It seems that -- in the confusion of Friday-ness -- I lost David's message on my office voice mail and twisted the dates for the granddaughter's event at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts. It was not today, after all, but next weekend. You have no idea what a gift it is to learn upon awakening that I had an entire day of not-one-commitment-and-hours-on-end-of-time to squander!
Called the local spa and booked myself a facial. This is my idea of total decadence, and it's about time, too. Signed up for the whole schmear, packs and oils, and aromatherapy and soft music, patting and stroking, and fingers connecting with those little nodes of bad energy that I didn't know were there until probed... It all took one-and-a-half hours of long overdue pampering. Finished it off with a couple of rides on my favorite escalator (Macy's) in the local mall and a great big banana/mango/coconut smoothie.
Stopped in at an outrageously expensive dress shop and tried on two equally outrageously expensive dresses (black and slinky but much too short), just for the hell of it! (That's what happens when you watch two successive re-runs of Sex and the City without pause. It skews your wiring, and you forget that life's expectations of you have been dramatically lowered over the past few years. ) But for a few minutes there, Carrie Bradshaw and "forty-something" Betty weren't all that far apart, and if I squint at just the right angle and the light isn't too bright ... Actually, fading memory combined with increasing myopia serves the illusion fairly well. Did notice when I reached home, though, that my freckles are growing and in some places have united with other freckles in a new pattern that I don't seem to have noticed before.
It's probably good that there's a world to save, or I'd surely get lost in trivial pursuits, and completely lose my sense of purpose.
Stopped in at See's Candy to pick up a cuppla chunks of vanilla walnut fudge, and headed for my apartment -- but not before stopping in at Circuit City for a new jazz CD that I've been wanting (Diana Krall) -- and to Walgreens for a new super promising Sun Block recommended by the "aromatherapist." (Didn't know there were such people or careers.) Every now and again ya just gotta get out in the real world and experience these things. ;-)
Tomorrow I promise to climb back into my harness, knit my brows appropriately, complete my report on the Patriot Act (waiting in my briefcase) so that I can prep my boss for a panel appearance next week. Tonight I'll just get into my peejays and watch Trading Spaces and consider that this day has provided some balance in my often duty-bound life of service. But do you know what? I'd have it no other way.