Homecoming

After two and a half weeks gallavanting around France, my love is coming home! He is tired, over-fed, and completely sick of fine wines, stinky cheeses, and foie gras. I have very little sympathy. After two weeks alone I am tired of solo dinners, cold feet, and having no one to talk to at night. It will be good to be together again.

I spent the weekend working furiously, preparing for the return of our home's second inhabitant. After M. left it didn't take me long to lapse back into my single-girl ways. I ate a lot of toast, scrambled eggs, and foods that required salsa and sour cream. I washed the same dishes over and over again, never returning the clean dishes to their proper dry spots. I let socks fall to the floor and books and magazines pile up. I didn't take out the recycling, or the trash. I waited till the bins were so full there wasn't room for anything else. Not even coffee grounds or a paper chocolate wrapper.

And then Sunday came. I cleaned the bathroom, changed the sheets, dusted and scoured and wiped and polished. I made a big pot of pumpkin soup, roasting the pumpkin and a head of garlic in the oven till soft and fragrant, then pureeing with chicken stock, herbs and spices, and a little cream. I made beer bread, and cheese shortbread crackers for Thanksgiving. Then I swept and mopped and cleaned till the kitchen was bright and new looking.

Now it is Monday and I am clean and bright and new looking too. There's only eight hours left till the jet lands, customs is negotiated, and I wait at cubside for a tired and scruffy looking traveler to walk out from behind the sliding glass doors. I can't wait. I must wait. But only a little longer.