Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty

It will come as no surprise to anyone, I'm sure, that I am a city girl, born, and mostly bred (we'll ignore the early years in west Texan deserts and western North Carolina mountains. Speak of this to no one). I appreciate nature, but I appreciate it most from behind a healthy amount of viewing glass, not least because it all makes me sneeze mightily, but also because, frankly, I respect that a lot of the fauna has...big teeth. We don't live in a city right now, and while we don't exactly live out in the country, we *are* up in the hills of San Mateo County, and quite close to Edgewood Park, which is a smallish but nice county park. With...fauna. As in big teeth fauna. As discovered anew last night at about midnight when Gene was out walking the dogs around the corner from our house and came face to face with a mountain lion.

A MOUNTAIN. LION. Lion, from the mountain. Cougar. Puma. Whatever the hell you want to call it, it had big teeth.

Being the country boy that he is, he just stood his ground and the cat kept on its delicious venison hunting mission (BEHIND OUR HOUSE), and didn't even blink at the tasty and available medium sized dogs on pull strings (who, incidentally, apparently didn't even notice the big honking predator in their midst. Useless fleabags).

He called the sheriff, who gave him Fish & Game's number, where there is...nothing for reporting these things. You can report poaching, apparently, but not, say, semi-urban sightings. Huh.

I freely admit this whole experience rattled me a bit, even though I rationally know that there are enough deer and house cats and squirrels around here to keep even the hungriest mountain lion satiated, but oh, for a nice rabid city raccoon or a filthy pigeon. Sigh.