If I owned my cottage, instead of just rented, I would totally want to add a few feet of chain-link fence and a gate to my garden area and bring in a goat, a sheep or two, a cow, and a chicken or two. I don't know if it's allowed in our subdivision, but I'm just fantasizing anyway, right?

I've been thinking this for a while, since I haven't been able to find anybody out in my area who sells local milk, though there are lots of eggs available. And then I saw a Gourmet special on New Zealand that really got me thinking . . . and then of course there was the "Interview with a Goat" I read this morning.

I'm in such a good mood this morning. I was having a crazy craving for red meat last night, so I bought grass-fed Michigan beef at Arbor Farms and made an astonishingly good burger last night with cheddar and sauteed onion on a gorgeously soft, sweet toasted bun from Avalon bakery and washed it down with a few beers. It had been such a long day of work (I woke at 5:15 and spent a few hours reading a fabulous essay on gender and social welfare systems in Gal and Kligman before I went to Ann Arbor to run a dozen errands, including processing a loan and ordering a sexy new desktop computer, then had my four-hour afternoon class on film in Central Europe, and took care of a few emails before I left campus.)

By the time I got home at 8:15 I was starving. . . so dinner tasted SO good. Then I watched the creepy Robin Williams episode of Law and Order, then called my Mom and two of my dear friends at home, hearing Ms. Marta's little girl in the background talking to the kitty.... And this morning I slept until almost noon, waking to lovely sun shining over the lake. Vacation time is SO GOOD.

My iPod even seems to know that it's time for bossa nova in the shuffle.

. . . Magic.

And now it's just about time to go back home and lounge with some cafe con leche with freshly ground nutmeg, and do a little cleaning.