LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

New word:  Emaul
As in, "I received another emaul from your mother about missing the Bris." or

"Don't delete those psycho emauls from the contractor, because I might need to show them to an attorney." Also a verb; to emaul, emauled.

Mythic referent:  Eris, the Greek Goddess of Strife, tossing the Apple of Discord into the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.

Specific Halloween referent: The erroneous assumption that, on most days of the year, the Gates of Hell are a one-way portal.

SQUIRREL TROUBLE

The squirrels and our dog Callie are at war.  I almost lost my thumb in a suicide squirrel tie-down, when I got crisscrossed with Callie, a squirrel and an erratic zipleash.  Annoying.

The squirrels seem to be increasingly aggressive.

The dogs in the neighborhood are finding various ways to cope:

Unconfirmed sightings of supposedly extinct proto-Sciuridae have local canines on edge.

However, we have some unexpected allies in our pursuit of homeland security.