Cougar obviously late for convention

Mountain lion reported on south Palo Alto roof
Full-grown lion sighted at 8:30 p.m. Thursday in 800 block of Rorke Way, east of Middlefield Road

by Jay Thorwaldson
Palo Alto Online Staff

 
A full-grown mountain lion was sighted Thursday evening on a rooftop in south Palo Alto, in the 800 block of Rorke Way, police reported today (Friday).

Sgt. Dan Ryan said a 45-year-old man heard footsteps on the roof of a neighbor’s house and saw the large cat, which jumped off the roof into the back yard.

see mountain lion sighted

Leo Alley, 22, spins Lyn Berry-Shiva, 58, across the dance floor at the National Single Cougars Conference at the Dinah’s Garden Hotel in Palo Alto Friday. The event brought Cougars (women 40 and older) and cubs (younger men) together for a night of socializing and for some a chance to find a partner.

Cubs crash cougar convention
August 31, 2009, 10:27 PM By Christopher Leydig

“Oh my God! We’re leaving,” shrieked a befuddled Cheryl to her Russian compatriot. “Ira, you know where we are? Do you know what kind of party this is? I thought this was a regular convention, I had no idea!”

Apparently Cheryl, a native Russian and San Ramon resident — clad in a black spaghetti-string top, playfully striped skirt and pointy three-inch pumps — did not get the memo. She was attending America’s premiere National Single Cougars Convention, a ball where older eligible women were supposed to be seeking the company of men; men much younger than traditional family mores might deem acceptable.

see Cougar Convention …

mountain lion sighted

The man told police he had just visited a museum where he had seen a stuffed cat, with a long, distinctive tail, and was positive of his sighting.

Police searched the area but could find no trace of the cat, Ryan said. There were no tracks evident in the hard ground, unlike an earlier sighting of a lion on a rooftop by a teenage girl when the lion jumped into a damp flowerbed and left deep tracks, he said.

An officer stayed in the area for about an hour. But no one else has reported seeing the cougar, Ryan said. Without a second sighting the telephone-alert system was not activated, he added.

Rorke Way is three houses away from Barron Creek, which Ryan called “a mountain-lion highway. They use it as a natural trail.”

On May 17, 2004, a young mountain lion was spotted by a newspaper deliveryman around the Newell Road area and was finally cornered in a tree on Walnut Drive and shot dead by police.

Cougar Convention

So, perhaps it was the stalwart promotional work of teacher turned politician turned singles party guru Rich Gosse, the usage of the word “cougar” in the event title, or maybe even the number of people being turned away at the doors, but if anything particular stood out about Friday night’s National Single Cougars Convention it was the contrasting mix of the people, their expectations and environment.

“I was told that a cougar is an older woman who enjoys the company of younger men,” recalled a statuesque Sandy Samuel, 41, from Bognor Regis, England, in a tight one-piece black slip. On a flight to Las Vegas some men sitting near her and her friend had used the term in reference to them, which up to that point, they had never heard before.

“Guys my age just want to get their pipe and slippers and go sit at home and watch TV for the rest of the evening. I’m not a professional cougar or anything; I just go with a click. It’s personality and chemistry and that’s what it comes down to in the end.”

Meeting Gosse in person at the door of Palo Alto’s Dinah’s Garden Hotel, the host for the convention, was akin to getting acquainted with a contemporary Ron Burgundy, Will Ferrel’s adaptation of a 70s news anchorman from “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.”

more on this media fabricated event HERE