I call it ‘my wife is coming home from Alaska.’  She has been up there for two weeks.  It’s really good for her; she is Alaskan, and loves her home state like I do my own (Kansas).  It is also good for our relatives up there, who benefit a lot from seeing her (one niece has a new baby and is overwhelmed, and Deb rocks in those situations).  Meanwhile, I have been doing good things down here, not just writing and editing; one of the chiefest being the Cleansing of the Homestead, a polite term for ‘picking up all the crap my nephew and I just didn’t bother messing with, doing laundry, dishes, and otherwise covering up the evidence of two weeks of exclusively male habitation.’  Needless to say, the nephew Will Be Dragooned into doing his share, and being the nephew he will be assigned the tasks I like least.  But humanely.