Two nights ago, Kara and Jenna watched a very special documentary called Grey Gardens. This film is not for the physically or emotionally squeamish, nor is it for children, nor is it for anyone who can't appreciate the following: dysfunctional mother-daughter relationships, decrepit mansions, wearing one's clothes upside-down and secured with safety pins, unorthodox headwear, shrill singing, impromptu patriotic dancing, liver paté, cats, fleas, and knowing what is "the best costume for today." Grey Gardens is also about raccoons, and how their activity can mark the passage of time, when they're fed the proper amounts of Wonder Bread and Purina cat food. You really have to see it to believe it.

Of course, if you don't have the time or inclination for this extraordinary film, you can pay a visit to Kara's house, where just this afternoon she went into an upstairs room and came face to face with a squirrel.

Yes, you read that correctly. The insufferable varmint scurried behind some boxes, creating a ruckus that upset Kara's cats to no end. As the younger felines cowered, Jenna's considerably-older-yet-sprier cat sprang into action, nearly burrowing under the door in an attempt to root out the offender. A few moments later, Kara's call for backup was finally answered, as Jenna emerged from her studio brandishing an aluminum yardstick, a large flashlight, and a look of unbridled squirrel-hating rage. She was part-superhero, part-Bill Murray from Caddyshack. She was The Verminator. Clearly, the squirrel took one look at her and high-tailed it out of there, because we never saw him again. The room was searched. A hole in the eaves was eventually found and plugged. All, for now, is well.

And yet, there still remains a sound in the walls. A sound, as John Irving would say, of something trying not to make a sound. As Little Edie Beale would say, Horrors!