I like to eat with friends and loved ones. Some of my friends are squirrels. I don't eat with them, of course, but a few people have said that I was a little squirrelly. I read that squirrels always go down a tree headfirst. They also can eat out of a bird feeder standing on their heads.

I have a bird feeder that hangs in our big tree and I attempt to keep it filled with sunflower seeds. That's not easy, because our squirrels love sunflower seeds. I call them "ours" because they seem to have adopted us. I thought the nest high up in the big tree was a bird's nest until I saw the squirrels going into it. Squirrels are smart because our cat used to chase them but he gave that up as hopeless. The dogs ignore them.

This morning the bird feeder was empty. When I looked out of the window I counted six squirrels waiting for their breakfast. I don't think they were friends because they weren't being very sociable. They were chasing each other up and down the tree, waiting for me to get out there and give them breakfast.

So I filled the feeder with sunflower seeds, but I don't think any of them wanted to stand in line because when I left for work five squirrels were playing "Get out of here, I'm eating first," around the branches. The sixth squirrel, a little guy, was in the tree next door. He must have thought that children should be seen and not chased, although he was running around the limb. Maybe he was practicing.

The birds seldom get a chance to eat from the bird feeder; they have to be satisfied with the left over bread that I put out for the squirrels. I'm glad I'm not a squirrel, I'd hate to have to stand on my head to eat or be chased around a tree, but maybe if I was a squirrel I would prefer sunflower seeds too, because I like to eat things that taste good.

My Aunt Cecil was a wonderful cook and it seemed to me everything she fixed was scrumptious. I loved to go to her house to eat and I wanted to cook just like her.

My mother was a good cook, but she liked to cook vegetables and I wasn't a vegetable eater. She cooked a lot of carrots, which I didn't like. The only kind of carrots I liked were in carrot cake and it was full of raisins, nuts and good things. She always said carrots were good for your eyes. Maybe she was right because I've never seen any rabbits wearing glasses.

But the food I hated the most was liver. Mama tried her best to fool me.

"Is that steak?" I asked as I came into the kitchen where she was frying the meat.

"Yes," she answered. I was hungry.

As soon as I cut into that meat I knew it was --ugh -- liver.

Suddenly I wasn't hungry anymore. "This isn't steak, this is liver."

She grinned at me.

"Why did you say it was steak?" I asked accusingly.

"So you would eat it," she answered.

"I won't eat it," I said stubbornly.

"If you don't eat it you won't get any dessert," she threatened.

"Okay," I said. "I don't want any dessert." There were many nights that I sat at the table by myself because I wouldn't eat liver. I still don't like liver.

Eating at my grandparents' house was a different matter. Going to Grandma Wilson's house for dinner was a culinary mixed bag. Grandma was a "thrifty" cook. She made wonderful ice cream and we were given tiny bowls of it. She made great little cupcakes (very little) and she made her own delicious grape jam from purple grapes on her vines in the back yard.

She also cooked stewed tomatoes and to my distress I was given plenty of stewed tomatoes.

"What did she do to ruin the tomatoes?" I asked after my first taste of them. I was told she put bread in them. I hated stewed tomatoes. I hated anything with bread in it. So each time we went to eat at Grandma's house we had lots of stewed tomatoes and I was told I HAD to eat them to be polite. It didn't keep me quiet, but when I told her I didn't like stewed tomatoes, Grandma gave me a long, absolutely free lecture and Mama gave me that "Wait until I get you home" look. I still had to eat them.

Squirrels are smart, they don't eat anything they don't like. I'll bet they would agree with me. They're too smart to eat stewed tomatoes with bread in them, they'd be sure and leave them for the birds.