Do Squirrels Dream of Days Off?

It’s a glorious day in my small Ohio town: clear blue skies, slight breeze, 70°, leaves beginning to change colors. I picked a great day to take off and wander in nature… if I didn’t have a list longer than my arm to accomplish today.

I’m planning on a three-day weekend to jump-start back into house fix-up mode and make some progress, so will have to work extra hard today to avoid the temptation to just take off.

But first I have some errands to run, which will conveniently place me outside on this beautiful day. Plus, as I write this, I’m still in my bathrobe and sitting on the porch, enjoying the weather. I think sleeping late, and a definite reluctance to get out of jammies, is de rigueur for one's day off. The rest of my morning will let check a few things off the refrigerator list: driver’s license, change of address, drop fireplace trim panels off at the machine shop to be cut down, library. And then the afternoon beckons with painting a couple of doors, the hall linen drawers I’d primed two months ago, vinegar-boiling more hardware to strip away 90 years of grime, and countless other goodies if I have time left over.

No question it will be hard today to avoid one of my favorite day-off past-times: sitting in a coffee shop or cafe in the middle of the afternoon knowing I normally would crunch numbers or analyze resource impacts in my cube at work. Which brings me back to Mr. Squirrel. What does he do on his day off? Does he visit the neighborhood cat and not taunt him (one of his daily chores), or sit under the big oak tree and not gather nuts? Every day’s a working day to a squirrel, but happily I can enjoy and relish my human Friday off.