Who says angels can’t be furry?  And have a big pink mouth and giant brown feet?

Hector didn’t begin life as an angel.  The happy little hand puppet was a 21^st birthday present from my BFF, Zan, the month before I set out from Massachusetts to California with my mother in an LTD station wagon packed full of our earthly goods.  He relaxed on the bench seat between us down the Eastern Seaboard and shared our shock as, driving from Nashville to Memphis, we heard about the death of Elvis.  He quaked as we drove through blinding sheets of rain in Arkansas and dodged bats at an eerily dark campsite in southern Texas.  He soothed me as I experienced my first desert—all that empty space and endless horizon freaked out this suburban girl.  He settled with us in Orange County, where we decided to start our new life.