These Are The Kinds Of Stories I Tell When I Stay Up Too Late At Night

I have stayed up way too late again. The clock on my screen says 11:58. Michael's already gone to bed, though I'm sure he left a light on for me. I think I told him I'd be up in a few minutes. That was half an hour ago.

I'm still up because I was writing an email to a friend who sent me a book to read. He sent Blue Like Jazz. It's very easy to read and I do recommend it. There are lots of good insights and challenges shared through the stories of the author's life. I found it refreshing to read.

Since I'm up so late and my brain is barely functioning (which is odd because I usually do my best work between 11 and 1AM) I'll tell you that we watched a squirrel build it's nest today. It was really quite entertaining. Though 99% of the time I barely tolerate squirrels. Because, really, what am I going to do about them? We only have like 799 in just our backyard. Minus one I guess, because I'm pretty sure someone probably hit one today. And all 798 are either named Chuck or Chuckie. And they are all related. Brothers, Sisters, and Cousins. At least according to Brenna.

So when we pulled into the driveway after church we saw this squirrel run up a tree in our backyard with leaves in it's mouth. Now I know that squirrels do not eat leaves, because if they did, we would not have to rake the mounds and mounds and mounds of leaves out of our backyard every year. (Not that we actually do rake the leaves. Mostly Michael just mows over them. But if we did, there would be many mounds.) But with 798 squirrels, I'm sure they'd make quick work of our leaves, if they did indeed eat leaves. But they don't.

This squirrel ran up the tree and added the leaves to a pile he'd already accumulated in a Y shaped split near the top. Then he ran back down, quickly sawed off a twig with a few more leaves and raced them up to his nest. None of us had ever seen a squirrel nest being built and I think we watched at least 10 trips down and back. We were awed by how fast he gnawed off the twigs! And we made sad "Awwwww" sounds when some of the nest fell apart and floated to the ground. Twice.

Then another squirrel came down a tree closer to the car and took a very menacing stance while glaring holes through our windshield. We became mildly frightened and Michael closed his door and honked the horn. This squirrel wasn't afraid of our wimpy Honda horn. He just stared back at us as if he might be preparing to leap off the side of the tree and make hissing noises as he landed on my hood.

Scary indeed.

But then our stomachs growled and we decided we were bigger than the scary squirrel and tired of the busy squirrel so we went inside for lunch.

12:19 AM now. Goodnight.