Watching paint dry

I was selected to serve on a jury at the Federal court in Oakland. Did you know that could happen? We can all be called by the Feds to attend trials in Oakland, SF, or SJ. I thought my commute was far but there are jurists from Healdsburg and Santa Rosa. Those are nasty commutes, although we are reimbursed 50 cents a mile by our fine government.

It's a criminal trial, titled the U.S. vs. (name of innocent until the government proves him guilty). As a young person, which our innocent is, having the U.S. against me would scare the poop out of me. It's fascinating, laborious, amusing and emotionally buffeting to watch the wheels of justice turn. Overall, it's sad-- the stupidity and waste and I'm sure the whole process has already cost the government (monetarily) more than the crime.

On the home front my teenager pulled an unexpected fast one on me last night. He said he was taking the train to SF to hang with a friend and that his dad would give him a ride home. At 7:30 I called his dad to see where they were and he didn't know anything about picking him up -- he was out to dinner in Redwood City. (Not his problem.) After I picked up the top of my head and put it back into place and called my friend D who talked me off the ledge, I got the teenager to give me the address, phone number and name of the person he was staying with and had him agree to having a talk about how we'd handle these things in the future. Truancy is not what I need right now. Can you imagine if something had happened and all I had to tell the police or CPS was that my son was somewhere in SF visiting a friend whose name I don't know but, hey, I trust him, he's a good kid and just "having an adventure" (exact words from the ex's mouth.) Not exactly parent of the year award material.

Oh, and I'm sick again.