More often than not, on Thursday afternoon, I was trying to stay completely still, for health reasons. The first of which occurred at a time no reasonable human being even has nightmares about having to wake up. If normal human beings have such nightmares...

Anyhow, I was walking down my particularly steep driveway in the twilight, hoping for my vision to randomly become somewhat usable. Since that doesn't even happen in broad daylight, my hopes sputtered and savagely died rather quickly. Nonetheless I continued in my rather suicidal descent of the mountain.
Now, seeing as most everyone who will ever read this has either been to Rappahannock or (unfortunately) lives here, they will know what I mean when I refer to the wildlife here. It's just not fathomable for city dwellers, so if by chance you happened upon this blog and can hear traffic blaring outside your window right now, just pretend to understand.
I was wearing flip-flops, neon purple balloon pants (which are the comfiest on Earth) and an oversize t-shirt. Not exactly wilderness apparel. Which, I'm sure, is why animals decided that I was an easy target. Take this mother deer, for instance.
Halfway down the drive, there is noticable change in density of the forest. It's much thicker, and I, having trouble seeing in normal woods, just gave up looking. When, surprise, surprise, a doe lazily trotted out 8 feet in front of me. Well, at this point, I was desperately hoping it was a doe, because even though she could still easily kill me, being gouged by antlers isn't my favorite envisioned death.
When put under pressure, I generally crawl into a corner and cry. But instead of being able to perform my usual routine, I decided to use the old "don't show fear" option. As I moved my feet shoulder width apart and locked my stare with hers though, I began to doubt my reasoning. "Are you sure it wasn't pretend to be dead? Run in a zig-zag pattern? Yell loudly at the creature?"
(Which it wasn't. Those defensive strategies belong to encounters with bears and alligators and bears. Respectively.)
My strong stance was just not having the effect that I wanted it to. I am by nature a fidgeter, and when my fingers began to subconciously tap at my sides, the doe grew fiercer. Standing-still is just not my forte. I faltered, she saw it and stepped forward. I died a little on the inside.
And then she galloped off.

Strange. Of course, being a good horror/outdoor movie patron, I glanced behind me to ensure that there was not something more menacing and human-hungry standing behind me. Because I was moderately sure I didn't scare the deer off.
Onward towards daybreak I strolled and my mind began to focus on food. So my stomach and I marched off towards the house again, picturing a wonderful, warm, deer-free bowl of Quaker strawberry oatmeal.

To be continued.