Return of the Coons

After our friends left, lobster shells were plentiful in our uncovered garbage can. Thus, Monday and Tuesday nights saw the return of the marauding pack of raccoons (Procyon lotor, the rabid, chattering scavengers of the urban wilderness) who visit our backyard periodically. The first night I believe they were just scouting and creating caches of food for later consumption. We watched them out our window with a Mag Lite. The next night, our beam revealed a flurry of masked glowing eyes and pink lobster carcasses. As Liz was transfixed on the feeding frenzy, Phoebe the cat suddenly jumped up on the windowsill in front of her face, giving her a hilariously bad fright. I told her I could solve our neighborhood's coon problem once and for all if she let me get a sweet air rifle (with an infrared scope, of course); the catch being we have to eat any and all coons killed, possibly in some sort of unholy stew. Liz reasoned that garbage eating city coons should probably not be eaten, unlike the clean rural coons sold for consumption at the St. Louis farmers market. I reasoned that these coons eat lobster. We never decided for sure, but I think the coons will be left to their scurrying. For now. The last few nights have been peaceful, but they'll be back. They always come back.

We played softball last night on the neighbors' team. I'd sort of forgotten how much I loved playing. The team is terrible (winless until Liz and I joined) so there's zero pressure to perform. Which makes it doubly awesome to see their surprise when you make a running catch, take an extra base on a lazy throw back to the infield, back up an off target throw or a missed play in the outfield, or even just slide into a base. We lost last night 17-8, through no fault of Liz or I. It was a ridiculously fun game. While we were waiting to play, there was an altercation in the parking lot which culminated in someone attempting to run down another person with their car. The nearly hit person then threw a bat at the fleeing Jeep, landing a solid shot. I was on the lookout for a retaliatory drive by during our game.

And finally, Liz continued her "transformation" into a no-nonsense-east coast-in-your-face-type person on Monday as she once again berated unsupervised children, this time for messing with the treadmills in our community center. I was proud and only slightly embarrassed.