Night Visitors

Inspirational song: Young Amercians (David Bowie)

So there I was, googling things like "can raccoons eat grapes," and "what kind of noises do raccoons make?" I was minding my own business, listening to the sounds of grandpa trying to soothe Avery to sleep, and I heard a noise somewhere between a honk and a snort. It was weird and adorable and followed by a lot of rustling in the front yard. I started by peeking through the screen door carefully, assuming it was someone walking their dog and clearing out their nose, and I didn't want to look like an aggressive homeowner running out on the porch. No human, no dog, so I slipped out on the porch and listened. I saw a raccoon dash under the new blue pickup. I went to the bedroom, to verify my assumption that they were here to help us harvest grapes. Indeed so. Mr S-P said he will have to revisit the construction of the grape arbor. It wasn't built to support thirty pound raccoons. Didn't stop them from testing it.

We have Avery for the evening. The kids are at a special event, and we have split the babysitting duties. Their housemate is watching the big kids at home, so they can be put to bed at the proper time in the proper place. We have Avery since it doesn't matter where he sleeps, and this way no one is overwhelmed. It has been fun, playing with him, feeding him, doing Snapchat filters with him for mommy. The only time he is really challenging for me is when he insists on "standing" just enough out from my center of gravity that it pulls on my low back. No bueno.

This is the third full day of pain in my back and hip. There have been episodes of this that lasted weeks or months. It has been the least reliable part of my body most of my life. Sometimes in the past chiropractic or physical therapy seemed to help, at least briefly, but they each do nothing if the inflammation isn't handled first. I've been hitting the diclofenac gel pretty hard today, but it isn't reaching it yet. I dug out my TENS unit to see if I could shock it back into behaving, but when I opened the case, there were no electrode pads. I checked to see whether Amazon could same-day deliver, but none of the packs at the top of the list offered that. I will try the TENS tomorrow when the pad arrive, if (when) it still hurts.