Crocuses and squirrels

Along with lavishing attention on their three pets and prodding my sister and I towards marriage and babies (with my prospects growing dimmer by the day apparently, as at lunch last week McMumsy eagerly asked Dr. Moo to set me up with a five-times-a-father farmer called "Rude Dog"), my parents also spend their time as empty-nesters volunteering at a local homeless shelter. Unlike most of the shelters in town, people can come to this one drunk. Which is nice, I think, partly because it's dangerous for more serious alcoholics to just stop drinking suddenly.

Anyhoo while they can come to the shelter drunk, they can't bring their booze in. Come spring, all around the building, you see vodka bottles instead of crocuses slowly emerging from the melting snow.

The shelter guests, one volunteer told McMumsy, are like squirrels, only instead of burying and forgetting their nuts it's their bottles of hootch.