You remember the show Full House where there was a father with three daughters and his brother-in-law and his best friend all living in one house. That's six people! But we are going to exceed that soon. We will be higher than a full house, we'll be right up there with a straight flush.
We are entering Goldstein Chaos Weekend. This name is only one-third accurate, but I picked it because it sounds dramatic. There will be Goldsteins! Probably not so much chaos and it is only questionably fair to say weekend. But Goldstein Togetherness Multiple Days doesn't sound very exciting, right? I mean, if you had to choose between two books, one titled Goldstein Chaos Weekend and one called Goldstein Togetherness Multiple Days, which would you choose? I think only the tamest of readers would choose the latter.
My brother has a house. Also, he had three kids. Wrong verb tense. He still has three kids. Let's say it this way, his domicile housed three kids. At this point, those kids are grown (one in college, two beyond college) and not living in the house. But it is still capable of holding many people. And this coming week it will.
Already it has my brother, my mother, my father, and my aunt. By the way, in the interest of full and honest disclosure, I should say that my aunt is my mother's sister. So if you were to look at her driver's license you would complain, "Hey, she's not a Goldstein." You're right. Her surname is not now, and never has been, Goldstein. But that is a minor detail. She's family, so Goldstein Chaos Weekend does also encompass those without the last name Goldstein. It's a lot like how Yellowstone National Park has a lot of stones that aren't yellow. Nobody would throw all of those stones out, right?
But let me back up a bit. My brother's eldest is getting married. On Tuesday. (Already you can see how the "weekend" part of Goldstein Chaos Weekend is also a lie.) That's what's bringing in so many Goldsteins (and technically non-Goldsteins) at the same time to the same place.
Yesterday, I picked up my parents and my aunt at the Denver International Airport. They do not live in the same place and they did not come in on the same flight. But, in a burst of beautiful consideration, they all found flights that arrived within 30 minutes of each. At present, Alrica and I are housesitting for three English Bulldogs at a house not that far from the airport. So it was convenient for me to pick everyone up and then bring them to my brother's house.
This is an equilibrium in terms of numbers of people. He had three kids, now he has three guests. But it is not an equilibrium in terms of numbers of bedrooms. My parents are sharing a bedroom, so there is still one bedroom formerly used for a child available. That's convenient because the house sit that Alrica and I are doing ends tonight. Then we are going to my brother's house to occupy that last bedroom.
But wait, there's more! More, more, more Goldsteins. Tomorrow, my son is flying in from Oregon. If you feel a sudden trepidation, good for you. You've been keeping count. You're saying, "Hold on, Erich! Aren't all the bedrooms accounted for?" Yes, dear reader, they are. But my brother has set up an extra bed in an area of the house he can use as an office. But it won't be an office during Goldstein Chaos Weekend!
A natural question is "How many Goldsteins does it take to change a lightbulb?" That depends on the lightbulb. Let's not go there. The other natural question is "How many wonders can one cavern hold?" (Ariel asked this exact question in The Little Mermaid. But here, let's replace wonders with Goldsteins (and a non-Goldstein who counts anyway) and replace cavern with house. Well, we are going to test that during Goldstein Chaos Weekend. (Which will only have all of us from a Sunday through a Wednesday, which is not a weekend. But I already told you the title was a lie. Get over it.)
Sadly we won't get to push this to the absolute limit. There is one Goldstein we don't get to squeeze in. My daughter just landed in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. (If you are like me or most Americans, you've never heard of Dushanbe, and probably not heard of Tajikistan either.) She is spending her summer in Dushanbe having received a Critical Language Scholarship. She will have intense training in the Persian language. There are three forms of Persian: Tajiki (spoken in Tajikistan), Dari (spoken in Afghanistan), and Farsi (spoken in Iran). Her program will focus on Farsi (because it is a critical language that America needs for diplomacy) and Tajiki (because she is living in Tajikistan with a Tajik family.) Anyway, being in Central Asia is a pretty good reason to not be at a wedding in Central North America.
But just in case you thought my claim about Chaos was entirely puffery, wait until you hear about this coincidence. My brother had a tag on his front door yesterday from the city's public works department. It informed him that in order to maintain and update the water system in his neighborhood, they were going to be turning off the water on Tuesday at 8 AM for approximately 6 hours. In all the years he has lived in this house, this has never happened before. What are the chances that the day the city chooses for water main replacement would be the very same day that his son is getting married, when he is hosting a house full of Goldsteins, and presumably, people will want showers.
Boom! I deliver Goldsteins (and a non-Goldstein) for Goldstein Chaos Weekend. The city delivers the chaos for Goldstein Chaos Weekend. And you just have to accept as poetic license the weekend part of Goldstein Chaos Weekend.
It's fantastic that we get to have these happy family occasions to get together, to see each other, to make new amazing memories. So I say to Goldstein Chaos Weekend, bring it! I'm ready. I'm eager. And I've been dealt a straight flush.
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