Dear Kid,

Word around the dining room table is that Pi’s double crusted fudge is delicious and you should ask her to make some when you get home. It is not something that will ship well. In fact, it’s probably the kind of thing that will end up dripping through the box and cause the postal inspectors to send it though the “caution” line and then when they open it they’ll be overcome with delicious chocolate fumes and never get their work done for the day. So to keep the postal system running (cough) as efficiently as ever, you’ll have to wait until you’re here.

We had a lovely dinner with some of Pi’s friends last night. It was so lovely that the Puppy brought about half of his toys into the dining room. I’m not sure if he wanted to share or he was just showing off his wealth. In any event, he had a reasonable amount of cleaning up to do before bedtime.

One of the great benefits of having people for dinner (besides the food) is that we take the time to clean up. I really wish I didn’t hate cleaning so much—I love the look and feel of the house when it’s all fluffed and sparkly clean.

One of the great downsides of having people for dinner (besides a very full tummy) is that we take the time to clean up. Not only did I end up with two chipped fingernails, I have a Big Pile to deal with. The Big Pile (that is now on my bed) used to be a Whole Bunch of Piles in the kitchen—where I was able to easily find everything.

I think I’m sort of like a squirrel in that regard. No one else knows where things are, but I can find each piece of paper. Except for the ones I forget about, and they grow into oak trees.

But once all those piles are consolidated, I have no idea where things are and/or what Needs To Be Dealt With Immediately.

I should probably go through the Big Pile, but I’m still exhausted from all that cleaning.

Love, Mom

The Menu (just in case you wanted to know)

Appetizers: chips, salsa, cheese dip in bread bowl, pretzels, crudite

Dinner: Penne with sauce, rolls, salad, croutons (yep, they were served separately)

Dessert: Coffee, tea, pineapple upside down cake, double crusted fudge

Dear Kid,

We have found a new solution to the age old problem of How to Stop Squirrels from Eating at the Bird Feeder. Our answer? Forget to fill them. Then no one goes near the bird feeders. Sigh.

Since you are now living in a place with college town Kamikaze squirrels, I think it is time to address a question that has bothered me for years: why do some squirrels have bushy tails and others look like they are candidates for squirrel tail toupees?

I turned to my best source of squirrel information: Booker. He gave me A Look that said “haven’t you noticed I’ve given up worrying about squirrels?” It’s true. Whether he’s decided they are ok to have around or whether he’s learned that they climb trees and are therefore not good potential friends, I don’t know. He proceeded to wag his tail, lick his paw, and generally ignore the question.

I turned to my next best source of information, my friend the internet. While there are lots of reasonably reliable sites talking about why squirrels have bushy tails (balance, warmth, and communication device) there are only a few sites that talk about skinny tails and those are clearly opinion or possibly fairy tale based. At best.

Answers I found included heredity (duh), mange (ew), shedding (the Booker syndrome), and eating sunflower seeds. None of which are particularly interesting (except perhaps the sunflower one. Except that there are no sunflowers in the neighborhood.).

I thought about making up writing a story discovering a long lost epic tail called Why Some Squirrels Have Skinny Tales and Other Tails of the Squirrel World. Then I decided a cup of tea sounded like a better idea.

Bottom line: Some squirrels have skinny tails and some squirrels have bushy tails. Sometimes bushy tail squirrels have tails that get skinny and sometimes skinny tail squirrels fluff up. And sometimes they don’t.

Squirrel tail toupees are probably a bad idea unless you want to get paid with an IOU for nuts–if the squirrel can remember where they are buried.

Watch out for squirrels, my Tired One.

Love, Mom