The jury duty notice

I opened the envelope from the Jury Commissioner and groaned. I was supposed to report to the superior court in the county seat, an hour-and-a half drive away. Oh, well, I thought, all the other times I had called the night before and didn't have to go.

This time was different. I called on Sunday night and heard the recording say, "All groups must report." Oh, well, a day off from work.

There were at least a hundred of us in the jury room. We heard a bare-bones summary of the case, and immediately my interest was piqued. We were handed a 15-page questionnaire to weed out people with obvious biases. The questions were remarkable: What did we like to read? Did we watch crime dramas on TV? Did we know any of a list of about 100 people involved in the case? Did we know anything about the case? If so, where did we learn it?

For some reason, more than anything, I wanted to find out what this process was like, so I wanted to get past the first elimination round. Was anyone in my household involved in the media? This one I admit to parsing. I had lived with a journalist for a few years, and had just moved into my own place in January. There are probably a few lawyers and judges among my ancestors, and I admit to enjoying occasional hair-splitting. This would come back to haunt me.

Sumary of this summer's trial

Rogers trial summary


The link above provides a really good summary of the trial on which I spent 3 weeks as a juror this summer.

Following posts are my takes on the experience.

Falstaff has a new home!

A Bay Area couple took him for a test-drive one weekend, and now he's theirs! Lydia at the rescue group said they have questions for me, and I said to send them my email address, but so far I haven't heard. I'm happy someone took him. I'd like to think Frank and I and his mother filed some of Falstaff's rough edges down.

a photo of the edge of the earth

More Falstaff updates

here is where Falstaff is listed by the rescue group.
http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=6856151

Lydia, who runs Special Pets Rescue, sent me email saying that Falstaff was having a test visit with a Bay Area couple who are crazy about him. In her next email, she asked if I was open to fostering because I'd done such a good job with Falstaff. I nearly cried, having felt like such a total failure with him the whole time -- I told her it was largely Frank and his mom who civilized the dog. But it did give me new confidence.

And, aha! I saw a pattern: I've quit a few jobs in my life, based on how I felt inside about them, which was totally lousy, only to have people say, oh, you were doing such a good job, why do you want to leave. What's the lesson here? Ask for more feedback? Do a satisfaction survey? Assume that unless I hear otherwise, I'm doing fine? My default setting is just the opposite. And even when I get good feedback, I still feel like an impostor. "Boy, am I fooling them." Can I get an amen?