True, but I'm not sure at what age the automatic excusing for age kicks in; it probably varies by state (or even by county). Just tossing it out there that if you really don't want to serve, it's worth inquiring if you're old enough to get a permanent reprieve.
New York called me once, right after I left for college out of state, San Diego called me a couple times in 10 years (and my boss always got me out of it), but after I moved here, I haven't been called once in nearly 20 years, whereas my ex-boss and DBF were getting called every
2-3 years. My luck is not that good, so I'm guessing that in this county, if you don't have a driver's license, they don't include you in the jury pool. (If true, that makes no sense, because the courthouse is served by every downtown bus line and the trolley stops 3 blocks away ... not like some rural areas where the nearest bus service is 10 miles away.)
Top posting since I'm moving the subject. My hematologist oncologist today took a look at my blood and everything was (as he said) perfect. Every value was in normal range, except of course platelets which come in at just over 62,000, normal is between 150,000 and 400,000. So, when I need surgery I will always also need a transfusion of platelets. Since the platelet count has been virtually stable over two years now he said my cirrhosis is not advancing. That is amazing news. I am so happy! I so much want to live. I have to learn to train Dressage horses for Pete's sake! Now I can committ to something like that. I am so drawn to it I simply have to find out more. I blame Trish; you horse lover you.
In New Orleans the age is 70. If you are over 70 you can request an exemption. At least, that's what it said on the forms last time we were called for jury duty.
That sort of explains why there was only one white-haired person in the whole jury pool. I noticed a sprinkling of 20s-30s, but probably 80% of the jury pool was in the 45-65 age bracket. I thought that odd. It was pretty much balanced in race and gender; just the age seemed skewed to me.
I had a Great Fall a while back meself. It was stupid, really. DD announced she was going out to the dunny and went via the laundry. Trying to be clever, I decided to race her and get there first. I 'ran' out the kitchen door, managing to step on my own thong (ie. the ones you wear on your feet, *not* the ones you wear - elsewhere) on the way. I fell heavily down the back step.
You know how these things tend to go in slow-mo once you realise you're in deep $#!+?
As soon as I perceived I was going to fall, I saw that if I ran just a couple more steps, I could save myself by grabbing hold of the yard gate. I stretched out to reach for it and missed by the hair on my fingernails! If I had only allowed the original fall to happen, I would've been extremely embarrassed and nothing more. As it happened, I managed to achieve the small step just before the fence and came down on the point of the concrete just below my left kneecap. Then, I sort of bounced and hit the other knee on the point of the step leading to the dunny.
It hurt so much, I screeched and no sound came out! Oooooooo! Me kneeeeeeeeee! I sat on the dunny step and enjoyed the stars whirling round my head. I was so lucky not to have broken anything, but I did take about a fat quarter of skin off my knee and the side of my leg. It felt like a huge papercut that had just been doused in lemon juice! Of course, as I struggled to deal with my Great Fall and the subsequent pain, the stupid DD was standing there laughing fit to split her sides.
'I won!' she yodelled 'And *you* had a Humpty Dumpty moment!'.
It was only when I turned my streaming eyes upon her that she realised more had been hurt than my pride.
'Get Dad!' I managed to croak. She scurried off and allowed me a moment of privacy to enjoy my chagrin.
Poor old DH had to hoist me to my feet (which hurt even more!) and help me inside to sit and bemoan my fate. Now, these few months later, I've still got a great band of old bruise beneath my knee that simply won't break up and go away. To this day, I don't know how I achieved such a massively Great Fall and still managed to walk away without breaking anything. At least, when I look back on it, I can see how funny it all was. I must've looked *so* stupid, lumbering out of the kitchen to my Doom. ROTFL (literally).
As soon as I was able, I took the pair of ill-fitting thongs and chucked them in the bin, swearing at them viciously as I did so.
Hah! Great news! I truly admire the way you continue to be positive and constructive under hard circumstances. It's not about what you can't do, but what you can! Well done!
I've had an idea for you! Why don't you see if you can find a local stud farm that would allow you to work with their babies? The most important lessons in a horse's life are the early ones where they learn to allow themselves to be handled, haltered and bridled. It takes a lot of patience and works best if a *lot* of petting and talking is involved. I reckon it'd be a fine way to begin. What do you think?
NB. Thank you for blaming me! I like to infect people with horses! ;->
Thank you. I put a few calls out there. Why is it called stud farm? Is it because they make whoopie and mares have their children?
I would probably cry tears of joy for the first thousand hours with the babies. I would love to mush all over them. Animals "get" me. I "get" them.
My root teacher is a Tibetan monk and he adores animals. It's his dream to buy all the horses and yaks and cows which are on their way to the you know where. He has an animal sanctuary in Nepal and is looking for much larger land so he can rescue more and more. He will go into a restaurant and buy all the lobsters in the live tank and release them. One time he was driving though the desert in California and his van was hitting the locusts and he made them stop because he couldn't stand to kill them. He stopped and said prayers for them for hours and hours.
When he sits out with the horses he reads the equivalent of the bible, only Buddhist to the animals, they gather around him and stand there looking at him for hours! I'll post some photos tomorrow.
Now that was funny! Sorry your goose egg still remains, but Trish, what the heck is a "dunny?" Most things I can translate from Oz to American English, but this one has me wondering.
After I had my knee replaced everything was going well. Then I fell. I have no idea how, or why, just that I did. Now, my Mikabird was on me and she traveled down on me like I was a tree, swinging from my shirt like a banshee. She was no help. There I was, all twisted under, I think. I was afraid to move, Mark wasn't home. I got up and went on. A setback, but keep going. THEN, about two months later, May 20th to be exact, I was washing my SUV (stupid tank) on concrete, barefoot and I like a lot of soap. Guess what. The Great Fall. I actually subluxed the fake knee cap over a few inches. Oh fun getting old. I'm almost done healing now and I can clearly see the light at the end of the pain. I can actually kneel on the new knee. I cold not do that before.
So, we're too klutzes. What else do we have in common? Do you love marzipan?
Of course, in order to be excused for age, you have to ask for it. If you're 100 years old and want to serve on a jury, no one is going to throw you out of the courthouse.
Oh, sorry! 'The dunny' is Oz for 'the toilet'. Ours happens to be one of the original genre: outdoors and remote from the house. A few years ago, we saved up and stretched a roof from the back door to the dunny (only a few metres, but might as well have been half a world away on a cold and stormy winter's night!)
Our little house is gorgeously quaint in its own sweet way. F'rinstance, DH's and my bedroom is marginally larger than our (kingsized) bed. Every night when we go to sleep, we have to edge sideways around it, taking care not to step in the dog, who sleeps on a pillow on my side, or sit on the cat, who sleeps on the windowsill on DH's side. Additionally, there's a hole in the floor at the foot of the bed where the ancient floorboard cracked and fell away. We keep meaning to mend it, but since that would require the removal of an entire floorboard and hence the temporary de-commissioning of the aforementioned kingsized bed, it remains in the 'too hard' basket for now. As it happens, I frequently receive a cheery 'good morning' miaow through The Hole from our younger, outside-cat who sleeps under the house... (And it's only a little hole - 'bout ten inches by three).
The bathroom is cute too. I can stand in the middle and touch the walls on both sides. It gets *really* comical if two people have a reason to be in there at the same time. Kind of like the tile puzzle where you have to move tiles around in sequence to solve it. The only thing that gives us real grief is that we don't really have a room where we can all be together at once. So for that, we go outside into our Out Door Living Area or ODLA, which was formed by accident when we put the roof over the dunny.
See? ;-D
Geez! You were so lucky not to have fallen on Mika! It must've been awful! I often find it's a lot easier to have these prangs (that's Oz for 'accidents') in privacy. Given enough time, I can usually right myself again, one way or another. My cousin (the one with the daycare kid) actually fell down a flight of stairs while carrying the same daughter *and broke her*! She fell on the child - then aged three - and broke her thighbone against the tread of the bottom step. Euuuw!
YUCK! Y'don't want to be doing *that* too often! On the bright side, imagine how dire it would've been if you'd done that to the *real* kneecap! At least it was only a replacement-part repair! ;->
Psst! We don't wash our car: DH is a Scoutmaster and our excuse is that he goes camping so often, it's pointless trying to keep the chariot clean.
You're doin' better than me! I couldn't kneel down to save me life! Nor even to say me prayers!
Dunno! I've never had it, that I can remember. My lifelong weakness has been the chocolate drink, Milo. DH brings it home for the kids and then they *hide* it from me, the cruel and unnatural lot! Last time I sniffed it out, it was lurking in DS' undies drawer. I *believe* there is currently a tin somewhere in the loungeroom, probably behind a pile of books or on the high shelf that I can't reach. It *will* be mine. Eventually...
I don't know the rule in Florida but back in New York my father-in-law was "thrown" out of the courthouse when he was 80 and as sharp as a tack. They said he was too old. He was furious and disappointed and so was I because if I ever had to have a jury trial, I would have wanted him on the panel. He was someone who really was highly intelligent and would be fair and thoughtful.
Trish Brown wrote: > My cousin (the one with the daycare
The first thing we taught our male dancers, before even teaching them to do the lifts, was that once your partner's feet are off the floor, you are totally responsible for her safety, even if it means sacrificing yourself. You do whatever it takes to twist yourself around to land under her, and not vice versa.
Har, Har. I once served on a jury, when I was in my middle twenties. Since then, I have never, ever, been picked. Nowadays, lawyers do NOT look for someone who will be fair and thoughtful, they look for someone they can "snow". This is what the "voir dire" process is all about these days - anyone who shows any kind of brains or initiative, or has even heard of the alleged crime, is normally ruled out by one side or the other.
What a sad descent from the ancient idea of a jury of one's peers, when the jury members were supposed to be neighbors who had some knowledge of both the situation and the people involved, and could therefor render a thoughtful verdict.
The jury commissioner said that?! I can see an attorney tossing him from a particular case, but they're usually so desperate for willing jurors that they'll keep whoever shows up.
I've proofread jury selections where the judge gives his brief opening spiel and asks "any questions?", and someone will chirp up "I'm Mrs. Lee, my name isn't on your list, I'm here to translate for my mother Mrs. Liu, who does not speak one word of English. Can she be excused?" And it apparently makes perfect sense to the judge (although not to me) that Mrs. Liu has gotten this far in the process and was not told "go home" downstairs already.
I've even had trials where they had a sign language interpreter for one of the jurors, that's how desperate they were for people to serve.
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