Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I have done my two days and been sent home without being picked for a jury. Given that I spent most of the time worrying that I would be on a jury for a case that was supposed to go well into July, this is definitely a good thing.

( long, includes food and wandering )

I got to sleep a bit later today, because we weren't asked to show up until 9:30. On the way to the train, cattitude and I saw two great blue herons, one of them hunting quite close to shore, along with the more usual ducks and herring gulls and egret. I also took the time to pick up a buttered roll and my second cup of tea on the way to the courthouse, which helped.

I spent most of the morning reading. Around 12:30, I was one of 18 potential jurors called up, handed questionnaires, and sent into a room used for questioning potential jurors. The questionnaires were partly demographic, partly court-related: what neighborhood you live in, how long you've been there, what you do for a living, what your close relatives do, have you ever been on a jury, on a grand jury, sued anyone, been sued. The judge then told us that this was a landlord-tenant dispute, and the attorney for the petitioner started asking questions. Well, he did once the judge told him to stop making an opening statement and do so. The case involves a landlord who wants to evict a tenant, so his son can move into the tenant's apartment. As I understand it, the issues are (a) does the son actually intend to live there? (b) is the tenant sufficiently disabled that the law doesn't allow an eviction for this reason? and (c) is the eviction retaliation for complaints previously filed by the tenant?

After a very few questions to the group as a whole, we got a lunch break. I went back to Excellent Dumpling, where I said no to the waitress's "Same order?" (it was barely a question) and got rice cakes [aka New Year's cakes] with shrimp, and drank lots of tea. After lunch, we were questioned individually, notably about whether we rented or owned our apartments, and if the former, whether they were rent stabilized or rent controlled, or neither [1]. Various people said they would be unable to be fair to one side or the other. I said I'd do my best--but I also told them that (apparently alone among the group of us) I had been in court in a landlord-tenant dispute [2] and participated in a rent strike. I then explained that I'm not on the board of our Tenants' Association, which isn't even organized enough to have a defined membership, and said that I thought I could be fair, that just because one landlord (ours) is stupid doesn't mean they all are.

The landlord's attorney having covered most of the questions, the tenant's attorney asked only two or three, not of me. We were then told to take a ten-minute break, during which I went downstairs for caffeinated soda. (I wasn't sure I could get out, get tea, and get back in through the metal detectors in the allotted time.) We went back in, and they read the names of the four people who were not excused from that jury. I wasn't one of them, so I went back to the main jury room and dove back into The King's Peace. Not many pages later, the court officer told us all to come sit in front so she wouldn't need to use the microphone, then told us we were done with our jury service, and called names to hand out the papers proving we had in fact served. Keep the original, in case the court system gets confused, or you get called for a federal jury, and send a copy to your employer if they want one.

I called Cattitude with the good news; called Marvin to tell him I'll be back at work tomorrow; and went out to Brooklyn to buy basmati rice, chocolate, vanilla, and other good things at Sahadi. (Note: the current price differential between Sahadi's and Porto Rico on boxes of 25 Twinings tea bags is all of four cents.)

[1] Rent control and rent stabilization are different forms of New York State law, regulating the allowable size of rent increases and under what circumstances a landlord can evict someone.

[2] Alleged nonpayment of rent. When it got to court, they admitted that we had paid, and moved for dismissal "without prejudice", meaning that they would have the right to bring a similar suit in the future. They have not, however, done so.

There was the usual sitting around and waiting, being told how everything works (which they have to do, because not everyone's been there before, and some who have may not remember the details). Between that and the first time they called juror names for a possible panel, I watched the SpaceShipOne flight on a laptop belonging to a member of the X Prize Board. He seemed very cheerful about the need to cut a large check.

I was called for one potential jury. They had 60 of us in a room, swore us all in, introduced the prosecutor, defense attorney, and defendant, and verified that none of us recognized any of them. The judge then described the case briefly--three related drug charges, all stemming from a buy-and-bust case--and asked if there was anyone who felt they couldn't be fair to one side or the other.

I raised my hand. The judge called on me and I explained that I don't agree with the state drug laws (you don't have to support the legalization of heroin to agree that New York's "Rockefeller" drug laws are barbaric and oppressive). He asked another question and I said that no, I didn't think I'd be able to set that opinion aside and follow the law. So he told me to get my "ballot" (Ghu knows why they call the juror slips that) back from the court officer and turn it in at the jury room.

That was it until lunchtime. The waitress at Excellent Dumpling remembered that I wanted duck, but wasn't sure which duck dish; I told her, and added egg drop soup. Unsurprisingly, they do an excellent egg drop soup, the first in years that I haven't added soy sauce to. I followed that up with one scoop each of lichee and ginger ice cream at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory: I realized as I walked out the door that, to the casual eye, it looked as though I had a vanilla cone.

I spent another hour or two of the afternoon sitting in the jury room, rereading The King's Peace, and waiting to be called. Then they sent us home until tomorrow. I called my office to tell Marvin that I would have to go back tomorrow. The poor man seems traumatized by my hair color, and he hasn't even seen it.

Thence to the gym. Fifteen minutes of cardio (I'd set the machine for 20, felt a bit tired, and figured okay, good enough, I've fallen out of practice on lengthy cardio and I had gotten my heart rate up to 142). Thence to the calf machine: 2 sets of 13 reps at 70 pounds, then one set of 13 at 67.5. Slow progress, but it is an improvement.

Next should have been bench presses. I removed the two 45-pound weight plates that the previous user had left on that machine, and put on my own (slightly lighter total, and no single plate more than 25 pounds), and started to move the weight bench so the head end would be where I wanted it. It was noticeably tiring.

For best results, avoid doing stupid things. If moving the weight bench is tiring, don't bench-press 65 pounds. I finished moving the bench, to avoid leaving it in the middle of the floor, briefly considered doing crunches, and then decided that the sensible thing to do would be to shower and go home. So I did, which had the advantage of getting me back here around six.

Conclusion: I am not, in fact, well, but neither was last night's sneezing and such an allergic reaction to julian_tiger, as I'd briefly suspected after not sneezing all day.

I called this morning, and they already had the recording up--though it started "good evening, jurors"--informing us that everyone called for jury duty this coming Monday should, in fact, report to the locations printed on our summonses.

I had fun filling out the form, because I'd put in the company I'm working at, then called the temp agency to check on something and was reminded that, technically, the agency is my employer. (They will pay me $40/day for the first three days, as required by law; the person I spoke to thinks that the procedure is for me to send a copy of the form certifying that I was on jury duty. After the three days, if I'm on jury duty that long, the state pays me $40/day.)

Marvin does not believe that I'm going to dye my hair purple. He said this often enough that, if asked why I did this, I may say "my supervisor dared me."

I am feeling enough better that I took advantage of very pleasant weather and walked for about half an hour at lunchtime: uphill, around a bit, and back down. (This made it the only day this week that I took a full hour's lunch.)

And after work, with cattitude's encouragement, I went to the gym. Having missed about three weeks, I've lost a little ground with the weights, but not too bad. I also hadn't been doing a lot of walking--the same series of feeling under the weather that had me not at the gym wasn't conducive to long walks.

[1] Yes, I know that this is technically a rhetorical flaw, and one with a name. Tough.

( gym numbers )