Screwy

 

The courthouse in my community is awfully damn screwy.  Yesterday, when I called in to the recorded message to see if I had to report, it said no jurors were needed, and it thanked folks who had served through January 28th that their service was done.  It said there was no need to call back.

But, my jury duty service did not start UNTIL February.  So, what the hell was going on?  The recording did not seem to apply to my service, so I did not know what to do.  It *DID* say no jurors were needed February 9th.... so it was accurate in mentioning a current date, but it was also talking about folks who had service end 10 days before.  

So, I had a bit of  a restless night. When I got done running this morning (yes, I have fortunately completed the 50+ miles for this week (80+ km)), I quickly changed and dressed in "U" attire and went to the U.  I then proceeded to *try* to get an actual living and talking person at the courthouse to seek clarification.

After trying about a dozen different numbers, half of which were the damnable "press or select the number from the following menu" which inevitably, no matter what number selected put me through to voice mail.  The other half directly put me into someone's voice mail.  Finally, I found a number there where an actual person answered. I explained the situation and the confusion.  I ended up being on hold for about 25 minutes.  

Finally, a person came back on the line and told me that my group's jury duty service was ended early (today) instead of next Friday.  I thought in the back of my mind, "How in the living hell was I supposed to know this from the damn recorded message?" but I said instead, "So, uh, you are 100% SURE that I no longer need to call in each evening, even though the original schedule said to do so through the end of next week?"  And, the voice told me, yes.  And, this same voice then said I will likely get an e-mail sometime today to that effect.  

So, I am tickled pink that my service has abruptly ended!  But, I am not sure I trust this.  I do hope to receive the e-mail "the voice" suggested may come.  We will see.  

Supposedly my wife and I are going to go out to eat tonight with two of my sisters and their husbands (of course, my BILs).  I will be having a beer of some sort.  

There has been just too damn much chaos this last week-and-a-half.  Even though I never had to report to the courthouse during this time, did not mean it didn't mess up my work and my schedule.  I feel behind in a whole helluva lot of things.  

But, if I can manage to shake off this feeling of frustration, and also accept and trust "the voice" in her proclamation, I am hoping I can return to a sense of normalcy by sometime Saturday.  I do think I will have to spend a significant part of the day catching up on things that have built up, but I think I can at least NOT use the alarm clocks NOR the alarm light tomorrow morning to allow me to wake up naturally.  

Another thing before I head back to working.... it is damn close to six years now since I laid down my beautiful, wonderful, pipes and pipe tobaccos (of course, there were the two very vivid and delightful exceptions).  It still sometimes shocks the hell out of me to realize that I think about my pipes pretty damn much the same amount of time I did while indulging in the actual, ethereal pleasures.  That really makes no damn sense to me.  Logic would suggest that at the very least, with this time away I should have had a mental change where pipes and pipe smoking would have become de-emphasized in my thoughts.  Do not get me wrong, there have been ebbs and flows, up-and-down periods I have often written about here.... but those ebbs and flows were things I would also experience during my years AS a pipe smoker as well.  It just does not seem logical to me.  I want to smoke a pipe this very moment just as much as I always had when I was a traditional, daily pipe smoker. 

PipeTobacco