At 2 in the morning, it is scary as all hell to walk out of the bungalow by oneself, leaving a sheltered place of warmth, walls and other humans for the yawning black velvet of the woodsy night.
I'm probably the last person to walk alone at night along the perimeter of a dense forest known to harbor bears but my Poms started barking softly, in unison, and in a spurt of energy borne of altruism and work-related panic, I jumped out of bed, slipped my feet into my Born clogs, leashed the dogs and stepped into the impenetrable darkness.
In my black polka dot baby doll nightie.
Fully believing that there was an axe murder hiding in the woods to my right, a serial rapist crouching behind the garbage cans, a family of hungry bears under my bungalow and a rabid raccoon up a tree, I tip-toed onto the grass, exhorting my dogs to pee and get it over with.
Before Cropsie could dart from the parking lot to kill me.
But Alfie and Nala were thrilled at this rare nighttime outing and took their time to sniff every blade of grass and scout out the most opportune spots to pee.
And so, I endured ten minutes of terror, shivering in my thin baby doll, darting my head from side to side in a fit of hyper-vigilance: was that a cracking branch to my left? A growl in the near distance? The unmistakable sound of breathing coming from the trees???
Before returning to the comfort of my cabin, unleashing the dogs to dive underneath my bed in search of their sleeping lair, setting up my laptop on the porch and putting up a pot of coffee to begin my work day at half past two in the morning, a Gap hoodie now thrown atop my baby doll for warmth and protection against the probing eyes of the sinister, surrounding woods.
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