An Audience Of One

Whose applause are you living for?

Here's my recipe for bliss: a cup of freshly brewed coffee in one hand and a long-awaited book in the other. A few months ago on vacation, I had two hours to enjoy this simple pleasure. But as I sat by the hotel pool with my coffee and new book, I was only able to read three paragraphs. The gleefully demanding voices of my boys kept interrupting me. "Dad,