It has been a whirlwind twenty-four hours. Yesterday morning my older son called to announce that he and his partner have gotten engaged. So family and friends have been in an uproar of delight, and my younger son, in particular, is full of happiness. Just last week a close family friend got engaged, and now this week J. We are bubbling over with young-person excitement.

Amid all of that I've been stumping around the boroughs--from coffee with a friend in Brooklyn to Citi Field in Queens, where the Sox lost, but the atmosphere was so cheerful and the weather so perfect that so we hardly cared. And then back to Brooklyn to stay up late and watch Clash concert footage from 1980.

I'm catching an early afternoon bus back to Maine today, worn out from this eventful weekend. So much good food, and talking, and walking, and high emotion. It will be strange to be back in the old world tomorrow.