The Room Should be Ready by Tuesday, Just Which Particular Tuesday, I'm Not Sure

So the latest guest at the Birth Control Bed & Breakfast has come and gone. It's always with a little melancholy that I say good-bye to our friends. The time with them passes so quickly and then before you know it, it's back to the normal everyday stuff. Laundry, matching socks, picking up dog poop. It's hard not to beg people to stay just a wee bit longer so I don't have to do all that again just yet...

I wish there was a way to explain how really cool it is to see our tribe get to know our friends. How fun it is to see Bubba-Love asked to be carried by my buddy from high school or Mini-Husband demand airplane stories over and over from John. It's hard to put into words how touching it is, months or even years after someone has been with us, one of the kids will start by saying, "Hey, mom. You remember when Rosanna was here and..."

Our guests, our friends, have given an amazing tapestry to our children. A huge swath of colour, woven of their lives, laughs, and experiences. It's wonderful and beyond anything I ever imagined. And as much as I hate having to clean this place before everyone gets here so y'all think I actually can keep a tidy home, it's worth it. Every minute of both the cleaning and the visits.

The latest guest was one of my friends from high school. A guy who's witnessed and heard every horrible Dig story for the last 20 years. He's tolerated my liberal left leanings, my bad taste in beer, and a harrowing drive with a teeny tiny car and a very large keg through the mountains of Pennsylvania.

Now, he got to visit a paper making museum with an inquisitive Mini-Husband and a twirling Princess, a night discussing rugby with Hubster, and then a not so harrowing drive to Lyon in a banged up station wagon while having to throw crackers at Bubba-Love in the back.

Our lives may have changed since the late 1980s, but the essentials rest the same.

Bubba-Love fell asleep on the way home and was quite disappointed when he woke up and realized that we really had left Keith back at the train station. I like that. It means that we'll be talking about Keith again here at the B&B. Who needs a guest book when you've got kids with memories like elephants?