Where's Fred? and a close encounter with Harvey

Two weekends ago, I went to the local grocery store (Fred Meyer), which is one mile from our house, for soymilk and another truckload of Diet Big K. Imagine my suprise while driving my cart uphill through the treacherous ice pasture known as the Fred Meyer parking lot to find Fred the moose (what else do you call a moose at Fred Meyer?) chewing on a tree less than 50 feet from the car. Galileo, the world's worst watchdog, of course was in the car napping, oblivious to the huge beast of an animal so close to the car.

So, after carefully putting my groceries into my trunk, I carefully drove past the moose, who never gave Galileo or I much thought.

The next day, I had to go back to the store for some other items. Of course, Fred is still chewing the same tree, oblivious to the fact that his presence is somewhat disturbing. It was funny to see how people reacted -- I guess most Alaskans are used to moose -- but all that Fred got was acknowledgements and shrugs.

On Saturday after my trip, I was again going to the Fred Meyer for something we needed, and wondered whether I would see Fred again chewing on the tree. But no, he was instead right off the road less than a half mile from our house, chewing on another tree.

For a midwesterner, it's kind of disconcerting to know that an animal so large and unpredictable is so close to one's house. I mean, there are deer in Ohio, but deer don't kill people every year. Death by squirrels is unusual. Which makes the whole moose situation unnerving to me.

Whereas FEMA can tell me what to do in an earthquake, volcano, or tornado, there is no mention of moose procedures. According to Washington State (I assume their moose are of the same personality as ours), we should give them lots of room, or they will kick us down with their front hoofs and stomp us to death.

UPDATED: Yesterday, I got to put my new-found understanding of moose to the test when Frank and I went XC skiing at Russian Jack. We were almost all through our normal course when we made our normal left (in order to avoid the huge hill that neither of us has any desire to deal with yet). As usual, Frank was ahead of me by a bit. I stumbled a bit on some branches that had found their way onto the trail, and looked to the left to see a HUGE MOOSE eating a tree about 5-8 feet away! I immediately looked away (if you don't look at the moose, maybe it doesn't exist...) and skied very quietly, calmly, and as non-threatening as possible, up towards the clearing. Later, when Frank stopped so I could catch up with him, I asked him what he thought of the moose. He didn't see it! I can't believe it! Obviously, he was thrown off by the red nailpolish (...so they can hide in cherry trees...have you ever seen a moose in a cherry tree? You see it works!). This moose I have decided to call Harvey.