We planned to head out after work and drive down to Charlottesville for the Virginia Festival of the Book. I emailed a poet I know from 32 and said I was on my way out the door. He kindly emailed me back, “it’s NEXT weekend.”

But I did not get that email.

He then called my cell phone. I got that message by some miracle and then had to break the news to the Husband. We were about to get in the car. We’d told the neighbor we were leaving. At that point, I knew I could either die or that this would — ha ha, right? — work out.

Well, Husband proved my marriage partner choice correct yet again because he looked stern for all but a moment and then reclined upon one of the cars to think. We both had similar thoughts. Why not go? We were already packed and had a hotel reservation.

Not only that, but we had a hotel reservation at a place with an indoor pool, sauna, high tea, a fireplace, and lavish breakfast.

We got into the car immediately. I called the poet back to say my husband did NOT plan to kill me, and we were going anyhow.

So, how did I manage to mess up these dates? Well, Google is partly to blame. I am to blame for the other part.

One day, I decided to check the festival dates so I could put them into my calendar. I googled “virginia festival of the book.” Google kindly includes the main link to vabook.org and then it ALSO includes about 4-6 other links under that to pages such as the schedule. I clicked on one of these and was taken to the 2007 site. I assumed — it being Google and all — that I was being taken to the 2008 site. Naughty Google!

NOTE TO SELF: Conferences and festivals seem to keep up their old web pages and old schedules for some reason.

So, I saw this page.

Yeah, yeah, the title tag says it’s an archive. All I was looking for was the date, so I saw March 21, quickly wrote it in my calendar and was on to the million things that claim time in my life.

It’s hardly tragic to take an accidental trip to C’ville. We swam, enjoyed tea by a fire and then took O to the Main Street mall and the Virginia Discovery Museum, which was a child’s dream. Then, she got to ride a carousel for 45 minutes and try out each and every horse on it.

I love that town, and I wrote two poems this weekend.