Where I've Been

Sure, there was Nashville. And New Brunswick. I drove through three time zones in three days, which was fun.  And then, of course, there was the Great S'mores Experiment of 2014.  I had to recover from that.

That all sounds nice and all but, in reality, what I've been doing is trying to solve a mystery. A very important mystery.  First off, I'm writing/storytelling full time now (yay! Support me by leaving book reviews and e-mailing sanity checks!)  So, that meant a change of routine.  Every morning, I now write in my kitchen. We have a beautiful bay window, and it's perfect to get a good three hours in before my stomach wakes up. Not bad, eh?

Except a new mystery popped up. Well, it's an older mystery, renewed. Kind of like Home Cold Case (couldn't get HGTV to pick up that show. Bastards.) 

We have two beautiful, mature, will-be-cut-down-in-the-next-couple-of-years-damn-you-Emerald-Ash-Borer ash trees on our front lawn.  They make a leafy canopy over our doorway.  Shortly after moving in, during the first throes of spring of 2013, we spotted something rather strange in the encroaching branches. 

There was a saltine cracker in one of them.  Just sitting there.  

Fast forward two weeks ago. I'm still full of s'mores and am merilly sitting in my kitchen bay window to write. A squirrel passes by.  He's carrying a saltine cracker.

Hu, thought I.

Hu indeed.  

The next day, around the same time, a squirrel ran by carrying a saltine cracker.  I tried to snap a picture of it with my iPhone, but it all went wrong.

I don't know why National Geographic hasn't yet contracted me for real urban photography.

So, okay, taking a picture where there's a screen on the window, with a digital camera that only boasts cheap automatic focusing ability, was probably not a wise move. (I'd have actually been okay with this shot had the saltine cracker been visible.)

It then took about a week to get the shot. Not because the squirrel didn't show up. I'm just kinda slow and generally too busy giggling about the squirrel to put much in action as it's passing by.

BUT REJOICE!  I  have indeed captured the squirrel in action!

Not a great first shot, but I figured at least the screen wasn't in my way this time.  That was accidental, btw, not planned.  Hey, I hadn't had coffee yet!

See? This was shot 2, when the squirrel paused below one of the ash trees.  Screen. Totally not awake.

Victory! Squirrel holding saltine cracker.  Well, you can't really tell because, again, I'm just using my iPhone camera.  BUT I still feel the thunder of victory in my blood.

Now, of course, the next logical step is to figure out where the saltine crackers come from. The problem with this next actionable step is that, in order to effectively discover this, I'd have to go undercover (dressed as a bush, I imagine), which would impact writing productivity.  

Once again, I need an army of the night.  

I'll add it to my to-do list.