2 a.m. A crash!

I woke from a sound sleep at two this morning with the sound of a metallic crash still reverberating in my ears. Naturally I assumed the cat had knocked something over, and since I was scared I reacted by yelling several obscenities really loudly, because ghosts are scared of yelling.

Then I got up and turned on all the lights.

Jekyll was in the hallway outside my bedroom, his tail fluffed up and his eyes big and round.

These are my thoughts, as near as I can remember them:
It's a ghost.
No, a neighbor cat must have jumped onto the outside of a window and scared Jekyll.
But what made the noise?
Is someone trying to get into the house?
I'd better look outside.

I went to the front door and peered out, then turned on the porch light and peered out some more. Nothing stirred in the yard.

Then I turned around and saw that part of a plastic "FOR SALE BY OWNER" sign had fallen out of the capped chimney and onto the electric heater that sits in the fireplace, along with a lot of soot and cinders.

I don't know what a FOR SALE BY OWNER sign was doing in my chimney. I didn't put it there. The chimney was capped something like ten years ago when the house was remodeled, long before I moved in, and presumably the cut-down sign was used to block off something up there. There's no flue in the chimney anymore and, of course, the chimneytop itself has a metal cover over it, although there are ports in the cover's sides, presumably for ventilation.

The wind gusted outside, making the house creak gently. Then I heard scrabbling in the chimney.

I pictured a sooty and furious, probably rabid, raccoon leaping down from the chimney and attacking my face. So I banged on the heater and yelled more obscenities, and the sounds stopped. I waited a long time and didn't hear anything but the wind, and there wasn't a draft from the chimney so hopefully the FOR SALE BY OWNER sign wasn't blocking off something important. I cleaned up the soot and cinders, threw the sign away, and turned off all but one living room lamp.

Then I went back to bed and stared at the ceiling, listening tensely, for the next four hours.

Further details if any come up.

Edit: I left the house a while ago to run down to the post office, and three young raccoons and what I initially thought was a white cat ran from my side yard across the street. About the time I realized the "cat" was an albino raccoon, they were gone and I wasn't able to get a picture. But, you know, mystery solved. They were probably fighting crime.

Raccoon Commandos rescue puppy

My mom blogged about it over here, with pictures but without all the expletives I uttered. Her neighbor's puppy got his head stuck in his gate. Nuff said.

I stayed up late last night and wrote until I got to the explosion! Yay for the explosion! Now fun stuff can happen again.

Recruiting for Raccoon Commandos

My dog Jasper and I snooped around my neighbor's yard after I got home from work today, by walking up and down the service drive where their trash cans are. The trap and trapped raccoon are both gone.

I was pretty bummed about that, actually, since all day I've been imagining myself as a raccoon savior. I figured I'd march right over there and release the raccoon by using my awesome human intellect coupled with my slightly less awesome (but still awesome by raccoon standards) muscles. And after that I fully planned to stage nightly raids on the Havahart trap, springing it after my neighbors went to bed but before the raccoons were out, which is more satisfying than breaking it and probably won't get me arrested. I even planned to wear a black burglar mask. It seemed fitting. And then, years from now, one day when I was menaced in an alley by a bad guy, the raccoons would come to my rescue!

But as of now, all is quiet on the Raccoon Commandos front. I'll keep you posted.

Okay, so, in writing news: Nothing to see here. Please move along. We are a hedge. Also, I have still not reached the freaking explosion in The Taste of Magic and I am frankly getting really bored with this neverending section. I just hope it doesn't turn out boring to read. I just have to write one stupid conversation before the kaboom! Why can't I manage that? Well, because it's almost all exposition and I have to dole it out carefully to keep it from being an infodump--or worse, turn it into, "As you know, Ana, your friend Ash has escaped from the Tower and is on the run from the guards...."

Foils raccoons and pesky humans

I woke up at five to a horribly inhuman snarling, growling, and whimpering practically right outside my window. Of course it was the neighbors.

*rimshot*

My neighbors--the ones I loathe, and did I mention that Mom says the guy is on the Tennessee sex offender list?*--have a Havahart trap on their garbage cans to trap raccoons. I guess it's easier to trap a raccoon and relocate/kill it than it is to, oh, BUY A BUNGEE CORD to tie down the can lids.

I peeked out the bedroom window and had a good view of the trap, containing one big fat raccoon. Three big fat raccoons were trying to get their buddy out, to no avail. Finally they gave up, and when they had gone the trapped raccoon fell silent. So I tried to get back to sleep before my alarm went off at six.

And of course I couldn't sleep for worrying about the raccoon, and at 5:30 I got up, pulled on a jacket and my shoes, and went outside.

The raccoon was all huddled up in the rain. Now, I've opened a Havahart trap before--with a skunk in it, no less--but that was about 15 years ago. I couldn't remember how it worked now. But hey, I'm a human being, the supreme tool-user, with opposable thumbs and everything.

So after ten minutes I went back in and turned on the internet. Which FAILED ME. I finally found a list of manuals on the Havahart site and guessed at which trap my neighbors had (a really old, crappy one, apparently), and found out how to open it. With a really bad diagram. Apparently one wrenches up on the door and props it open with a stick. Not included.

It's November. All the sticks I could find broke when I looked at them. And it was raining harder, and my accursed neighbors seem to be awake now. So I failed to save the raccoon.

But I swear to gawd or dawg or whoever, I'm going to break their damn trap. I'm a clever human being, after all. And I know where I can get a set of boltcutters.

*all the guys I went to high school have "issues." It's probably why I'm still single.