um...what the heck?

In an effort to conserve energy and love our planet (slight sarcasm), we decided to turn off the air and open the windows last night. It was a nice night, so it got cool enough for us to sleep comfortably. It's inevitable though, something must go wrong.

I went to sleep thinking that it would get cold enough for me to shut the fan off when I got up in the night, so we could hear Emma if she cried. The last time we had our fan on, I didn't hear her, (although both doors had been shut). So last night we opened each door, and thought it would probably be ok. But, I just woke up and couldn't stop thinking about not being able to hear her. The thought was stealing my z's. So I turned the fan off, and went back to sleep.

All was well for a couple of hours. Then, I started having this bizarre dream about cats fighting. Then, bizarre became reality. I laid there in bed, at about 3:30, and wondered why cats have to have such issues. They were either having some weird mating interaction, or just fighting. Last year the same thing happened, and I went outside and chased them off, and it ended well. So I was thinking that I had better do the same thing. Out of the blue, my husband says, (not so impressed, mind you) "why did you turn off the fan?". I didn't know that he was awake too, so I had not anticipated being asked for an explanation. He was not impressed, with the fan being off or my answer. He may have reminded me that both doors were open, but I could be interjecting that.

I then rolled out of bed, and made my way downstairs to chase the horny cats away. I thought about getting a broom, but thought that might be a tad dramatic. (Who wants to be the pregnant lady with a broom, chasing cats in the middle of the night?) I turned on the outside light, unbolted the door, and prepared to boldly step out and redeem my bad fan decision.

My foot was midair, on the way to the step, before I processed my surroundings. There, looking at me from beside the bush, (a broom length away) were two very awake raccoons. These weren't baby raccoons (ashamed as I am to be a farm girl and having to resort to calling anything "baby this", I have no idea what to call baby raccoons). No, these were big boys, or girls. So, I did what any rational person would do. I slammed the door and yelled at my husband. I believe it was something along the lines of, "holy crap, there are two huge raccoons outside". I didn't, shall we say, use my inside 3 a.m. voice.

He came down.

We both had never seen them so tame, and we peeked outside, but of course couldn't see anything. We still had the dumb cats to deal with. So I focused and opened the door to complete my original mission.

I was surprised, I really was, one of those beasts was back on the doorstep! On the rug! Right in front of the door! And this time he didn't scamper immediately, I may have beat him getting the door closed. He didn't look as if he were foaming at the mouth (yet) but I think he eyed my foot in a weird way, so I assume he thought it looked tasty. I did just get my toenails painted, so that may have, in fact, added to the meal appeal.

Now, I have seen raccoons, but most of them have been laying on the road. I have seen plenty of nocturnal animals, but they have always been running in the opposite direction. Except for the opossum, he just laid there. (seriously) However, I can now say with some degree of confidence, that here in the burbs, that they are more comfortable with people and porch lights than where I came from. So, (obviously) we choose the lesser of two evils. We locked the door, I got the baby monitor hooked up, we cranked that fan back up and crawled into bed.

It's groundhogs by day, and coons by night.