Squirrelicide

On our morning walk yesterday Bailey and I passed this wooden fence, which seemed to be keeping an eye on us. And looking none too happy about it, I might add.

Maybe it knew what was coming next.

Not long after that walk, Dave and I were sitting in the living room talking with our guests, and Bailey was snoozing on the couch. (On my lap, in fact.) She spotted something out the back door and immediately flew off the couch and outside, as she often does. I didn't think anything about it. Chasing squirrels, blah blah blah.

Only this time, Dave's nephew looked out the door and said, "Holy shit, she caught the squirrel!" And sure enough, there was Bailey, standing at the back door with a bloody motionless squirrel at her feet. She was very proud of herself, but as is often true when a dog kills a squirrel, she had no idea what to do next.

Of course I felt terrible all day, especially because I think this squirrel might be the one nesting in our walnut tree. All I could do was bury it. Nature, red in tooth and claw. (Though whether Bailey is really "nature" is debatable!)

This makes two creatures Bailey has definitely killed -- remember, she killed a rat in the garden within days of her arrival here. And she may have killed that bird in our bedroom, though that situation was so weird I hesitate to draw conclusions. I'm not entirely sure the bird didn't bonk itself into the window trying to get out.

Olga also killed a squirrel back in her youth, so this situation is not entirely unprecedented.

We mostly stuck to our neighborhood yesterday, taking Bailey to the cemetery in the afternoon. Then, last night, we took Dave's nephew and his fiancee to dinner at Fallow, which is probably Dave's favorite restaurant in London. This is the place that specializes in cooking and serving livestock that would otherwise go to waste -- their beef comes from dairy cows, for example, and one of their specialties is cod's head, a part of the fish that would normally be discarded. (A cod's head is huge and they serve just half of it -- and there's a surprisingly large amount of good meat on it.)

Then we went to see "Book of Mormon," which Dave thought his nephew would appreciate. We saw it 13 years ago (!) and loved it, but there's a lot I'd forgotten -- it's by the same guys who write "South Park" so the humor is very edgy and in some places downright cringey. They enjoyed it and so did we, but I'm not sure that show has entirely aged well. (It's been adapted a bit over the years, with Jeffrey Epstein now written into the script, among other changes.) The first time around I called it "a little bit shocking, in a good way" and it remains shocking, but I'm less sure about the good.

And just now, as I was writing, a squirrel ran up the avocado tree on the patio right outside our living room window. Bailey is going nuts.

These squirrels clearly have a death wish!

Apropos of nothing, I wanted to also share this photo from our walk on Friday of the Ukrainian flag flying atop a building near Parliament Square. I was happy to see it occupying a prominent place on the London skyline, and thus hopefully in people's minds.