The gift of a day

I'm supposed to be in downtown Vancouver at a meeting right now. But, if I read the message correctly, the goddess has given me the gift of a day - told me to take the day off, to do my own thing, to spend time with my dogs, and to enjoy this beautiful crisp clear sunny day - supposedly the last one for a while.

My plan was to get the Westcoast Express into town - I absolutely shudder at the thought of driving in Vancouver traffic, it is my least favourite thing in the world to do. I made sure I had everything ready last night - my briefcase, my clothes, the train schedule on which I had marked the second-to-last train which left one in reserve in case anything went wrong.

I woke during the night with a raging headache, a dog that needed out, and a cat puking hairballs. I fell back into one of those awful stodgy sleeps that leave you feeling worse than if you'd just stayed awake all night, and at some point either turned off my alarm or slept right through it. Okay, no problem, I have a train in reserve.

Not. I go to open my car door and find it frozen shut. The only one I can open is the very back, which would mean crawling through a ton of hay in my professional clothes. By the time I get a door open, I have about fifteen minutes until the last train leaves. I tear down to the station, pull into the parking spaces I had scoped out the night before...and realize that in the dark I hadn't seen the sign which says cars parked before 8 AM will be towed. No wonder the stretch of spaces was completely empty.

I whiz over the bridge that takes me over the tracks to the paylot on the other side. Five minutes to spare.....rush to the machine....I need the stall number....rush back....machine is jammed...try the other one....for some reason it won't accept my loonies, toonies or quarters, just spits them back out. Finally get a ticket and race for the stairs to the overpass just as I hear the ominous sound of the train whistle as it pulls out of the station.

Ah well. Being the dutiful and responsible person that I am, I figure I'll drive to the New West skytrain and go from there. Head to Abbotsford, realize I don't have enough gas to make it to town, stop to gas up, check the traffic report which doesn't sound good, and re-caculate my travel time. Nope. I'll be late. Very late. I hate being late.

So....I took it as a sign from the goddess that this day was meant to be for ME. And I turned the car around and came home. Charley and I are going to enjoy a whole day to ourselves (well, until it's time to feed the barn guys), doing little errands and chores, washing the car, puttering in the yard, going for a walk.....

It's been eons since I've done that. And I'm betting there's so many people at the meeting that I won't even be missed.

Have a good day everyone!