Jury Duty

Yeah. Not so much.

I was talking to my SIL Diane this morning, (who just happened to be watching my other SIL's child so that she could attend jury duty this morning) when I was reminded of this little fact:

Somewhere, sometime, I may be in trouble.




Here's the sitch:
A few months ago I received a summons for jury duty. Jury duty actually interests me. Trial lawyer was not a far second to Psychologist in my choices for course of study in school. (Perhaps because of my mother's frequent suggestion of this during my teenage years - but that's another story.) I respect our legal system and the judicial process that is a part of it.

However,
(Notice the big "however")

I received my summons smack in the middle of summer vacation, while I had all four kids (including my 1 year old, Isaac) at home with me.


I know these summons are supposedly randomly generated, but my name has been randomly generated several (at least 3) times over the past couple years. More than average, no?


So, I respectfully (and pain-in-the-butt-fully) followed the outlined process of providing the reason for my excuse from service in writing to the proper authority. Truly, a mother of four children - all of whom are currently on summer break, with a husband who works on straight commission, should fall into the "caretaker of small children" category, right?

Well, all paperwork was submitted on time, and appearance day came and went without a problem.

A couple of days after appearance date came a rejection letter stating that my excuse from service was not granted and that I was scheduled to appear for duty (two days earlier).

"Hah! Good one."


I would not intentionally shirk my civil duty, but I don't remember a county representative showing up at my house for babysitting duty on that date.
I DO, however, remember the lady on the news who was arrested for leaving her kids at home alone.


I suppose there was the option of taking the kids with me.
Someone in the County Courthouse should not have passed their drug screening, if they seriously thought that was a good idea.


I guess there was the option of imposing on someone else to watch my kids for me.
But you see, I have trouble calling on people to watch my kids so that I can go on vacation - which, sorry, I would rather do than jury duty no matter how interesting.
I will appoint a jury duty sitter when the county issues babysitter summons, or in-house daycare along with the jury duty summons.

Or, maybe I will just be randomly generated again. Maybe I will even be randomly generated at a time that doesn't happen to fall within the 10 week period all the kids are home from school.

I would be happy to show up for jury duty- I would not even pretend I am crazy or a bigot or any other thing that scares the attorneys into immediately relieving people from service.

But not with four young children at home in the middle of summer vacation.
It is just as well that I got my mail late. It saved me some unnecessary stress.


Still, there is that looming question:
What happens if you fail to show up for jury duty?


Well, perhaps I will have a go at my trial lawyering skills yet.

I Need To Have a Word...

A word other than "diet" to describe this voluntary food rationing period that I am undertaking.

The thing is, I don't even like the word diet.

It makes me cranky.

(Or is the crankiness just the byproduct of the new anti-fatness eating plan?)

So please, I need another word

- one that does not connotate fruitless cycles of culinary deprivation.

Help me out all you creative wordsmiths - I can not spend one more day on a "diet".

Any suggestions?

And counting...

So far so good.

State of the Body Address

I'll speak frankly with you.

Dance costumes, particularly Latin dance costumes, are not known for their forgiving nature.

Where, pray tell, do you suggest I hide the Spanx?

Nowhere to go... NOWHERE TO GO!

I'm not afraid to say it - My body does not look like this, and with under a month until competition time I am getting a little bit nervous. (The reality is, if I want to be able to concentrate on where my feet are, and not what zipcode I left the excess flab on my abdomen in after the last turn, I must lose 10 pounds in the next 3 weeks.)

I am not in the mood for a diet. I am not in the mood to exercise tonight either. (Perhaps I am a bit cranky today?) But I am going to need a whole lot of both, starting yesterday, to hit my goal so here goes...

10 pounds divided by 3 weeks = about 3 and 1/3 pounds a week, right? I can do it! More importantly, I must do it. If I am going to dance, then I am going to be a dancer, and this body is not fooling anybody.

So please, over the next three weeks, count the pounds down with me starting today.

Game on!

Me - 1, Printer - 0

Perhaps you did not realize that you are looking at a picture of the devil!

This beautiful piece of modern technology can print wirelessly, scan, fax, print pictures, collate, report the individual ink levels of each of its 6 cartridges...

but only if it feels like it.

I have had a love-hate relationship with this machine from the start, but it pushed me too far. It's latest shenanigan was playing the mean trick of telling me it was out of paper when, in fact, it was not. This was especially not funny because the "out of paper" trick foils every single useful application of the device all at once.

This is why this is just "the printer" and it does not get a fancy nickname like Carmen.

(Carmen = the fancy nickname for my beloved Garmin.)

(Garmin = my GPS that I would probably save from a housefire before my cat.)

I wish I could let incidents like this printing strike go to printer repairmen. I wish I was the type who could say "Heck with this - I don't have time to deal with this. I am going to OfficeMax for a replacement."

I can not. There is some derranged programming inside of me that precludes me from surrendering to inanimate objects that threaten to inconvenience my life by malfunctioning in my time of need.

Today I am pleased to announce that I have returned from battle victorious.

After 10 days of banging, button pushing and disassembling, I finally did something that worked. I don't know what it was, nor do I care.

I win.

He Has No Right!

He doesn't.

It was his choice to wake up at 3am. What gives him the right to catch up on his sleep in the middle of the day? Look at him posing so innocently for the camera - stealing my right to be cranky with his curly hair and puppy pajamas. This is injustice.

Happy New Year!