being early, being late

This morning I went to Trader Joe's. I showed up early and didn't have a book to read (before they opened), so I read this map of Pt Reyes National Seashore that happened to be floating around the car. I learned about some explorers who got shipwrecked.

The map also said how the natives who lived there--Miwoks--were "a peaceful people," which reminds me of something a paleontologist once told me about how the vegetarians are the good dinos and the carnivores are the bad dinos. These natives were peaceful, so it's okay for us to like them. However, in all the fourth graders' dinosaur fantasies I read, the kids talk about seeing a T-rex who tries to kill them. I mean, even if the carnivores are bad, they're still the most popular. But I liked the brontosaurus best, now apatosaurus? Seriously, the kids never talk about a triceratops, even. Maybe a pterodactyl once in a blue moon.

Saturday night before the puja we had choir practice like usual. Then there's a half hour break. It's traditional for me to make phone calls during this break. So I called Erik, who was home scoring, and we talked a little. I called my mom next, but she was giving the baby a bath (my parents watched my nephew for a week while the baby's parents and siblings went on a cruise), so she couldn't talk. So I read Proust and snacked on some freeze dried peaches, taken from my parents' house last visit. I was wearing a black shirt, and little white crumbs of freeze dried peaches kept settling on my chest, so I kept brushing them off. I had the book on the steering wheel. It was perfectly daylight, which is odd, because all winter pujas are in the dark. I was reading and reading, and when it finally occurred to me to look at the time, I was late. So when I went into the temple for the puja, everyone was already there in place. Luckily the choir sits in the back.