A high wind in Rye.

Rapping, rapping at my rear deck door. About 10:00 a.m. this morning, during a rainstorm. It's the homeless squirrels I feel sorry for.

(I'm kidding, of course. I hate the bushy-tailed bastards, digging up my lawn just in case they buried an acorn there last year and forgot about it, like an amnesiac pirate. And they used to eat my front steps.)

Now everyone I tell about the tree immediately shakes his or her head sadly and tells me it's going to cost me a packet to have it dismembered and removed. But when I suggest to the mem-sahib that I rent a chain saw and do the job myself, she laughs so heartily that I can barely make out her "Of course not." This is an unfair besmirchment of my reputation -- I've only had to go to the emergency room once in the last few years for a blade-related incident, and it was only a few stitches. Everything else, I managed to treat at home, and my current navy blue thumbnail was the result of slamming the thumb in my underwear drawer, nothing to do with tools.