Talk Thursday: Time

Has come today. Is on my side, yes it is. Keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future. Makes lovers feel that they've got something real. Only. In a bottle. For me to fly. Too much on my hands. If I could turn back. Nothin' but a good. Of the season for loving. Feels like the first. Love me two. Big. Back in. For the longest. Does anyone really know what it is. And they are a'changin'.

Oh, right. I'm supposed to be writing a blog post.

Well: Today I had jury duty. This is a thrilling prospect for a legal professional who knows she has a greater chance of ever being named a Supreme Court Justice (without law school, or a law license, no less) than she does of ever sitting on a jury. Why? I dunno. Could have something to do with my big mouth. Last time I thought I was getting close--at least, I was part of a group that kept getting hauled in and out of the courtroom and asked many questions--but the district attorney kept asking the same question forty different ways, and at one point I got impatient and said, "Objection. Asked and answered." She turned around and stared right at me, thus making me realize I'd mistakenly used my out-loud voice. And as Neil Tyson would say, five minutes later I was out on the street.

This time was better. I didn't even get near a courtroom. After being stuck in a hallway for about fifteen minutes, which turned out to be entirely the wrong place, I finally got redirected to the Central Jury Room (TM), which was a lot nicer than the hallway. There were chairs, for one thing. It was unseasonably warm and I fell asleep. Twice. Groups of people would get called and go someplace. After a while some of them would trickle back in. I kept waiting for them to call me but they never did. I got through several chapters of this new book I'm reading (Needle in a Haystack by Ernesto Mallo; check it out, and then check out everything else he ever wrote--I just became his No. 1 fan), played with my phone, tweeted a lot and pondered the absurdity of my blown afternoon. Then, right around the time it was too late to really go back to work and too early to really go home, the bailiff-in-charge announced that they were done and everybody else could leave.

Which left me with ninety minutes to account for and no real clue what to do with them.

Ordinarily, on a Thursday afternoon, I leave work and drive up to Afrah, the (stop me if you've heard this one) World's Greatest Middle Eastern Restaurant. I write a blog post, eat some of the (stop me if you've also heard this one) World's Greatest Pita Bread and then go to my OA meeting. But somehow I didn't think Afrah would have wanted to host me for a full 2 1/2 hours. Let's face it, that's a lot of pita bread. So instead I headed home, by way of picking up cat food and litter, with the idea of taking a nap first and heading up to Afrah afterward.

Hands up, who thinks this was a big mistake. Yeah, thanks for the vote of confidence there.

So I got home. I had a bowl of cereal. (You think that's a strange snack, wait until I tell you what I had for dinner: Peanut butter and banana sandwiches on chocolate graham crackers.) I lay down on the couch with Chloe the Cat, who's been glued to my side like an extra sweater lately. And I fell asleep. And my little phone alarm rang to inform me that it was time to get up and go to Afrah. And I...

Went back to sleep. Yep.

Woke up about seven, realized I'd missed both Afrah and my meeting, and came over here. Fished my laptop out of my backpack and wrote this, working around the peanut butter (yes, there is peanut butter on my arrow keys, and no, I don't know how to get it off). And now, with time standing still and my schedule in complete disarray, I think I'll go to bed, before I'm tempted to polish off the rest of the crackers. It's been a strange day, indeed. Most peculiar, mama. Whoa.