At the end of last week, I had some visitors. My parents decided to receive a debrief of my Slovenia trip in person, which I duly provided in the evenings after my workdays concluded. And while I still haven’t replaced the sheets on the guest bed, they are washed and everything is otherwise back to normal in my house. Whenever they come, I share a new restaurant or two with them. While the fact that I’ve lived here for several years now means there is a shrinking list of new places to take them, we did visit two on this trip. Both lean Italian, one focusing on handmade pastas and the other on pizzas. Both are also downtown institutions and went over well. Perhaps the only complaint was that we ordered too much at the pasta place; oh well, I ate all of mine.

Sunday was a bit crazy. After church, I drove to Charlotte for a baby shower. Then I drove home afterwards. The math is a little wince-inducing, four and a half hours on the road and only about two hours at the destination. I haven’t been to that many baby showers in my life, and will probably keep it that way, but this one was worth attending. The couple live in Atlanta and this was a rare chance to see them, especially as their world is about to change in a big and wonderful way. They were gone when I visited Atlanta a few months ago for the world cup semifinal so I grabbed this opportunity instead. The day was also a reminder if I needed one that I don’t ever want to have a lengthy commute again as that was way too much time in the car. It was a good thing I had the holiday on Monday to get myself mentally prepared for this shortened workweek. Now onto the rest of September and transitioning back into more sustained normal rhythms.