I downloaded a bunch of brain wave apps for my iPhone recently. A couple nights ago I used one to sleep by: Brain Baths, I think is the name of the app. You pick a background sound (I picked rainy porch) and a wave (deep sleep) and put your headphones on and zone out. I can do this AND charge my phone at the same time, so I'm mutifuckingtasking even while sleeping. What a concept. Or not.

It worked quite, quite well. Sure I still woke up in the night, with the heat issues (which would prob'ly go away if I would just turn the AC lower, but, by golly I won't), but I could go right back to sleep. The funny thing was how used to the sound I was each time I woke up. I thot the silly thing had turned off, because it was so much in the background of my brain.

About 5:21 am (more or less) I became aware of a strange chirbling noise outside the bedroom door. My door is always closed to keep the cats out because there's no way I can sleep with them all in the room, and most of them are too 'kneady' in the middle of the night for me to even let them in one per night... So, I hear 'chirble, chirble, chirble...' and while cats do occasionally make that noise, raccoons always make that noise. I jumped up, opened the door, flipped on the light and there were a mom and two kits trying very, very hard to look like tabby cats. One climbed atop the scratching post; one hid its big brushy tail and tried to sneak behind a cat and the other popped under the table.

I yelled "NO!" which was a silly thing to do. It's not good to have raccoons in your house, but scared raccoons are even worse, and while one scooted for the cat door, the other two ran and hid in one of my cubby holes for shoes. The cats ran over to show me where they were in case I, in my human-ness, just happened to miss it. The raccoons were not happy about the cats being so close, so I had to put on my happy voice, pluck the cats away from the cubby hole and coax the two raccoons (the mom and one kit) out of the cubby and out through the back door. (I'd already thot to open it all the way to make their exit easier...)

Now I had three raccoons on my back porch. I'm sure they got in back there somehow, but the door was latched and they couldn't get out easily. Again using my happy voice talking to them, and, ok, I admit it, chirbling at them, for fuck's sake, I managed to get by them enough to open the porch door and they all slipped out into the night.

Big excitement.


But that's not what I was going to write about... It was just background...

I had to write about it all in my journal, because, well, let's face it, some days are a tad less interesting than others. I couldn't get my stupid Rapidograph to work, even after changing the ink, twice! and it splooted ink, watery ink, on my page. The ink sploots became the eyes of the raccoon...

Hah!