Late Night Visitor

So the other night, as week five of marathon freelancing came to a close, Techie and I were spending a few rare minutes together before I headed off to bed when all of a sudden we heard what we thought was a very large cat running across our roof... I didn't think anything of it and went to sleep - which was hard because of the hacking cough my allergies had me doing. However, I was only asleep for just a minute before Techie woke me up to tell me to come look. He had turned the outside light on to see just what was making the noise outside at the outdoor kitties food bowl and to his surprise saw..... A raccoon!
Okay, I lived on two acres on the outskirts of town growing up, spent many summers at the beach, and lived on 1/2 acre with Techie in our first home and never have I seen either of the two creatures that I've seen since moving here to normal suburbia! Last year when we had all the rain - crazy! - a rat snake moved into our gutter outside our back door to get away from the rising water at the lake. Since they're harmless to people, Techie had to flush the thing out, wrap it in a bag and put it in a bucket and transfer to a field.
And now we've had a raccoon - with our outdoor kitties sitting right next to it like it was part of the family! Oh my!!!!
Techie has not had time to check the attic or to call animal control as we know they can be mean and carry rabies, but we haven't had any other signs of the masked sneak. : )