{"id":2709,"date":"2008-12-15T03:01:28","date_gmt":"2008-12-15T02:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fadingad.wordpress.com\/?p=2709"},"modified":"2011-03-28T01:55:21","modified_gmt":"2011-03-28T01:55:21","slug":"feeding-a-squirrel-in-washington-square-park-1982","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/2008\/12\/15\/feeding-a-squirrel-in-washington-square-park-1982\/","title":{"rendered":"Feeding a Squirrel in Washington Square Park &#8211; 1982"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"\u00a9 Frank H. Jump\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fadingad.com\/blog\/manhattan\/squirrel_washington_sq_pk.jpg?resize=500%2C323\" alt=\"Dont Attempt This At Home \u00a9 Frank H. Jump\" width=\"500\" height=\"323\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Don&#39;t Attempt This At Home \u00a9 Frank H. Jump<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Back in the 80s, I enjoyed feeding squirrels by hand. Once, a squirrel mistook my finger for a peanut and put my entire digit up to the first knuckle into its mouth. I decided not to panic and did not flinch thinking that would be a sure way of getting bit. Within seconds the squirrel realized my finger wasn&#8217;t a peanut and backed off my finger, then took a peanut out of my lap and ran. I&#8217;ve had two squirrels fighting over me, some climbing on my shoulder and then chasing away others trying to crawl up my leg &#8211; once two ran around my thigh like it was a tree trunk. This little bugger had its hand on my face while it gingerly took a peanut out of my mouth. So sweet. I should have had my head examined.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In August 2001, Enzo and I went to Italy to be Best Men at his niece <a href=\"http:\/\/www.millenniumtre.com\/gallery.html\" target=\"_blank\">Maria Grazia&#8217;s wedding<\/a>. At the end of our vacation together, Vincenzo left early for the US with his mom, sister and niece Concetta (just prior to 9\/11) and I took a roadtrip from Torino to Budapest. In Ljubljana, Slovenia &#8211; I met a lovely Swiss man who was also in a relationship and we went out for a night on the town. We chose this nice restaurant off the Ljubljanica River to take in the sights and smells of the town. After scanning the menu, I asked the waiter about the pat\u00e9. He said it was homemade and delicious. I asked if it were pork or liver pat\u00e9 and he exclaimed, &#8220;No. Small furry animal.&#8221;\u00a0 I looked at my Swiss date for the evening and smiled and then asked the waiter if it was made from one particular furry animal or several kinds. He said, &#8220;One but I don&#8217;t remember name. I come back.&#8221; After a few moments he returned and said &#8220;Ssquirrial.&#8221;\u00a0 I asked which wine went well with squirrel and he pointed to a local red which was outstanding. The pat\u00e9 was exquisite or should I say &#8220;Exsquirrial!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Now that I grow bulbs and tomatoes, I hate the little buggers. Even throw rocks at them on my terrace. Yet I still have a hankering to feed the cute black ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in the 80s, I enjoyed feeding squirrels by hand. Once, a squirrel mistook my finger for a peanut and put my entire digit up to the first knuckle into its mouth. I decided not to panic and did not flinch thinking that would be a sure way of getting bit. Within seconds the squirrel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[575,1432,1542],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-squirrels","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pXBbJ-HH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}