Squirrel Stuff I Own: Strange Japanese Embroidered Squirrel... Thing?

It dawned on me recently that this blog hasn't been very focused on New York City in my most recent posts. I wish I could promise that there will be more New York City stories soon, but in fact this New York City Squirrel is going to be spending most of her summer in the Midwest and the West, and hopefully on a Caribbean cruise, but we'll see about that. So I can't promise much more in the city department until approximately September, when we move back to the city and I can start complaining about the smell of wet garbage again.

In the meantime, I thought it might be nice to create a series on certain squirrel items around our apartment. We'll be packing everything up soon and placing it in storage for the summer, so this seems like an excellent time to get started on this particular cataloguing project.

Up first, I have no idea what you would call this thing. It's some sort of embroidered decorative... wall hanging? It looks like a pillow in this picture, but I assure you that it is actually flat, with cardboard backing. The scenery is all embroidered, and the squirrel itself is actually fuzzy.


I received this as a gift from my good friend E and her family. Apparently they found it when they were cleaning out closets at her grandparent's old house, and they suspect that their grandmother received it as a gift on a trip to Japan. B and I currently display it from the top of one of our bookshelves, although I've noticed that B likes to lay it flat when we have guests coming over as a way of hiding it. If it were up to me we would have this thing framed and mounted above our bed like some sort of strange talisman of squirrel fecundity. Despite B's efforts at hiding it when we have guests, I do frequently bring it out to show to our friends, usually after they've had a few drinks. (Consider yourselves warned.)

This is probably one of my favorite squirrel items in my possession.* It is both very cute and very strange, and in that way kind of reminds me of myself. I look forward to many happy years admiring this strange squirrel... thing... thanks E and Family!



*I will probably say this about all of them.