3-Day Weekend

The company Christmas party is tomorrow, and Mrs. Fetched & I came up with a wonderful idea: I take Monday as a floating holiday and we get a hotel for a 3-day weekend getaway — maybe do a little Christmas shopping since we would be in the thick of things. So she prodded me until I hopped onto Hotels.com and found something reasonably-priced and near the club where the company is throwing the party. The community chorale was presenting a large portion of “Messiah” this weekend, so we told them we’d videotape it Friday night before disappearing. Since the venue (the new middle school) is on the way home from work, I planned to just go straight there after work, meet up with Mrs. Fetched, then do our thing.

So this afternoon, Mrs. Fetched called. “You need to leave work early and come home. I’ve got the flu, so I won’t be able to help — you’ll have to do both cameras. Sorry.” Oh, maaaaan.

So I bailed out and came home. Mrs. Fetched was in bed (and still is), barf bucket next to the bed but thankfully unused. She had prepped the cameras: batteries charged, tapes in the bags; all I had to do was huck them in the car, remember the tripods, and get moving. The taping went as well as can be expected; I recruited a friend to start the B-roll camera and just leave it while I worked the primary. Everyone stood up, as tradition expects, for “Hallelujah Chorus” — which blocked my view, but I couldn’t help that. That, and one person walking right in front of the lens, were the only hassles all evening. Well, that and forgetting we’re out of powdered Powerade, so I went back into town and got some. (Last time I had the flu, I sipped lots of Powerade and I recovered pretty quickly. Stay hydrated.)

But if Mrs. Fetched doesn’t get better in a hurry, we’ll be canning the getaway and probably the party. I guess I shouldn’t plan a two-week getaway; no telling what she’d come down with.