# 8 - Squirrel!

#8 of the Top 10 Funniest/Best Memories of My 50 Years - Squirrel!

If two certain individuals are reading this post, they have probably already started to smile, for they are the two lovely ladies who have kept this story alive.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I like to hike.  I like to walk, but I'm not a power walker much less a runner or jogger. Oh occasionally I get a spurt of sprint energy, but on the whole I like to walk for the sake of catching up with friends or releasing tension and stress.  I enjoy the fact that it counts as "exercise," but for those who are walking to gain speed or long-term endurance, I'm probably not your gal.  And I'm definitely not a treadmill sort of gal.  I need visual stimulation.  Which is part of why I really like to hike - that sense of taking a walk to see what there is to see - wild flowers, birds, trees, animals, water, rocks and the like.  I'm not a genius like my friend, Father Time, or my friend, "James" Bond Sr. (not to be confused with 007), at naming all of these wonderful things - and correctly to boot! - but that doesn't keep me from enjoying them.  If the hike can be with good friends and take us past water running over rocks or include rocks for climbing and exploring or cute animals to see, so much the better.

Well this was a lovely early summer Sunday afternoon - still felt a little more like spring- partly sunny, partly cloudy - in general a nice day for a hike with friends.  My friends knew of a place relatively close by where we could hike.  I was never one to know where "those places" were, but these folks were always in the loop on that scoop.  There were 5 of us plus 1 dog, if I remember right.  I'm sure about the 5 people - it's the dog that I'm a bit foggy on.  Was Shayne (the dog) with us?  I think so, but my friend, M, would remember for sure.  Someday I want to go to Austria with M and sing all of the songs from Sound of Music with her.  We would rock Salzburg.  Oh yea...

Anyway, as is often the case, pretty soon the guys (and the dog, if she was there) were ahead of us, and we girls were taking our sweet time.  There's no need to rush through a good hike, after all.  It was a Sunday afternoon, which means time for relaxing.  Besides we were enjoying seeing what there was to see.

Like a cute squirrel that we saw "sitting" at the top of a tree trunk that had been topped about 20 feet up by a strong wind at one time.  He (or she) was perched at the top in a rather odd, but cute angle.  At a glance, it looked to me like a squirrel who had been playing and stopped to rest for a moment.  We walked past rather quickly, but I made a casual mention of seeing the squirrel at the top of this tree trunk and thinking that he (or she) looked funny.

We kept walking and talking and making fun of the guys in front of us.  We got nice and caught up as only gals can.  After a while we had looped back to this same spot with the topped tree trunk.  And sure enough that squirrel is still there.

However this time we look a bit closer.  And yea...he (or she) hasn't moved.  Not even a bit.  And we've been out hiking for well over an hour. 

Can you tell where this is going?

Um...yea...we came to the conclusion that this squirrel was dead.  As in apparently punctured by one the sharp points where the wind had ripped off the tree top without regard for smoothing the edges, which wind can be want to do from time to time.  Or picked up by an owl or a hawk or an eagle and dropped again.

Which means that I thought a dead squirrel was funny.  (Please don't report me to PETA.  Let's keep this secret just between us, ok?)

And, of course, it follows that my two friends break out into song because that's just how these 2 gals roll. 

"Debbie thinks a dead squirrel is funny!  Debbie thinks a dead squirrel is funny!'  It sort of goes like that for a while before resolving with a bridge and a final "Debbie thinks a dead....squirrel....is...fu----nnyyyyyyyy!" 

The CD will be out soon.  It's a little hard to pin down the genre, but some might call it alternative.  Look for it on itunes soon.  It's the next big thing.  I promise.

Debbie thinks a dead squirrel is funny...la-la-la-la-la...

# 8 - Cause I am one observant nature type chicka.  You know it.