Little glowing eyes...

It's been a long time since I've been to Disneyland and so I am not sure exactly which ride it is-- but it's one where it's pretty dark inside, and you float along on a water cart of some kind- looking at all the animatronic animals and characters within the ride's story theme and see a bunch of glowing eyes in the bushes.



Anyways...

The fig tree outside my window is in full bloom now. I noticed the ripening figs a week ago and knew that meant that everything from crows to squirrels, the occasional possum and raccoons would soon come taste and eat.



Last night, they were back. The familiar trio from last summer. Three very large, fearless and raccoons. At first I wasn't sure it was them because the moonlight illuminated their dark figures moving near the pool and sometimes they looked as huge as coyotes, or as small as cats. As long as it wasn't a human I wouldn't jump out of my skin but there was no way I was going out there.



It doesn't freak me out as much as it did last year. I am positive they aren't interested in coming into my room through the screen door anymore (although they don't mind starring me down and standing up on their haunches to make themselves look intimidatingly tall so I won't interrupt their midnight snacking) but they still wake me up in the middle of the night which is just not cool. And living in a big house on the top of a hill without traffic noise to drown them out makes their arrival into the yard via the Ivy-covered wall- well- not very stealthy.

At all.

They rustle, they thump, they squeal a weird occasional communication back and fourth and man when they chew on those figs- they smack and gurgle without closing their mouths. What's worse, is they really like to wash their paws in the pool. So they splash and swish and pat the water in between fig feasts.



I walk you through all of this because if I were you I'd think about how cute this all might be. I'd think about how God made each of those little rascal raccoons and "provides" late summer night meals for them to feast on every year. I'd be thinking about all of that too.

And I was.

Until I pulled out my flashlight and shone it out my window into the darkness.

And I didn't see anything at all except three sets of bright glowing eyes looking right at me.



And they weren't animatronic. And I wasn't on a ride at Disneyland.



And it was 2am.



I put myself back to bed but couldn't block out their rustling, their splashing, their chewing for another 20 minutes.



Oh, and those glowing eyes will never be endearing.