Balmy but Sad Days in Kansas City and South Dakota 😥

     It has been another freakishly, balmy mid-February day in Kansas City, Missouri. At the time I started writing this, it's about 5pm & it's still 62⁰ out. I have all the windows in my 4plex unit open. I'm sitting by an open east-facing window now. I have not one, but two, 16+ year old cats as family members. One of them is sitting on my lap. I guess Spring isn't that far off. I can hear birds in the distance, again, from my OPEN window in mid-February. This afternoon, when I was walking my dog, I could hear a woodpecker happily pecking away. The trees are all still bare so it's easy to see birds up in the trees. I looked for the woodpecker. I really wanted to see it. I have seen Pileated Woodpeckers in this area and they should be easy to see in the still leaf-less trees. However, I had my dog on the end of a leash in my right hand and I couldn't look @ any length for the woodpecker as looking up in trees while you have a dog on a leash is not a stable situation. Enough about birds I can't really see. 

     I have what I call an "urban wildlife" feeding station out on my front porch. I feed a lot of common probably boring animals and birds . . . Mourning Doves, Sparrows, Little Finches, Squirrels and, lately, a lot of crows. One of my life goals is to befriend a Crow. I have read they are intelligent. Based on my own, uneducated observations, I can believe that. I usually always have UNSALTED (this is in case any know-it-alls read this) in-the-shell peanuts for the crows and the squirrels. The crows have definitely caught on. I am not, never have been & never will be a morning person. But, when I hear crows outside @ 7am or earlier, and they are hard not to hear or ignore, I will get up, not even put my glasses on and go out to the porch and toss a lot of UNSALTED in-the-shell peanuts out for the crows. Some have gotten comfortable enough with me that they wait on the front gate of this building for me to come outside & throw out some peanuts. 

     I had no peanuts for the crows this morning. Yesterday, I made some blueberry muffins that did not turn out well. I take after my one grandmother (her name was Ann too but spelled without an "e") and I am good at baking all kinds of things and improvising and most things I bake turn out really well. Yesterday, I was worried the muffins would not be sweet enough so I tossed in some extra sugar. Extra sugar without extra liquid equals dry, crumbly muffins. So, I went outside to throw those out for the crows and I promised them I would get their peanuts later today. When I went out to throw the muffins out for the crows, I noticed what I hoped was not a dead animal in the road in front of this building. Upon closer inspection, I saw it was one of my little squirrel friends that comes over to my porch for peanuts and black-oiled sunflower seeds. I felt devastated. I know they can't understand me but I always tell them to be careful when they cross 38th Street ON the road. People drive too fast. Many of the squirrels use the telephone wires to get here and avoid the street. Today, this one used the street. I didn't want for it to keep getting runned over even though it was already dead so I came back inside and got my dustpan. I went back out to the road, scooped it up & put it in the grass by the streetcar substation next door. It's still there hours later but I am not satisfied with just leaving it dead in the grass by a sidewalk in a busy urban area. This was bad enough and I have been so sad about it all day but it probably wasn't the worst thing that happened today or, rather, yesterday. I only just heard about this other tragedy today.

     I have a cousin, also named Ann but without an "e". I guess this is a popular name within my collective family trees. She is my age. She is a Taurus born in May of 1961 and I, barely a Leo, was born 08/22/1961. I haven't spoken to her in years and, beyond the fact that my Dad and her Mom were siblings, we have nothing in common. I don't know her well at all. She has lived in Watertown, South Dakota her entire life, has been married for probably over 40 years (I have been divorced for 26 year) and still (I found out today) has a landline. I wish I had never found out she had a landline because the reason I found out is as devastating to me as my little squirrel friend getting run over although on a different level.

     Sometime over the next several days when I can do so without crying, I have to call this cousin up . . . This cousin I haven't talked to or seen I am pretty sure since she got married a couple years before I did. I got married in 1985.  We have nothing in common except one huge thing that keeps us from being total strangers. We are both mothers. I only had and still have only 3 kids, my 3 wonderful, beautiful, grown men sons. She was brave and had 6 children including twin boys. Yesterday, one of those twin boys killed himself. I think they are (and were) about 30. As a mother myself, I cannot imagine anything worse than something like this happening to one of my 3 grown sons. I'm a very lapsed Catholic (sorry Dad) but every night, when I finally fall asleep (i have chronic insomnia), I ask the Universe to keep my siblings and their families and, especially, my own 3 grown sons and their families safe. Life offers none of us any guarantees of another day or, even, another minute. 

     So, sometime, tomorrow, I am going to call my cousin's landline in South Dakota . . . This cousin I have nothing in common with and haven't spoken to in years and tell her how very sorry I am that she is experiencing something no decent, loving parent should ever have to experience in their lifetime. There's no way my condolences will ever be enough but it's all I have to offer. I couldn't save my little squirrel friend and, maybe, just maybe, God (if there is one) needed my cousin's son more than his parents and friends and siblings do. That's how I still console myself about my own mother dying too "young" @ age 73 and leaving me and my siblings and my Dad behind. My mom was very good at decorating. I guess God had an urgent decorating project for her. I don't know why God would need a young man with his whole life ahead of him but you have to process the pain somehow or be crippled by it.

     Back to where I started, I still have all the windows open. It's almost 7pm CST and it isn't even cold in here yet. People were out in shorts and short-sleeved shirts today. It was balmy for mid-February and it still is. One of the things you learn after you've lived awhile, though, is that balmy does not always equal nice. I'm sorry little squirrel and I am sorry Cousin Ann.