I walk cross the street to chide Al about washing his car on the first nice day in months.

"What," he says, "you've never seen me out here in the cold? You never saw me in my rubber gloves? I've been doing this all winter long. Where've you been?”

I must have been in the kitchen still sipping coffee or upstairs getting dressed. He must have done all his rubbing and scrubbing long before dawn because I totally missed him in his rubber gloves. But there is no missing him this day. He is in his…