the upside of being down

the upside of being down: "An interesting thing happened on the way to bulgaria, I didn't go. It was not for lack of effort, but it wasn't to be (until 4 days later). The department of state said, 'no,' we have no idea where your passport is and with NY shut down, there is nothing we can do. And so on Sunday, I packed up the family for Sofia - without me. By Tuesday, a friend of a friend would find my old and new passports. By Wednesday I would be officially OK for travel, and by Thursday evening I would be on the plane. But now, my first thought was, 'this is great ?!?! all this planning and now I have nothing to do'. I immediately decided to go back to work and give the vendors who didn't make the 23 December cut-off date, another chance. ...I had already lost two weeks vacation this year because I am so far over the unused leave limit. It was then that I began to consider the possibility of actually doing nothing. ...a day where I owned my time, initiated the release of the hammer which cracked the high pressure lid on the case that held the list... ...There would be no objecting parties sub-vocally screaming boredom in the passenger and rear seats.... I could take my camera and really capture the day.... The online library (this site) could actually open if I had a few days to focus on it.... For the first time since the"