Skip to main content

The Hot Tub & The Animal.

... if it's not the cat then what is it...
L
ast night I was out back, sitting in the hot tub. It was dark. Cloudy skies. Not much light except for the one in the tub. I'm relaxing and thinking. The noise of the whirling water drowning out most sounds. I'm in a zone when I look up to see the faint image of an animal’s face approaching the edge of the hot tub—its nose almost touching the wooden deck. It moved closer as if wanting to sniff the water.
In the darkness, I thought it was our cat and I wondered how it got out of the house, but as it moved closer, looking as if it might jump into the water, might jump at me, I realized the face was far too large, too wide—the body too big. It wasn’t our cat, it was a racoon. At least I thought it was a racoon.
Not wanting to learn more, I swung my arm through the water. A wave rose up and drenched the deck. When the water settled I looked around and couldn’t find the creature. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks. Maybe it was a ghost racoon—its image was, after all, faint. I must have imagined it.
I moved to the edge of the deck to investigate. Where the water hit, the light brown of the wood was dark. I had drenched much of the deck, but not all of it. There was a patch that was dry. A patch near the middle. A patch about the size of a racoon. I wasn’t seeing things.

_________
I took this photo early one morning in the backyard.
Posted 2012/09/05 at 17h09ET in Nature.

Comments

  1. Loved this story. Even made my husband laugh and we both needed a smile today! Thank you for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Piece of the Action (1977)

Saturday, March 7, 2009 A Piece of the Action. Feature film. (1977, 135 mins) IMDB ... Who would you have over for dinner? Sidney Poitier or Bill Cosby. ... A PIECE OF THE ACTION is the third film starring Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier. Poitier also directed the films. (And yes, I would be fascinating to have both them sitting around a table for dinner.) We're in Chicago and I love the setup for this film. It's clever, fun and interesting. It starts during the dark of night. Crosby is a cat burglar robbing a vault in a bank. He's by himself, all the tools he needs, and doesn't speak a word of dialogue for at least the first twenty minutes of the film. It must have been killing him. His robbery goes off successfully. (It includes a jump from a six or seven story window. There was a similar scene in their earlier films.) When the cops arrive during the daylight, they haven't a clue and we catch a glimpse of James Earl Jones as a detect...

If Only We Could Agree

Monday, June 11, 2012 ... have you been accused of misspelling a word you know is correct ... S usanne O’Leary wrote an interesting article on her experience with the variations of the English language in different countries. You know the obvious ones like colour with or without a “u” but less obvious ones like travelled versus traveled. Growing up in Sweden she learnt English in school—the UK variation. In publishing her books, she read reviews where she was criticized for improper spelling. False accusations as it turns out. While I write tire and cozy, it’s not incorrect to write tyre or cosy. Same language. Both accepted. Just different. You can read her write-up here along with the numerous comments posted by readers. I found it interesting, but that’s me. As a Canadian I deal with this issue everyday. I feel her pain when she’s criticized for something based on ignorance. No fun. I was told by a boss that “data are” isn’t correct. It should be “data is.” Read...

No Reservations (2007)

Saturday, May 2, 2009 No Reservations. Feature film. (2007, 104 mins) IMDB ... I so much wanted to like this film but couldn't ... T his film had two things I like a great deal: romance and cooking, but they didn't come together for me in this film. I think I know why. The female lead doesn't strike me as a romantic leading lady. That's just me. I also found the story line stale and uninteresting. Our hero lives in NYC working at a fine dining restaurant where she is the chef and dictator. Everything about her life is about cooking. Nothing else seems to matter. No children. No relationships. Then her life is kicked apart. Her sister and niece travel to visit her but before they arrive, there's an accident. The mother dies and little Zoe has to live with her aunt. Our hero struggles to include a new person into her life but what follows is so predictable as to be boring. To add even more complications to our hero's life, her sous...