This morning has been a flurry of packing as Tom gets ready to fly to Chicago for a long weekend with our older son. He has not been on a plane for years, not since all of the new TSA regulations came into being, so he is slightly flustered by all the prohibitions . . . but also amused. "Did you know," he reads aloud to me, "that I am allowed to bring along 'artificial skeleton bones'?"

Unfortunately, we do not have any artificial skeleton bones for him to try out on the TSA guys, though we do have some deer antlers. Perhaps he should pack them.

So I will revert to last year's single life, for a weekend. I don't really have any plans, other than to go to the Subaru dealership to buy a stupid piece of plastic housing that fell off my car and maybe I'll also try to force myself to go clothes shopping so that I can acquire some summer shirts that don't have holes in them.

But this weekend I will open that folder of papers from my uncle Paul. I will finish copying out Carruth's "Sleeping Beauty." I will go for a walk beside the ocean.

And now Tom has just walked into the room to inform me that the TSA says he's allowed to travel with "gravy" and a "waffle iron." It's so wonderful they're looking out for our needs.