Just like that, we exit one year and begin a new year. 2024 out. 2025 in. And, as luck would have it, this new day of a new year delivered a surprising (and slightly embarrassing) flashback-fact-check. But, instead of playing opossum, I’m going to own my mistake and set the record straight.
Confused yet? Let’s start here.
Despite a ferocious display… the pesky possum actually proved relatively unpesky, even docile, never once “playing possum”. And that, playing possum (aka apparent death) — or more specifically, *NOT* playing possum — brings me to the point of this post.
During our first few months after moving into Rosslyn another pesky possum failed to play the appropriate part.
If memory serves, it was December 23, 2008. Carpenters had just barely completed the garapa deck and it was frosted like a cake with about an inch of new fallen snow. We were thrilled to finally be living at Rosslyn, even though there were plenty of incomplete projects. It would be our first Christmas in our new home!
But what about the pesky possum? For now I’m going to pause that story because it makes me look pretty daft. And because Susan tells the story better. (Source: Pesky Possum)
That excerpt from my August 7, 2024 update, “Pesky Possum”, turns out to have been inaccurate and misleading. As you’ll note, the captions show the correct date for the opossum encounter, not December 23, 2008.
Framing the past from the present without the certainty of 100% reliable memories or metadata is a bit like considering the view through Rosslyn’s wavy glass. Or deciphering a scene painted on the wrinkled water surface of Lake Champlain. (Source: Framing the Past)
The credibility of my memory challenged, I wondered if the photograph metadata was incorrect. But I’ve verified that these fuzzy photos were taken on my BlackBerry 9550 (remember those?!) and apparently this device was not even released until November 2009. So it looks like the real date of the possum encounter and story is most likely January 1, 2010. (I stumbled upon the photos since they were made exactly fourteen years ago.)
But wait… there’s more! On March 13, 2023 I posted an update, “Opossum O’Clock”, that recounted the encounter. Hhhmmm… Time for an editor.
If you missed the hissing and growling opossum — up close and personal — then here’s a replay.
Playing Opossum
Saturday morning and we’re sitting in the morning room eating waffles in our bathrobes and slippers. We’ve slept in, lazed around, made breakfast, and lingered over the ritual of starting our day.
It snowed last night. Not much, but just enough to cover everything. Maybe an inch. Wet snow. Like white frosting coating everything.
Suddenly I’m aware that a critter is making its way across the front lawn toward us. Actually Griffin realized it, stood up from his bed abruptly and pointed, hair on his back standing straight up, low rumbling half barks alternating with half threatening, half excited glances at us then back at the animal. Like a huge rat. Wet from the soggy snow. Dragging itself across the grass, then across the gravel driveway, then across the grass between the driveway and the house. He was coming right toward us and Griffin was not sure whether to be protective or excited.
“An opossum,” Susan and I both said at the same time.
“I’ve never seen one here,” I said.
“Me either,” Susan said.
“Looks like he’s headed for the trash bins,” I reasoned and picked up my Blackberry from the table. “I want to go take a picture.”
“Don’t go out there.”
“Why not?”
“He could bite you. They’re mean.”
“I won’t get that close. Just a quick picture then I’ll be back in.”
The opossum had managed to pull himself up the stone step to the deck and was waddling past the sliding doors of the garbage and recycling shed toward the back deck.
I opened the door and headed outside in my bathrobe and slippers to get a closer look and a photo.
And then, as if Susan had cast a spell upon me, totally wipe out.
I fell on my back, head bouncing off the deck, limbs splayed to the from corners, bathrobe wide open, buck naked, looking up at the sky. And at a freaked out opossum literally a foot from my face, chattering his teeth menacingly.
Susan was laughing, Griffin was barking wildly inside, I was stunned, and the opossum was presiding.
“Why isn’t he playing dead,” I asked.
“Why should he? You already are?”
What do you think?