celebration postponed (lyn)

I spend the day thinking about the night.  Seven of us are going to T-Bar to celebrate my birthday.  What will I wear?  What will I eat?  If I eat too little during the day, will I just end up eating too much tonight?  I decide on my outfit that includes a new scarf.  I take out my good earrings. The diamonds I wear once a year.  I make sure the battery in my camera is charged.   I get my nails polished an uncharacteristic fiery red.  I’m jolted every time I look at them.  It looks like I’m wearing someone else’s hands.

In late afternoon I get an email from Robyn that she can’t make it.  She's been at the hospital with a good friend of hers whose 92-year old father dies while she is there.  She is exhausted and not in a celebratory mood.  Zelia gets an invitation to an important government dinner and now will have to arrive an hour late, and, she’ll have already eaten. Then Corinne cancels.  Her uncle unexpectedly dies today.

Shari asks if I want to cancel.  She is perceptive, and knows that it wouldn't be much of a celebration with three good friends missing.

I go to Agata and pick up a tuna-salmon sushi dinner, on promotion for $6.99.  It's not much of a substitute for the steak and crème brulee I would have eaten at T-Bar.  But on the bright side, it will be a lot less calories, and I don’t have to wash and blow-dry my hair to eat it.