MY FURRY MADELEINE

"The Skunk Is an Attractive Little Animal that makes an excellent pet, despite the fact it can emit a very disagreeable odor when it is attacked or frightened by enemies," says my encyclopedia.

Also, "It walks like a person whose shoes are too tight."

That I would have liked to see very much. Instead, I saw just a haze of white vapor puff up in the woods, then evaporate, followed by this:


And smelled something like napalm.
Which ripened into this:

Especially in the 15-minute car ride home.

However: when I came out of the pet store and got back into the car with my giant bottle of Skunk-Off, I was immersed in this humid, warm, doggy, skunky moment. And I instantly thought: summer!
The smell was straight out of my kidhood in Minnesota.
And I felt for the first time today--which has been a total rainy cold seasonal-dissonance wrong-side-of-the-bed kind of day--really happy.