1 result for (book:deavf2 AND session:937 AND stemmed:right)
[... 3 paragraphs ...]
I pushed Jane in her chair out on the porch, as close to the hemlock as we could get behind the floor-to-ceiling glass; we looked up at the chattering animal from only three feet away. We’d seen raccoons playing in the tree a few times, and Floyd, who lives on a farm, sees them often. This one was fully grown and bore a heavy coat of mixed black, brown, and gray hair; the colors exactly matched those of the tree trunk. In the gloomy day we couldn’t see eyes in the black face. We couldn’t tell the animal’s sex. [I read later that females and the young live in groups, the adult males usually alone—perfectly suitable accommodations of consciousness for raccoons!] “Coons can’t run fast,” Floyd told us, “and big dogs will attack ‘em if they catch them out in the open in the daytime. But that coon could kill even a big dog, if it got cornered.” He added that if we heard a loud thudding noise on the roof tonight, it meant that an animal had managed to dislodge the stone cap on the chimney. And Floyd had been right: The raccoon stayed in the tree until dusk, then descended and ambled into the woods in back of the house.3
[... 19 paragraphs ...]
“Wednesday, November 18, 1981. Right now I’m really blue, my eyes operating poorly; tears warmly close; yet enjoying the dark sky and street as rain threatens… the view of the mountains afforded by the windows; the rock music on the radio; the odd remaining odor of door varnish—deeply loving all of it yet swept through with something like nostalgia. The phone rings and at first I can’t tell if the ring is really here or from the radio, and when I answer the phone the voice is distant; it asks for Rob. A flash flood watch is in effect—nothing to worry us on our hill! I wait to feel better. Rob turned off the radio so he could hear on the phone…. He goes out front to feed the birds. I do feel relieved some, to be writing this down. It’s time for lunch; maybe I’ll do a few notes afterward….”
[... 4 paragraphs ...]