T-minus…..

The change in mood hit me Sunday when I realized that I wasn’t just cleaning the house, but that I was cleaning the house in preparation for the arrival of family for our wedding. My brother Andy and sister-in-law Vicky arrive tomorrow night with their twins, Nick & Jake, and my godson Michael. They are staying here, as they are in town for the week and my offering up of the apartment saves them around a thousand dollars in hotel bills. Vicky has a cat allergy so Kat has graciously taken our cat in for the week.

My parents arrive Wednesday in their motor home. They’ll be parked at my sister Sandy’s and traveling around town on their Gold Wing motorcycle, which they are towing down. My parents are in their early seventies and often travel by motorcycle. The rest of our families will arrive Thursday through Saturday and each arrival will feel like a clink in the ascension of a roller coaster. Jes’ extended will be coming from Arkansas and Illinois, mine will be coming in from the Minnesota, Wisconsin and California. I feel like a migratory call. I feel like an impending shuttle launch. I feel good. The rocket has been brought to the pad and we are performing our checks.

When my old landlord Richard was dying he talked frequently of his last big party. He described the meal and the buses he’d chartered to transport all of his friends. Jes and I aren’t dying in any kind of immediate way, perhaps we are beginning to live, but many years from now, when we are on the wane, I expect that the next few days will still shine for us with qualities of personal mythology wherein the soup of us went from simmer to rolling boil.