In the past two weeks I have:
flown to Denver to attend a conference, go for a couple of runs, walk several times up and down the 16th Street Mall, eat some good food at the Squeaky Bean and Kitchen and Lucky Pie Pizza and drink some excellent beer,
flew to LA to interview some lateral partner candidates whom we will never hire, stay for a second time at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Century City, eat moderately well but drink excellent beer at BJ's Brewhouse at the Westfield mall, and - most satisfying - photograph a paparazzo outside our restaurant in Beverly Hills,
flew home and drive directly the next morning to Vermont, to hike up the E trail to the summit at Killington, stay overnight at the not-so-grand but utterly pleasant grand hotel, wake early the next morning to fish on Woodward Reservoir with E - insisting that we fish the setback on the way back in, and catching the fish of the day,
discovered downtown Keene on the way home - after all these years, who knew?
drove Megan to Logan so that she can fly to Chicago to see her boyfriend
drove Rachel to Kennedy so that she can fly to Italy for three weeks
stayed over in Greenwich and then stopping over in Mystic on the way home
played softball on Sunday morning with the boys, rediscovering my stroke with two solid line drive singles, only to pull up with a lame hamstring.
Ah, well.
It only means that next weekend I'll be out in my kayak with a fly rod and a camera.
Let's go. Let's go.
A Sunday morning in July. KC is in Los Angeles. Megan is in Centerville, on the Cape. Rachel is in Italy. I am in waders, making my way down the Mettawee River, between North Rupert and Pawlet, Vermont. A beautiful morning - not too warm yet. As usual, not another soul on the river. I move along from pool to pool, trying first a woolly bugger, then a small wet fly with dark red coloring. Casting pretty well, I think, but raising no fish. I come to a riffle in a narrow crease of the river, with a downed tree on the left. It like it covers a fairly deep pool. I take the time to tie the woolly bugger back on, thinking I can float it down through the riffle and then swim it back up through the pool, making it look like a minnow. I have trouble tying it on, for some reason, but stick with it, and take my time testing my knot. I position myself left of the crease and loft the fly into the head of the riffle. The line spools out as the swift current takes the fly downstream. I have no idea what I'm doing, I think. I start wondering if maybe I should pack it in early, and spend the morning driving the back roads on camera safari instead. Half my mind on this, the other half working the fly up through the pool, and WHAM - a fat trout strikes through the fly like a blitzing linebacker, thrashing up to the surface one, twice, heavy on the long, pulsing rod. I work the fish up into the shallows - stay on, just stay on - and up onto the rocky side of the stream. A beautiful brown trout - which measures a full 12 inches. A fine fish for this little stream. A trophy for the novice fly fisherman. Heart pounding. Smiling ear to ear. 
