- Thursday May 08 2003

In anticipation of our Big Day, friends and relatives began arriving today. Our first arrival had no intention of being fashionably-late. It was my own mother, Hoagie. She'd actually left Staunton yesterday so she could break the trip into two daylight pieces. In the face of all this caution, her choice of rental car, a sporty Pontiac, seemed somewhat absurd. She arrived while I was alone in the house, recreating in a basement bathtub, and the only reason I noticed her car in the driveway was that I suddenly freaked out and remembered that today was the day that the fuel oil guy would be coming, so I bounded dripping from the tub to check to see if he'd left his "I stopped by and you weren't here" card. (It's impossible to hear anyone knocking on the front door unless you're on the main floor.)

After giving my mother a comprehensive tour of the house, she asked if there was anything she could do to help, so I assigned her the task of vacuuming all the carpets.

Gretchen's parents are also the sort who, when visiting adult children, would never, in the cause of fashion, shrink from being early. Unlike my mother, though, they'd also brought a whole carload of things to help us with the wedding.

more later