This is Myron, and Myron is in love. For the past few months, he’s been trying to find a way to express his affection for Georgia, the beautiful girl squirrel who lives just across the street, but he keeps falling short. First, he mailed a box of doll feet to her, with his phone number written on the bottom of each foot, but she didn’t respond—next, he sent a box of doll hands. Again, no response! Today, he’s pulling out all the stops and sending her a box full of doll heads in the hopes that she’ll understand how much she means to him, and maybe even pick up the phone and try the number scrawled dozens of times all over the inside of the box. After all, what has she got to lose?

Dr. Eugene is a world-famous archaeologist and adventurer, and if you're a subscriber to the academic magazines “Squirrel Archaeologist” or “History! For Squirrels!” you may be familiar with some of his more celebrated discoveries, such as the trove of species peanuts discovered piled in a stack underneath a sarcophagus slab in Egypt, or his analysis of the remnants of the brain of the 13th century saint, Joseph of Illado, which turned out to be a dried-out apricot. Earlier today, as a huge fan of archaeology myself, I asked Dr. Eugene what exactly he was looking for in my window well, but he is famously tight-lipped about his discoveries and doesn’t discuss his work until his notes are ready to be delivered and cataloged with the universities funding his trips or to the reporters at the many magazines that chronicle his adventures, and unfortunately for me, today was no exception.

Bastien is a weary traveler who has unfortunately stumbled into the wrong inn to spend the night, for this quaint little B&B is run by Ma Hatchett and her three beautiful daughters, Pull-Tab, Spot, and Grits, who, despite their genteel appearance, are all cold-blooded killers. Usually, the Hatchetts wait until their guests retire for the night before they start a-stabbing and a-robbing, but they haven’t had any visitors for a good couple of weeks, so at the risk of Bastien slipping out without paying his bill in the middle of the night, they’ve decided to all greet him at the front door, fully armed and ready to stab, before he’s even had a chance to sign the guest register or check out his room for the night. Oh, if only he’d picked a Holiday Inn or some recognizable chain hotel, but no, he had to go with the quirky stop just outside of town instead.

This is Sophia, soon to be Queen Sophia. When Sophia signed up with Find-a-Prince's dating service, she figured she’d be set up with just a nice guy with a job, nothing fancy, or, if they set her up with an actual prince, that it’d be one of those suave Dutch princes, like the ones that wear suits and sashes in the movies. She did not imagine in the slightest that her prince might be this Genghis Khan type warrior, an angry brute who has already informed her that there will be no dating—he’s already decided she’s to be his wife and that they will be returning to his home world immediately. “As Queen, you can have all the meat you can eat!” he roars. “But mister, I’m a squirrel! I don’t eat meat!” protests Sophia, the future Queen of God-knows-where, swearing under her breath to never use a dating service to find a man ever again.

The Big Dam Monster is an ancient creature that patrols this small, manmade lake. Every few decades, when the water level dips dangerously low and the fish population is threatened, the Big Dam Monster has been known to come to the surface and wreak havoc on the local population of fishermen and summer vacationers. Unfortunately for these carefree teens partying at the edge of the dam, their night of illicit, drunken fun is about to be cut short by this local denizen of the deep.

 Someone looked in my window and thought, "There's a sucker for a cute squirrel if I ever saw one--and she's got a can of mixed nuts sitting right on her desk."

Julius is a professional magician with a reputation for being a real jerk to his assistants. This new assistant is finding out that this reputation is well-deserved—halfway through his signature act, he’s decided to take his lunch break, leaving her with her legs and arms stuck in one half of the box and her head in another! And to make matters worse, the poor girl really has to use the bathroom, and how does one even find the bathroom with their head unattached? “Quit whining,” says Julius, pausing to take another stupid bite of his stupid fancy almond before twirling his stupid magician moustache at the girl. “In this economy, you should just be happy you have any job at all.” 

Sheila was at my window the moment it stopped raining to press her little face and paws up against my window to beg for treats. Almost immediately after this picture was taken, it started raining buckets again, so I don't imagine I'll have any more squirrel visitors today.

Jackie is a highly superstitious squirrel who can’t get her day started without either consulting the astrology page of the newspaper or stopping by to get her cards read by the neighborhood fortune teller. Moment ago, she received the most disturbing news—Madame Lisa just told her that she seems to have no future at all! “It’s probably nothing,” says Madame Lisa. “Sometimes the cards don’t work until I’ve had lunch. I’m sure it doesn’t mean something terrible is going to happen to you or anything.” But Jackie, oh, how is she supposed to live her day today, not knowing what’s about to happen?

Christie is a passionate young female from the maple out front. Christie’s best friend, Judith, was supposed to guard the pile of nuts set out for her from the ravaging shrew that’s eaten her breakfast twice already this morning, but Judith had not had her cup of coffee yet when she volunteered for this position and fell asleep sometime during her watch. She tried to make it up to Christie by buying her more nuts with her own money—and Judith is currently unemployed and doesn't have much money, so this was very generous of her—but Christie’s decided that she’s just had enough of that darned shrew. “Don’t do anything rash!” says Judith. “Trust me, no breakfast is worth going to jail for!” But Christie, she lets her heart rule most days, and often, with tragic consequences.

Dustin has come to the grim conclusion that the part of the birch tree he just moved into happens to be haunted. Pictures keep falling off the walls, doors open and close of their own volition, and the scratching of non-squirrel feet can be heard at all hours in the parts of the tree too skinny and termite-ridden for Dustin to safely investigate. However, trying to coax a priest way up into this part of the tree has proven impossible, so Dustin has been left to deal with the ghost on his own. His first step? Set out a lovely dinner and a place setting for the ghost in the hopes that the two of them can sit down together and have a peaceful conversation about how to coexist. Dustin has made up a list of things he can do to accommodate the ghost’s schedule, and he hopes that when the ghost eventually comes to the table, he or she will have something similar to present to him.

This squirrel only eats almonds. She scratches at my window until I toss some nuts out for her, and she immediately picks out all the almonds and runs away. After the other squirrels come and eat all the nuts, she comes back and asks for more. Again and again and again. I can't help but think that the other squirrels also come to my window looking for almonds, only to find they've all been grabbed by this one squirrel.

Rowena is a lovely, quiet female from this spring’s first litter. Rowena just got off the phone with her mother, who apparently spent a whole lot of money getting a family tree put together to surprise Rowena and her siblings. According to the chart, Rowena’s family not only came over from the Old World nearly a thousand years ago, accompanying a crew of rugged Viking explorers who loved having squirrels running around on deck while battling the high seas, but also, it looks like there’s some royal blood way down the line. Rowena’s mother is already looking into on whether any of them can claim any benefits from being the direct descendent of a genuine squirrel king, even if it’s just a royal title that they can all use on business cards. “Aren’t you excited?” asked Rowena’s mother once she paused for breath. “Wouldn’t it be exciting if it turned out _you_ were a princess?”

Princess Rowena. It has a nice ring to it.

Celeste is a local author who lives in the maple tree out front. Celeste is here at one of her favorite bookstores to autograph copies of her newest release, “Lots of Hugs,” a cozy, romantic non-thriller that takes place almost entirely in some guy’s fancy garden and is mostly about how much this guy and this girl like hugging each other and smashing their faces together and making weird nonsensical sounds while they do it. While most critics have been relatively gentle when reviewing Celeste’s work, the one noticeable flaw that runs through almost every single one of her books is the fact that she insists on writing about people and from a human point of view without seeming to know anything about people or what motivates your average human. One day, when she can relax and take time to write something more serious, more legacy-oriented, she plans to write at least one book that is just about squirrels, perhaps two, but that time is too far away to think about right now.

Stan’s kind of a loner, but that’s OK, because we can’t all be Mr. Popular party animal types. After a hard day of punching numbers at the office, Stan likes to come home and watch TV, and that’s it. Sometimes, coworkers invite Stan out for drinks after work, because it’s this thing they all like to do at the office, they like to hang out together after work after gabbing with each other all day _at_ work, but Stan usually just says he doesn’t drink, or that he has something really important to do, both of which are plain-out lies. Stan likes to drink, but he likes to do it at home, by himself, without anyone yapping at him, and the thing he likes to do best is watch TV. By himself.

Today is the first day of Geraldine's new cable-access cooking show, Cooking with Gerry. Everything has to be perfect for this big day—the equipment has to work, her studio-provided assistant needs to stay the fuck out of her way, all of the ingredients need to be retested for freshness, and most important, none of her jokes can fall flat before the studio audience. Or maybe she should forget her carefully-scripted jokes completely? She only tested them on a couple of friends, and while they laughed very politely when she told them, they were perhaps just a little too polite. Yes, for this first show, she should play it super seriously, then maybe on the second episode, cut loose a little, try to get people to laugh with her. So long as they’re not laughing at her, that is. Oh, she should have packed a flask for today. This is not going well at all.

Charmaine is the manager for Bounce, the most popular squirrel band in the world. She's been managing the band since she and Yeet were in college together, back when no one knew who they were, and was responsible for setting up some of their first paying gigs, including bookings at high school proms all over town. However, ever since their last record, “NUTS!” hit platinum almost overnight, she’s begun hearing rumors that the band’s planning on ditching her to sign with a real agency, and the thought just makes her so sad she can’t sleep. In fact, she’s hasn’t left her office for the past three days, making her little charts and planning her next big move for the band, hoping to come up with something so impressive that when they all get together for coffee next week, the boys’ll have to admit she is the best manager any group could ever have.

This is Bertrand, and Bertrand’s still not sure how he got here. Earlier today, he was on his way to work and decided to take a short cut through an unfamiliar part of the yard, and suddenly just found himself in this pristine, warm and happy place that's apparently never been visited by any other squirrel. Food is plentiful, the inhabitants are extra friendly, and while secretly, Bertrand’s a little worried he fell down a well or something and is just imagining all of this, he doesn't want to dwell on that possibility too much. Either way, this day’s turning out to be a lot more interesting than he thought it’d be when he got up this morning.

Jules is a veteran of the squirrel art scene, setting up his wall display and table for what seems like his millionth group art show and print signing. The crowds won’t be showing up for at least an hour or so, which gives him just enough time to eat some breakfast and maybe grab a cup of coffee with some of the younger artists who are also exhibiting today. What he doesn’t know about this seemingly routine art show is that the evening will end with a confrontation with his greatest fan (other than his mother)—a secretive character who's been leaving strange letters and packages intermittently on his doorstep for the past ten or so years. In the end, though, Jules will be pleasantly surprised to find that this stranger is actually just a genuine fan who is truly confused on what constitutes boundaries in the artist-audience relationship.

Loretta has come to this ramshackle theater set up outside my window full of good intentions. Tonight is the debut of her friend Janice’s seven-act play, “Three Tiny Women With Something to Say,” a lengthy exploration on the trials of being a 5-inch-tall woman in this crazy modern world. Unfortunately, the program did not state that the play would end up being nearly five hours long from beginning to end, and three hours into the performance, Loretta really has to use the bathroom. Unfortunately, she is the only one who turned up for this performance, so her absence, however brief, would be immediately noticed, and she does not want to hurt any of the performers’ feelings. Far off in the corner of the theatre, the red, glowing "Restrooms" light blinks on and off, on and off, as if purposefully taunting her as she tries to focus only on the actors on the stage.