I guess you may be asking yourself about the title of this blog and what could I possibly be thinking let alone writing about. Hang in there and you will see. I do have a point and a couple of funny stories to tell you.
The picture is my dog Willie, a Jack Russel Parson Terrier I had for most of his adult life. He was such a great dog although quite wild and klutzy a lot of the time. We would go for walks often in the dry canyon where we live. There were rock chucks all over the place and Willie would get so excited of course. He was never allowed off the leash because he would be gone forever trying to catch one.
On one particular day we were walking the canyon around an area that has baseball fields. There weren’t a lot of other folks around that day and the area has trees and is quiet for the most part unless there is a game. It just so happened that day no rock chucks were around the area we were walking.
But there was on particularly odd creature, black and white and you may see where I am going with this. It was a rather warm sunny afternoon in Central Oregon in the summertime. As we came around a curve in the pathway I spotted this black and white animal and honestly thought it was a cat. I’ve owned cats most of my life, one of them being black and white.
I said to my walking partner, “Hey look at that cat just laying there” and foolishly my walking buddy released the leash on Willie enough to allow him to get closer. What happens next is ugly. Needless to say it was not a cat, but a skunk. Willie got a face full of skunk stink that would take a major bath and time out in the back yard before he could come back in the house. If you’ve ever had an experience with a skunk I don’t have to go into detail here.
Let’s just say that skunk was ‘playing possum’ and we got a lesson that day. Moral to this story is not everything is what it seems or appears to be. Hindsight is 100% clear but in the moment we don’t always stop and evaluate what is in front of us. This leads me to my next story.
If you’ve read much of my work, you will know I am from North Carolina. More than a few years ago I was living in a nice apartment complex and my unit backed directly up to a section of woods surrounding a beautiful lake, Lake Johnson.
This particular night I had a case of the flu and I was also taking care of my neighbors cat directly above my apartment, Sun Cat. My big black and white cat was named Top Cat. Top Cat was an indoor / outdoor kitty and was not afraid of anything. He used to chase big dogs across the yard, but I digress.
I believe I had already gone to bed that night and Top Cat had this annoying habit of playing with the sliding door blinds to get my attention and let him out. Thankfully I was alert enough to hear the noise coming from the balcony above us where my neighbors lived.
There was so much rattling and banging going on up there that I thought for sure someone was attempting a break-in. I decided Top Cat was not going out until I knew what was happening upstairs. Next, I dialed 911 and reported that I believed there was someone in the apartment above me on their balcony.
In no time at all, the police were knocking on my door letting me know they were going around back to investigate. Two of them with spotlights and what they saw was more than laughable. A possum and a racoon wrestling on the balcony. The possum froze with the spotlight attempting to hide and the racoon was smarter and ran away.
The police came back around to the front door to report their findings and I am sure the police report they filed was hilarious to say the least. We laughed so hard and when my neighbors returned from their travels I had quite the tale to tell.
Once again, the point of the story is that things are not always what they seem. I love telling these stories as I look back. At the time, the humor was not obvious. In life, things can appear one way and be an entirely different scenario.
No deep awareness except to say, don’t be surprised when it happens to you that what you thought was one thing is actually another. Simply put, enjoy life and don’t trust black and white critters at first glance.
