Exotic Vermin - Thieves in the Night

I'm rapt. I saw my first live raccoon last night!

I know, North Americans are now facepalming at the thought of me bounding around at this annoying and commonplace event. They're little bastards that are everywhere and get into your garbage, but I suspect you don't know quite how awesome they are to someone who hasn't seen them before. All I got to see where I lived were birds. Birds birds sparrows blackbirds starlings Indian mynahs birds crows magpies birds wattle birds galahs cockatoos oh my gods shut up birds. When we went driving, as we were on the outskirts of the city the only wild mammalian creatures we'd see would be rabbits. Damned rabbits should never have come to my country - but that's a rant for another time.

The Husband was on a night shift last night, and as such was leaving for work at ARGH o'clock. He puttered off out the doorway and I moseyed back up here to watch more random stuff on YouTube. Well, it fills in time in the middle of the night. Don't judge me!

Yet before I'd even plonked myself back down on this couch, I heard the front door open again.

"That was fast." I said, wondering what he'd forgotten.

"There's a bunch of raccoons out here!" came the breathless reply.

I don't think my little town was quite prepared for the visual I presented in my short pyjamas and lily white legs. Thankfully the only things moving around at that time of night were the family of raccoons peering beadily at me from across our mews.

One one was out in full view, little bandit mask barely visible in the gloom as he studied me. He was scared, but I was fascinated. These things look a lot like Tasmanian Devils in the way they're shaped. They have a funny humped back and a long bushy tail, and they're so determined as they sniff about looking for rubbish.

Even The Husband was fascinated by them. Perhaps it's been too long since he'd seen evidence of them, and had never dealt with them as an adult property owner before he moved to Australia, but he was really pleased, saying, "I've never seen them this close before."

The one watching me sauntered away. You'd never have guessed he was scared save that he was trying to saunter as fast as he could. It was almost like, "Yeah, ya caught me, copper, but ya can't prove nuthin!"

Funny little buggers. Thank goodness we keep our rubbish in the basement, because those masks they wear aren't just for show. I think some human once made the correlation between how they looked and what they did, decided to become a thief and put on a mask. Coz that's what they are.

I hope I see them again. It's fascinating to see a whole world of animals that live around the humans without really interacting with us. We don't really have that in the cities in Australia. Our native wildlife is too fragile to live amongst our feral pets, and the thought of more introduced species messing things up is quite frankly unbearable.

I have no pictures of my encounter as my iPhone camera has no flash. You'll have to make do with David Attenborough.

Life of Mammals - ©BBC.

One day I may relate the story of my father-in-law and his encounter with what he thought was a raccoon in his garbage, but was in fact a whole lot larger.

I wonder when I'll see my first bear?

Sweets For the Sweet

I don't know if you're aware of it, Canada, but your food is really sweet.

Cookies and milk for breakfast, anyone?

It's not only the obvious, though there are a lot of sweet options on offer here. It's not just cereals or the soft drinks and cookies, but even to barbeque meats and sauces. Ribs are an iconic food here in North America, yet the marinade they've been put in is sometimes so sweet that it overpowers the flavour of the meat (given I'm not a fan of pork, I sometimes wonder if that was the point).

Yet the thing I've had to accustom myself to are things like bread. It might be that we simply haven't found the right brand yet, however so far the multigrain bread I've tried has tasted more like cake than what I considered bread. In fact, multigrain here isn't quite what I'd call multigrain - it seems to be closer to what I'd call "brown", which this six year old in a thirty-nine year old body has never liked. As an analogy to my Australian readers, often these breads taste like croissants.

However I thought I was imagining things, or alone in this opinion until I presented myself to my new doctor for a first consultation. It was more of a "get to know you" session than an actual medical consult, so there was a lot of chatter involved.

One of the things that came up through this conversation was that he had lived in Australia for a few months as a part of an exchange program, and so he immediately declared "Yes!" the moment I said, "The bread here is sweet." He expounded on this, adding that he's only aware of it having been exposed to something different, and we wondered if it might be because of the corn syrup that often comes up as an ingredient in these products.

I don't know, but I find myself wishing for more savoury savoury foods. I think I am beginning to see the attraction for bacon doughnuts. Blargh.

Hot Enough For Ya Brass Monkeys?

I write a lot about food here, I've realised. Pork, lamb, chocolate covered bacon, takeaways and take out; all these things and more have been covered in this blog. I do this because food is a commonality both Australia and North America can immediately recognise, yet with such a broad scope of differences it's a prime topic for discussion.

However despite the temptation to address it once more (and I do have some new ground to broach with it), this triumphant return to the blogging world instead will address another thing we have in common - the weather.

It's hardly fair of me to deride or mock either North America for the heat wave they're currently going through, nor Victorians for the wet and chilly weather happening there. It's got up to 39 degrees Celcius here in the last day or two - hardly insignificant in the grand scheme of things - and when you add humidity to the mix things are really sticky here. To me this is hot weather, yet when I came from a city that got to 48 degrees in the last summer I was there, it's still not the hottest I've ever been.

Nights are the worst, though. I have always been what my mother called a "Hottentot". I get very hot when I sleep. I sleep next to a bit of a cold fish, whose lower extremities I have long refered to as "Undead Feet".  I swear they couldn't get much colder if I actually did stick them in a freezer! Brr! However this is negated by the fact the cats love to swamp me. Cue me waking up at about 5am overheated and grumpy, gasping for air and clawing my way out from under the pile of cat fur.

This is a godsend in winter, though. I can go to bed freezing, and still wake up needing to throw off the blankets and chill for a while. Yes, even in the -28 degree weather I have to do this. And I know the Undead Feet appreciate my inability to regulate my body temperature, at least when the snow is falling.

There's the crux of this matter. I used to gripe a bit about the chill back home, but as we were by the ocean we never got far below zero, and usually then only at night. And there was certainly no snow. Sometimes the grass was whitened by frost, and sometimes there was a bit of rime on the windows, but nothing like I've seen here.

Yet my fellow Australians dress exactly the same for their approximately zero degree weather as the Canadians around me now dress for the depths of these bleak white winters. On the other hand, I have seen the people around me shed their clothes as soon the sun shows itself; the wools and thick, dark fabrics quickly being discarded for the thin cottons and light colours that I equate with only the hottest of days. I feel like a big black bat as I swoop around this town in my black lace, black long skirts and black long sleeved blouses amongst all these pastel and white donned sweaty Canadians.

These things amuse and enthrall me, and it makes me smile to think of how the human creature adapts to its environment. Aussies who are wondering at how Canadians can live here in the "eternal freezing cold" - you'd adapt, and it's not cold all the time despite what you might believe. In fact, it does get quite hot here. And Canucks, it's not sunny and warm all the time in Australia, though for the first winter or so I suspect you'd do as I now do, and chuckle every time they complain about the chill. You'd each get your own back every time the seasons change, trust me.