Where do I start...

We're going skiing today and the Prof. has gone to put snow tires on the car. So, I don't have very long to write today. But, I'll try to figure out where the beginning of the gaps are -- that's a good place to start.

I guess the first part begins in Corsica, at the U Mulinu restaurant. When we went to Corsica last April (I think it was April), we went to this odd little mill restaurant where the owner threw our food at us. First, of course, he threw the plates at us so we'd have something to catch the food. If any of the plates fell and smashed on the floor, the owner, JoJo, walked over with a little broom, swept them up and then threw them out the window onto a car below. It was quite the show. He drank wine through what looked like an oil funnel (sort of like a beer bong), tricked one of the guests into firing a rifle out the window, sang and poured wine all night while his wife, the cook, walked around the dining room snickering at his behaviour.

That's where the Prof. and I had our first conversation about what we were going to do about "us" -- that night and the next morning when we woke up in the Mare e Monti hotel just a little farther down the dirt road in a town called Feliceto.

The Prof. asked if I'd like to get a PACS, which is sort of like an official French way of being common law. Actually, he'd been asking for a few months, but my impression was that he was looking for some sort of administrative commitment. I'm not the kind of girl who wanted a big, white wedding, but I guess I'd decided that I'd like to stay as we were or do something that meant we were becoming more serious. I didn't see the point in getting more intertwined for mere paperwork.

So, I'd said I wasn't sure. For months. And, when we'd booked our dinner at U Mulinu (where I knew the wine would flow freely), I'd decided we should actually talk about it.

(Check out the photos of the restaurant on the linked page if you want to see the odd location I chose for this conversation.)

So, there's the setting. There's the beginning.

I really, really have to get my ski stuff together, though. We're supposed to leave in an hour and a half and all I've done is find my toque (here, it's called a bonnet) and I've just realized I have to sew some buttons back on my coat.