So yesterday I was a mess. I felt horrible and irritable, and when I talked to Geoff I was hateful and grumpy. So much for pre-wedding bliss, I thought, as I crouched on my hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor and the baseboards with a sponge, and felt sorry for myself.

It was mostly hormonal, the overwhelming irritability that I felt yesterday, and yet telling myself that there was a biological reason for the horrible way I felt didn't do much to relieve the horrible-ness (horritability?).

But then what happened is that after I yelled at Geoff for not having done as much wedding stuff as I've done (and while I was yelling, I knew that I was just mad without having any real reason for it), he sent me a profusely apologetic email, which made me cry. ("I love you like crazy. Thank you for marrying me," he said. How could I not?)

And that was the end of the irritability. I was just me again, a little sadder and a little more tired, but without the hostility that had been with me earlier in the day.

I picked him up from work, and we went to Target and Office Max and Home Depot, and while we were in Target, my brother Josh called my cell phone and told me that he was in Philadelphia, on his way back toward Chicago after leaving Amsterdam yesterday morning, and could he stay with us when he arrived. Of course he could. Then we went to O'Hare to pick up Geoff's sister Stephanie, and then we went to a Red Lobster out by the airport so that we would be out there when Josh called, if his flight got in any time soon. (Stephanie had the Ultimate Feast. She also had a strawberry daiquiri. I think the Red Lobster trip was a success, if not one that will be repeated any time soon.) Just as we were finishing dinner, Josh called from O'Hare, so we went back to get him, and then there he was, my little brother, standing at the airport with a huge backpack on his back and more bags at his feet, and we pulled over to get him, and he smiled at us.

I am so glad to have him here.

And Stephanie, too - after we picked up Josh, I drove us downtown (so we could look at the nightscape) and then back up to our apartment on Lake Shore Drive, and Stephanie oohed and ahhed over everything, or at least everything that she's heard about in commercials shown in Canada for places that don't exist anywhere near her. ("Ooh, Bally's!" "TARGET!!!" "Outback, I think I've heard of that!" "What about Krispy Kreme, do you have that?") We all laughed, and the car was full of that warm feeling that you have on holidays, when you're with these people that you love way more than how often you see them would seem to indicate, and you are all laughing and tired and happy to be together. We got home, and it was the same way. Josh made us citronella tea with citronella leaves that he brought back from Italy, and he presented us with a bottle of olive oil made from olives that Josh had helped to pick not more than three weeks ago, and we all padded around the apartment and got ready for bed in a step by step way. PJ's. Brushing teeth. Blankets for the guest bed and couch. Let the dog out. Stephanie gave us a card for the bride and groom in which she'd written, among other things, "I love you both and I love you together." She said she had cried when she wrote it, and I started to cry reading it.

After Stephanie was in bed, and after I got Josh settled in on the couch, I went into our bedroom and got in bed with Geoff (and Molly).

I stretched out and scooted down under the covers. "They're funny," I said. "I like them."

"Yeah, it feels good having them here," Geoff said.

And it really does.

I had thought that once people started to arrive, I would feel even more anxious about anything that still needed to get done, and even more stressed about how little time was left to do it in. Instead, I just feel grateful that they're here, and that they're such nice people, and that they came here to see us get married, and that they love us.

Everything's going to be wonderful.