The lab techs are running exhaustive tests. Until I see the results, I've reluctantly advanced the laboratory security status to Zone Seven. Given the efficacy of my staff, I'm not particularly concerned with the threat from the anonymous critter(s). Still, the increased security will no doubt mean less beer in the near future.

Anyway you slice them, giant hairballs are bad news.

I applauded Sharon's strategy. I told her that I, too, have aspired to becoming an enlightened despot. (I also admitted that both enlightenment and despotism have so far eluded me.)

Sharon told me that she had aesthetic reasons for becoming an enlightened despot. She explained that political dynamics usually resulted in committees or juries awarding an honor to everyone's second choice.

I never thought about that before. But, then again, I think about the logistics of winning prizes even less frequently than I ponder the practical machinations of being an enlightened despot.

As an example of the photographer's dedication, she reports that he stood in a stream for hours for five early mornings in a row, "in order to capture the first light of dawn as it touches the misty trees." It eludes me why anyone would go through all that bother just to make yet another photograph of trees in the misty dawn.

And so it is that Alfred Barr's question remains unanswered, if not unanswerable: "Why do all photographers have to photograph bushes?"

And kids and computers seem to go well together. I've found that sticking one of my sneaky nephews in front of a computer renders him as immobile as if I'd used three-quarters of a roll of gaffer's tape.

Wine and computers are such a perfect compliment that I still can't quite believe that the former was invented many, many millennia before the latter.

So how could I possibly have guessed that leaving a computer, a young child, and a full glass of wine in close proximity would result in the loss of everything but the child? It's all very mysterious.

Mysterious, and quite messy.

Tappety, tappety, tappety, tappety, tappety, nothing much changes. A lot of what used to be zeros are now ones and vice versa, but that's about it.

But after a kid sautéed my computer in cheap red wine last night, today's endeavors were limited to those of a non-binary nature. And so it is that two Lake Cleawox trout are lying in state on the dining room table, shining with a delicate butter and garlic patina. Also, the big blowdown (a blowdown is a tree that has blown down during a storm) by the lake is now a big pile of firewood.

Very satisfying. What a strange day.

"Really?" I asked.

"Well, maybe four," Jim waffled.

Two, four, whatever. It's still a great fact, maybe.

What a story!

It was the kind of work I like to plagiarize, but in this case it was almost impossible given that the original story appeared in a popular magazine.

And then I got a lucky break!

I discovered I didn't read it in the New Yorker, I read it in a dream! Since almost no one cares if I plagiarize myself, I can do anything I want with the story. Unfortunately, on the second reading, I discovered the story wasn't very good, not very good at all.

I love my friends, even if visiting them always results in too much of too many good things. Oh well, nothing succeeds like excess.

"If you don't know where you're going," she said with a slight smile, "you'll end up somewhere else."

I thought that was a great thing to say, even though her "career vision" question was inane.

And now, Quincy tells me the woman plagiarized her clever remark from Yogi Berra. It's strange that I look down on other plagiarists, even though I craft most of my work from obtainium. Maybe there really is honor among thieves. Or maybe not.