Ain't No Sunshine When He's Gone

Yesterday Danny called me from a hotel room down the street from the Convention Center where he's going to be taking the California Bar Exam.  He told me he had forgotten toothpaste, earplugs, pain reliever, and his swimming suit at his parents' house.  Obviously, there are other, more important, things on his mind right now.

He also told me that he had:

1)  set the alarm on his phone for 6:15 (California time), and

2)  asked the front desk to give him a wake-up call at 6:15,

but he was wondering,
could I please call him at 7:16 am Tuesday morning
just to make sure that he was awake. 
"Sure," I said. 
"Did you write yourself a note so you'll remember?" he asked. 
He's definitely got a lot on his mind right now.

Soon, he'll be walking to the Convention Center with a newly-purchased set of black pens, the ear plugs that the front desk happened to have, cough drops, Day-quil, and caffeine pills.

Unfortunately, he can't bring his cell phone into the testing center, so I won't be able to get an update from him during the mid-day break.  I have to wait all the way until he's done with the entire first day of testing.

Speaking of waiting, I can't (but have to) wait until Thursday when I fly to San Diego.  My plane arrives at almost the same time he'll finish with his third and final day of testing.  What a celebration we will have! 

This is the second time in a month that he's been in San Diego while I have stayed in Utah to work ridiculously long hours (hurray for overtime pay!).  The first time was at the end of January. (For more details on this trip of his, see this previous post.)  He went for his Grandpa Bokovoy's memorial service and was gone for six days.  The hardest part was that I would call him in the evening wanting to talk about the events of the day and he would say, "I'm sorry, I have to go, my family wants to play a game."

For some reason, this time has been more difficult for me.  I put a pillow under the covers with me so the bed won't feel so empty.  At night I wake up every hour and find myself reaching out for him.

While I was getting ready for work this morning, I was listening to my MP3 player.  The first song that came on was "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" by Bill Withers.  The words to the first stanza are (modified for the masculine):

Ain't no sunshine when he's gone.

It's not warm when he's away.

Ain't no sunshine when he's gone,

And he's always gone too long,

Anytime he goes away.

My sentiments exactly.


And to end on a humorous note, I'll share an experience I had this weekend:

After dropping Danny off at the airport, I met a friend for lunch; after lunch we got manicures at a beauty college.  The girl doing my nails asked what our plans were for the day.  I told her that we were just doing lunch and manicures because I had just dropped off my husband at the airport.  "He's going to San Diego," I explained, "to take the California Bar Exam."

"Oh," she replied, "like, he wants to be a bartender?"