Day 13: Aware; My Dad Always Taught Us To Be Aware of Our Surroundings...

Just Another Day in Wonderland 

I spent the last 15 minutes of my day chasing the white rabbit. No this is not a euphemism for a speech-language pathologist happy hour. Leaving a hot upstairs apartment, having completed an hour and a half assessment with a nap deprived toddler, I scanned the street before crossing. A poodle-sized white rabbit was sitting underneath my car he car. He was well fed, and clearly had a home with a family of humans nearby. While a residential street, periodically loaded pickup trucks and tired minivans zoomed by. Hours of back breaking strawberry harvesting and a rabbit would not stand between them and a shower and dinner. I tried to reach under the car to pick him up, supposing he was tame, but he was not the snugly sort. I flushed him out from under one car, then he deftly slid into the dead center of the next parked vehicle. I was beginning to think, unlike me, this was not his first time.

He has to belong to someone I said to the teacher accompanying me. She held my clipboard and in my third grade Spanish, I started asking the neighbors. "Tiene un conejo"? Blank states "Es blanco y grande, esta abajo los carros". Eventually a mom with three kids spilling out of the car pulled into a driveway. I met her at the car; she looked suspicious. "No es de mio. Es la mujer en la esquina". I trotted back up to the corner, calling to my colleague, "she says it belongs to the house on the corner".

Playing crossing guard, she watched for traffic as the sneaky critter loped across the street. He appeared familiar with this spot, when I caught up to them, he was calmly munching on a dry patch of grass. He seemed safe enough on this side of the street, so close to home, exhausted, we thought about leaving, but, there was a little pink scooter propped up against the door. A little girl lived here and this was her pet and the possibility she would come outside at some point and could find it flattened it was too much for me to bear.

Up to the door I went. Apparently we were being watched because it cracked open immediately after I knocked. Too dark for me to see inside, at first I thought I was talking to a child, but as the very small woman poked her head out I could see years worth of experience etched on her face. I asked if she had a rabbit, she gave a very slight almost imperceptible nod but did not seem to be interested in doing anything about it. Her blank expression caught me off-guard, as did her lack of concern. At a loss for words, I began to gesticulate, wildly pantomiming the impeding disaster of MVA: carro vs conejo. She didn't nod her head, but made guttural sounds of possible agreement and tentative understanding, tolerating the intrusion  uh-hu, uh-ha. It's quite possible Spanish was not her first language either. The door was still barely open, but I still pointed out to the street, when she stuck her head out enough to see I said, "aqui tan cerca de la calle" (so close to the street!). Still no response.

I could see my newly minted "animal rescue" partner on the sidewalk shaking her head, she was indicating towards the back yard. "Ok ... esta bein",  I said sheepishly. Without a word she shut the door. As I walked back to the sidewalk, I could see his long ears just on the other side of the fence. He seemed to be laughing at us. This street-wise bunny; self-satisfied in his ability to engage us in an impromptu game of chase. "Stranger and stranger" I thought as I said goodbye to my colleague, cognizant of my speed and extra vigilance for small creatures I began to think about dinner.