Crazy Quilt: (memoir) stitching life's tales together any which way

Vacancy Sign

As Christmas 2018 drew near, the Seattle days grew ever shorter and darker. Our Christmas cactus, once again, showed no sign of blooming.

"Ah well," I told my husband, only half-joking, "we've got our Christmas camelia."

A picture window looks across our small back lawn to a stand of towering Douglas firs, and in their shade a camelia bush preens its glossy green leaves. Ever since we've moved here, its deep-pink flowers open in December and January to liven the dreary winterscape. And this winter, the bush was loaded with fat buds ready for a repeat performance...

...That never came.

Every wet miserable day I'd glance out the window. No bloom.

One afternoon I saw the camelia bush quivering. A gray squirrel was romping in the branches. "How cute," you might say.

I wouldn't. I used to think the fuzzy-tailed rats were cute, long ago, before they ravaged a new lawn and dug up all my tulip bulbs and stole all the bird feed and climbed across the window screen, leaving tweaky clawprints behind in the mesh.

I took out my binoculars to see what the critter was up to.

It was eating the camelia buds!

I pulled on rain gear and ran out, chasing the beast up one of the fir trunks. I gazed up into the lofty tangle of boughs. Multi-storeyed squirrel heaven. The rat and all his relations must be laughing down at me.

The remains of many flower buds littered the ground beneath the camelia. That meant war!

Out came the humane trap, baited with a peanut-butter-smeared cracker. The next morning, it held a squirrel, which took its first ever car ride to a remote wooded location, chattering, hissing, growling protest all the way.

At least once a week ever since, we've trapped another fuzzy-tailed rat and transported it to a new address. But no matter how many we send to a new postal code, more vermin move in.

One day, exasperated, I looked high up the Douglas firs. "There must be some kind of vacancy sign up there," I told my husband.

He laughed.

Last week was the worst ever. We trapped a new squirrel every day!

Perhaps with that amazing spate we finally tapped out the neighborhood furry-rat population. It's been several days now with no sign of the pests.

Just two months until Christmas. Our stubborn cactus shows no interest in blooming this season, but dozens of pale little buds already deck our camelia. I cross my fingers, and dab peanut butter on a cracker.