Close your eyes and picture the best weekend ever. OK, now picture the best weekend ever AND your 14 week old going on a hunger strike while you are gone so you have to close your eyes a little tighter and try not to think about that part of it while you are having what is still the best weekend you have had in a long time.
Does your weekend include Brits in skinny jeans? Never seen any Brits in skinny jeans? Me neither, but my friends did in the lobby of the Hard Rock Cafe on Friday night and they were The Kooks and The Kooks think that it is (quote) "rubbish" that my friend Sue doesn't carry cigarettes and even though I didn't see them, they provided hours of entertainment and riddiculous banter between three ladies who don't spend nearly enough time together drinking and in cabs.
Does your weekend include the best cocktail you've never tried? The Blueberry Vodka press? There was one waiting for me when I arrived in Chicago before noon on Saturday. There were more later, after a couple of calls home (about the baby who still wouldn't eat) and a glorious plate of panko-crusted tuna and some fancy crackers.
Does your weekend include a book signing? Where you cry a little and try and pass it off as reading about your son who you miss because you don't leave him very often, but really you are just overwhelmed that you are there, reading from a book that has your name in it and realizing that thing you wrote in it? It's not bad. Where you get to look Rita in the eye and say thank you and meet really lovely women you wouldn't otherwise had the opportunity to meet. Have a chance to select some Halloween books for your son and imagine how big his smile will be when you pull them from your suitcase. Missing him instead of missing you.
Does your weekend involve going off on foot in an unfamiliar neighborhood to find batteries for your pump and then actually pumping in a dark bar and not really caring at all if anyone sees you?
How about sleeping for six hours straight in a bed by yourself. Waking up with empty arms, but ones that are rested from the respite of holding that baby (who finally took a bottle after husband gave up and fed him baby bird style with a syringe).
Are there leaves? Becoming more brilliant red and orange with each mile the train covered on the trek back home. Is your husband waiting for you? Weary and slightly battered, but there and telling you the baby is sleeping in a way that he could only have known from this time he had without you there; Leave him, he needs to sleep. Is your son happy to see you? Longer than he was when you left even though that was only yesterday?
Does your weekend end being so happy to be home even though you were so happy to be away?
