You see that pile of dusty gray fuzz over there?
What is that? Is that an old dishtowel that blew off of someone's clothesline into your yard? Hey! It's moving!
I know. It's a raccoon.
Raccoon? Don't they only come out at night? Is it sick or something?
No. Apparently some of them just prefer to live their lives in the daylight. He's not sick. He's just kind of unique. His name is Rocky.
He was named by Paul McCartney. Not personally, but you know, in a song by the Beatles. My family just decided we should call him that.
We came back from a week long vacation to dis
Tim, a man I know from church kept asking me if I was going to be okay, if there was anything he could do, if there was anything else I needed, and I kept telling him we were fine, but he kept asking. He was concerned because his daughter, Sherry, was going with us. And there was a blizzard outside. The sky was an icy white curtain that smote our cheeks with stinging bits and cut off our vision after mere yards.
We crossed a parking lot and piled ourselves into a mini-van. There were six of us. Me and my father; one of my daughter's dance instructors; an ex-lover's little brother, John, except he was five years