mr. squirrel

so next month's resolution is selflessness. and one way i can work on being selfless is by volunteering. in order to do this in time for february, i had to sign up a while ago for an orientation. so by the time february comes, i will be ready to volunteer for my organization of choice: Project Wildlife.

how did i discover project wildlife? .... the story is quite amusing.

in our front yard is a huge palm tree. and in this tree lived a fun little squirrel. every saturday morning (seriously, only on the weekends)... the squirrel would climb down the tree and taunt our dogs. especially Taj. Taj and this squirrel had a love hate relationship. though i'm pretty sure taj just wanted a piece of him. but i liked to think they were communicating with each other and would enjoy bantering one another. you have to watch this clip i took a few months back....

it became a part of our weekend that we'd open the door, taj would bolt out, and run and check the tree. and if he couldn't see the squirrel, he'd sit. and wait....

i like to think this squirrel became a part of our lil family. kinda....
so one day, i come home on my bike, let the dogs out to greet me, and i turn around to put my bike in the garage. all the sudden i look up.... and i see the poor squirrel in their mouths. yes, both of them. i'm pretty sure they were tugging on him. i instantly ran over to them, screaming and yelling at them to "drop it!! noooooo!!!"  taj dropped the squirrel right away, and looked at me like "what did i do??" Granted, chasing and catching little brown balls of fluff are in their nature, but of course it broke my heart. so here i am, with an injured-but-not-dead squirrel in our front yard, and of course i'm crying on the phone as I'm trying to tell jake "they got him. they got The Squirrel." he couldn't believe it either. So i have to rush out to my night class and i ask jake to please call me when he gets home (only a few minutes behind me) and tell me how The Squirrel is doing. He was definitely hurt, laying there making all these sad sounds and not moving much, but he wasn't to the point where i felt it was inhumane to leave him. You couldn't pay me to do something crazy like kill him with a shovel or something that I think some other people may have done. he was too cute. and our little friend :(

so my amazing husband, and our incredibly nice neighbor Frank, put the little guy in a towel and took him to a wildlife rescue in San Diego called "Project Wildlife". They didn't even blink an eye to help a rodent like mr. squirrel. i even called to check on him the next day and they said it apprears he'll make it, but he has many months of recovery (now this is partly funny picturing a squirrel in rehab, but i was happy :) And if he didn't survive, they will notify us by postcard. Still no postcard, and "The Incident" happened about 3 months ago.

so, long story, well- long, that is how i signed-up to volunteer for Project Wildlife.  :) My orientation is this Saturday and I'm looking forward to volunteering for such a selfless organization!