Welcome to the Drama

I knew it was too good to be true. And maybe it won’t be as bad as I can imagine it will be, but here we are. M’s dad was supposed to arrive tomorrow morning for his second visit in five years. When he said he wanted to come, I looked at the calendar and saw that this Friday and following Monday M’s school is closed, so I said to come then. I asked that he just not tell her about the trip until he’d bought his ticket, because I didn’t want M to be disappointed. He is enough of a disappointment as it is, quite frankly.

I have already mentioned that I thought February was a poor choice for his visit, but that is when he wanted to come. Knowing him as I do, and having witnessed his decision making process for several years now, I think he just got a wild hair and did this on impulse. But he did buy a ticket and he did send me his flight information, so for a few weeks now, my daughter has eagerly been anticipating her dad’s visit.

This morning he emailed me this:

“southwest is cancelling flights, whch means that mine on Thurs is going to be impacted. don't know what it means yet, but probably not good. possibly delay entire trip. more info when I have it.”

And so it goes. I saw this before school but didn’t say anything yet to M. I didn’t want to wreck her whole day. (plenty of time to do that later!)

Besides my futile rage at the numbnut, I feel as if I may have tempted the gods. I mentioned to some friends at the Super Bowl party that M’s father was coming for a visit, and I wistfully said something like how nice it would be to go out and do something while I had a captive babysitter. One of the people listening was Mr. October. He asked me if I’d like him to take me out. I was so taken by surprise that I said yes. (We are friends, and he is fun to be with, despite what happened.) We chatted about it later and I picked a restaurant that has Jazz on the weekends and made a reservation. It isn’t a romantic thing, just an opportunity for me to have a nice adult night out without my daughter. Since she was born, I have only been out without her a couple of times. (This was never my plan; I am not some kind of weird fanatic. It simply has worked out this way, and believe me, I am working on changing this!) I know that Valentine’s Day is this weekend, too, but I feel secure in knowing that my friend knows that my excitement about going out with him is all about the lightness of feeling the chains fall to the floor for one night.

So of course, as my luck would have it, the weather in the NorthEast is freaking out. My daughter and I have been working really hard at trying to be positive and keep our spirits up and plowing through everything that’s going on, and she had a really good week and a half. I am so frustrated that her dad’s trip may be screwed up! She will be so hurt, and angry, and this just isn’t fair. Like I said, this is only his second visit in five years. Or was supposed to be. I guess we’ll see what happens.