Backyard drama!

As promised I will now tell the story of what I witnessed in my backyard.

Warning: This is a sad story.

I want to start out by saying how much I love animals. I love them so much some people have said my love is borderline mental illness. By the way I think that is ridiculous. People are obsessed with football and their kids and NASCAR so really I think if you look at the big picture anyone can clearly see which love is truly the mark of mental illness. I mean, I will be honest, I think if my golden retriever was the president of this country things would be a lot different. First off he is really smart. Smarter than most of the people I know, actually. He is really kind, except when it comes to squires and Red breasted robins, he tends to want to eat them. He is also very handsome. He has a face you can trust. Anyway, this story is not about him. But later I will tell the tale of how the in-house psychic also known as Carlos, told me what my dog's real name is, the name that he would want for himself. I decided not to impose my will on my dog and let him have the name he wants. Anyway........

So I am in my backyard watching my 3 dogs run around and marveling at how cute they are. When all of a sudden the neighbor dog starts freaking out and barking like crazy. So I look over the fence and see him at the bottom of the tree looking up. I look up and I see a chipmunk running up the trunk of the tree. At first I am so happy that the chipmunk got away from the neighbor dog and is safely in the tree. Then I see a blue jay, by the way a blue jay would make a terrible president. Blue Jays are like a certain vice president that shall remain nameless.
OK, so the blue jay sees the chipmunk and starts to peck the crap out of him!!! And the poor little guy fell out of the tree into the bushes! I was so scared that the neighbor dog was going to eat him but then he jumped back up into the tree and started to make a break for it. He was racing up the trunk to a branch when the blue jay saw him and began peppering him with strikes. This was blowing my mind. I have never seen a bird attack another animal before. I heard a rumor once that a blue jay pecked the head of cat that was messing with it, but really that seemed far fetched to me. I thought no bird would have the guts to mess with the domestic house cat, the very animal responsible for making regular little birds almost an endangered species. So the little chipmunk was determined to hang on, he keep trying to run even with that bird pecking the crap out of him. He fell once more, jumped back in once again and was dive bombed by the blue jay. But he was a strong little guy and he endured the pecks until he made it to a branch and jumped away.

Later in the week I saw my cat running with something in his mouth. I thought it was a bird that he may have done something bad to. As he went to jump the fence he dropped what he was holding. It was a chipmunk! But he was alive!! And unharmed, and he started running like hell!!! I was so excited!! I cheered the chipmunk on as he dashed Thu my yard, dodged one of my smaller dogs and raced out to freedom, flying off the stone wall into the bushes.

Was this the same chipmunk? Dose this chipmunk have some sort of funky karmic debt? I know that I have never seen a chipmunk in my neighborhood before and in 1 week I had 2 sightings of some close brushes with death. Perhaps we can all learn something from our rodent friend. Something about perseverance maybe? Or something about the benefits of taking up a running practice so you can run away from predators? Or maybe it's that you can only get so far in the world by being cute and fluffy. I don't know. It could be a lesson in perspective and relativity. Meaning, to me my cat is a sweet,loving ball of goodness, but to a chipmunk he is a roving death machine. Or it could be that I have had too much coffee and should get back to my work instead of pontificating on chipmunks and my cat Mr. Big.