The Onrushing D

My dear friend Dawson (AKA “D,” “D-Lite,” “Commander D”, “Vitamin D,” “The D-Fenestrator,” “Freelance Spiritual Adviser and Minister of War,” etc.) is visiting soon, for the first time in, what, 18 months? He’s arriving late Thursday (if the travel gods are kind) and staying with us for a week. It will be a week of awesome. For complex and boring issues related to the magazine production schedule at my day job, I can’t take any vacation days while he’s here, but I’m juggling my schedule around to maximize free time, aligning my usual days off into a glorious four-day run of freedom. I’m sure for portions of it I’ll even be sober.

D is our kid’s godfather (don’t worry, our kid also has a sciencefather), and the boy is very excited to see his “Uncle D” again. We’ve already promised River that D will read him Sandra Boynton’s Barnyard Dance and act out all the dance moves. (We haven’t told D this yet, but he’ll roll with it. He’s good like that.)

Dawson is the world’s greatest houseguest. (Well, I guess maybe there are houseguests who fill your cupboards with golden coins and delicious ham, leaving you fabulously wealthy and sated by pork during their visit? But other than such hypothetical houseguests, yeah, D is the best.) The house is actually *cleaner* when he leaves. He decreases entropy by his very existence. (Except the fun kinds of entropy.) It’s like: who needs a vacation, when D is visiting? His mere presence is a vacation.

Friends like that are a treasure to be treasured by any and all who treasure treasure.

(Anyway, if you don’t hear from me much in the next week, that’s why. I’ll be busy discussing the finer points of Stephen King trivia, watching D and my wife do Aikido in the yard, listening to my kid giggle uncontrollably, and stealing D’s french fries. Is there anything better than a friend who never finishes his fries?)