Squirrelfriend is back.
She comes back every year, usually around this time, for some nefarious squirrely purpose.
My cat is feeling thwarted. She can hear Squirrelfriend (we all can), but our new (second-hand) baby gate is preventing her from proper vultching at the kitchen window. Which means baby gate is working as designed (more kitty-gate than baby gate, these days.)
Still, I feel for little Fee. I wouldn't mind Squirrelfriend getting a scare.
Or worse.
All this reminds me of my first encounter with Squirrelfriend, almost six years ago. Not long after we'd moved in to this apartment, actually...
Uninvited.
Sunday was a day off.
I slept until about one in the afternoon. It was great.
I got up and re-read some Barbara Kingsolver. When Jeff finally woke up-- almost two hours later-- we walked to the coffee shop for pastries and caffeine, and sat in a pretty neighborhood park we'd never visited before, to consume them.
Jeff decided (and quite rightly) that he needed some new clothes, to complement his new, full(ish)-time job as an adjunct professor of architecture, and asked me if I wanted to come with him.
I'd been missing him, but the idea of hauling myself around the city on the snipe-hunt that shopping with my husband tends to be, on my one day off, didn't seem so appealing.
I walked Jeff down to the train, then stood for a while on the sidewalk, taking in the late summer sun and my almost-familiar neighborhood.
I ran into a friend from my last job, and walked with him to his apartment building, just around the corner. Then I strolled home.
I sat in my living room for a while, reading. But I kept hearing something that sounded a lot like someone shoving cardboard boxes around and tearing them open. It was rather distracting-- particularly once I established the sounds weren't coming from a neighboring apartment.
I had visions of rats in the broom closet.
I crept up to the closet, and stood a while outside the door, listening.
No, the sound wasn't coming from there. Maybe the kitchen?
Bingo. A squirrel was climbing up and down the security grate outside the kitchen window, thumping the glass with his tail.
I suppose he was pretty cute. But he was also really annoying.
"Hey!"
The squirrel turned to look at me. Otherwise, he didn't move.
"Hey!"
Nothing.
"Get out of ther-r-r-e!"
He registered the hint of threat in my voice, regarding me warily.
"Get. Out. Of. There."
The squirrel blinked at me. He looked like he was chewing nicotine gum.
Clearly, my authoritative tone was getting me nowhere. I opened a drawer and pulled out a spatula. I made shooing movements at the squirrel with the spatula.
Chew. Blink.
I rapped on the glass with the spatula, and the squirrel hopped off the grate and disappeared.
Ah.
I went back to the living room, sat down, opened my book.
Two minutes later, I was back in the kitchen, wielding a spatula.
I stared at the squirrel. I've heard that staring is universally recognized as threatening behavior.
The squirrel stared back.
I tried occasionally jerking and tilting my head while staring. It's scary when snakes do that, I reasoned.
The squirrel did not look scared of me.
I growled. I barked. I whispered like a child possessed by a demon.
I guess I'm just not all that threatening to squirrels.
When I lifted the spatula towards the window to rap on the glass, the squirrel literally put up his dukes. He was ready to open a can of whup-ass on my cooking utensils.
He waved his little furry fists at the spatula. I rapped harder. The squirrel pushed up his little furry sleeves, and pounded his tiny fists against the glass.
I was a little afraid I might crack the window. And I was beginning to be afraid the squirrel would gnaw his way through the sill and bite my face off. Well, perforate my face off-- he wasn't quite big enough to manage the feat in one go.
I put down the spatula. The squirrel crouched down and fluffed his tail. We considered each other.
Maybe I could annoy him away. I started flicking the switch to the overhead fluorescent on and off as fast as I could.
After each strobe, the squirrel blinked. Other than that, he seemed unperturbed.
The flashing lights were giving me a headache.
I stopped, and looked at the squirrel. He had fluffed his tail up over his back and draped the end of it around his neck, like a glamorous fur-lined collar. He looked like a tiny pimp.
It's hard out here for a squirrel.
Three days later, he's still living in my kitchen window.
He is pretty cute. I guess.
[Posted on September 20, 2006]
