Spring is in the Air...

This has been quite a week and a half or so....don't get me wrong, I don't have much to show for it, but I have been out of my element and that has been good...for the most part. The adventure started with my final juror summons arriving in the mail, complete with NO ADDITIONAL OPTION TO DEFER.

Yeah, yeah, I guess there is no good time to "serve our civic duty" so I was game to get called in Monday...nope, no duty, cool. So I called Tuesday...nope, Wednesday...nope...maybe I'm in the clear. But oh Thursday, Thursday...please report to the criminal justice building etc etc so report I did.

If I'm being honest, even Thursday I was still hopeful that I might be home free - complete with the final episodes of Season 5 of Lost on my laptop, I figured I would just sit through the day and be free to go before the day was out.

Now a reasonable person would wonder why on earth would I think that when the county of Los Angeles pushes 11,000 jurors through their system every day....or was it week?! Regardless, when I was finally called up to a courtroom mid-afternoon, I still thought that maybe, just maybe this would be something short.....well, needless to say, I was wrong....and that's all I can say about that for now:)

So, thus begun my adventures in downtown LA among all those lawful jurors reporting for duty.....walking my way down 6 blocks from the stunning Disney Concert Hall (where I've still never seen a show) and eventually mapping out the fastest route down to the building and up to my double-digit floor for court.

Now the first thing that is great about jury service is getting to arrive mid-morning....yeah, you still have to account for traffic and parking, but mid-morning is a nice time to show up and actually start functioning within the world...I could totally go for a 10-4 schedule with lunch thrown in....I digress.

Second, with the incredible weather in LA, there have been few better days to walk to work or stroll around town during lunch - while downtown isn't my favorite place to be, the sunshine streaming through the buildings and the trees is enough to lift anyone's spirits.

Third, I have finished almost three books over the course of my service. I finished a great book called Bounce by a Pep alum named Keith McFarland - a short but great book about creating resilient companies in tough times. Second, I finished Malibu: California's Most Famous Seaside Community, which is one of the titles featured in the One Book, One City-Malibu reading program this month. Third, I managed my way through the beginning of Fearless Fundraising, a guide to helping equip non-profit boards in their efforts to raise money for organizations. Of course each of these titles relates back to the work I'm doing in the office, but it's a nice change of pace from my jaunt into the world of Stephanie Meyer's New Moon, and the final season of LOST.

One of the other great things about downtown is being so unfamiliar with it. Now I've explored the fashion district, the flower mart, jewelery district, garment district, Alvaro Street, Union Station and even Phillipe's...okay so thanks to Lindsay, perhaps "unfamiliar" wasn't quite the right word....BUT aside from our LA adventure day and a few other soirees, I haven't spent all that much time wandering around town - not enough time to really know my way around. So imagine my surprise one day when I walked all the way around a nondescript building only to discover that hidden beneath was a whole outdoor mall. All I could say was YAY for Quizno's, Carl's, CVS and the Post Office:) I mailed bday cards, baby cards, got a quick snack and did some quality people-watching too:)

So aside from my service, it's been fun to do something a little different, to meet and encounter new and diverse people and to have the chance to explore unknown territory. Now of course this all hasn't made it easy to be away from the office for a handful of days, but it is good for perspective and inspiration and it's just refreshing to do something unpredictable and out of the norm.

Tonight I'm letting this change of pace, seep into my evening routine....despite being sick this week, I'm taking my first step back toward doing something that I love...which is to write....and I'm doing my best not to worry too much about who's reading or what they think....no, I'm just trying to write...something, anything...so that I can get beyond here and start on my journey to somewhere out there....wherever "out there" may be:)

P.S. Have a mentioned recently how much I love Cadbury Creme Eggs?! One fun thing about living in England was that you could get them all throughout the year, not just at Easter. They are over-the-top sugary for me, but mmmm, that frosting...so, so good.