To Do

1. Read up on how goat's milk affects babies before accepting the 2 gallons/day that Eric's neighbors currently use to water the shrubs. (Note to self: find out if all goats are such boom-or-bust creations before buying one for your wife.)

2. Work on baking an authentic loaf of thick, crusty European Roggenbrot mit Sauerteig with which to dazzle and addict Klaus the Steiflippender Neighbor. Ulterior motive: loosen Klaus's Teuton tongue and start Z. on his third Muttersprache before he gets too old to hold it all in his head.

3. Finish at least one academic paper before I leave the mountains, that I might start on an essay when I reach the coast, that I might apply for grants and jobs when I reach the Burgh, that I might leave the rain-addled East forever for the glories of this open West.

4. Check in the morning to see if Zoogle still has blood seeping from his inner ear. If so, easy on tomorrow's variants of Cosme Cohete Hits Turbulence on Re-entry.

5. Do an internet search to see if Stan's $6000 vintage blood-tinged gaucho accordion with knife-scuffs might be had for somewhat less.

6. Water the flowers. Bury the tomatoes.

7. Buy two 10 foot pine two by fours, one 12 foot two by six, as many as six 8 foot one by sixes, though fewer if I can find suitable portions of one inch plywood lying around the house, six galvanized steel hinges and a sheet and a half of thick exterior plywood. Convert all this into a compost pile.

8. Wake up before Zoogle and get to work. Failing this, wake up after Zoogle and give thanks that you weren't on Redeye.

9. Add chicken wire to the rodent cages on the raised beds.

10. Do yoga, bake a pie, go to the lake, read Walden, love my wife, dandle my boy. Contemplate why I never get anything done during my summer vacation.