St Paul's Inspiring Raccoon

We're back into a heat wave for the weekend. I'm happy that I'll be swimming for the next two days, but did have to sleep with the fan on overnight just to keep sultry air moving. I'm settling back in from "vacation" and trying to catch up. Almost there. 

The young raccoon was frightened and ran from would-be
rescuers, climbing straight up a 25-story building in
downtown St Paul, Minnesota. 

Like the rest of the universe, it seems, I had my eye on the raccoon climbing up the side of the UBS Bank building in downtown St Paul. My city so rarely makes the headlines for something other than politics or sports, and having the world hold its breath for the health and well-being of a rather lunatic raccoon, was refreshing. Did you hear about our adventurous raccoon? 

The story of the raccoon went viral and was covered by individuals
and news organizations world-wide. Everyone was rooting for
the raccoon to safely ascend to the rooftop (except for the pigeon,
I suspect, who was less than pleased at losing her eggs to the
hungry raccoon). 

Apparently the raccoon was eating pigeon eggs when it got startled and responded with a simple flight instinct. Normally that would have entailed running for the nearest sewer drain, but since the pigeon nest was at least one story above ground, the raccoon ran up - straight up the side of the building. 

Everyone was worried about that final stretch without any
resting places. Would the raccoon take a long and nasty
fall down to the ground below? 

The building is 25 stories high, with the top two stories a blank wall. The world caught its' collective breath as the story began to spread and it became front-page news in many newspapers and was featured on many newscasts. The raccoon continued climbing up. One story, then another, then a break to rest for a bit on a window ledge, then continuing the climb up the sheer facing of the sky scraper. 

Raccoons are dangerous, aggressive, can carry diseases, etc., but after
examination, this young lady was determined to be rabies-free and
was released into the wild, far from the concrete jungle of
downtown St Paul. 

Animal control was contacted, of course, but aside from putting food and water out for the raccoon to access when she got to the roof, there was little that they could do. But Wednesday morning around 2:30 am, shortly before I settled down to write my blog for the day, the raccoon finally crested the top of the building, found the cat food and water in the live trap, and relaxed. After drinking a lot of water and eating all of the food, the skinny adventurer, determined to be a female approximately 2 years old, was released on private woodlands where, hopefully, the only climbing she'll be doing in the future will be trees. 

So what's been happening in your city? LOL


Want to see CNN's short You Tube video of the event? Here's a link. Enjoy. 


Have a great Friday. I indulged in a croissant yesterday and the scale pointed out the error of that poor food decision to me today. Dang! I really should know better - LOL. Enjoy your Friday and I'll be back tomorrow.