Life vs Writing

What a week! I'm exhausted both mentally and physically.

I survived Jury Duty on Monday. It was the longest stint I've had and not to be selected. I was there from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon. It was a criminal case of evading an arresting officer and the defendant was a black female; the officer was white. This judge only needed 12 jurors however, selected 60 from the pool. We met at 10:30 and the prosecuting attorney presented her case. We broke for lunch and met back at 1:30 to hear what the other defending attorney had to say. We broke up at 3:30 and waited and waited while decisions were made. I couldn't even think on my drive home! All for $6.00!

But over the weekend, I broke two crowns while munching on a piece of pizza. Of course that's no excuse to miss Jury Duty, so I made an appointment with the dentist when I got home and she squeezed me in on Wednesday.

Tuesday, I sat down and wrote about four pages on my Billionaire story and felt really good about it. I also got excited about my Wednesday Author Interview on my editor's blogpost.

Wednesday came and I posted on social media and my website for the Interview and then sat in the dentist's chair for two and a half hours. I got home and my mind was as numb as my mouth. I had soup for dinner and went to bed.

My neighbor next door is renovating his house and has hired a company to do it. The thing is, the workers are cutting kitchen and bathroom countertops outside and right in front of my bedroom windows. (Our Master Bedroom is on the first floor.) They continually look into my windows and this bothers me. I resorted to closing the blinds rather than to complain and be a bitchy neighbor.

The reason I bring this up is what happened on Thursday morning. Sirens in our neighborhood are common. We live two blocks away from a nursing home and a major high school. It's to the point where we tune it out unless someone in my family has left for work and I hope it's not them. When I came back downstairs from my office, I noticed two police cars in front of my house and saw a fire truck and ambulance across the street. What? Is everything okay with my neighbor and great friend? I ran to our bedroom and peeked through the blinds. I saw the EMT's walk Barbara on a stretcher to the awaiting ambulance. She didn't look right and her body bounced just like Bernie from the movie Weekend at Bernie's. My husband had joined me and I told him I think she's dead. He said no because they would have had a coroner there but apparently they were in no hurry as the ambulance pulled away.

I prayed she was okay but then went on my morning business as usual. When I got home, my cell phone rang and it read 'Barbara Bay'. I snatched it up and said, "Are you okay? What happened?"

Barbara's husband had called using her cell phone. He told me she had passed. Didn't I see it? Well no because of the nosy workers. But he said he found her on the bathroom floor and she wasn't breathing. The EMT's tried to revive her but couldn't. She was only 49. I went numb. I couldn't process this. All I could see was her body bouncing on the stretcher.

I pulled myself together and went to the store and bought a card and white flowers, her favorite. I brought it over to the house but her husband and daughter were at the funeral home. Her best friend was minding the house and we talked. Barbara was a very ill woman, which I knew. She was a cancer survivor, a diabetic, had experienced numerous serious illnesses but had always pulled through. Not this time. My heart hurts so much.

Friday, I had come to grips with her passing and it's like she scolded me to stop grieving and work on your darn book, Lois. So, I did. I wrote 10,000 words on Friday! I know she's watching over me!