This morning I woke up to my mom yelling "OH NO, SAVE HIM!!! HURRY!"
I rushed out of bed to see what was happening, and here's what I basically saw.
Molly the Satantic Dog in the backyard with a squirrel trapped beneath her paw, staring at my dad as if to say "OH SHIT, I got him but NOW WHAT?"
My dad laughing his ass off and trying to get Molly to let the squirrel go.
My mom standing at the door in her pajamas telling my dad to save the squirrel or she would never forgive him*.
Apparently Molly managed to sneak up on perhaps the STUPIDEST squirrel in the history of mankind (not like Molly is such a tiny or very graceful dog), startle him, and after he ran up and down the fence and the tree about 20 times, catch him when he just stopped and froze at the bottom of the tree.
Molly reveled in her victory for a moment and then seemed extremely confused as to what her next step should be. She definitely was looking to my dad for some help and he was waving his arms and yelling "Molly, NO! Let him go. MOLLY!"
So, she just sort of daintily lifted her paw and the squirrel got up and sort of wandered out of the yard at his leisure. I swear, if it had been a cartoon he would have had little yellow and red stars circling his head and a big red cartoon heart thumping in and out of his chest in exaggerated slow motion.
My parents were both laughing so hard by the end of the whole thing that I thought my mom might pass out. Molly mostly looked slightly confused but pretty proud of herself. She patroled the backyard for another hour just in case he came back. I told my dad that he had certainly interrupted the process of natural selection in a profound way.
After quite an exciting start I spent most of the day working on my paper, but am nearly half-done. I am quite thankful that I chose a topic tangential to blogging so it's pretty interesting (to me) and seems easy to write.
I have a couple of requests for posts about law-school advice kind of stuff, so perhaps I'll get to those in the coming days. I'm also still planning to update my blogroll, but it's such a chore, who knows when it might happen. It's raining here, but still very relaxing, even with paper writing and whatnot. Tomorrow my mom and I are going to Costco and Target...both are about a 45 minute drive from here, but it's nice to get out of the house with my mom and also nice to stock up on stuff I need with someone else footing the bill. Plus, every single time I've gone somewhere with my mom while home, I've come back with a story. Also, whenever I post stories about my mom people seem to insinuate that I don't like her or we have problems, so let me just reiterate that NOTHING could be farther from the truth.
My mom is a wonderful, fabulous, awesome person who just happens to be very...um...unique. She would not only give you the shirt off her back, but the food off her table, the roof off her house, and probably a kidney. She laughs easily and often, is rarely in a bad mood, takes a lot of crap from my dad and I with relatively little ill humor, is the most fabulous cook in the whole world, and is a passionate crusader for animals and animal rights. She is also a talented artist and has what I can only describe as an innocent soul, I just don't think she would ever hurt anyone or anything intentionally, and I have definitely seen her pull over to the side of the road and help turtles cross so they wouldn't get hit. She can be a nut, but she's our nut. I hope that clears up any doubts.
*Interestingly, my mom also made my dad kill a squirrel once that had gotten hit by a car and was half smashed and dying slowly...she couldn't bear to see it suffer. I think sometimes my dad doesn't get enough credit for always drawing the short end of the stick.
