UPDATE and I enjoyed sitting outside for a little while yesterday afternoon

UPDATE: I woke up at 3:15 a.m. today and couldn't go back to sleep, no matter what I tried. I dozed a bit now and then, but when it was time to get ready to go take the group photo, I could tell I wasn't up to it. I had to call and back out which made me very sad. Someone else took a great photo, though--I've seen it on Facebook. I knew someone else would step up! Anyway, I finally fell back into a real sleep, for about two full hours. Therefore, I made it to meet my friend Pat from Seattle with Lamont and Leland at Pine State Biscuits for lunch on SE Division at SE 11th. The hugs, smiles, and talking made me feel wonderful. So did the lunch. She brought an actual photo album and shared with us photos of Canterbury, Brussels, and Alaska--she and her husband, the special man known to me as BobRobert whose house provided the perfect place for my wedding on December 31, 1972--travel every chance they get. Now I'm back home, fooling around with photos and the blog before I go take another nap.



First, while sitting in my folding aluminum lawn chair, I noticed a Red Hat Lady in front of Albertina Kerr. I figured a group had a lunch-get-together planned. The lady on the right must not be of the official RHL age since she's wearing a lavender hat.



Here they are with the lady who had caught their attention in the first photo.



Next I noticed this crow. At first, it was on a line going from a wooden pole over to the building across the parking lot beside where I sat. I couldn't get my camera up quick enough to get a photo of it there because the crow dropped what it held in its mouth. I got this one, by chance, right after it picked up the nut--I guess it's a nut--and before it flew off across the street.



At first I saw this squirrel walking toward me on the low, gray-painted wall that keeps in place the dirt in my building's front yard. Otherwise, it would wash away into the parking lot which is more than three feet lower. Anyway, I slowly reached for my camera and the squirrel--I couldn't believe that it also had a nut in its mouth--took of for the very tall evergreen to my right. Shoot. In a few minutes, I saw the squirrel's shadow on the parking lot as it walked around the pole with the lines going to it--the same lines that the crow had landed on a few minutes earlier. I lifted the camera and watched through it for the squirrel and managed to get this photo before it disappeared into the leaves. It's not a very good photo, but I certainly enjoyed trying to get it.



Three more ladies drove up and made their way into Albertina Kerr. The ones waiting inside greeted them with joy loud enough for me to hear all the way across the street. I remember thinking to myself how good it is to have friends who are happy to be with you.



Last but not least, I got a few photos of Lamont walking toward me from his parked car. He came over with a couple of boxes of sugar cubes (for me to use in my hot tea) and his hair clippers. About a week ago I noticed stray hairs on my head, here and there, growing longer than my stubble and catching the light. I found them disconcerting because I felt like they made me look like a sick ol' lady. He agreed to try to get rid of them for me since, although I am an ol' lady who has cancer, I do not consider myself sick. In treatment, yes. Sick, no. When he finished, my head had shorter stubble and very few stray hairs. Thanks, Lamont.

What I saw while on a NE Portland Kerns Neighborhood Walk with Lamont, Sunday, January 5, 2014, No. 1

The flick of a squirrel's tail caught my eye about two thirds of the way up a utility pole on the corner outside my apartment building--the two of us were headed inside to eat a bowl of homemade chili before Lamont walked back to his house in Southeast Portland. Quickly the squirrel stuck the landing after jumping onto the wire. I didn't get my camera up in time to catch that leap, but I did manage to capture most of its quick journey.

I wish that I had been able to get that photo. But even more, I would have loved to have photographed another squirrel that Lamont and I saw at the beginning of our walk. As we passed beside a slender, leafless tree, I heard a rustling sound to my right where Lamont walked. I asked him if he'd hit a low branch on the tree. He told me no, that he thought it was a squirrel. We both stopped, look back around at the tree, just in time to see the squirrel leap from that slender tree right across the entire sidewalk into the side of a thick hedge! Both of us laughed out loud it total surprise at what we'd seen.
 

The squirrel sort of leaped along the wire, heading west.
 

That bushy tail must help balance the little creature as it speeds along. It appears to be vibrating--look at that blur.
 

Easy to see how a squirrel can sort of disappear in the branches--coloring and speed play a part for sure. And no, the squirrel's legs haven't all of a sudden become longer. I quickly leaped from the wire onto that limb.



When it jumped back to the wire, it landed sort of out of balance for a split second before continuing on its way.



Little feet flying on that narrow wire high up in the air.
 

Quickly the squirrel scurried out of sight. Standing beside me on the sidewalk, Lamont asked if I got any photos of that quick trip and was tickled when I showed this last one to him. I told him that I thought I had enough to make a post called, "The Tale of the Tail." Pretty cool to get this series of photos in my neighborhood since I've seen few squirrels in the almost three years I lived here. And I wonder if it was the same squirrel who had vaulted overhead from three to hedge at the start of our walk?

Looking through ...

... the bars at a parking garage in downtown Portland.