comings and goings and some staying

I'm sitting alone in my newly rearranged, freshly cleaned kitchen with a new hair cut.

And a new fridge.

Yeah, David left again today.

That has nothing to do with the fridge but it can explain the sparkling and newly ordered kitchen and my new pixie-do. It's always the same on day he leaves... a big row in the morning as our tensions are running high in anticipation of separation, a kiss to make up, another to say good bye, then my home alone routine. It goes like this:

1. nap
2. rearrange furniture
3. clean the house
4. give myself a hair cut

I can't explain why have the need to do all these things...ok, the nap and the cleaning are obvious...but giving the house and my hair a new look? Whatever. Let's not examine it too closely.

His was a short visit but not an uneventful one.

Just to make him REALLY feel at home, the fridge broke down the first day. I couldn't have planned that so well. There are minor inconveniences and then there is your fridge on the fritz in mid-July in the northern hemisphere. Particularly so if you've grown very fond of your old fridge which was a lovely shade of blue and you live in a small, coastal town in Italy.



Ya know how hard it is to find a blue refrigerator that can be delivered the same day? Or month? Yeah, YOU CAN'T.

So we spent a lovely and rather smelly week with the old fridge and whatever of its contents we thought we could still possible consume scattered around the counters amidst piles of David's laundry in various stages of washed-ness. Truth be told, the fridge could have gone out a day or so before David came home and I didn't notice which did a lot for the fresh smell hovering in our cave like kitchen. Again, let's not examine too closely my in-ability to notice that I was drinking warm milk.

So about 5 minutes after the pre-departure row and 5 minutes before the post-row kiss, the new (white) fridge was delivered and the (beautiful blue) old one was taken away.



This week, in addition to the great excitement of a new fridge, we celebrated an anniversary of sorts. On July 14, 1999 David and I started what was then our year long sabbatical that now marks the start of our new life.

A decade of comings and goings and staying...