7/19/99 Maybe next year.

I've been robbed.
Every year in mid-July a group of us thirty-somethin's ascend to the summit of Mt. St. Helens. A kind of mass migration. For me it's a very rare opportunity to get out and away from the people and things competing for my attention; an opportunity to do something Ken wants to do.

I guess I kinda knew even before I told Yogi I would go, that I probably wouldn't, or it would be a struggling long-shot at best. This will have been my seventh annual attack on the crater rim (although I didn't go the 3rd year, for the same reason as this year). Yup, I bagged the one trip per year I look forward to. The one annual dalliance I have budgeted for myself went away with barely a wimper. It was clear that Monica didn't want me to go.
She never actually said, "Don't go.", but the message was clear, She was sick... and I was staying home.

So, I offered up My St. Helens trip as a sacrifice, and it was devoured. The funny part came later, when nearly everybody told me,
" I knew you weren't going to go... I knew it would end like this."
And though I defend her to them, I knew it too.

Ijust wanting what's coming to me.