#2 son and a selection of his Ultimate Frisbee teammates arrived on Friday. We fed them King Ranch Chicken, beans, salad, and cupcake (Lemon Pound Cake with chocolate frosting). They chatted about school, played Wii games, and then went to #1 son’s show.

Yesterday morning, I fed them ham, eggs, Danish pastry, melon, and yogurt. They headed out for their tournament, and #1 daughter and I followed them, but it was so frigid out there that we left at halftime. During the time we were shivering there, we tried to figure out the rules by watching the game and discussed the health consequences of modern life — until our mouths sort of froze and it was too hard to try to hold a conversation.

I went to the grocery and did some laundry, and then spent some time reading the books I’m supposed to review. Current fave: Cashelmara by Susan Howatch. It’s a romance novel in the sense that Gone With the Wind or Rebecca is a romance novel. Much of what I currently review really is in the romance genre, indifferently written and hardly plotted at all. That stuff has a place, but I sort of feel that the authors ought to read Howatch and consider the difference between her work and theirs, and try to improve.

In the evening, we fed them hot dogs, baked beans, fresh fruit, carrots and celery, and sauerkraut for those who wanted it. We watched Bones and discussed random topics that came up as we were watching, and one by one they fell asleep, till our living room was littered with sleeping youths and dogs. They woke up in an hour or so, and went out for ice cream and then to a party.

This morning, I made French toast with fruit toppings (cinnamon apple, strawberry, and banana nut), and they packed up and headed out.They have another day of play and then will head back to their college.

Visits from college students are mostly a matter of feeding them.

These were all nice, smart guys. Some, like my son, are graduating this year and thinking a lot about grad school, jobs, internships, and stuff. Some are freshmen, and it is surprising how much younger they seem.

I enjoy having them, and it’s wonderful to see #2 son, the kid we see least often. He seems hardly to change at all, fortunately. He gets taller, of course, and more mature, but his essential character stays the same. My mother said that to me once — that I was the only one of her kids who stayed basically the same over the years. I didn’t get what she meant then, but now I do.