Everybody

All my babies are home! My son is back from his travels. My daughter and my niece are here for the weekend. And my son's girlfriend is here too. The house feels happy and lively. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the last three weeks of companionable peace and wry humor with my husband, and the neatness and order everywhere. But we live for this, too, these now grown children in our midst, hoodies and socks thrown everywhere, shoes piled up in the hallway, the stories and the laughs, everyone together again.

My son got up and made eggs for everyone, while my husband was mixing up dry rub for the brisket he plans to smoke tomorrow. He's doing ID day at the museum today. It's a kind of antiques roadshow for science, where the public can bring their found items from the natural world, rocks and fossils and other specimens and have the museum scientists identify just what it is they're holding. My man is the ichthyologist on call, and he'll be fielding questions live on Facebook at some point, because social media is a part of everything now. And then later tonight he's doing a special behind the scenes tour of his department, showing off the ancient cealacanth and cleared-and-stained fish and other weird groovy things in their world class ichthyology collection.

Last night he and I went to a party at a live music jazz bar to celebrate a friend's birthday. The bands were amazing and the venue was kinda cool, with LP album covers papering the ceiling. I recognized many of them from my own youth, before CDs, before iTunes. Stevie Wonder's iconic Songs in the Key of Life, Isaac Hayes, Roberta Flack, Nina Simone, Quincy Jones. I still have many of those albums sitting in red plastic milk crates in storage. Remember those milk crates, and how perfectly LPs used to fit inside them? I'm dating myself, I know.

Anyway, while we were there our son's flight got in from Prague. His girlfriend met him at the airport with a big welcome home sign she'd made, with glitter and everything. I won't quote it because it was an inside joke (and also out of respect for their privacy) but as my son always says of her, she's a keeper. My daughter and niece adore her, too, and that's something, the sister stamp of approval. It's a charmed moment in time, as I am actually very fond of the people my three are seeing (I'm including my niece here). I don't know where any of this will lead, of course, but knock on wood.