So earlier in the week I dodged a bullet about dodging a bullet. The afternoon before I was told to report back to jury duty for jury selection, the court called me and relieved me of my duties. Thank god. This one would have been a bitch.

Somewhere this week 12 other people were getting hit by that which I was lucky enough to miss. Lucky because it was a murder trial. Luckier still, because it sounded like a very fucked up murder trial even in just the brief paragraph that intro’ed the page after page questionnaire we the possible jurors had to complete. (A lot of questions on whether I’d ever experienced the inner workings of the American system of juris prudence. I don’t know if it was my frank answers about stupid things like an ounce of my bro’s pot back in the day or the number of lawyers in the branches of the family tree, they didn’t pick me.)

Go ahead and Google Mohammed Monie. I’m not sure what is more crazy, it’s 80s vintage, the confession by someone else to young to try, the tricked out muscle car, the lack of the old, literal, habeus corpus, or the mistrial last year after two days, but I knew I didn’t feel great at the prospect of being in on it.

I never expect murder trials to be as neat as they are in a one-hour block minus commercial interruptions on my TV screen. But, this case just seems desperate and crazy. Whoever rejected me from my service before my schedule got completely jacked, I thank you.

Meanwhile, the only thing on my brain is the upcoming holiday. The Norelco razor season seems crazier and more empty than usual. I never thought an electric razor was the perfect gift. But, when the economy is in the shitter and the world seems to be headed to hell in a hand bag? Yeah, not really.

If you know me, expect products from my lemon tree and, I hope, some things that are a bit up from the sniff of desperation at the mall. No Salad Shooters from me. Although, maybe a nice, one-of-a-kind juicer.

Technorati Tags: murder, California, Christmas, economy, jury, law, court, trial

We took a quick stroll only a couple of blocks or so. We certainly moved to a merry-making ‘hood. We strung a couple of lights ourselves so as not to be shunned. And, at least one light stringer seems proud to be an American or maybe forgot the red AND GREEN color scheme tradition.

Technorati Tags: California, Christmas, home, Pacifica, photos, suburbs

Technorati Tags: Bay_Area, California, Christmas, home, Pacifica, photos, suburbs

– Paid our first mortgage payment
– Received our first tax bill
– Didn’t hyperventilate
– Got our first Christmas tree (technically second, but we tend to silently block out the Nick years)
– There are pluses and minuses to living with a guy who buys a tree with an emphasis on “efficiency,” because he had the rental car anyway
– Speaking of Nick — Our second apartment was like bizarro world. When the apartment management company messed up our final walkthrough twice and generally weren’t helpful, the landlord intervened and just sent us back our security deposit in full.
– The problem with making homemade thank you notes for housewarming gifts — You still have to sign and hand them out to people. AKA the toil side of crafting.
– With the cute little home in a fabulous (really breathtaking scenery-wise) location, I kind of obsess on one of my stand-up jokes. Really, with the way it’s going we are way overdue for a terminal illness.
– Fuck the automakers. Fuck them hard. Let’s list all of the industries that Congress will never consider bailing out, like say casinos in Nevada.
– I kind of hate John Dingell now, not that I ever loved him
– The boss suggested it wouldn’t be that hard to pitch a fit/otherwise act crazy during next week’s jury selection. If only I could videotape for Youtube.com
– Still have resisted the urge to research the fuck out of the murder case on the web
– If anyone in Boston cares, we’ll be heading there some time. I don’t have any particulars yet. Email or call me for a reunion.
– I’m devoid of Christmas gift ideas. Right now, I’m thinking ShamWow for everyone, because the Germans always make good stuff.
– Looking forward to wearing what I will always consider Dot’s sweater. I’ve kept the tags on to keep it looking like new

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Technorati Tags: writing

After a weekend of eating, exploring everything from the mountains to the sea (literally, and walkable to our home) and the big city (a much, much more exciting 15 miles away, instead of the almost 50 miles when I first moved here),
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Monday came crashing down around us.

We went to sleep late, and we arose early with M. beating the trash pickup and getting our barrels to the end of the driveway. Our schedules were off a bit from setting our own pace for a long weekend and because of the new, new home discovery that when the swells are crashing at 18 feet we can lie in the quiet of bed and nighttime and hear the ocean’s roar. As cool as that sounds, in terms of describing it to others, there is a sad, unromantic comparison. The surf coming from the beach and echoing back to the shore from the mountains sounds a bit like living next to a highway. Shuuuuu shuuuu.

For me, the special pain of a Monday at work was interrupted by my having to report around lunch time to the Redwood City Court House for jury duty. In an ideal world it would be like M.’s recent report. He showed up, sat around bored and IM’ing me from is iPhone and heading home, relieved from service. None of that for me. Nope.

Instead, I have to head back in a week or so for voir dire and jury selection. My afternoon involved a 10-plus page questionnaire as the first step in getting to know me and my suitability for systematized judgment. The ultimate goal to suss out whether I’d be useable for a murder trial. The only thing good about that news is at least they started the announcement about the potential for jury selection by saying it was not a DEATH FUCKING PENALTY case (OK, sans the “fucking.”) I forgot I had moved to a state where execution is a possible outcome.

I’m praying that my answers on the questionnaire, much of which seemed to be trying to glean my relationship to the old juris prudence system we got here and whether I have issues with law enforcement personnel, show how unfit I am. The sooner I’m dismissed the sooner I can read everything on the ‘net about the people versus some dude whose case seems very “Law and Order” meets “Cold Case” meets “ripped from the headlines.”

Apparently, they don’t want us doing that at all. Burden enough for a computer junkie.

Technorati Tags: beach, California, hiking, jury, law, mountains, murder trial, ocean

Turns out snapping off a few pics of giant crashing waves is just a lot of foam and water. But, this one seemed a bit evocative. If by evocative, I mean wet.

Yesterday, in honor of the holiday but breaking from normative behaviors, I cooked a feast for M. and me of stuffed and roasted Cornish game hen, ham, potatoes, broccoli and the first bread baking I’ve done in a very, very, very long time.

It felt good to have a real kitchen again. And, there ain’t nothing like jazzing up your stuffing and roasting with lemons you ripped from your own tree moments before tossing in the roasting pan.

Actually, it wasn’t bread but Parker House rolls, and damn if they didn’t bake up most excellently. So excellent in fact we ate them again this morning with butter and marmalade.

Today, we avoided the hideous and shameful trampling crush of shoppers. We instead explored the layers of natural our new town has to offer. We walked to this county park:

Then we drove on over to the city pier and caught a little sunset over the Pacific. Like the huge moroon that I am, I had put down my good camera to grab a pee before this new adventure. But, I caught some sun-fading pinks and oranges with the old iPhone.

(All of the full photo galleries are behind the sundry links in the above pointless but explanatory text.)

Technorati Tags: California, hiking, mountains, ocean, Pacifica, photos, Thanksgiving

My joy at leaving work early, getting lost in the fog trying to find an Office Depot and failing, wandering too long at a Hallmark store than a discount store, where I was unable to choose three pillar candles to set in a housewarming gift, picking up pies M. had ordered from a local bakery and ultimately lying on the couch, is glorious. For hours on end, I have done nada, fuckall, nothing, and I am digging it mightily.

My goal for the weekend is a little fancy cooking for two tomorrow and that’s about it. We didn’t even buy a turkey. Nope, Cornish game hens and ham for us. And, pie. One each.

I want to maybe write, maybe hike. (The ocean is less than a mile in one direction from our place, I’m thinking “west,” the mountains are about a mile and a half in the other direction, could be east.) Maybe we’ll explore our new town apart from the wilderness, including it’s 1/4 mile long pier. Maybe I’ll just obsess on the hellish goings on in India, especially since I know folks who have stayed at those hotels, whilst carrying western passports.

I did slice the tip of my middle right finger off while searching through a bag full of toiletries for dental floss. Damn disposable razor, how’d that get in there? Anyway, without my precious full layers of epidermis, writing stings like hell. What’s that I hear? Another excuse for doing NOTHING.

And it is for the absence of anything that I must do for which I am grateful.

Technorati Tags: Bay_Area, beach, California, home, Pacifica, real_estate, Thanksgiving, suburbs, mountains, India, writing

Insert your own pithy and lengthy entry here. I would have done it for you, but instead I fell asleep on the couch.

The one thought that’s been rolling around in the isolated, empty space that is my brain cavity is all about home ownership. The short of it is I think about the nasty little minds conceiving the housing crisis around the poor folk who have gotten in over their heads haven’t rented in a while. Even with a pretty cool landlord and sufficient resources to live a mellow life, dealing with the man who owns the house and paying the bills for him grinds you down a bit.

Take the security deposit. Mostly they take it. This time around, we no doubt won’t have a crazy Nick on our hands. But, Fred from the management company hasn’t shown up twice now for our walk through, standing up first M. on a Wednesday night and then me on Thursday.

I’m boring myself into a comfy couch stupor, so forget reading any sense in the paragraphs above. Instead, take a look at our housewarming party on Saturday and the reason we moved to this town, the cliched and beautiful ocean.

Technorati Tags: California, Pacifica, real_estate