The Coontina is open on New Year's Day!

I woke up around 4:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep so I went to get a glass of water in the kitchen. It's a habit to do a "coon check" every time I'm near the back door, so I looked out the back door window and this time....

I could not believe it. There was Freddie. All wound up in a tight ball of fur completely passed out on the glider at 4:40 in the morning. He had his tail covered up with fur, and his ears looked more cat than raccoon the way they were sitting up on his head but I knew it wasn't that gray cat who often does the same thing because 1.) that fur coat looked expensive for a cat and 2.) Freddie's gotten bigger.  It really was FREDDIE!!!!! And the only thing to do now was to wake him up and get him something to eat.

Here is a pained expression of a raccoon wanting to sleep in but enduring me anyway and since he's used to the flash on the camera, he now knows to look away from it. Doesn't make for compelling photos though.

Freddie unspiraled himself, let out a big yawn and then did a biggggggggggg stretch....

Maybe some scratching needed to be done too.

Then some thinking about what he wanted to do so early in the morning. But he decided to get his stiff little self off the glider to chomp on some cat food. He really wasn't that hungry. He didn't even finish what I gave him. He did like the water bowl though.When he was finished eating the dry cat food (which took two hands to eat, probably because he was so sleepy), he washed his hands in the water dish and then  ambled off.

Brian was telling me how he had seen a lot of critter catchers in the neighborhood and it saddened me to think that Freddie and his family might have been picked up and taken out of the neighborhood. So I was really surprised to see Freddie this morning. And Freddie looks great. Bigger. Chubbier. The possum that shows up usually around the same day as Freddie showed up last night too, also looking pretty big and chubby.

My new sister-in-law decided that each member of the family would draw names for Christmas this year and would then have to buy just one gift for that one person. She drew my name and although the earrings she sent were beautiful (and from Tiffany's!), I am the only woman on earth who does not have pierced ears. I'm treating Freddie's visit this morning as a late Christmas present, and the one I had hoped for! :-)

I have some feather pillows I have to throw out because they're old and have been replaced but I'm going to put them out for Freddie tonight. Brian told me a story about an old girlfriend who was bipolar and most of the time she'd be fine but then she'd have an episode and find it mandatory to do something like string bagels from trees at midnight. And now he lives across the hallway from a woman who has decided to go green by never using her electricity and when he comes home at night, he will sometimes see her moving around her apartment in the dark via flashlight. Good grief. Plumping up feather pillows for a visiting raccoon is on that same list of c r a z y, I know that. But really, this is just too much sweetness to ignore.