Ester's Feathers

It's been a strange 24 hours or so. MJ, obviously, although I confess when I checked on one of the many sites I troll throughout the day and saw that he'd died, I said aloud: Finally. That's a lot of fuckeduppedness to shoulder for half a century. It really felt like a protracted suicide for the last 20 years or so. But in terms of icons, well, finally someone usurps Elvis. Listening to the BBC last night was astonishing: the entire show was just breathless observations about Michael, Michael, Michael. I felt a little bad for Farrah. Also, Skye Saxon of the Seeds died yesterday. So, there was sumptin' in the air. In the evening a little after 7, I heard this sound like a - could it be - why, yes it is: a chainsaw. Recently, they've had to cut down this magnificent oak in the park because it had some kind of rot, and a lot of the logs it made are still there. I took Lulu and we went to go have a look-see. If it was the city doing this, I was going to bitch about the time. But no, it was just some lone guy, looking a little intense, nnnnnnnnngggggg-nnnnnnnnngggggggging away. Assessing the situation, I decided to let the cops sort it out - it's probably not prudent to engage with a man with a chainsaw. But apparently some neighbors were already on the phone with the cops, so we went back home.

Early in the morning I heard a little commotion. I figured it was just the cats playing, so I got up and closed the bedroom door. Around 6, Sammy finally showed up on the other side, mewing, so I opened the door and Lulu charges out and into the kitchen and just stood there barking in the vicinity of her food dish (and the internal cat door). I got her to move away, and opened the door to the mud-room and sure enough, there's a fucking raccoon. IN MY HOUSE. (Like some horror movie: it's coming from within the house - GET OUT!) With little trouble, I got him out onto the back porch (he slipped through the cat door with no problem whatsoever), propped the gate open and he was out. He was limping and had ripped the cat food bag open. I gave the cats a once-over and they're intact. Sammy was spooky for about an hour. Again: torn. This is no doubt the same solo 'coon I saw on the roof. He's beautiful! He's wounded! He's hungry! Then: he could rip open my cats throats (but didn't) and let's not even mention (ssssh: the chickens...). The sister-chickens had to stay in their house this morning, and from now on, I'm going to block the cat door at night. And I could use a nap.