Elgan speaks
...and her words thunder across the land

The party is about to begin...

Friday, Aug. 24, 2007
6:38 p.m.
Various of my husband’s relatives are due to arrive at our front door very soon, so I have to make this quick because I’m not going to get alone time at the computer for the rest of the weekend, or at least not until sometime later on Sunday.

Our front yard looks pretty good, but the bricks that have served as a walkway for the past 17 years have yet to be replaced by something else, paving stones, I believe. The scraggly flowerbeds have been replaced by mulch-filled borders and flowering/decorative shrubs. The trees are all enriched at their bases with black dirt and more cedar mulch and the ugly hedge is totally gone, the bare spaces filled in with sod and seed. It has rained very heavily, alleviating the need for watering, but as tomorrow is supposed to be rainy as well, I’m concerned for our garden party at the gazebo.

My 85 (or so)-year-old cousin from New Jersey has arrived, telephoning me from his hotel, and so have friends who drove up from the Cape. We are expecting more old university cronies, and my husband’s older brother, his wife, and two aunts and an uncle are about to descend upon us, as Hubby so generously invited them over for barbecuables.

My mother and in-laws have yet to arrive. They are bringing the youngest brother-in-law with them, the one who is deathly allergic to nuts, and I will be petrified the whole time he’s here that he’ll ingest something disagreeable and we’ll spend the whole weekend at the emergency room.

I’ve been looking forward to the actual party. I have been dreading the hordes of visitors who will want to see us outside of party hours. This is why hard liquor was invented, I think, so that I could be pleasantly buzzed and not go crazy. It’s time to crack open a bottle of something. Wish me luck.

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