Swine Flu

Just for today, I has it. Swine flu. Really. It's a 24 hour case.

Way back when everyone was afraid of getting the Swine flu(which has nothing to do with swine, by the way), the school district that I work for totally freaked out and cancelled school for a number of days. (It really wasn't their fault that they freaked out--the county health department freaked out, and hysteria turned out to be more contagious than the actual flu.) It was a big deal that they cancelled school, and the kids rejoiced, and their parents cried.

While all the teachers got to stay at home, including my husband(who was positively giddy), everyone in MY office had to be at work. This went on for a couple of days, until someone realized that all of us in the special education department spend a lot of time with children and their germs and were therefore not suitable to be in the building. We were sent home, but told to continue working and to document our time. Overall, I accumulated five glorious days of 'comp time'--meaning that I could take five days off whenever and it wouldn't come out of my sick leave.

Some people went on vacation using their Swine Flu days. Other people did glamorous things like spa treatments or day trips.

What did I do with my five days? Stayed home with my child for four days during this school year, because he was ill. Glamorously vacation-y! Dealing with a cranky, sick, recalcitrant three year old is soooo relaxing!

But I kept ONE day. Just for me.

This is that day.

I did have plans to go have lunch with my sister-in-law. I was planning on treating her. However, she texted me last night to say that "something came up", which is universally understood to mean "I don't want to hang out with you." (I try way too hard to be friends with my sister-in-law, and she has to invent lame excuses. Sue me.) So, no lunch. My husband has the car, so no hitting the Sephora store armed with a gift card or hunting through stores looking for a bathing suit that covers enough of my butt without qualifying as a burqa.

That was the extent of my planning for today.

I sometimes feel like my life is over scheduled. There's always someplace I have to be, some task that must be performed, some chore to complete. I wanted to break out of that, if only for one day.

So I am just going to play this day by ear.

I could sleep all day.

I might finish reading some of the 42 books I have stacked next to the bed.

I have beads to make jewelry.

I have walking shoes that need breaking in.

I have episodes of Castle, The Borgias, and Supernatural on the DVR that must be watched.

I have blogs that need reading/commenting.

I have online games I would like to play.

I have a garden that needs weeding and pruning.

Wait, scratch that last one.