Ester's Feathers

It was kind of an action packed weekend. No car chases or explosions. Well, there was an explosion, but it was just a collision of humans. I have this survivalist neighbor down the alley. He's to be avoided, but we generally put on our cordial masks when encountering the other. I came home on Saturday to this thundering racket, and quickly identified it as coming from him: his power washer. So, I (marched) over and finally got his attention (he, of course, has these mammoth earplug headphone things on (because, you know, it's LOUD) and asked him if he could give me an ETA on when he would be finished, because there was no question of being out in the yard, it was that LOUD. He looked at me like I'd just said 'Ooooogggaboooogaruthbuzzybaggabaggaooooooga'. I reiterated. He was dumbfounded that I would even ask such a thing, and told me I was crazy, and to go ahead and call the cops......you Nazi. Which is kind of a bizzaro moment, when a Nazi calls you a Nazi. So, I turn around to go home and when I pass The Neighbors in the Yellow House, girly-man calls out to me "What'd he say?" and when I told him, then HE goes marching over and things escalate, and G-M says "you're using all this water, making all this noise, for something you could essentially do with a broom'. He was a compelling study in reason and aggression. I liked it! Girly-man: I misjudged you. But the guy shut the fucking thing off, and we had a nice quiet afternoon. My nephew, pretty much my last relative that I have any contact with, was supposed to come down on Friday and, not surprisingly, screwed that up. So, we rescheduled for Sunday and I really wasn't looking forward to it. But we ended up having a really nice visit, which got better the more we imbibed, natch, and I kind of hope we can nurture this, which won't be easy since he now lives in Canada. So, I guess the theme of the weekend was re-evaluating people.

On Sunday morning, Sammy ran in the house with his tail all big, like a toilet brush. I couldn't figure out what spooked him, until a while later I happened to look up at the clear roofing covering the porch and there was a raccoon. I immediately ushered the girls back to their coop and tapped him with a broom, and he ambled off to another part of the roof of the house. So, no free ranging on that day: I let them out when my nephew and I were hanging in the back garden, and kept them in, under my eye. I'm so torn about raccoons: I think they're beautiful, but they're hell on chickens and cats. Also kind of sad: there was only the one raccoon, and I know they travel in pairs, so this was probably a widowed 'coon. Confidential to solo raccoon: maybe you should try looking for a mate a few blocks over.