I’ve tried for a day now, and I still have no idea how to best blurt excitedly about my Saturday. While some of my pj bretheren were doing things like covering the UGA-Bama game this Saturday, or even going because the lucky knuckleheads got tickets, I was doing something way cooler.

I got my own Disney Princess Moment.

As I pulled in the driveway Saturday morning after shooting UGA’s first home cross country meet in four years, William, who’ been standing outside our back door, flags me down with the news that DUDE there are BABY CHIPMUNKS like RIGHT THERE and they’re just hanging out being all cute and stuff and they’re not afraid at all!

Good nature photography can be hard work. There are different modes of getting the shots, the worst of which including setting up blinds days ahead of time and going out at 3 am covered in deer pee and sitting for 8 hours waiting for something to lollygag by. While results of such can be rewarding, I prefer the Oh You Lucky Bastard method. When combined with something as undeniably cute as a baby chipmunk…

I left my truck idling, jumped out with my camera and 80-200, because I figured even if they were 7 feet away, we wouldn’t get much closer than that. Where I grew up, the chipmunks were notoriously skittish.

I was barefoot because my shoes got soaked at the meet, and I stepped on something sharp, but it didn’t stop me in my pursuit of critter photojournalism. I could just smell the story…”A Day in the Life of Some Baby Chipmunks Running Around the Driveway We Share With our Neighbors.” Ha.

I got some frames, and slowly got closer, as the critters seemed not to be bothered by mine or my abnormally large hippie roommate’s presence in the slightest.

And then one runs up on my foot and licks it.

And then I almost died.

As you all have probably guessed, I’m quite a badass. I mean, I am hard-hearted and cool-demeanored and should probably wear a pony tail and a tank top all the time. (Sort of like that Hispanic chick in all those cheesy action movies and “Lost” whose name I can’t remember? Except I’m not Hispanic.) Point… Nothing wavers me. Except when wild baby chipmunks the size of my big toe lick my feet.

I didn’t get that shot. Not in any sort of focus. The problem with being 5′1, sometimes telephoto zooms don’t focus close enough to the ground to get photos of chipmunks on your feet.

Luckily William interpreted my frantic Holy Crap A Chipmunk Licked My Foot arm waving and corresponding facial expressions as Holy Crap Go Get The Other Camera With The Wide Angle Lens On It.

And so he did.

And so I shot.

It didn’t take long for me to put the D100 with the telezoom down. It was hard to move stealthily with is swinging over a shoulder, and there was a slight chance the strap could break or something and it fall right on one of the three baby chipmunks, who after much thoughtful consideration, we named Sammy Davis Junior Junior, Dean Martin Junior Junior (because there was a Dean Martin Jr. too) and Frankie Baby. It’s like the Rat Pack, but with… chipmunks.

Besides, I think if I accidentally squished a baby chipmunk with my camera, I might have to choose a new profession.

And then… two of the little boogers started running around my camera. They really seemed to like the thing.

Right about that time I started praying real loud to the Photography and Advertising Gods that they’d climb on top of the camera, or inside the lens hood and hang out a while, or otherwise just get really close to the big white or gold NIKON parts and I could make some awesome frames and Nikon would be so astounded that they paid me a ridiculous amount of money to run my photo as an advertisement in all those fancy photo magazines that I can’t afford.

Didn’t happen quite like that. Oh well.

But we did learn, however, that two out of three baby chipmunks prefer Nikon cameras.

So whatever, photos…

If that isn’t a Disney Princess Moment these days, I don’t know what is.

And to top it off… last week at the staff meeting I was voted “Photo of the Week” and I won a tiara.

Imagine little squirrels and bunnies and birds flying around me in that photo there. And also no white balance problems.

That’s it.

Freaking perfect.