This is how I felt when I woke up this morning:
Not happy. JUBILANT.
No particular reason. Just one of those days when you wake up on the right side of the bed.
Then I toasted a bagel for my breakfast. It was one of those pre-sliced jobbies and one side was significantly thicker than the other. Probably some exhausted worker at the bagel factory slid it through the slicer a little lopsided, noticed it too late, said, “Who gives a fuck?” and moved onto the next bagel. That’s probably what I would’ve done. The significantly thicker piece got stuck in my toaster so I was forced to pry it out one tiny bit at a time with my handy dandy Pampered Chef Bamboo toaster tongs. ($2.00. An excellent investment. I heartily recommend purchasing one of those puppies.*) That’s frustrating. And yet my jubliance remained intact.
I decided to share my broken bagel with Franny the Welfare Squirrel and her family. I tenderly tossed the toasted treats treeward.
It scared the shit out of them. They ran for home. Back to their Lazy Boy recliner.
The bagel pieces are still sitting there. In the snow. Getting soggy. Franny & Family probably think they’re some sort of demon spawn on a mission to retrieve their mortal souls and yank them hellward. That’s what I would think if I was a fat, lazy squirrel and a crazy lady threw bagel pieces at me. So my gift will sit there and just keep getting soggier. Until finally it disintigrates into nothingness.
Yet, I’m still jubilant!
And I still don’t know why…
* I don’t work for Pampered Chef. Honest.
R.J. Keller 
I love days like that.
The squirrels and birds have figured out that responding to proffered offerings of dry toast and uneaten pancakes – usually tossed like Frisbees from the back door an hour or two after breakfast – could get them into trouble with more than just their dieticians.
My semi-feral cat, a loveable, furry – and lethal – terrorist of the small animal kingdom, looks upon such offerings as bait rather than largesse.
He maintains a rather large mausoleum under the back porch, although he’s taken to leaving the birds wherever he eviscerates them.
I’ve watched a flock of starlings and the cat stare each other down over an offering of pancakes in a sort of no man’s land between them.