Deer in the Night

In the dead of night, before the crescent moon rose, there was a rustling in the bushes outside my window. Since one of the cats was out on the front porch, I decided that I'd better take a look to see what was stirring. Then, it sounded as though something fairly large might be climbing the tree, possibly a raccoon. Turning off the light in my room, I shone a flashlight out the window. There, about eight feet away, was a large doe. She turned her head to look at the source of the light, but didn't run. I said "Hello, deer!" She continued to look at me for a moment, and then walked off across the lawn to the flower bed, where she proceeded to decimate the pansies. After a while, she departed with a belly full of flowers, leaving her small, triangular hoof prints in the moist earth.

When I opened the door, after the doe had gone, the cat rushed in and treated me to a good two minutes of meowing as she told me all about it. The other cat had been in my room the whole time, and when the deer first made noise, briefly perked up her ears, but then went back to napping once she realized what it was. She is quite jaded about deer. Why one cat considers deer to be worthy of a lengthy conversation, and the other doesn't consider them worth interrupting a pleasant snooze for, I don't know.

Today is a holiday, so the appearance of a deer on the lawn will probably turn out to have been the most interesting thing to have happened all day. Since it's all downhill from here, I guess I'll go to sleep and miss all the boredom. Heh. I have something in common with each of the cats.

Once Bitten

Something must have bitten me as I slept. There's a big lump on the back of my left hand, very near the wrist. It doesn't itch, and it isn't discolored, but it feels warmer than it normally does, and my fingers feel a bit stiff. When I woke up and discovered the lump, I took the bed apart to see if there was a bug of some sort in it, or a spider, but found nothing. I wonder if one of those little bones in there has popped out of its proper place? My hypochondria suggests to me that it is a tumor of some sort. If I still had my paranoia, it would probably tell me that I have a rare parasite of some sort, which will soon come bursting out to spread itself throughout the world. But I think it is probably a bug bite. I'm quite reasonable these days. In any case, whatever it is, it's annoying, and the fact that the bug might still be somewhere nearby and might bite me again is disconcerting. Stupid bugs.