Thursday 20 November 2008

mutual of ohama's wild kingdom I am not

Snort. Like we didn't know that.

I drive home over a Bailey Bridge every night.
Coming home tonight after Parent-Teacher Conferences, tapping my toes to the beat, thinking idly about the fact that it's 0 degrees (Celsius, people!) and that means the next thing I need to do is break out the snowpants, and I was to the middle of the bridge before it registered that I wasn't the only thing using the bridge to cross the river at that moment.

There was a cat running down the support beam ahead of me. A big, fat, rotund gray cat. Huh. What's that doing out here? Somebody's pet, out in the cold and wet and it's starting to snow, isn't it? Maybe I can get it to come to me and see if it has a tag. It's obviously not starving. Looks like a circle with a tail, actually. A big, long bushy black and gray striped tail... Huh. And it's stopping to look at me! It has a mask like Lucy! Wait until I tell....wait a minute!

I cut my speed to a crawl and followed the raccoon as it waddled over the bridge, speeding up only when it disappeared over the verge.

11 comments:

MARY G said...

Yeah. That happened to me once. A black cat. With a white stripe down the middle of its back .......
..... cripes! The wretched animal strolled, slowly, along the middle of the road and I crept along after it at 1K per hour until it deigned to walk off.
Darn, you write well! I could see that raccoon.

Woman in a Window said...

I love your small vignettes that you write. Your words are strong and descriptive. They pull me right in. And even with a story of a fat raccoon I leave with the feeling of "lovely".

(And I wrote about bears today. What's up with that?)

Anonymous said...

Awesome! I love raccoons. And I agree with the other comments. I could see it just as you wrote it.

Lone Grey Squirrel said...

A fat raccoon? Life must be bountiful over there.

Anonymous said...

Pete mistook a skunk for a cat once. Luckily, he realized his error in time.

alison said...

Our neighbourhood is home to a gang of fat raccoons. Or at least it was back in August. There were 4 of them that hung out together and they were very fat. I think they were living in my neighbour's cedar hedge. I was very glad that I kept my garbage cans inside the garage.

Unknown said...

Too funny! But that bridge is so cool!!!

You might want to read my post for today: http://mapsgirl.blogspot.com/2008/11/isnt-it-pretty.html

meggie said...

I have never, & probably will never, seen/see a raccoon. Not the time to see one really huh?

Shauna said...

I am new here! What a great blog :)

crazymumma said...

Hey , there are SOME cats that look like big ole coons....

Loth said...

Well, that's one thing that is unlikely to happen to me here in Edinburgh!

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