Word of the Week - 14

Not quite this many of us but double what we were.  Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt.

Word of the Week:  EVENTS

At the high school across the street they have begun observing traditional June events, starting with the Sunday afternoon baccalaureate service.  Graduation must be very near.  Weddings, vacations, high points often originate in this prelude-to-summer month.

Difficult to say just when our events got under way.  The first true milestone was that Sunday in early May when family, travelers from afar, arrived after a nearly 24-hour flight.  We had not seen each other in 10 years.  While they spent a week driving to and through parts of Northern California, we have had the unaccustomed joy of sitting together at the breakfast and dinner table.  If there is no quote about laughter being the best seasoning, there ought to be.  These are not ordinary days.

Some time ago our ancient apartment oven sparked itself into oblivion.  We hoped to have its replacement in time for our guests, our event.  The fact of its age and, accordingly, size made the search more lengthy than anticipated.  Because time becomes one long and infinite loop of taffy for me, I think the new one was installed last Thursday, always welcome, never too late.  It is a shiny creature and could probably challenge the computer on Jeopardy!  I grow mute in its presence.  Were it not built into the cabinet, we might have done a welcome dance around it. 

It has been a time of domestic evolution, the coming-going of household objects in addition to the ovens from a Swiffer mop, handsome piece of furniture and entertainment electronics to broke-ass office chairs, a manual treadmill and sectional of advanced decrepitude and missing springs that we'd had no hope of ever seeing jettisoned.  The amount of drama involved with having new things come in up a precarious flight of stairs - the floating kind with nothing solid keeping them all in the air - and, more to the point, going down them to await curbside pickup exceeded any expectation I had.  Phone calls, financial negotiations, further phoning, a self-appointed mayor of our block who was displeased with our unsightly sofa parts and demanded the movers relocate them, more phoning, more arranging.  And then, last Tuesday, the sound of the behemoth rubbish truck pulling away after I heard our discards clanking into its formerly empty recesses one at a time.  It's enough to make you want to kiss everybody.

The events roll on and include this week two NBA finals games which we hope to watch together, unless our visitors have an invitation too tasty to miss.  I am doing my best not to think of their departure, the one event I would put off like the master procrastinator I am.  Until then, picture us at the table with its blooming orchids centerpiece surrounded by coupons for take-out food.  I think this is pizza night.