Now THIS is the life...

A close friend of mine up North posted the following on his Blog, The Cold, Hard Facts Of A Cold, Hard Man:

I'm doing a little project that requires outside help.

I'd like to know what it would take for you to speak the words "Now, this is the life" aloud, and really mean it. Where would you have to be? What would you have to be doing? What person, place, thing, taste, or moment in life could you make you feel that way?

What's YOUR answer? Mine was this:

I would be surveying my woodland home, my children playing in the open field that lies just beyond a barn that had been converted into a music studio/production facility. They sky would be gray, a meerschaum pipe hanging limply from my lips. My wife waves to me from her circle of friends who lounge by the Koi pond. I can just make out the very edge of my property,the waist-high wire surrounding the perimeter gives off a faint crackle of implied electricity. "This is the life..."