thwarting twarted

"What are you doing?" Montine called to ask Saturday afternoon.

"I'm sitting on my couch watching TV and eating sliced salami," I told her. Because that was what I was doing. Because that's the sort of thing I do when other plans have been thwarted and I feel too demoralized by the thwarting to do anything else productive with my day.

I was supposed to have gone hiking with friends of a friend, but the common friend selfishly pulled a groin muscle earlier in the week and so couldn't make it. Not a problem, because I rise above my friends' issues to pursue my own interests all the time and I still wanted to go hiking.

So I got up at seven a.m. and packed Fred a sweater, because he has no hair on his chest (Seriously. It's bizarre.) and it's chilly in the North Georgia mountains where we were to go hiking. I packed water and food and even remembered to bring cash because those hill people often haven't all heard of plastic credit and I didn't want to trade my body or Fred's pelt for lunch. But the meeting place had changed and since the only one with a comprehensive phone list was the common friend and since that friend had turned off her phone so that her groin might get a good night's sleep, I was left to wait and wait and wait in the high-rent mall parking lot with no interesting people-watching potential due to the ridiculously early hour and the fact that it was a swank shopping center where homeless people are actively discouraged. (Bastard entitled rich people ruining my wait.)

Friday night was no better. I was supposed to have met a work friend for a drink, so that I could interview her for a project she's coordinating at work that I'm coordinating another project around, but she was unavoidably detained. No big deal. And yet still. A thwarting.

And then there was Sunday morning. Sunday morning a bunch of us were supposed to go to brunch. And a bunch of us did, but it was an entirely different group than the initial crowd because half of the original crowd cancelled and while I would have happily sat on the couch and eaten a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and a handful of raisins, Montine encouraged me otherwise. I should have taken the cereal and raisins, because while the food was good and company cordial, the experience could only be considered an ordeal. A THREE HOUR ordeal that consisted of a forty-five minute wait, a table that smelled of sour dish water, a server that could only have been slower had she been strapped into a straight jacket and weighted down with cinder blocks and at the end a weirdly tense moment over the check wherein our group of six adult people couldn't come to terms over the cost of two shared appetizers totaling a whopping eight bucks. Granted, like I said, the food was really good, but it left me with nothing to do after my nap later in the day as I was too full to even move, much less eat the treat of sliced liverwurst I'd bought or, God help me, make any kind of plan. A nap, I might mention, that was warranted by the ordeal of a brunch that hijacked -- i.e. thwarted -- my day.

And then Sunday NIGHT I was supposed to take an art seminar. I'm sure you'll be stunned to hear that the teacher didn't show. Thwart. Thwarty-thwart-thwart-thwart-thwarting.

So. Fred and I, Sunday night, blink blink blinking at the TV, exhausted by all our foiled plans, little question marks hovering over our heads, sharing a package of pre-sliced pepperoni. And I was a little down.

And then my mom called and she asked what I'd done this weekend and I told her, "ALL MY PLANS WERE THWARTED!"

But that makes for a really short and boring conversation. So I strained my brain and squinted my eyes and bit my lip and came up with a list of things I DID do this weekend.

And, amazingly, I did a lot! Despite the thwarting! I went on a couple long meandering walks around my neighborhood and through art galleries and novelty stores and of course, there was a romp through the park for Fred with a pack of cold-weather-happy dogs; I had a few truly fabulous shoe sightings and at least three delightful surprise encounters with friends and acquaintances whose associations stretch from the dark ages of my youth; even better, there were some delightful moments with people who may very well still be friends when this weekend is one day a dark age itself; I engaged in two full-blown naps of decadent proportion and spontaneously attended a couple perspective-generating charity events which left me feeling extravagantly over-privileged just for even owning pants; I had one really exceptional cup of coffee and an even better marshmallow at a surprise marshmallow roast! And all of it -- all of it -- unplanned.

What do they say? Life is what happens when you're making plans? In my case, it's what happens instead them.