A Chance Meeting With An Old Friend

My apologies to you all.  I realize that I neglected to share with you a very pleasant surprise!   You might remember that I visited the Huntington Library recently.  While there I wandered through the forested area where the Camellias grow.  It was shadowy and cool and I took my time looking around for interesting flowers and light and all that composition stuff that can make a stick look like art.  Deeper in the brush I heard a scrabbling sound.  Leaves crunching.  Mumbling under breath.  I looked around not sure what I expected to see.  Lo and Behold-- I recognized the Mumbler by the accent;  not quite British.  More along the lines of aristocratic.  More affectation than accent.  Fussy.  Prissy, even. 

I stepped off the path and under the tree  "Pip?  Can that possibly be you, my old friend?"  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Friends and Minions, if you have never become acquainted with Pip please do CLICK HERE and jump into a past post to learn how we became friends. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lucky for me Pip was in a chatty mood and so I settled myself onto a handy log to catch up on all the squirrley gossip.  "Pip, how did you end up here at the Huntington?" because we had met at Descanso Gardens.  Pip curled his very floofy squirrel tail around his paws and told the tale.  "The day came" he began "when Raccoon left the gardens to go live in the country with his children.  He really did, I am not presenting a metaphor on the afterlife.  As you know, Raccoon and I had been the very best of pals for many years.  Once he was gone I grew bored.  Of course I still had many friends, but the bi-weekly poker game was never the same.  Raccoon had several 'tells' don't you know. If he had a winning hand he could never help but pull on his whiskers.    I decided that I should do some traveling while the weather was agreeable and so I began to observe visitors to the gardens to find a likely traveling companion.  My criteria was narrow.  I needed to find a woman who carried a large bag.  Someone not easily given over to panic if she were to find a stow-away of a squirrel nature in her bag.  I distanced myself from young women with young offspring-- though the thought of rogue honey nut cherrios in the bottom of the backpack was enticing.  No, that sort of scenario could include far too much rooting around for binkies and chew toys. 

They Call Me MR. Pip!!