Although this isn’t exactly my creating something, I just had to tell you about my animal adventure this morning.

Around 5 this morning, as I lie (Or is it lay? Laid? I never know!) in bed, I heard animal rustlings, which isn’t unusual. I often hear squirrels scurrying across the roof (my bedroom’s on the third floor), and a mated mourning dove pair has nested in the gutter right below our eastern window several years in a row. But this particular animal rustling sounded more like a major construction project about to reface the northern facade of the house. So I opened my eyes and saw an enormous silhouette in the window that nearly filled the bottom half of the window, which is approximately 44″ tall x 24″ wide (I measured it, because I was curious). On the far left of the window, the silhouette looked about the size and shape of the sole of a large man’s work boot, oriented vertically, like it was about to kick you square in the face (and leave tread marks, to boot). From there the mound of the silhouette grew across the window, like the hump on Quasimodo’s back, and ended with what looked like one of the small to medium sized rubber balls sold in cages in a Wal-Mart toy section.

So of course I got up to investigate. I strode across the room, not even thinking to look for something handy to use as a weapon, if it came to that, got to the window, and lifted the blinds. Raccoons! Two raccoons looked as surprised to see me as I was them. They had raised the window screen (they raised it up with their cute little raccoon hands – can you even imagine?), and were pressed solidly against the glass of the window. The windows in my bedroom are original to the house, which means they’ve been here since 1888. They let in wicked drafts in the winter and rattle like Shakespearean bones anytime a breeze comes by. In other words, they’re rickety. While the windows mostly keep out the elements, I doubt they would stand a chance against determined squirrels, let alone raccoons.

Fortunately, Work Boot didn’t seem all that determined. I banged on the window to scare them off, and Work Boot left tout de suite. Quasimodo, on the other hand, remained undeterred. I banged again, but Quasi kept working his cute little raccoon hands at something on the edge of the window. I don’t know much about window construction or my particular windows, but I do know windows this old are often hung with ropes. I assumed Quasi was going to somehow break the rope, break the window, break something, so I went for reinforcements. My husband works in our 2nd floor den during the wee hours of the morning, so I marched down the stairs and intruded his solitude.

Me: “Dear, we have raccoons trying to break into our bedroom.”

Chris: “What? Raccoons?”

Me: “Yes, I thought you should know.”

So we went back upstairs, but Quasimodo had already gone. I’m not sure how we will try to deter another home invasion, but we’ll start with lowering the screen, which neither of us wanted to do until after the sun comes fully up. Although we’ve lived in our house seven years, we’ve never once opened the windows. We’re afraid. They are so old and rickety we worry if we open them, we won’t be able to close them. Desperate times, however, and all that.

So that’s my bit of creativity for today, but if I manage to do something besides tell this story repeatedly throughout the day, I’ll post about it. 🙂