Perpetual Ruminations

Thursday

I had intended to do this earlier this afternoon, but then time kind of slipped away from me. It's amazing how fast it can, too. Part of the problem is having two days off this week, and then having to work the second day, so it messed up the whole general plan. I did manage to get my second day off, but with a day of work in the middle of it, and that had me all discombobulated, too. So I got up early enough, but then it seemed like every time I looked at the clock and started something, I was running a little late. Then I would look up thinking it was just a small amount of time later, to find a large portion of time had passed.

For example, I needed to check some financial information out at the bank. I had logged in around six this afternoon, thinking it's only going to take a few minutes to check and see when the payments went out, set up the next payment, and then log out. After, I went and started preparing some chicken for dinner. Rhonda was working on some laundry, and said she would assist me as soon as she finished up with the clean cloths in the bedroom. I got out the items I needed, peeled an onion, some garlic, and started chopping, slicing, and getting the meat portion of our dinner ready.

By the time I had everything ready, Rhonda was there and she started the rice and then washed up some vegetables for dinner. I had the chicken cooking, and a good start on some vegetables for the next part of the meal. With the meat portion now set aside, I began stir frying the vegetables that would need longer then added the softer vegetables, like onion and zucchini. Soon all the vegetables were ready and I added some stock and thickener. As soon as the stir-fry was thickened, the chicken went in and I held the heat just long enough for it all to reach a steamy hot temperature, then took it off the burner.

The rice was ready, the egg rolls were done -- frozen and heated in the oven, and the other side was now ready as well. I looked up at the clock and was mildly shocked to see it was a couple of minutes after nine. What happened?

It was six, I logged in and spent maybe fifteen minutes checking the information. I logged out and then logged in to make a payment and then logged back off. I went to the kitchen and started dinner, at what should have been about six thirty. Instead, it had to have been around eight. Twenty minutes on the rice, as well as twenty minutes for the egg rolls in the oven. We had a timer set, so it was twenty minutes from the time we started the rice and egg rolls. Now, I had the chicken about done when Rhonda started the rice.

If I started preparing the dish at six thirty, it should have been seven or quarter past when Rhonda started the rice. Lets give the benefiet of the doubt to time, and say it was seven thirty, an hour later, by the time the meat dish was done and Rhonda started the rice. Twenty minutes on the timer and the rice is down about ten minutes to eight. We only took a few minutes once the rice was done, to set up the rest. The egg rolls came out, the rice was done and the stir fry was finished. We dished up our food and ate right away, after the rice was done. Everything completed at the same time, and even if we were slow in setting the food out and dishing up our plates, we would have ten minutes to eight when the rice was done, and if we went slow from then on, we still would have been eating our food by eight, or things would have not been so hot. But, before we even dished up our plates, when we had the food out and set up, ready to dish up our plates I looked at the clock and it was a couple minutes past nine. What happened to an hour and a half? It was just gone.

And, it has gone that way all day long, since I got up this morning. I woke before the alarm went off. Rhonda came in and worked a calf muscle for a few minutes, because it was sore after a bad cramp during the night. So, I should have been about a half hour later getting up. But, it didn't work that way. The alarm went off while she was working the sore muscles, so I know time had not slipped at that point, it was about a half hour since I had woke up till the alarm went off, as it should have been. We snuggled for a few minutes after she rubbed my leg, then got up. She had her coffee on my dresser, and I took a drink. It was fairly hot yet, but not to the point I had to sip it. I took a big swallow of her coffee, and she teased me about having my own by my chair, waiting. Then she went for my robe, and I took another drink of her coffee, still hot.

Then, when she turned, with my robe in had, held it for me while I slipped into it, and then I went to my chair and sat while she got herself another cup of coffee. I lifted my cup and sipped. Only it was not hot, it was actually kind of cool. I then looked at the clock, and the half hour we used up in the bedroom had now become just over an hour later. How? It did not take us more than a couple of minutes to snuggle before I got up, it was no more than a couple of minutes while Rhonda got my robe for me and I took a couple drinks of her still hot coffee, then came out to the living room and my chair where it was now about twenty or twenty five minutes later. It really doesn't make any sense how time slips away like that.