A few nights ago around 4 AM, I spotted these guys dining at the communal pussycat dish out back. Obviously, it's a "next generation" of neighborhood raccoons. Obviously too, it's a parent and two kids. In the past when I've been watching or photographing parents and their offspring out there, the parent raccoon(s) never took their eyes off me for more than a split-second and the kids almost never looked. For some reason with these guys, it's the other way around. It's like the mother or father — I can't tell which it is — said, "Okay, you two watch the goofy-looking person while I eat."
At the moment — this is for those of you scoring at home — the population of my backyard consists of the two cats we call the Stranger Cats, a dark grey cat that seems to be quite sad and injured, a feisty little kitten that is terrified of humans, the above raccoon brood and intermittent possums. We don't see all of them every night. Then again, I'm not down in the kitchen taking the census very often. Also of course, we have a lot of squirrels and bluebirds and sparrows and starlings and doves and there are still those crows that are the size of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar skulking about. I don't know why more of us aren't alarmed about these giant crows.
So much to do today: A script to be finished. A meeting. My car's in the shop getting a new fan belt and all sorts of other unnecessary things the mechanic decided I'd be gullible enough to pay for…and I am. I'm going to get a haircut so that when I go to San Diego, the zoo keepers down there don't think one of their tenants has made a break for it.
It might be nice if I packed before it's time to leave for the convention, too. This is the inevitable moment when all of us who are attending wish we could call up and say, "Hey, I'm not ready. Any chance of just delaying the con to the following week?" But I guess the Comic-Con operators wouldn't much like that idea. They're already down there, setting things up, printing out badges, putting up "LOT FULL" signs on every place you could conceivably park.
So I guess I'll go this week. If you see me around or about the con, feel free to say hello. Don't be frightened by the fact that I look like I'm hurrying off to something important. I always look like that. It's all part of my scheme to make people think I ever have anything important to do.
I don't know when I'll get back here to post something so I'll leave you with Today's Video Link, which is YouTube footage of a raccoon doing something my patrons have yet to attempt: Stealing a rug. But give 'em time. They'll get to it.
