Il ne doit pas compter pour du beurre.

When I called home yesterday, I spent some time crying on the phone with her. I think this is the only time I've done this, with the exception of Christmas, when I had to talk to my sister through my G-mail account instead of lay awake in our room with her & wait for an acceptable hour to go open presents.

Some days, you're just overly emotional, & you can't put the fact that two of your dresses tore open (even if it was all at seams) into perspective. Some days, you just want to call your mom & listen to her as she makes you feel better, but you have to wait six hours because she's not even starting the day yet.

Some days, you just throw open the windows & pass the afternoon drinking gin & tonics with your husband, commenting on how all the green has come back. How now the people with the long backyard are almost completely hidden from view because of all the trees. How it wasn't even this green when you arrived here, in the gray fall rain.

They say the weather isn't usually this warm already–a second week of 60s and 70s. We have today before the temperatures drop back down to a more average temperature range. And before the spring rain kicks in. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for one nice day this week. The month-long fair/carnival is in town, & I want to take advantage of 1/2-priced Wednesdays.

At universities, semesters don't end well–or easily. I spent a lot of time yesterday answering questions for how an exam I have to give will work, how the timing got confused, how I can't cover classes that I was asked to because they gave me the wrong time. I'm just starting to see the light at the end. Two weeks, then two months of vacation. Time to soak myself in parks & sunshine & gin-based cocktails & café crême.

Today, to make up for the horrible mood I've been in the last two days, I'm taking Joe on a surprise picnic. Nice sandwiches. Chocolate-covered strawberries, since they were on sale big time at the market on Sunday. A blanket. Kids screaming on slides. Bees.

We've just realized how truly lucky we are. I tell him I miss him most on Fridays–the one day of the week when we don't get to have lunch and dinner together. We spent most of our evenings nestled up, reading & writing. We wake earlier than necessary & have an hour together in the mornings. Our work, when we're honest, is part-time.

Il ne doit pas compter pour du beurre. 

I know I'll come to miss these days. So, as the French say (quite appropriately), "It shouldn't count for butter," since it goes so quickly here. We've got to make them count. As our year anniversary draws closer & as our suspended honeymoon comes to an end, I want to realize how precious these days are & make a point to enjoy it each day.

I want to preserve them, keep them stored away like a good bottle of wine, so that in the years to come, when passing days together feels normal or seems forgotten in all the other parts of the quotidian, we can look back on the time when our four hours apart for work were spent missing each other.

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