At about 3:30 a.m., after letting the cat out and going back to bed and then getting up again half an hour later to let the dog out and then in again, I lay sleeplessly in bed watching daylight creep up over the edges of the trees, listening to a barred owl murmur, "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?--awww," hoping that the owl wasn't considering the possibility of eating my cat, admitting that the cat probably deserves to be eaten, falling into a thin slumber that cascaded into a dream about moving out of a dormitory, trying to pack my belongings into a golf cart [why?], noting that my belongings mostly seemed to be loose scraps of clothing [a topic connected to my waking life] and dishes of dog food [a topic connected to my waking life] and majorette batons [what the hell?] . . . and then the 5:15 alarm went off.

It's Paul's last day of school: summer vacation begins at noon. I like to imagine that I'll be sleeping in tomorrow, but a restless young cat and an incontinent old dog make that scenario unlikely. At least I won't be making school lunch, fixing breakfast, forking the snoozer out of bed, reminding the snoozer to get out of the shower, and so on and so on. There's more to summer vacation than dreaming about majorette batons.