The Ups

August a terrible horrible no-good very bad month. Every year, without fail. Even knowing it's coming, and knowing that it'll be brutal when it does, does nothing to stanch the awful. These are the things to which I've clung desperately over the past four weeks:

This is Louis Lewis, the raccoon so nice I named him twice. (That and I couldn't decide how to spell it.) He got stuck in Syd's fig tree last night and spent most of today quivering on his perch while the dogs barked at him. Normally I'm petrified of raccoons, but that nose? Come on!

This is the greatest place in all the land.

My Library Fair haul.

If I could just have this face here with me, I would stay on this island for the rest of my life.