This has been one great weekend, with my brother Max being up for a visit and all. He took this picture of me and my sliver of maple tree trunk as I took a break from the splitter. I learned a lot about myself when my mother joined us for dinner and she, Max and Cara shared stories of my sleep talking and walking. My mother said that when I was a kid I would sleepwalk (apparently looking for places to pee other than the bathroom) and that I would talk to her as though I were awake, though it was clear to her that I was asleep. Max still remembers me talking about chickens in my sleep, though he didn't know where it came from because at that point he didn't think we'd ever actually even seen a chicken (deprived urban dwellers that we were). But Cara's story was probably the best. She said that when we were first married (well, living in sin, if you want the truth) and living in Brooklyn that I sang the national anthem in my sleep--in a foreign language. Hey, if that's not keeping the troops entertained, there's not much more I can do.