When I have crazy busy months like this time starts to warp. Monday will drag on for days and then suddenly it’s a month later and I am reaching a laundry crisis and a deadline and I’ve eaten an entire box of crackers. Especially working both nights and days.  Talk about daylight savings time.

So one particularly stressful day in February a free lunch hour felt like a much needed weekend getaway and I didn’t want it to end. James suggested getting coffee to make it stretch out a little longer but I wasn’t happy with that.

I hoodwinked James into a several-stores-wide search for the perfect soda.  I didn’t want something normal. None of that Pepsi or Sprite or Coca Cola bull honkey. I finally found what I was looking for in a liquor store: some dusty old bottles of Chai Cola (flavored with real herbs and spices, y’all. You can see ‘em settled at the bottom of the dusty bottle.  No really, I promise it’s tasty.  I’ll let you know if I get the plague).

As we sat on the steps in front of our apartment milking every last minute of free time, I heard some tut-tuting woman with a tiny dog walk by and mutter disapproval. “In the middle of the day,” she said.

A year ago I would have been so worried she didn’t think I was a productive member of society.  But last week I just laughed - I didn’t have time to waste on her.