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CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I'M STILL TAKING TIME off from my ordinary, run-of-the-mill days (to go away with a friend and eat delicious smooth and creamy creme brulee) to celebrate.

I'm pausing here to see if you are perhaps beginning to forget exactly what it is that I'd be continuing to celebrate.

Well...are you?...I notice you're not saying much, just sort of smiling and nodding and waiting around for me to say more so you can pretend that you knew (of course you knew!) all along--I'm referring to the big new decade of life I've only rather recently embarked upon.

When Nancy asked how I'd like to spend our afternoon of celebrating (post creme-brulee), I suggested we visit the National Clock and Watch Museum. It was the strangest thing--I'd wished to see this museum for years and it's not far away, yet whenever I had the time, I forgot all about the place. And when the place crossed my mind, I didn't have the time.

Yesterday, however, the time finally ticked into place. It not only ticked, but it clicked and bonged and tolled and gonged and chimed and donged and now and then proclaimed itself in more flamboyant ways. My goodness, I felt rich with time! (Quite a spirit-booster, considering how the ginormous birthday left me feeling considerably short on the stuff.)



I was ready. Oh, yes, I was ready for some time-enhancement!



If on occasion it sounded a little cuckoo, all the better.




For quite a while, Nancy and I rode the museum's waves of time,



until they carried us abruptly onto the shore at 5:00 pm.
What?! It's closing time already? We'd barely covered two-thirds of the museum, such slow-pokes as we were (er, okay, I admit it, it was me--reading every notation, studying every time-piece, marveling and gasping in amazement "...oh, wow, Nancy, look at this! Even Jesus might have carted this piece to a dealer of antiques, it's so old!!"). When Nancy and I ruefully lamented our inability to get more time at the museum, the two friendly people in charge graciously gave us each a new ticket, good for another visit.

So I ask you, Dear Reader, how auspicious a gift is that?! Now whenever I feel a bit pressed for time, I can just go to the museum and...uh, huh...get more!


(Alas, it's a pretty sure bet--whatever time I get there, I'll spend it all there as well)
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