September 27, 2003

• More Squirrel Saga

  So okay, a few days after I saved a young squirrel from the jaws of my cat, there was a knock on my door in the early morning. There stood my young neighbor from across the street in her nightgown to ask me for a cat box in which to put a baby squirrel she had found huddled in a puddle in the street by her sidewalk. I grabbed a cardboard cat carrier and went across the street. With a towel I picked it up and put it in the box. It didn’t run when approached and seemed stunned. (Later I found out baby squirrels are practically blind and deaf.) I left it with my neighbor who was going to call the Humane Society when they opened. When I returned in the early afternoon from my errands I checked to see what had happened. Eventually I found out the Humane Society had said to leave it alone. So she took it to a nearby vet and left it with them. They apparently told her it looked fine, or that’s what she reported to me. She seemed ambiguous about what they were going to do with it. The very next day my next-door neighbor, 77 years old, pounded on my door. She had seen a second baby squirrel in the same location but under a tree. So we went to look. This one seemed more chipper but also didn’t seem to know we were there. It curled up in a ball right in front of us in the pine needles at the base of the tree. Knowing there are many cats (including mine) in the vicinity we left it there with trepidation, thinking there was nothing else to do (by now it was Sunday). I learned that later that evening the young woman took it inside and fed it and had it in a box.

  On Tuesday, because we had now seen a third baby squirrel, I made some calls from work. I found a vet that treated exotic and small animals and they told me about a woman who did squirrel rescue. First I called my 77-year-old neighbor to see if she would make the phone call to this woman to sound her out. She refused, which really hurt my feelings. So I called the squirrel woman and 45 minutes later knew this was a true animal saint. Also a non-stop talker who told me everything about squirrels I would never have thought to ask. So then I went home bursting with the news that there was somewhere to take the remaining 2 babies. What I found out was that the 2nd squirrel was dead already. The young woman and her husband acted like they were dumbstruck and almost annoyed at the solution I’d found. He did produce a box and towel, and I finally in exasperation took the box to my house and called the squirrel lady, who was now at dinner in a restaurant. With no perturbance whatsoever, she took her cell phone outside where she could hear better and said when she finished her dinner she would drive home, get an incubator, and come fetch the squirrel, a matter of at least an hour of her time for the trip. I had to go somewhere before she came, so I left the squirrel in its box on my 77-year-old neighbor’s porch. This time at least she was willing to let me do that. The 3rd baby squirrel is now recovering safely with Squirrel Lady. She’s already taken him to the vet for the antibiotics he needs to cure an infection, but he seems otherwise okay and fighting to survive. She said the squirrels were probably kicked out of their nest and lost their mother somehow and were much too young to be on their own. She has given him a name – Baby Joe.
  

  In the meantime, I called the vet and found out that they had simply taken squirrel #1 back and released it in front of my neighbors house where it had begun. They had told me on a previous call that someone had “taken it home.” I assumed that meant to the home of the vet employee, but apparently not. I think my neighbors knew this and didn’t tell me. I also never got my catbox back in spite of asking my neighbor if she could retrieve twice.

  The upshot of all this is that I was disgusted with the behavior of my neighbors in this mini-crisis and felt really taken for granted for my own efforts. On the other hand, I thank whatever gods there are that there are people in this world who care enough to interrupt their lives and drive across town for the sake of one tiny creature. (By the way, Squirrel Saint Lady has about 20 squirrels in various stages of babyhood which she raises for 5 months and then releases into the wild.) I guess that’s how life is – on the one hand it’s depressing and on the other hand it’s glorious. Life is a paradox.
  _____
  Deep Thought: (and by the way the Deep Thoughts are not mine, they’re from Saturday Night Live – they just make me laugh)
  To me, clowns aren’t funny. In fact, they’re kind of scary. I’ve wondered where this started and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus, and a clown killed my dad.
  

  • 9:08 am
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