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.