Finding Joy in Snarkville

I used to think that I lived in the middle of Wild Kingdom in Frankenhouse.  In addition to our personal zoo, there were regular sightings of deer and turkey and few animals I’m not sure I want to remember.  Anyway, Frankenhouse has nothing on our new digs.

Like Frankenhouse, we basically back-up to woods — which is awesome for private park-like setting in our back yard; but it also makes for easy get aways for all of the forest creatures who like to say hi.  We have a lot of deer — BIG deer.  Deer the size of Mac trucks.  I often can sit at my desk and look out to see deer raiding my neighbor’s birdfeeder — which is fun and funny at the same time.  We have a family of bunnies who in the fall visited our yard every afternoon to munch.  (In case you were wondering, my very dumb dog has yet to see deer or bunny — he is really only interested in those things that don’t move — like leaves.)  I’ve seen raccoons, other peoples’ cats, and a metric ton of birds.  One afternoon, I even had a hawk land on my deck rail and stare into my house at me.

So, last night, as we settled into watch the closing ceremonies, one of the cats was curiously looking out our patio doors.  We look up to see a little pointy white face looking back in at us.  I should pause that I am not sure that I’ve ever seen an opossum alive.  I may have seen one scurry across a yard, but NEVER one a few feet away.  I got up, I turned on the lights outside, I stood on the other side of the glass  and we watched each other.  He/She was not bothered by the movement inside or the lights coming on outside.  The opossum walked back and forth on my deck looking in curious about the cat on the other side.

Once the little creature left, I began to think about this incident. First, they are not nature’s most beautiful creatures – one might call them a wee bit ugly, with the white faces and their beady eyes.  Second, I know next to nothing about them (except they (and armadillos) make fine roadkill) so I couldn’t help but wonder if it was trying to get inside to rip my face off in the middle of the night.  Finally, why the heck was it not afraid of me inches away from it (safely behind glass)??

So, of course I consulted Google and answered most of my questions — it will not dig; it can’t jump (though can climb) so it is unlikely to get on my roof and try to get in; it will eat things I don’t like more (snakes, rats/mice, and random backyard garbage.  But the one thing Google was unable to answer for me — was it visiting a human zoo and thus not afraid of the giant behind the glass? Was it trying to get into my house to rip my face off? Should I be worried that one of the things it hunts was also up on my deck or close to?

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 9:58 am and is filed under Mental Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.