A visit from…

Sent: Saturday, October 6, 2001

This is me. Twas the night before a long day at work, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, well, maybe a mouse. And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my….well we won’t go there, had just settled our brains for a long autumns nap. When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. Actually, being over 50 now, and aches and pains being such as they are, I climbed out of bed rather slowly, pulled on my robe, hobbled down the stairs, out the front door, across the porch and on to the lawn, when what to my wondering eyes should appear, Clint’s little Jack Russell Terrorist giving battle to an annoyed possum.

Now the possum was not “playing possum” as you might suppose, but was making a good accounting of himself, giving as good as he took. However, wanting to shut the dog up and get back to sleep, I sided with the possum. About this time, Clint starts yelling various things at the dog, some of which was acceptable for mixed company. Now you need to understand that calling the dog a terrorist was not a typo. While he does not look middle eastern, his name is a dead give away. Ollie Bad Baba. Now while Clint is doing his “gentle coaxing”, I commenced to hollering “BAD BABA, BAD BABA, GO HOME BAD BABA”.

If the dog had tail enough to put between his legs, that he would undoubtedly have done so as he scampered up the hill to safety from the screaming loonie. I went to check on the possum, but he rather ungraciously left with out so much as a fare thee well for having called off the dog. While all this was happening, Early Boo gallantly stayed upstairs on the bed guarding Annie from any alarm. Annie somehow slept through the entire episode.

Early hours, getting to work

Sent sometime in late 2000 or early 2001 (I don’t have the original email, but it’s before “This is me” started.)

I get up at 5:00 on work days. OK 5:09 with a snooze. So why is the snooze always 9 minutes? Inquiring minds want to know. But I digress.

After breakfast, feeding the dog and the undomesticated cat, packing lunch, and everything else that goes with getting ready for work, I am ready for my morning skunk hunt. Yeah, that’s what I said, my morning skunk hunt. Around 6:00 my dog and I take a walk up on the hill. Only about 1 and 1/2 miles, but it is a nice stretch of the legs even so. Depending on the time of year, it might be daylight, dusk, or pitch dark.

On the morning of the original skunk hunt, it was pitch dark. The only thing that you can see is the tall grass and weeds along side the trail, which I mow every couple of weeks. All of a sudden, my dog takes off as fast as she can, and barking up a storm. Now, after the embarrassment of the porcupine incident, I don’t want her out of my sight, which on that morning, wasn’t very far. So I start yelling, as loudly as I can; EARLY BOO, EARLY BOO, EARLY BOO!!!!! Well, because that’s her name, why else do you suppose I would yell such a thing? As fast as she ran off, she suddenly appears out of the darkness running back at me even faster than she can. I no more than think, “whats got her so scared?”, than I see that she isn’t running away from something, but is chasing a skunk right at me.

Now, those of your who are city-fied might not know this, but a scared skunk can climb a pretty mean tree. To a scared skunk in the darkness, I must have looked like a tree trunk. Now the skunk must have wondered why a tree trunk would yell EARLY BOO, or anything else for that matter, and just before making its leap to safety, it slammed on the binders and came to a stop about 2 feet in front of me. The dog, being not quite so graceful, nearly bowled over the skunk. The skunk and I both sized up the situation, and decided to go in different directions. The excitement being over, the dog sat down and looked wonderfully sad. So that’s what I do in the morning. Carl