Max: 0. Crinkle the Squirrel: 1 + the better part of my finger.

I can't believe I've been attacked by a squirrel named Crinkle.

This morning, all of Ethan's family and I packed into 2 cars to drive through wind, snow, and ford a river (4-wheel drive + prayer) to visit a family friend.

Joel Rosenthal lives by himself in a cabin palace sitting on countless acres surrounded by the kind of mountain beauty you see in the movies. His life and love? Taking in and caring for wounded animals. Or just nice ones. And sticking a finger to The Man whenever he gets the chance.

I was warned - He's eccentric. He's weird. He's a little koo koo.

But I fell in love. As much as a girl can fall in love with a crazy old man, anyway.

Seeing him makes you wonder when was the last time you watched Back to the Future. With twigs in his wild frizzy white hair and sweeping personality, he could have been Doc's brother.

First we met his chickens. Then the turkeys. (Lord, turkeys are ugly.) Then the rare red-tailed hawk. Then his owl. (Injured, blinded when hit by a car.) Then his emus. (Not injured, just good pets.)

We fed and petted his fawn, Blossom. And in another wooden shack were several cockatoos, including Maxwell, who said hello and bade us goodbye.

And inside his wooden palasade, I met Ella - a makaw who made up in affection whatever she had lost in sanity. Imagine the plucked and naked body of a chicken, ready to be cooked and served in the grocery. Now photoshop the head and tail of a macaw on, and you have Ella. Exact cause unknown, but somewhere along her life, she'd lost some of her mind and began to pluck out all her feathers. And the result: A chilly yet grateful macaw.

And finally, the hero of this story, Crinkle. A zippy squirrel who Joel took in as a baby when his tree was sawed down. I made the mistake of extending my hand to him in friendship and immediately regretted it as I ran for the nearest sink with my dripping finger in the air.

I cried.

Joel told us a story about two people who were eaten by grizzly bears.

I felt better.

More to come, I'm sure.

When it's not your family, it's hilarious.

Ethan's Mom wouldn't budge.

"I have to sit RIGHT HERE to watch the pressure cooker. So I'm not moving. You guys are going to have to play your game with me here on the kitchen floor," she said.

So we did.

Until she decided that the pressure cooker was a threat to our lives.

"It's never exploded after 20 years of use," Micah said.

Nope. THREAT.

So we moved to the living room. But she wouldn't move from the kitchen table, despite the fact that if she moved 2 chairs down, she could play the game and still watch the pressure cooker.

And between her yelping anytime anyone walked near the pressure cooker, her husband and 3 sons arguing, Paul laughing, Naomi reasoning with her husband not to push it, the foreign exchange student observing in bemused silence, I sat back and relaxed.

It's hilarious when it's not your own family.

My Big Fat HillBilly Thanksgiving

"Poke it. C'mon, just poke it," Paul said.

Ethan, his brother-in-law Paul, and I had just pulled into the lawn of his childhood home in the backwoods of West Virginia.

My feet had barely felt the cold of the ground when I found myself face to face with the head of an unlucky deer in the barn. Its stump was still pink and its tongue still bounced as Paul poked it.

I'm good, thanks.

I smelled something unfamiliar as I walked into the house. Micah, Ethan's youngest brother, waved a bloody hand my direction.

This would be the smell of dead deer. And that...that would be bloody deer pieces soaking into the kitchen table.

"Want a tour?" Ethan asked.

I nodded.

"Here's my parent's room."

Nothing like 5 shotguns above the bed to keep the sizzle going, eh?

"Actually, they're rifles."

Because that was the point.

He shuffled through their dresser. What are you looking for?

Oh, Mom likes to keep dead animals in jars.

Of course she does.

This is going to be good.

RAGE, RAGE again the pre-Halloween Christmas carols!

One of our Christian radio stations started playing Christmas carols all day every day a week before Halloween.

I would just like to express my outrage at such an offense.

There. I've expressed it.

If you knew, would you still?

When your house and all you possess has gone up in flames,

When the father of your two children fights for his life and loses,

When your little girl would have been 14 this year,

Then when your boyfriend suddenly accepts a promotion across the country and starts to pack his things, it doesn't seem so bad.

Nor does being sick going on month 2. Or forcing yourself to blog in order to stay awake because you had to make an emergency phone call to the pharmacy and they need an hour to fill your prescription.

That's what I've been off and doing since I last wrote:
A spike of panicking.
A lot of thinking and processing.
Frustration. Sadness. Excitement.

All of that. I'm dealing with all of that.

Grateful that my friend escaped her house in time. Wondering, if it were me, what would I have grabbed? And how easily would I be able to say goodbye to my things? (Just how tied to stuff am I?)

Mourning a good man that I never knew. At a loss for his wife, who lost her best friend. Probing her in my mind, If you knew he'd die so young, would you still have married him? (In my mind, she says yes. Oh yes.)

And the little girl. Well. God loves his children and takes care of all of them. We grieve, but we still hope.

As for me, I have 20 minutes until I can run to the pharmacy and 2 months until I send off Ethan to his new home at the airport.

And as I'm thinking about Beth, Charlie, and Samantha, I think about Ethan.

I think about how he's right - I'm blessed because even as sick as I often am, at least I have widespread access to healthcare and I can afford it.
And I think how lucky I am to be in love with my best friend. To laugh with him, explore with him, and be vulnerable with him.
I think that perhaps long-distance, even on the other side of the country, is not so bad. Even exciting. (More excuses to travel.)
I think God's challenging me to rise up and grow up. To pinpoint my dreams and run after them with no holds barred.

And I think, that even if the end of this path does not lead us together, well.

Ask me the question.

In my mind, I say yes. Oh yes.