The awkward hour

Once a week I have an truly awkward hour. Thursday mornings I do volunteer work at my son's school library. Naturally, I chose the day he would be in the library, wanting to observe him out of our normal context. Either that or I just needed to hang on to him a little longer before turning him over to the wild and wooly world of school. So my routine is this, walk him to school, then continue on for a little while with my dog. Putting me home with just enough time to do, oh - nothing constructive before heading off to the library. I usually have between 45 minutes and an hour to burn. After my library shift I go downtown to my job or else I would start something, leave it in mid-shift and then come back to it. Sometimes I do the Sudoku from the newspaper, sometimes I catch up on a little Coronation Street. But I always find myself a little lost, wandering around, watching the clock to make sure I'm not late. Basically, it's an awkward hour. And I'm damn happy to have it.