At Least They're Committed

It’s Saturday evening and when I opened the door to my room I had meant to head downstairs for some semblance of dinner, but instead I heard, “Oh crap!” from one of the three 15-year-olds — the one I gave birth to — and then the sound of his footsteps running up the stairs, his blue eyes appearing before me in the dark, apologetically holding the laptop in front of him. I’d asked him to bring it to me when he, Gabe and Boris were done. The gesture was so sweet that I wasn’t about to head back downstairs or admit I was hunting for dinner. Instead, I’m back in my room, pouring a glass of wine and putting the liter-sized bottle back in the ice bucket that doubles as a 10-cup measuring bowl and settling back into my bed to write this.

Raul, the husky mix, is wandering around the room sniffing at everything. It’s his first time in here in a few years because he would have eaten Lu, but Lu’s dead now. Mina is curled up on the bed, pressed against my left side. And I’m on page 137. I would have easily, easily been to page 200 where the heroine and the hero ghosthunters who’ve been butting heads but secretly admiring each others’ ethics, professionalism, skills, silver or blue eyes, hair color and muscle mass succumb to their desires and make mad, passionate love, always starting with him going down on her (obviously, this is written for women).

I take another sip of Chardonnay and listen as the bathwater rises. D, your grandpa, is taking a bath after his workout. It occurs to me that I could make it up to myself. I could at least take the nice, long, hot bath I’d promised myself Tuesday night and, yes, I have some catching up to do, but I wouldn’t have made it to page 200 anyway, but it’s not the same. I’m not alone.

Thing is, I’m very, very, very seldom alone and that’s why I had big plans Tuesday night to read my poorly written supernatural romance and take a hot, luxurious, finger-wrinkling bubble bath. I’d like to say work got in the way, but in fact I ended up sitting there waiting for the work to commence and it never did and I finally went to bed at 10 p.m. totally unfulfilled — er, not that I find the romance part of those books fulfilling. I, ahem, just like the ghosts.

Raul is now trying to flatten his rugged, muscular chest and heave his torso under the bed in case there’s a scrap of evidence — I mean food — for him to ravage. Mina gracefully raises her head, only momentarily curious and none too impressed by his machismo, then curls up closer to me sighing daintily as she dozes off to sleep.

So, where was I. Ah, yes, so my sister emailed me concerning her disgust with a certain over-amorous classmate of mine who consistently posts on my Facebook Wall and she threatened to hide me if he continues. And, oh, by the way, she asks, “How was your luxurious night alone in Colorado Springs?” I reply, detailing the project and the art and templates and the need for, like, words and the waiting and the conversations and the delightful people who showed up and made the waiting far less tedious and the eventual ‘gee, we’re not going to work on this tonight.’ She wrote back, “No job is worth that,” and I was a bit disappointed because I ended up thinking the whole thing was rather amusing . . . well, I thought that after I was able to get all of my responsibilities fulfilled by 5 p.m. the next day anyway . . . and I’d hoped it had come across that way. She’s a big sister, so maybe she’s overprotective. Who knows.

The laptop has just told me that I only have 13 minutes left until the battery dies. I go to the railing and tell DSII I’m running out of juice and can he toss me the cord. He’s hustling around (he’s such a good kid) and asks, “Where is it?” I tell him I can see it on the ground there and I point and he says, “Oh, when you said you were running out of juice, I thought you meant, like, wine,” and Gabe chimes in and says, “Yeah, I thought you said ‘cork’ but I guess you said cord.” Boris chuckles. DSII tosses the cord to me. In the meantime, Raul gets out and comes back in and now has forgotten his prior search and is acting as if it’s been years since he’s been allowed in my room. Mina is dutifully ignoring him.

The thing is, I know I could take a bath now, but it wouldn’t be long and luxurious because I’m not alone. I didn’t mind in the least bit working all Tuesday night, even though nothing got accomplished. And I guess maybe what I’m getting to is that I’d looked forward to that night alone for weeks and I had a right to but it’s OK that it didn’t work out. Really. After all, now it seems I will have an entire weekend to myself with D and DSII heading down to the ranch to help out after Tommy’s surgery. Yup. Watch out! I’ll be done with this book by then, but like men, there’s always another.

Raul is licking the shower floor . . . loudly; Mina is pressed against me, fast asleep. And life is how it should be, even if part of me have to admit it’s not how I want it to be.