Jim C. Hines
April 27, 2010 @ 6:57 pm
I’m intrigued by this squirrel mugger. Was the squirrel armed, or simply trained in the ninja arts? (I swear we had ninja squirrels in training at Michigan State when I was a student there. I saw them practicing at the library, but when I looked again, they had vanished into the shadows…)
zollmaniac
April 28, 2010 @ 2:33 pm
The ones who mugged me were just trained ninjas, but they had the crow’s muscle to back them up just in case.
Jim C. Hines
May 2, 2010 @ 10:21 pm
I understand. I’ve got probably a dozen albums of old photos from those primitive times. One of these days I need to buy a small photo scanner to get those saved…