Is There a Squirrelogist in the House?

Now that I've updated you on the gory details of wedding excitement and honeymoon relaxation, I can now get on to MORE PRESSING matters. Like the fact that a certain squirrel moved into our tree a week before we left and proceeded to fixate on our window and fire escape, tormenting the cats, peeing into the window, and trying to build a nest under the towel we left out to dry.

I call him Jojo.

Jojo originally showed up with his partner Loretta, but I fear that Loretta also couldn't stand Jojo's antics or that she went with one of the stray cats in the yard for a smoke and never came back. The first thing that I noticed about Jojo, beyond that fact that he was on our fire escape, was that his tail had been recently bitten partially off. He seemed a little erratic, but wouldn't you be if you had only 3/4 of a tail left?

The next time I saw Jojo, he was spread eagle on our window screen, making a sort of muttering noise at our cat Kingsley who seemed baffled as to what to do when the STALKED starts STALKING BACK. It became a dance of cat and squirrel. I could have sworn I heard Jojo muttering to Kingsley, "Oh, yeah? Wise guy, eh? Think you're a big tom cat, eh?"

He came back every day to repeat the performance. When I came home, Graham said, "I think that squirrel peed through the screen." I didn't believe it until I SAW HIM do it the next day. I immediately got some water to flick from my fingers at him, but he shook it off and proceeded to climb the screen, trying to chew through it. Both cats just watched him, their ears turning in a sort of radar to somehow catch and decipher the code.

Before we left, we forgot to take in the towel that we had left to dry on our windowsill and when we got back from our trip, Jojo had made himself a nice little squirrel condo. He apparently didn't want to be FAR from where he could reach us. We had to kick him out of his condo. The towel wasn't going keep him warm during the winter anyway and he was adorably trying to chew a hole into our apartment.

I still see Jojo every day in the tree, but due to recent construction he has yet to pay another visit on our screen. I wish I could understand his ways, but alas, I'm no squirrelogist. Wish I was.