I’m thinking about getting him some prune juice and bifocals because he is now truly an old man. Maybe we’ll have a Murder She Wrote marathon this week!

Yes, I did just kind of make a Guy Fieri joke!

After being so busy with all things MoFo, it was nice to take a week off. I don’t have to answer emails or post a bunch or think up ways to wax nostalgic about certain products for giveaways! But I really did enjoy working on the MoFo team, and I loved putting together giveaways for everyone because people love winning things. It doesn’t matter if you win $5 worth of stuff or $50 – winning things makes you feel good! Plus, you know, free shit.

During October I barely took any photos, which means I have very little backlog to share!

My birthday was the 27th, and for reasons I won’t go into, it was not something I wanted to deal with. It’s not a getting old thing, holidays in general send me into a panic attack just thinking about them, and a day that’s supposed to be about me? Vom. I just wanted to hide in my room and die, but my father-in-law MADE me open presents (I got a tofu press!). Hyperbole and a Half posted a new entry that was, funny enough, about being depressed. And despite my saying, “Stop trying to make a big deal out of it!”, Brian made me a cake. He ran out of room so there’s no ‘deal’ on it.

He showed me how the cake was broken, and obviously the ganache was too warm when he poured it…I almost fell over laughing. It was just what I needed, and it was delicious! Chocolate covered chocolate with chocolate chips.

Halfway through the month, Brian found out that the drive-in was showing double features of horror/Halloweenie movies every weekend (we missed the first weekend and Brian is pissed, Alien and The Thing). The first one we went to was a Freddy vs. Jason with House of 1000 Corpses. The very last weekend was Rocky Horror followed by Army of Darkness. I quickly found out it is pretty much impossible to Time Warp in a car seat. And yes, we froze our faces off even with a blanket and the engine running during intermission! But totally worth it.

We got our Teal Cat in the mail! I took its photo in the cat chair, a chair I paid $3 for at a charity rummage sale that the cats can claw to hell, and it’s draped with blankets because the chair is hard to vacuum fur off of.

This is our new dog, Fawkes. I have been looking at Petfinder for most of the year, but I didn’t actively start looking for a new dog until a few weeks ago. Brian had his eye on a Corgi, but she was adopted by the time we made it out to the pound. We met both dogs on Saturday at Petsmart, the corgi was sweet and not shy and seemed so perfect, I knew it would be likely that she would be adopted by the time we were able to get our application in. When we went into the store to buy pet food, I saw they had more dogs in the back. I recognized Fawkes from Petfinder and immediately went over and held him. Fawkes has quite the sob story, he and his dog friend were found tied to a pole in the alley behind his owners house. Yes, some dirtbag did that, and then didn’t bother bailing them out. So naturally he is kind of scared and not trusting, but he is so sweet and tiny. He currently only weighs six pounds, because not surprisingly, his former owners didn’t like to feed him (or bathe him or give him toys). He is all ribs under that fur! As soon as I held him, I felt it. My dog. Mineminemine.

We named him Fawkes for a few reasons:

1. Several people said that he looks like a black fox in his Petfinder photo.
2. We saw him at Petsmart on the 5th of November, which is Guy Fawkes day.
3. I am (non-romantically) in love with Wil Wheaton, so I am thrilled to have a dog with the same name as his character from The Guild.

We have to wait to give him a bath because he just got fixed, so pardon his greasy appearance. I can’t wait to pack some weight onto him and have him groomed.

Also yes, he is a yorkie/yorkie mix, that is just a coincidence. I was just like, “Hey dog, do you have emotional baggage? Cause if so, I have a motley crew for you to join!” And he responded by going limp in my arms and that was really the end of it all. He is totally chill with his new fur-family and even the cats (minus Genghis) aren’t bothered by the new addition.

Annoying, but obligatory:  please check out the raffle, pass it along, etc.

Sunday, I had the best of intentions to do laundry, clean up, basically pretend to be an adult.  I go through cycles that can basically be summed up with this Hyperbole and a Half story, so when I feel the motivation upon me, I seize the hell out of it so I can enjoy a stockpile of clean underwear and a made bed.

First, my friend Felicia posted that her dog was missing after the fire department broke down their door while they were out (a fallen power line caught a small portion of their roof on fire).  Demonstrating the amazing power of the internet, a ton of people who lived in the neighborhood replied that they would go out and look for her.  Frank and I drove up and down the streets and allies for a long time.  We didn’t find her, but eventually Sugarbear showed up at their back door on her own and all was well.  But I still think it’s awesome that so many people immediately went looking for her.

Just before sunset, Frank heard an awful sound of something crying/screaming through the window.  There was a baby squirrel in the driveway across the street.  Now, I know you are not supposed to touch baby animals.  I KNOW.  But it was getting dark, the temperature had dropped 30 degrees in the past day, and we have a very healthy population of outdoor and stray cats.  I did not like those chances.  So we brought the baby inside and I immediately set about googling on how not to kill a baby squirrel and calling wildlife rehabilitation facilities.  I first called our emergency vet clinic to see if they could help, they told me that they can only euthanize wild animals, and there are no facilities in my city.  It took me awhile to get someone on the phone since it was Sunday evening, but eventually I talked to a lady (Gail) about an hour away who gave me some more numbers and said if I couldn’t get a hold of anyone, she would meet us and take him.

Brian and I found this page very helpful, and combined with what Gail told us, we put him in a large plastic container with some shirts on top of my heating pad set on low, and got him a jug of pedilyte and a baby syringe to feed him with.  As for the other animals, Gozer spent his entire evening trying to run past us every time we opened the door because he knew we had something in there that he wanted.  Chester looked vaguely worried that we had brought home a new baby, and Fatty tried to sniff him during a feeding, but other than that, didn’t care.  The cats were  trapped in the basement with their food and litter while we slept for a few hours.

Taking care of a baby squirrel is hard work, mostly because we had to give him pedialyte every few hours.  I also had to rub his teeny butt and genitals (definitely a boy) with a wet q-tip to encourage him to go to the bathroom.  Other than that, little Brawndo was a champ, he figured out the syringe quickly and as soon as we woke him up to feed he would start trying to suck on our fingers.  He couldn’t jam the tip in his mouth far enough, so I had to keep pulling it back so he didn’t choke on it, which meant he kept crawling out of Brian’s hands and had to be repositioned.

We met Gail in Bloomington, which is where Brian’s sister lives.  She was very happy with the state he’s in, he’s healthy and just needs someone to feed him and take care of him until he can be released into the wild.  It was a great experience, and i’m glad I was able to get him into the right hands.  I was also surprised when she told me I did the right thing by taking him, she said there’ a good chance he crawled out of the nest because mom didn’t come home, and to look out for other babies in the same area.

In the end, over two days I got almost nothing done on my to-do list, but I did things that were way more important.

So if you find a baby animal, keep in mind:

1. The mom might come back for it, if you’re able to and there’s no imminent danger to it, just watch from a distance for awhile.
2. If you touch the baby, you are responsible for the baby!  That means getting it to a wildlife rehabilitation or if it’s injured, taking it to be put to sleep.
3. You cannot keep the baby.  Especially squirrels, it’s illegal in most states.

I would also like to point out that this is why it is important to give money to the people who take care of sick, injured, and abandoned animals and you should donate to Ride to Light already!

P.S.  If you don’t know why we named him Brawndo, it’s because Brian and I have seen Idiocracy way too many times, and we kept joking about electrolytes while he was eating.