My Chicago son will arrive at midday, my in-laws at midafternoon, and then, as my father-in-law says, "We'll have Christmas in June!"by which he means three generations in the same place at the same time--something that doesn't happen so often anymore.

Thus this morning, after snatching a yoga class, I'll rush off to buy groceries, then rush to the bus station to fetch my exhausted all-night-traveling son, and then putter around finishing a lemon tart, prepping chicken with olives, and basking in Boy Land.

The sun is shining, and soon I'll open all the windows and hang a load of laundry. Salvia, chive flowers, columbine, iris are beaming from vases. The cherry table is polished. The new cellar door is delightfully closed. I've got a bed to set up for the traveling son: a thick new mattress, line-dried sheets. I feel happy that the house is so cheerful, the garden so green and vigorous and tidy. A cardinal is singing singing singing in the maples. The white cat blinks. The men I love are sleeping and waking.