The Zen Squirrels of October

The white lacquered snow has still not melted from the ground in our back yard since New Years, so this seemed like as good a time as any to reprise some of the more strange memories from the anything-but-white days of Fall.

This squirrel at left was staring at Gigi from the Ginkgo leaf covered picnic table for some time before Gigi realized that it wasn’t really staring at her. In fact, it seemed to be completely zoned out, as if it was trying to remember where it left its car keys, or the name of the girl it took to the senior prom. The only clue that the movie (below) is a video and not a photo is the movement of the leaves behind the squirrel. Gigi notes somewhat tactlessly that the squirrels had gotten pretty fat lately. My own theory is that they were getting ready to hibernate, and when one of them puts on enough weight it goes into temporary “hibernate” mode, like a computer laptop. Eventually it snaps out of it and goes on its way.

Which raises the interesting existential question of what is the more absurd: a squirrel staring off into space for no reason, or two human beings watching a squirrel stare off into space for no reason, for no reason.

In any case, here is the YouTube video (it zooms in on the critter after a bit):

[youtube]nd7Z3mqKQRk[/youtube]