I Left My Harp in Sam Clam's Disco

POP QUIZ

Review the facts listed below. What is the most likely scenario linking these items together?

1. There's a vast mountain of laundry on the unmade bed, waiting to be folded.
2. The memory card on the digital camera has been wiped clean.
3. The refrigerator has only odds and ends scattered on the shelves.
4. It's almost dinnertime and I'm avoiding my responsibilities on by wasting time on the computer.
5. My e-mail box is full of messages from Travelocity and far-flung friends.
6. The kitchen counter is invisible underneath a mountain of unpaid bills
7. Guidebooks, maps, and newspaper articles are strewn from one end of the house to the other.
8. Both Cait's and Jen's wallets are entirely devoid of cash.

If you answered that Jen and Cait are going on vacation, you passed. (But wait, you say. 1, 4, 6 and 8 are almost always true, and 1 and 8 seem rather unwise if they are indeed leaving on a plane tomorrow at an unthinkable hour. Ah, well, that is indeed the case. Such is life.)

It's Spring Break for us both, and it's rather bittersweet. Perhaps even mostly bitter, but we're trying to sweeten it to the extent possible. A year ago at this time, we were eagerly waiting to begin inseminating, trying at last for the child we've both desperately wanted as long as either of us can remember. The week off of school was devoted to painting the house in case I was pregnant by summer and exposure to paint fumes would be unwise. As we primed the walls in the spare bedroom, we wrote messages like "Happy Baby Room" and drew smiley faces in the hideously stinky oil-based primer we bought by accident (and then had a hell of a time painting over the messages so they couldn't be read through the layers of paint).

This year we thought I'd be going on maternity leave this week, with a few weeks to nest and prepare for the birth (the due date was April 10). After the miscarriage, the thought of Spring Break was torturous to me. We decided that the best way to deal with it was to go away, and to make it as fabulous a vacation as we could. So we leave tomorrow for San Francisco, and we plan to relax, eat amazing food, and see a sight or two.

I think we're leaving the computer behind, but you never know when you might find an Internet cafe or a friend's computer! However, I may not post again until the weekend. If you get bored, feel free to stop by and fold some laundry or clean out the fridge.