While The Cat's Away

Well,  I'm all ready for my trip to the Bahamas on Tuesday. I've bought three different kinds of sunscreen, a package of Dramamine---or Wal-Dram II, as the Walgreens store brand is ominously named (can't you just imagine a pompous stockbroker named Wally Dram the Second? With slicked back hair and a popped collar?)---and the newest issue of Martha Stewart Weddings for the plane. My window for being allowed to buy bridal magazines, you see, is rapidly dwindling, and I figure I may as well take advantage of it while I still can. After all, there can't be many things lamer than an already-married woman continuing to plunk down money every couple of months to look at the butler card options in Modern Bride, am I right? Well, either way, I don't want to find out.

This Bahamas trip is a work one---I know, I know, I hate me too---but I'm hugely excited about it anyway, not least because......well, it's the Bahamas, you know? You'd have to be missing some very important part of your soul, I think, not to be excited about a trip to the Bahamas, even if you're technically on the clock while you're there (or, actually, because you're technically on the clock while you're there.) Besides, I received my itinerary earlier this week and discovered that I'm scheduled to spend Friday in its entirety at the Four Seasons Exuma, with the only mandatory activity for the whole day being "spa treatments."  Oh go on, then, Four Seasons, twist my arm. I suppose I could have a facial and a massage. If you insist.

Cool work trips like this are always a little bittersweet for me, because I can't bring Sean along with me, although I console myself by thinking that at least the time apart is healthy. Except it's not very healthy, actually, considering the man seems to live primarily off the take-out menu of the Mexican place up the street when I'm not around. Just the other day, in fact, he turned to me in the Trader Joe's parking lot and said "When do you leave again?"

"Tuesday afternoon," I said. "And I'm back the following Sunday."

"Oh good," he said. "I can't wait to start my 5-Day Burrito Cleanse. Meaning I'm going to eat burritos for five days straight while you're gone."