what's cooking?

In all of our 29 years as a married couple, my husband has only gone on maybe, oh, 3 business trips without my going with him. In fact, the kids joined us on some of them as well.



The first wasn’t until we were married well over 8 years and my parents decided to send him on a factory tour/meeting in Utah. He got to see Salt Lake City, hear the famous Tabernacle Choir and got wined and dined. The second and third were for a manager’s conferences in Las Vegas.



He’s going to Vegas, solo again, this week for a training session. I have no idea why it is being held in Sin City-but thems the breaks. He loves the place. I would not miss it if I never saw even the outskirts of it again.




All the La-Z-Boy dealers are being told they have to use a completely “new and improved” (I read that expensive and probably fully of bugs) computer system. So the president and vice-president and my husband all have to go and learn all the ins and outs and bring it “home”.




I’m staying here. I have columns to write, stories to write and animals to watch over. Besides, did I mention I don’t like going there? I realize that while he’s in the symposiums I could bask in the Spring sunshine by the pool. I also know that I could easily use my husband’s laptop and work via remote.



But I have good reasons for staying home. The main one is financial. He’s going to be bunking with the other two men. If I went, we’d be paying for the room, my food and one other very expensive item-a pet hotel.



Now that we are officially empty-nesters, we no longer have the ability of knowing that someone will always be around to tend to our furry kids. Now I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but here the going rate for our lab is $35 a night and $16 for the tabby. Plus, if we don’t pick up before noon on the last day, there’s a late charge.



This is just not in our budget.



In fact, for the “wedding weekend”-we’re chancing things a bit. We’re putting out a bowl of dry cat food and a huge bowl of water for our cat and only boarding the dog. We’ll only be gone about 30 hours, so we’re pretty sure Pepper won’t be too lonely. Sunshine obviously needs potty breaks and has never spent more than a few hours in the backyard on a nice day-let alone chancing an entire night at age 14!



So off hubby will go from Sunday night until he returns home late on Tuesday. I’m sure he’ll come home with stories to tell me. And a few more really bad/corny puns as well.



I’ll keep to my usual schedule and add an early morning walk to our favorite bagel/coffee place to meet a friend for our monthly commiseration breakfast on Tuesday.



Who knows-being on our own for the 4th time in our marriage might turn out to be interesting.



And when I go on the “grandma” cruise after our son’s wedding-he’ll be on his own for an entire week.

I’m betting I’ll be coming home with way more interesting stories.