One wonderful weekend

What a great holiday weekend. It was one of those rare times when everything I was looking forward to met or exceeded my expectations. It was a joyful three days, from beginning to end.

The plan that was hatched back in April, which involved meeting my sister Sarah and her family as they flew into Boston and then taking her two kids home with me for an overnight while the adults enjoyed her college reunion in Providence, and then meeting up with them the following morning to hand off their kids as they drove northwest to my brother-in-law’s reunion in Amherst (note to any single people reading this: unless you marry someone who attended the same college you did, be sure to choose someone with a different graduation year, so you don’t get stuck every five years trying to make it to two different reunions at the same time), worked exactly as I hoped it would. The meet-up at the airport went flawlessly, and the four cousins – my two children and Sarah’s two – had a wonderful time playing together from 4:00 on Friday afternoon until nearly 11:00 the following morning. My parents joined us for Friday night dinner, and even the menu worked out just as I’d hoped: mountains of pasta, with a piquant anchovy-tomato sauce for the adults as well as the gastronomically adventuresome Tim and regular marinara sauce or butter for the younger three. Then we met up with Sarah and John for lunch and I got to hear a little bit about the first of the two reunions – and tell them a little bit about the sleepover, including showing them a video clip of the originally choreographed Taylor Swift musical revue performed on Holly’s bed – before we parted ways.

After that, the four of us headed into Boston for our 24-hour excursion: again, we were charmed. The Bostix booth had half-price tickets for the evening showing of Blue Man Group, and Legal Sea Foods still has lobster on the children’s menu. We exited the parking garage with seven minutes to spare on our 24-hour ticket price. Charmed indeed. Even the dog enjoyed herself, doing an overnight with my parents. (Mom bought her a rawhide bone from Whole Foods. I never shop for the dog at Whole Foods. That’s what grandparents are for, I suppose.)

On Monday I attended the town Memorial Day observances at the cemetery and then visited for a while with a friend. The weather was hot and sunny; predicted thunderstorms never materialized. I made a bowl of salsa, with plum tomatoes and garlic and jalapenos and lime juice and avocado and fresh cilantro, and ate most of it myself. (A little self-indulgent, true, but no one else in my family likes my homemade salsa.) Tim played an early evening baseball game and returned home pleased with his pitching.

It was a great weekend. Spending an hour at a Memorial Day observance isn’t quite enough to feel like I paid enough tribute to the meaning of the holiday, but nonetheless, I savored every minute of it. The whole weekend went exactly as I’d hoped, and I can’t ask for anything more than that.