Room With A View

I have the most spectacular view from my bed when it rains. Dutch doors are beautiful when it rains, they allow a full screen less view and they keep out the four legged critters I find so disturbing….squirrels, raccoons, and thankfully teeny tiny mice.

Perhaps I should explain that my bedroom opens up into a garden, a small but lovely garden, and there are two windows in the living room facing that garden. If one were to stand in the garden and look thru the windows you would see my kitchen, but the fences and surrounding backyards make it almost impossible for an intruder…almost.

I live in Manhattan, on the UWS, yet we sometimes get raccoons, yes raccoons. Which brings me to my story….One late fall night I was cooking, in the middle of my usual Sunday night “cook for the week” spree. I was making chili, roasted cauliflower, the special hot sauce that my friends beg for and collard greens and I was wearing very little, just a tank top and panties. In the midst of stirring the pot, I felt a strange feeling, as if someone was spying on me.

I turned around and saw two beady black glowing eyes and I froze. I knew it wasn’t human, but what the hell can sit on my window sill and stare at me like that, so quiet and so meticulous? A bloody raccoon, that’s what! My immediate reaction was fear but it was immediately replaced with embarrassment…where the hell was my robe?

I actually thought, “why are you not dressed”?

In something, anything, that is comfy, easy to cook in, yet entirely appropriate to run out of the front door, in case the raccoon tore thru the screen to get to the chili?

Motto of story…Keep your robe handy, if you don’t have one, get one!

#lounge