April 16, 2008 6:48 pm MDT

Here I sit, in seat 12H sipping a glass of wine and enjoying a feeling of utter – aloneness, I guess. For the next ten hours or so, that’s what I’ll be; alone, and enjoying every minute of it!

Don’t you find that we moms are the world’s most wanted? My mother-in-law said to me earlier today, “everyone seems to need you”. I know she knows what it’s like. She was a mom of young kids once. And of course it’s true! My kids do need me almost all the time. After all, they’re only 7.5 and 4.5. They need their parents to do most things for them. And perhaps I do oblige a little bit too much, but forgive me, please, if I want to treasure and enjoy the last shreds of littleness before they morph into fully-grown persons who don’t need their Mommy at all.

But for this next week at least, I’m planning to enjoy every second of independent time that I’m given, starting with this flight, as I write this post and save it locally, destined for publishing online after I am safely in London. I plan to start my “me time” by watching as much of the first season of ROME as I can before my laptop batteries conk out on me.

Why ROME? Ahhh…such a complex question! I have a thing for history, you see, and certain eras really grab me, notably the late Roman Republic/Early Roman Empire, the early-mid Egyptian dynasties, medieval Europe and Tudor England. So that’s how I got interested in HBO’s ROME series to begin with. Once I rented the first season, I loved it so much that I bought the DVDs. Now it’s like an old standby – I know all the scenes practically off by heart, and I feel like I have a personal relationship with the characters. When I find a movie with one of the ROME actors in it, I have to see it, just because I feel like I’m watching an old friend. So that’s why ROME.

And why not watch the movie on the airplane? Why, because it’s The Golden Compass, that’s why. And no, I don’t object on religious grounds (obviously!), but simply because I had “saved” the book The Golden Compass for this trip, and I never like to watch a movie before reading the book.

So for me the next 12 hours look like this:

2 hours (maybe) of ROME on the laptop
2 hours (or until I fall asleep) of reading The Golden Compass but not watching it on the screen (after I paid 2 pounds 50 for headphones!)
6 hours (hopefully) of sleep until we land in Glasgow, a 1 hour layover and then the rest of my flight to London

I wish I could say I’ll be thinking of you!