Opportunity Lost

It was the perfect opportunity. Baroy and the kids were going to be gone for at least four, five hours, attending a going-away party for a good friend of ours. I couldn't go, because I've been battling some flu/cold/throat/general-ick combination, and I felt like crap.

I'll admit I wasn't completely devastated. I'll miss my friend, but...a night alone...really alone. That almost never happens. Even during the day. Most of my time off during the week is after Em gets home from school, and during the little that isn't, Baroy is usually here. I get so very little real 'alone' time in my house, and it's something I really crave at times.

So I had a plan. Well, not so much a plan as a list of things I wanted to do. Sit by the fire and do some tatting. Take a long, hot bath while listening to the end of my latest audiobook. (It's Running with Scissors...and while I'm actually really 'enjoying' it, I'm surprised that I can't seem to find anyone else who thinks that huge chunks of it were entirely made up.) Read by the fire. Make myself some fancy-pants dinner full of ingredients my kids--and my husband, probably--would never touch.

I thought about this all afternoon, winnowing the list down. And then they left, and the fire was already roaring, and I just sat there for a few minutes, basking. And then I stood up. And my stomach turned over. OK, cross that fancy-pants dinner off the list. Replace with a can of Campbell's.

Next, upstairs to the bathroom to start my bath. This time, the standing-up stomach flip was accompanied by vertigo, and a slight graying of everything around me. Hmmm. Should I really take a bath in an empty house when I keep feeling like I'm about to faint? Maybe not.

Fine, then. Back downstairs, get the tatting, settle into my chair, turn on the audiobook. Whoa. I need magnifying glasses to be able to see what I'm doing as I create intricate lace, and that isn't doing that vertigo thing any good. Nix that. And I just can't stare into middle space while I listen to an audiobook, or I'll fall asleep in about ten seconds. Turn that off, too.

Take out my book. Nope. Words slithering across the page, out of my eyes' grasp.

So, in the end? Fire and sitting thereby. And one TiVo'ed episode of The West Wing (Jimmy Smits is the only thing keeping me with this series), another of Queer Eye (Dead Head transformed to remarry his ex-wife, who never did move out of their house, and all I can think is that if he doesn't take his other hand out of his pocket and give her a REAL hug, I'm going to reach into the screen and slap him). And then an entire Netflix movie, In America. (So unrealistic. So many dubious and unlikely plot points. And I sobbed...sobbed...at the end. So, overall, thumbs up.)

Not quite the night I'd imagined. Not even close. And no, I'm not going to say I enjoyed it anyway. Frankly, I'd have rather played with my kids. Damn you, influenza virus/rhinovirus/streptococci/whatever the hell is colonizing inside of me. You owe me a bath.