cindy's world

I haven’t had much computer access this week since my work CPU completely blew over the weekend, but now I have a new computer at work (sweet!) and McAfee is working again (apparently some programming glitch in its automatic updates blitzed a bunch of corporate computers yesterday and today, which includes half the courthouse’s CPUs), so this will be a catchup post of sorts. Oh, and hurray, my mouse now goes left! (The previous mouse had decided that “left” was no longer a direction it needed to go, and when I complained, I was immediately made fun of for even having a trackball mouse.)

This is my current favorite photo of our newest member of the family, baby Elle.

On the baby front, an ultrasound has determined that I’m reproductively healthy with “plenty of eggs,” so that gives me some peace of mind. I’d always wondered whether I was infertile or something since I’d never had a pregnancy accident. Turns out, I’m just not careless. So we’re thinking we’ll hit up a crazy adventure vacation in Australia/New Zealand and dive the Great Barrier Reef in late October, then settle down and make a baby after. Unfortunately, this brings my birthing age to 35, but it’s better than being pregnant IN Australia. =P

I had a great furlough day yesterday hanging with my old buddy Joe and having a seaside brunch in Laguna Beach. He’s one of few people who would walk with me just to walk, so we chatted while we put in a solid 2 hours walking around the shops in Laguna after eating. Secretly, I had wanted to walk off my mimosa before getting back in my car, but turned out he had secretly thought the same thing of me but was too polite to imply I’m a lush. We caught up and shared stories, good laughs, some good scoffs.

I went home and made a Mediterranean pie for dinner that made Mr. W’s eyes roll into his skull upon eating it. I love that my husband isn’t a picky eater and always loves everything I put together.

Mr. W and I had just spent a whirlwind weekend in Vegas. My father-in-law had hip replacement surgery last Wednesday, so Mr. W and I drove to see him on Saturday morning. My stepkidlet rearranged her work shifts so that she could come with us. My father-in-law is a trooper; he did everything he was supposed to, got up and walked around a couple of days post-surgery, and was discharged earlier than anticipated. Everyone was comfortable enough with his recovery that when Mr. W’s Gamer Bro scored 5 free tickets to see a singing act at the Las Vegas Hilton, the three of us went with Gamer Bro and his wife.

I’m now on Week 5 of the cold-turned-sinus-infection. Most of the symptoms are gone now, but I still get coughing fits (probably due to post-nasal drip). Tuesday, I hacked so hard at the gym that I threw up into my workout towel. Good thing I hadn’t eaten all day so it wasn’t a painful sort of vomiting. =P The antibiotics are all finished, so I should probably be replenishing my probiotics now. It also means I can drink, so I had a little something in the past few days; nigori sake with sushi on Monday, margarita on Taco Tuesday at Sharkees in Huntington Beach (we met up with a couple of Mr. W’s friends there since we had to go pick up our Tahiti travel docs in HB), and of course my mimosa with brunch on Wednesday in Laguna Beach. (Yeah, life’s good.) This morning I was stupid enough to go chew on some peanut taffy when visiting in another courtroom. The syrupy sweetness rolled down my already raw throat and I started coughing, gagging, convulsing. One bailiff offered to Heimlich me. I finally had some water and spit out the mouthful of candy. Okay, thanks up there; I’ll take the hint. I have no business eating candy when bikini days are just over a week away.

I was chatting with a friend the other day via text. She’s in a bad-timing rut, where it seems like everything that could go wrong are all hitting at the same time. I told her to grit her teeth and bear thru the storm, and gave her a happiness challenge. I suggested that she write a list of small easy things that make her happy, such as a hot mug of Starbucks coffee on a rainy lunchtime (it’s been raining off and on for a few weeks now, with lots of sunlight in-between; things are lovely and green!), and to do one of those items each day. She agreed, and I offered to join her in this challenge. Things I’ve thought of so far that make me happy are
* a cocktail with someone whose company I enjoy
* driving and exploring a new local area
* trying out a new restaurant
* spa-day!
* sushi
* listening to 90s R&B and hip-hop while dancing along in my car
* spooning Dodo
I remember when I was having a really bad time some years ago, and my cousin Jennifer advised me to not think about the other person or give him any consideration, and instead go do something that purely makes me happy. Sounded good, but I came up with nothing. I decided then to take better notice of things that made me happy — things that don’t involve a significant other, or even another person, necessarily. Everyone should have a simple hedonistic pleasure once in a while, just as a fluffer to life. …Or something less tasteless.

As my scratchy throat became coughing fits and a severely runny nose over the past 2 weeks, I ran my hilly 4-miler with Kleenex in my pocket (which I ran out of and had to ration, telling myself, “I’m not going to use the next one until the 2 mile point; I’m not gonna use the last one until I only have less than 1.5 miles left to go”), hit the gym every lunchtime carrying a portable Kleenex pack with my workout towel, and on Wednesday (Cesar Chavez holiday), went with Claudio to the boxing gym. My mom and Mr. W diagnosed me with allergies and it seems like everyone around is complaining of allergies right now, thanks to SoCal’s infamous Santa Ana Winds and extra pollen due to recent rainfalls. Mr. W insisted I take some of his Clarinex, which is supposed to be side-effect-free. It painfully dried my sinuses up while oddly not clearing my running nose and post-nasal drip (which causes me to cough), and it gave me medicine-head, so the next day, I tried something different that other allergy victim friends suggested, Zyrtec-D. Zyrtec-D was much better in that it did reduce the amount of mucus production (hence coughing) with virtually no side-effects, and I took it for 2 days in a row, altho it didn’t ever stop all the symptoms. I took nothing Thursday (yesterday), and the hacking and nose-blowing was not only severe, but I noticed the mucus was not blowing out well and was thick and sticky, which is what it was like the time I had a severe sinus infection. With the pushing of a coworker, I made an appointment at Kaiser for that evening.

It quickly became apparent to my doctor that I do not have seasonal allergies (which makes sense because I don’t normally get allergies).
“Are you experiencing itchy nose?”
“No.”
“Are you sneezing a lot?”
“I think I’ve sneezed like twice since this whole thing started 2 weeks ago.”
“Do you have watery eyes?”
“No.”
He checked my inner ears, up my nose, down my throat (he said I have post-nasal drip while looking in my throat. What does post-nasal drip look like, anyway?) Apparently I had a cold that developed into a sinus infection. He told me to stop taking allergy meds right away, and take no antihistamines. Apparently, when my snot is full of germs (as opposed to harmless pollen), and I take an antihistamine to dehydrate me, it makes the mucus thicker so that it can’t be easily purged out of my system. So all the bad stuff sits around in my sinuses and creates a complication, i.e. the sinus infection. Damn. I probably could’ve kicked the cold sooner if I hadn’t taken Clarinex and Zyrtec-D.

I took the day off work today. When I called in, my supervisor said there must be some virus or bacteria or something going around because I’m the sixth person out with a sinus infection. I wonder if whomever gave me my sickness thought that he/she was only having non-contagious allergies, too. I’m now on a 10-day course of antibiotics and pretty strong cough medication that my doctor advised me to only take before bedtime, as it would make me drowsy. The pharmacist told me while he dispensed my prescriptions that I should stay out of the sun because it could make me sun-sensitive, and I shouldn’t take multi-vitamins or drink alcohol. Good thing I’ve got a month before vacation. I’m not gonna refrain from sun or alcohol in Tahiti. The multi-vitamin is trickier. I need to take it because it helps me recover from muscle soreness faster and I am SO INCREDIBLY SORE from gymming and boxing. The pharmacist thought it’d be okay if I took the vitamin 3 hours apart from the antibiotics, so I’m gonna have vitamins with my lunch. I’m 3 pounds from goal!

Hubby and I hung out with Ann last night (the medium-rare Asian Ahi Tuna Burger with Asian Slaw and wasabi dressing at the Lazy Dog Cafe…YUMMOS!), and she mentioned that Dodo needs to make a guest appearance on my blog. There’s no better day for my spot o’ sunshine to cheer up my blog than today, given the last post, so I’m making it happen. But I’ve also got a lot of people to finish divorcing, so here is a quickie online conversation between me and my former jujitsu sensei, the ever-playful Ramon:

Ramon: Don’t you hate when your burrito falls apart in your hands? And you look like some kind of jackhole trying to lick/suck chunks of asada off your fingers while sauce runs down your hand?
Me: and people wonder why you have to get on your cell immediately to post something when you’ve got sauce all over your hands?
Ramon: then you get chunks of burrito on your cell, and someone calls you and without thinking you answer, then have chunks on your ear.
Me: And then to clean up, you unthinkingly start licking your phone as you’re talking on it and it shorts out and now you have to buy a new phone as people stare at you when you explain how your cell went out of service.
Ramon: And you’re so concerned with your dead cell that you completely forget about the chunks of burrito on your ear and in your hair and they dry and crust over and you look like a jackhole!!!
Me: And then you go home and realize you forgot to feed your cat this morning, and he’s looking at you with unusual interest.
Ramon: If only Cintastic!! Cats are good at cleaning things.
Me: tell me about it! Dodo’s at home vacuuming right now!

There you have it. #703 among the list of 1000 reasons to have a cat. Plus, they double as shredders. Reason #812. If Dodo were here right now, my courtroom assistant wouldn’t be having to look for a shredder that can handle 1000 pages of confidential medical charts.

The work day started with a sobering meeting. Our grim-faced bosses told their employees — court reporters, courtroom clerks, office support staff, courtroom assistants — that the economy, as we had known, has been the worst it’s been for a long time… and there is no visible light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve had mandatory furloughs the third Wednesday of every month for awhile now, saving the court system more than $10 million a year, but that is just a drop in the bucket given our state deficit. Layoffs have been staved off as long as the Courts were able to, and letters terminating service will begin arriving next week.

Expected number of layoffs next week: 329
Expected number of layoffs in September: 500
Expected number of layoffs next Fall: 530

This is about 1/3 of the work force in the Los Angeles Superior Courts. Layoffs will be determined by seniority, not job performance or any other factor. There will be courtroom closures. There may even be courthouse closures. Cascading (demotions) is expected. Because the Courts is funded 85% by the State and 15% by the County since consolidation (I KNEW I was against consolidation of the municipal and superior court systems), as opposed to the other way around before consolidation, the State’s problems, our district supervisor explained, are now the Courts’ problems. California has a problem — it actually has $20 BILLION little green problems annually through 2015, as projected by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office. The state budget passed in July 2009 created “an unprecedented annual shortfall of nearly $400 million” for the California trial courts, executive officer/clerk John A. Clarke wrote in a stark but informative 4-page email sent to all of us last Friday.

I think back to when I was first stepping into this job, 11 years ago. The boss of my then-current job had said to me, when I’d announced that I would be taking the written test for this position, “You’re not gonna get it. When the County hires, they’ve got their own people in mind.” I knew then that even if he and his condescending laugh were right-on, I would be quitting, thank-you-very-much. I passed the written test, took and passed the typing test (I think the requirement was only 35 wpm at the time), and my interview was scheduled. Meanwhile, I took my most recent trip to Taiwan. My dad’s army buddy, whom we’d stayed with for a few days, said to me in Chinese, “A County job is good! It’s a steel rice bowl!” Today, that rice bowl seems transformed to rice paper.

I’m not sure if 11 years is enough seniority. Just in this courthouse alone, I’m on the bottom of the totem pole, competing with others in my position that had been with the Courts since the 1960s. If I’m not laid off, it’s going to get much, much busier at work, with 1/3 of the work force missing and with the workload unchanged, if not dramatically increased due to economic hardship. Recession typically doesn’t drop crime rates, divorce rates, unlawful detainer numbers, lawsuit numbers. Part of the reason these lawsuits in our courtroom have been so inane could be partly because people are suing on a whim for just the chance at money, not because they’ve really been wronged. If I were laid off, though, I’d see this as an opportunity to do something I really want to do — this was supposed to be a 3-year job anyway. As much as that sounds like sour grapes, it could really be a blessing in disguise. I have other talents aside from file-stamping divorce judgments. Besides, the quality of life at work has gone down pretty dramatically since…well, since. People who know me know.

I flashback again to 1999, when I’d laid on my bed in my parents’ house, waiting for The Call, begging the forces that be, “please please please please pleeeease!” I look at all the people lamenting their workweeks and their jobs, and I think, “Didn’t you ever have a day like mine, when you waited for the phone to ring with good news, thinking ‘please please please please please?’ What happened to that person, who really really wanted what you’re complaining about now?”

In other fronts, looks like baby plans may be put on hold for at least 2 years, which just seems uncomfortably too long to not know.

It was supposed to be a light week at work with my judge on vacation as with most judges, so that there were more of us than were needed around the County. So I was surprised when my supervisor called me and floated me to Compton Court. I wasn’t happy about it, so on the drive I called Mr. W (who was at home waiting for installation guys to switch over our cable/internet/phone carrier and for his friend Chris to show up so they can hang out all day) for some soothing and sympathy. I got the exact opposite where he rushed off the phone and since I didn’t know what was going on, I was basically hung up on and when I texted him to ask why he hung up, I didn’t get a response and after some time I called him back and he was really irrate that I was calling again because he was working with the cable installer guy and I was interfering. AND it rained unexpectedly through the morning, so I drove to the city that rap artists earn their gang war wounds in, in the rain, found this unfamiliar courthouse, parked in the separate juror lot, walked a block through the rain with no umbrella or coat to the courthouse carrying my manual and file stamps since the handle of the bag I’d brought my materials in ripped off as I got out of the car, and walked into the middle of a murder and assault preliminary hearing. I emailed some coworkers during the hearing to ask if there’s anything special I need to do or note or code for a Prelim since I’d never done one before, and mid-email, sat through an earthquake. The 11th floor I was on swayed for a long time, and I looked around and briefly considered ducking under the desk, but no one else was budging except for a man in the audience who kept looking up and around at the creaking walls in confusion, and I didn’t want to create panic when I had one female bailiff who was watching a very fidgety inmate being held to answer on charges of beating up and trying to kill another inmate in a jail cell in order to help his criminal street gang. So I just sat there and dealt with the swaying. The judge never looked up at me through the entire hearing, and I thought he was upset it took me until 10:20 to get there. Things got better after that.

After the hearing, the judge introduced himself as he got off the bench and I handed him a Christmas card that someone had walked in for him. He looked at the attached document and said that this is from a family friend whom he gets UCLA game tickets from, and I said I’m a Bruin, and he said he was too, and the DA said she was too, and then it was all big happy family from that point on. Turned out the judge was very nice and was just very focused on the Prelim; he’d missed the fact that I’d come in, he’d missed another judge who stood in the courtroom next to the bench for a long time waiting to say hello to him, he’d missed the earthquake. When we tried to identify which judge had come by to visit him, all I could tell him was a physical description and that the visitor said this judge, Judge Herman, is his former boss. I learned Judge Herman is a retired judge just sitting in Compton for now on assignment to help out during the holidays, he was borrowing someone else’s dark courtroom to call these cases, and as we looked through a list of all the judges in the building so he could figure out who’d been by, I learned that half the bench officers in Compton were either his former employees when he was the head district attorney, or his former students when he was a professor at law school. As he got off the bench we got engaged in an hour-long conversation about the current UCLA football team and analysis on their development, coaching strategies, recruitment deficiencies, etc. I learned that the players with the highest IQs are the big boys in the front of the offensive line, contrary to what one might think, because of their need to remember all plays, change and recoordinate their positions and plays as defense changes, AND take a physical hit all at the same time. I learned he used to play college football until an injury took out his left knee and snapped apart every ligament there and that every 5 years, he goes back to an orthopedic surgeon hoping modern medicine has figured out a way to fix his knee, only to be told there is still nothing they can do except a full knee replacement when pain got intolerable. He still went to work out during lunch and came back in time to be on the bench at 1:30p waiting for three misdemeanor cases to come in. During that waiting time, he told me about the distribution of power in relationships (business or personal) being equated to a pie; power over various components are sliced up and designated to one or the other person, and conflicts arise when one person acts on something that’s considered within the other person’s slice of pie, because what’s on the slice is solely the other person’s turf. He said it was important to know to reslice the pie as things change and to allow dynamics to shift, such as when a baby is born, it needs the mother more so the father will do what he needs to assist the mother, keep her happy, but basically stay out of her hair on baby things if she’s got it covered, and as the child grows, it will eventually outgrow the immediate nurturing the mom had provided, and more power would have to shift to the father for leadership, discipline as the stronger hand, helping play sports or something, maybe. The mother would have to let go of that portion of her slice and allow the father to pick it up and that would then be his turf and she’d resign her control over those things (such as coaching the kid in a sport). I liked when he said that his wife told him, “I married you for life, not for lunch,” and they’re careful not to step on each others’ toes when they have their separated interests or activities. And after the hearings were done, he told me about a book he’d just finished reading called “Parallel Worlds,” and we got into quantum physics, religion, the current experiment under Switzerland, the theories of Creation and prophecies vs. mathematical astrophysicists’ projections of the End. As we left, he keyed me in the employee elevator to each floor I had to get off on to distribute orders and files and waited for me so that he could key me to the next floor (I didn’t have internal access to the building), and then was concerned that I had to walk in the rain back to the parking structure. I told him I didn’t think I could shrink any more than my current short size, and he laughed, and said he hopes I’d be back the next day. (I’m not, since I carpooled to work today so I can’t leave on my own.) I really liked him.

After work, I drove to childhood friend Sandy’s house a few neighborhoods over. I arrived starving, since I skipped breakfast as usual (except for my hot mug o’ chia seeds) and skipped lunch knowing that if I left the secured courtroom, I wouldn’t have keys to go back into it after lunch. She made me a big batch of potstickers and we chatted around her dining table while I ate and she watched me, and we drank hot oolong tea with honey. Her cats came by one by one to greet me, and soon I was surrounded by five furry faces. We then retired upstairs to her TV room/loft so I could look for Molly, Mr. W’s favorite cat. I soon sent him this picture by text message to make him jealous:

He wanted me to steal Molly but of course Sandy wouldn’t allow it. Soon her boyfriend Steve came home and we chatted for a long time about Asian parents, psychotic ex-wives, and the little mischievous ghost that’s haunting their house. We ordered pizzas and laughed a lot. I made two white cats (“this one and that one!” I’d say, pointing to each white cat in turn with the laser dot they were chasing. “They have NAMES, ya know!” Steve said in mock offended tone, knowing I can’t tell them apart, so all night it was This One and That One for Lacey and Daisy) chase a red laser light dot in circles, at each other, up a wall, and then made the dot chase the cats as they freaked out and walked backwards and sideways on their toes with their hairs standing up on their spines, which Sandy said she and Steve had never thought to do as they laughed at the cats’ reactions to the role reversal. They may have SEEMED freaked out, but they liked it, because when my arm would get tired and I’d turn off the dot, both white cats would whip around and stare at me with their alien almond eyes until I started with the laser pointer again. Sandy said if I ignored them after the stares, they’d start knocking things off the table to get you to play with them, and they’d go so far as to bat the actual laser pointer at you to force you to pick it up so they can chase the dot. Around the time I was planning to go home, around 10 p.m., her pizza delivery guy showed up and said he had trouble getting to her house because the streets were blockaded by police. We looked out and sure enough, police helicopters were flying overhead shining floodlights around her neighborhood. Great. So I had this text exchange with Mr. W:
me: i cant leave cuz the streets are closed & quarantined & police copters are flying overhead.
Mr. W: What the…..
me: i dunno. we’re watching the news to see what’s going on. all the copter searchlights are on & they’re going around her roof & neighborhood.
Mr. W: That sucks. How often does that happen there? Twice a day or more?
me: sandy says she’s hurt & offended.
Mr. W: What are you gonna do?
me: sit here. steve’s here so we feel safe-ish.
Mr. W: That might be the safest time to leave. When the cops are watching.
me: & get carjacked by a desperate refugee? no thanks!
Mr. W: Are you coming home tonight?
me: there are FIVE cats here!
Eventually the helicopters went away around midnight, which was when I left cuz I figured, they must’ve caught the guy, right? When I went home Mr. W was staying up waiting for me, which is unusual cuz it was so far past his bedtime. He said he wanted to make sure I got home from that area okay. I told him about the helicopters going away. He said that doesn’t mean they caught the guy, it just means they gave up. Great. But I still had a great evening.

The judge, waving the most current issue of The New Yorker, just told me about an author that everyone had worshipped some time ago. Impressed by the popularity of this writer, the judge had picked up one of her books and found it unreadable. He gave up partway through, unable to understand how anyone could voluntarily process that crap. It seems that this issue of The New Yorker contains a review of this same author’s writing, and the critic “just tore her apart.” My judge said to me, eyes sparkling, “He wrote that ‘the novel’s dialogue is never even accidentally plausible.’ ” He laughed as I gasped and laughed. And I thought, “That’s a good one, who can I use that on?” And THEN I thought, “Uh-oh…”

I took a break after creating count 41 of my 44-count child molestation/rape case verdict forms to take a peek at Barney Stinson’s blog (see my blogroll on right to link in the future). “How I Met Your Mother” just started back up and I’d forgotten to see if the blog were updated as well.

My eyes and heart swelled as I saw all the Barney awesomeness sitting there, one post to correspond with each of the 5 episodes that have been aired this season. I’m behind! I devoured greedily, reliving each episode, chuckling at Barney’s witticism, sarcasm, and sexism, and toward the end, I saw to my dismay the biggest temptation toward something I’d been holding out against. Barney now TWEETS. I’ve thus far refused to get on Twitter, saying I’m not gonna be involved in yet another social networking addiction, and certainly not going to be leashed to it via my omnipresent cell phone. Thankfully, though, I discovered that I can click on Barney’s Twitter page and read all his tweets on a webpage without ever subscribing to the service itself. I caught up quickly, swallowing the jealousy over seeing other people actually interact with Barney via Twitter (he even hit on some women! I wanna be one of them!).

For now, I can stay strong. I can turn away from participating in Twitter. But only because I have 6 more sexual penetration verdict forms to create.

The universe works fast to keep its equilibrium of experiences. To that, I say a very emphatic “HMMPH!”

In addition to being told by the hearing officer yesterday that I “likely won’t be held responsible” for the invisibility of the bus zone that is the subject of my $300 parking ticket, over the weekend I also received a $40 check from Dentist Andy. It was an office check, and I was confused as to why I deserved it. So I sent him a quick message on the social network site we’re both on, asking about it. He wrote back that my insurance had paid more than they’d estimated, so here is my refund, enjoy. Who does that?! I would’ve never known about the overpayment, and I’ve never known a busy doctor’s office to issue refunds on things like this. The best they’d do is give a credit on the next visit, and even that is rare. Talk about honest business!

To offset the happy karma of getting my $340 back, I felt that I was given some offensive inconsideration last nite. That yielded a bad night, and naturally not a great morning. That not-great morning continued with the normally 40-minute drive to work taking an hour and a half, during which this happened, AGAIN. Same shit, different toilet — while stuck unmoving on the freeway, I dialed immediately but got a message that said to check the number and dial again. I looked down at the phone; I’d misdialed and punched an 8 instead of a 0. I redialed, and after that, it was all busy. Turned out some chick named Lashenka from Lancaster was the first caller with a June birthday, so she immediately gets $102. Then, for $10,000, is her birthday…June…29? NO. OF COURSE NOT. CUZ THAT’S *MY* FREAKING BIRTHDAY!! Another bitch stole my money! The only thing to make this morning worse fast, I thought, would be if we got a jury trial today. When I’d left work on Friday we weren’t in trial. But I comforted myself thinking that if we do get a trial today, we’ll need a day to order jurors so it’ll start tomorrow, so I still get today to sit and calm down and be antisocial at work. So of course I walked into the courtroom, late because of the crazy traffic conditions, and found that my department was given a trial YESTERDAY while I was off arguing my ticket, and today it’s in full-swing, 40 jurors on the way, 4 attorneys, and I had to hurry and catch up to set up the pretrial paperwork. *throwing up hands*

To offset today’s bad day, thankfully tomorrow is our third furlough day. Maybe I just won’t even go home after work tonight.

I was involved in a text-message conversation with a faraway friend earlier when the judge walked in to hand me some mail (yes, the judge gets my mail instead of the other way around, haha; he likes checking mail for goodies). As he sifted through the mail in front of me, he looked up and said, “Are you tweeting?!”
“No, I’m responding to a text message. I absolutely refuse to get on Twitter,” I replied.
“Good. You’re in the old-fashioned world, like me,” he said with smug satisfaction, the man who only recently learned how to get the screensaver to allow his work to magically reappear, and still has not grasped the concept of being able to have more than one program open at one time in different windows. It’s endearing, and I like running back to chambers to “rescue” him when his work disappears, which is usually caused by a pop-up window from another program blocking the original window. He’s a genius in all the traditional scholarly respects. I wonder, though, what his exposure to Twitter is. Maybe it was something like what happened at the last Lake concert we went to.

The lead singer of No More Kings paused in between songs to smile at cheering crowd lounging on blankets and beach chairs drinking wine in front of the sparkling lake at sunset. “It’s really beautiful here,” he observed. “Wait, hold on, I gotta get a picture of you guys.” He whipped out a cell phone from his pocket, lined it up with the audience in front of him. We laughed and some people in the front posed. “This is great, I don’t usually get photos of a really good-looking crowd, ya know? We have some beautiful people here.” He was tapping away on his phone. Without looking up, he explained into the microphone as he pushed buttons, “I’m tweeting this right now. This photo is going up on my Twitter…there it goes…okay, it’s up.” And THEN he continued the concert. That’s the first time I felt like I missed out on something. But not enough to sign onto Twitter.

Yesterday was Mr. W’s first day back at work since mid-February’s heart attack incident. Because we moved so far from work, we carpool to work, so it was nice to have the carpool lane back now that I wasn’t driving on my own anymore. It wasn’t as nice to have to leave the house 90 minutes earlier than I had been, in order to accomodate Mr. W’s different work hours.

Speaking of work hours, mine were all mucked up yesterday because in order to accomodate a juror’s need to leave for a meeting at 2:30p, my judge shortened our lunch by half an hour, and then advanced lunch by another half hour to give more time to the trial in the afternoon before the juror had to leave. That means there wouldn’t be enough time for noontime gymming. I decided I may as well get an oil change, then. So yesterday morning, I dropped Mr. W off at work, dropped my stuff off at work, drove to a popular mechanic that just about everyone in the courthouse uses, dropped the car off, and then jogged the 1+ mile back to work in time to change, put on my makeup, and be in my seat well before trial began. At lunchtime, I couldn’t get a ride since everyone else’s lunch hour doesn’t start until 12 and ours was moved to 11:30, and I didn’t have time to wait since our lunch was shortened, so I took a brisk walk over to the auto shop. I would’ve jogged again, but it was about 95 degrees outside and I didn’t have the time that day to mess around passing out from heat exhaustion. I did find that my quick pace almost exactly doubles my jogging time. I picked up my car and drove back to work in just enough time to change and slide back into my seat before trial began again for the afternoon session. The good AND bad thing about this was that my total caloric intake up to that point was 0.

I got such a great deal on my oil change (<$60 as compared to the dealership price of $200+) that Mr. W wants to get his oil change there, too. So this morning, we drove his Prius in to work, again, he was dropped off, then I dropped my own stuff off, drove to the mechanic, dropped Car #2 off, jogged to work, changed, slid to my desk. And now we're in trial. But we have our normal lunch today, so Mr. W is going to walk with me to pick up his car, and then we'll have a mini lunch date. Ah, the romance of skipping through a gang-infested city to pick up a car, hand-in-hand, singing tra-la-la. (I didn't even use my iPod any of the times I jogged back to work, because I wanted to be able to hear if someone were coming at me, and because I didn't want to get jacked for my Shuffle.) I did think, as I ran through the cool air and very sunny morning earlier to make it back into work by 8am, that morning runs are pretty nice and I was going to miss not having the excuse to do this jog in-between oil changes.