So…this weekend I was supposed to be enjoying Girls’ Weekend with my sister-in-law and my friend Terri. Doing all the wine drinking…or vodka soda drinking…we could and wreaking havoc on Wabasha, MN. In other words spending our money libating at the local establishments and scouring the boutiques for “must-haves”. Well…as usual…things didn’t go as planned. Terri had a conflict with a trip to Florida and had to cancel. Bummer, but Cheryl and I were going to pick up her slack and party twice as hard. Well, that plan also died when Cheryl tested positive for Covid on Monday. And not the “oh I’m positive, but I don’t have any symptoms Covid”. The “oh my God I got hit by a truck and I’m dying Covid”. So suddenly…no Girls’ Weekend…but I have a VRBO in Wabasha I’ve already paid for and can’t get a refund on.

So I’m frustrated…and angry. Not at either one of them, but at how life has to keep throwing me freaking curveballs. And that’s how I went into my Friday therapy session this morning. And Connie worked her listening magic once again. Let me bluther and cry not only about my “ruined” weekend, but about all the other things I didn’t know I was even thinking about under the surface. And by the end of the hour my whole mindset had changed and instead of being frustrated and angry at the change of plans I was looking forward to having more of a “writing retreat” type weekend. The location is not exactly what I would have planned for such a thing…put me in a cabin by myself on a lake…but I do have a balcony where I can see a small stretch of the river…so I’m making due with that.

On the way here I drove through Red Wing….where Jason grew up and his parents still live. I was reminiscing about the first time Jason brought me home to “meet the parents”. It was January of our Freshman year of college. Red Wing is a pretty small town now…it was even smaller back then. No Target or Walmart. His Dad was a teacher at Cannon Falls High School and his Mom worked for Goodhue County. They were both at work when I got there. Jason was trying to fix something with he and Jeremy’s computer that he had messed up. And I was sitting in Jeremy’s room looking through their high school yearbooks while he did that. I don’t know why I remember that so well. I slept in Jason’s room and he slept in the basement. His parents would leave for work in the morning and I would sneak downstairs to cuddle with Jason for a few hours until we got up for the day. He struggled to find anything in Red Wing to show me…Treasure Island Casino (we went inside the lobby and saw the waterfall)…the Pottery…Red Wing Shoe…the St. James Hotel…the lock and dam by the nuclear power plant. We went to see the Titanic in the movie theater and his high school buddy let us in for free. Good memories.