Dead Squirrels and Shadow People

Just saw "The Spanish Prisoner." It had some very clever plot twists, and though I certainly figured out a few of them well in advance, it surprised me throughout. Overall however it was a little bland. I love movies of this type, and this one WAS pretty clever, but it somehow never engaged me. It was like eating seafood pasta with medicore sauce--it SHOULD still be pretty good, and yet it doesn't quite work.

In other Fish news, the time of year has come where I feel like Elmer Fudd. In the early summer months the ground squirrels always come out and start to raid our birdseed, dog food, and generally make a nuisance of themselves. It's up to me to set out a trap filled with various bits of bait. I then catch the ground squirrels and cart them off to release them somewhere more hospitable (and farther away from our home). Lately I've caught a HELL of a lot of baby squirrels, which are very cute, naive, and easily fooled. I always feel bad when the little guys get caught, but little squirrels become big squrrels, and they've got to go. However the two larger squirrels I have seen have constantly eluded me over the past few weeks, springing the trap multiple times and somehow escaping. I feel like yelling "oooo you wascally squirrewl!!!" time and time again.

However, TODAY I finally caught one of the big guys, and yet I am filled with remorse. The poor guy rattled aroun inside the cage, trying to get out, but I had him. I planned to release him after work since I was running late beforehand, and so I left him in the cage for the afternoon--no biggie, I've done this before.

Unfortunately when I returned home, my sister asked, "Why is the cage overturned?" It was true, the cage was flipped over in the grass. My sister then gasped and started crying. Lying on the lawn was the dead squirrel. Poor guy. He has been my nemesis, but I never wanted to hurt him. The neighbor's dogs (not our dog Penny, she shows no interest in the squirrels when we catch them) must have come down during the afternoon and got ahold of him (or her).

I never feel bad about this sort of thing when it happens "naturally." Occasionally Sunny (when he was alive) or Penny might kill a mole or gopher, but they always did so "in the wild" (for lack of a better term). In such cases, the mole or gopher COULD have escaped, and they stood a fighting chance.

Here though, I can just imagine the poor squirrel trying to escape the cage with no way out. I had trapped him, terrified him, and condemned him to a horrific death, and I really feel kinda awful about it. I had intended to let him go somewhere else, where he probably would have had a better squirrel life (ground squirrels are suited for open fields, not the mountains where I live). Instead, through an act that was certainly partially my fault, he died horribly without a fighting chance. I'm sorry, squirrel...

In other unrelated stuff, my co-worker, Allison (NOT of the Adamovic variety), has managed to scare the shit out of me. I work with this Allison at the museum's front desk, where we always get to chat. I didn't really know her very well until today. Earlier I assumed she was just your average 30ish woman making a few extra bucks at a non-stressful job, probably with some interest in natural history. And this is true--to a point.

Somehow, as we talked today, she asked me whether or not I believe in ghosts, aliens, and other paranormal stuff. I've never really given it too much thought, but I've always entertained the idea as something fun and interesting (especially aliens), so I said "sure." She then spent the rest of the work day (when visitors weren't around) telling me REALLY spooky stories about Mothmen, black-eyed children, and, worst of all, Shadow People. Supposedly she saw Shadow People once when she was little, and she showed me all these websites with "real" pictures of them. Who knows how much of this is accurate, but it certainly gave me the chills. I've been looking over my shoulder constantly since work today, and I am worrying about what sort of sleep I am going to get tonight. Brrrrrr.....

Sweet dreams!