Dog Café and Jury Duty

I found the most amazing café recently where you get to hang out with dogs and pet them while you drink your coffee. There are the sweetest dogs ever who just want to cuddle up next to you.

Okay, technically it’s not really a café, and you have to make your own coffee.

Okay. Really, it’s just my living room. I’m sitting on the couch with my dogs while drinking coffee. But, in my defense, the coffee is really good, and I frothed the milk so….

It’s actually quite amazing. I’m sitting on my couch drinking coffee with my puppies in the middle of a weekday. Before you ask, no, I didn’t get laid off, and I didn’t quit my day job. I had jury duty.

Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for, or even what you think about too much. A few weeks ago, I had a sudden thought that I hadn’t gotten any jury duty notices in a while. I don’t mean a few months. I mean like eight years or so. The next day, I checked my mail, and there was a jury duty summons. I had them reschedule because the kids were working on cool projects and I didn’t want to miss them, but today was the day.

I got up at my usual time, which is inhumanely early, and drove downtown instead of to work. When I got there, they separated everyone into a few different groups, and we waited in big rooms. Every once in a while, the clerk would come in and call for people whose names had been randomly selected. They were then sent off to a courtroom. I’m not exactly sure how many courtrooms there were, but there were well over 100 people in the room I was in, and I think there were six rooms. So, there must be quite a few trials going on at once. Also, they call for potential jurors at different time slots throughout the day. My original assignment was 1:15pm, but when I rescheduled, I was given the 8:15AM slot. Anyway, around 10:00, they came in and told us that there weren’t any more needed from our group, and that we were dismissed!

I had already put in for a substitute teacher for the whole day because I didn’t know how long I was going to be there. So, I am taking the rest of the day off. After I left, I went to Central Market, a really cool grocery store just outside of downtown Houston. It’s one of my favorites. They have really good coffee in bulk and an amazing bakery and dairy section. I got a really nice cheddar, a loaf of rosemary bread and the coffee I’m currently neglecting drinking. Now, I am sitting on the couch with my dogs in the middle of the day. Some may call it laziness. I call it self-care.

I’m a big fan of taking a day or afternoon off from time to time. Sometimes you just need to recharge a little. I think that the closer your job is to your purpose in life, the less you would need these recharge days, but for most of us, taking the day off from time to time is a cheap way to stay sane.

What am I going to do with my afternoon off? Who knows. I have some ideas. I may take the dogs to the park. I haven’t really decided, but first, I am going to finish my coffee and probably doze on the couch with my sleeping puppy.

Weekend Plans and Jury Duty

Sometimes, you have to be careful what you wish for… The other day, I was driving along minding my own business when I had the strange thought that it had been several years since I had gotten any jury duty notices. I wasn’t actually hoping to get one, I was just wondering if maybe I was getting them at my last address and had been missing jury duty for the past 6 years or so without realizing it.

I am happy to report that I have not been missing them. I am not so happy to report that I now have jury duty. It’s not that I am not willing to do my civic duty, but I have a project planned with my students, and this is not well-timed.

The timing of this is quite interesting though. I was wondering about jury duty, and a summons arrived shortly after. Maybe I should try wondering about why I haven’t sold any of my screenplays for an obscene amount of money.

On a happier note than jury duty, I spent Saturday taking pictures for our Color Guard teams at their competition. They did amazing. Some of these kids are amazingly talented. I look forward to taking pictures for them again.

Stretching Myself too Thin – or not

I have this thing I like to do where I volunteer for stuff and then realize that I have stretched myself so thin that I end up exhausted and in need of coffee, chocolate and/ or sleep.

Maybe I just need a little bit of stress to be happy? Just a theory. Back in school, I had a neat trick where I would put everything off until close to the last minute and then rush really quickly to get it finished. Nothing motivates you like a looming deadline that could cause you to get bad grades. I did it a lot… until I found the Sailing Team. Once I joined the Offshore Sailing Team, I got my work done immediately so that I would have more time to go sailing. I guess it’s all about priorities.

So, anyway, lately, I have been volunteering my photography skills helping out the Fine Arts department at my school. I really enjoy doing it, but usually all of the different groups end up having performances or competitions around the same time. A few weeks ago, I asked the Director of the Color Guard if they wanted me to come take pictures for them. The Color Guard is kind of like the step child of Fine Arts. It doesn’t get much attention or love. Most people usually assume that they are just a branch of the band and that they only perform during football season. (Admittedly, when I was in high school, that was how it was). But actually, the Color Guard competes on its own outside of football season.

Long story short, I took pictures for the varsity group the other day and will take pictures of Junior Varsity rehearsal, and then I am going to take pictures for them at their competitions on several Saturday afternoons.

Apparently, I still have skills in the area of keeping myself just stressed enough to make life interesting. If only I had a sailboat. Then I wouldn’t have to create stress, I would have plenty of adventures to keep me going.