We came bounding out the back door about 9 p.m. and immediately startled three rats. The rats loudly skittered away across the roof. Jasper was slow to notice. Probably figured they were squirrels.
Rats generally live in palm trees around here in Sacramento, but sometimes they wander afar on their hunt for food, and I guess tonight is one of those special nights.
Tonight, our little task was to drop a stool sample of mine into the mail, in response to an unsolicited request from my health insurance people for pre-colonoscopy screening. Cheaper and less-intrusive than one of the usual probes, I guess. In any event, it meant walking past the graveyard to get to the mailbox.
I heard voices coming from the closed graveyard. I half expect to hear voices in my head these days. When my dad was my age he heard companionable voices all the time, but I have no such luck. I just hear voices telling me to pay the phone bill. As it turned out, for whatever reason, there were two people chatting in the closed graveyard, and so I couldn't even blame spirits for the voices.
After the mail drop, I decided to take Jasper to one of his favorite places, to the hidden spaces where the generous Cat Ladies at the DMV leave mounds of cat kibble in the bushes behind the pot dispensary. Cats can be found lurking all about! Jasper loves it! Tonight in the darkness, though, I stepped directly into the cat kibble and scattered it all around. No worries. So much cat kibble remains! Maybe the rats can help with the cleanup.
When we returned home, I could hear at least two rats loudly crashing through the vegetation in the back yard. I heard a loud thud, as one rat dropped off a fence. The rat started squeaking too, plaintively complaining about its bad luck. I'll hear its voice in my sleep tonight.
I wonder what the little critters have in store for our longer walk later tonight?
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