The summer, for me, officially began on June 8, with the arrival of our first guest. I called Kate our “intern.” Unfortunately, however, she was not actually my intern (though I’ve often thought that I could use one), but rather the daughter of a friend, interning for the summer at a Washington, D.C., publication. The two-hour commute from our house to the D.C. office where she worked was apparently offset by the joys of spending her free hours (which were not many) with our family. On our part, it was easy to agree to her spending the summer in our guest room. We’ve known her family for years, and Johanna has spent more time at their house than you can shake a stick at (though why you would want to, I have no idea). If there is anyone to whom we owe room and board, it is a member of that family. Plus, the logistics junkie in me got a thrill out of figuring out possible routes for her to take to work. Unfortunately, after the first few days, she was fine on her own.
Jacob arrived next. A friend of Luc’s from home (yes, I still think of Cincinnati as home), he came to hang out for a week. In a burst of planning genius, I signed up the boys to help at Vacation Bible School, which meant they had to arise at 7 each morning. That didn’t convince them to go to bed early, but it did keep them from staying up all night. The day after Jacob’s family came to pick him up, we left for Michigan. After a week cluttering up someone else’s house, we picked up our next guests, a teenaged brother and sister from France who were going to spend three weeks with us, practicing their English. Again, we were eager to host Gaspard and Celeste; from almost the moment we set foot on American soil, Johanna had been fretting that she would lose her French. So when a man from church suggested that we connect with his friend in France and work out an exchange, it seemed like an answer to prayer (someone’s prayers, anyway). We sent Luc off to Indiana (forever his consolation prize for missing out on the international trips -- it’s a good thing someone in the family is a good sport). That left us with five teenagers and two adults, which wasn’t great odds, but we had almost all the car keys.
We were driving the gang to Pizza Palace when Eric saw the email from one of our pastors. It was addressed to all Towson residents in the church, and sought accommodations for two university students from Iran who needed a place to stay. Although we live only a mile from Towson University, we decided not to respond to the email right away. Our house was already pretty full, the length of stay by the students was indeterminate, and we only have two showers, which are kept fairly busy by even our own family of five. We told ourselves that someone else probably had a better setup. After a week during which visions of our large finished basement kept popping unbidden into my mind, we sent a tentative email, merely inquiring whether suitable housing had been found. No. Did we have an idea? Well, not really an idea, but a basement . . . . Within a week, the basement was a dorm room.
The day that Parham and Ali moved in, Drew, Jo, Gaspard, and Celeste left for France. Luc had returned a few days earlier, which gave us two masters-degree students from Iran, one college student from Ohio, our own son, and us. In the quiet of the house with four of the teens gone, I appreciated having Ali and Parham around. They weren’t exactly boisterous, but it was nice to run into them in the kitchen, where they prepared chicken and rice about four times a day. I was impressed with their cooking -- and eating -- skills.
Three weeks later, Ali moved into an apartment, Kate returned to Cincinnati, and Drew and Johanna came home. I think we are now stable for a while at three teens, two parents, and one graduate student. I have been able to use the fact that I’m teaching a few classes this semester as an excuse to sign everyone up to cook a meal each week. We have been eating meals I never would have thought of on my own. Last week, we had shrimp, crab, and pineapple kebabs on Monday (Lucas), potato blinis and sweet crepes on Tuesday (Jo), and a Persian beef and celery stew on Wednesday (Parham). Drew plans to cook mac and cheese tomorrow, which I rubber-stamped because Eric is in New York and I have a dinner meeting.
And to think that my biggest complaint as I started the summer was loneliness.
