The day is now officially planned. Keep in mind, please, that I am a rotten nature photographer. Nature wouldn't cooperate with me if I fed it regularly and helped it find a mate. Bunnies sneer at me, squirrels moon me, birds make up new and entirely uncomplimentary songs about me.

With this in mind, I have tomorrow morning set aside to drive to the local botanical garden to do a quick shoot in the butterfly house.

YOU all fondly imagine butterflies as cheery, dazzling little nature-critters who gambol and flap happily about, brightening the day for one and all.

I, on the other hand, am steeling myself for a massed assault which may end in some supreme indignity...such as being pantsed by the little cruds. Based on my prior brushes with a wicked, sinister, giggling Nature, I fully anticipate wholesale disaster from the moment I timidly shuffle in the door and raise my camera.

I envision a parti-colored wave of unholy doom sweeping in on me, possibly leaving a few striped bones in its snickering, giggling wake.

Gee, I look forward to tomorrow. And then I still have to reassemble myself to take delivery on the new recliner and grab lunch. I may go for the $10 mega-burger at Big Larry’s…