Squoils = Squirrels, in particular Sciurus carolinensis (Eastern Grey Squirrel).

You know, those rodent like creatures that have fuzzy tails and dart in front of cars? Yeah, those guys. Squirrel issues have plagued my family for years. Example #1. Dad is now up to "Squirrel War XII," which is the never-ending battle of the squirrels trying to overtake his bird feeders. I think my family has gone through 30+ feeders, half of them jerry-rigged by Commander Dad to prevent the squirrels from stealing the birdseed. He even went as far as setting up one to deliver an electric shock if the squirrel sat on it. The squirrels then got smart and realized they could hang upside down from the pergola and eat the seed without touching the feeder.

Example #2. My sister once found a baby squirrel that had fallen out of its nest by the side of the road. Despite the fact he was crawling with fleas, he was actually really cute. We named him Miles. Poor, scared little Miles ended up getting rehomed with the Audubon center a few hours later, as Mom was NOT going to let us have a pet squirrel.

Example #3. While spending my short-lived semester at Mary Washington College, a squirrel (we named him Nutley - very creative) made his home on a tree branch squished next to my door room window. Normally that was OK, but he was a loud little guy and was trying to make Nutlets with his wife, so we ended up having to call maintenance to remove the branch.

Example #4. This photo is somewhat famous, as it made the Mary Washington campus newspaper and was subsequently posted on the newsroom wall. It's actually a great shot, I have no idea how I was able to get the depth of field thing going there, but I think having a subject that freezes in place helped.

My most recent encounter with squirrels involved my house. (Thanks to these guys, I almost broke my 21 year record of not peeing my pants when I found out firsthand they lived in the detached garage.) Anyway, the other day I went up to the attic to get something from my suitcase. I unzipped one of the outer pockets, and imagine my surprise when I found a small, neat pile of ACORNS sitting in there. I didn't know whether to scream or laugh. Either way, it was concrete evidence that there our friends are actually sharing this residence with us. Needless to say, the owner of those acorns is not going to be happy when he finds out his secret hiding place has been depleted of its stash and is now fully zipped shut.

(Of course, one of my roommates says, "You didn't LEAVE them there?! Now he's going to be hungry!")

For those of you (meaning, uh, two readers) who don't know me very well, I'm pretty good in the Denial Department of life… a.k.a., sailing down DeNile. My dear Subaru Impreza is a good source of prompting those sailing expeditions, as it's getting up there in years and I am NOT ready for it to die.

This weekend it finally got above 45 and I decided to wash my car. My original project was to install the remote starter, but after realizing the "easy to install!" claim on the package was really written in Opposite language, I decided to kill that idea. So, my car finally got a much-needed bath, as it still had a good dosing of salt all over it from our last "snowstorm" a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately for me, doing so forced me to take a good look at how well the body is REALLY holding up after 15 years. As a whole, it's not too bad, but when I took a closer look at some spots, I went . As I've mentioned, northern Virginia has no idea how to deal with snow. So therefore, they dump a crapload of salt all over the roads whenever there's evidence of a single flake falling from the sky. Salt + exposed metal = rust. There's a spot where the rear wheel arch meets the rocker panel that's really bad… to the point of where I was using my fingers and literally breaking off chunks of rust from under the rubber seal. Basically, both lower rocker panels are starting to show signs of rust… not cool. Fortunately, it's not immediately obvious unless you are 8" tall.

Anyway, I cleaned up the car best I could, applied Permatex to the scary parts (fortunately, there's only one that's actually visible from eye level - Bondo and I will be spending some quality time together when the weather warms up), and tried to shove the image of my car slowly eroding from my mind… a.k.a. Denialand.

The next day, I started up the car and thought, "Hey… this isn't idling quite right." I look behind me to see a nice plume of blue smoke coming from the exhaust… awesome. Evidence of the car burning oil only happens once in awhile during really cold weather and only a tiny puff of smoke will appear… but this was a [now defunct] family turbodiesel Volvo-worthy cloud. Gross.

So, of course, I attribute the sudden smoke cloud from having parked on a slight decline overnight. Otherwise the car is fine… just dying a slow death from the inside out.

To make matters worse, Dad continually reminds me that I will eventually need to replace my Soobie and that I should probably actually start thinking of what to buy as a replacement. He's pretty good at throwing down the anchor from my DeNile sailboat. :finger:

The other day I was at CVS, buying some 75% off candy canes for Cass ($0.25/box… nice!), and ended up with this receipt:

Notice anything weird? Here, look closer:

That's right. I never knew my name had 3 "L"s in it!

Ugh. The bad luck fairy visited me again this Christmas, because so far life has not been too terribly great since then. Basically, Cass got kicked by his pasture buddy two days before Christmas and ended up having to go to the vet hospital… all while I was in the midst of a 14 hour journey through air travel hell to Utah. When they x-rayed him, they found he had fractured his patella and now a 1 cm piece of bone is floating around in his stifle. Recommended course of action is arthroscopic surgery to remove the chip. Fortunately, it wasn't imperative that he have the surgery done right away.

In the meantime, I was stuck facing a $1500 vet bill because, under the contract, I am technically responsible for any injuries that occur - even ones that I have no control over. The frustrating part was the fact the contract also states the horse must be covered with major medical/mortality insurance in case something like this happens. For whatever reason, his owner took 3 months (despite my frequently reminding her) to actually get the policy. However, at the time of his injury, neither of us knew if the insurance was active, as she faxed it in right before that fateful day… hence me facing the reality of a large, large vet bill for 5 days.

So, for my entire Utah visit, I was consumed with frustration ("I told her 95 times to send the paperwork in!"), worry (I was still 2000 miles away from Cass), a little bit of embarrassment (for not being available when the injury was discovered, and relying on someone else to wait for the emergency vet/subsequently hauling him to the hospital - and then home the next day), dejection (it would be at least 3 months before Cass could go back into work - past the lease term), and anger (Strike 2 on my "horses that have killed any hope for me competing this decade").

There's more to the story, such as the lease contract binding me to paying for expenses until he's "fixed" and therefore not being able to afford riding until April or May. I also feel a certain degree of resentment toward the horse that did this, as this is NOT the first time the cranky bastard has kicked someone… last time being his own human. Cody was no angel either, but he never laid a hoof on a person as far as I knew.

Moral of the story: Always, always, always buy major medical insurance. You can't afford NOT to get it.

Results of the cookie bakeoff: 1st place, "double chocolate [something] cookies," 2nd place, "magic bars" (almost made these), 3rd place, "oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chip" (or something to that effect). No placing for me. I was robbed, I tell ya!

I think what really pissed me off is that the 2nd place cookies weren't even made by the entrant - his wife made them. Bull-sheeeyat. If you're going to enter the contest, at least bake it yourself. I wouldn't be surprised if the winner's wife made his, since they were way too perfect to be made by a straight guy. (Sorry dudes, but from past experience I've found guys just can't make a perfect looking cookie. Usually they're all lumpy and weird shaped.)

For me, the batch I made this time around still wasn't quite as good as I wanted it. I reduced the flour as I thought the original "oh crap, the contest isn't until next week" ones were too dry. However, my oven decided to stage a mutiny and pretty much destroyed one of the sheets - totally burnt on the bottom. (No, I didn't enter those in the contest.) I learned that if you try to bake more than one cookie sheet at a time, it completely burns the bottom rack and undercooks the top. Having a bum thermostat doesn't help, either - and constantly checking the hanging thermometer in there makes for inconsistent cooking. (Might help if we actually replaced the light bulb in the oven, too.)

Next year I might have to resort to bribery. This losing streak is starting to become embarrassing.