All day long it scratched at my windowpanes. It jumped from the brickface to my safety screens to the sill back to the brickface to a lightweight tree branch, then from one window to the next. My cats – docile, toothless, confused by even the unpredictable sway of dustmites – spent the rainy afternoon on the verge of miniature nervous breakdowns. They battered the window with limp, asthmatic paws while I tried to ignore wildlife civil war and press my nose a little harder to the grindstone.

I had an excellent night, but it wasn't my day; today belonged to the squirrel.

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