Benjamin came home with a headache on Tuesday.

Which turned into a fever on Tuesday night.

Which turned into puking on Wednesday night.

Which turned into… ahhh, never mind.

The sick fairies spared John Bear and I the vomiting but left us with severe headaches and congestion.

Benjamin pukes like a champ by the way. It frightens me. It’s like the kid is built or designed for college parties. As soon as he feels a squirm in his stomach he runs to the bathroom, puts both hands on the toilet seat, braces himself and then…

Like a pro.

I can hear his future friends cheering him on now as he emerges from the bathroom and declares, “Give me another one!”

I can sit here and hope that’s just a vision, but I’m bracing myself for a time in Benjamin’s life when he’s working hard and playing hard, like his mother used to be. Used to be. Now I can’t have more than two beers without wanting to call it a night and head home.

One shot of tequila is all it takes to make me forget my limits. And then boom – I wake up with a hang over that lasts 48 hours. I’m a light-weight now, what can I say? Drinking and I just don’t get along anymore.

At some point this week, being stuck in the house with my little sick, puking goblin I tested out a new camera lens on my fridge. In this winter darkness of never ending snow and flu, my refrigerator is the brightest thing in the house. An impromptu scrap book, my fridge is where I stick memories I unearth while cleaning or dusting in odd places.

There’s the photo of my sister and I. Our faces warm from spending days by the pool at our apartment in Texas. We were in the back seat of a friend’s car when I took that, moments away from hitting a bar in Austin.

My Athens block is holding us up, near some notes Anna sent me just a few weeks ago. Love my sister. So much.

To the right there’s the picture of John Bear and I, the one I tore it out of a scratch copy of Ms. Single Mama Uncensored. I look like I’m going to maul him or something but I still like that picture. Taken on such a good weekend.

On the bottom right is a picture of my father’s family – my dad is one of the little guys in the front. My grandmother, a single mother to four boys during the 50′s and 60′s is on the top right. I never met her. Like my father, she died of cancer when she was 50. Damn the cancer.

And on the front is Mr. Germ Doctor, always packing a new illness to infect Mommy with.

He hides them so well. The germs. But they’re in there…

[BTW: Those cute Lois Lane magnets are on Amazon.]

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The plane lands with a jerk as I reach under the seat to rescue my purse from its lonely spot on the floor.

I stretch my fingers into the darkness hoping my purse is the only thing I find. This is the last leg on a whirlwind of business trips. The first one to Baltimore and the second to Boulder. My team and I were in and out of each city in less than 36 hours. In Boulder, the whirlwind included scenery that takes your breath, steals it and then gives it back again.

How about a mountain with your coffee?

But now all I want is my purse, my keys, my car, John Bear and my bed. In that order. Benjamin will have to wait until the morning because he is already asleep.

I turn my face toward a piece of chewing gum the passenger before me had wedged into the pleather fold of the seat pocket. If I am facing it, there’s no way the gum can capture my hair. After accepting the gum’s existence at the start of our two hour flight I then tried to envision the type of person who would actually do such a thing.

My first imaginary gum chewing culprit is a 10-year-old boy with an attitude. But women and children are few and far between on these business flights. I throw the kid away and settle on a vision of a slightly overweight middle-aged man with dark shadows under his eyes, greasy hair and a bruised ego courtesy of the cute blond chick who had refused to give him her phone number at a bar the night before.

Your classic chain reaction of rejection and hurt. She hurt me so I am going to stick my gum right here so I can ruin someone else’s day. If you can think of a more probable explanation for the gum on the seat than I am all ears. The gum leads me to thinking about anger and why we harbor it, why we carry hatred around with us like a heavy bag, like a tasteless and old nasty piece of gum. Not just single moms, but people in general. Why is it so damn hard to drop that baggage?

Is it because we don’t know how to live without defining ourselves by our past? And how do we shed the vicious and often completely misguided labels others give us?

When we finally do we’ll drop pounds of anger. But many of us carry it around taking it out on undeserving strangers, our own family, a first date or the lady behind the counter – and, of course, plane seats.

Just drop it, already. There’s too much life to live. And get some sleep, that will help too.

P.S.

Speaking of  baggage. Mr. Man texted me during my rushed business trip to Boulder, Colorado asking about this recipe. I’m telling you, they are the best pancakes on Earth.

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