Miss Piggy!

On the way to my run I stopped by my friend's house. I like to think he lives on the street with the Italian mafia, because the street has huge brick homes. (Instead of cardboard that the rest of the houses are made of.) See, the main industry on Staten Island is construction and well... what is the best way to "wash" money? Elaborate homes! Now, I'm just talking out of my imagination (and news reports and overheard conversations at the local supermarket...) I personally do not know or even know of ANY real mafiosi... so the fact that I'm about to skip country has nothing to do with running from the mob! (Just so we're clear.)


But this post is not about the mafia, it's about wild animals. This is the thing about New York City, it is very diverse and it's hard to be surprised about anything since all kinds of people come here and bring all kinds of habits with them.

This also manifests itself in the pet choices. Once I've seen a girl walking around with a HUGE parrot on her shoulder. There were news reports of a pet tiger that lived in a manhattan apartment. Of course it went crazy and ate his owner, but that is probably because manhattan apartments are so tiny!! I wonder how humans don't go crazy and eat each other living in them! In Staten Island there is a bit more room. For example in a house like above, one could very well house a medium sized elephant. Or a little cute giraffe- the front door is tall enough!

My friend has an adorable raccoon! Miss Piggy. It's not exactly legal per se' but if the cops arrive on his street, lets just say the raccoon will be the LAST on their list of priorities.

On the pictures maybe the raccoon looks smallish, but its actually HUGE when it stands up and tries to "kiss" you... I put my hair away in case she decided to jump on top of my head or do some other wild animal gesture.

Hmm, I guess they really like animals over in the Netherlands since they have a whole political party devoted to them!! Wow! (See.... Ducky would be so happy there...!)