Saving a baby raccoon + a “private” tour :)


The other night, I heard a sudden animal “cry”– a loud one that lasted quite some time too. I thought it was probably our neighbor’s parrot, as parrots are known to imitate different animal sounds. But then I realized later that it couldn’t be the parrot since it was nearing 11:00pm and the cries did not stop.

DM also heard the cries which apparently emanated from the pool area, so we opened all our garden lights. I saw a fat raccoon by the poolside, looking into the pool. And then I saw it– there was a baby raccoon that fell into the water! And this fat raccoon, presumably the mother, was trying to save the baby! (the big raccoon was on this edge of the pool facing you)At this time as well, another fat raccoon came by and took a swing at the “mommy” raccoon. I guess it could be the father, who had warned his “wife” that there are humans around. Mama raccoon scurried off in the dark, leaving the baby behind 🙁

So this was where lebaghag comes in *uncaped and all haha…*. I took our leaf- scooper screen and slowly scooped the baby raccoon out of the water and into the grass. S/he is drenched and shivering 🙁 But s/he limped into the nearby bushes, with only signs of his presence in our garden with his continuous whimpering. Poor baby. We turned off the garden lights afterwards in hopes that the parentals would come back and get him.

See, if I still lived in the U.S., I’d probably have taken the baby raccoon in and brought him to the animal hospital, even if I know that raccoons are pretty rabid. (photo credit: acm.vt.edu). I’d then take the raccoon in as a pet hehehe… cute… (except when they get nasty I guess… :D)

Anyway, last night’s incident prompted me to take a stroll around (last night was the 1st time I went to our pool area since we arrived hahaha), and take some photos of my neighbors’ houses (hahaha stalker). As you can tell by now, I didn’t really go out of the house to some mall again today, so it’s kinda nice listening to good music while taking a leisurely walk to reacquaint myself with the neighborhood that I sorta grew up in 🙂

This peach house was built sometime in 1994-95. My DD at that time was in touch with the architect/ developer of the house, and was actually interested in buying the house– which meant we had to move from our current house to this one. I already staked my claim on the room that had a turret (that room on the left of the photo ). 😀 DM thought the house was scary because the “mess” room was in the basement, which meant that the family room would be in the basement as opposed to the top floor. The house was strangely configured, and I guess feng shui- wise, it wasn’t really too ideal. The coolest thing about this house was, it had a dumbwaiter 🙂 It has a 4 car garage, and had enough room to park 3 more cars by the driveway. It was really very spacious!! Looking back now, I think it would’ve been cool to move here especially since there are so many of us in the family now– all our kids can just hang in the rooms at the “basement” while us adults (wow I admit I’m an adult haha) stay on the top floor hahaha. DD’s offer at that time for this house did not meet the amount that the architect/ developer wanted. We were off by about 100k *gulp*. The deal fell through, so we didn’t get the move and I didn’t get my room *sob… spoiled brat!! Hehe..* Anyway, this house I was told has increased in value over time and was sold for a cool US$3M some years ago! Talk about a fantastic investment!*We’d be rich if we sold this house hahaha!! Daaayyym!!!* DM on the other hand, was glad we never ended up with this house because she says she ends up doing all the cleaning and none of us wanted to help her. *tsk I clean too, Mom!! Sometimes… hehe*

Another house that I like is this one– I remember going into this 6- bedroom house because the couple who had owned it were getting a divorce and they wanted to sell to split the proceeds. The husband worked in NY as one of the top honchos of Merrill Lynch at that time and just maintained this as their second home. *Darn, I wonder when will I ever afford a 2nd home when I can’t even afford one of my own :(* So anyway, what was so noteworthy about this house back then? The walk- in closet!!! On display at the time there was this open house, were the shoes of the woman of the house! I was at that time, a serious shoe fiend, so when I saw her shoe closet, I gave out a big gasp. She must’ve had over 300 pairs of shoes, all lined up and color- coordinated. The closet was HUGE!! Oh how I wanted to have that room so bad– haha. But bah, that was the master’s bedroom. The succeeding children’s rooms were quite big too, but the closets were nothing compared to that master bedroom’s walk- in. This house has a huge garden that was perfect for parties– apparently the owners then used to host a lot of nice parties for their out – of- town New Yorker friends. *Hehehe I never got invited to these things… if I had known then what I knew now, I’d have gatecrashed hahaha… NOT!! :D* The perfect word to describe this house is “stately”. Hmm.. made me wonder where those 2 previous owners are now.. I wonder if his wife was an NY socialite… she sure had tons of shoes 🙂 *Drools at the thought*

Here is another house that reminds me of an English prep school 🙂 I don’t know why but it does. It’s a huge house– I don’t know how many bedrooms because I’ve never been inside this house before. I’ve only begun liking this fairly recently too. But I know with big houses come the pains of cleaning them. Eeyikes, me no likey the responsibility haha… But then I suppose these people who own these big houses have some housekeepers who clean their homes… I can’t imagine being tasked to “clean the house” *gulp* if it were this big haha.

Another house that’s moderate in size, but has a huge backyard and a guest house at the back! Now that’s really nice. Your guest doesn’t have to be in the same house as you– and you can still maintain your privacy! No pool for this place, but hey, a guest house is cool 🙂

So you see peeps, we live in Suburbia! *Or you can already tell by now :P*. To get to the city proper (Downtown San Francisco), we drive about 40 minutes each way. I’ve become quite accustomed to the distance, but DH says he gets so “tired” driving to the city each time 🙂 *DH used to live near the city– it takes him 4 or 5 Muni stops to go Downtown* I personally enjoy the drive into the city, crossing the Bay Bridge… I hate driving in Manila because of traffic, but love burning rubber here 😀 *hehehe*

My father loved coming here for his vacations. It’s really quiet (you can hear yourself breathe!!), and he lived such a simple life here. His vacation would entail waking up for breakfast, reading the morning funnies, taking a stroll in our garden, reading a good book in the living room, then watching cartoons (Donald Duck, Heathcliff) with me. We’d always go out for dinner– DM always looked for new restaurants in the gourmet resto book (Dad loved good food). And our after-dinner activity consists of watching old reruns of Star Trek, or watching movies. *Sigh* Originally DD wanted to sell our house after we were all done with school, but he too, got sentimental. You see, he designed our house, and it was custom- built from ground up. So there was a lot of him in this house we live in. And when he passed on, DM didn’t want to part with the house either. I guess DBs and I all hope one day that all our kids get to study in our alma mater (7 minutes from our house). *Sigh I miss my dad so much *

I can’t believe I’m going to leave this place again soon, but I really cannot wait to see DH and my children. I’ve been away far too long. Man, I better get out of this rut and into some mall. I need some catching up to do since my cold’s been bothering me the last few days haha.

Oh oh, one thing I actually don’t look forward to is going home to use the stupid Globe DSL internet in our house because DH told me that Globe screwed up something in our connection AGAIN. They’ve apparently already sent over a 5 man team to check out what’s wrong with our line. They should seriously be doing something about it. It isn’t even because we belong to the lower plan. They themselves admit there’s something wrong about their line– and they can’t figure out what it is!!! I hope someone from Globe is reading my blog. Really. I hate complaining– makes me too damn bitter. DH has been apparently in touch with them everyday and yet nothing gets done right. 🙁

*Sigh* ok ok I better get off my butt and do something productive today. Pffft. Instead I get bogged down thinking about the damn internet situation in Manila. *Ugh*. Awrighty, time to get a move on… eat or something haha.

x
Mrs.T

No Comments Yet
  1. hi mrs t,

    we have globe dsl too, and we have been experiencing problems with them lately too…. 🙁 we used to leave the dsl and the wifi router “on” 24/7 but i realized that someone may be using our dsl without our consent thru the wifi, so i switched it off. that’s when our problem began. now we have intermittent connection and despite globe sending several technicians already, the problem persists. we could not switch to pldt because of the lock-in period. grrrrrr…..

  2. If your area is serviced by Bayantel, maybe it’s better to shift to them. So far, our Bayantel DSL connection has been very stable. I love your blog so I would hate it if you can’t blog because of Globe’s unstable connection.

  3. Had fun with the uncaped part…haha…Mrs. T, you’re such a life saver…you should have taken pictures of the raccoons (Mrs. T’s personal portrait with the raccoons..hmm…)

    Kidding aside, I’m one of your huge fans. Keep it up! 🙂

  4. wow!! my grandma lives in walnut creek!!! but it never looked so posh!!

    are you sure we`re talking about the same walnut creek.

    palos verdes maybe?

  5. what part in sfo do u live? hillsborough? seems a very nice neighborhood…we used to lived at belmont…and it was fricking nice to…near neiman,union square n etc..

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