I would write and fill you in on all the details of my trip to Tucson (you’ve been checking in regularly looking for them, right?), but I keep dozing off as I try to catch up on all my friends’ blogs. And it’s not because they’ve been writing about boring things.

Yesterday, Min (who is known to other people as something else) and I met up in the late afternoon and she drove me up into the Tucson Mountains and Saguoro National Monument West to see the cool trees and the vistas. I took a few photos, but was short on battery power, so we’ll have to see how they turned out. Then we went to a party. She has nice friends.

I got back to the hotel just before midnight and was in bed by one. And up again before five. And on the road half an hour later. I didn’t have to do any of the driving, but it’s still wearying.

And I deserve to be tired. It is, after all, 5 p.m. in Tucson.

So please tune in on Thursday when I promise to be awake and to reflect back further on my trip, Tucson, and Tusconites. Tusconians. Tucsoners. Yeah.

… if I wait until tomorrow morning to pack for my trip? My plane leaves at 10 a.m. from Baltimore. Do you think it will guarantee that I’ll oversleep?

The day started early. Our handyman arrived as I was buttering my toast and informed me that I’d need to clear out another third of the living room so he could finish putting down tile.

Since every surface in the house pretty much already had stuff on it, that left one spot — the bed (and the path from the bathroom to it. You now have to squeeze past our bureau, hop over the giant box that contains stuff from the desk, and hurdle a milk crate just to get to the bedroom. There you’ll be greeted by a bag that contains Christmas presents, half a dozen board games, the garbage bag box (that contains only one garbage bag), a manilla folder that may or may not contain Rudi’s political stuff, six loads of laundry that need to be washed, all our winter hats, gloves, and scarves, and a balance ball. Oh, and there’s a travel guitar resting near my head, a laptop on my lap, and piles of videos at my feet. Della, who enjoys sleeping on piles of clothes, finds it heavenly. I, who can sleep on clothes but who would prefer not to sleep on board games, do not.

And the handyman will be back at 9:30 in the morning.

As I just told my parents in the email I sent, it is still yesterday in the town in which I was born. So I think it’s fair if I retrodate this so it shows up an hour ago, back on the date when it should have appeared if I’d been a little more on top of things…

Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the day my folks wed. They got married under autumn trees on a hill in my grandparents’ yard, very near the spot where Josh and I would play on our swingset later on. Mum and Gramma made her dress. Great-Gramma crocheted the decorations onto it, hemmed the veil, and frosted the cake. Uncle David played his guitar. Dad’s brothers stood up with him. Mum’s high school friends preceded her down the aisle.

A lot of people of my generation have parents who aren’t together anymore or who can’t fully understand why their parents married in the first place. I’ve always been very lucky — my parents love each other and clearly are still in love with each other. They’ve never feared showing each other affection — much to Josh’s and my mortification during our teen years.

And while other couples seem to find being together in a whole house too confining, my parents managed to spend 14 years in a tiny efficiency and an even smaller car for 6 of every 7 days a week.

They rejoice in each other’s successes and seem to know instinctively when to nudge the other into action and when just to let them be.

Dad knows how Mum likes her coffee. Mum knows how Dad likes his eggs. He picks up books for her at the library. She picks up Oreos for him at the store. They hold hands when they walk down the driveway to get the paper.

I know that if Rudi and are even half as happy together another quarter century from now as my parents seem to be today, I will count myself lucky and blessed.

Happy anniversary, Mum and Dad! Congratulations on so many wonderful years together — and may even better ones lie ahead.

I arrived home tonight to find half of my living room floor gone. Since we didn’t have any warning our handyman was going to start indoor repairs today. (There’s a crack in the foundation, from the drain in our window well to someplace in the middle of our living room, which explains the flooding we arrived home to earlier this month.)

Poor cats! They really don’t know what to make of this. Jeremiah doesn’t like strangers, so he probably spent the afternoon cowering in the hallway closet. And even Posey and Della probably weren’t thrilled by two guys spending their afternoon in the Burrow without paying any attention to them. So now they’re all over the living room sniffing at the strange sub-floor smells.

So tonight’s task will be to move things out of the living room to someplace else in the Burrow. Since the living room is the majority of our space, that may be a challenge, but Rudi and I have tackled several in our day and will not be deterred by a mere lack of resources.

How did it get to be Thursday again already? Are we skipping several days — and if we are, are they during the weekend? Nonetheless, it’s never too soon to discuss the beautiful things in our lives. Three from the last week:

1. Yesterday, when Sarah and I were walking back to the office from lunch, I noticed a flock of pigeons flying in large arcs over the street. Because it was so sunny, their shadows appeared against the buildings, making it seem like the flock was twice as large as it was.

2. On Sunday, I wanted chocolate and instead of just eating the chips out of the bag, I decided to make cookies. For the past week, Mrs. Potts has been full and available for snacks and cravings and sharing with Rudi when he’s on the phone with his mom.

3. Rudi and I went through our clothes this weekend and took three big bags full to Goodwill. I hope the clothes find owners who like them and that we have continued luck paring down our lives.