Dashed and Smashed

We cleaned the vacated Oakland house yesterday. I scrubbed the refrig, and vacuumed the hardwood. We stopped at Farmer Joe’s on the way out of town, and snatched a roasted chicken. No one but no one can roast a chicken like Farmer Joe’s. And so, we are officially out of Oakland. Good-bye Oakland.

Hello Pacifica. I’m not sure what I’m doing with the blog. I like the new blog name, Pacifica Tsunami, suggested by Steve, and I have reserved it. The title lends itself into my chaos theme. Speaking of which, the first day we were here, a huge raccoon was dead on the side of the road by our house with its head crushed. The hubby went out to look at it, and then, I took the little dog out to look at it. It was the size of a bear cub.

This morning I let the little dog out to use the bathroom. She did her business. I collected it a plastic bag and trotted around the corner of the house to fling bag and poo in the waste can. The house is small. The corner of the house is not far, and yet, in those brief seconds, something very wrong went down. I heard the little dog, who is stone deaf and mostly blind now due to cataracts, come unglued. I ran back to her. She was barking so hard her front feet were coming off the ground. Looking at us from the other side of the fence was a raccoon head, and not a small head either. It was about the size of a basketball. The ‘coon was eyeballing my backdoor, which I had left open. Thank God for the little dog. She may be old, but she’s fighter. Not so much a biter anymore, though, because she’s lost most her teeth.

From there, it turned into a stare down. The fence is about 6 feet tall. I have to assume the raccoon was standing on something in my neighbor’s yard. I have to also assume, he’s visited my yard before. We all stood there, staring at each other until the raccoon very slowly backed down behind the fence. The little dog trotted triumphantly into the house. All hail the little dog.