Hang in there, baby!

As a bit of background, I crashed at JMD's place up in Arlington for the beginning of my trip. Earlier this winter, she told me this dead squirrel story:

i came home at 1 a.m. from work to find a dead squirrel stuck to my bird feeder. yeah go ahead and laugh. i'm traumatized. forever. and yucko, i had to untangle it. it almost seems like someone tied it to the feeder.

Yeah... yuck. But I had to imagine a few squirrel editors out there somewhere, writing up their 'Darwin Awards' for their species, saying, "Wow, okay, we got a new one here!"

Anyway, we had coffee and bagel hour at her place today. Excellent fun, and many thanks to everyone who came. But during the morning, I took a look out the window, burst into laughter, and had to say, "Um, J., do you know if you just collect really stupid squirrels in your neighborhood, or what?"



It appears the squirrel has his teeth buried in the wire, and a paw wrapped around it. We wondered whether or not it was dead... after five minutes of intent observation, we figured it was--at the very least--pining for the fjords. We had an entire room of engineers speculating how Mr. Squirrel managed to get himself killed--the wire appears to be high voltage (ceramic insulators), but we couldn't figure out how he grounded and shocked himself (bridged to another wire?). We wondered just when it would 'splut' onto the sidewalk (i.e., will rigor mortis end, unclenching the jaw?), and whether or not somebody would be walking underneath at the time.

In case you're wondering about the title, it's meant to inappropriately evoke the very cute kitten posters.

I am now crashing up at Bird & Jen's place in New Hampshire, with them and the four kitties--yes, Tux has returned! Yay! He'll be sleeping on my bed tonight.