Now that I mostly understand Illinois weather, (though I do wonder how it was decided that the sirens would be tested every Tuesday at 10am, since that has been happening since Suzanne was a kid. Why Tuesday? Why 10am?), I have some learning to do in regards to Illinois raccoons and trees.

I think it was like the first morning that we lived here, after we got our stuff unloaded – that would make it a Tuesday. I was sitting at my desk at the unGodly hour of 5am when something in the window caught my eye. I tweeted about a parade of raccoons and I wasn’t kidding. Four of them, running across the wooden fence, the last one bringing up the rear, getting left behind, like a Disney cartoon or something.

I saw them again and then again once more. And then I saw them on the back fence at like 6pm. Why are raccoons out in public at 6pm? What’s with that? Don’t raccoons generally stay tucked away in their trees until dark? Florida raccoons seemed to do that. Do they have a longer commute up here in the north so they have to leave earlier?

Then, there are the maple trees. I’ve apparently never spent much time with maples. Or if I have, I haven’t spent enough time thinking about them or watching them.

We were laying in bed the other night and TW started cursing about “the helicopters”. Umm we live under the flight pattern for O’Hare but I haven’t actually heard any helicopters, so I questioned her on this. “The helicopters, you know – the seed pods that are all over the house? They’re always stuck to my feet.” Umm no. I had no idea what she was talking about. She got up, with a huff (which means everybody knows this stuff but you, why am I cursed with having to teach you stuff that everybody knows), and came back in with a couple of green things.

Apparently they are maple seeds? Or something. And when they fall from the maple trees, they spin. Or something. She tossed one up and nothing happened except that it fell onto MY bed, MY quilt, MY nice expensive white sheets. She tossed another one and oh yea, it spins. Whatever. I’ve never seen that before.

And now that she’s mentioned it, I’m noticing them all over the floor of the house and when I go outside the maple trees are shooting the freaking things at me. Yesterday during a phone meeting I was covered with the things. I get the point, the tree no longer needs to display this helicopter stuff to me. I’m totally done with maple seed helicopters, kthxbai.