We stayed in a cabin over at Pismo Beachover the weekend. It’s up in the mountains but it’s just a 2 minute drive to the Pismo Pier. It’s a a great way to get the best of both worlds (mountains and beach). We took off Friday when the kids got out of school and stopped at AJ Spurs in Arroyo Grande for dinner. From there we headed off to the cabin. The next day we drove up to Morro Bay and went through some of the shops. That evening we went to Gina’s in Arroyo Grande for dinner. Afterward we stopped at a local Starbuck’s for coffee and took the kids down to the beach to play on the swings.
Apparently my mom didn’t sleep very well that night. Around 4am she heard “claws” clicking on the hardwood floor. Both of her dogs (Jillie Bean and Molly Brown) were snuggled up next to her… so it obviously wasn’t them. She swears she could hear whatever it was breathing under the bed.
We awoke to a draft because Mom insisted on leaving her bedroom door open and the backdoor to the cabin open in hopes that whatever it was would just mosey on out the back door… hopefully without waking any of the dogs.
She told us about her bedroom visitor over breakfast. Everyone seemed to think that what she heard was probably under the house and not actually in the room with her. The boys even went in and checked every corner of the room and under the bed and couldn’t find hide nor hair of anything.
A little while later Mom was out taking something to the trash when she saw what “it” was… a large skunk was milling around the trash cans. Mom ran back into the house… I’m not sure whatever she was throwing away even made it to the trash cans.
Remember that movie with Dan Akroyd and John Candy? Remember the scene with the bat? (if you haven’t or don’t, then I highly recommend this movie… it’s pretty darn funny).
What happened next was a bit like that… although, I admit, much of it was a blur. The kids ran to the backdoor hoping to catch a glimpse of the huge skunk. Mom ran around shutting all of the doors and making sure the dogs were inside.
There we all were crammed around the tiny backdoor peering through the blinds. The boys were dying to sneak out and get a good look at this monster… and every once in a while you could hear a harshly whispered, “you are NOT going out there!”
At some point we realized that as mom put the house on lockdown not only were we all sitting there with our backsides to the bedroom where this thing might or might not have been nesting the night before… but our dog, Zander, was helplessly leashed out on the front deck. For a split second, I was pretty sure that there might be some debate as to who was going to draw the short-straw to go out and rescue the dog… then it occurred to me that for a few seconds longer people were debating how big of a loss the dog on the porch really was or most likely, wasn’t.
#@#$%%$#$%@#$
And those people were the MEN in the group.
My intention, of course, was to bring back a picture of this lovely escapade… but I never did get a good look at the little critter.
How was your weekend?
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September 27th, 2005
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