Bruxelles redux

As the Mister and I were falling asleep last night, I whispered, "I'm happy to be home." What I meant was, happy to be in our own, big bed, happy to be alone in our own house, happy to unpack the suitcases (in which we lugged about fifty books purchased during our travels).

I have to admit that it wasn't so thrilling, however, after sunny, breezy Barcelona and the sincere, effortless beauty of Vermont, to return to the gray grime of Brussels. Everything I looked at seemed to be coated in a nauseating layer of ick; cigarette butts and beer at the train station tram-stop, crumpled paper and trampled french fries with neon pili-pili sauce revoltingly spread out over the sidewalk in front of our house. (A not uncommon sight, thanks to the frites wagon across the street.)

The gray skies didn't help, and neither did the knowledge that I would really have to knuckle down to work now that vacation was over. No more days spent being fed abundant mother-cooked meals, no more to-do lists that included such pressing items as "read Harry Potter" and "go to museum" and "play with nephew." I'll miss hearing him say, "Ook, Robin!" and his neverending question, "What's that?" to draw my attention to something, anything: the whole world is AWESOME when hanging out with a two-year-old.

Lest I get completely wistful about vacation being over, there are some things to look forward to: my mom is coming in a couple of days and we have lots of ideas for fun things to do while she's here, French class and choir will start up again soon, we will head back to Barcelona in mid-September, and back to the US in early October for a big family reunion: the two-hundred odd descendants of my great-grandparents are getting together for a big celebration of the centenary of their arrival.

And now, I need to do a little cleaning. Six weeks of neglect has left this house a little dusty.