Yawn

That's all I'm doing...yawning. I'd really like to go to sleep, but for some reason, sleep is avoiding me tonight. It's 1:00 a.m. here in California, and I've been up since 6 a.m., I had a busy day, so where's the sandman? I'd like to go for a walk but the moon isn't anywhere near full. I can't even see a tiny little sliver of her. And while the stars are huge and bright, they're not bright enough to light my way through the forest.

The last time I felt like this I took a flashlight, roused my dogs and went ahead and went for a walk, staying on the path...and I stepped right into a big pile of bear poop. At first, I was just extremely annoyed because I thought it was dog poop. Then I noticed the way my dogs were acting and I took a closer look and saw the seeds and other things that identified it as bear scat. We don't have Grizzlies here (THANK GOD!!) but our little black bears can be testy sometimes. Especially, I suppose, if some idiot woman were to run into them in the dark.

I started talking to my dogs, telling them to stay calm, stay close to Mommy, don't be scared, yada yada yada. Then I looked around and saw that my dang dogs had already taken off! Right about now I was really wishing I had taken their advice and stayed home; they hadn't wanted to come out for a walk in the first place.

So I start shining my flashlight around and talking in a loud voice (because someone once told me you should let the bear know you're there) saying, "Hello bear, if you can see me, and I really hope you can't...no, no I hope you CAN so you can avoid me because I really don't want to meet you...well, I mean I'm sure you're very nice, I didn't mean to be rude, OH ANYWAY, I mean you no harm" when a voice right behind me says succinctly, "Why don't you just tell him you're from the planet Looney and you come in peace?"

Well, at least that showed me that I have a strong, healthy heart because, by rights, I should have had a heart attack right then and there. It also showed me that another part of my body is strong because I didn't leave a "pile" of my own on the path. But my husband? Well...I bet he'll never follow me around in the dark and make smart-ass remarks EVER AGAIN. Even if it did take me a while to catch him.