Thank you Sabau and Fayerody for responding. There's a certain comfort in knowing that this effect of "going unconscious" at the last minute and not going is something that has been experienced by someone else. Or that circulating later in life isn't as easy-breezy as it might have been at earlier times in our lives.

I am so sorry that you are missing your Indian friends, Pat. I hope someday that I have the means to travel, perhaps take in such a gathering with you. That would be fun. Or even just getting to meet you for coffee with the cats watching.