Tales From the Patio

It was a perfect night - still, cool, with a huge moon rising over the back ridge. After a crazy day, the serenity stung, stealing my breath away for a moment, making me stop my nonstop frenzy of minutiae and chatter to pause and admire.

We walked out to bask in the sweet stillness. Actually, I walked and the two dogs zigzagged after a rabbit, trumping my calm with calamity and ruining what was supposed to be a tepid, mushy bask of a blog post. Just once I'd like to skip the chaos and wallow in the mellow. Grrr.

Suddenly the dogs froze. At last, I thought, they get it. No need to run helter-skelter after bunnies. Relax, dammit.

Then something in the bushes moved. Something big. The bushes were just over my fenceline. Bushes were not allowed in my yard. Only their pricey cousins, the hedges, were permitted within my borders.

Josie the dog growled. Jake the dog hightailed it back into the house. (I will refrain from making the obvious analogy of male/female fight vs. flight tendencies.) Moving slowly, the fur standing up straight on her back, Josie approached the fenceline.

Suddenly an ungodly scream pierced the air. If you were to hit a Sasquatch with your car, perhaps in the process running over a sore bunion on his toe as your bumper caught him in the ribcage, that's what it would sound like. Horrific, high, and hideous. Even the fat, full moon scurried behind a cloud.

I had caught teenagers down there before, skipping school. This was no teenager. Not even a preening teenage prom queen could manage such a shriekfest.

Two glowing eyes peered out from the ragged wild of the bushes, the moonlight reflecting off them in a demonic glow. The thing shook the bushes, then screamed again. Louder, even, than the neighbor child who had rattled windows marketing his lemonade stand by screaming "LEMONADE!!!!" at seven o'clock on a sleepy Saturday morning. May he rest in peace. (No, he's not gone from this world, I just wish he'd sleep in a bit.)

From the doorway, Jake was whining. "Get in here," he seemed to say. "You're making me look bad!"

"Josie," I called, "Get inside. Now!" We ran for the safety of the house, sprinting from the patio that had suddenly turned into the devil's playground.

The screams continued behind us, bouncing off the far hills and stars. I spotted another set of eyes glinting in the sallow moonlight. So there were two of them. That I knew of. And, like many couples, they weren't happy.

I slammed and locked the patio door. Badly shaken, the three of us watched from behind the glass as the monsters screamed at each other. Safe in the house, Jake barked bravely. Josie and I rolled our eyes.

A third monster appeared, much bigger than the first two. It jumped from a tree, chasing the others, shrieking the entire time. All we could see were the eyes - fierce, angry, glowing.

After being married to a German, I do not scare easily. But these...things...were rattling my heartstrings. I couldn't stand it anymore. I grabbed a flashlight and went outside to investigate.

Yes, you're thinking - this is exactly what not to do, exactly what the soon-to-be-dead do in horror flicks. But I couldn't stand it any longer - I had to get a good look at the beasts.

My flashlight frightened them. They scuttled further back into the undergrowth. Furry, they waddled, wearing masks. Raccoons! I had never heard such an outcry. Perhaps, like mine, Madoff had made off with their 401k.

Coons are fierce, bad-ass animals. As a kid, I remember them tearing up our cornfields, in blatant disregard of my dad and his shotgun. To them, beating up dogs was child's play. In the animal 'hood, they were the equivalent of the Rollin' 60 Crips.

However, once I knew what I was dealing with, I could plan my defensive maneuver. Grabbing my boombox and my ex-husband's Barry Manilow album, I stepped outside...and handled the situation.

And we lived happily, quietly, ever after.

The Stinky Binky

Sometimes it's not easy to say goodbye.

This is Jake's binky. It's his favorite buddy. He snuggles with it at night, in a somewhat creepy way. He drags it about the house much like my little sister dragged her favorite dolly around when we were kids. Anyway, it's been stitched, washed, and duct-taped within an inch of its life. It is time for the nice trashman to take it away to live at Uncle Kevorkian's farm.

Jake has another binky, a much nicer, more presentable one, but he's passed it over in favor of this icky swamp-gas thing. We all make our choices, I guess. For whatever reason, Jake had been faithful to this old heap of smell. Taking it away from him wouldn't be easy, but its odor had begun to attach itself to the house, creating a stench entity that threatened to permeate the very beams of our dwelling. In other words, it stank.

Much like my ex-husband, its time had come to go. We planned some exciting entertainment to keep Jake preoccupied and happy. Events such as 'dinner,' and 'more dinner.' Eventually it would sink in that his stinky binky had gone to the great trash dump in the sky. Until then we'd be there to help him through this painful process.

With Jake, the main thing was to avoid laughing at him. Napoleonic runt-terrier that he is, he can spot a suppressed snicker from across the room. If anyone so much as smirks, he's in their face barking furiously. Last month, when the groomer shaved most of his body, except for his head and tail, he resembled a furry black Q-tip. Knowing he looked drafty and ridiculous, Jake would stare at us, searching our eyes for the first sign of a giggle. We would twist ourselves silly in an effort not to laugh in front of him, ducking eye contact, trying to make it out of the room before letting loose with a guffaw. I thought a macho sweater would help his drafty situation, but it sure didn't help us to keep a straight face.

Now his beloved, drool-soaked binky was leaving, and if we laughed at him he'd rip our lips off. And yes, I checked - the Dog Whisperer doesn't cover binky disposal in any of his episodes.

My sons put on hazmat gear (bicycle helmets, ninja swords and clown masks), sang some sort of quirky sea chanty, and deposited the binky in the trash can. I distracted Jake with food and his other somewhat less-offensive binky.

He's fine with it. Although he's requested more duct tape for his current binky. And a black leather collar with big studs in it. And a corvette.