I was 15 miles outside of St. Joseph, Missouri when the Fairfield Inn called and said someone had turned in my purse to the front desk. They’d found it out in the parking lot. I turned around and picked it up. The lady apologized for it being wet. I was glad I hadn’t spoken my full mind when she’d asked how everything had gone with the room. It was good, I said, and it was, but I’d wanted to say before that, “A little pricey, but…”

$348 on a weekday, and I could’ve taken a whole other cat to the vet for that much. We’d planned ahead of time for me to stop, and I was just going to find a place, which 95% of the time is a reliable system. I wanted a place with a pool and the Holiday Inn had no rooms. There were two other options. The Candlewood Suites had rooms but no pool. I thought, “No problem, the YMCA is right across the street.” But when I called them asking if my out-of-state-membership would be accepted, and then asked if they had open swim hours for the evening, they said, “Oh, we don’t have a pool here. I’m sorry.”

So that left this Fairfield place which I’d already left once. I called Josh and told him and he said to go ahead and get it. It was a good stop. They had a Target and a Kohl’s and TJ Maxx and Chick’Fil’A and all kinds of other restaurants. I’d brought homework along thinking I’d knock out an assignment or two. I wasn’t expecting the stores, and thought maybe I could just take the time to look for nice spring clothes. I checked in and slept.

By the time I woke up it was dark and I had that feeling that I’d slept for too long. I felt like I was coming down with some kind of fever and I thought, “All that money, and I’m not even going to swim.” I texted Josh again and he said to just try it, even if I’m just soaking in it, and then I could swim if I felt like it. I’ve been craving being the water again and once I was in I remembered why. Yoga and swimming are the only two exercises where I ever wonder why in the world I ever stopped. When I woke up this morning I felt the way I used to feel when I was coming down with mastitis, but there was no milk.

On the way home a classmate texted and said the teacher had decided to drop one of the papers and have us do a discussion in class instead. This was great except for that we’ve kind of had these long-standing plans for the solar eclipse on Monday. I emailed the teacher and asked how big of a problem it’d be to miss again. They really all should be going. I still don’t feel all that excited about it which kind of surprises me but oh well.