My double life as a crime fighter

Jury duty has been quite a trial (ha get it?!), i have been serving the community, as a crime-fighter as my friend likes to call it, pretty much 5 days a week for 2 weeks now. Its hard going, we have to be at the court at 9am to be locked (yes locked) into a small room with one large table, no natural light and dehydrated coffee in polystyrene cups. We are  kept in this room for about 1.5 hours until we are called to the court by a kindhearted old sheriff who i think will have a heart attack each time he climbs the stairs. We stay in court for an hour and a half, listening to the meandering prosecution and the strutting and pompous defense lawyer, then its back to our den for morning tea. After 20 mins we are back in court till 1pm, where we break for lunch again in our rabbit hutch. Then comes 2pm we are back in court till 4pm. All this time we shuffle back and forth like drones, when ever the lawyers want to squabble about evidence and what not. Its all done at quite an irritatingly slow speed.

Not to say its not interesting, in the past week its really become quite absorbing, but to race home afterwards and try to do a full days work before i fall asleep is taking its toll. Luckily my boss is being super cool about this and had set me up with wireless remote desktop thingie for my laptop.

It seems this jury duty has come at a time when there is a natural lull in things before the spring summer crazy time. So that's a good thing, and once this is over (which is next week) i will be free for 5 years if not forever.

My follow jurors are quite a sight, most of them are quite lovely and very nice. But one has an opinion on everything from where the bullet proofed windows are made to the utterly interesting 100 differences between his Prius and his MX5. The term "going on" is sent to a strange new place orbiting the world Fat Mouth with this guy. You see peoples eyes glaze when he whines "well that's interesting you say that because..." Or "I grew up with his mother's dog's hair brush's toilet seat and they use to.." The other is Bobblehead, she is quite harmless and very sweet but you mention the Olympics and her head shakes like San Francisco in 1902. It does not help she has a voice like a corroded iron hinge. I am thinking peoples nuances become magnified by a trillion in such a pressure cooker environment, i have become positively mute most of the time, till i think Yappy has had too much airtime.

It is genuinely fun when the lawyers go for each other throats and the judge has to prize them apart like a primary school teacher in the school yard. It is also amazing when they get a principle witness, the last of which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. 

I do look forward to having regular hours  again and not needing to go hide in the toilet for some quiet time.

Law and Disorder

Just when I thought I was back, Jury Duty has crept up on me like Gary Glitter in a Thai playground. I have been select for 3-4 weeks on a trial in the supreme court. Dang! Luckily I will be paid and my boss will top up my earnings so I am not out of pocket. Just a bit of a bugger as I have to work from home in the evenings, doing what i can.

But this case is a very short one in law-land and it may wrap before 4 weeks. Fingers crossed. I may not be able to talk about the case, but i can talk about my fellow jurors, one I have already nicknamed 'Bobblehead' because of the way her head moves when she talks.

Hopefully i can make some entries in this time, would not want for you (one person and a dog with wheels for legs) to miss out.

Springs Coming

I can smell it, I can see it in the eyes of small fluffy creatures, the fruit store owner and even in the eyes my boring flatmate (Who I only thought only looked forward to brushing her imaginary cat and the biweekly bible and bumper sticker mail-order catalogue).

Spring is a mere hop, skip and Brazilian wax away. Yes, we may still be shivering in our leathers and gazing enviously at the sizzling roast we just pulled from the oven, wishing our head be so golden brown, crispy and covered in rosemary and oil.

But in three weeks time I can consider wearing shorts and thinking about how translucent white skin will look when skipping to the shops for Beef Stock during the first spring day. Kind of like snow blindness in khaki. I have the new flip flops that I got as a gift at fashion week, staring up at me optimistically from under my bed, much alike a virgin at a strip bar.

I have already formed a mental list rivalling the dead sea scrolls of what I need to get my hairy little hands on for Summer. New bathers, check. New sunnies, check. Interesting but fun love affair, dream on. Funny thing about summer love, they are a lot like sunglasses. Very hard to find the right one, but so easily lost.

ok ok ok!

Let it be said, yes i have been AWOL for a good part of July. So sorry, but hey, no news is good news. No i have not been sequestered away in some jury room (i got excused BTW) or hit by some runaway trolley full of drag kings in Newtown. I have just been working hard and laying low. But i promise i am back and with that here is something utterly filthy and completely funny. I am gonna write up a storm for you my pretties, now where is my flying monkey quill and ink....