Well, loyal reader(s), I ALMOST achieved the trifecta today. The trifecta, of course, being two picnics and a re-enactment of the Battle of North Point. Well, the family feasted and then I picnicked hardy with the Snake Hunters. (I'll call them Nag and Nagiana after Rikki Tikki Tavi.) But alas, I was too much of a coward to watch the re-enactment alone...After consideration, the whole thing is not unlike Barbaro breaking his leg in the Preakness, thereby dooming his bid for the Triple Crown.

Or perhaps it is not like that at all.

As you know, I've been thinking about friendship. Everyone with a subscription to a news weekly knows that Americans have statistically one fewer friend than they used to, and that social bowling leagues are in decline. I think the cause is the same for this as for much else: we can't be bothered.

Making a friend takes time and effort and listening and after all the expension of energy you've got a friend, who you soon enough discover to be a human being, with all the foibles of humanity, so much like yourself. Where is the custom fit, the personalization, the designed with me in mind to meet my needs? Just like most things, it comes right around to selfishness.

I am a lucky girl, to know so many messy human beings.