nature-gotta love her

so the thunderstorms have been loud and violent. that means diva has spent quite a bit of time under the bed or in the tub hiding. 2 nights ago at 2:15am, there was a break in the action...no angels bowling...she wakes me up to go out, since she hadn'y peed in a while. she made her way across our fenced yard to her privacy potty area, and i walked across our deck (4" off ground) to trip the motion lights in case a possum or God-knows-what is out there. as i made my way to the corner, something caught my eye a moment too soon...PPPPFFFFTTTT! stinky cat a/k/a skunk. i am covered. diva, sensing excitement...er - smelling it, actually, comes tearing across the yard. without thinking, i shuck off my befouled bathrobe, and grab her before the little striped bastard can reload. husband hears the commotion and comes running downstairs ...a spotlight in one hand and a Ruger in the other. (read back a bunch o posts - i live with a hillbilly). so there we stand...in the backyard of a very upscale (til we moved in) residential area...naked...stinking...and him with a gun in his hand...me hissing "don't shoot it" and all of us with tears running down our faces, courtesy of a very small, VERY stinky skunk. i run to the downstairs bathroom with diva, who has a residual stink on her by now, and begin a process not to different from Norma Rae in that famous scene from the movie. husband sits outside, still naked, waiting for the thing (skunk) to show itself and meet it's maker. 5:30am, back to bed for a few more minutes of sleep before manic monday. husband finally comes to bed, but now he stinks...the humid air held the droplets of skunk spray and they are clinging to him like a scared kid at nursery school. our house, having finally recovered from the dead-thing-under-the-fireplace smell, is now hazy with skunkstink. AND and we cannot open the windows because..yes...it has begun to storm again. i was glad to go to work. i kissed the ground, the very unvacuumed carpet, when the computers crashed at 3pm, and i was able to leave at 5pm like everyone else, rather thnan 7pm like...oh, just me. do not come to my house for a while. trust me. today is tuesday. i am hoping to have left all that behind me, and promise not to forget and wear my rain galoshes to work again today. L.