trip

i spent a few days staying at YB’s house over christmas. one afternoon, while we worked on a pasta project in the kitchen, we observed a family of obese squirrels working and playing in her backyard.

for the uninitiated: in toronto, in winter, the squirrels get fat. happens all over the city, to squirrels of every size, shape and colour. they pack on the pounds to survive the cold weather and sparse dining the season brings, and they all look especially cute when they get chunky and doughy like that.

but these squirrels were HUGE.

there were at least four of them, all magnificently rotund and furry and adorable, like squishy, oafy beanbags with meaty little legs and each with a more-than-substantial insulating layer of fat. there were two grey ones and two (possibly three) black ones, and they were rooting around through the dead leaves and stray patches of snow.

they occasionally made their way along the “squirrel highway” (the power and phone lines running between all the homes in the neighbourhood), or up and down the towering trees, carrying enormous mouthfuls of debris with which to line their nests. there had been very strong winds the night before, and trix posited that at least a few of the squirrels’ nests must have lost some of their structural integrity as a result.

two squirrels – one black, one grey – kept chasing each other around the yard and, at one point, broke into a full-on wrestling match. i’d never seen anything like it before: perfectly interlocked squirrels, like a fuzzy yin-and-yang symbol, literally rolling around on the grass. they’d break, then chase, then start again. it was fantastic entertainment.

but when they separated for the final time, i noticed something odd.

the grey squirrel only had three functioning legs.

its right front leg wasn’t really a leg at all. it was kind of a floppy, runty nubbin.

from a distance, you’d never know anything was wrong. this plucky little (fat notwithstanding) squirrel was running and climbing and wrestling right alongside the rest of them, no problem. his buddies didn’t seem to notice or care, and he was certainly getting by just fine. yet, upon closer examination and when he stopped scurrying long enough for me to really see him, i spotted the lack of a limb instantly.

when i pointed out his missing paw to YB, she awwww-ed... and then we both kept watching him scoot around. when he scrambled up a tree, he’d repeatedly pause to catch his breath... his little chest heaving... and then carry on upwards despite his impairment. we couldn’t tell from our distance whether it was a birth defect or the result of injury, but it didn’t matter because he raced around just like his fully four-legged friends. we watched him for about 10 minutes, and then he disappeared towards a neighbour’s house.

i decided he needed a name, since squirrels this unique and interesting don’t spring up every day, and certainly not right in one’s own backyard. i suggested “trip” – short for “triple” and a small nod to his (admittedly irrelevant) condition. trix loved it, and thus he was christened. in absentia, but still.

we kept an eye out for him for the remainder of the day, but he didn’t return. “i hope nothing happens to him,” YB said with sincere concern in her voice.

“i’m sure he’s fine,” i said. “he’s trip!”

and, sure enough, this afternoon, trix had an update: trip had been spotted in the yard again, right as rain and being groomed by one of his fellow squirrels before zipping off through the snow.