The annual unspeakable smell of decaying animal carcass is permeating the house. Every year around this time, it seems, some creature or another crawls under our deck, just in the place where it is only 6 inches from the ground and built out over sharp rocks, and dies. Two years ago it was an opossum. Last year it was a raccoon. We think. This year, although we have not yet located the body, as we do by peering through the boards of the deck with an impressive array of flashlights, the pungent aroma informs us that it is a skunk. Decaying opossum is bad enough. Decaying skunk will make your eyes water.

Unfortunately, the poor creature seems to have expired just outside one of the basement window wells and underneath the corner of the kitchen. This means it is pretty unpleasant to be in either my office or the kitchen today, the two rooms in which I spend the greatest amount of my time. I�m hoping this means we all get to go out to dinner. Because no matter how gourmet the meal, nothing tastes good with eau de dead skunk.

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Also expired is my Marshall Field's credit card. Yesterday I received a replacement: a Macy�s card. Those who aren't from Chicago may not fully understand the significance of this, but to those of us from the Windy City, it feels like we've been annexed to New York against our collective will. I used to live a couple of blocks from the flagship Marshall Field's store. I spent many lunch hours wandering the makeup counter with various cosmetically addicted friends. When AJ was a baby and the weather was bad, I used to strap him to my chest and take the pedway to the basement level of the store. We'd wander around, running up and down the escalators and looking at things until I felt like an excursion had been had.

Marshall Field's is intimately connected to city history. The Field family was a major donor to many city institutions (the Field Museum, home of Sue the T-Rex, is named after Marshall). The Field Foundation, founded by the Field family, has been a major cultural funder in the city in more recent years. Marshall Field's department store also made substantial grants to arts and education programs, including the one I used to direct. I'm not sure what happens to it now. I hope Macy's picks up the grantmaking -- the small organizations it funds rely on it. But I have my doubts.

One thing I will be happy to see expired, though, is the visa for J0hn M@rk K@rr, who is being deported from Thailand. He had just applied for a job at my nieces' school. Perhaps he wouldn't have got the position. But regardless of his relationship to the R@msey case, he is a pedophile and I will be happy when he is not in the same country as my two favorite little girls.

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