I like the surreal mornings.
Paul and Amy Jo have been using our home as one of a couple bases as they remodel their new house, which is just a mile away from us in Oak Grove. They stayed over last night. This morning when I woke up, I was startled by the sounds of a rather large cat. Or so I thought. It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t a cat I was hearing, but one of our houseguests.
Meanwhile, I just couldn’t drag myself out of bed. This is has been a problem since our vacation, and it’s odd. I’ve always been an easy riser — quick to wake up, get up, stand up. Not lately, though. Something happened on our vacation and I’ve learned to linger under the covers.
Today I finally got up after six, pulled on the clothes I wore yesterday, and stumbled out the door. This is something else I picked up while on vacation. I took a limited amount of clothing to Europe, so I became accustomed to wearing the same clothes over and over. I knew that today I was going to be the only one in the office, with no danger of having to see anyone, so I just took the easy way out and wore what I’d worn before.
I walked down the sidewalk, turned toward my car, and stopped in my tracks. Something was fishy. Simon was out by the road (which is a little strange in itself), but he wasn’t coming to me. He seemed to be stalking something around the tires of my Focus. I stepped into the road for a better view, and what did I see? An orange rabbit.
Kris likes to tell stories of the wild hares she sees around the crime lab (which is located in a wetlands), but we don’t get them around our house. And besides, an orange rabbit like this must surely be a pet. I was worried for it. Simon was keen on it, and he was nearly twice its size. But Simon didn’t seem to be particularly aggressive. Quite the opposite, in fact. He sniffed at it, and then he flopped to the ground and rolled, as if it were his best friend and he was glad to see it. It was bizarre.
I went to get Kris. We followed Simon and the rabbit to the driveway, where we discovered Oreo, the neighbor cat (and Simon’s nemesis), also intent on the orange rabbit.
“What should we do?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Kris. “There’s no way to tell where it belongs.”
She was right. Though I really wanted to catch it, the thing was too skittish. Meanwhile, Simon was becoming a little more than friendly. He had that look in his eye. Against his protests, Kris grabbed him and carried him into the house. Meanwhile, the rabbit hop-sprinted from one end of our property to the other, sticking to the road.
Our neighbor Curt drove by in his jumbo-sized clanking diesel pickup. He stopped for a witty word or two, laughing at our rabbit-hunting attempts. But our attempts didn’t go on long. We had no plan. We had no idea how to catch the orange rabbit or what to do with it after we’d succeeded. So we just gave up.
Someplace on our property, there’s a strange orange bunny. I just hope it’s able to survive the day, and to somehow return to its owner.