Okay, so the boys woke me up bright and early as usual, and I go down to get a cup of coffee, and it's nice and calm, aside from the giggling and toy battling already happening behind me, so I figure, "Hey! Why don't I have my cup of coffee outside this morning?" You know, avoid the beginnings of the daily chaos for a few minutes, appreciate the tranquility of nature, all that jazz.

And I go and grab my cup of coffee, and I pick up my camera to see if I can capture the last vestiges of the lantern lights, since I can see that they're still glowing just the faintest bit in the early dawn light. I grab that coffee and that camera, and I open the door to the porch, and before I open the screen door, I see the neighbor's cat in our yard. The cat likes to chase squirrels and poop in the sandbox, and it's not a nice cat at all, in my estimation, so I holler, "Hyah! Scat!" which usually does the trick. Only today it doesn't. I bang on the screen door. The critter just sits there, looking at me, and then I think, "Well, I'm not wearing my glasses, mind, but that cat looks rather fatter and lower to the ground than usual."

So I grab my glasses. Then I grab for the camera again.

(Look for the dark tail tip near the garden on the right side of the picture.) I couldn't tell what it was. Raccoon? Possum? Possums are ugly things with bald faces, and this one had fur; it also seemed to have longer ears than a raccoon, but not as long as a rabbit's. What do I know, though? I took one year of biology, and we just stuck to dissecting frogs and fish.

I'm not a nature person, and really, my honest reaction was "Yick." Well, I couldn't help it! It's a wild animal, and I wasn't prepared for wildlife in my backyard during daylight hours! The little part of my brain that happened to catch one too many seconds of the movie "Saw" on Sci-Fi last night, though, wasn't terribly inclined to bang on the door anymore; I could just see the thing scuttling up onto the porch and attacking the glass with whatever claws or teeth it happened to have. I stood frozen. It waddled about.

After a bit, it wandered into the side of the yard I couldn't see from the door, but I wasn't going to go outside to keep watching. I drank my coffee, checked my email, then went back to the kitchen, where I dropped the coffee mug (empty, thank God) on my foot and shrieked.

(Bad picture due to extreme digital zoom because I didn't even want to go near the door)

Dear God, what is that thing on my porch?! I didn't ask for a close encounter with something that I can't even identify! Sam came running in, followed by Gabe; they wanted to open the door to see it, but I told them that Mommy was...allergic. It seemed the best way to eliminate argument! It worked, and they just stared at it until it finally wandered off in search of a porch with a cat dish or something.

I just want to know what the heck it was. I feel like I ought to know, but I really don't. Geesh, Wild Kingdom in my backyard! Well, I guess it's the time of the year for it, but, Dude!