Tomorrow my parents come to town! I'm looking forward to seeing them, as, being who we are--that is, a pretty low-maintenance family--it's been a while.

I know a lot of people who talk with their families once a month, once a week, even once a day--this I find pretty freaky--but our family (I'm an only kid) just isn't that way. I'm pretty sure we've gone for six-month stretches where we didn't phone or email. And not because we hate each other . . . it's just not really that big a deal, I guess. When we do visit, Mom does insist on taking some pictures, and we pose for them, of course, because hey, it's Mom, but really, Dad and I could care less. I mean, it's not that I dislike looking at these photos or anything . . . it's just that, as my Dad once said about these infrequent photo shoots, "Christ, I remember what we all look like anyway."

Which is also kind of funny, since he's a professional photographer. Me, I am absolutely as far from being a professional photographer as it gets. I would need exhaustive hours of training in order to even be called a barely adequate photographer. I have the magical ability to ruin any shot at all. I took one gorgeous picture in my life, and I have it framed: it is an early morning shot of a tower in Brugges--it's a study in grey, and in mist, and the Gothy tower stands in the hazy distance like a ghost of a building. It really is a wonderful photo, and never fails to evoke the memory of that magical vacation, especially where at the top of the photo I thoughtfully included part of my thumb.

Anyway! Family's coming for a short visit. I've already got tickets for a Friday baseball game, where we will be seated right off the third base line to watch the mighty Seattle Mariners do solemn battle with the fearsome Cleveland Indians. Which I assume will be a lot like watching an enactment of a Matthew Arnold poem: ignorant armies clashing by night.

But who cares? We'll be there at the ballpark (and I must admit that Safeco is a beaut), eating some dogs and drinking some beers--the game is nearly incidental to such an immersion in Americana. We will have a good time even if the woeful players on the field all suddenly decide to form a kickline and punch out a few numbers from Pippin. I'll be there with the wife, and Dad--a professional dog burglar (not at all like a cat burglar--any fool can steal a cat, for God's sake), and Mom, who, back in the Seventies was a hand model until a horrible thresher accident, but who then came back triumphantly as a popular wrist model. (She loses more damn watches . . .)

Oh, and I'm sure Mom will insist on a few photos, and Dad and I will roll our eyes, but then pose anyway, out of familial duty. And it's all for the best. Later on, I can pull out those shots with the wife and say, "Aw, remember that night? At the baseball game? What a great shot." And she'll reply, "Yeah. Look at your thumb there. It was a good night for your thumb."

Yeah. I sure hope so.