My Harried Life and a Racoon Part 2

6/26/14

So now it's Thursday evening, I come home from a 10 hour day at work... we had our public open house. So happy my buddy Lois came so I could give her the tour myself! It had been an exhausting day, as I was challenged to a foot race on our astro turf in the work out room. Good news it was a tie... not sure what to think news... I was racing with a septuagenarian! LOL Anyway I ran through Happy Joe's for pizza and get home to sit down and enjoy the evening with some friends on my front porch. The pile of cat food I swept up is still there so I go on a mission to find the dust pan... I find it at the same time as my company shows up... I am officially distracted. We sit down and the sun is setting and I happen to look up and see a HUGE ASS RACOON climbing the tree alongside the house next door! My friend, Samantha, whom is by far the biggest animal lover I have ever met, starts to coo and talk to it. He promptly comes down and starts sniffing around and goes under the porch. After a minute or two I look up and DIRECTLY in front of me with his head poking through the railing, almost touching my feet, is the HUGE ASS RACOON! I let out a scream loud enough to wake the dead and scare the racoon away. Now Samantha is scolding me for scaring the poor thing... I'm thinking REALLY?!? What about this poor OLD thing that almost had a coronary? It finally dawns on us it is after the food still in a pile on the porch. So, Samantha's son, Anthony,  grabs the broom and dustpan and throws what is left out in the side yard. Of course anyone that knows anything about wildlife knows they are just going to smell that food in the grass and come looking for it. And sure enough the HARcoon (HugeAssRacoon) showed his furry little masked face again. Now Samantha is standing up and cooing and talking to the friggin' thing like it's a PET! I am telling her to STOP because I don't want it to get too comfortable... you see just last week a squirrel came up on the porch railing, paused to look at us sitting there and then jumped down onto the footstool sitting right in front of the occupied chairs and ran across to the side porch and hung out on the railing not 5 feet away... It has a distinctive tail, and I have seen this creature on my porch more than once since then!

Now it is getting late, and I have to pack Wayne's lunch for him for work. I am gone maybe 5-7 minutes... when I come back out Samantha and Anthony tell me the HARcoon came up onto the porch and was sniffing the spot where the cat food had sat all day. Anthony was sitting on a folding chair right over the top of that spot! When he realized the HARcoon was right at his feet he jumped a little bit and sucked in his breath, clearly startled by the brevity this animal had, which was just enough to startle the HARcoon to run away. Harry, the HARcoon, is back in the side yard looking for any other bits of cat food he may have missed earlier. Wayne has gone to work, the tikis are burning, and we are starting to relax when Harry pops his head up AGAIN through the porch railing, this time further away from me... he obviously took pity on me and wanted to save me a heart attack. So once again Samantha goes into cooing mode again. She wants to go get more cat food to put out for him. I am emphatically telling her "NO!!" She is worried he will starve, look at him.... he clearly is not a skinny little waif! Still baby talking Harry he makes his way all the way over to the porch steps. As I watch in terror, he cautiously comes up one step at a time, all the while hearing encouragement from Auntie Samantha. At this point, I am unable to speak, or move and Harry decides it is not safe and backs away, down the stairs and back under the porch. Once the terror subsides I decide it is time to call it a day. I say good night to my company and make sure there is no food or food scented things left out on the porch where I go in and start planning on what to pack for my weekend away.

My Harried Life and a Racoon Part 1

6/26/14 

Wednesday night I brought home some groceries... I  unloaded them all out of the trunk and up onto the front porch to then bring them in the house. Thursday morning I get up and getting ready for work. I open the refrigerator and the door FELL OFF. I mean literally fell off the the fridge and just missed my toes. Naturally all contents of the door fall to the floor and the milk opens up to spill all over. I call Wayne to hurry him home...when he does arrive he asks me if I forgot something on the porch last night? OMG! I forgot the bag of cat food... now there is a shredded bag of cat food spilled all over the front porch. As if the raccoons around here aren't abundant enough and now I am feeding them! I dumped what was left on the bag into the cat's food container and the rest I swept into a pile and then could not find the dustpan. In the meantime, I am needing to clean up the floor full of milk, put away the contents of the door, clean myself off from the milk that splashed up on me and get dressed and ready for work. At this point I am so hot and sweaty, I literally have sweat dripping down my back and my hair is WET! I had to take another shower that would put me behind, so I call into work to explain as briefly as I can about my insane morning... I am fortunate to work for and with some amazing people, so they understood. My husband on the other hand... he was decided since I was already going to be late, could I help him find this and that and oh yeah I need you to order the part for the refrigerator so I can fix... Some days you just cannot escape the crazy! Thankfully it was the end of the week and I was only an hour late. Although I missed all the excitement at work... alarm getting set off,  911 phone call, and of course then I have to endure the teasing about my refrigerator door. We had our open house for the new building until 6:30 so I was really looking forward to getting home and sitting on the porch for a while before having to rush around and pack for the weekend.

"Roseanne: Desperately Seeking June Cleaver"

6/28/14

I try to keep things light and humorous in my life in general so those are the things I blog about. However, with job hunting, and health issues for both Wayne and myself the last couple of years I have not been terribly successful in finding the funny... After some serious introspection I am determined to just be me, no apologies, no backing down, just be real and say what I mean and mean what I say. My husband and his mom have been a great influence in teaching me that. If I am not married to you, if I don't owe you any money and if you don't sign my paychecks then suck it up buttercup because this girl is NOT going to answer to you! I have known this and felt this way for a long time but I admit I have lost my way, allowing negativity to seep back into my life. Let me tell you something..."Ain't nobody got time for dat!!"(Thank you Sweet Brown for this)

I have chosen to surround myself with people who make me feel good about myself; when I am annoyed by something I will let you know. I am not going to be whispering behind your back and saying things I wouldn't say to your face, you never know who is going to be listening and repeating what is being said and quite honestly I am not in high school anymore, I am entitled to feel any damn way I please and it's about damned time I own those feelings and without consequence! If you don't like what I have to say, or if I do or DON'T do something you feel should have or should not have been done, oh well. If that makes me a bad friend, then I guess I'm a bad friend and why would you want to be friends with someone like me then?

Moving forward for this next chapter of my life I am seeking peace. Sure there will be drama and arguments but the key for me is to find the humor and keep it to a minimum. I will watch reality TV, any of the Real Housewives franchises, or almost anything on Bravo TV will give me the daily dose of drama I seek.

I hope to have more posts regarding my "Roseanne: desperately seeking June Cleaver" lifestyle to entertain and amuse you all as well as myself! Now... Let the FUN begin!!