Jury Duty, Work, Fall...

I was called for jury duty back in April or May.  I filled in my form, mailed it in and promptly forgot about it until it was time to serve.  I told my boss I had jury duty and reported on time to the Paterson Courthouse, only to find that I COULDN'T serve because, they claimed, I hadn't mailed my form in to them.

I had the stub with me, the portion you have to bring that has your juror I.D. on it.  Quite obviously the form was not there.  Wherever in the system it got lost - by the USPS, at the courthouse - I couldn't serve that day because they didn't have my form.  So they told me they'd reschedule me for September 11.

Well, in August I got my paperwork again, and THIS time they told me to complete the form online.  (It's like they didn't trust me to mail it in again...)  And THIS time my time to serve was THREE DAYS, not one.  They're punishing me because they lost my paperwork?!?!?

But I went to jury duty like a good citizen.  And on that very first day, THEY PICKED ME FOR A JURY.  The catch to this is it's "3 days or 1 trial."  If chosen for the jury, the judge said, they expected the trial itself to last 3-5 weeks, 3 days a week.  They picked 65 of us from the jury pool, and we went up to Judge G's courtroom.  They asked if anyone needed to be excused for hardship reasons, or if they had a vacation paid and scheduled within the next 3-5 weeks.  FIFTY of the 65 people said yes, so we spent two days going through those 50 people in private interviews.  There were 19 of us left after all the excused were excused.  So they chose 14 to go into the jury box.  I was juror #9.

The NEXT week we went back on Wednesday, and they had more people in the courtroom and they started our individual interviews and THAT took two days.  Eventually they excused me, the defense attorney did.  There was a police officer on the jury with me.  During our breaks, he was explaining how excusing jurors is just like a big chess game.  Of course there are probably myriad reasons they didn't want me or the others they excused:  relatives who are in law enforcement, our likely politics based on how we get our news, whether we can understand and consider the evidence without allowing personal feelings or opinions to influence our findings, the TV shows we watch, etc.  It was really fascinating...

Considering I was only out of the office two days each week, I really feel like I'm behind at work.  Summer was so S L O W that when things went back to "normal" at the start of September, I felt (and feel) overwhelmed!  And while there's no more work than I've done before, but the summer was really slow and it FEELS like more...  And my hours have changed, which I know contributes to my feeling that there aren't enough hours in the day.  I used to drive in with J and would be at work 7:30am, and he'd drive me home, picking me up no earlier than 5:45pm.  Now, I'm in for 7:30am, but I'm leaving at 3:30pm.  If of course, I need more hours, I'll stay and take the train home, but 7:30-3:30 is a full day.  Who knew that those extra two hours a day I was putting in really made that much of a difference?!?  I thought I spent most of them surfing the net and reading personal email and FB and Twitter...  Apparently, I was working part of that time!!!

And I decided that the other day, a day I took off as a vacation day, would be the ideal day to bring fall clothes down and put summer clothes away. 

I.DO.NOT.EVER.NEED.TO.BUY.ANOTHER.PAIR.OF.BLACK.OR.GRAY.PANTS.NOT.EVER.

I'm going shopping this weekend, but will only allow myself a pair of BROWN pants, jeans, and/or a few colored tops.  I really need to take a picture of my closet - I'll try to remember to do that tonight or tomorrow and post it here.  It's very black... and gray...

Well, it's 8:52pm and I have to shut down and go upstairs and get ready for my favorite show's season premiere:  Criminal Minds.  See you guys in a couple of days...  In the meantime, a few images from the last couple of weeks...

Took Mom and my baby sister to Wendy's for dinner, then my nephew (literally) sped there from work and met us for some food.  Here's my sister and me...  Pardon my double chin!

Here's Mom sitting on our porch swing one night when she came for dinner.  We've figured out the trick to getting her to come:  J asks her, early in the day, before she can claim she already put dinner in the microwave...  She finds it too easy to say no to me, but she doesn't say no to him, at least not too often...

Here's a shot of a building next to the Paterson Courthouse.  It really is beautiful, isn't it?

I'm hooked on Instagram.  There's a photographer there who takes some awesome shots of rusty metal anythings...  So I thought I'd try to "see" the way she does.  That's my biggest complaint about my not-so-mad photography skills.  I just don't see things the way a "real" photographer does, and I would like to think I might be able to learn...

 

 

This is my nephew...  cute, no?!?