What I didn't do on my summer vacation

1. Grow six kinds of peppers and two kinds of tomatoes in a well-prepared garden.
2. Go for long bike rides every weekend to exotic places like Mt. Gilead, Millersburg, New Philadelphia, Peninsula.
3. Put a new screen/storm door on the front door of Om Shanty.
4. Replace the ancient gutters on the northeast corner of the house.
5. Paint the garage.
6. Paint the back exterior (siding and trim) of the house.
7. Cut several low-hanging and damaged limbs off the three maples trees, thus letting more sunshine in and replenishing the woodpile.
8. Winterize the workshop with new stovepipe; organize the tools and miscellaneous materials into a usable space.
9. Go camping in northern Michigan, swim in Pencil Lake, check out my friend Chip's church in Traverse City, maybe even a side-trip to da UP, eh?
10. See Sam Shepard's play "Kicking a Dead Horse" at the Public Theater in the East Village; see the "Book/Shelf" exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art; listen to a free jazz concert at Madison Square Park; see a Shakespeare play in Central Park; have a drink at Thor on Rivington Street.
11. Cruise the Baltic with stops in Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gdansk, Riga, Talinn, Vilnius, Helsinki, and St. Petersburg.
12. Buy a community pool membership and swim laps three times a week until I can swim half a mile, thus preparing for the triathlon I won't compete in this year. Or next.