I was talking to Scooter, my grey squirrel the other day.
Okay, he says his name isn’t Scooter, that is just the nickname the neighbours gave him from the way he runs across the road in the summer. It’s more of a hop, hop, look around, hop, hop in the winter. Okay, we don’t actually talk – it is more of a telepathic thing. On Scooter’s part anyway, as he doesn’t verbalise in English that well yet. Nonetheless, it gives us both a chance to discuss local events as he nibbles on the morning peanuts and I drink my coffee. Scooter sits outside the window in the refreshing winter air while I stay indoors dressed in my warm tracksuit – my wardrobe for Zoom meetings. It’s a Microsoft Windows 11 thing.
What I wanted to do was run some of my 2022 New Year’s Resolutions by Scooter to get his perspective on worldly and local affairs.
I said my first resolution was to become better informed – watch more news, read more opinions, listen to some Ted talks. Scooter said he was not into news since it was mostly bad although he allowed that the weather forecasts were getting more attention from the rodent society. Even a tree is a temporary refuge in the Chippewa Creek flood plain.
Squirrels are actually quite well informed in our town and I am often surprised how Scooter knows what is in the newspaper before my delivery person tosses it in the snowbank for me to find before the snow removal people come by after a storm and shred it for me. When I asked if they had a mole in the Nugget or BayToday newsroom, he said no, don’t be silly, but there is a red squirrel living in the attic on McIntyre Street. Apparently, there is a rodent network for passing along pertinent information. There is a rink rat, for instance, who is in charge of all the indoor and outdoor rinks, watching for opportunities to clean up after events, but it has been a quiet year on the arena front.
I said I wanted to become more involved with the politics of our town and the upcoming provincial election, particularly with the Long Term Care issue. Scooter affirmed that politics were entertaining. He had heard about Deputy Mayor Tanya vowing to take on Ford instead of Victor and he thought that was an excellent strategy, but unless the local member was going pass some bylaw about feral cats, he left politics alone. He expressed some concern about the disruptions in the Cassellholme construction but did not know if they had all the facts yet.
Apparently, there are two big-eared mice at Cassellholme but there were mixed reviews on their reports as the human characters kept changing their minds about what they were doing or going to do, eventually. The petition started by the family of black squirrels who live on the LTC property about cutting trees has gathered 18 paw prints so far and they hope to have it delivered to the resident rat at City Hall so he can present it at a public meeting or just leave it on the mayor’s desk with a few droppings some night.
I said I had resolved to do something about health care.
Maybe give a donation to MSF or the Hospital Foundation; maybe do something for the nurses or workers at the Health Unit. Scooter said squirrels did not dwell too much on health matters. As long as they could get some elderberry and sumac, maybe a little willow bark or mullein, health sort of took care of itself, although he had a cousin who lived at the Health Unit and there were rumours circulating there. Scooter says the white lab rat who works at the Health Unit is getting nervous about Covid as he heard they are going to test a booster shot on someone called Charlie. He’s not sure if his name is Charlie, but he hopes not. He has an aversion to needles. Scooter says the network is worried that Charlie is becoming paranoid and the last thing they need is a paranoid reporter at the Health Unit.
I said one of my new resolutions was to buy more local food.
When asked why I said I wanted to support local farmers and cut down on the carbon emissions caused by transporting food from faraway places. He said okay, but he did like those peanuts from South Carolina. Yes, I said but the prices are going up. Asked if the escalating price of food was having any effect on his diet, Scooter said there were rumours of supply chain problems but he and the other squirrels are not feeling the same reduction that the pigeons were having. Main Street pizza crusts are away down now that people are doing home delivery. Portions are down but it was a good year in the goober market. The commodity food market is in flux: the spruce cones were up 10 points but balsam was off 15 points. The futures market on red pine cone seeds was bullish, however, some black squirrels were forecasting a bear market for the next blueberry season if the drought continued. Who knew that squirrels were involved in the stock market?
My final resolution caused Scooter to raise an eyebrow. Yes, squirrels have eyebrows.
I said I resolved to have more fun. Scooter queried, a little unkindly I thought, aren’t you too old to have fun? I hope not, I replied. Don’t you have fun? Scooter wiped the crumbs from his whiskers and then said, I suppose so. I enjoy pretending to bury a peanut when Jack, that old crow, is watching from his perch on the dead birch tree. I hop away and find a place to observe when Jack flies down and scratches around hoping to find my treasure. I nodded and said, yes, I guess that would be fun. Of course, he said, the best fun was playing ‘squirrel’ with that poodle ‘Bentley’ down the street. I tried to explain the fun I had talking to telemarketers but Scooter didn’t get the comparison between that and his fun with Jack or Bentley.
My coffee cup was empty and I went for a refill - immediately breaking one of last year’s resolutions about drinking less coffee – again.
