There, that's done.

Yesterday was the last Jury Draw of the three that I have to serve.  (In Vermont, you have to do three jury draws or three juries, whichever comes first.)  Since I wasn't selected for a jury at any of the draws, I'm officially done.
I never even got called up for voir dire, which is where the judge and attorneys ask questions of a group of 24 people, chosen at random from the pool, in an effort to find 12 people (+ 2 alternates) who will form an impartial jury.  Since those of us who aren't part of the 24 are out in the audience, we get treated to a little bit of free theater.  (We're supposed to be paying rapt attention to all the questions, since a bunch of the original 24 can be rejected, and they'll call some of us up to fill the empty spaces until they end up with the final jury.)
The questions range from whether or not you know, or are related to, any of the people involved in the case, including the judge, the attorneys, the witnesses, or the defendant, to what are your attitudes toward various things that might be part of the case.  (One example of the latter from last month's draw was an examination of people's feelings about logging.  Really made me curious about the case...)
Our small town-ness really gets exposed during the questions about knowing or being related to people involved in the case.  There are always a fair number of folks who went to school with one or more of the principals, or are related one way or another.  "Well, Dr. So-and-So is my first wife's cousin, and the defense attorney got my best friend off on a...  ummm... charge.  Of some sort.  Ummm."   "That Trooper So-and-So is the one who showed up when the drunk skewed his truck through my front yard, and I wasn't happy with the way he handled it at all."   Like I said, a little free theater.
My favorite, however, is one from yesterday.  One woman, when one of the attorneys asked if anyone had any kind of relationship with the attorneys on the case, piped up "Well, I don't know if it's a relationship or not, but my current boyfriend is the ex-boyfriend of your current girlfriend's daughter.  Does that count?"
Yeah, small towns...

My butt still hurts

Yesterday was the second Jury Draw (of the three that I have to endure to meet my civic duty this year) and I spent 8 hours sitting on a hard wooden bench with only a thin cushion (very thin.  Like 1/2 inch thin.  Thin.) to protect my bony little butt.*
The good news is that I got the cuff of a sock knit.  The bad news is that I'll probably have to rip it out.  While I like a little negative ease in my socks, this one is turning out a little too negative-easish.  Like somewhere between tourniquet and Chinese footbinding.  I'm not even going to bother taking a photo, since I'm going to rip it.  So the good news 2 is that I'll be able to knit it over, and it's good that I have knitting to look forward to because the bad news 2 is that we didn't finish picking a jury and have to go back next Thursday to continue the whole longwinded boring process.
*sigh*


*  My theory is that they don't want us to get too comfortable and fall asleep from boredom.  Which I did anyway.  I seem to be making a habit of sleeping in the courtroom.  Maybe I should point this out if they try to select me for a jury.  I'm sure it wouldn't look good if the bailiff had to keep poking me to wake me up.

And then, to make the day just perfect, the tailpipe fell off my car

It was one of those "Perfect Storm" type deals.

You know.  Just my normal life.

The letter notifying me that I'd been chosen for jury duty had been hiding for a couple of weeks before I found it.  (And my first reaction was "Hey!  You can't do that!  I'm immune for 2 years!"  But it turned out that I'd served in 2009, which meant my 2 years was up.  Crap.)  Luckily, there was now an option to respond online, which I did, with apologies for the lateness of the response.
This left me with very little notice that I had to show up on Wednesday, the 11th, for the first Jury Draw, but when I consulted with the Ops at work, she checked my schedule for that week (which had been done ahead of time, since the manager was about to go on vacation) and it showed that I was off that day anyway, so "whew!"  Bullet dodged.
But what she neglected to tell me was that I was scheduled for overnights on Monday and Tuesday.  (It was a fluke - Home Office decided that the seasonal reset that the stores needed would be done as overnights.  An experiment.  If I was paranoid, I'd be sure that it was all about me...)
That meant that I would get out of work Wednesday morning at 7am, after working a 10 hour shift, and have to go directly to the courthouse in the next town in order to be there for 8am.  And then try to stay awake through 8 hours of sitting in a courtroom.

Yeah.

There was one point about mid-afternoon, where I woke up when the bailiff bellowed "All rise!!" when the judge swept back in the room.  I don't know how long I'd been asleep.  I can only hope I didn't snore.

And I was very glad they didn't call my name to question me for a particular case.
Attorney for the defendant:  "So tell me, do you have any particular aversions to someone who... eats kittens?"
 Me:  "Um....  No?"

And yeah, my tailpipe really did fall off on my way to the courthouse.  I had to go back and pick it up.  Then walk along the highway, carrying a 6-ft tailpipe at 7 o'clock in the morning.

Just perfect.

Last Jury Duty ever (I hope)

I had my last jury trial yesterday. Hopefully that will fulfill my civic duty for a long time to come.
The case was a Fish and Game offense. I don't know how it is in other states, but in Vermont, you can request a jury trial for a Fish and Game issue. (You can even get a jury trial for a parking ticket if you so choose.)
Our defendants were charged with Taking a Big Game Animal Out of Season (specifically, a deer) and Possession of Big Game Taken Out of Season. The whole case rested on an unattributed phone call to a game warden. There was no smoking gun, no carcass, no witness - and the only physical evidence was 3 photos of some packages wrapped in bloody freezer paper and ziploc bags, labeled with a date for the previous year (when a legal deer had been taken.) We found both defendants Not Guilty, since we didn't believe that the state had proved any guilt 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' There were way too many perfectly reasonable scenarios that the prosecutor hadn't eliminated. Whatever our private thoughts were (and more than one of us thought there might have been something shady going on), the evidence was not sufficient to convict.
The funny thing is, the trial itself only took about an hour and a half. We deliberated for close to 4 hours... They had to send in lunch for us. We even had them play the tapes of most of the testimony over for us, to be sure that what we thought we had heard was what we actually had heard.
Imagine if it had been a murder case - we would have been in that little room for days...

The good news is, I took my knitting:Finished the cuffs for my Drops Sweater!

Last Jury Draw

There! At least that's over with. I was selected for a jury that will sit on the 22nd, and then they can't bother me for 2 more years.
Wanna know how laid back we are in Vermont? I was allowed into the courtroom with this:
Why, yes, those are very sharp pointy metal sticks... (Size 1's, in fact!) They ran my little knitting bag through their big x-ray machine, and handed it right back to me.
I seriously thought they would draw the line on that bit of knitting!
So, while waiting to be called up for voir dire, I managed to get this much done on this slipper project:

though I think the upper right square may be pointing the wrong way. And since it's the second square, that involves ripping out two whole squares to fix it. I might decide I can live with it...

Odetta is definitely the Head Sheep around here. It might be because she has a badge:
and Goldie doesn't...

Is it finally Spring?

I've got something red stirring in my flowerbeds...

A closer look:

Last fall, I planted tulip and daffodil bulbs, and two Asian lilies in this flower bed. I'm guessing these might be the tulips. (I've never had tulips before, so I don't have any real idea what they're supposed to look like.)

In other news, my second Jury Draw day was today. The good news: I didn't get picked for any juries for April. The other good news: I got a lot of knitting done on the Snowflake hat, which I had been saving for working on during jury stuff.


There was no bad news. Which is yet another good news, I suppose.

Caught in a Whirlwind

So there's been all kinds of activity here, chez Mango, not that you can tell from my posting.

Item 1: I survived my first jury duty. (Two more to go, then my civic duty is over for a while.) It was actually very interesting. I enjoyed all the little courtesies and rituals between attorneys, judge, and jury. (It's pretty cool to have someone call "All rise!" when you walk into the courtroom. I'd thought only judges got that one.) And the case had all kinds of drama, with high-speed car chases, sideswiped police cruisers, finishing with a two-car bang-up ending. Though the drama was a little hard to maintain in the dry tones of the state troopers' testimony... In the end, we deliberated hard - just like the judge told us to - and nitpicked each charge until we were all satisfied with our decision. As a group, we were thoughtful, careful, and conscientious.
And, Norma? I made a point to notice the stenographer - actually, stenographers, since we had a different one each day.

Item 2: Since I needed a knitting project for the downtime in the jury room (and believe me, there was a lot of it. A 9am start time was actually closer to 9:25; a ten minute recess usually lasted 20 minutes.) I cast on Kathleen Taylor's Picot Hem Stranded Snowflake Hat. (Rav link)
Because of course I needed a new project... The Selbuvotter glove was too dangerous looking with all those pointy metal needles, and the thrummed mitten was too messy to try to tote around (all the jurors would have ended up covered in fuzzy fibers. Sorry sorry...) The hat was innocuous-looking enough to make it through security - they might have let the glove through, but I didn't want to take the chance of having it confiscated, leaving me knitting-less for the day.
I got a bit of knitting done, anyway. The other women on the jury lamented not bringing their knitting and crocheting...

Item 3: I got my eggplant plied. (Does that sound odd to anyone else? Try reading it out loud. Maybe it's just me...) Anyway, the original plan was to spin for 10 minutes a day, but I kept getting sucked into the spinning vortex, and next thing I knew I had 300+ yards of 3ply. The best part is, it's an actual worsted weight yarn - which is the first time I've been able to achieve that weight. (My default is fingering - I think it's my innate stinginess trying to coax as many yards as possible out of a hank of fiber.) Laurie is the one to thank for it - she gave me excellent advice on tightening the take-up, and next thing I knew, I had real yarn! She's my hero!


And just in case I get any spare time...

Item 4: I bought Maplewing. And yarn. (I lusted for the red/orange of the original shawl, but knew I would never have anything to wear that color with. So I wimped out and got a neutral sort of tan. Though I may go back to the LYS and get the deep evergreen laceweight they had. Or that dark purple. But since everything I make lately seems to be green or purple, maybe I should stick with the tan just in order to break it up...) I'm trying to resist the urge to cast it on Right Now. Because I have a feeling that if I cast on one more project, my house will explode. Critical mass was reached long ago...

Item 5: Still working on the second thrummed mitten. I'm starting to collect photos for a post for the pattern.



Stay tuned...
.

Guess what?

When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.
-- Norm Crosby

Yep, I got jury duty.
Civics 'R Us.