Critters and Bush

The bird -- a tiny wren, I think -- lives in his nest in the newspaper tube at one of my customer's houses in the woods.  I greet her every day. The first day she flew into the window of my car, but since she has hopped to the edge of the tube, eyed me, then flown away.  I place the paper gingerly at the edge of the tube, not to disturb the nest.  Yesterday I saw babies, heads upraised, nestled hungrily.  Nothing like disturbing someone's lunch.

Last night at 3 a.m., Lee comes screaming about a raccoon in the bathroom.  He had broken through a screen window upstairs, gone downstairs, and proceeded to eat the kittens' food.  We spent an hour or more removing screen windows, placing ladders outside the window, opening cans of salmon, shooing with a broom, to no avail.  I repaired the upstairs screen (where the raccoon's brother waited outside, inches from my nose, and watched) and managed to do other odd jobs.  We waited. We sat outside and ate cereal.  We called the police.  We fell asleep.  When the police arrived around 5, the raccoon had just left.

Earlier last night, when I came out of the store, I found a red truck parked next to my Prius.  The bumper stickers on the truck read "My Son Is in the U.S. Army," "Support Our Troops," and a couple of Cubs and Bears stickers.  I checked to see if they had bashed in the back of my car, which has the sole bumper sticker, "Impeach," but the car was fine.  Then I noticed in the back window of the truck was a hand-lettered sign, "Buck Fush."  Maybe they parked next to me on purpose.  I felt encouraged all the way home.  I listened to T. Rex. I turned it up loud.