Eight years ago my folks moved to a county west of St. Louis where farmland still envelops pockets of strip malls. Suburbs spider out into the countryside, but feral cats played in my parents’ front yard and distant coyotes yowled at night.

Apparently the wild followed them back to the burbs in October; my dad awoke early one morning to a pack of foxes playing in their back yard, and a family of curious squatters has settled in just past the fenceline.

Within the span of a year, all members of the Myler/Yssel family branches will have moved. Some have gone a few miles, others will leave the country. We’re staying put until after the wee one arrives, but then I expect our apartment will shrink to the size of a peanut.

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We’re stuck on a plane at La Guardia airport, waiting for a ground stop in Chicago to lift so we can return home from a weeklong romp through the east coast. I’ve just seen Ja Rule in the airport terminal, and I figure this random sighting will provide me with some conversational fodder back home.

But then two Port Authority cops board our plane, stopping two rows behind us.

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Roughly nine million of our friends had children over the past year, which means that our annual east coast swing has become a bit of a baby meet-and-greet.

It’s such a burden, let me tell you, what with their endearing little smiles and their… well… their HATS.

We’re trying to eat our way through as much of the town as we can in a few short days. I met up with the gents earlier for a requisite trip to the Coolidge Corner Clubhouse, where we spent many post-college evenings, and where I developed my abiding love for buffalo chicken.

Oh, buffalo chicken…

With time to kill before lunch, I wandered over to the old apartment. Five of us lived there for three years; it saw us through grad school, law school and first jobs. It held up well beneath games of living room basketball and parties, and played host to countless games of Hearts. Maggie showed up at the back door of this apartment, then a skinny stray with a gash under her chin and a fang missing.

So the place is fairly thick with memories.

I was standing in front of the three-flat, staring up at the top floor balcony like a house inspector giving the place a once over, when a car pulled up next to me. It was one of my old roommates, apparently bent on a little nostalgia as well - though he claimed to be looking for parking.

Good to see you again, Boston - looks like we got here just in time for the flower show.

This? This is nothing. You should hear about the time she bivouacked on a 90 degree rockface on Kilimanjaro with nothing more than a tarp and two climbing spikes.

My sister called during her drive home last night and we had a few minutes to catch up before she walked through her front door. After that, it was pretty much a lost cause.

“Do you hear that?” she asked as my niece shrieked in the background. “She’s saying, ‘no bathtime, no!’ Oh lord, now she’s running naked through the living room.”

The most excitement we have around here is when the cat throws up at three a.m. and we have to guess which piece of furniture she’s decorating.

“Oh baybee… oh baybee,” crooned Ella, settled in the tub, as my sister tried to dig up information on their crib. We’re having a hard time selecting a brand, and I’m taking all recommendations. I have no problem preventing my sister from assisting during bathtime to achieve this goal, though I don’t think she minded terribly.

After several hours at Ikea and Target, and several more reading up on makes and models, we’re struggling. Maybe we’re overthinking things, which seems to be the trend with me at the moment; I’ve been concerned that the nursery doesn’t get much light, and as a result we will have a somber little cave baby. But then the cat found a sunbeam there over the weekend and plopped down in it, blissfully unaware of the days to come in which a streaking toddler will send her scrambling for refuge under the bed, where she will undoubtedly throw up.

After a year of planning, two of my close friends quit their jobs last month to travel the country in search of a new home city — an undertaking that strikes me as remarkably brave, though completely in character.

Maybe you have friends like these; tirelessly curious, fearless, and fascinated by the aspects of everyday life. Me, I ride the train to work and bury my head in a book. These two look at the faces around them and see stories.

Now they’re telling these stories. Or, more accurately, they’re letting us listen in through a podcast featuring the people they meet along the way.

There’s nothing earth-shattering in Potluck Podcast, just quiet, enjoyable peeks into the lives of the people we pass on the street every day.

If you’ve got five minutes in your day, you could do a lot worse than listening to an episode or two. If you’ve got more time on your hands, you might consider dropping them a note - odds are they might be in your town, and I’m sure they’d like to meet you.

Oh my. Does this mean people outside of the DC/New Jersey corridor will actually know where my alma mater is?

“Wait, they won?” came the response from one friend after I sent a celebratory text message following the game.

That reply sums up the past eight years, when American has flirted with a bid three times only to poop out at the last second. Now that they’ve made it, I’m reminded of Boston after the Red Sox won the World Series; what’s left to complain about? Facing Memphis?

LOOK OUT #1 SEED MEMPHIS #2 SEED TENNESSEE — here comes a team of juniors, minus their star forward, from a school that has never been to the NCAA tournament.

Yeah.

Who do I pick in my bracket? Holy cow, I have a chance to circle American in a NCAA bracket.