Ghost Coon!

So Winter Break has been pretty uneventful. I've been coaching, shopping, etc. and that's about it.

But last night I saw something pretty cool. Did you ever read "Where the Red Fern Grows" as a kid? OK...remember the part where the kid and the dogs have to track down the "ghost coon"? In the book, the ghost coon was just a really smart crafty raccoon. Well...I saw a better ghost coon last night.

I was sitting in my car near Dev Z's apartment waiting for him to show up so we could go eat, when out of the corner of my eye I saw what I thought was a white stray cat. Wait a sec, I thought...that was too big to be a stray cat...it must have been a stray dog. No, wait a sec, that didn't look like any stray dog I've ever seen. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?

I got out of my car, and stared at this weird, white creature looking back at me. It was only a handful of feet away, so I saw it very clearly, but I still couldn't figure out what it was. Suddenly it dawned on me. It was an ALBINO RACCOON!!!

After a few brief moments the raccoon turned and waddled across the street into some bushes. The weird thing was that raccoons are distinctive animals identified in our minds by their black masks and striped tails, but this thing had neither, so it took me a bit of time to figure out what it was. I'm also kicking myself because I had my camera with me, but I didn't think to try and get a picture since I was too shocked. I've actually heard of people glimpsing albino raccoons before, but it was still really cool to see one myself.

So, if a black cat crosses your path, it's bad luck. What about a white raccoon? Are they like white buffalos, which are good luck? And what about white elephants, which are just names for obscure Christmas gifts? Am I in for a year of incredible good fortune? Fingers crossed...

I also saw "United 93" and highly recommend it. Very eerie, very good film. But it's also kind of unreviewable. Just go see it for it's accurate depiction of what happened to all the planes on 9-11. AND notice how long it took our president to do anything about the situation (the movie doesn't focus on the president or anything, but it's pretty clear again how incompetent he is).