It’s that time of year again – when florists are frantically arranging sprays of blooms, bakers are concocting fanciful creations so overdone with sugary frosting and detail they could put a diabetic into a coma, and women all over the world are being asked by their best friends and closest relatives – and agreeing – to wear clothes that they normally wouldn’t be caught dead in. Yep, it’s marriage season, and this means that you, the friends and relatives of those who are about to join the world of nuptial bliss, are probably getting some of those lovely invitations in the mail. You know the ones – they come in two envelopes and have that ridiculous translucent paper in them, and took an awfully long time to stuff.

Yes, that’s nice, you’re saying. So what? I got this invitation to my best friend’s sister’s wedding and I’m gonna go. Might be an amusing way to kill a Saturday afternoon, ya know?

See, we just sent out the invitations for our wedding, and so far, the folks on the invitee list seem to all be (for the most part) really good at this etiquette stuff. However, since I’m a bride myself and I’ve been hearing / reading all the horror stories for years and years with all my friends and relations, I have a bit of sympathy for all those women out there who are – like me – currently waist-deep in flowers, seating arrangements, musical interludes, frantic searches for just the right shade of paper napkin, and really ugly unity candles.

So to make sure that all the other brides out there have one less reason for that nervous breakdown prior to the wedding, let’s drag out our handy dandy etiquette book and see what they have to say about you, the wedding guest. Trot down to your local library and search for Emily Post (because, like it or not, I’m not making any of this up), or you can just take my word for it. Up to you. But anyway, where was I?

Oh yes, the invitation. It came, you opened it up, you either gagged over the cherubic little ‘Precious Moment’s bride and groom done in pastel shiny ink, went cross-eyed trying to read the print, or double-checked the names until you remembered just who the heck these people are. And then you marked the date down in your calendar and you figured out a day to head out and get the happy couple some lovely gift, and you assumed you were all set, right?

Sorry. Nope. You’re not all set until you take that cute little envelope that was inside the invitation – you know, the one on top of that ridiculous little scrap of vellum – and you send it back.

See, the bride and/or her mom didn’t stuff that little thing in there just for fun. It really serves a purpose – and the importance of that tiny little card and envelope hinges on two things: numbers and food. Yes, that’s right. They’ve got to figure out how much food to tell the caterer to make, so that everyone gets their fair share of pastel-dyed mashed potatoes, wilted spinach salad, and, of course, the cake, and then numbers are important because fire marshals tend to get upset when you try to put too many people into a reception hall without a special permit.

And yes, even if you’re not coming, you still need to send it in. C’mon, it’s already stamped and everything. All you have to do is find a pen (well, okay, for some of us that can be a challenge, I’ll admit), check the ‘regrets’ or ‘accepts’ box, write down the names if you intend to go, seal it up, and toss it into the nearest mailbox. See? Piece of cake.

Oh yeah. I said ‘write down the names’, didn’t I. Better clarify that.

Take a look at that invitation. Chances are it came in two envelopes. The outer one had your mailing address, and if you’re lucky, some charming little embossed dove on the outer seal. The inner one is the important one here, so if you were thinking of tossing it, think again. It’s important because that’s the one that says *who* is invited.

Yes, I said ‘who’. Just because you single people out there got invited to a wedding, it doesn’t mean you necessarily get to bring a date. If they intended for you to bring someone, they’ll have either written his or her name down underneath yours, or written ‘and one guest’. If your name shows up all by itself, then – you guessed it – you’re expected to show up all by yourself. If you truly can’t bear the thought of attending without your precious snookiewookums in tow, then call the bride and ask – politely – if it’s alright. But don’t get offended if she says no, and for pete’s sake, don’t just assume it’s okay to bring him or her along anyway!. Chances are likely that she’s already had to whittle down the guest list and exclude lots of other people she, the groom, or their parents really wanted to come.

Oh, and a special note for those of you with kids. Look closely at that inner envelope and then count the names. Wife….husband….oops? No kids? Must have been an oversight, right? Guess again. If they wanted to invite your children, the names of the little dears would have been listed right there underneath yours and your spouse’s. So if those names only include just the two of you, then either your little angels get to stay home all by themselves, or else it’s time to refresh your memory on just what kind of exorbitant rate that baby sitter of yours is charging you these days.

‘But it’s not right to exclude the kids,’ you complain. Or ‘you can’t expect me to show up alone, can you?’ Here’s a news flash for you. Weddings Cost Money. Weddings are not public parties where anyone gets to come. They are private, invitation-only events, and the people throwing them have every right to invite or not invite anyone they so please. Remember what I said about whittling down the guest list? Your kids may not have been invited, or you may have been asked to come alone so that they’d have room to be able to invite the groom’s favorite Great-Aunt Flo. Yes, it’s ‘just one person’, for you, but when 20 people show up with their ‘just one person’, or ten people show up with their children in tow, it changes fairly rapidly from ‘just one person’ to a wedding coordinator’s worst catering and seating nightmare.

So go easy on them this summer, okay? Send in your RSVP, show up with only the people you were asked to bring, pity the bridesmaids and their apparel silently, be ready to hand an extra tissue to your seat-neighbor when that particularly mushy bit of poetry is read during the ceremony, and above all, be polite, and be nice. That’s really what that whole etiquette thing is all about, anyway.

I saw my veil today – or what will be my veil. Between the two of us, the seamstress and I twisted and tacked my hair to my head and then she added the material, and I looked in the mirror. It was lopsided and lumpy, and it was hard to tell because we were laughing, and the lace isn’t completely on yet (which seems to be the bane of the seamstress’ assistant), but it’s going to look lovely.

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There are ants in the house, everywhere. They’re not swarming – well, mostly they’re not (we just won’t mention the state of the kitchen garbage yesterday morning) – they’re just *there*. Every time I look down, I see at least one or two or so of the little creatures.

In our old house, all it took was a liberal sprinkling of diazenon crystals around the house and no more ants. In this house, I’m starting to realize it’s going to take a lot more than that. I think this wonderful raised foundation that’s so nice on the cooling budget is likely to be our downfall with the bugs. I’m loathe to call someone out here and spray, but if they don’t clear up, we may just have to.

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Looks like I won’t have to be as completely bored for the next five weeks as I’d feared. I managed to get myself signed up for a technical training course last week of June and first week of July. This means I’ll be living in corporate apartments for two weeks, and stuck in a room full of other techno-nerds who were just as bored as I have been (the only time we ever get to sign up for training is when we’re on the bench), and this may make the Fourth of July interesting, since I am not willing to give up that holiday just for this class, but at least it’ll kill the time.

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Yesterday, Richard sat at his computer and gleefully read off descriptions of things one can download for the Palm Pilot. Under the ‘religion’ category, there’s apparently a nifty little program to track…well…the rhythm method. I can only assume it’s under religion because this is the only form of birth control certain sects of Christianity are allowed to practice, but….um…gee. This is *just* what I got *my* Palm Pilot for, ya know?

And then there’s other such gems, like the pocket Karma Sutra (sorry, folks – no pictures; just descriptions involving phrases like ‘love juice’, and how can you pass up on *anything* that refers to ‘love juice’, I ask you?), the pocket monkey pal (which promises such fascinating delights for the little creature like how it flings feces, and you can control it using ‘mild electric shocks’), and then of course there’s the Hell Clock, described as ‘just like any other clock except it’s EVIL’. I can only imagine this little watch face that displays on your Palm and ticks menacingly.

There are people out there with entirely too much time on their hands. Of course, then it occurs to me that I’ve now got nearly five weeks of idle time myself.

Hmmm….

I go to work at 8am each morning, same as before, but now it is different. Now I can be a bit lazier in the morning – taking extra time to get dressed; talking myself into getting on that treadmill and exercising; giving the cats the attention they demand. Now it only takes me fifteen minutes to drive to work instead of nearly an hour, and there is no traffic, no stress, and the only wait is in the line at the Starbucks where I’ve gone nearly every morning since the project ended to get my latte and cinnamon chip scone.

Instead of leaving at 5 or 6 or sometimes even later in the evening because someone decided to schedule a meeting or a conference call or needed some report by tomorrow first thing, and getting home as the sun is setting, I leave work at 4pm sharp. I wear shorts and cute little tops to work, and kick off my shoes and lounge at my desk, barefoot.

I tune my computer in to random 80’s radio stations in other states and play it quietly, or else I listen to downloaded seminars and pre-recorded webcasts. I aimlessly surf through the convoluted pages of the Big Fish’s training sites, searching for something – anything – that I can sign up for and learn and do. Eager as I was get this time on the bench; now I am starting to wonder just how I can possibly fill the days ahead. There simply aren’t enough online sessions offered over the next six weeks to keep me occupied, and onsite training is often difficult to come by – the consequence of 25 consultants rolling off what was supposed to be my company’s largest project for this piece of software, and all of us searching hopefully for classes to take.

I have little nibbles from here; emails from there hinting possible escape routes from consulting. I try not to get too hopeful – these sort of things have been presented to me before, only to be snatched away just when I was starting to dream they’d be true – but it is hard not to wish when what I want so badly seems to hang there, just barely out of my reach.

There have been a few scattered emails from others on the project – employees of the customer for whom we were working as well as other consultants. A number of the independent contractors crowded around us on Tuesday of last week as we all packed up our things and deleted any personal files and uninstalled instant message programs from the PC’s we’d been assigned. They asked nervously if I’d act as a reference for them, and I was only too glad to pass out contact information. With few exceptions, the group of developers we worked with over these past eighteen months were marvelous, and if giving them a good reference for another position is the least I can do to thank them, then so be it.

The office at which I will be lurking these next six weeks is quiet. My office roommate is only here two days a week, and while I love chatting and laughing with her while she’s here, I’m also relishing in the quiet.

With everything else that is going on right now, I’m grateful to have my job subside into something as stress-less and easy as simply getting to *learn* things. And for now, at least, I am doing my best to avoid thinking about what will happen when those six weeks are over and I am faced with a return to the hectic life I only recently was able to escape.

We went to an energy fair yesterday. It wasn’t all that exciting, and since it was put on by SMUD, and we’re outside SMUD’s range (lucky us – we’ve got our choice between PG&E or nuthin’), the information was naturally geared toward all the greenergy programs SMUD’s pushing. But it was still at least a place to pick up a few fliers and some freebies, and to take advantage of a whole page of coupons for those oh-so-cool compact fluorescent light bulbs you can use in all your regular light fixtures – the type which usually cost an arm and a leg but last forever so you tell yourself they’re worth it while you wince your way through the checkout line.

I’ll admit here that we did have good intentions when we moved into this house of sticking those energy-saving little puppies into every light we installed (and trust me – we installed one heck of a lot of lights. I know this because we had to *buy* all those lights at the same time, and when you are dragging two carts overflowing with boxes of light fixtures through a very crowded do-it-yourself store, you get a really good idea of just how many of those little suckers you’re going to have installed in your brand new home). But after looking at the sheer number of light bulbs required, we copped out and filled up a few grocery sacks with the plain old ordinary incandescants. We rationalized this by thinking that those fluorescent ones are too expensive to be left to folks who might accidentally break them as they’re installing them – not, mind you, that they’d have any more or less clumsiness than we would, but it felt noble at the time. Besides, the whole point of buying all these compact fluorescent bulbs is so that when the energy-sucking ones in place finally fizzle out, we can replace them one at a time, and not have to feel like we’re blowing one month’s salary just to illuminate our house.

But anyway. I was getting somewhere here, really I was. While we were sitting through what turned out to be a fairly useless presentation on SMUD’s solar panel program (useless – I will note – only because we can’t take advantage of it, due to the aforementioned PG&E monopoly in our area), I heard my name being cleverly distorted over the loudspeaker, and trotted off through the throngs to collect my drawing prize of a gift certificate to a hardware store chain for which there are absolutely no stores close to where we live. This was still a pretty exciting thing, and as it turned out, the place we went to take advantage of all the inexpensive fluorescents happened to be a booth from that very hardware store, and they just happened to have some sale ads on the table, and we just happened to pick one up and flip through it, and saw this thing Richard and I have been drooling over for months now, and not only was it 50% off, but with it’s sale price, my lovely new gift certificate would cover it and leave us with a few extra coins in change besides.

So off we scurried to the nearest store (about half a mile away, luckily), and persuaded a fairly reluctant sales clerk to go find the very last one which was in a long and heavy box which had definitely seen better days, and wasn’t helped by the fact that since it was in such poor condition, I insisted we open it up and make sure all the parts and hardware were there.

Then we drove home with our prize (after taking care of the remaining change by delving into their ice cream freezer and snarfing down some yummy goodness-on-a-stick) and proceeded to spend the next hour or three contorting ourselves into odd positions, strewing little piles of screws and bolts and nuts and other little paraphenelia all over our front porch, and putting together our brand new toy.

But it was all worth it! We are now the proud owners of our very own glider porch swing with end tables (an accessory which had to be mentioned at least several dozen times in the hardware store between Richard and my Dad. I’m not exactly sure why, but they seemed to find great humor in it. Go figure.), which fits perfectly onto our lovely porch. Last night we both carried our paper journals outside and curled into the bench (a bench which took much longer to put together than you’d think. Trust me on this). This morning, we carried coffee outside and sat on the porch til the sun drove us back in, and this afternoon, Richard has already been happily ensconced outside on the bench for several hours again, basking in the breezes and birdsong.

(Oh, and as a side note, I thought it worth mentioning that, despite this fair being hosted by SMUD, PG&E had a small booth there. There were three people behind that table, all looking more than a bit beleaguered and stressed and probably all wishing they’d never signed up for this in the first place, because it was obvious that we were not the only ones asking them why it was that *their* utility company didn’t have any of these really awesome greenergy programs.)

As the wedding gets closer and closer, invariably the first question people ask me when they see me is ‘How are the wedding plans going?’ And my answer, lately, is “Not too bad. My mom and I are managing to keep things down to only one small panic per week.”

They think I’m kidding, of course, but I’m not. So far we’ve had to deal with:

• Delayed printing for invitations
• Disappearing seamstresses
• Dance troupes that never respond to email
• Miscommunication on bridal showers and bachelorette parties and timing of such
• Bridal party members who live too far away so getting them fitted now becomes an exercise in miracles
• Rotating photographers

Well, you get the picture.

The good news is that, so far, each and every catastrophe has been dealt with in a satisfactory manner. But while it’s going on, both my mom and I are tense, and my dad and Richard are stuck in the middle. Richard gets to listen to me whine or rant or whatever mode is appropriate for that weeks’ wedding-related fiasco, usually with a slightly befuddled expression on his face and an offer of assistance. The only thing he can do, of course, is just to listen and let me get it all out – something he does admirably – and reassure me that it will all work out somehow.

There’s only six more weeks til the wedding. My mom and I really don’t want to know what else is going to crop up. It doesn’t seem like a very long time until you look at it in terms of minor catastrophes., but my mother tends to be queen of worst case scenarios and there are times lately, with the most recent crisises, that it’s gettting harder and harder to bite my tongue.

Things will all work themselves out somehow. I just have to keep reminding myself, and my Mom, of that.

Allegra and I are competing for the mousepad. When I move my hand away, she oh-so-slowly stretches out so that she is completely on it, pushing the mouse off in the process. I, in turn, gently shove her across my desk just the few inches necessary to reach the mouse and be able to use it, and she stays there, pretending indifference until my hand is removed, and then the whole dance begins again.

I’m not complaining though. At least she’s on the desk, which means I can type easily enough, instead of her usual perch – my lap. When she is on my lap, if I do not keep my legs perfectly level, she will dig in with claws, trying to hold on. Don’t even suggest simply pushing her off. She doesn’t take no for an answer, and will continue to jump back on with that soft little trill of hers until I admit defeat.

It’s odd to be home this early in the day – a sort of unexpected vacation. I’m home, however, because at 8am this morning, the axe fell and the project on which so many of us have spent over a year of our lives was suddenly and immediately cancelled. The newest management team finally got a harder slap of reality than they were expecting, and as the crowd of us stood around the phone in silence, they made their decision. Most of the lower levels of management didn’t even know this was going to happen, but despite the suddenness of the decision, it came as very little surprise. This project has spiraled through too many cycles of the same problems – inability by higher management to make decisions, effectively manage scope, or even grasp the true depth of the task we were given. So in a way, this has sort of an amusing twist. They finally made a decision they’ll have to stick with. There’s no backtracking on this one; no hasty last-minute discussions to ultimately reverse it. It’s done. It’s over.

I am a consultant, and thus shielded from the true impact of this decision. Those of us in my shoes will simply be placed on other projects by our own managers – this is the nature of the job. You win some; you lose some, and you simply go on to the next one without looking back. It may sound callous, but it’s better this way. Consultants cannot afford to get too emotionally involved (whether we do or not is entirely up to each one of us). I feel for the actual employees though – the ones who stuck it out through the mandatory pay cut and the long hours and missed vacations, only to stand around a conference phone and be told that most (not even all, just most) of them should hopefully be absorbed into other projects and positions around the company, but that even the managers who were speaking didn’t know exactly how this would take place.

I’ll go back tomorrow to see what is left to do. There are rumors that some of us consultants may be asked to stay a bit longer to help shut things down. I do not doubt that there will be some sort of effort to wrap up the code in tidy packages and store it away in neatly labeled boxes on a shelf somewhere, where it will gather dust and never, ever be used. Even those who will request this will understand the true futility of the effort, but ‘business’ demands that this kind of thing be done. It is its way, and always will be.

And after that, the window of opportunity opens wonderfully wide. I am forced to rearrange plans a few months earlier, and am actually beginning to gather a bit of excitement over the concept of finally being done with this – being able to relax at my own office and take advantage of all the free training that the Big Fish offers to those consultants unlucky enough to be on the bench. Because of the timing, I have already made it clear I will not take any new project that might require me to travel between now and the wedding (less than seven weeks away!), but the reality is that I will not take any new project at all. As I spoke with my manager, I was already announcing my availability on a few job sites. Nothing may come of it, but there is now no better time to try.

I will not bemoan what is lost. I hoped for the project to succeed, even when it seemed that nothing could possibly save it. My only regret is that this had to happen at the time when it seemed that we were finally going to actually do it right. And it is always hard to leave things unfinished, despite what relief there may be that it is ended, one way or the other.

I’ve been counting down the days til Richard came home. One week, and then three days, and then it was tomorrow, and then it was finally today – Sunday – and the counting turned from days to hours til I could leave the house. I tracked the flight online, heaving a relieved sigh when I saw it had arrived safely in Washington DC (apparently he took my mother’s admonitions of no ocean crashes seriously). I pondered how long I should give myself to get to the airport in San Francisco, calculating approximate traffic density, actual distance, and the time it would take for me to find a place to park, and then find the gate.

As it turned out, I showed up with plenty of time – time enough to sit for a bit at the International gate, and then finally catch a clue and figure out that since the plane made a stop-over in Washington, it no longer classified as an International flight, and I needed to hoof it down to the absolute other end of the terminal if I was going to actually meet him when he came off the plane. I should have expected this, considering that I dressed up nicer and chose to wear heels, thinking I wouldn’t be doing much walking. Silly me.

There was an incredible glare at the end of the terminal from the sun shining right through the windows, and I could barely see anything, but I found the gate. A little crowd of us started to gather around the path where they would disembark, and when the door opened, I wasn’t the only one who leaned forward, straining to see down the jetway to find that familiar face.

He walked off the plane looking tired but happy, straight into my open arms. I held him tight for a moment, glad to finally have him with me again, and then dutifully pulled out the phone and called both sets of parents to report his arrival safe and sound to the San Francisco airport. We drove home, both of us talking back and forth, filling each other in on little tidbits of things we’d never managed to say in the emails and phone conversations with which we’ve communicated this past month during his absence.

Getting ready for work this morning, he picked up his keys from the table. Rosemary and Azrael materialized by his side, drawn by the familiar jingle. A month away, and yet they still remember that the sound of his keys is quite often accompanied by that fascinating red dot which dances all over the floor. I’d not touched his little laser pointer the entire time he was gone, but still they remembered. It’s one of their favorite toys, after all, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, but still, sometimes it amazes me what cats keep in their heads.

If Collab – June: If you had all the money you would ever need… and more, what would you do with your life? What would be your motivation to get out of bed everyday?

I once told Richard that he needed to get a job that paid him twice as much so I could quit working and be a stay at home cat mom. Not, mind you, that I was serious – we’ve got our plans, and they require both of us to work full-time for at least another decade or two if we’re going to retire as early as we want.

Still, the thought crops up in my head every once in a while – how nice it would be to not have to go to work. It doesn’t matter how much I might like my job (and despite the occasional whining about both my own company and the project I’m on, I really do honestly like my job) – if I didn’t need the money, I’d quit in a heartbeat.

I’m not the type of person who can be idle. Oh, granted I can sit on my rear a few days and be absolutely completely lazy, but by the end of the second day I start to get antsy, and by the end of the third I’m more than likely to either be puttering around, cleaning something, organizing a room, or pestering a friend to go out and do something – anything – with me.

What I wish for most of all, is simply to have *time*. If we somehow won the lottery (a phenomenon which would be pretty much impossible, considering we don’t even play, but bear with me here) and woke up tomorrow knowing that we had enough money to do whatever we wanted, oh, what things I would do! The possibilities are endless, and I’m not sure that even if I wasn’t working for a wage, I would have enough time to do them all.

If I had time, I would take classes. I would learn to quilt, and to make paper, and how to create fantastic animals from your common every day green leafy bush. I would take Tae Kwon Do, and join a Master’s swimming class to see if I might finally be able to get the hang of that whole butterfly stroke thing that’s stumped me for years. I would volunteer for literacy programs, sign up to tutor elementary kids in math, and show up to read stories at the local library. I would bake – hearty, comforting, healthy meals – all the recipes I ever wanted to try but never have time for now. I would garden, expanding it every year until it took over half our backyard – melons and peppers and green beans – and then I would can them with my mom, lining walls in the garage with glass Bell jars of jams and jellies and vegetables only hours from the vine.

I would travel. I would take trips down jungle rivers and learn how to identify all the birds in Africa. I would climb the pyramids in Egypt and learn how to speak French by living in Paris for months and soaking up the culture. I would finally figure out how to work all those tricky little gadgets on fancy cameras and put aside my ‘point and shoot dummy’ version for good. I would go to Rome and pay someone to teach me how to draw, and then give the poor artist extra money when he failed because I know better anyway.

I would attend catholic masses in Europe just to listen to the sounds of latin echo in the stone cathedrals, and slip into tiny gospel churches in the southern United States to join in the praise singing. I would humbly request permission to enter mosques and temples and synagogues to listen and feel and perhaps finally figure out what this faith thing is that so many people have and I’ve never found.

If I had all the money I ever needed, what would be my motivation for getting out of bed every day? Heck, if I had the *chance* to do even half of what I wanted to do if only I had the time, I’m not sure I’d even have time to sleep in the first place?

Richard called me this morning to wish me a happy birthday, and to tell me that he was going to stay in Stratford-Upon-Avon another day, resulting in him only getting to spend one day in London. I think he was looking for pity; unfortunately he didn’t get it because the reasons for his staying (as you’ve already determined if you followed that link) were based solely around the fact that he’s getting the unique opportunity to see Shakespeare performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Luckily, everyone I’ve told about this agrees that he deserves no pity. Poor man. Mmm hmm.

But it was still a lovely way to wake up – a phone call from the man I love – and a reminder that he’ll be coming home in less than a week (I’m very much looking forward to Sunday for that very reason!). He’d sent me a hand-knit wool sweater from the Aran Islands in Ireland so now I have yet another reason (aside from the rather obvious one of the simple fact that I truly despise this hot weather) to wish for winter to come early this year.

Gifts have trickled in throughout the day – wonderfully lovely and thoughtful gifts – accompanied by emails, e-cards, phone calls, and wishes in person. In amusingly typical fashion for this project, my coworkers very sweetly bought me a birthday cake, and then we had to go scrounging for something with which to cut it. I doled out slivers of cake on an assortment of plates, napkins, and anything else we could find on which to put it. The development team did *not* sing the birthday song for me this time – a fact which I am particularly grateful for because, while they’re the nicest bunch of guys I’ve had the opportunity to work with, singing is simply not their forte, and as we’ve been on this project now for a year and a half, I’ve winced my way through that song more than a few times.

D and I made plans to meet for our usual birthday meal this Saturday. She and I share the same month for our birthdays, and years ago, we gave up trying to second guess what the other wanted. At first, we would simply go out together and buy something for ourselves at the same time…that eventually dissolved into simply meeting for lunch or dinner and having a fun time out. We’ve been the best of friends for about 13 years now, close enough to the point where we refer to each other’s mothers as ‘mom’, and finish each other sentences, but birthdays have always managed to confound us. Our tastes (aside from the unabiding addiction to all things feline) have always been undeniably different, and so it was with mutual relief that we finally hit upon the dinner idea.

The day ended beautifully – a birthday dinner with most of my family. My little nearly-three-year-old nephew was quite excited about the entire concept of birthday cake and presents, and kept chattering about it all through the meal. I asked him to help me unwrap – more for self-preservation and amusement than because I needed any help – and he happily tore paper and pulled ribbons when I asked him to. He wasn’t much impressed by the gifts I received, but then adults don’t often get stuff that’s all that exciting to three-year-olds. I offered to let him help me blow out the candles as well, but he told me ‘no’ quite soberly, insisting that I had to do it alone.

A duet with piano and organ, my father proposes. Even as I inwardly wonder why on earth I am doing this, I have agreed to it. I have one week to get ready. I will have to practice, probably every night. I get home from work late enough as it is – now I must throw in a trip to my parents house, since practicing requires an instrument, and it’s been far too many years since I had free access to a piano.

He hands me the music to look at and I give it a quick glance. Only two sharps and nothing too scary, it seems. I sit down at the piano, hunched over the keys, peering at the music. My fingers curl and stretch clumsily into patterns nearly forgotten. I fumble through the music, inwardly wincing – my fingers may be rusty in the skill but my ears are still sharp enough to hear and recognize each mistake. I resort to tricks learned long ago – play half the chord, not all. Counting under my breath, one foot on the pedal, slowly finding my confidence again.

He sits down next to me and I scoot over to the left. We both spread out our music and he counts off a measure and we start; his fingers flying over the keys as if there is no effort; mine still searching for the right notes. We start and stop a half dozen times but make it through. The music comes, haltingly at first but then with more surety.

We have done this in the past, he and I, beginning when I was too young for my feet to reach the pedals. He taught me the keys and the time signatures and the music, and awed me with his own ability. He can pick up a piece of music and play it cold. I did not inherit this talent from him. I am still in awe of it – his strong sure fingers drawing music from the keyboard, changing key signatures, adding in harmonies and descants. I can do simple arrangements from a tune, painstakingly creating harmonies only if I write them down first. He can compose music.

It is not the same, playing with my father, as it is with my sister. Older than me, she got that knack of sight-reading, and so we would pull out the duet books and I’d take the lower part, knowing it was going to be a bit simpler for me to muddle through. Sometimes we would sing in silly voices, sway back and forth on the piano bench in time to the music, collapse in giggles. With my father, it is somehow more serious. My sister and I are closer in skill – he is far beyond, and I find myself wanting to prove myself – show him that I can do it.

My family gathered around the piano, one or two of us on the keys, while the others sang or accompanied on any other instrument we happened to be playing at the time. Growing up I didn’t know this was anything but ordinary. Now I know how odd it seems to everyone else, and yet it is something I still look forward to when we are all together. My nephew is learning the tradition, and when my niece visits, she will learn it too.

My fingers, given the taste of the keyboard again, itch to play, and it only makes me miss having a piano even more. Music is a bond between the members of my family just as strong as blood, and how can I refuse?