Calgon, took me away

1/23/07 - By Anna Fader

Jobs that require a lot of travel can be hard for working parents, but jobs that require just a little bit of travel can be fabulous for working parents! This week I had to go to LA for just a day, which I stretched into three days. Including the 12 blissful hours reading on the plane, it was the perfect mini-vacation--an opportunity to trade the messiness and antics of family life for the soothing calm of being alone in a big, clean, quiet hotel room. Well, it turns out you can take the girl out of the insanity, but you can't take the insanity out of the girl.

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The first morning I woke up in my hotel room at 6am, feeling like I had slept in, since it was 9am in NY. It was still dark, however, as I tumbled over to fill the huge, deep jacuzzi tub--that wasn't filled with tub toys and I wouldn't be cleaning later. I filled the tub, dumped in the complimentary bottle of shower gel, and then climbed in, closed my eyes, turned on the jets and fell into a deep state of vegetation. This was complete bliss until I began to feel bubbles surrounding my face and found myself seriously wondering whether a person can drown in bubbles. Can you imagine the obituary? I don't know if I had poured way too much gel in or it was the jets' extreme efficiency at creating bubbles, but bubbles started piling up about 4 feet into the air. Caught between the hilarity and utter disappointment of the moment, I climbed out of the tub. What do you do when your relaxing, solitary respite turns into a scene from the Very Brady Reunion? The tub was so full of bubbles and they wouldn't even drain down. I had ruined a rare opportunity for a heavenly bath, but on reflection, I realized I had created an even rarer opportunity--to be completely ridiculous and carefree (whatever happens, I'm not cleaning it up) and play with an unbelievable mountain of bubbles. I piled all the bubbles at one end of the tub and started to shape them into a human form. When I had a good semblance of a person, I stuck the newspaper in his lap and let him take a nice soothing bath--someone ought to be able to enjoy the bath, at least. What do you think of my bubble sculpture? t was pretty fun to make. Then I scooped piles of bubbles and put them in the toilet and sink, climbed back into my big empty bed and waited for the whole mess to magically disappear. The moral of the story: You can't escape the messiness and day-to-day dilemmas of life--even without the kids--but if you find your inner child you sure can enjoy them more.