{"id":12638,"date":"2013-01-21T12:36:54","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T17:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=12638"},"modified":"2013-01-21T12:36:54","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T17:36:54","slug":"sciuridaceous-appreciations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/sciuridaceous-appreciations\/","title":{"rendered":"Sciuridaceous* Appreciations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here in the US, January 21, 2013, presents a veritable bounty of reasons to celebrate. It’s the (celebrated) birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; it’s the (celebrated) quadrennial ceremony of the inauguration of the President; and, Wikipedia tells me<\/a>, it is also National Hug Day — when we are supposed to hug everyone we feel like hugging (and, presumably, everyone else can just go to hell… especially, presumably, if they<\/em> try to hug us<\/em>).<\/p>\n

And (apparently since 2001, per the efforts of a wildlife professional named Christy McKeown) January 21 is also Squirrel Appreciation Day.<\/p>\n

Here in our little well-treed suburban corner of north Florida, we live in a neighborhood pretty much owned and operated by squirrels. The Missus and I have come to identify particular favorites. Most recently, we focused on a little guy who had some horrible wound in his side — a long, apparently poorly-healing gash which didn’t seem to diminish his enthusiasm for life. The Pooch and I, for a time, often encountered a half-tailed squirrel; in my mind’s eye, I imagined that he’d lost the uttermost portion to a run-in with an automobile tire. (The squirrels here are madly jealous of cars’ monopoly of the streets and cul-de-sacs, and challenge it at every opportunity.) And every now and then, a new one seems to discover the joys of frequenting a house with large, stucco-exterior walls. They can spend hours walking around with their heads pointed straight up, down, or sideways, defying gravity, all Spiderman-like.<\/p>\n

We also have our share of squirrel tragedies, of course. Some weeks, we seem to see more two-dimensional than -three-dimensional squirrels on the asphalt. And sitting out on our screened back deck, over which soar many tree limbs, we’ve seen what happens when one daredevil or another ever-so-slightly miscalculates a change in wind direction, a stirring of a branch, at just the wrong moment before leaping aboard the inter-tree mid-air express.<\/p>\n

(A one-pound or less rodent may be a small animal. But when it drops to a wooden deck from thirty or forty feet up, I’ll tell ya:\u00a0Wham!<\/em> doesn’t do the sound justice. It always surprises us when they immediately jump to their feet, sort of shake their heads with little whubba-whubba-whubba cartoon movements, and scamper away.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But Squirrel Appreciation Day is also, as it happens, a wonderful time to visit one of my favorite little back corners of the Intertubes, a treetop curated by the blogger (and long-time friend of\u00a0RAMH<\/em>) known as the Querulous Squirrel. Her current abode<\/a> is only the most recent of several, but serves as an excellent place to get to know her if you don’t already. (Especially noteworthy, I think: she’s finally dropped her pseudonym, so we can find\u00a0other<\/em> places she frequents.)<\/p>\n

The full title of her blog, at the moment, is\u00a0Querulous Squirrel Daily Microfiction Quarterly<\/em>. If you read all of that title and find yourself a little uncertain what to expect, consider some of the hints posted in the sidebar:<\/p>\n

FICTIONEER’S LICENSE TO PRACTICE<\/strong><\/p>\n

All material covered under Massachusetts Poetic and Fictioneers’ License #007, a subsidiary of the Intergalactic Poetic and Fictioneers’ Union. May this license last for all of eternity, never to expire, like the New World of the Internet itself.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

FICTION ONLY<\/strong><\/p>\n

These stories are all based on fictitious characters and situations and any resemblance to anyone’s life is purely coincidental. Facts can suddenly change with the stroke of a computer key. Do not believe anything you read here.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Without reading a single word of one of her posts, from the sidebar you can also learn that Squirrel is a Harvard-PhD psychotherapist (or perhaps it would help to think of her as a\u00a0psychotherapist-in-transition<\/em>, to the next phase of her calling). You can learn that she’s a committed left-winger, and unafraid to challenge those who merely pretend to that label. You can learn something of her, well, her idiosyncratic tastes (literature! the craft of writing! chickens, whales, and…\u00a0Mothra<\/em>?!?).<\/p>\n

Some things which may not be obvious, however, until you start to prowl around the blog:<\/p>\n