Good Lord.

It's been more than a week! The silence(-ish) has been good for me.

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Random bits:

The desert in the springtime is glorious. Bright, clear, dry, warm. Smells like orange blossom. I recommend it.

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Seeing the people you love in faraway places is both wonderful and difficult. Even from the very first moment, I find I have to stop my mind from ticking with the moments passing. Time feels loud, if you let it. So you can't let it loom, all tickety-tock. But it's still there, all tickety-tock.

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That said: we went on little hikes and to a children's museum and had a picnic here and shrimp al diablo there (pro tip: at Mexican restaurants in Mesa, when they say "al diablo" they are not kidding around). We watched movies and made drawings and built edifices with Lincoln Logs. It was wonderful. And then difficult, because we had to leave.

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But you do have to leave. People have things to do, the people there, and you yourself also, your own little long list of things you must do.

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The best thing about spring break: going to see the people you love.

The other best thing about spring break: being in your own home, in your own place, quiet, just you and the dog, doing the things on your list. [Bruiser's list: bark at the UPS guy; take a nap; take a nap in an auxiliary location; bark at kids walking home from school; backup napping.]

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The list: long, but elastic. To include:

• catching up on grading (nowhere near complete); 
• read book for book group (making progress); 
• mail this and that (check); 
• get visa for travel to China (gaa!); 
• put away heavy woolen clothing (check!); 
• count the weeks till the semester is over (it's moving right along, folks); 
• nag Scotland daughter perpetually about her trip to America (I'm very good at this);
• video and other chat with all sorts of children and grandchildren (who needs to grade?);
• visit daughter and grandson and granddaughter (check! at Costco!); 
• read other book compulsively (done!); 
• eat Girl Scout cookies (Q: how many is too many?). 
• Laundry and assorted chores. 

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One thing that always makes me feel like spring is coming: new white jeans. I found some perfect ones, you guys. I will be wearing them substantially before Memorial Day, and I will be the vernal equinoctial harbinger--one of them, anyway--of tulips, snowdrops, crocus, and all the light to come.

In which I contemplate spring break.

Me as as melancholy bunny, along with me as rational cat:

The Megastore recommends just one thing.

1. Buying plane tickets to a foreign land. There is nothing that sends the blood rushing to your head--like maybe you're about to have a stroke--like buying tickets to a foreign land. To wit:

• They speak a foreign language there. 

On the other hand,

• Your son, who speaks that foreign language, lives there. And will guide you.

Also,

• some of the possible layovers on your possible itineraries are so tight they make you feel super-charged anxiety right now, when the layovers are still only theoretical. 

On the other hand,

• Some of the possible layovers are so wide that you could practically rent an apartment and live in the city for awhile or a few hours while you wait for your connecting flight. 

On the other other hand,

• you might find a booking where the layovers are just right, like Baby Bear's chair/porridge/bed.

So go ahead and buy those tickets, even if they

• make you think about the straitened circumstances in which you might possibly be spending your old age.

Once that's done, and you've cried for a minute and taken the dog for a walk, contemplate the following:

The people, we are going to China, and we couldn't be more thrilled/terrified/freaked out/excited!