The Squirrel With No Name

My apologies to the nine people who saw my champagne-soaked post on New Year's morn. It was posted at 1:30 a.m., sang the praises of champagne and digital cameras in compromising situations, and was full of typos. As Danon kindly put it, I was howlin' at the moon. It required an immediate delete at 9 a.m. Happy New Year, indeed. (But it WAS fun, damn it.)

So this is how 2010 has begun for me, The Wife:

1. Posted an inappropriate liquor-fueled blog, which necessitated immediate emergency action.
2. Blew off Whoreticulture Friday, mainly because I was busy being one.
3. Stayed up until 2 every night and slept in until 10 every morning.
4. Eaten my weight in cheese and butter.
5. Started a 2000-piece puzzle on the ping pong table, which I have no intention of finishing. Will be there until 2015 until I have to put it away, 400 pieces shy of completion, to set up Oldest Daughter's graduation party.

Let's recap: Inappropriate, unpaid, reputation-damaging blog. Lust. Sloth. Gluttony. Unprepared for OD's graduation.

I am on a clear path to motorized-scooter-in-WalMart-ownership, so I am going to attempt to call a Mulligan and start again. Today, on my personal Jan. 1, 2010, I am going to get my house in order. I will be a kinder, gentler mother who doesn't swear as much. I will take my long-suffering dog/horse for more walks (um, okay, START walking him). I will not procrastinate work and/or writing. I will name our squirrel.

You may ask, "She has a squirrel?" Yes. Yes, I do. My thirteen-year-old-half-sister-in-law (we are an American family) took a taxidermy class a few years ago, and she stuffed a squirrel. I believe it was not a roadkill squirrel, as one would assume is the only dead squirrel available to grade-school children, but rather a BB-shot squirrel from someones back yard. She stuffed it well for a ten-year-old, and attached it to some hacked-out square of attractive plywood, and it sat on their TV for three years.

When we would visit, other people would watch TV. I would watch the squirrel. I imagined it sitting there, watching us, with its crooked body and tail with bits of fluff missing, holding a walnut between it's crooked arms, and criticizing us. "Shove it in, fatty!" it would say, as we ate another pizza. "The remote is under your ass, loser!"

I wanted it. I coveted it. And after Christmas last year, my in-laws visited and brought with them the prize of prizes. Inside a large Hollister bag lay my very own plywood mounted crooked squirrel. I made him a Santa hat, and he holds our lighter for the fireplace on the mantel. But he has no name. Here he is - does anyone have any great ideas?



I decided he needed a name after reading this post by my favorite blogger, The Bloggess, called "It's Like Losing James Garfield All Over Again." She named her stuffed companion, and he seems happier because of it. My beloved squirrel has unsettled dinner guests as a centerpiece and freaked out neighbors who had been recent victims of a real squirrel attack. He has helped us celebrate holidays in his special squirrel couture, and diligently held a flame-thrower (okay, lighter) for a year. He deserves a name, just like James Garfield and all of the taxidermied pets before him.

I welcome your suggestions, and I wish you all a Happy 2010! Thanks for your support!