Jury Duty

[pameladean]

So I have to be downtown tomorrow at 8:15 for orientation for jury duty. I had planned to try to wrench my schedule around a little bit so that the situation would be less sleep-deprived and traumatic, but I had too rotten a week. Everything is fine now, but my mother was in the hospital for two days (diagnosis: benign recurrent vertigo, probably the result of seasonal allergies). David was in California for work. Lydy was a hero. But I didn't really have time to wind my schedule down all nicely. It only occurred to me a couple of hours ago that I can't possibly take my morning medication before I leave. That's three and a half hours early. I would fall over. And it has to be taken with food. I can jog it back an hour and a half or so, and they'll just have to let me deal with it.

Minnesota doesn't have a nice one-day system, either. Two weeks. I did ask to be put on call-in status, where you get to sit at home and call them twice a day to see if you are needed. But they can negate this at their pleasure, and they did it.

I'm happy to do my duty as a citizen, but as has been said in another connection, NOT JUST YET.

Anyway, if I am a bit scarce around these parts, you'll know the reason why.

I was much touched and delighted with the comments on my last entry, and thank you all. I'll try to answer them at some point.

In the meantime, a little phenology. It is a stupendous year for lilac, crabapple, other flowering trees, and white violets. My white violets have spread to areas of the yard that did not know them before. The purple ones are finally blooming. I always think that they have decided not to come back. My crocuses are over, but I have some lovely daffodils, including some poeticus ones that I hope will decide that they like it here. Dame's rocket ranges from six inches to two feet tall, and every raggedy stalk has its flowerhead already held at the top, though small and green and tight. The firet red tulips are done, but the darker ones that I can't recall the names of are blooming, and the deep purple ones with yellow and blue centers. The reluctant mulberries are leafing out. The lilac that the storm tried to kill is blooming hugely. It made my first lawn mowing of the year a great pleasure. The daylilies are taking over the sidewalk and the hairy bellflower is taking over everything else. The wild geranium is burgeoning but not blooming yet. I forgot that I had put in new lilies last year, but they are rampaging like odd cacti. They don't look like themselves until they have stretched their stems a little more.

We have cardinals and robins and bluejays; also the occasional crow, and a pair of pigeons to make the cats' eyes bright. I haven't seen more kinglets nor any bats yet, but I did see the first chimney swift of my local season, wheeling above the house.

P.

Comments

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I think that jury systems that require you to go in Just Because are barbaric.

[pameladean]

I agree with you. I'm not perfectly certain that it is Just Because; they may have information indicating that they'll need some of us. They are a little opaque on what is going on, though clear enough on what we are supposed to do.

I'm wearing tie-dyed socks tomorrow. That will show them.

P.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

My sense on this from doing my stint in Ye Olde Englishe System (Magna Carta, blah-blah, etc) at Middlesex Crown Court is that a) they can't always predict how long the cases scheduled are going to take, plus occasionally people just don't turn up and upset the carefully made calendar, and b) they have to have extra potential jurors on hand in case of declarations of conflict of interest, objections, etc. But that if you haven't been called by a certain time of day (mid afternoon?) you could go home, because they're not going to begin any new cases. And if you were on a jury, once your case was done you were discharged with an assurance that it would be several years before your name went back into the pot for selection. Or at the end of the fortnight if you hadn't been called. Fortunately I got called for a case involving a minor affray outside a pub in Victoria and was all done before the end of the first week.

But it was still an immense drag involving a lot of hanging around: plus, the first day there was a Tube strike which made getting from North London to Westminster a nightmare.

In UK you are allowed to affirm rather than swear religious oath, and several on my jury besides me did.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I have tie-dyed socks, too. When I wear them, I frequently look down at my feet and smile.

I do the same thing when I'm wearing socks I made, too. They both make me happy.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

My county now has a scheme whereby you report on the first day with the other 799 people they called, but for the rest of the week you just call in and find out if your assigned group has to come in.

I was called for the week of midterms and deferred, so now I'm up for two weeks from now. Luckily, I'm group 5 for this set (I was group 1 for the week I deferred). It's not that I might, really, it's just that I wish they wouldn't always call me when other things are going on.

[pameladean]

Their timing is always completely lousy, I agree.

I guess I can hope that I get oriented and then get to come home, but that's not the way to bet.

P.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Lilacs! Mmm.

And I still think Harry Bellflower and Daisy Fleabane should be characters in a noir garden thriller.

Best o' luck on coping with jury duty. And I've got an armload of garden magazines for you, if you can use a few; it's not like they become obsolete, and someone might as well enjoy them, yah? I think a bunch of them are those chi-chi-muu-muu fancy ones, too. You want I should bring them over?

[pameladean]

I'd love the garden magazines. I'm just not sure now when you should bring them.

P.

[omaha.livejournal.com]

perhaps you, too, will be set to call-in status *at orientation.


i saw a pretty white bird yesterday (a sikorsky)

[pameladean]

It's very pretty, but I have to say that it looks like a fish to me.

P.

[markgritter.livejournal.com]

Ista and I saw an orange and brown bird today. It yelled at us from one of the trees in the park. Unfortunately I did not get a good enough look to positively identify it with my bird book, but I think I narrowed it down to an oriole or one other whose name I've already forgotten. :(

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

I was called for jury duty a couple of months ago. We have a call-in system. When I called the night before, I found my group didn't have to come in, but did have to call back during the next day; when I called back I found myself free for the next year.

So far I'm three for three on these, I've never had to go in yet. Though I know people who have been less lucky -- my mother was on the jury of a fairly horrific murder trial a couple of years back.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I've never served on a jury, and hope I never do.

(I have horrible stage fright. Suppose that would get me out of it? Naah.)