The Invasion

Make no mistake about it: I love my three children, their two spouses and one significant other, and my two granddaughters. But when they descend upon me en masse, they can stretch those infrangible bonds of filial affection to frightening lengths, like bungee jumpers leaping into the unknown.

The problem is twofold. First I live alone, a condition abhorrent to many, but quite comfortable to me. And I have lots of company -- besides my lovely life partner, recognizable to loyal followers of these musings by the acronym JSG, at whose home about one mile from my own I spend many pleasant hours. According to the most recent demographic statistics available (2013), twenty-seven percent of Americans occupy one-person households, up from seventeen in 1970, with the male percentages rising from six to twelve. The trend is a global one; the comparable overall figure in Sweden is 47%, in Japan 32%, and in Canada 28%.

Is it conceivable that growing economic independence in all age groups is enabling a form of domesticity for which many may have subconsciously yearned but which was not financially viable -- because it was imperative in previous generations that individuals and family members share living expenses? (My eighty-nine-year-old mother contends that there is a primal urge also at work here: the revolution in sexual mores, which has rendered marriage, even cohabitation, irrelevant.) While I acknowledge that for a majority of people constant companionship is a given, I submit that for a sizable segment of the population solitude can be equally satisfying.

I am not the first person -- nor will I be the last -- to catalog any number of perquisites enjoyed by the soloist: rising and retiring at any hour of the day or night; eating whatever and whenever one pleases (although if he can't cook, his options are severely limited, mainly to idiot-proof microwavables); reading for several hours without feeling guilty for ignoring one's mate; engaging in a few vulgar habits better left to the reader's imagination; and walking around the house (or doing any of the aforementioned) naked. Also, when one is alone, he can't do anything wrong -- as opposed to, well, not doing anything right.

An almost empty house -- consisting of one resident and a bare minimum of furnishings and adornments, other than a sprawling library -- is the primary element of danger. Compounding it with a personality type compulsively averse to clutter (but not necessarily grit and grime, since he rarely lifts a broom, mop, or rag) and to any disruptions in his daily routine (early-morning workout, cereal and a banana for breakfast, nine hours in his office or visiting a Schewel store, a quiet dinner at home or with JSG, a few hours immersed in a book, and an occasional social outing) is a recipe for serious queasiness, once the final seasoning of family members is sprinkled in.

And yet, what else is 3800 square feet with five bedrooms, four-and-a-half baths, two family rooms, and a swimming pool good for, other than to play hide-and-seek with oneself? And especially if he is a proud parent and grandparent blessed with the finest brood he could ever hope for, and far better than he deserved, considering he ascribed to and practiced a philosophy of child-rearing by absenteeism. I'll graciously concede to their mother all credit for the mature, independent, and amiable adults who emerged from a nest shredded by divorce.

Around 5:00 PM Wednesday, the first squad rolls in from Ithaca, New York: my daughter Sara, her husband Nate, and their daughter, Lia, all packed into their 2008 Subaru Impreza Outback, along with all the paraphernalia required to transport, sustain, and entertain an eighteen-month-old toddler for six days away from home, including portacrib, toys and picture books, shrunken utensils, and plastic cups with lids. Ithaca is a long way from Lynchburg, about eight-a-half-hours in the best of non-holiday and adults-only conditions, which is why Sara and Nate decided to bivouac one night in Winchester at the Lauberge Provincale Bed and Breakfast, where they encountered an untimely Shenandoah snowstorm.

What I viewed at the time as an unlikely career shift -- Sara's enrolling in a nursing program at the University of Pennsylvania after four years teaching biology at private secondary schools -- proved to be as providential as my entering the family furniture business many decades ago; in retrospect, it was even foreshadowed by her semester abroad assignment to a remote hospital in Cameroon, although I suspect her motivations at the time were refining her French and deploying her National Outdoor Leadership skills.

She tackled her new profession with the same unbridled enthusiasm and total commitment she has regularly demonstrated in her relentless pursuit of adventure: camping in the wilderness for weeks at a time; running the Philadelphia Marathon with her boy friend, who presented her a ring at the finish line; and cycling the mountains of Thailand on her honeymoon. While fully devoted to her patients as a nurse practitioner employed by a hospitalist group at the Cayuga Medical Center, she's retained the critical eye that has always made her wary of incompetent authority figures. A frequent topic of conversation between the two of us is our shared disillusionment with our health care system, the waste, inefficiencies, overutilization, and misaligned incentives of which she now witnesses every day.

Even at her furious pace, Sara has a hard time keeping up with her husband Nate, who, like a mild-mannered Clark Kent, sans spectacles, transforms himself into super-Nate faster than one can utter the words "caped crusader." His Ph.D degree in computer science seems a mere footnote to a curriculum as extensive as the dissertation I perused in his apartment years ago, searching in vain for one comprehensible sentence: securing private and public grants for his Cornell graduate students' research projects; crisscrossing the globe to present papers and attend conferences, including an elite gathering by invitation only of thirty international scholars; running a leisurely twenty miles Saturday afternoon as a warm-up for an upcoming marathon in India; blazing through a three-hundred-page book, King Leopold's Ghost, during a few spare moments over the weekend; and, last Thanksgiving, preparing a tasty vegetable, cheese, and pastry hors d'ouevre after cycling from the Wintergreen turn-off at Rt. 151 to my sister's cabin at the summit of Devil's Knob (in thirty-degree weather).

In a high-energy environment like that, what's eighteen-month-old Lia to do but follow her leaders? She's not astride that bicycle yet, but she chugs up and down my long hallways like her crib bunny on the loose. From her one-hundred-word vocabulary, she likes to enunciate "oushide," then ramble to the door and point a provocative finger toward the wide open spaces. I doubt she'll ever be the bibliophile her "Abba" (or "father" in Hebrew, the name I've chosen to be called) is, but she will sit still long enough to plow through a picture book or two. If she's sufficiently well-mannered to feed herself yoghurt with a spoon, she's quick to scatter her peas and macaroni across the table when she's done. She can count, sort of, responding to Nate's prompt of odd numbers with the next consecutive even one, until he gets to "seven," when she leapfrogs to "nine." All decked out in her favorite colors -- purple, pink, and blue -- and sitting on her front stoop, she beams at me with a mischievous grin every morning from the photograph propped on the bookcase beside my bed.

Sara gets her to sleep in time to make a quick grocery store run (since my bachelor's stockpile is limited to cereal, soy milk, peanut butter, beer, and veggie burgers), and then joins me at the train station to welcome our New York City contingent: my older son David and his partner Mary, soon-to-be a mother herself, in February. "It's a boy," and somewhat of a surprise, as Mary's child-bearing window is closing rapidly, though even I am not so indiscreet as to disclose any statistical details. His name has been chosen, but remains a secret -- in order, I suspect, to deflect any unsolicited advice -- as does the ticklish question as to whether a marriage is in the offing, probably for the same reason.

It will be interesting to see how my forty-year-old firstborn adapts to the fatherhood which will wreak havoc upon a lifestyle both carefree and orderly and upon a temperament I've always regarded as perpetually young at heart; it's a judgment which I submit is applicable to all who follow their adolescent dreams into the entertainment industry. Since even Hall of Fame athletes must eventually hang up their cleats, who among us can forever play the games that so captivated us as innocents -- other than actors, performers, filmmakers, and their ilk -- and be rewarded for it to boot? As I see it, David has never let loose the video camera which he picked up (and I bought for him) thirty years ago at the Schewel store on Timberlake Road; he's only traded it for more sophisticated versions.

His forte is reality t.v., and since striking out on his own in 1997, he's compiled an impressive resume as an editor and an executive producer that features such varied fare as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Extreme Makeover, Oddities, Chasing Tail (not the two-legged species, but deer on Long Island), and Guntucky (about a combination gun store and firing range with simulated heavy weaponry shooting experiences). Premiering soon is Hotel Amazon, which depicts the trials and tribulations (some contrived for dramatic effect) of two entrepreneurs developing a resort in the remote jungles of Peru and which required my son to assume the unlikely persona of an intrepid Theodore Roosevelt during two ten-day site visits.

Mary is a willowy blonde who savors her morning Starbucks and her evening vodka gimlets (when she's not pregnant). As a marketing executive with Showtime, she's been on her share of junkets, including several trips to Las Vegas to cover championship boxing matches. She's got an eye for fashion and a flair for design, gradually making over David's wardrobe and his furnishings as their relationship progressed.

When they reached a point where neither her apartment nor his co-op was big enough for two, they hired a consultant to advise them how best to spruce up his place in order to expedite a sale. After they had spent a considerable amount on fees, construction, painting, and commissions, their realtor brought them a buyer: the next door resident, who wanted to remove the adjoining wall and double his own space. Sometimes it pays to know your neighbor, even in New York City.

How quickly one forgets what it's like to have a full house. David tries to heat up some leftover pizza in the toaster oven and melts cheese all over the tray. Tap water with ice -- always good enough for me -- doesn't suit my kids, who insist on giving the cold water dispenser on my refrigerator such a strenuous workout that I'm sure the whole thing is going to break down. Within an hour, every glass in my cabinet is pulled out, sipped from once, and abandoned. I have to run my dishwasher more times in three days than I normally do in a month. Awakening at 2:00 AM to take care of the usual business, I don't have to stumble around in the dark since every lamp is lit, although I do have to be careful not to trip over an obstacle course of littered shoes. My Keurig machine is locked permanently in the "power" and "heating" settings. In fact, so roiled am I by all this tumult that I fail to place my mug under the spigot and spill coffee all over my countertop.

And the third wave hasn't even arrived yet.

Coming from Washington, D.C., my younger son Matthew, his wife Patricia, and their six-month-old daughter Ana Maria, will be joining us the next day at Wintergreen, a sensible arrangement since feeding interruptions can easily expand their three-hour drive into five. A feathery four pounds, eleven ounces at birth, Ana has been on a reverse crash diet since then, and has ballooned into the healthy fiftieth percentile.

A native of the Dominican Republic, her mother is intent on raising her as a bi-cultural, primping her in her own inimitable style (Ana tiptoed into her first Halloween as a frilly ballerina); accentuating her delicate features with sparkling miniature earrings and a beribboned headband, each day of the week marked by its own color; and maintaining a one-way non-stop conversation with her in Spanish. Meanwhile, Ana scrutinizes her strange new surroundings with measured placidity, and practices rolling over.

If Matthew, like Sara, soured on teaching after a short stint, at least he can claim to have mined one jewel from his labors: Patricia, who was engaged in the same bilingual elementary school program as he (although in a different North Carolina school district) and whom he met at a conference. I think her father, Don Julio, an aristocrat, historian, physician, and professor, was initially apprehensive about what species of ugly American she might bring home -- until he met my 6'2" gentle giant, who could converse in Spanish with him on baseball and Latin American history and hold his own with his sons trading ripostes and swilling vodka. Once Julio blessed this Jewish-Catholic union, he celebrated it with a Dominican extravaganza, treating two-hundred-fifty guests to an endless midnight buffet, a pulsating rock band, and a professional dancing troupe.

If Patricia has taken an indefinite leave-of-absence from her pedagogical duties, Matthew's recent promotion to editor of the niche magazine, Inside U. S. Trade, where he was hired as a reporter two years ago -- prevailing over one hundred other applicants -- has meant long hours meeting publication deadlines, on-the-job management training as he adjusts to being the "boss," and no abatement in a rigorous travel schedule that has taken him to Brunei, Bali, Singapore, and, a few weeks ago, Sydney, Australia, in pursuit of international trade commission conferees.

He's been sighted at congressional hearings, diplomatic press conferences, and CNN panels, earned a reputation as a shrewd investigator and interviewer who easily penetrates obfuscation and evasion, and established himself as an expert in a field as esoteric as the calculation of import duties. While I'm sure they may be riveting to the Assistant Undersecretary of the Department of Commerce, two paragraphs under Matthew's byline are enough to send me scrambling to the sports pages.

Our annual family reunion reminds me of Thanksgivings past, not all sixty-six of them, of course, but several that became traditions for a number of years. When I was a youngster -- and up until I entered college -- my two siblings and I would pile into my parents' wood-paneled station wagon, and the five of us would motor to Roanoke -- it seemed so far at the time; the Old Forest Road/Rt. 221 intersection was truly in the country -- where my father's cousin and her husband hosted a multitude of Schewels at their modest mid-century colonial residence.

In a smoke-filled den, several older gentlemen would be engrossed in a high-stakes gin rummy game. From the rear of the house could be heard the clanging of pots and pans and the idle chatter of females (and their black hired help) toiling away. In time they would rotate into the living room, where my father, as usual, held center stage regaling his audience with a joke or tall tale. On balmier days touch football would erupt in the front yard, although my speed, skill, and competitiveness were much inferior to that of my more coordinated kinfolk.

The highlight of these holidays was a group excursion to the VMI-VPI football game at Victory Stadium; the acronym of the latter institution, as defunct as the long-ago demolished venue, has been so expunged from the chronicles of Virginia Tech that it is remembered by only a handful of nostalgic baby-boomers, as is the contest itself, which at the time was the season's grand finale, matching the state's fiercest rivals and two titans of the old Southern Conference.

Back then I was probably more of a football fan than I am today, which isn't saying much, since now I despise the sport; I suspect my father was even less enamored, and dragged us both along in the spirit of camaraderie. Since we had no particular allegiance to either team, we were always in a quandary as to whom to root for, most often landing on the side of VMI, a decided underdog in the waning years of the series, as its foe ramped up its program. On cold and windy afternoons we left at halftime. My motivation for persisting was to catch a glimpse of (and even exchange a word or two with) a girl whom I had met through a Jewish youth organization -- during the game, we parked our cars in her father's junkyard -- and whom I had a crush on; like so many others, it would go unrequited.

After our extended family broke apart -- for reasons too convoluted and unpleasant to recount -- my father conceived a glorious plan to host all his children, their spouses, and his grandchildren for the long weekend at the Sonesta Beach Resort in Key Biscayne, Florida, although he never failed to attribute the hefty funding of these getaways to its proper source: income from my deceased grandparents' trusts. We went to South Florida because my mother's mother was still living in an apartment in Miami Beach, but I can only guess why he chose this particular property. Perhaps on a previous trip he had struck up a friendship with one or more of the staff there -- wherever he went, he always had a burning need to be recognized -- or he may have just been hoping to encounter one of his favorite celebrities, Richard Nixon, who was rumored to haunt the premises.

We sat around the pool, tested the ocean waters, polished our tans -- mainly so we could show them off when we got home -- caught up on our reading (at least I did), overindulged three times a day, and discovered the pleasures of a warm-weather Thanksgiving. I figured a twenty-mile run in eighty-degree heat and ninety-percent humidity would be good training for an upcoming marathon, so I ventured halfway across the causeway to the mainland, feeling like a champion before barely staggering home.

No trip to the Gold Coast was complete without a meal at the world-famous Joe's Stone Crab restaurant, even though we had to stand in line for at least an hour before we could be seated. One evening my mother spotted a gentleman slipping the maitre d' a fistful of cash and rocketing to the head of the pack; I don't know how much it cost my father, but, like magic, our waiting days were over. It was all wasted on me, since the thought of crunching and swallowing a crab shell didn't really titillate my palate; I was probably the only person in the place who opted for the mahi mahi.

Thirty years later I'm still pounding the pavement, although at a much diminished frequency, speed, distance, and gracefulness. Four days ago, Sunday, I'm cruising comfortably down Rivermont Avenue, reveling in my total recovery from the fractured fibula that hobbled me for six weeks back in June, when a grossly protuberant section of the sidewalk conspires with a senescent inability to lift one's legs more than a few inches off the ground to pitch me violently forward. Even though I jerk my my hands out in front to break the fall, both knees strike the pavement, the left one with brutal impact. Bruised and bloodied, I regain my footing, limp along for a few hundred yards, and -- of course -- jog the remaining three-and-a-half miles of my circuit. Within a couple of hours, my knee is purple, bulging like a softball, and too painful to permit me to contract it fully.

Since my ankle episode cost me about $800 in orthopedic devices and examinations, I decide to shun, at least temporarily, the greedy jaws of the health care digestive system and consult Dr. Internet. Barely able to walk, I initially fear the worst: a sprain, even a tear, of either the anterior or posterior cruciate ligament. Then, miraculously, on Wednesday, the pain dissipates, the swelling subsides, and the range of motion is almost one-hundred percent -- just in time for the Thanksgiving morning HumanKind (formerly Presbyterian Home) five-kilometer Turkey Trot.

Sara and Nate were the first to enlist back in 2011; the next year, after JSG, her daughter Annie, and I signed on, Sara added insult to injury by not only trouncing me by several minutes but also by announcing that she had done it while three months pregnant. Now she needs a baby sitter, and convinces David that this is as good a time as any to inaugurate parenthood.

The course is not an easy one -- none in Lynchburg is -- east on Main Street for five blocks, up the imposing Thirteenth Street hill, along Church Street to Fifth, across the John Lynch Bridge and back, and then following Church Street to Thirteenth Street before looping down Main to the finish. I think I'm in trouble when, in the midst of the city's fittest three thousand, it takes me a minute to get to the starting line; I know it for a fact when I spot first Nate and then Sara streaking toward me when I'm only halfway across the bridge. Amazingly, my twenty-eight-and-a-half minutes are good enough for third in my age group, all but two of whom must have been burdened by more creaking parts than my gimpy knee.

The cold dawn drizzle -- which abated just as the 9:00 AM race commenced -- is a sure harbinger of harsher conditions atop Devil's Knob, where the temperature is always ten degrees cooler than at the base. By the time we reach the summit, around 1:00 PM -- eleven of us, JSG, her three children, Mary, Sara, Nate, David, Nanee, Lia, and me, all shoehorned into JSG's minivan and my Genesis sedan -- the falling snow has accumulated to four inches, making the uphill climb treacherous and parking along the narrow road problematic. We risk it, though Donna's son, Jordan, warns that the Wintergreen's finest, always on the lookout for lawbreakers, are likely to ticket, or worse, tow us (which I find hard to believe, even assuming they're working today). If he's a habitual crisis monger, Jordan's also in his emergency response mode; he's cleared the driveway, and hops in his Jeep to shuttle Nanee down the steep incline to the house.

This affair is quality time par excellence, especially for the next generation, who reacquaint themselves with each other after long hiatuses (other than their Facebook connections which, not being a subscriber, I tend to ignore), as twenty-two of us, confined to a single large living and dining area, sit, stand, meander, mingle, chat, chuckle, gossip, drink, snack, feast, and even steal a guilty glance at a muted football game.

Jordan, hunkering down for the Apocalypse, flourishes his newest rifle magazine in one hand and his sharpest blade in the other. Julie, an instantly mature freshman at Loyola of Baltimore, regales us with her latest exploits on the tennis court, which has kept her too busy to contribute her superb culinary skills to today's banquet. Bert, full-time graduate student, part-time Schewel salesman, shares a worrisome tale about a whistle-blowing incident. Hannah models her latest body art, hints at a future in nail decoration, and bemoans the plight of the Palestinians. Esther, having fled her boring birthplace (and Schewel employment) for the marvels of Manhattan, quietly surveys the scene, while visions of mathematical equations dance in her head. The three G's, George, Gus, and Annie (plus one girl friend, Sawyer), mirror their mother's gleaming smile and maintain their "cool" amidst all this familial frenzy.

Two popular activities of past conclaves are noticeably forgone: a rousing game of "Apples to Apples," either because the cards have been lost or it's suddenly regarded as too juvenile; and an after-meal hike along the golf course, too daunting without snowshoes for even this hardy bunch, for which I am extremely grateful.

But there's a new happening, borne of last year's quirky Hebrew calendar, which uprooted Hanukkah from its traditional proximity to Christmas and replanted it adjacent to Thanksgiving, a serendipitous convergence which inspired David to append to the festivities a "Secret (Ecumenical) Santa" gift exchange. Thus, even though Hanukkah has reverted to form, we haven't; the large square cocktail table in the middle of the room is overflowing with colorful bags and packages just waiting to delight (one hopes) their surprised recipients.

David, the proverbial camp counselor, having assigned each person his or her mate, is insistent we proceed by the rules: a name on a tag is read; seductive wrappings are torn away; exclamations of great joy are heard; and only then is the identity of "Santa" revealed. But because my offerings to Nanee are rather obscure, I am compelled to foil his best-laid plans, peremptorily to declare myself, and to explain each of them: two bottles of wine (which she despises); a half-liter of Chivas Regal (which she swears by, and in fact has already sampled, since she left hers at home); a gift card to Starbucks, where she's never been; and $100 in cash, her own special gift of choice to one and all on every occasion (and for which she profusely thanks me, seriously, since she likes money, and this is a first).

And then, one by one, all secrets are laid bare: Things That Matter, by Charles Krauthammer, to Jack from Donna, who remembers his second most revered conservative oracle (after Rush Limbaugh); super non-stick frying pans, to George and Gus from the ever-practical JSG; high-tech running/cycling attire, to Nate from Patricia; a gift certificate for a five-star Baltimore restaurant, to Donna from Nate, which she can use when visiting Julie; a gorgeous bracelet, to Esther from Nanee, whom Patricia claims as her Santa for next year; and the Downton Abbey Season Five DVD (arriving January 25th) to yours truly, who forgets to ask whom it's from, evoking an outcry from Matthew, "Don't you even want to know?"

Meanwhile, Jack has been back and forth to the basement, attending to the turkey nestled in the deep fryer purchased a few years ago just for this annual ritual. Finally, it's ready, tender, moist, plucked, sliced, and spread out on the counter, along with its customary consorts: salad, stuffing, a trio of mashed potato, sweet potato, and bean casseroles, and lo and behold, gravy. Having forgotten some ingredient, Jack sent me an SOS, but thirty minutes after I had left home; apparently, he located a store in the vicinity where a suitable substitute could be obtained. And if we're not already sinfully satiated, a surfeit of desserts awaits us: two pumpkin pies, one pecan, and a huge bowl of banana pudding, homemade by a devoted friend, who presented it to us at a rendezvous at Clifford on our way here.

Allocating seating for the ride home, I'm counting on one additional in Matthew's car (also a Genesis, my old one, circa 2008), when I hear that he, Patricia, and Ana are planning to spend the night at Donna's. That doesn't make much sense until someone whispers the real reason: Patricia doesn't trust Matthew on these slippery, winding roads in the foggy darkness. She will go only if I take the wheel. Now that's the consummate irony; obviously, she hasn't read my blog "Car Talk," which detailed a harrowing legacy of wrecked vehicles, nor heard JSG and my ex-wives elaborate on my eccentric driving habits.

Before the advent of Ana and Lia, taking the clan out to eat was the simple recourse for one who subsists on frozen foods. But nap time, feeding schedules, equipment transport, and the irrepressible energy of an eighteen-month-old pose severe complications.

Friday we run a lunch tag team to the Cavalier, where, besides enjoying beer, burgers, dogs, and spicy fries, Lynchburg expatriates like David and Sara can usually reconnect with fellow travelers home for the holiday. Saturday midday everyone scatters, a problem of sorts, since David wants to head to Roanoke to film an adult cheer-leading team; it's for a pilot he's been trying to sell to a network for ten years. When Nanee reneges on loaning him her car (which rarely budges from her garage), what's a father to do but hand over his? She makes amends that night, however, treating us all, plus Donna's foursome, to some exquisite Boonsboro Country Club cuisine, as both sets of parents cheerfully lug along their babies, who exhibit their best behavior. Sunday morning JSG invites the stragglers to her house for a smoked salmon, eggs, and bacon brunch.

That leaves Friday's dinner. Nate says his favorite restaurant is King's Island, which he's never actually been to, but only experienced vicariously through the accolades bestowed on it by us natives. We're close to touch-toning for carry-out when the mood abruptly shifts, and a chef materializes from the woodwork; who else but Super-Nate, with Mary in a supporting role? Faster than a speeding bullet, he rips through Kroger, and within thirty minutes my kitchen looks like it's been churned by a tornado: pots boiling; pans sizzling; platters baking; long-neglected bowls, knives, mixers, and measuring cups exhumed; real food in various stages of preparation strewn over every surface. So incongruous is this scene that Sara deems it worthy of commemoration and snaps a photo.

Similarly, my dining room is awakened from its own somnolence. Yes, buried in my massive buffet and hutch are a dainty tablecloth on permanent loan from Nanee and enough china, silver, and crystal for all eight of us (three couples plus Nanee and me). No sooner is the table set than a sumptuous feast is laid before us: mixed greens with cherry tomatoes, apricots, and Nate's special dressing; pasta shells in a creamy mushroom sauce; grilled asparagus; roasted chicken; toasted French bread; and fresh berries baked in a crust. And to top it off, the kids wouldn't even let me help clean up.

In fact, as the last car -- bearing Matthew, Patricia, and Ana -- pulls out of the driveway around 2:00 PM Sunday, what minor lingering evidence of the invasion is easily tidied up: three beds stripped and remade; one load of sheets and towels laundered and dried; the den hastily vacuumed (before the maids conduct a thorough housecleaning on Tuesday); the dishwasher cycled one more time; and a lonesome sock and three tiny stuffed animals ferreted out and stored in a safe place until such time as their rightful owners return to claim them.

Which I hope won't be too far off. Because, as I make a final inspection of my vacant house, I'm missing them. It's much too quiet here.