Sense of Adventure

Holy crap!

Not ten minutes ago I was out in front of the house doing taijiquan. I like to do the Long Form outdoors when I can. It’s a very pleasant evening, and there’s more room outside than in my living room.

I was just nearing the end when I saw a couple of cats come into my driveway. I figured they were fighting, although it struck me odd I hadn’t heard them yowling and fussing. But cats usually don’t pal around together outdoors.

They held their bodies kind of hunched, as cats do when agitated. But they didn’t act upset. They mainly seemed curious.

They came up by the car, maybe ten or twelve feet from me. There’s a full moon, or nearly so. By its light I saw they weren’t cats. They had long, pointy muzzles, black masks, bushy tails with dark stripes.

Yes, they were raccoons. Not big - about housecat sized, obviously. I suspect they’re adolescents.

Freaked me out. I know raccoons live here in the Rio Grande Valley - I saw one a couple of years ago, big fat critter, a mile or two north of here. It crossed in front of me on a dark residential street between 2nd and 4th streets, one evening while I was driving to Smith’s. But I certainly never expected to see one around my house. Much less two.

They peered at me without much sign of interest or concern. Then they went back out and walked south down the sidewalk. I came inside to, well, tell somebody.

I hope they have sense to stay out of my backyard while Emma’s out, and to avoid tangling with the neighborhood cats. I don’t want anybody getting hurt. I also hope the little bastards stay out of my trash caddy, which I just rolled out to the curb for tomorrow’s pickup.

But … raccoons. In my driveway. Kewl!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 9:44 pm and is filed under Life, Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.