Ann Ferro: An interesting visitor

When my offspring, as they often do, ask what happened in the previous week, we find it hard to list anything beyond a grocery shopping event, maybe two wash and dries in the cellar, vacuuming, etc., For my spouse, a game of pickle ball. They look at us as some kind of slackers when it comes to having interesting lives. I guess the explanation should include some kind of foot note indicating that when we were there age, we did do more interesting things. Now an interesting thing is a nap.
But this week, we have something beyond our so mundane existence to share. Two things, actually.
The first is difficult to categorize and so I will share it in story form.
It was early evening, I had retired to the family room to watch the news on PBS. While I was intent on absorbing the information being shared by Goeff Bennett, I felt a light push on the end of my right foot. And … how do I put this and capture my delight … there was an opossum sniffing my shoe. This has never happened to me. To be more specific, I have never actually seen an opossum except on TV let alone had one in my house. It took its time to gather whatever olfactory information in needed, looked up and walked away toward to the other side of the room. I was happily surprised and charmed by this fellow or gals appearance. I worked on finding the right level of voice to call my husband who was in the kitchen so not to startle my visiting marsupial. By the time he got the message, the little visitor was happily eating cat food, sharing a dish with one of the cats. No fuss at all. As the spouse approached the two, the opossum, looked up, and made the decision to walk …not run, but walk fast past him into the kitchen and down the stairs into the basement where there are a zillion hiding places.
We went downstairs and made a cursory search, knowing that it was basically futile, given the accumulation of nooks and crannies, boxes and such. You could hide an elephant down there. Really.
How did the little opossum get in? And, given the fact that it knew to go into the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement, how long had it been in the house? The opossum most probably got in through the cat door, but when was a question we couldn’t answer.
Opossums are docile, quiet animals. They will fight if threatened. I will fight if threatened too but since I wasn’t threatened, I had no intention of threatening the creature. I was basically feeling elated that it had chosen to spend some time with us but knowing that it could not stay in the house.
Many people have domesticated opossums, training them like cats to use a litter box. I had no intention of doing this since I struggle each day to deal with the idiosyncrasies of six cats, half of which live under the love seat in the living room and only come out to eat and use the litter box, except late at night when they hold rodeos on the first floor of the house.
The opossum appeared on the next day, around 5:30 p.m. to eat and drink water. He took his version of a passeggiata around the family room and the kitchen before heading back down into the basement where my spouse watched him head into the laundry room where we set a “have a heart” trap and closed the door for the night. In the morning, the little guy or gal was safely enclosed in the trap and my heroic spouse brought the trap and opossum outside and released it to the area where we knew that he was most probably living.
Investigation told me that opossums find winter very difficult. They are not blessed with thick fur coats and their little hand-like paws have no fur at all. They are wonderful in the garden, eating small rodents, insects especially ticks. They are harmless and helpful. And so, our next effort will be to build a shelter out of some Styrofoam boxes and straw that Roy and Barb Thompson gave us for that purpose.
Was that interesting enough?
And what was the second thing of note last week? I learned how to make a chocolate martini. I tell you this last lest you think that consuming said so delicious intoxicant rendered me delusionary. Here’s the recipe for a chocolate martini: (serves 2): ¼ cup Godiva chocolate liqueur, ¼ cup Bailey’s Irish Cream, 1 cup vodka. Shake over ice and serve. Expensive, strong, fattening and entirely and without guilt, luscious.
If you make this cocktail and see an opossum, please know that there is no cause and effect relationship between the two. The two are separate occurrences, both delightful.
The cat door is closed. This week, it is back to laundry, shopping, putting a cat tree together and taking naps