Good Monday morning friends!  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and are ready to head back to the salt mines!  Do any of you actually work in salt mines?  No?  That’s what I thought.  Where did that expression come from anyway … I’ve never in my life known anybody who worked in salt mines.  Sigh … now you know my curiosity is stoked and I have to know … hold on a sec …

According to one site,  “This term alludes to the Russian practice of punishing prisoners by sending them to work in the salt mines of Siberia. Today the term is only used ironically.” So now you know … you’ve already learned something this week, and it’s only Monday morning!

Since I was lazy last Monday and didn’t provide coffee & donuts, I got up extra early this morning to bake some special treats.  So, grab a cup and a snack, pull up a chair, and let’s see what fun things we can find to start out the week!

Squirrels, squirrels, squirrels!!!

Everywhere I looked for fun stories, it seems I came across … squirrels!  The first one involves six baby squirrels who had the most unique problem … their tails were all tangled together!!!Luckily, some good Samaritan noticed that something was not quite right, as the squirrels were all moving together as a single unit.  Closer inspection showed their tails all tangled together.  Animal control was called, and the babies were taken to the Nebraska Wildlife Rehab center where Laura Stastny gave them a mild sedative, covered them with a towel to comfort them, and went to work untangling.  It turns out that tree sap was the culprit, making their tails sticky.  After snipping off as much as she could of the sap-covered fur, Laura gently untangled them.  They are doing fine, according to Laura, although several of them will need surgery to remove parts of their tails that were damaged while tangled.

One day last week, Kellen Moore of Gaylord, Michigan, started his car, but noticed a really strange noise that seemed to be coming from the air-conditioning.  So, he turned the car off, got out and popped the hood, to find …That’s right, folks … pinecones!  About 50 pounds worth of pine cones, in fact.  Turns out squirrels had been stashing the pinecones there … and it took Kellen and his co-worker Gabe Awrey nearly an hour to remove them all.  Now … I’m a little puzzled and wondering just how long the car had been parked in the same spot, because it seems to me that it would take quite a long time for squirrels to carry that many pine cones and stash them under the hood. 

A resident in the Southwark neighborhood of London last week called the RSPCA to report there was a squirrel stuck in their toilet! Animal Collection Officer Kirstie Gillard was able to put the handle of a mop into the toilet, the squirrel climbed onto the mop handle, and she was able to pull him out to safety.  He was uninjured, and was released back into the wild.

Karamel is the squirrel’s name, and she lives in Turkey.  No, not the bird, Joe, the country!  Karamel was caught in a hunter’s trap 😠 and both her front legs had to be amputated.  But now for the good news.  In Istanbul, about 700 miles from Batman, Turkey, where Karamel was rescued, there is a man named Tayfun Demir, who is a rescuer of squirrels.  Karamel was taken to Mr. Demir, who saw to her recovery and adopted her into his family of squirrels.

But Tayfun wanted more for Karamel … he wanted to help her regain her mobility, so he enlisted the help of professionals from Istanbul Aydın University who had experience in building prostheses and other mobility devices.  It took a while for Karamel to recover, and a few tries before the mobility device was just right for her, but … well, see for yourself …

A squirrel-less tale …

Dushaun Henderson-Spruce submitted a U.S. Postal Service change of address form on Oct. 26, 2017 requesting a change of address from an address in Atlanta to the address of his apartment on Chicago’s North Side.  The post office duly updated the address, and Henderson-Spruce began receiving mail at his new address.  Only problem was, it wasn’t his mail he had diverted, but that of the United Parcel Service, commonly known as UPS!

No, he wasn’t receiving packages, but the address in Atlanta that he had changed to his own was the business office of UPS, and he began receiving mail addressed to UPS. The scam went on for three months, and prosecutors say that he deposited ten checks totaling $58,000 to his account during that time.  The mail contained personal identifying information of employees, as well as business checks and invoices, according to the affadavit. He was also sent American Express corporate credit cards.

Finally, on 16 January, UPS realized something was not right and contacted the Postal Service.  It took another 12 days, but finally on 25 January, postal inspectors searched Henderson-Spruce’s apartment in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood and found about 3,000 pieces of mail addressed to the company in Atlanta.

Now, Dushaun wasn’t too bright, for he tried briefly to claim that it was just a mix-up that wasn’t his fault, and that his identity had been stolen.  Obviously that didn’t fly, and he now faces federal charges of mail theft, which carries a maximum sentence of five years, and mail fraud, which can be up to twenty years.  I will refrain from any snarky comments about the efficiency of the USPS.

And last, but not least … take a look at these pictures.

Great photography, yes?  No! These are not photographs, but paintings by Kei Mieno, a 33-year-old Japanese artist born in Hiroshima who has been painting professionally for more than 10 years.  Kei specializes in hyperrealism, and the details and texture of his paintings are so precise that it‘s not difficult to confuse them with a photo.

Okay, my friends … let’s get this week started, shall we?  It might help if I remind you that next Monday is a holiday in the U.S., Memorial Day, so you’ll be getting an extra day with your weekend, followed by a short work week!  I hope you all have a wonderful and maybe even productive week this week.  Please do remember to share those gorgeous smiles I see on your faces … they are too precious not to share!  Love ‘n hugs from Filosofa.

An’ from me, Boo!  ‘Member me?