Last night

This morning

The next two weeks! Gonzo backpacker travel: three countries, numerous hostels, untold pints, a voice recorder, two girls and their passports. See you in June.

Blue sky! And the drops stopped dropping. (When the drops stop dropping, the rain starts stopping.)

Like Veronica, days and days of rain on end make me feel like the Margot in "All Summer in a Day".

Margot stood apart from them, from these children who could ever remember a time when there wasn’t rain and rain and rain. They were all nine years old, and if there had been a day, seven years ago, when the sun came out for an hour and showed its face to the stunned world, they could not recall. Sometimes, at night, she heard them stir, in remembrance, and she knew they were dreaming and remembering gold or a yellow crayon or a coin large enough to buy the world with. She knew they thought they remembered a warmness, like a blushing in the face, in the body, in the arms and legs and trembling hands. But then they always awoke to the tatting drum, the endless shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon the roof, the walk, the gardens, the forests, and their dreams were gone.

98

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him,
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew.
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

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Checklist

Call Grandparents
Send June rent check
Last load of laundry
Make copies of birth certificate, passport & credit card
Clean out fridge
Call phone company to disable auto-pay
Print Aran Islands ferry update for binder
Pack:

One pair jeans (other worn on plane), thin black unwrinkleable dress pants, blue tank, green & navy shirt, green longsleeve, black fleece pullover, white buttondown, black bathing suit (just in case), red t-shirt, red sweater, spit tank, green sweater, sports bra, six undies, six pair socks, blue scarf, red headscarf, towel, toiletries, TOOTHBRUSH & toothpaste, navy/white windbreaker, wee umbrella, green windpants, red shoes, info binder, notebook, pens, leftover Euros.

Deposit $75 check
Retrieve sunglasses from Enfield
Send package
Get on plane
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