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After a long, wearying week of trying (with only mixed success) to plant the cognitive terrain of Americans with new information about nitrogen pollution, I was happy that Monica's colleagues at the nature center were pot-lucking the end of summer out on Mason's Island.  The long chain of weekly summer camps had finally played out -- though weeks too soon for the disgustingly tanned and fit Monica, who's not looking forward to trading her khaki shorts and water bottle for the slacks and lesson-plans of Señora Gallego, Spanish teacher and van-driver.  


People gathered at the old family house of the director -- if you can call a house old that's been erased by hurricanes in 1938 and then again in 1954.  The foundations at least have stood along the water for over a hundred years.  The weather was beautiful after four dreary days of rain and the sun set gaudily out over the water.  Herons and gulls and osprey cruised.  Kids pattered up and down the dock and I was glad I had none of my own there -- if kids fell in, got pinched by crabs or stung by jellyfish, well the kids weren't mine.  Steve set a couple of the older ones up with rods and they landed good-sized sand sharks.


The food was fantastic - much of it fresh from gardens - like edible works of art that filled one's veins with vitality and will to live.
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