Near the start of the cheerfully mindless teen flick Ferris Bueller's Day Off, there's a scene where the eponymous hero, portrayed by Matthew Broderick, looks out at the sky. Cut to a perfect expanse of blue punctuated by a couple of lacy fair-weather clouds. Ferris (looking into camera): "How can I be expected to handle school on a day like this?"

I feel you, bro.

'Tis the season again — that wonderful time of year when we were meaning to catch up with all the friends around town whom, what with one thing and another, we hardly glimpsed all winter. (I use "winter" here in the traditional sense of Labor Day to Memorial Day.) Only now that the season is upon us, we have no time to see our friends, nor even our spouses, because we're expecting visitors from away.

I must have a thing about trees. For nineteen years now I've lived at various Maine addresses whose common feature has been the presence of large, overhanging trees that cast varying degrees of shade over the whole property. When I moved to this brand-new cottage a few years ago, there were woods all around but a big open spot in the middle, cleared by the builder to make room for the house. Naturally the first thing I did was plant a bunch of trees.

It's been a good time for reading, these past couple of weeks, chilly and wet, and I've met some remarkable Mainers that way, in the pages of books. Then, just yesterday, I was lucky enough to meet one of the subjects in person, when she stepped off the page into a cafe in Rockland, looking even more lovely and gracious than I'd expected.