Flower.

I woke up last night around 1am because I could hear some unusual, cat-related noises coming from the slider. When I looked, I found Thor with his nose pressed against the screen, sniffing furiously. For a second I thought, "oh, maybe he and Mr. Jones are ready to sign a treaty and stop attacking each other through the door." Then I looked at the creature on the other side of the screen, and it was no cat. It was a little skunk!

I've occasionally woken up and smelled skunk in our yard, and have been sort of terrified as to what would happen if the cats saw a skunk, or if the skunk got mad at our cats. I don't need stink squirted onto my bedroom carpet. Thankfully, Thory and the skunk seemed to be just checking each other out, and I slid the glass door closed without anyone getting too upset. The skunk toddled off in the yard and Thor sort of looked at me confused (or, more confused than usual. He's not too bright.) I can't imagine what must have gone through his little head upon seeing this strange, stinky creature.

It's especially funny to me because when we adopted Thor, I wanted to name him Flower, after the skunk in Bambi. Tim shot me down on that call, though he now admits that Thor is sort of a wuss, and would have made an excellent Flower. I guess Thor and the actual Flower were sort of kindred spirits though. Or at least, friendly enough to keep everyone from getting sprayed with stink juice.

The bad news: then I couldn't fall back to sleep for another three hours.