Labor Day Revisited

Happy Labor Day! I hope you are all enjoying a cool drink under a bright umbrella somewhere. Eric and I are relaxing at home this year and working on some stuff around the house. Oh, and Eric is grilling us steaks. And we have homemade ice cream. A very lovely holiday indeed. I was thinking today about what I did on Labor Days weekends past, and, thankfully, that kind of information is very easy to find through the modern magic of photo data. To wit, here are my last four Labor Days.

Four years ago, just after Eric and I started dating, I went up to Bodega Bay with my brother and our awesome friend Cate. It was cold, of course, and I had no idea how much I would miss that. Glorious Bay weather! My brother ate lots of oysters, as I recall, and we had a 90s sing-along on the way back down to the city. Good times.

Three years ago, Eric and I went to a Cal football game, one of many, since we had season tickets. Eric always protected me from approaching crowd surfers and packed me a sandwich with extra crunchy peanut butter. It was cold, and we bundled up in hoodies and hats.

Two years ago, we were at Macy’s, working on our wedding registry for the first time. I was seriously impressed by the chandelier in the bathroom. We were so excited to get our little scanner gun…and then completely exhausted in about an hour. Before we were engaged, I used to think all the time about what it would be like, and it surprised me that when wedding planning was part of our lives, it was just part of our lives. It was a happy and quiet presence, for the most part, and that was a lovely surprise.

One year ago, we were traipsing around Caltech as Eric was taking some of the first shots of me for my blog. It was so hot, and he was (and is) so sweet to do it. Those four years were really easy to find, but before that, I have no idea. It’s just another reminder of why I’m so passionate about keeping memories these days, whether that’s in words or in pictures. Last week, totally out of the blue, it poured down rain on Pasadena in the late afternoon, and I was ecstatic. Summer rainstorms are one of the things I miss the most about home–there’s nothing that can compare to that sweet smell of fresh rain. Even though it soaked all the laundry I had hanging, I loved every second of it–the respite from the heat, the symphony of drops, the new lushness of everything in sight, and that slightly green tint of the sky. That day, it seemed impossible that I could ever forget any of it, but it’s already fading. At least now I will remember this much. And hopefully every Labor Day to come too.