Lions, deer and bears, oh my!

I have an unusual fear of wild animals; maybe because they have the word "wild" in their names. Sometimes when I am on my morning run, I come across a few deer or a family of wild turkey and generally this causes me to increase my pace and hurry home. Honestly, I don't know what I expect to happen, but the scene in the movie "Are We There Yet?" where the guy has a boxing match with a deer doesn't seem to far fetched to me.

This morning on my walk, a neighbor stopped his car and said to me, "My wife and I woke up this morning to a good-sized mountain lion sitting on our porch so you might want to be careful walking up the street!"

My response was something like, "Hey, yeah, no problem, but I gotta go and run back to my house so I can lock myself and my kids inside!" Well, that was close to what I said, anyway.

You know, I dislike city living. Too many people, cars, stores, sidewalks, people. But living out of town has it's drawbacks too, like: lions, deers and bears, oh my! Don't get me wrong, I find these animals beautiful but I prefer to see them in a zoo setting or on the pages of a magazine. For the next couple of days (or weeks?) I will have to keep the kids in the backyard, no wandering around in the trees or walking down to their fort by themselves, daddy will have to be a guide on outings like these. And for me? My eliptical machine is going to get some use because the thought of meeting the "good-sized mountain lion" while on my morning walk is, well, not OK with me.

So much for life outside of the city!!!