I was summoned for jury duty again yesterday. It’s happened once a year like clockwork. Each time my juror number is really high (937 out of 999 yesterday), and each time I get called in.
Yesterday I sat and sat and sat. At 11am, I was called to a court room, along with 150 other people. We barely crammed in. The judge told us to go to lunch and come back at 2pm. By then it was 11:30. My hour-and-a-half lunch break was nice, but it was a rainy day, so I couldn’t walk the harbor.
Upon returning, we went through the usual process called voir dire, which everybody was pronouncing “vwa deer”. The judge started by announcing this was a homicide case and would take at least until the end of the week. He said anyone for whom this was a “painful inconvenience” should stand. At least fifty people stood. He then spoke with each of them individually about their reason for standing. It took more than an hour. I read a little, slept a little, and read a little more. He asked a few more questions, more peope stood up, more private conversations, more reading.
The judge’s last question was the one that almost had me standing. He asked this question: “Is there any question you wished I had asked you?” I almost stood so I could talk with him about my terrible experience last year and my feeling that something is broken in the Baltimore City court system, but by then it was quite late and no one wanted anyone else to stand. Plus, I was a little afraid that the judge might throw me in jail or something.
The lawyers went through at least a hundred people to get their final selection of 12 jurors and 4 alternates. I was not one of them. They were on juror number 818 when they got the final seat filled.
But it was freaky late! 6:50pm!
Alfred, one of Denis’ friends from Easter dinner, really likes gardening. While talking with him, I said that I had Monday plans to go to my favorite garden center. Since Denis and Alfred were off of work as well, they decided to come along. The garden center is almost in Annapolis, so it’s quite a drive, but it never seems to take very long because I’m always so excited.
My visit was kind of a disappointment. I wanted to ask somebody about my cherry tree, but I had to be careful. If I asked the wrong person and they gave me stupid advice, I would either have to offend them by asking another person, or go home without a satisfactory answer. I waited and waited to ask this one guy who looked like he would know what he was talking about, but some woman was monopolizing all his time with inane questions. I got impatient and asked another guy. Big mistake. He had no idea, but he made up some answer. I even pushed him a little with some follow-up questions, but he stood his ground and continued to pretend to know what he was talking about. Dang. I went home without a satisfactory answer.
Since we were so close to Annapolis, and since Alfred had never been there, we went. We walked through the Naval Academy. As we were going in, Steve (my honey bee class teacher) and his family, were coming out. He remembered me and asked about my nose. While I was in the gift shop, I took the super-cool picture below. We ended our time in Annapolis at a seafood restaurant. It was a great first day of Spring Break.
It was a great Easter yesterday. I started the day with a sunrise service, which is something I don’t remember ever doing. Of course, it is possible I actually HAVE gone to an Easter sunrise service and don’t remember it, but if I did, it was before I started keeping this memory archive, so I’m not responsible for remembering it.
The service was held at my church’s cemetary. I haven’t heretofore known where the cemetary was. As it turns out, it’s almost in walking distance of my house. It’s a cool old cemetary tucked away in the middle of a neighborhood. There seems to be an inordinate amount of tombstones with angels on them. Very cool looking. There is a small chapel where we had the service. It was a very pleasant way to celebrate Easter. If the choir wasn’t singing in the later service, the sunrise service would have been enough.
Later, Denis had some friends over for Easter dinner. He prepared pancit, which is a Filipino stir-fried noodle dish. He also prepared chicken adobo and grilled pork. The grilled pork was not your regular cut of meat though. It included skin and a healthy layer of fat. I did taste it, and it was delicious, but my tastes run toward the traditional for holiday meals. I heated some ham in the crockpot and made some au gratin potatoes from a box. It was delightful. We ended the meal with an avocado shake. Denis has made this before, and as weird as it may sound, I really like these. It’s avocado, ice, and evaporated milk. Add sugar to taste.
He is risen! Alleluia!
Yesterday I went out to get my Easter tie. This is the third such tie. It’s kind of fun, and it gives me an excuse to get new tie. I have a lot of ties, but only several really nice ones… ten or so. This way, my selection of nice ties increases each year. This year, I was looking for an orange tie. I went to Arunel Mills Mall to look around. In Burlington Coat Factory, I hit the motherlode. Here is what I selected:
While I was there, I went to Banana Republic, as is my wont. Everything in the store was 40% off. Forty percent off outlet prices. I did a good job of controlling impulses, though. I got another of my long sleeved shirts for $7. In the picture below, I tried to pose like a model to show off my shirt and my Easter haircut, but Max couldn’t stand not being the center of attention, so he had to ruin it. He’s such a ham.
Right as it was getting dark, I had gone into the back yard. It was there I witnessed an Easter miracle:
It’s only a single cherry blossom, but it gives me hope. I still may kill it, but at least I’m considering keeping it now.
Looking at the long-range forecast, yesterday looked like one of the warmest days of my vacation, so I decided to clean the pond. A ton of leaves and trash had blown into it. And I was pretty sure there were some rocks in the bottom of the pond as well. At first I knelt at the side of the pond and reached in with my hands. But the deeper areas were hard to get to. At one point, my nose touched the water. I decided to wade in. The water was cold, but bearable. It was a little freaky to be blindly dredging my hands through rotting vegetation, but I quickly got used to it.
I partially filled a wheelbarrow with leaves from the pond. I also pulled out many large rocks. People have been throwing them in the pond. I didn’t even consider that as a possible hazzard. What’s wrong with those people? One of the large rocks smashed the housing of my $300 pump. I’ll have to jimmy-rig a screen for it now so that leaves aren’t pulled into the impeller and clog the blades.
After I was done I noticed that my hand was bleeding. I had flashes of a swollen finger and odd bumps climbing up my arm toward my heart. Infection! Infection!
