By JANE LOTTER

So now it's spring and Seattle is overrun with squirrels. I'm speaking, of course, about the many people running for mayor.

However, it's also true that, here in the neighborhood of Maple Leaf, there's been an alarming uptick in the number of bushy-tailed gray squirrels populating my backyard - all of whom have a hyperactive look in their eye that says, "We'll wait till nightfall, then we rush the house."

Which reminds me of a summer morning some years ago. I was standing in the living room, holding my infant son in one arm and trying to raise the window blinds with my free hand. My then 3-year-old daughter, Tessa, was in the kitchen, eating Cheerios and looking out the open French doors to our yard. Suddenly, in a frightened voice, she called out, "Mom! There's a big animal in the backyard! And it's real!"

Even at the age of three, Tessa had a vocabulary rivaling, say, our current president. And she certainly knew the words for "dog" and "cat." So if Tessa was frightened by a big animal - but didn't know the word for that animal - it could mean but one thing: I had an escaped tiger on my hands.

No doubt a giant, people-eating tiger, recently, fled from Woodland Park Zoo or the circus (this was before Heidi Wills got elected to the City Council). And because I'm a mother (whose husband was still asleep upstairs) I knew what I had to do: I had to defend my children, using whatever makeshift weapon was handy - probably a mop handle or toaster oven.

Oh, where are Siegfried and Roy when you need them? Clutching my son, I ran to the kitchen. And then I saw it. It was real. It was in our backyard.

It was a raccoon.

The relief I felt was comparable to when the blood tests come back negative. (I'm not sure what I meant by that, but I think you get the drift.) "Oh, sweetie," I said, "that's nothing to be afraid of. It's a raccoon."

She sighed. "It sure is big. Look at its claws."

I did look at its claws; they were longer than Barbra Streisand's fingernails. I casually closed the French doors.

Since then, raccoons have visited our yard many times. It's not uncommon to find them sifting merrily through the garbage, seeking refreshment or back copies of "The New Yorker." (The joke's on them. We recycle.)

Sometimes, stranger beasts than raccoons drop by. Last summer, for example, there was the Case of the Confused Marsupial.

It was adorable. It was real. It was a possum.

I put down my morning coffee and watched the possum scurry hither and thither around our property. It appeared dazed and bewildered, as though it were eager to board either light rail or the monorail, but couldn't find the station. After many minutes of apparently pointless wandering, it disappeared under the fence.

"I'll put some milk out for it," I informed my husband.

"No, you mustn't," he exclaimed. "You'll destroy its delicate interplay with nature."

"It's running around Maple Leaf looking like it forgot to return 'Rugrats' to Reckless Video," I said. "How much more destroyed can its delicate interplay get?"

We would soon find out, I'm afraid. Later that day, I spied the possum half a block from our house, stretched out on Roosevelt Way. It was not napping.

I telephoned the unhappy news to Animal Control. The receptionist, a somnambulist by avocation, asked me several questions in a sleepy monotone. Where was the possum, where did I live (I failed to see the connection, but I played along) and, finally, what color was the animal.

"Umm, possum-colored?" I ventured.

She woke up. "Whoops, sorry!" she said. "People usually call in dogs and cats, so I ask that question all day long. Possum-colored. Right. Ha-ha! It's a possum."

Well, it had been a possum. Now it was road kill.

An hour later the doorbell rang. A gentleman stood on my doorstep and informed me he was from Animal Control. (Yes! Yes! He was making a house call! Your tax dollars.)

"Just wanted to let you know we picked up the possum," he said.

"Thank you," I said, feeling like the next of kin. "Did he look sort of young to you?"

"No, he was full grown. Why?"

He seemed terribly confused, as if he were searching for his mother or the meaning of life.

"That's how possums are in the city," he said. "They pretty much spend their whole lives confused."

"I see," I said, closing the door behind him.

I don't know about you, but I've always had an affinity for possums. I mean, could there be anything more madcap than hanging upside down from trees and carrying your children around in a pouch? And now I learn that, here in Seattle, possums live out their days in total confusion. Ha! Mystery solved! No wonder I like them! They're just like me. (