Where the Wild Things Are...

I have had two "run-ins" with wild animals lately. Whoa. Two weekends ago, Adam and I had a lovely day in Raleigh. I had to run some errands (then unused gift cards), and Adam took Stella to Jordan Lake. We were planning on going to Mass that night (we later found out there was no Mass), so after the errands/lake, we went to Cafe Carolina for supper. We sat outside since Stella was with us and had a great time! We enjoyed our meal, and then Adam went inside to get us some more water. Stella and I were sitting there outside, enjoying the weather, and I noticed a possessed looking bird, sitting on a branch, staring at us! I swear it had a furrowed brow. All of a sudden, it took flight in our direction. The bird swooped at Stella and made a hissing sound! I was startled to say the least. I thought to myself, "That couldn't have been on purpose. Poor bird as bad vision and a sinus problem." But wait! It swooped again! The bird swooped and tried to peck Stella 3 or 4 times, and then I was so freaked out I had to leave. The bird was getting close to me too, and I wasn't trying to get attacked by a bird that day; it had been too good of a day to get attacked by a bird. I picked up Stella's leash, and started making my way across the patio towards the parking lot. I thought this move would end the vendetta the bird had against us, but it didn't. The evil winged creature continued to swoop. At this point, Adam came outside. He quickly realized the reason for my distress as the bird swooped again. Protective as he is, Adam's chest stuck out, his fists tightened, and with deep-voiced threatening authority, he said to the bird "HEY." I then convinced him not to hit the bird, grab my purse, and meet us at the car. The bird followed Stella and I into the parking lot until we ducked behind our parked car, whimpering. For days I had flashes of the movie "Birds," and the scene in the movie "The Passion" with the crow. After talking to my Mom, we came to the conclusion that it was a mockingbird. I'd like to kill that mockingbird...



This morning, I was taking my usual walk from my parking lot to campus- about a 10-15 minute walk. It was about 8:45 this morning, and the sun was already shining. I turned around the curve and saw the long hill ahead of me surrounded by woods and a small grassy clearing. I saw an animal emerge from the woods and run across the street into the grassy clearing about 60 yards ahead of me...a gray fox!! I froze. I knew gray foxes were nocturnal, and the sun was telling me that it was no longer noct. I concluded that the fox must have had rabies. That was it...I was going to be mauled by a rabid fox on an empty street in the woods. I then called my Mom just so someone would be on the phone with me when the inevitable happened. Shortly into our conversation, my friend drove by! Yessss. We park in the same lot, and were on our way to the same meeting. I stood, frozen, waiting for her to make her way up to where I was. I gave her the 411 about the fox. She was not as freaked out as I was. About 5 minutes had gone by since I had seen the fox cross the street, so I was really thinking that it would be in the neighboring set of woods by that point. We were passing by the grassy clearing, and there it was, just on the edge of the woods, basking in the sun. It too was frozen, staring back at us. We decided to just keep walking, casually, like nothing was wrong, but we kept staring at it. We couldn't not look at it. The fox then crouched down, still staring at us, and I thought out loud "Attack position!" This is an anti-climactic story, because it stayed in that position as we finished our walk down that road and turned the corner to campus. I later found out that there are several foxes that live in that area and one of them has been seen following joggers!! No attacks or anything, but that's creepy. Creepy foxes.



That's all.