Short and Sweet

Just a quick one. My mom arrives in 8 hours....and I realize that it has been, oh, 10 years since we last spent 6 days together...just mom and me! I can't believe it. And I am ready (and with a clean apartment!) for some nice bonding time. Might even re-walk our last time together, which was right here in this very city, when I got my purse stolen, lost my passport, had to run to the American consulate on the day we were getting on a train for Italy and mom had to find boxes to wrap up and send home the winter clothes she'd packed and didn't need! We were here during the World Cup....while it was in Paris...when France won and the night of the stolen purse when we wandered back to our hotel at 2am, small French cars packed with flag-waving, scarf-wearing Frenchmen circled the block with their horns blaring. That was 10 years ago. And we wandered this city feeling very foreign and ordered with trepidation...when the smells were different and the streets unfamiliar. And this time it's my city, which I can share with my mom...starting with a haircut with my hairdresser tomorrow, followed by lunch in Montmartre (Josh, I promise we're going to the same resto you and I ate at!)....and Edith will be our tour guide in the Louvre and we will hang out in the café and see Molly's baby and do a dinner with her mom when her visit overlaps my mom's visit...and we will celebrate my 30th birthday with people who know me well but haven't known me long...and we will clean my windows and plant my flower boxes and go to an antique/art fair and sit in parks. We will look at cherry blossom trees and reminisce about Door County and eat Sunday brunch and probably do some shopping.
And I can't wait. 8 hours. Now 7hours40minutes. Must go to bed. Clean, ironed sheets. Vacuumed and on-hands-and-knees-scrubbed floor...forgot to buy fresh flowers but we can pick out some tulips tomorrow.
Good night!