Risky Business? Not!

I'm luxuriating in Day-2 of my "vacation." No, I'm not at the beach, not in the mountains, not even on a mega shopping expedition. I'm at home, but ... the spouse is not. That's vacation time for me.

I'm not hitting the bars, throwing wild parties, or dancing around the house in my skivvies -- though I could if I wanted to. That's what makes it a vacation. Actually, I did something completely out of character and totally weird yesterday after work. I ... cleaned. Yeah, me. I did. The whole idea of a clean, shining, fresh smelling house, with nobody around to slop it up for a whole week, was irresistible. So, yeah, I cleaned. And then I ate ice cream for dinner. Why not? There was nobody around telling me, "You need to eat more than that." I "need?" I'll decide what I need, thank you very much.

And after my unorthodox dinner, I laid around on the sofa reading, just enjoying the blissful quietude of my house. There's usually an extra TV blaring at warp volume, phones ringing, lots of banging and clanging, a wound-up guy talking too loud (and too much), etc. This blessed quiet is music to my ears. I can take a nap if I want to without somebody waking me up to ask (holding up a bundle of obvious trash) "Is this trash?" Sheesh. I can make as much noise as I want late at night without having to worry about waking anyone up. And so on and so on.

I'm "free" 'til Monday night. I had planned a week-long "Girls Night Out" with a friend, but family matters intervened and that got canceled. But that's okay; this is good. This is outstanding. This evening, the mundane stuff one has to do and can't put off notwithstanding, I've updated my Web sites, written a book proposal, and read half of the new James Lee Burke that I started over (a normal) dinner. And what am I going to do tomorrow? I just may watch movies all day long with the dog and eat a Whopper for dinner, or maybe something altogether else. There's no plan, aside from savoring the solitude. That's the beauty of it.