I'm flying away to Pittsburgh tomorrow afternoon! Who and what am I going to see when I get there? It's an adventure! ^.^

An extra big squirrel-hug for all the fathers out there! *hugggggggggggggggs!*

(I wanted to draw this as a picture, but I just can't find the time ^.^)

Zee-Zee rattled the playpen fence impatiently - it was new, and seemed to be cleverly designed so that even extremely clever big squirrels couldn't get a foothold to climb over. "I wanna get out!" he grumbled, sulkily.

"Just come and play with us!" said Chester, pushing a toy train along a long and winding track - the fence was surrounding most of the living room, and it was full of toys and interesting things to keep the cubs amused for an hour or two.

"Help me make a tunnel!" Alfie agreed, stacking blocks together to make the train's journey even more interesting. He tried to build one-handed while nibbling on a cookie from the plateful the grown-ups had left in the playpen. There were drinks, too, and Zee-Zee's potty was in the corner in case he wanted to show the others what a big squirrel he is. All in all, there was no reason why anyone would want to be anywhere except in the playpen!

"The grown-ups are doing something!" Zee-Zee complained, giving the bars another rattle and nearly waking up Gem, who was cuddling Grub in her sleep on a big cushion. "And they don't want us to see what it is!"



(It's actually a really fun party for the little ones, and the grown-ups don't want to spoil the surprise until they've got things set up in the next room...)

It's less than a month away! Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

1. What is your name?
Zee-Zee! Seriously, nobody calls me anything else at these things. 'Zee-Zee' is fine.

2. What is your gender?
Boy squirrel.

3. How old are you?
Two and a bit. Or, possibly, 42-and-a-bit.

4. How tall are you?
5'8", or thereabouts.

5. Where are you staying?
In the main hotel.

6. What day are you getting there?
Thursday evening, after work.

7. Who will you be with?
Nobody in particular, but anybody who wants to talk/play/hang out with me. ^.^

8. Do you have art in the art show?
No, but I'll draw you a picture if you ask me to!

9. What suit(s) will you have?
None, but maybe some kind of costume...

10. Can I dance with you?
It probably wouldn't work out well for anybody.

11. Can I touch you?
Well, if you say hi first. Seriously, why is 'dance' first on this list, then 'touch', then 'talk'? Is that how people do things?

12. Can I talk to you?
Yes! Please do! Lots! If you see me, come over and tell me who you are and say hello!

13. Can I hug you?
Lots! Please! ^.^

14. Can I take photos of you/with you?
If you want to, but I'm not sure why you would...

15. Can I buy you lots of drinks?
Always. ^.^

16. Do you drink Alcohol/Smoke?
Yes/No.

17. Can I give you lots of money?
I won't say no, but you can probably find better things to spend it on. There are people selling cool things, you know.

18. Can I hang out with you?
Please do! I'll be all on my own if nobody wants to hang out with me. Come to my room, I'll have toys and games and things!

19. How will I recognize you?
Well, I'll have a badge with "Zee-Zee" on it. I'll probably be wearing some kind of hat, or failing that, I'm bald with a beard and glasses. People know what I look like; ask someone.

20. Where will you be most of the time during the con?
Around and about. Try the bar.

21. Who are you rooming with?
I've got a single room. Nobody loves me. Or at least nobody would love me after spending time in the room with me, I'm pretty sure I snore.

22. Attending any events?
I'll go to Gem's scribbles, because that's always lots of fun. We're doing an escape room thing on the Saturday, I think, and there's a poker tournament too.

23. How can I find you at the con?
Try sending me a message here on FA, or else on Discord if we're friends there, or just keep your eyes open and shout "Squirrel!" if you see me. ^.^

24. Are you doing anything in line with the theme?
Posssssibly a special costume, but I haven't made it yet, so possibly not. It's a secret. ^.^

Twelve years ago tomorrow, April 8th 2007, I gave Zee-Zee his name and brought him into existence for the very first time! Wowee, that's a lot of years!

I probably don't say this enough, but THANK YOU to every single little fluffy thing who's played with me or said something nice about my stories or drawings in the last twelve years! Come here and I'll give you a big big squirrel-hug! ^.^

… is totally worth it. Best game ever! *happy bounces and then falls asleep*

I'm going to AC! For the first time since 2009! Who else is going to be there? Let's play! ^.^

It's nearly 2019, and I think I need to make a resolution to draw more pictures and write more stories! I've been much too quiet just lately!

I've still got a list of art trade pictures I promised to do, and I'll try to get them all done early in the new year! And then we'll see what happens after that! *hugs for everyone* Happy New Year, everyone! ^.^

*runs around excitedly hugging everyone* Have a great one, everybody! Be good for Santa! ^.^

A couple of people at the office have Maltesers advent calendars on their desks this December, and someone said "Are advent calendars just a British thing? You never see them on American TV and things..."


That sort of blew my mind just a little bit, because here I've been drawing annual 'advent calendar' pictures for the last 12 years and assuming that all the non-British people would know what I'm talking about... but it's true, I've never seen an advent calendar on a foreign sitcom, and I just looked up the Wikipedia page and it talks as if they're a funny religious kind of thing that people do in remote parts of Germany...


Okay, so, in Britain, advent calendars are cardboard rectangular things, with 24 windows on them, and you open one every day, and behind them there's a chocolate. Or maybe something else - in the old days, there was just a picture behind every door, but they're pretty much all chocolate now. And the calendars have pictures on them, and the whole thing looks sort of like this: https://www.hotelchocolat.com/uk/ki.....-calendar.html

Did you know that? Or have I just been assuming everyone knew that, all these years? ^.^

Thanks, everyone! *giggles and hugs*

A sound of scampering little feet getting rapidly closer, accompanied by an urgent chirp of "Poco! Poco! Poco!" made Poco the little mouse turn around from the absorbing task of trying to fit the right shapes into the right holes. Zee-Zee the squirrel ran up behind him and continued to skip in circles as he squeaked "Poco! Quick! Go in the potty and make sure there's no ghosties or skellingtons or the ones with the pointy teethies!"

Poco stood up and toddled quickly along behind Zee-Zee, who dragged him by the paw to the daycare bathroom door. "I thought you said potty monsters aren't real?" he asked, confused.

"Normally they're not real!" Zee-Zee explained, bouncing from one foot to another and holding tight to the front of his pull-up. "But there's lotsa monsters around right now!" With his free hand, he pointed to a paper ghost stuck to the window, to illustrate the point. "I'm nearly totally completely sure there's no potty monsters, but there might maybe be some!" He gently tried to push Poco through the door, but Poco dug his heels into the carpet and tried to resist.

"Why don't you go and check?" he asked, curiously. Zee-Zee wasn't generally scared of going to look for scary things, at least in the daytime.

"Cause I really need to go!" Zee-Zee gasped, squirming and bobbing up and down. "If I get a little bit scared, I might have an accident! But you wear diapies, so it's okay for you!"

"But what if there's really a monster and it eats me up!" Poco squeaked, starting to worry a little himself now.

"Then I'll go pee-pee in the sandbox when the grown-ups aren't looking," Zee-Zee nodded, cleverly. Sometimes, in an emergency, it's not easy to remember to consider other people...

"Little ones," Hannah the horse called to the cubs in the daycare, "say hello to our new helper! This is Billy!"

A swarm of little cubs flocked around the new grown-up bloodhound to hug his legs, chase his wagging tail or climb up and try to pull his ears, until he fell down to the floor and nearly disappeared under them. But after a lot of giggling all round, he sniffed loudly and said "Hmmm, I smell a wet diaper! Who's going to be my first change?"

"Are you sure?" Hannah asked. "We just changed all the diapers before you came in..."

Billy tapped his nose and grinned "The nose is never wrong! Now.... who could it be?"

The cubs all squealed and laughed, safe in the knowledge (more or less) that they weren't the one with the wet diapie, and running away as Billy tried to catch them. He dropped onto all fours and bounded around, catching little ones and giving them a theatrical sniff, until finally landing on a little squirrel. "Aha! I think we have our soggy diapie!" he laughed.

Zee-Zee pouted and shook his head. "It's not ME!" he insisted.

"Are you suuuuuuuure?" Billy smiled, scooping Zee-Zee up in one hand and patting his bottom with the other. "Yep, that feels like a wet diaper to me!"

"IS NOT!" Zee-Zee insisted, wriggling out of Billy's grasp and pulling his shorts down to demonstrate. "It's a wet PULL-UP!" he announced, pointing to the sagging, heavy training pants around his waist.

"Ohhhhhh!" Billy nodded, understanding. "You're right! Looks like I was wrong!"

"Yep!" Zee-Zee beamed, always happy to be told he was right. "See! I'm clever!"

"You're too clever for me!" grinned Billy, ruffling the little squirrel's headfur. "Hey, wow! Does that mean you know how to go to the potty like a grown-up?"

"Yep yep!" Zee-Zee squeaked, bouncing happily. "All by myself!"

"Wow, you gotta show me, next time you need to go!" Billy enthused. "Come on, let's get that pull-up changed quick, and then you can tell me all the clever things you know!"

I really thought I'd have had time to draw those art trade pictures I promised people by now, but I've been super busy, and I'll probably be even MORE busy for the next two weeks - but they're on the list, I promise! And they will get drawn, as soon as I can! *giggle* No need to post your half of it until I've done mine, that way I'll have all the more motivation to get on with it! ^.^

I've been out riding on steam trains today with that wonderful friendly fox,  foxfan1992, and one of the places we went to was a village I've only ever been to once before, but that was the memorable weekend in 2007 when I first thought of that first epic story, Summer Morning, that sort of created Zee-Zee's whole world!

And it was lovely and sunny all day except for the five minutes when we were there, and there was a sudden downpour, and we got very wet. *giggle* But it was a fun day out! ^.^

Who's up for a good old-fashioned art trade? You draw me and I'll draw you! I haven't done that for aaaaaages! ^.^

Lots of people are winning big shiny trophies today for things like tennis and football! Zee-Zee wanted one for being clever and having been a good boy all day and not even drawing anything on the walls even when he found a pen and wondered what colour it would write and there wasn't any paper around! So he told Daddy and they made a shiny trophy out of cardboard and glitter, and had such fun that Zee-Zee decided to present it to Daddy instead as a prize for being good at knowing how to make trophies! And then Daddy presented it back to Zee-Zee for being so good at making it and sprinkling the glitter, and then they stuck it on the fridge so everyone could see it! ^.^

England!

Zee-Zee swung his foot at the ball, intending to cleverly kick it past the reach of goalkeeper skunk Gus and into the top corner of the net, but missed it completely and fell down onto the grass. "I meant to do that," he said, getting up again, taking another swing and this time sending it trundling towards the goal.

"Got it!" yelled Gussy, diving spectacularly and landing with his stomach on the ball. "I saved it!"

"Well," said Zee-Zee decisively, "when I grow up I'm gonna be a super clever footballer and win the world cup!"

"It starts next Thursday!" Gus pointed out.

"I'll be grown up by then!" Zee-Zee nodded confidently.

Zed, watching the two little cubs with a smile, said "Maybe you should wait for the next one, in four years..."

"Four years?" gasped Zee-Zee. "We'll all be too old to play!"

Yay, lovely sunny hot weather! I love the summer! *frolics around*

And did you know it's a certain little baby squirrel's birthday tomorrow? Go and give a big special happy birthday hug to Gem! She deserves it for all the lovely things she does for everyone! ^.^

Double yay, it's nearly May! And I'm going to Little Big Land in Birmingham with  babydonney on May 12th! If you can possibly get there too, you really should, because it's the most amazing fun place for little cubs to play!

And then on the long weekend, May 25th-28th, it's Confuzzled! And this year it's all about playing games, so I'm gonna turn my room into an old-school playroom, with mega drive and master system and also VCR to watch cartoons! So if you wanna come and play there, please do!

*happy bounces* Yay yay yay! ^.^

Zee-Zee stretched up on tiptoes to put a final block on top of his gigantic block tower! Yes, it was now definitely higher than his head! And he'd built it all by himself! And been super grown up and patient and not even cried and given up when it fell down after he'd only put three blocks in a pile! And used the potty by himself earlier and not wet his pull-up since before lunch! Now everyone needed to come and see and tell him how clever he was!

He turned his back on the gigantic tower and yelled "Look what I... whuh?"

Just as he started shouting, there was a clatter behind him. His squirrel tail had swished against the blocks when he turned round and knocked the tower down. "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" he wailed.

Zee-Zee and a whole lot of other little cubs were at an exciting party! Right now, they were playing musical chairs (actually, musical cushions, since there weren't enough chairs to go round), and even though Zee-Zee is really really good at games like that, he'd somehow got a bit mixed up and was one of the first ones out.

But he was having too much fun to be upset at not winning absolutely everything, so he cheerfully trotted back to the couch where he'd left his teddy bear, only to hear another cub, who'd been the first one out of the game, saying "Well, I'm not as bad as that stupid baby who can't even play!"

"Hey!" Zee-Zee snapped, fiercely. "Don't call Tommy stupid! It's not his fault he's only a teddy!" And he hugged Tommy protectively.

"What?" said the other cub, pointing to the other end of the couch. "No, I meant that baby there!"

Zee-Zee followed the line of the pointing finger to see Gem, who was too little to understand the rules, but had been given her own cushion on the sidelines to sit on and watch the game, squealing with delight and clapping her paws. "Ohh, sorry!" Zee-Zee giggled, climbing onto the couch to watch the rest of the musical action. "I thought you said teddy, not baby!"



Then after a minute or so, he suddenly spun back around and shouted "Wait! That's even worser! Don't call my baby sister stupid!!!!"

If you like super-cute comics, and want to be in one drawn by a super-cute little civet, go here! http://www.furaffinity.net/view/26463962/

*giggle*

It was my grandma's funeral yesterday, and I was the only person there who was actually related to her - I see a lot of people complaining about their relatives, but do please spare a thought for people who don't have any close family at all, in this country at least...

So the FA family is very important to me! Happy Valentine's Day, everybody! Big squirrel hugs! ^.^