These Are The Times That Try Men's Souls

A long awaited guest is coming to stay today  until Saturday noon.  Since we have "depersonalized" our house for the  real estate market, the room we have for her contains nothing but a futon which will be removed directly upon her departure.  She can live with that.  Since we stupidly packed away almost all our cooking utensils for the depersonalization, making something pretentious and interesting in the kitchen is more or less beyond us, so we will go out to dinner both nights during her visit.  Fine.  But then the real estate agent drops the bombshell that because Sunday is Father's Day when everyone will be clustered around the barbeque in the backyard watching His Nibs demonstrate how important he truly is the running of the household, the open house this week will be on Saturday.  Luckily our friend is scheduled to leave on a ferry at noon on Saturday, so we will get her  out of the house  and on her way just in time.  But then, as it turns out, the agent calls again to say that someone must  see the house at nine on Saturday morning, no other option, so that means that the house cleaner must come in on Friday evening--very kind of her--and we must hide ourselves away Saturday morning early.  Okay, let's see Friday evening, the house cleaner arrives and works upstairs, and we sit downstairs making brilliant conversation, then we go out to the restaurant, and with luck return home and the cleaner has finished the downstairs.  Saturday morning, we pull ourselves together and go out to breakfast at nine, linger til we get the all clear sign from the agent.  It is supposed to rain, so there will be no diversion of walking on the beach or in the nearby conservation park.  There are no bookstores, or any commercial diversion like a mall.  None of us drinks which always provides enough blur to any social situation that you don't quite notice.  Martinis while the cleaner is vacuuming upstairs?  No big of a deal, as they say in California.  Mimosas for the Saturday morning breakfast? Best way to take the morning in stride.  None of this will be happening.  But luckily the friend is a very dear friend, talks as much as I do, and we, as they say, go way back, 1967 to be precise.  She has been through it all with me and my family.  So, I guess, and it is indeed true, we can just sit and stare at each other quietly.  She just called to say that she has come down with a cold, and was that going to be a problem.  That a problem?  Get real, dear.  Pneumonia is an old man's best friend, I told her.  Don't forget that.