Jury Duty

My dad has always wanted to serve on a jury. The government/history teacher in him made him crave the chance to serve. I think he's the only human being I've ever heard about who wanted to serve that badly. {Except Pauly Shore in the movie - but that was only because he needed the free housing.}

So a couple of weeks ago, Ryan got the paper in the mail about how his name was in the pot for the upcoming months. You know the paper. The one that lets you say what dates don't work for you and that kind of stuff. THE NEXT DAY he received his notification that he was up for selection.

Thanks a lot for the swell lead time with that first notice!

So he called a week ago Friday night after the appointed hour stated on the paper and found out he had to report.

I know jury duty is never convenient for anyone. That's kind of the nature of the thing. But it didn't stop me from being a little agitated that he had to get up Monday morning and commute to work for three hours and then commute back this way to report for jury duty. But he did. Showed up in his scrubs and began the long afternoon of phone-silence.

Ryan's work isn't conducive for regular contact throughout the day. When he's with patients, he has to be WITH PATIENTS, and I get that. I want him to be focused and the patients to be safe. But at least he can text me a "hey I miss you!" on restroom breaks and such. Not so with the world of the courthouse. I couldn't breathe for him that he couldn't take his phone in. And about 8 million times throughout the day, I thought of something to tell him...and I remembered he couldn't read it.

Ryan's brother, who is a police officer, had "jokingly" warned me that depending on the nature of the case, he could be sequestered to a hotel and not be able to speak to me AT ALL until the case was over.

I really don't need to pause here to tell you my thoughts on forced separation, do I? But Rod instilled the fear in me and I jumped to the ceiling when my phone rang Monday night and it was an unknown number that I assumed represented some approved phone in the courthouse.

I skipped "hello" entirely and said "Please tell me you don't have to go live at a hotel." Ryan laughed and said no, he could come home every night, but the trial would last a week.

NO.

He said they weren't quite done for the night, so I decided to run to the grocery store to kill the extra time apart. An hour an a half later, Ryan found me, socializing in the aisles. Pitiful, isn't it? I was still so sad about the upcoming week, but actually, he was pretty excited about the whole thing. He said he was looking forward to it.

You guys, it was the longest week ever. In happy news, it was lovely to have him "working" in town. We got to sleep in every morning, later than we ever do. He came home for lunch every day, and that was fun. The time between his call to say he was on his way home and actually BEING home was practically nothing. Loved all those things about it.


What I didn't love? The secrecy. We don't do secrets in our house. I don't even like keeping birthday gifts a secret from him. So to have him spend all day doing something that was really important and then to have him come home and say NOTHING - well, that didn't work for me.

Didn't love the lack of contact either. It makes me panic to not have access to him if I need something. {Like the day the judge held them over 45 minutes for lunch and I was home panicking that the defendant shot him as he left the courtroom. Seriously. I have to stop watching the crime shows.} I think I called five times and sent three texts in fifteen minutes that day.

But I persevered. I did a lot of cooking and baking:

And Thursday night, since he assumed jury duty was going to kill our previously scheduled Friday night date, he took me out ti Starbucks, which was so lovely.

It was good we did that, because Friday was the longest day OF OUR LIVES. Braeya and I were so over it by about 7 p.m. but we needed to buck up because we would not see the most handsome man on the planet until 11:30. That's p.m. As in right before midnight.

It is POSSIBLE that I drove TO the courthouse at 10:00 just to make sure there were still people there and that he hadn't gotten assaulted on his way to his car. {Not sure what I thought I was going to do if he had, but whatever.} And while I was out, I went ahead and got dinner, since I gathered by that time, we weren't going to get a pizza.

I decided that as the week progressed, I just looked older and more tired and bedraggled, so I was ridiculously grateful to have this journey behind us and to be back to whatever comprises our normal. 

So we survived jury duty. I was really proud of Ryan for how seriously he took his commitment, for the level of time and prayer he put into thinking through the evidence and offering a fair verdict, and for being a way better sport about it than I was.

And now I'm once again enjoying a life of being able to hear from him randomly, to not have secrets, and to get my socializing from him and not from roaming the grocery store aisles. LOL!

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday was blissfully lazy. We woke up to our first frost, and it was SO pretty. {Prettier because we didn't have to scrape any vehicles!} We enjoyed church, which included time to cuddle with one of our favorite littles, and these CUPCAKES!!! Caramel cappuccino cupcakes. I could have eaten ten. We spent the rest of the day on Mo, napping, watching TV, reading, and writing.

* Monday morning, I went with Mom and a friend of hers up to Fort Wayne to shop for Christmas candy making supplies. We had fun {how can you NOT in a room full of candy??} and went out for lunch after our shopping extravaganza. Meanwhile, Ryan had to report to the courthouse because his name came up FOR JURY DUTY. Despite my prayers to the contrary, he ended up getting selected, and below you can see our respective thoughts on that. I began preparing myself for a week of jury widowhood.

* Tuesday Ryan headed back to the courthouse for more jury duty. While I was still nervous about this hiccup to our schedule, I did enjoy having him home longer in the morning, home for lunch, and home sooner in the evening! YAY! Braeya and I read blogs and worked on writing throughout the day, which was fun. Know what wasn't fun? Trying to hunt down a book that apparently does not exist in our county. When the bookstore and the library are dead ends = FRUSTRATING!!!

* Since Wednesday was Veteran's Day, the Courthouse was closed, and Ryan went to work at his regular job. He sent me this STUNNING sunrise photo, which I loved so much. I spent the day trying to be a good housewife, since I've spent so many days being a writer. I even cooked a real dinner for him - marinated baked chicken, homemade macaroni and cheese, green beans, and snickerdoodle brownies for dessert. He deserves about 800 more meals like that to be caught up from my nights of tacos and such. LOL!! We just rested that night, and we curled up for popcorn and a movie. The Notebook. Sobbed with the same intensity as when I first saw it years ago! Such a sap.

* I don't know what it's like where you live, but it was ridiculously windy here on Thursday. I saw that our ferns did a face plant in the back yard and hoped that was the worst of it, but it wasn't. A massive branch pierced the top of our pirogi and ripped it! We were so sad! {Especially since we had planned to take it down in just two days!} Ryan was gone all day at jury duty again, so I spent the day baking quick bread for the freezer {that was a big mess in our little kitchen} and then that night we had a quick Starbucks date that I enjoyed so much. I have MISSED him this week.

* Friday. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Friday. Ryan went to jury duty that morning and we met for lunch at Wendy's. Good thing we did because that was the last I saw of him for almost TWELVE HOURS. I spent the afternoon writing, raking leaves {again}, doing my nails, watching Hallmark movies, and wondering if I would ever see him again in my natural lifetime. Finally at 10:30 that night, I decided he wasn't coming home for dinner {I'm nothing if not hopeful} and I drove to Burger King for dinner. He finally got home at 11:30 and our jury duty life ended. Praise. The. Lord.

 * We slept in a bit yesterday morning, a treat Ryan richly deserved after his week. We did some dreaming shopping in the afternoon and then went to the funeral for Ryan's great aunt. We went to the family dinner after, where the kiddos kept us busy! I was so very glad to have Ryan back...sigh...so glad jury duty is over!