Summery Summary

So, here's the deal.

My oldest child is getting married in 11 days. She and my second-oldest daughter (along with her 6-month-old son) plus their mother (my first wife) are all staying in a friend's house on Bernal Hill. As it happens, they are directly across the street from the house where my second wife lives. (Our three young kids are in Connecticut, at their grandparents.) My soon-to-be second son-in-law is back in Chile from Africa and flying to San Francisco tomorrow, so the wedding planning is in high gear around here.

My third-oldest child, and oldest son, just celebrated his birthday down where he studies and works at Cal Tech. His girlfriend drove down to be with him on his birthday; she lives up here. He's flying up Friday night to Oakland; his girlfriend will pick him up and then come over to my house, where my recently arrived Japanese friend and I will cook a fish-and-chicken dinner.

Later that night, my first son-in-law arrives. On Saturday, my little guys arrive, i.e., my second oldest son, third-oldest son, and third oldest daughter. (I probably should be using "eldest," but we speak in a rough dialect of English on this continent, as you know.)

Let's see: Where was I?

Oh yes, my ex-cousin-in-law, who recently visited and left some lovely, small antiques from his travels in Central Asia to my keeping, is hoping to return here for the wedding. He is now busily studying Buddhism and will bring several monks with him.

My grandson is probably oblivious to all this fuss, other than as we gather, we all cluster around him to admire his good looks, his curiosity, and his contagious smile. Little James, as he is universally known, is the life of every party he attends.

My Japanese sweetie has a friend who owns a restaurant, and yesterday she called to tell me he had given her a large amount of halibut. She said she would be freezing most of it, but I tried to suggest that she keep some "fresh" so we could eat it when I got home from work.

Cross-linguistic challenges over cell phones being as they are, she misunderstood me and thought I wanted to have "sushi" from this fish. "No, no, we cannot have sushi. These are parts of the fish I don't know whether Americans eat. They are the fish heads, for example, which we Asians like to eat in soup."

Suddenly, I envisioned my house filled with fish heads, they eyes staring glossily out at me, helplessly, hopelessly, and most unappetizingly.

Eventually, we worked out that I just hoped to help cook some fresh fish, and the fish heads were not really the disgusting parts I imagined, but (how to put this delicately?) the lower face and neck, more or less, and skinned, without scales or any surface features.

Feeling better, we went about our tasks. She blanched all the fish, eliminating most of their smell, and then carefully prepared them in different packages for freezing. I did my Editor in Chief thing, then made my way north courtesy of my buddy Mark.

My daughters and their mother have been using my car as they shop for rings and other items, because Plan A failed. Under Plan A, my oldest son had left his car here for them to use this month. But his car died on the Bay Bridge, with them all inside, even Little James. Thanks to Caltrans, they were pushed safely off the bridge, and towed to the mechanic, which is a few blocks from my house.

(It is a side story, but this car used to belong to my ex-girlfriend who obtained it through the efforts of her ex-boyfriend, and sold it to my son when she got her new peppercorn Mini in 2005. All three owners have taken the car for service to the same mechanic, so even as ownership changes, the care remains constant.)

It appears that car needs a clutch.

***

This may be an odd post, but it is mainly my way of working out all the things on my mind. I tend to locate myself in the middle of the arcs involving all the people around me -- at work, at home, and throughout our common cybersphere. As I consider what everyone is doing, who is coming and who is going, and how we all are related (or not) to each other, a kind of mental spreadsheet fills itself in, and I may be able to sleep at night.

Or maybe not. I'm a worrywart from way back, so all this action evokes anxiety as well as joy. Plus I miss my little kids so much that no matter what is going well, and who is around me, I feel incomplete until they return.

Such is the world of "Hotweir." Looks like a thunderstorm is approaching. Wouldn't that be something, just in time for the All Star Game tonight! It never thunderstorms in San Francisco, just like it never snows.

Except when it does.

And, BTW, fish head soup is delicious!

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