I don’t know that I have to apologize for yesterday, but I wish to do so nonetheless. I was not here, because I was everywhere else.

Anyone who has been to a municipal court knows that they order you to appear at a very specific time, and if you are not there a few minutes before that time they are apt to issue a bench warrant for your non-appearance, but that once it has been established that you did arrive on time you will probably wait several hours (during which time others with court-ordered appearance times will arrive) before they eventually call your name and take about three minutes to deal with your case–as often as not concluding that a final determination cannot be made in the time available so you will have to return at another time. That was how my afternoon went. The appearance time was early enough that I had to pull myself out of bed on minimal sleep to make the half hour drive early enough. It was not I who was ordered to court, but being the family member with the driver’s license and the Juris Doctore, I’m expected to sit in the courtroom for such things.

After that, of course, I had to drive my mother-in-law to the store. However, my wife decided to go with me to see her mother, which meant that I had to wait for her to be ready, and that it was late enough that I had to make dinner before I left, and that when the shopping was done my wife stayed to talk with her mother about many other things, all of which meant that it was near midnight by the time I reached this computer, having done nothing more before that but dispose of a bit of junk e-mail. Today I have finished yesterday’s work and started today’s, but I still have much on my plate.

So let’s move forward.

–M. J. Young