jury what?
monday, november 18, 2002


poor memory and jury duty do not mix.

i've been summoned to jury duty four times this year. i'm not sure about anywhere else, but out here when you get a jury summons, you're supposed to call the night before (but after 5 p.m.) and find out whether you actually come in the next day. three of the four times i've forgotten to call and forgotten to go in even with the summons sitting in plain sight on my desk. i get used to seeing it and it might as well be invisible.

man, do i long for the days when i could get an exemption.

now, before anyone starts screaming about civic duty, i did the jury duty thing once, and i just don't do it well. i am one of those people who has to talk it out to work things out in my head. when you're on a jury, you cannot talk about the case. my ex says i became sullen and quiet. i essentially became a whole different person. an antisocial, miserable person no one would want to live with for any length of time. a person i didn't like. and the verdict stage? forget it. the pressures to agree with everyone doesn't even have to be blatant to be felt.

granted, i might do better now. i'm older and more sure of who i am. but i'd really rather not have to go through the experience again, it was unpleasant and i was miserable. so maybe there's more than memory involved with my forgetfulness, although i am sure my 5-minute memory life span has a lot to do with it. and the whole situation is being made worse by the fact that every time i call my group is being postponed to the next day, the next week, the next month. why can't they just cancel it and get it over with?

i was supposed to go in tomorrow and that has been postponed until wednesday, which is actually too bad. tomorrow a.m. the complex is being relatively debugged and we have to be out of the house from at least 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. while they spray. ro is going to linnorm's house for the day and gypsy is coming with saxy and me. not that we have a clue where we're going. the good news on the timing for this? the kids are ALL in school, which is not a common event in this house. while an older kid being out might be helpful, i'd rather have all the kids in school than to have to manage a younger child while handling this mess.

and speaking of messes, the house was clean this weekend. now it's a pile. even the animals are a bit out of sorts with all the piling and shifting of furniture. they're really going to love tomorrow's goings ons.

and there's one other thing i'd love to see over with. some idiot decided they liked my layout so much they would steal it. they downloaded it, ran it through front page (but only removed my main content and copyright that's on the bottom of every page), renamed my two background files, and then uploaded the whole mess up onto their own site . . . as an inner page to a frame set, no less. it looks horrible, particularly considering that the design does not fit the frames and it looks like the person attempted to steal the other images as well and failed. see? (click the image to see the larger version)