The Desert Mermaid

Can I just say that I love that my siblings named their new black-and-orange split-face kitten Harley Dent? Because I really, really do.

Hey, look! I have a pet bunny!


My dandelion crop over by the fence is doing almost as well as the calendulas!

And by “pet bunny” I mean “wild bunny who thinks my garden is delicious.” Which is entirely correct: My garden is delicious.

If I were really depending on this garden, I would take steps to protect it—chicken wire, rabbit deterrent, chasing varmints around with a pitchfork, etc..* But as it is, I am thrilled that somebody’s getting some use out of it. I have considered asking it not to go after the beans like a pair of furry little hedge clippers, but I think I’ll let that be, too. It’s always good to do one’s part for the food chain.


*Probably I'd also weed it more thoroughly, but I like dandelions. They get their own place to the side.

Hey, check out this really nifty link sofish_sasha sent me: Inside The Mind of the Octopus. Not all the information will be new to everyone, but it’s all deeply fascinating. Alien intelligence, indeed.

… Okay, it is definitely a raccoon—and, as I guessed once I was sure it was not a moose, it is a mother raccoon. I know this because I just saw her exit the soffit* with a fat little baby raccoon swinging from her jaws.

I think she’s relocating them, so evidently our Yelling At The Raccoon strategy actually worked.** I’m feeling pretty smart myself for having suggested leaving the soffit accessible in case of relocation. However, I am not a raccoon expert; I am a dumb homeowner who watches lots of nature shows, so I will still be calling in wildlife people as soon as the clock strikes Reasonable to make sure she really is relocating her litter and not taking them on a field trip or something, and also to do whatever it is wildlife people do about the problem of raccoon poop in the attic and the skin-crawling parasites and microorganisms it carries. (I am having a Hannelore-style meltdown over these. Having survived malaria with no lasting damage does not, it seems, make me any less neurotic about diseases.)

First I’m going to get some sleep, though, because aside from my cartoonish war with varmints, I also have an interview for an amazing job promotion in a few hours. It’s going to be a fun day.


(A lot of y’all offered some raccoon-repelling advice to me. In turn, I will offer you a very useful site I found with some good basic information. I can see why it’s at the top of Google’s list.)


*This is a new word I have learned today!

**Either that, or she does not care for Dad’s classic rock surround sound playlist. And who can blame her? I'd probably head for the hills too if I thought Don Henley or Jackson Browne was in the vicinity.

So I just watched possibly the creepiest nature show I have ever seen, barring that one special where David Attenborough told me all the ways wasps are the scariest fuckers on the planet.* This special was about Komodo dragons and how they hunt, and it also involved David Attenborough.

So they were all excited for this special because this time they were going to find out how the dragons hunt, unlike the last documentary they did where David just tossed a dead goat onto the beach and stood around hosting a nature show whilst roughly two million giant killer lizards tore a goat apart at his feet, and the basic message of the bit seemed to be “I’m David Attenborough, and I am standing in front of a feeding frenzy of KOMODO FUCKING DRAGONS.”**

This time, though, they locked him in the sound booth while the cameramen went off to see what dragons eat when badass naturalists aren’t around to toss them goat carcasses. And what they found out was that the dragons feast upon DREAD AND DESPAIR.

So the crew finds a water buffalo and sits around waiting for shit to happen, and they’re like “There is a lizard right there, shit should be happening, it literally just poked that buffalo in the side with its tongue,” but the buffalo and lizard both just look sort of bored.

Then, a bit later, the dragon lunges and chomps a chunk out of the buffalo, and the cameramen are like “FINALLY.” But the buffalo is all “OW WHAT THE FUCK, DRAGON?” and kicks the dragon, and the dragon backs off like, “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t think you were using that chunk of flesh, my bad,” and then for a while nothing happens. The dragon goes back to staring intently at the buffalo, the buffalo goes about his business and bleeds a bit, and the camera guys are like “… That was it?”

And then they notice the other dragons.

As the day goes on, more and more dragons just sort of meander over to the buffalo’s vicinity. The buffalo continues to do whatever it is buffalo do, possibly muttering under its breath about asshole lizards, and the dragons make themselves comfortable. And just stare.

And the next day they are still there, staring at the buffalo.

They stay through the next day. And the next.

And this goes on for days, with the buffalo being like “Dragons, you are giving me the creeps,” but the dragons just KEEP STARING. Then the buffalo starts looking like it feels a bit under the weather, and moves less and less each day. And each day the dragons get closer and closer, all the time just WATCHING him, until finally THREE WEEKS LATER the buffalo keels over as the venom from that initial dragon bite finally knocks him down so hard he can’t get up.

AND THEN GIANT LIZARDS RIP HIM APART.

And then, a couple hours after the buffalo falls, they’ve stripped him of all his flesh, and they transform from a ravening mass of scaly eating machines to a bunch of lizards that just kind of wander off into the jungle, looking as though the past three weeks of glaring at a buffalo until he died was no big deal.

All that is left are the cameramen, standing there questioning the beliefs they held that there was any goodness to be found in the universe.***

I was going to watch the next special on the DVD—probably about penguins, since it’s impossible to do any nature program without at least half an hour of penguins—but first I had to check my closet for Komodo dragons. Facehuggers I can handle, but Komodo dragons? They’re just SPOOKY.


*Alien fans probably know that the xenomorph's life cycle is loosely based on the life cycle of the family of Ichneumon wasps. Many of the species in this family lay their eggs inside of a spider so that when the larvae hatch, they can eat their way out. The myriad ways they do this, it turns out, are WAY GODDAMN SCARIER than getting assaulted by a facehugger and then having the resulting ugly critter slam through your ribcage like the Kool-Aid Man. The ways the wasps do it make John Hurt’s famous death scene look as peaceful as getting carried off by angels while you sleep.

**This was also the series boasting a scene with the message “I am David Attenborough, and I am standing next to a FUCKING VOLCANO, which is erupting, BECAUSE I CAN.” This was back when he was a spry middle-aged badass and could film on location with only moderate wheezing.

***No, seriously, they had a behind-the-scenes bit where clearly distraught cameramen are confessing that they feel like they have become the dark harbingers of death as they follow this buffalo around.

Dude, a raccoon just tried to JIMMY THE LOCK on our back door.

Zombie Apocalypse = old meme. Raccoon Apocalypse = IMMEDIATE DANGER.

At least the cat is on red alert now. THAT'LL make me sleep better.

This morning I woke up to someone banging on my window. BAM BAM BAM. BAM BAM BAM.

Once I figured out it was coming from the window—not easy, as the whole place was rattling—it was time to narrow it down further. Confused burglar? Lovesick lad? No, couldn’t see anyone … Um, cold ghost?

BAM BAM BAM.

Finally I gave up and went around to see what all the noise was.

It was a northern flicker who’d decided to take up residence in our house, bashin’ his head against our deck.

Darn nature. I’d tell it to get off my lawn, but then I wouldn’t have a lawn.

Nearly smashed a bunny this evening on the way up the hill. Dumb bastard had elected the middle of the street as a good place to be a sentinel, and it wasn’t going to move just because some damn car was lumbering toward it.

I braked when I saw the thing ahead, and when my headlights fell on it I had to come to a full stop. The bunny eyed me boredly, with no sign of that frozen-in-the-headlights emptiness you normally get with roadbunnies.

I rolled down the window. “GET OUT OF THE ROAD, YOU DUMB BUNNY!” I suggested.

The bunny began to wash its face.*

“Honk,” said my car.

“THUMP,” went the bunny, without leaving its post.**

I sighed and drove around the bunny. You just can’t beat stubbornness like that.


*This is possibly one of the cutest sights in the world. I advise you to watch a bunny wash its face if you ever get the chance.

**I admit, the idea of thumping on asphalt makes me wince. That’s gotta hurt, bro.