Squirrel Man’s Wife

Welcome back!

My husband is following me on my journey to being green in our new urbanism community, but he is no treehugger…yet. That’s why I was excited (at least initially) with his developing interest in our “wild life.”

I don’t know if it has to do with hitting the big “40″ (a little while ago) but in recent years he’s taken a real liking to squirrels. I love animals but squirrels aren’t up on my list of wildlife I’d like to get closer to.

Case in point: Today he picked me up from my 2-day meeting in the city and surprised me with a decision to stop at our local market for some fresh items for lunch. I stayed in the car as I was exhausted. Then as I waited I hoped he would think to pick up some other grocery items that I know we were running low on at home.

That was wishful thinking. Unless we are specifically shopping for household groceries my husband can’t run into a store for one item and then change gears and pick up other things that might strike him as items that need to be replenished in our home – like toilet paper, milk, orange juice, cereal and fruit.

He’s a one track guy (personally I think this is a male gene thing – any guys reading this blog are free to argue with me in the comments below).

Anyhow, the point of this post is that not only did my husband not come out of the market with some useful household items instead of just some items for our Saturday lunch, but he bought an item that was for the consumption of someone other than his family or dog. He bought peanuts for his new found, wildlife friends – our backyard rodents squirrels.

They actually anticipate his return to the house. Just as we came up to the house two ran across the driveway. I thought I heard one squirrel say to the other:

“Big guy’s home Morton – go get the kids it’s lunch time.”

Now as I write this post, my husband is in the backyard on the bench under our maple tree with a glass of Chardonnay, and a bag of peanuts by his side.

He’s going to be one of those odd old men that the kids nickname “squirrel man.” YIKES – that makes me squirrel man’s wife.