The Nocturnal Art of Fireworks

Raccoons and Blood Moons

The raccoons are getting bolder. This one climbed up onto our "cat-proof" deck and was looking in the window at me.
I'm convinced the cats put him up to it:

Thomas: "Dude, go up on the deck and see if there's anything good up there."
(later)
Raccoon: "Naw, there was just tables and chairs and flowers."
Thomas: "Aw, man! They used to have really good shit up there; lettuce beds to sleep in, and sometimes they'd bring out plates of food and leave 'em while they went back in for their drinks."

Here is a picture that Harrison made. There's a lot going on in this one.

Blood Moon

The stars are twinkling faintly in the night sky and there is a blood moon, which is rarely a good omen. (In this case, it predicts that I will run low on toner soon)
There is a cloaked zombie, and an unhappy black cat.
The zombie has taken a bite out of the cat, and removed one of his eyes.
The zombie has sewn the cat's eye into his own eye socket, and his other eye is dangling.
If one looks closely, there is a worm living inside his head.

Jagular

Last night, Calvin was on the back patio barking his head off. He often barks in the woods, and up the hill, but this barking on the patio was out of character. I looked outside, but didn't see anything.
I told Calvin to hush, but he just kept going.
I went outside and saw that he was barking in the direction of a bar-height table under the deck. The table was cluttered with sandbox toys, and Calvin appeared to be barking at them.

"What? What?!" I said, scanning the table.
"This?" I picked up a sandy plastic robot and tossed it into the sandbox. The barking continued.
"This?" I picked up a small dump truck, and tossed it in next to the robot.

Calvin's barking was frantic by this point, and I started to think maybe he was really out of his tree this time.
The barking was so snarly and persistent that I continued sorting through the toys, thinking maybe there was a mouse, or perhaps a bat among the toys. The next time I looked at Calvin, he stopped barking, deliberately looked me in the eye, then looked above my head and barked once.
I slowly looked up.
There, clinging to the rafters right over my head was a very fat raccoon. He was terrified. He had no hope of squeezing into such a small hiding space, so he was wedging his face as tightly into the corner as possible.
He was holding on, god knows how, and kept shifting his position to get a better grip, and to squish his face further into the corner.
Once Calvin realized that I saw the raccoon, all his barking stopped.
I jumped out of the drop zone and called for Sadie to bring my camera.

Winnie the Pooh: Look, look, Piglet. There's something in that tree over there.

Piglet: Is it one of the f-f-fiercer animals?

Tigger: Halloo!

Winnie the Pooh: Yes. It's a "jagular."

Piglet: W-What do "jagulars" d-do, Pooh?

Winnie the Pooh: Well, "jagulars" always call, "Halloo!" And when you look up, they drop on you.

Piglet: I'm looking *down*, P-P-Pooh.