the squirrel visits the dollar store

Dear Blog,

I really wanted to write you a nice post like I used to tell you all sorts of fun and interesting cultural notes.  And I thought and I thought but I couldn't come up with anything.

I thought about writing about The Trouble with Trains, but I've kind of already done that.  I thought about writing about The Bother with Buses, but I've definitely already done that.  I thought about writing about The Problems with People, but that's really none of your business.

So I thought and I thought and I thought some more (it's funny how that happens when you've been reading Dr. Suess) and I thought that maybe, just maybe what you'd like would be a story told like Dr. Suess might tell it in Australia.

The problem with that is that I'm terrible at plot, which is why I usually just write about my own life, because at least I know what happens in it.  That and I'm exceptionally good at making mountains out of molehills.  Plot out of thin air is simply not my forte, alas.

But seeing as I've hardly given you anything remotely interesting in quite some time, at least it should be a happy change of pace, tra la?

Happy weekend to you!
Kim :)

The Squirrel Visits the Dollar Store, and Other Tales of American Beasts Down Under

There once was a squirrel from Ohio
Who went on the Cinco de Mayo
Down under to stay
For a year and a day
And after that came home to retire.

Sorry.  That turned out to be a limerick.  And slightly off topic.  Let me try again.

There once was a Squirrel who liked to play
and gambol in trees and stash nuts away
which he did every day, every day, every day.
And I daresay you would too if you happened to be
a Squirrel in a tree in a tree in a tree.

But one year the crop of nuts was not good
(it rained a bit more than it really have should)
and the Squirrel got a bit antsy and thought he had better
do like the birdies and seek better weather.

So he consulted his map
and pulled out his globe,
he looked in an atlas and
tugged his earlobe
and he thought and he thought and he thought and he thought
and he finally decided exactly what
he would do he would go he would buy himself wings
and assemble them promptly with assembly-wings-things.

And soon he was off, he was up, up, up at 'em
flying and soaring and gliding and --
CRASHING!

He landed quite quickly
as Squirrels sometimes do
when it seems they've o'erlooked a slight detail or two
of precisely how to assemble wings right
(or at least, in the way to produce proper flight).

But he was okay, oh so very okay
for it seemed that he'd landed upon some soft hay
and moreover the way
where he'd happened to stray
was the way,
to Sydney, Australia, hooray!

And as he sat there near Milit'ry Lane
his eyes got so sleepy and started to wane.
(He had jet lag, you see,
which is especially hard
for dear little Squirrels to cope with unmarred.)
So he curled up right there for a quick little rest,
after which time I can duly attest
he stood right on up and went on his way,
looking for nuts and fun games to play.

He met a few friends and they asked him to party
along with them at the pub at eight-thirty.
But it was a "dress up" affair as they called it
and he should come up with
a mitt
or a wig
or a bonnet
or a scarf
or a hat
or a pig
or a sword
or a cape
or some stilts
or a mask
or some wings
or jewelry
or clogs
or a flask
or whatever things
would deck him all out as
Zorro the Squirrel,
and so off, off, off, off, off he went in a whirl!
Straight to World Square where he found
to his horror:
a "dollar" store that sold wares at such
inflated prices
he fainted away
(they revived him with spices, much later that day).

But the shock was too much, oh so very too much
and as much as he wanted to stay until brunch,
he really just couldn't handle the scene;
it all made him feel incredibly green
'bout the gills and so he declared
he'd be back off and flying
despite the repairs
that his flying wing-thingies
needed (of these he claimed unawares).

And off in the sky he waved a goodbye
to his friends down below -- down under the sky --
and off he went, up, up, up, up, up!
And flew through the air for weeks far away
till he finally landed back home in his tree
where it was now summer and,
I'm happy to say,
there were plenty of nuts all around there
to gather
(and, what's more, he didn't have to put up with the blather
he'd heard down below where his friends tried their best
but simply couldn't -- even when put to the test --
say his name right at all, poor Squirrely-kins sighed,
at least you could say, though, that they had indeed tried.)

And he curled up that night all snug in his tree
where he was quite warm and happy to be
and wrote a postcard that went round the world
and his friends all got it, from what I have heard,
and they wrote back again, quite quickly, it's true
to tell him that -- would you believe this -- they do
still party a bit beneath the hot sun
but it's never exactly at all so much fun
as the day the Squirrel came
(ever since then, they say, it's been rather tame
with never so much as a hint of a maim
or even a limp or a slight bit of lame),
at least so they claim,
and they've never yet managed to pronounce his name!