Rascally Rodents and Worthy Wives

The other day, I decided to pay homage to my little nocturnal visitor, the flying squirrel who came down my chimney and ruined my night's sleep in the wee hours of the morning on October 10, by painting a likeness of him in the guest room where he was held hostage for several hours. Although I wasn't too happy to have him in my house, I had to admire his speed, his athletic prowess, and his well-honed survival skills. That little guy managed to make me look pretty ridiculous, I'm sure, eluding me with ease as I chased him around with a lacrosse stick in one hand and a laundry basket in the other. Kudos to the flying squirrel--he was definitely the winner of our little game of cat and mouse. Exhausted and defeated after almost two hours of trying to outsmart him, I finally trapped him in one of our bedrooms, the one that was occupied by my two oldest sons back in the day, and left him in there until the Animal Control people arrived later in the morning to remove him for me. Aside from all of his admirable talents in the art of evading capture, when I finally got a good look at him, I had to admit that rascally rodent was awfully cute, too. So here is a likeness of that uninvited little houseguest, forever immortalized in paint (I may have mentioned before that I like to paint animals on the walls of my house), perched over one of the windows in the bedroom that I now think of as his, too.

Well, the bacon's cooking, so I better go and tend to it before I burn that precious commodity and ruin our Sunday brunch. Happy Sunday, everyone! But before I go, I have a quick question for all of the worthy wives out there: didn't you just love the first reading (from Proverbs) at Mass today? "When one finds a worthy wife, her value is far beyond pearls." Take note, guys: pearls (or anything beyond pearls--diamonds, maybe?) are always appropriate tokens of appreciation. I mean, some wives will even battle squirrel invasions to keep nice homes for their husbands! That makes a wife pretty worthy, doesn't it?

(If you'd like to read more about the flying squirrel episode, check out these previous posts: "Animal Control"--Oct. 10; and "Squirrel Interrupted"--Oct. 11.)