There’s a crew of workers up on our roof today, fixing damage wrought by a team of clever critters. Our attic was invaded by raccoons this summer. They were affectionately known as Rocky, Ricky and Three. By #3 we were so over it we stopped naming them. We live practically in the inner city, and we have raccoons? Our neighbor had a possum, inside the house, so in relative terms we got off easy. That’s Three on the right, waving goodbye.

“Oh but they’re so cute,” a friend commented about one of the pictures online. “Not $1,000 cute,” Jeff replied. There are so many more fabulous things we would have loved to buy, see or do with $1,000. A last-minute discount got us a lovely, 5-night, all-inclusive resort stay in St. Lucia for $1,000 earlier this year. We could use it to have full internet access on our Mediterranean cruise (surely it’s not THAT expensive?). We could have booked a 5-star hotel in Rome for an upcoming trip for $1,000. OK, maybe only one night, but it could have been SPECTACULAR! Actually, we probably never would have done that, but isn’t the thought nice? Nicer than a family of raccoons in the attic. Check out Rocky above/left.

In case you’re wondering, we used Urban Wildlife Control, a wildlife removal service that uses live traps and releases the animals to the wild…in the woods far, far away from our house. We highly recommend them, A.J. is a raccoon whisperer & our new best friend. Here’s baby Ricky on the right.

We’re sure that Rocky, Ricky & Three will live a joyous full life in Atlanta’s eastern suburbs & wish them Godspeed. We love animals; we were even really fond of the 5-foot black snake that was living around our yard. That is, until it was brutally murdered after he scared the City’s yard waste removal crew. We weren’t there to stop it because we were enjoying that lovely long weekend in St. Lucia when it happened.