Animal Kingdom

Ari says:
I, Ariana Bartolomea, am the new Ace Ventura (sans bad hair and Hawaiian shirt), a Squirrel Whisperer of sorts. This past Saturday Sherlock and I were visited by a baby squirrel who decided to make our porch his home for the day and spent his time tormenting the cat. So here's what happened: I was enjoying a great book in bed, doing a lazy-Saturday-afternoon thing when Sherlock abruptly sits up and darts out of the bedroom. 2 seconds later I hear the blinds by the sliding door go crazy and realize that there must be something outside grabbing my cat's attention. Upon investigation, I find a 10 inch long, baby imitation of a squirrel. His tail was at least half his length. He was poised on his haunches right by the window staring down Sherlock. The cat, of course, was trying desperately to paw his way through the glass doors in the attempt of bagging a meal. For the next few hours (literally), our visitor proceeded to tease the cat by sprinting back and forth across the porch, climbing the screen door, tottering on the wood pile and basically running amok. Sherlock tried his darnedest to catch his fuzzy tempter, but to no avail. That layer of glass was just too difficult an obstacle. I spent the time laughing, snapping pictures and giving my Mom a play-by-play on the phone. In the meantime, I found that the little critter wasn't nearly as scared of me as he should have been. Bart suggested I try to give him some food, so I went outside to leave a pile of sunflower seeds. In the process, the squirrel returned and just looked at me like "Sup?" and proceeded to walk right under the chair I was sitting in and grab some seeds. Knowing that although this creature was precious, he was probably also filthy and possibly mean, I think I ended up being a bit more frightened of him than he was of me, so I basically got trapped on my porch by the squirrel. As I was debating on how best to get back into the apartment, a very small lizard made his way into the arena. He and the squirrel started circling each other like odd Sumo wrestlers. I was convinced I was a goner until the lizard scampered off, distracting the squirrel and I was able to make my way back to the relative safety of my home. It's easier to laugh when you're not worried about getting rabies. The rest of the afternoon was quiet, despite the occasional clash of the blinds and the rare thump when Sherlock would try to jump straight through the window.