Stories

The raccoon strikes back

Nature's hamburglar except without the hamburgers

Per my previous post, I set the trap up inside with adequate spacing for the cats to go in and out of the house. Holding off on Tyler’s ‘put an egg on it’ advice for now, I placed a small container of cat food in the cage and set it for action. KayDee and Alex were out late attending the baseball fight so I went to sleep and where visions of trapped raccoons danced through my head.

A half hour or so later downstairs there arose such a clatter, I wearily woke up just enough to ask the returning KayDee what was the matter.

The raccoon was apparently in our house when they had come in the front door. Standing on his hind legs next to the cage, he challenged my wife and child for ownership of the house. Alex, flux with territorial pride after watching the Ems handily beat the visiting ‘Bears’ (which are basically large raccoons, right?) apparently lunged at the invading critter with his hands over his head roaring “Noooooo!” Reconsidering the risk/rewards of remaining, the animal turned and ran out the cat door.

The trap, I note, had somehow been set off already but sat empty.

KayDee reset it, but when I checked this morning I found it open and containing an empty container of cat food.

The raccoon had, apparently, come back in the middle of the night once things had gotten quiet and eaten the food in the trap. Somehow avoiding the trigger plate and with the delicate precision of a surgeon removing a live bomb from someone’s chest cavity, he apparently extracted every single little piece of cat food then strolled out the door.

For comparison sake, one of our tiny kittens was trapped in this a couple days ago when he set off the feather-light trigger, so this raccoon is an expert.

Tonight… I shall attempt again but with the food secured at the back. Hopefully, the awkwardly precarious posture needed to reach it will be his undoing.

(ed: at this point, my friends suggested I try baiting the trap with eggs.  “Ok”, I thought.  I’ll try that.  Tonight.)

Stories

In which I purchase a trap.

Our world, their war.

Raccoonwars update: I bought a trap yesterday and emplaced it in front of the cat door last night. To prevent our own cats from being suddenly captured, we locked them all in our bedroom. “They won’t mind, right?” KayDee and I rhetorically asked each other while avoiding eye contact (as we knew our words rang false).

The cats, as it turned out, did in fact mind. Quite a bit. Last night’s sleep was punctuated with occasional bouts of plaintive meowing, hissing (they did not appreciate being stuck next to the new kittens which they see as interlopers), and a steady monotonous scratching at the locked bedroom catdoor which had betrayed them by cutting off their easy escape.

Meanwhile, the raccoon chose last night to skip our house. Whether he stuck his head in and recognized the baited trap for what it was or reads Facebook and knew what was in the works, he/she was not in the case at 3AM when I finally relented and let the cats free.

Tonight, we will try a modified strategy that involves NOT trying to prevent our cats from being dumb and getting caught in the cage. We’ll just leave the cage out and hope the Raccoon goes for it while our obnoxious ‘cannot-let-Ben-sleep’ cats skip it. After last night, I can’t really build up a huge head of concern at the thought that one or both of the cats might end up trapped for a few hours in the cage, so it’s potentially one of those ‘win win’ situations.

We shall see.

Rant

The beginning of the struggle.

I’ve been documenting a struggle between man and beast on my bookface.  A few friends who have moved out of the Zuckerbergverse have asked that I post them elsewhere, so I shall copy the progress here.

“Does anyone nearby have a live-trap I can use to get the raccoon that’s coming into my house? He needs to be somewhere else.” I initially asked.  My friends helpfully explained that while they didn’t, the fact that I had a raccoon problem was hilarious.

I responded:

My friends suggested I do this to the raccoon.

“Up until now, I wanted to capture and sedate it, then put a cape on it. I’d planned it all out; the cape would fasten securely in back and his thieving little arms would go through holes in it so it wouldn’t create a choking hazard and it’d be locked in the proper orientation. Then I would release it into downtown Eugene and monitor craigslist and letters-to-the-editor asking if anyone else had seen the same odd sight they had in their backyard.

Surreality would have gone up, I would have been grimly satisfied that the raccoon was elsewhere and humiliated, and the problem would have been solved.

What changed things is KayDee and I both independently began to suspect he was responsible for our most recent lost cat. Finally, the camel that broke the straw’s back last night was when Alexander woke up downstairs face-to-face with the raccoon (who we thought had stopped coming in) and scared the bejeebers out of him.

Nope, I’m ready to relocate this guy. He’s a raccoon doing raccoon stuff so I see no need to kill him (the cat stuff is circumstantial at best) but he needs to do his thing elsewhere.”

Nerd stuff

iOS 6 features I’m looking forward to

Tomorrow (June 10th) is the big iOS 6 announcement, and everyone I know (aka my cats) can’t wait to hear the details.  Luckily, I can give you a sneak peak!

I have it on good authority that iOS 6 will implement the following exciting features:

  • iKnow – This Siri functionality will have her listening to everything said around your phone to generate a transcript that she pre-searches the internet for information on. That way, if someone is talking about a movie, you can glance at your screen and already see things like the IMDB page up to pluck information from that makes you sound waaaay smart.
  • S&MS – A new sadomasochism-based texting service that you can use to set up sessions with dominatrix’ and masters. Using the geolocation API, it will arrange for them to spontaneously ‘abduct’ you from wherever you are without pre-knowledge to add to the ‘excitement’ of the session. It cannot be disabled.
  • OS-integrated MySpace so you can seamlessly be dropped into a real-life cyber ghost town social networking site where software tumbleweeds are occasionally interrupted by the first 15 seconds of ancient pop songs amid flurries of animated ‘under construction’ gifs.

There are the ones I’ve heard about, pretty exciting stuff!

Trolls

Of snakes and tubs and terrible, terrible justice

It’s Friday afternoon and we have friends coming over to hot tub the next day.  It’s been a while since we used the spa so I decided to go give it a thorough maintenance/cleaning.  Anyone who has one of these knows that small animals will occasionally find their way in (the lids aren’t really air-tight, after all & frogs love ’em) and either hang out in the lid or fall into the water and drown.  It’s rare, but it happens.

I open up the lid and find…  a dead snake.  It’s floating belly up at the bottom of the tub.

This is a disaster.

I start a full drain and walk off disheartened.  How long has this animal been sitting in the warm water?  Is this 1.5 foot snake going to turn into multiple fractional snakes when I touch it because it’s been sitting there decomposing?

I end up leaving it alone for the evening, our hot tubbing plans are probably going to have to be called off.  This needs a full scrubdown and careful checking over to make sure it’s not a biohazard, after all.

I go to bed that night and actually wake up at 3AM after fitful dreams about snakes.  I sit there willing myself back to sleep, but no joy.  All I see over and over again is this snake that I know is just a few feet away that’s sitting there rotting.  I try to think of something else, but my brain rebels.  “No,” it tells me, “you’re going to have to deal with this dead snake tomorrow and it will be horrible.”  Damnit.

I finally get out of bed and start my day tired and stressed.  A simple chore has now become a looming dark task in my mind that I just know is going to _suck_.  Finally, breakfasted and caffeinated, I get on some dirty clothes (I know I’ll be showering immediately afterwards) and shamble resignedly to the back and lift up the lid.

The hot tub is now mostly empty (we can put men on the moon but putting drains in the lowest parts of a hot-tub escapes even the finest Relaxation Technology scientists) and the snake corpse is sitting in a small pool.

I have a large halloween-candy bowl that’s wider than deep and, I figure, might be able to scoop up the (presumably bloated) remains with minimal mess.  I pump myself up, let’s get this over with.

I bend over the lip of the tub, reach out with the big plastic bowl, and SCOOP.  To my delight, the entire cadaver slides directly into the bowl.  Part of the tail sticks over the edge, but it’s stiff enough that it doesn’t even flop over.

Wait, ‘stiff’?  That’s weird, this thing has been sitting in a hot tub for who knows how many days/weeks.  I’m no carrion scientist, but I’m pretty sure it should be some sort of half-stew mass of sludgy ichor barely held together by water-logged skin by now.  Why is it stiff?

Careful not to spill, I stand up and lift the bowl closer to inspect this mystery.  In the light, I now notice more details.  The belly scales are there, I can see the tongue, and…  a logo?  Oh god.

This, I realize in growing shock, is a rubber toy snake.  It’s one of many I’ve bought over the years to play jokes on people with.  I leave them sitting on the wing of the plane, on beds, at the top of stairs, you get the idea.  And now it’s sitting here in a bowl atop my empty hot tub.

I’ve been stressing over this task for maybe 18 hours.  I’ve lost sleep, appetite, and more over what turns out to be a toy snake?!

Then I realize something else: My kids…  they got me.

They really got me.

I’m so proud.

Trolls

Superbowl recipe idea: Supernachos

It’s time for the SuperBall (or whatever they call it) again, which means it’s time to pull out those special snacks from that dark place where you keep them and the shame surrounding that one time when you said that thing you didn’t realize was so dumb and everyone heard you say it and you hope they don’t remember because it sure keeps you up at night.

A good start, but don't forget to deep fry those jalepenos!

Nachos are a popular dish, but you’ve gotta substitute the chips with pork rinds to establish a good baseline.  Also, the nacho cheese you buy at the store is too thin, I like to reduce it on the stove with bacon grease to replace the water/whey.

As for the vegetables, lightweight nachos might use onions and peppers and whatnot, but I’ve found you can chop those up into slightly bigger chunks, batter ’em, then deep fry them so it’s like you’ve got a handful of ‘onion rings’ and ‘battered peppers’ instead.  You’ve still got your vegetables (it’s practically a salad!), but now they taste better.

For your meats, ground beef loses a lot of flavor in the cooking (even with spices) so I like to use pork sausage instead.  Add taco seasoning to that, and you’ve got yourself a real fiesta.

Sour cream is tasty, but did you know you can get heavy-duty creme fraiche and ‘zing it up’ with some rum?  Great for dipping those chips in!

If it’s too salty at first bite, just drink more beer.  Eventually you won’t notice anymore.  Some chest tension and shortness of breath is pretty normal too, that’s how you know the nachos are working.

Rant

I’m still not Kevin Smith

So I there I was at this Chinese restaurant like a year ago trying to eat my Kung Pao Chicken.  These guys made a really good one, all spicy and everything, but then they sold the place and the new guys don’t know how to cook for shit.  Anyways, that’s a different story.  So I’m sitting there stuffing my face with this awesome chicken when these two guys come up and stand there by my table.

I’m trying to just eat my chicken because goddamn, it’s good chicken, but finally I look up.  These two guys are in their 20s and they’re acting kind of formal and nervous and I already know what’s going to come out of their mouth before they do.  When I look up, it’s like that button in their brain got pressed and, like, it sets off this chain reaction and then the question, that same question as always, drips into his throat and drops out of his mouth and hits the ground with a splat.

“Hey, uh, aren’t you Kevin Smith?”  Guy Number 1 asks, nervously looking over to his friend for validation.  Guy Number two nods in support.  Good man.

“Nah, I just look like him”, I tell him.  If I’m lucky, they’ll laugh and walk off, but Lady Luck’s off fucking her new boyfriend or something because I get Option B.

“Oh man, it IS you!  You rock, dude!”  Guy Number 2 is also enthusiastic and starts praising all of ‘my’ movies.  I raise a hand.  “Hey, whoa, seriously guys, I’m not the him.  I just look a little like him, but I swear, it’s not me.”

What they hear and what I say seem to be two entirely different things.  From the look on their faces, I can tell that what they heard was ‘You got me, I’m Kevin Smith.  Like a Leprachaun who’s been caught by the toe, I now owe you cameos in my next film which I’m presumably making in this town for some reason’.

They start telling me how great Chasing Amy was, how much they liked Clerks and are glad “I” didn’t use the original violent ending.  They talk about how Jay and Silent Bob Strikes back is “awesome” even though it “totally sells out”, and more.  I keep trying to tell ’em it’s not me.

While this whole thing is going down, my awesome chicken is entropying all over my goddamn plate.  If I don’t eat this delicious meal it’s going to be a sub-awesome chunk of congealed chicken faces next to a rock-hard lump of cold rice, so I need to wrap this up.

“Hey guys, I’m on a tight schedule.  I gotta finish this and get back to work.”  <- Entirely true sentence, but I accurately figure that these guys will interpret it through their Kevin Smith colored glasses as an affirmation that I’m who they think I am.  They back off, nodding, and keep thanking me for being “so awesome”.  Fuck, where was all this when I was in High School cramming bytes through our old network and Not Playing Sports like the fat nerd I was?  I have an excess of ‘awesome’, and it’s all counterfeit.

I start sliding that delicious fucking chicken down my throat again and get back on the pepper-induced Endorphin release train.  Awww yeah, this is what it’s all about.  I see them looking over at me a few more times while I eat, but I’m buried in my phone reading a book.  Do Not Establish Eye Contact.  Good advice from my visit to the primate cage at the Zoo, completely applicable for all the uncaged monkeys that walk around in clothes every day in the civilized world too.

When I’m done, I pay and start to head out.  This apparently marks me as a conversation target again briefly.

Guy Number 2 yells out “Hey, are you like scouting out places to film here in Eugene?” and I pause.  Do I protest the ID mixup again?  Or do I bend like a willow and start demanding blowjobs?  I choose somewhere halfway between the two:  “No, nope.  Not at all.”  It’s true, I’m not scouting out filming locations because I’m not fucking Kevin Smith.

Guy Number 2 and Guy Number 1 share a conspiratorial nod, then respond back as I’m heading out the door: “Totally, man, that’s exactly what you’d HAVE to say, right?”

Yep, it was.  But I’m still not Kevin Smith.

Life's too short to be nice