In the land of Silicon Valley, yours truly is a bit of a superstitious sort. And let me tell you, a dash of superstition is like a sprinkle of fairy dust—it makes life downright delightful. The tiniest connections can turn your mood sunnier than a California afternoon, unearthing joy in the mundane minutiae of existence.

For ages, we’ve been on a quest, scouring the wilds for deer. Why? Because a swift 🦌 spells “happiness” in our quirky little belief system. Spotting one of those graceful critters is like winning the emotional lottery. Over time, our treasure hunt expanded to include egrets (and their crane cousins). Egrets don’t need any lucky symbolism—they’re straight-up elegance on stilts, a living Monet painting that’s impossible not to love. My phone’s video roll is basically a wildlife doc: deer prancing, egrets posing, and the occasional turkey strutting its stuff, fanning its tail like a budget peacock (Silicon Valley’s finest short film, coming to a TikTok near you).

Deer, egrets, and turkeys are the Goldilocks of wildlife—common enough to encounter, but rare enough to feel like a cosmic high-five. Mandarin ducks and Canadian geese are adorable, sure, but they’re the participation trophies of the animal kingdom. They’re always chilling by the water, waiting to be seen, 100% hit rate, not much of a thrill. Foxes, though? Foxes are the rarities. Go looking for one, and you’re setting yourself up for a big ol’ nada.

Take the North American gray fox, for instance. About a week ago, we were on our usual deer-hunting hike at Rancho San Antonio, a few miles from home. No deer, just some turkeys doing their turkey thing. As dusk settled, we were cruising out of the park when—BAM!—a gray fox sashayed down a hillside, close enough to high-five. This one was a looker, eyes softer and brighter than the one in the photo, probably a lady fox off to some fancy fox soirée. She had places to be, and we were just the awestruck paparazzi.

We were thrilled. My wife declared, “Foxes are rare, but when you see one, luck’s knocking.” Foxes have it all: glossy fur, natural charisma (foxy charm, eh?), and eyes that scream “I’m smarter than your average bear.” They’re basically the Mensa members of the animal world, but unlike monkeys—sorry, monkeys, with your awkward, pinched faces—foxes are born red-carpet-ready.  That encounter left us obsessed, every hike peppered with “When will we see our lucky fox again?” But foxes play hard to get. You can’t chase ’em; you just sigh and move on.

But hold the phone—two nights ago, that fox came to us. And evidence suggests she’s been sneaking over for a while.

Here’s the setup: Sunday night, an old pal hosted a hush-hush roundtable with some Silicon Valley tech elites. We geeked out over trends of large language models, agent applications, and investment hot takes. These meetups are classic coder socials: chill vibes, zero pretense, just nerds nerding out till—oops—it’s 11 p.m. I roll home past midnight, and as I approach the front door, I hear munching. Figure it’s our cat Potato.

potato

See, we’ve got a permanent cat buffet out front: a little shelter (rarely used), plus three paper bowls—canned cat food (think feline Spam), dry treats (bean-shaped crunchies), and a water bowl for post-snack hydration. This is mostly for Potato, our semi-adopted stray tabby. We’ve been “free-ranging” this cutie for over half a year, not quite ready to make him an indoor king. Potato swings by daily, sometimes twice, usually in daylight. We’re not sure if he hits up the buffet at night, but the bowls are often licked clean by morning. His appetite can’t be that big, so we’ve suspected other strays—like a sneaky black kitten we once caught red-pawed—have been crashing the party. We’re cool with it.

Back to that night: I hear chomping, teeth clacking like a tiny jackhammer. Thinking it’s Potato, I tiptoe closer. Then it spins around—holy smokes, it’s a gray fox! Same face as our hillside heartthrob. She freezes, panic in her eyes, then bolts to the bushes. I fumble for my phone to record, but she’s gone faster than I can catch a “viral footage.” I tell my wife, who’s over the moon: “Good luck’s following us! She trekked from the hills to find us! It’s fate!”

Real talk: probably not the same fox. But this midnight snack bandit’s likely been raiding our cat buffet for a while. Animals have GPS-level memory for free food.

A double fox encounter? That’s the stuff of Hollywood scripts. In my entire life, I’ve only had two moments this magical. The last one was before I even hit college.