I woke up in a cloud of smoke. That’s really scary way to wake up when you live in a house made of wood, and a friend of friend just told you, how an electrical short in his garage burnt down his house. I woke Gideon up and asked “do you smell smoke too”? He said “humph” .
I went searching for the fire at our house, but all was well. The garage smelled like fresh laundry (the cars were banished from it a couple months ago because of the impending renovations work). The smoke was worse outside. I looked through the windows, all looked fine, but it smelled like a big bonfire. I checked online, and the wind was coming from the south. “Ahh, it must be smoke from the fires in Santa Cruz”, I told myself and went back to sleep. It took a while to fall asleep. The adrenaline was still surging too high for comfort. My brain continued to spin, well, if it was a real fire in the house, wouldn’t the smoke detectors pick on it? Do we have working smoke detectors? I really should sleep…. Sleep. Ahh…
But then as I finally sank into sleep I heard “Bang! Clang”! The room still smells from smoke, even though I closed all the windows. Gideon is still sleeping, but I think “Oh, no! Somebody is knocking at our door. The house is on fire. It is just like in the story of that guy whose house burnt down. The neighbors woke him up by knocking on the door”.
I rush to our front door and nobody is there. Should I wear pants next time I think somebody is knocking on the door because our house in on fire? Should I first wake up the kids? Thank goodness there is nobody at the door. Annoying cats. Must have knocked something down…
Turn on the light in the kitchen. Hey, our outside trash can is on the ground. Turn on the outside floodlight. Hey, there’s a raccoon next to our trash can. It is three o’clock and I rush to the camera and take pictures of the raccoon. Obviously 3am is too early for our camera too, because first 3 photos are a complete blur. Oh, wait , maybe it helps if you don’t put your finger right in front of the lense. The fourth time, a complete success. At this point the Raccoon thinks “enough is enough, the lady got a good shot, and I need to get going”. Two more raccoons come out of the bin, and the three disappear into the darkness.
At least the house is not on fire. I wake Gideon up to let him know we are safe. There is no fire. We did have raccoons, but I straightened the bin, and that I even have a photo of the culprit. He looks at me annoyed through sleepy eyes and mumble “What is wrong with you woman”?
Frigging raccoons!
