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I don't like the picture, but I liked taking it.

While driving to work Monday, I spotted a huge clump of new snow-on-the-mountain by the roadside and I decided then to photograph it on the way home.

After class, when I pulled onto the shoulder of the road, leaped the ditch and lumbered through some knee-high weeds to photograph this clump, a former student stopped her car behind mine to make sure I wasn't having car trouble.

I recognized her as a student that I had advised to withdraw from my noon class during the previous cycle. I had advised her to withdraw from the class because she had failed the first test and had performed only slightly better on the second.

She called my name, asked if I was having trouble, and offered to help if I needed a lift. When I explained that everything was okay, she waved, raised her window and drove on.

We are without the Owen this week because he has been vacationing this week on a scuba outing with his uncle in sunny Cozumel. Oh wait, make that stormy Cozumel. According to weather reports available online, he is enjoying scattered showers and thunderstorms most of this week.

I remain hopeful that his uncle, with whom I closed more than one bar in younger days (or is that part of the the-older-I-get-the-badder-I-was syndrome?), has found some creative diversions that don't involve taking him into harm's way, or into lightning's way. Or a bar.

Having one fewer set of lungs around the house whining for suggestions about what activities might be permitted that wouldn't be boring at this late point in the summer vacation has been a relief to me. But of course, if the activity is permitted, it's boring. In this the summer of his thirteenth year, Owen's voice has moved from the alto range to the baritone, so his whine is more of a croaking, aggressive bellow than a whine, a bellow that sometimes arouses a hostile response from me after my twentieth (okay, fifth) suggestion has been rebuffed.

He has also discovered cologne. Is there a reason on earth why Faberge has been permitted to continue manufacturing Brut? Aren't sales of Brut to minors regulated? I am so relieved that the odor of the house has returned to its more neutral state, but naturally I miss him nonetheless, and I've been sleeping in his bed this week.

There's nothing more I can make of either of these recollections right now, although I feel that I should. Maybe I'm just suffering from the torpor brought on by our August heat. Or maybe not every event is significant, not every memory need be mined. Well, not immediately anyway.

Watched: This would require reaching for the remote, no? And inserting a tape?

Reading: Nope. Nothing. Been a slug. Might stay that way.