Cooking the NYTimes and Other Assorted Retirement Activities

My youngest daughter, Bridget, used to claim she was the "way she was" because her parents never sent her to camp. Most people's reaction, including ours, was to look at her as if she had 4 heads but I'll give her this...it was a good conversation starter. I, the Fortunate One, went to Girl Scout camp multiple summers as well as weekends in the fall and winter.  These were great experiences and I continue to hold fond memories of evening campfires, singing Taps in rounds, bug juice and all the fun on the waterfront. Arts and crafts?  Not so much.  Whatever it was we were concocting, mine never remotely resembled the model.  I recall sitting next to a fellow camper as we braided long strips of plastic that would serve as lanyards, staring open-mouthed as her fingers nimbly moved back and forth, crossing each color so that it indeed did make a braid. I think I offered her a couple pieces of gum to make mine. This, of course, is the long way into my Summer Art...

This morning, standing in my kitchen,  I experienced one of the most intense feelings of satisfaction that I've felt in a while.  I took a moment to literally be 'in the moment' and appreciate the emotion. It was very nice. The head to toe feeling came out of the blue.  Nothing out of the ordinary was occurring.  The boys were outside playing; Beau had just finished crawling into my lap as I sat in the lounge chair, reading the Sunday paper, to tell me how much he loves donut holes.  Naturally, it was sunny--blazingly sunny in a flawless sky.  Hank, who this summer has pretty much decided that after 11 years of being chased and cajoled back into the yard when he unintentionally got out, it's just as good to stick around in the yard, had half heartedly given chase after a cottontailed bunny who bounded across the lawn into the brushy area at the rear of our lot.  He didn't give chase for long, returning with an expression on his face that more or le...