So You Think You Can Handle Anything?

The last 48 hours have been somewhat insane- the kind of insane that makes you question what you're doing wrong to deserve so much insanity in a short period of time. To sum it all up, the police have been at our house twice in the last 48 hours, shots have been fired, and I'm so on edge about the ringing phone that I jump half way across the room every time it rings. I may drive over it with my car at some point today. It's only 10:52 AM and I'm already thinking that I'll be paying those nice folks a visit at the state store after work today. Vodka'll do trick- I'll just have to ignore those pesky stomach issues. And to top it all off, as if all I've previously mentioned isn't enough, I'm still dealing with Mrs. Grinch.

A world with peace and without chaos just doesn't seem to be in my future... Unless I load my little boxer in the car and drive off into the woods somewhere. The idea of living in a cabin in the middle of the woods holds great appeal. Rob says I would never make it- but I think he's mistaken. Just look at this beautiful little cabin. I bet it's got electric and everything. Lucy and her human could be perfectly content here- trust me. This little country girl can rough it as good as the next guy.

I'm sure the real reason you're still reading is to find out why the police have been at our house twice in the last 48 hours, and why shots were fired.

Tuesday afternoon decided he was going to cut the grass. GOOD ROB! Anyway, according to him, he was out in the front yard, happily cutting the grass, minding his own business (which I'm sure he was) when out of the blue, our neighbor came flying through the yard, and started screaming and swearing at him calling him all kinds of names and saying all kinds of nasty things to him.

Our property line borders hers (how did we get to be so unfortunate?), and for about 2 years now, there have been some issues with the grass. (She has issues- big issues- we don't.) She got so irate at one point that our tractor had wandered over onto her yard and cut a strip of grass six inches wide that did not belong to us, that she called a surveyor in and had them mark where the property line is. And on Tuesday, Rob crossed that line! It's not exactly what I would call a straight line- and it's on a hill, so it's not hard to accidentally cross the line. BAD ROB! The neighbor flipped out, had words with Rob, and proceeded to call the local police.

We almost had to laugh when we saw that patrol car pull into our driveway. The policeman said he thought the whole thing was silly, but he had to answer the call (and aren't ya glad ya did, officer?) He warned us that the neighbor was threatening to file trespassing charges. The look on his face said it all. Are you for real? The whole thing was just too ridiculous.

Rob & I are both still pretty worked up about the whole situation and we're both thinking that there's something a little mentally not so right with the neighbor, because I talked to her last night, and she acted as if the whole thing never happened. I guess I would understand this whole situation better if she had one of those perfectly manicured lawns, no weeds, grass always cut, you know the kind you see in a magazine. But, she doesn't. More often than not, the grass is at least 8 inches high, and her tractor is sitting dead in the yard.

Do you think she'll be offended when this sign suddenly appears in our front yard? Rob said yesterday that if he can't get any peace at home, he'll sell the darn house! Oh boy!

All day yesterday, my stomach growled. And I couldn't wait to get home and cook a piece of that tenderloin that was thawing on my kitchen counter. When Lucy and I got home, I let her out into the yard with Ceasar and went to the grill to hook up the new tank. From there, everything got crazy.

I happened to look over my shoulder at one point and notice that there seemed to be an extra fur ball in the yard, one that very closely resembled the German Shepherd fur ball that lives there- but obviously wasn't. Lucy and Ceasar were both right there- my pups had surrounded the intruder. On closer inspection, I noticed that the extra fur ball was a raccoon. Complete panic set in. My legs started shaking, and my heart started racing. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have kicked off the 3 inch heels that I was wearing to make it easier to hold myself up- balancing a trembling body on stilts is never easy.

By the time I got to the stairs, Lucy had her butt in the air, and it was wiggling- clearly my boxer thought we had gotten her a new toy. Her cute little face was about a foot away from the raccoon. Ceasar was attacking it, he had his whole mouth around the back of the coon. Seeing this only made the panic worse, I was scared to death to leave the deck, but knew that I had to get the dogs out of there. Lucy will come most of the time, it needs work- especially when there is something new and fascinating involved, so I was thinking I didn't have a prayer. "Lucy Come!" Lucy turned around, looked at me, and started towards me. "Oh thank you, God". Unfortunately, the coon made some kind of wild noise and distracted Lucy from her "come".

God must have known that I was seconds from having heart failure, because the next time I yellod "COME", Ceasar released the coon and came up onto the deck with me. One down, one to go- knees shaking so bad I can barely stand up, pulse racing, heart throbbing, still struggling to remain upright on 3" heels. "Lucy, Come! Please, Lucy!" No luck. As scared as I was to go off the deck, I had to get my boxer out of there, clearly there was no fear on her part. I grabbed her and scooped her up, running back onto the deck as fast as my jello legs would carry me. All of this felt like it lasted an hour, but it was probably under a minute.

I deposited both dogs in the house, and was in the process of closing the door when both boxer and shepherd decided they weren't done with the coon, both dogs blew right past me, and I all of a sudden I found myself right back where I started. Both dogs had the coon surrounded, and the coon was on his hind legs making all kinds of crazy noises, but not really moving. He looked injured- which may have been why he was not attacking my dogs.

Ceasar made another lunge for the coon, which gave me time to scoop Lucy up once again. Once I had her wriggling little body in my arms, I called Ceasar and he released the coon and followed right behind us. I nearly collapsed when I got on the other side of the door. I had all kinds of wild images floating through my brain about the 3 of us being attacked and left for dead in the back yard- and I had no idea what to do.

I had no intention of loading one of Rob's hunting rifles- but I knew he wasn't going to be home for a couple of hours, and I didn't want this potentially dangerous coon running around the neighborhood. Everyone leaves their dogs loose in my neighborhood, so I decided to call in the police. The good news is, I had an officer in my driveway within 3 minutes (always good to know they're that close!), the bad news was, he didn't seem to want to rid me of the intruder. After much searching, we discovered the coon was under the deck, and he even came out to say hello. The officer thought he looked tame, maybe like he was a house pet. (Obviously, I was confused by this point in time.)

Me: " Officer, can you please just shoot him?"

Officer: " Well, Mam- I could, but really he looks quite friendly. Maybe he's someones pet. Besides, I really don't want to put a bullet hole in your deck."

Me: " Really, friendly? How can you tell? I'm not that concerned about the bullet hole."

Officer: " Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's tame. Maybe I can chase him out of your yard with this garden hose."

Needless to say, when the officer left- there was no bullet hole in the deck and I still had what seemed to be an "insane" raccoon roaming my yard. For the next hour, I kept watch, looking to see where it went. At one point, he wandered into our shed, and I thought about going down there and slamming the door shut, but then realized that it might not be so pretty for the person who had to open that door.

I was so relieved to hear Rob's truck pull in the driveway! Once again, my prince charming saved the day- unlike his darling fiance, he had no qualms about loading his hunting rifle and ridding our yard of the much unwanted intruder! Whew!

What you really oughta know is that I'm sure this whole incident removed at least 5 years from my life...

By the way, Lucy's Human couldn't help but notice this morning that our little blog has 21 followers! We're so very excited!