I keep thinking about the evening of Dec. 31st, the day our out-of-town company left. My husband and I had planned to go on our usual outing to the Denver Botanic Gardens “Blossoms of Light” exhibition. We’ve done this now for several years running, and as we pace down the pathways lined with beautiful lights strung imaginatively over the plants we try to talk about what we want to accomplish in the upcoming year. I wrote about this outing last year, for example, when we left it until the very last minute on the very last day, having to drive around for awhile searching for a place to park.
It looked as though we’d have to give up, but then we found a space. We managed to get in a thorough tour and also look through the gift shop. We’re big gift shop aficionados, even if we don’t usually buy anything.
Well, this year we had planned, once again, to go while our guests were around. We’ve tried to do this in the past and have never succeeded. Denver was in the midst of a cold snap while Carol and Alan were here, and we certainly weren’t lacking for things to do with them. So it didn’t happen. We then decided to go the day they left. But . . . I don’t know. I was sitting on the couch, doing my cross-stitching and watching TV, and it just seemed like too much of an effort. Plus Jim and Gideon were both fighting colds. We had decided to visit the Chatfield site, which is in the same general neck of the woods as Jim’s parents, and we thought we’d be going over there the next day anyway. “Why don’t we just go tomorrow night?” I said. “Maybe we can get Lowell and Jan to go, too.” I think Jim was a little relieved. So we spent New Year’s Eve at home, which was nice, figuring we’d do our usual thing of going on the very last night.
But it didn’t happen. We ended up not going across town for lunch after church, as the in-laws were recovering from their rather late New Year’s Eve square-dancing party. (I tell Jim,”Lowell and Jan have a more active social life than we do!”) So we had my brother-in-law over here, and played games, and inertia set in. The new season of “Sherlock” was starting that night. We didn’t want to miss that, did we? (My two-word review? Don’t bother.) And that was it. Our last chance to go had gone. I’m sorry now. Our beautiful annual tradition suffered a break.
I actually don’t like going places at night very much. Whenever I come home from something during the day and I don’t have to go out again that night I tend to say, “I get to just stay home! I don’t have to go anywhere!” Last week when I got home from BSF class on Wednesday at about noon I said, “I don’t have to go anywhere for the next two days!” It was going to snow. Thursdays and Fridays are my “work at home” days. (Supposedly.) I could sit in my warm kitchen, looking out the window at the snowy back yard, and know that I didn’t have to go out in it.
But I don’t know that I can think of a time when I’ve been sorry later that I peeled myself off the couch. Tomorrow night there’s a meeting over at the home of some friends from church. We certainly don’t have to go. It’s so nice to stay home! But I think we’ll stir our stumps and get over there. We’ll be glad we went.