"Jury duty turned out to be a big bore. Sat around all day and didn't even get called to be on a jury. You'd think that this means I was able to finish off one of the many half read books I have but noooo, I had to take a new book which I'm now midway through. Granted, Playing the Moldovans at Tennis has me a little more interested than the Carl Sagan or YaYa Sisterhood books right now. At least I got to bum around downtown Bakersfield during the lunch break. Not often do I get to sit and have coffee at one of the few coffeehouses during the noon hours. It was have been more enjoyable if I hadn't spent the entire morning sitting, reading, drinking coffee.... At least my civic duty has been served for another year. Now I just have to take care of that traffic school thing and my name will be clear with the government. That and taxes this weekend. Shit - lots to do that doesn't include the beach and sound of waves crashing upon the shore.
"Tomorrow I do my civic duty and show up for jury services here. I was originally scheduled to serve the week of December 23rd but a plane ticket home and a potentially bitter mother was a little too much for me to take the chance on so I postponed it until now. Of course I'm one of the first groups that will be called so I've got to show up bright and early Monday morning. A shot of coffee will definitely be in order. I'm ambivalent towards the whole thing. I'll answer honestly to the questions asked and given the choice I would prefer to not be on a jury but I'm not going to plead any hardships to get out of it either. Maybe I'll get some of that reading done (down to only 3 half-read books).
"I think I found one of my limits to listening to music last night. I'd seen this local guy, Kris Tiner, play trumpet a couple of times and really enjoyed what I heard so when I got an email that his quartet would be playing over at Cal State I figured I would go. Talked the roommate into attending also. This may be the last time she agrees to do something that is of my choosing. Not that it was bad, although at times it sounded more like music to have an epileptic seizure to, but it just wasn't of my taste. I played trumpet up through high school and I admit I was never that good (and I never practiced that much either) but I have an appreciation for the instrument. At least we got in at the student price.
"How Californian on me. I'm going to have a lemon tree. Mortgage chaos sorted out. Papers signed. Inspections to line up. Paint colors to pick out. It's gonna be a busy month and a half.
"What time is it? 4:06am. Damn. Having a strong Alpine (or Heidi as Kathy calls them) before bed helped a little, but not enough. Up for a bathroom break I'm checking email and reading newspaper articles off the net. Why you ask? Waiting. Waiting waiting waiting. See, yesterday I did a big big thing. I put a bid in on a house. Yea - that BIG (at least for me) and now I am waiting to see if it was accepted. I thought I would know by late last night but the only call I got was the one saying "I'll call you as soon as I find out tomorrow." Tomorrow? TOMORROW? I've never been a fan of Annie and now that song will be stuck in my head. Tomorrow is actually here but I still have to wait. So off I go to lay back down and hope sleep comes before my alarm goes.
Finally went to the Getty Center yesterday. It wasn't in the plan to go there, thoughts on the drive down were to hit up REI, see what the Central Market was all about, and then waste sunlight at a beach. Often the best of days start out with a plan that is soon thrown out in favor for happenstance.
While the art inside is the initial draw, the best attraction is to just wander around the grounds. The architecture is striking - off white travertine bricks cut through the blue sky (above the LA haze...who knew). Curves and lines flow throughout. The labyrinth-like garden was off limits and being worked on, but the grass made for a lovely place to lay in the sun, stare into the sky, and listen in on other people's conversations. I know, bad habit though - sort of like people watching.
If you've thought about going to the Getty now would be the time to go. The current exhibition, The Passions is art of an audio/visual nature. Darkened rooms are filled with LCD panel screens that play back in slow-motion subjects that were filmed showing a myriad of emotions. The most disturbing is one piece entitled "Observance" to which Kathy commented "who are all these people at my funeral?" The most striking piece, to me, was "Five Angels for the Millenium" which is one large room filled with five screens of images of a body and water - swimming through, jumping in - along with sound. It reminded me of spending 3 hours sitting in front of Glacier Moreno in Argentina; sitting and listening, waiting for another piece to break off and crash into the water. I could seem myself spending lengthy amounts of time immersing myself in the displays.
Or we can keep chilling like ice cream filling We can cool in the gang if you'd rather hang Ain't no thing. I can be lacubrious with you. I got no ifs ands ors no wits or whats about it But this place is getting crowded and my house is two blocks away Or maybe closer
Woke up with the lyrics to Jason Mraz's "I'll Do Anything" stuck in my head. Is "lacubrious" even a word? Thinking it might supposed to be lugubrious.
Update: Evidently it is a made up word. From an interview with Variety - “I have a friend who calls himself Dr.Lacubrious,” Mraz said. “He’s like, it means lazy, its another word for lackadaisical. We couldn’t find it anywhere, and one day he left a message on my machine, and he’s like, you won’t find it in the dictionary because I made it up. And I thought it was very appropriate, because it is based on a friend of mine who’s the king of one-liners, who’ll say anything to get what he wants. And he’s usually pretty smooth about it.”
"It would seem that I've not had anything too interesting to say as of late. K. broke out some fondu tonight for an appetizer and it was my first time with the stinky cheese. The other option was brie and I'm not sure if I'm up for that quite yet. It was decided that the "white trash" version of fondu would be Velveta and pieces of hamburger bun for dipping.
Just spent the better part of 45 minutes searching the net for another cd rack for my ever expanding collection. I could just go through and toss some of the crap cds, but that would make sense. When was the last time I busted out the soundtrack to Bio-Dome? Feel free to give me shit but there's some good songs on there - "Safety Dance" - Men Without Hats, "Stuck in the MIddle with You" - Stealers Wheel as well as some Camper Van Beethoven and Rugburns. Come on, tell me - what's the most shameful cd in your collection?
