All gone!

Shelly, Matt and Bonnie left yesterday afternoon.

Lenore and Janet left early this morning.

Ed and Val left around mid-morning.

Alessa will leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow, but we dropped her off tonight.

Goodbye, everyone! Goodbye!

Now all that's left is...Misty. So if I don't post for a few days, it's because I'm squeezing every minute out of our time together.

The photos should keep you busy!

Home Again, Home Again

Jiggity jig.

We ran off to collect Caitlin from the loving arms of Grammy and made the long drive there and back without any problems. Well, except for swelling feet sorts of problems.

Now we're all home again, Caitlin busy trying to sneak books so she doesn't have to sleep, me editing pictures from our trip (first day's worth are up!), cats are climbing all over us happy to be reunited, birds glad that I've refilled their feeder and plants are...well they're my plants. They like it when I look at them, I think.

All kinds of fun things are in bloom, including my giant lettuce/weed looking plants that were my Danebrog poppies. Maybe I'll snap a picture of them tomorrow.

We even had the electrician come over with 15 minutes notice and install a new line in the garage for my chest freezer and seed fridge. I haven't got a chest freezer or a seed fridge yet, but I'll get to that part next. Got to have somewhere to put a lot of food to get us by the first few crazy months of twin-ness! Feel free to bring us food after the twins come. We won't be cooking, but we'll still need to eat.

I'm noticing my stomach getting all hardened pretty much every time I stand up or do anything vertical. Sitting at the computer is getting harder and harder. I suspect Eric will need to rig something upstairs for me at some point. My gut makes it hard to type around and my skin still feels like it's on fire, right in the center, just below my navel. Le Sigh!

As much fun as it is to travel, it's good to be home. All three of us hung out in the hammock for a little while after dinner and it was nice and mellow. Caitlin is even sweeter when you haven't seen her for a week! Of course, for me, laying about in the hammock gives me the opportunity to check out the yard and mentally list all of the things that still need my attention. It's a long list and I'm running out of the ability to bend over and/or dig holes. Moving plants around in the fall is either going to have to be outsourced to Eric or will have to wait until the spring.

Le Deeper Sigh!

I have all of these great ideas about what I want to go where, but mid-June is not a good time to move established plants around. Ah well, time for bed. Must wake up early and relocate a few plants before the stump grinding people arrive and shred them. Mid-June transplant shock or no, a stump grinder will ruin any plant's day!

Missing in action

We've been playing and going on trips and shoveling snow. Oh my!

Very little to write about, although I'm still short on Cat Tossing pictures as well as Thanksgiving and Xmas and such.

Xmas: a good time was had by all. Eric received seriously yummy brownies from Fairytale Brownies. Santa did pretty well by Caitlin. I received very cool hummingbird earrings and a book on the science of cooking.

Snowstorms: received another foot of snow and Shock! the first two feet of snow haven't melted off yet! Unlike it normally does within three days around here. Made a family of snow-angels with Caitlin in the back yard. Tossed lots of snowballs at her, too. My aim is awful!

Went on a trip to the library and museum to see the IMAX film Roving Mars with Caitlin (in between snowstorms). Got my eyes checked, dilated (I hate that part), and ordered new glasses with all the bells and whistles and new contacts. Ouch!

Played more computer games than I probably should, but Eric...he makes me! Yeah! That's my story and I'm sticking with it!

Must go drink some cocoa. It calls to me.

Snow day!

Scenes from our windows.

The boys check out the yard. They haven't heard about the annual "Chuck a Cat into Snow Drift" festival. They will. Oh yes, they will and soon.
The deck.
The stranded car out front.

When all the world seems black and white....

It's snowing like mad

Here in Hatchet-land, the snow is getting deeper and deeper. We're not going anywhere.

So much for the idea of shopping for presents!

Oh well. More time for world-saving! Heh heh heh!

We watched 2 cars and 1 SUV (Hah!) get stuck outside our house. Eric, being the Good Samaritan that he is, went out to assist the two cars. One belonged to our neighbor, directly across the street. She was very grateful. The other belonged to another neighbor (that we don't recognize), who lives further up the hill. They got her car pushed as close to our sidewalk as we could because of the danger from fishtailing vehicles as the come around the corner. I watched two other SUVs come around the corner fishtailing like mad, so it was a very valid concern. She left the car out front and walked home.

The SUV we didn't offer to help, as it showed up after Eric came back in and took off his snow encrusted clothes. Besides, there was no way in hell Eric was going to be able to push something as big as that bugger. Eventually they got out on their own.

What's the point of having an enormous, heavy, 4 wheel drive, gas guzzling SUV if that sucker can't handle snow in Colorado?! Mind you, this is no ordinary snow - it is a blizzard and Denver and Eastern Colorado were declared a Natural Disaster zone. State of Emergency and all that. Fortunately for us, we still have power and heat and things. I am really really glad that we didn't have anywhere to be today.

Hope you and yours are all safe and sound.

I think we're going to toss Caitlin into a snowdrift tomorrow!

Yet more proof that we are far from organized

Christmas shopping? Not one single item purchased.

However, I have a plan! Yup. And I'm not telling. I know who reads this blog!

Hey, I got the cards out on time, didn't I? That's gotta count for something! Maybe when we're flush again shopping for presents will be fun. In the meantime, we're just going to have to wing it.

Sigh.

I'm not depressed or anything, but the whole rush around and stand in long lines to buy stuff theme just doesn't do anything for me. Eric either, but at least I don't feel like turning into a mass murderer before the shopping trip is over. He gets a little crazy this time of year with the crowds. You'd think he'd learn to shop early or just do it all online. All the rest of the year he's a fabulous shopper but around Xmas? It's like he loses his skills or something.

I think it may be due to Birthday Week. How can Xmas compete with 4 days of celebrating Eric-ness? Besides, there's world saving what needs doing!

NaBloPoMo

I want to do NaBloPoMo, but I'm doomed from the start. I have this little trip to Kansas coming up soon and then a trip to see my folks ring in 40 years of marriage. So there are two entire weekends that I'm for certain going to be out of any 30 days consecutive blogging. Not to mention Turkey Day.

Just recovering from the food coma will probably be spectacular and suck several days of my life away! Let's not forget the airplane travel!

So I guess I'll just have to leave it up to Val.

In the meantime, I'll just try to do my normal best of almost daily posts.

Almost daily's good enough, ain't it?

What if there are photos? What if there are photos of...Italy?

Yeaaaaah. I knew ya loved me!

Where in the world is The Hatchet?

Messing around, mostly. Nothing of interest to see here. Move along!

OK, well, there was a teeny tiny fetal-position brain-bending migraine, but other than that I've just been reading science fiction quickly so I could return a few books to the library. I take out more than I can read in the time I have since I get distracted easily by nice weather or Caitlin projects. Or saving the world.

Blame it on Eric. He tempts me with Neverwinter Nights video games to play. We play far too late into the night and then suddenly there's no time for writing! Or cleaning! Or reading! But we saved this town called Heliopolis and my thief is 26th level now and I so rock the backstabbing thing and...!

Err...yeah.

Yes, I know we're closing in on forty, but if we don't save the electronic worlds from doom, who will? Huh? Answer me that!

The Hatchet Jurist

"Well...that was unexpected!" One of my fellow jurors remarked as we filed into the jury deliberation room.

Unexpected? Perhaps. The same outcome I was certain we were heading towards since yesterday, though. Now that it's all over, I am free to regale you with tales of The Hatchet Jurist. This is going to be pretty long, since all of my lawyerly friends wanted complete details. Get something to drink and get comfortable!

I've been calling into the jury line every Friday this whole month. The other two weeks, they didn't want me. This week, when I was actually hoping to not be called, since Misty was getting sworn in on Monday afternoon was of course the day they finally wanted me. And since I was called, I answered the summons (with jail time if you ignore it) and went to do my civic duty. All of my lawyerly friends were jealous.

I felt almost certain that they wouldn't want me. Federal court, my husband is a lawyer, I'm possibly too educated and I support the 2nd amendment. Hmmm....well, let's see what my chances are!

The case was criminal, we were told. A known felon was indicted for being in possession of a weapon. The judge made it very clear that the indictment means nothing. That it was up to us to listen to the facts and rule accordingly. I sat in the back of the room as they called up the first 13 potential jurists and waited as they went through the jury selection process. I was tired from having stayed up too late with Eric and regretting it while trying to pay attention. The courtroom was huge and well appointed, also appeared to be very new. The Chief Justice Babcock was presiding. On the left was the defense: Mr. L. and his lawyer and on the right was the prosecution: The Government. The judge was very concerned with the welfare of the jurists. He thanked us all for coming. He made a few jokes here and there and told them that he knew they were nervous, but that everything would be just fine. Sitting in the back of the room, I was thinking, "What's he talking about? I'm not nervous!"

The jury selection process was run by the judge, once all 13 folks were sitting (there were about 30 of us in the jury pool in this room), he began questioning them. Tell us who you are, where you're from, what you and your spouse do, and what you do for fun. Those may seem like innocuous little questions, but the answers seemed to get a number of people discarded from the jury. Do you own any guns? What kinds? Do you have any friends or family in law enforcement? Do you believe that you can make a fair judgment on the defendant? Oh! And do you watch any of the CSI shows on television! The judge excused the first person himself after she admitted to a hatred of guns since her father committed suicide when she was young. Then, after listening to everyone respond to the questions, the bailiff brought sheets around to the prosecutors and then the defense to make their first cuts to the jury. She took the final list to the judge, who then thanked everyone for their time and then read off the names. The first 6 cuts were made. Then the bailiff chose another 6 names at random from the bunch of us sitting quietly in the back of the room, where we were all trying not to fall asleep.

I woke up pretty darned fast when the first name they called was mine!

I went to the first seat, but then had to turn back around and fill in to the right of the remaining juror in the front row. Yes, there I was, front and center in the jury box. I immediately began trembling. Absolutely shivering and I couldn't stop.

What the hell? It's not like I'm on trial here! I thought to myself frantically. But I couldn't stop shivering and I was torn between hoping they'd keep me (because I really really wanted to be on the jury) and wanting to escape. Curiosity won out in the end, I wanted to stay. The same questions were posed to us: tell us about yourselves, what's important to you, do you own guns, do you have family members that are part of law enforcement, do we watch the crime shows? I thought I was doomed as soon as I said Yes to guns and the next question was What kind of guns? Then I answered that and was greeted with Have you ever fired one? Again Yes and then the clincher: What makes you think you can judge this case fairly, since you are a gun owner. I can't remember exactly how it was worded, but it was clearly "Prove to me that you can be fair, even though you have experience with guns and a gun was involved in this case".

Mind you, several other folks had also admitted to gun ownership and several had been removed in the first cut for whatever reason. I was the first person he asked that question of specifically and I felt totally put on the spot. So I answered as truthfully as I could. I support the 2nd amendment: the right to bear arms. I told them about having my very own newly minted lawyer husband and best friend who was being sworn in that very day and that I have a friend that used to be a police officer in California. Once they determined that Eric was interested in IP and that I never talked to Ed about police work, they moved the focus of judicial questioning to the next person. I thought that was going to be the end of me, but the next round came and went, as did another 4 people and I was still seated.

Wow.

A couple more iterations of question and response with the new folks, several more excused personally by the judge and then, at 11:20am we were done selecting. We remaining 13 were it!

I was kind of bummed when the guy sitting next to me was removed. He had the deepest voice I'd ever heard on a man that short, ever. It was a cool voice. Instead, he was excused for possibly being biased against the defense since he was involved in a counter suit involving a family member. Oh well!

We were then sworn in, seated and had the case explained to us after the remaining jury pool left the room.

Three shots were fired around 2am in February of last year. Police responded to the scene, only to see a car pulling out of the driveway and leave. The police pulled the car over, it stopped for only a moment and then peeled away. The police chased it for a few miles, sirens wailing, speeding excessively, blowing through stoplights, when it crashed into a cab that tried to pull over, flipped over and came to a halt. Both occupants of the vehicle were thrown clear, as well as the contents of the car. The cop in the lead car stopped, leapt from his car, cleared the defendant's car and saw the defendant, getting up and trying to run away. After securing Mr. L in handcuffs, the officer went to return to his police car when he noticed Mr. L's wife laying unconscious in the gutter, having sustained head injuries upon being ejected from the car. That's also when he saw the gun. The prosecutor's job was to prove to us that the gun belonged to Mr. L. The defense just needed to instill a sense of reasonable doubt in the jury. The jury's whole job was to listen intensely and determine if the prosecutors had done their job or if the defense had.

The lady next to me started looking more and more uncomfortable. She told me she really needed to use the restroom and what was the protocol for getting someone's attention? I really didn't know, but was certain it involved the bailiff, who's face was obscured by the enormous monitors in front of her. The lady next to me raised her hand and kept it raised for a very long time, looking more and more desperate as time went on and neither the judge nor the bailiff saw her. The judge was focused on the witness that was currently giving testimony. The bailiff was behind a computer screen. Things were looking bad for our desperate jurist when finally the defense took a moment to interrupt the prosecution's questioning of the witness and pointed out that the jury needed attention. The court was quickly put into recess and out she rushed. The rest of us followed at a slower pace, trying not to laugh.

Such a serious and quiet courtroom and in the middle of it, a woman desperate to service a very real human need. She felt terribly embarrassed, but we all felt for her. I checked in with the bailiff to find out what the standard protocol was supposed to be (raise your hand and she would take care of calling recess, or just stand up so the judge would see you) and then trotted off to the restroom myself, since I didn't know when we would next get to go. All rest breaks and lunch break decisions are up to the judge, so you never know when they will be. My advice to you, should you ever be called, is to take advantage of those breaks and DON'T drink any water in between. Better to be slightly dehydrated than to have to stop the entire court proceeding, I think. However, you all do what you need to do!

We filed back into court, our pads of paper clutched in our hands and finished with the first witness. We are allowed to take notes, but not to ask questions. I was glad of the note taking, it gives you something to do and a way to organize your thoughts. We were not allowed to discuss the case with our fellow jurists, yet and had to keep all thoughts to ourselves and stay completely away from the lawyers and family members of the accused. We then broke for lunch, returned refreshed and started up again.

The witnesses were all called up by the prosecution and questioned in a rapid fire stream of question and answer. The defense got to cross examine. Prosecution then had a chance to re-direct after the defense was done. Each side had their occasional Objection! Followed by the reason (generally Relevance!) and then either Sustained or Overruled, as the judge saw fit. All of those law and order type shows are a crock! Nothing so flashy actually happens in court, it would appear. If you object, you'd better have a reason why. When introducing evidence (almost all photos that were displayed to the jury on the screens (very high tech courtroom) set into the arm rests between every pair of chairs), the defense had the opportunity to object to evidence, but never did. He would bob halfway out of his chair and say No objection and then the evidence would be allowed and displayed to us.

I thought swearing in the witnesses was interesting. There was no statement of "...so help you God". Instead it was "...or suffer the pains and penalties of perjury". So much for that bit of TV fiction as well. At least, they don't do it that way here in CO.

I took copious notes. I didn't think I would, but I did. I made eye contact with witnesses, lawyers and defendant. I looked over the family members in the back of the room. I really wished someone had told all of his friends to dress like they were attending a funeral as well. They weren't dressed to elicit either our sympathy or our respect, and I didn't think that helped the defendant any. Something to keep in mind should you ever be in the hot seat. I couldn't tell you if I was taking more or less notes than anyone else, but I'll tell you this: I was very aware of what each side was doing. Where they were going with their lines of questioning. When they tried to get our sympathy by mentioning that the car had crashed near an elementary school (Objection! Relevance!) repeatedly. How the prosecution would spend time propping their witness up: look at how knowledgeable and respectable! and how the defense would reinforce that notion and then turn around and remind you that they are just human. And that they all seemed to forget to write up all of the details they were telling us now in their reports written a year ago! The prosecution had to deal with the mistakes of several different groups: Denver police, expert gun guy, expert DNA guy, crime scene investigator and federal investigator.

Here's something that was driving me crazy as the case went on: both sides repeatedly referred to Mr. L's ex-wife, laying there bleeding and unconscious with a head wound in the gutter as "The Female". I wanted to throttle them. She is an actual human being you dolts! They would occasionally refer to her as "The Woman" but should have called her Mrs. L or Mr. L's ex-wife or something more respectful than "The Female". You'd have thought the prosecution would have done so but it was not to be.

I made notes on the way they introduced someone as an expert and when they convinced me that an empty 9mm magazine was found on Mr. L. They convinced me that they knew which blood was his and that it was found on the magazine. They convinced me that it was possible that magazines leave a unique mark on the bullets placed into them and that the shell casings on the ground outside of the house (Remember? "Three shots fired"?) came from that magazine and that the live round found on the ground was also from that magazine. They couldn't make the connection that those rounds were fired from the 9mm Beretta 92FS that was found, empty, laying on the sidewalk near the elementary school, which had an unusual lanyard clip attached to the bottom of it, but no matching line attached to Mr. L. They couldn't find a single witness that had seen Mr. L with a gun before or during that night, nor anyone that saw him fire it, not even his wife. They had not tested him (either his hands or his clothes) for gun shot residue (GSR), defense claiming that it was very important evidence and prosecution claiming it was very delicate material (another TV line shot to hell). They couldn't lift any fingerprints from the gun - the expert witness said that in the thousands of times they had checked guns for fingerprints attested to the fact that they'd only gotten a usable set about 3 times. Yet another TV myth shot down. Neither side performed a DNA test on the gun itself. Realistically, since both Mr. and Mrs. L had been bleeding, it was quite possible that either or both of their blood may have been on it, so that also would not have shown possession, just as his bleeding all over the sidewalk didn't mean he was in possession of it. They convinced me that he drove the car, that he fled a traffic stop, that he crashed the car, that he got up and began moving, but not that he was fleeing the scene.

Was he drunk? Was he disoriented? It was a violent crash, certainly, but do you expect us to believe that he was in possession of wits enough to get up and try to run away? They never told us what his physical state actually was, that night. When his ex-wife testified, she told us that she was drunk and that she has no memory of the chase, the crash or the gun. She never saw it before and had no idea what a magazine was when presented with a picture of it. You can choose to believe her or not. Was she coerced? Did she suffer memory loss from the drunkenness or the traumatic head injury? Was she afraid of her ex? We won't ever know. We have to assume that she was telling the truth. Why did he run from the cops? Was he out after curfew? They mentioned that he had tried to get permission to stay out late for a party, but never mentioned whether he got permission or not. The cops chased the car, but didn't check what was happening inside the house.

When the second set of cops showed up to the house, a group of people that had been seen outside leapt into a car and fled. The second set of cops did not follow the fleeing car. Who were those people? We'll never know.

What we do know is that 3 shots were fired, 3 casings and one live round were found. No bodies nor blood were found anywhere around the house. No damage was observed to the house itself. Where did the bullets go? No one knows. Who fired the gun? No one knows. Whose gun is it? No one knows. The person it is registered to couldn't be found for questioning. The gun is not registered to Mr. L, but it is not clear that it is stolen. The prosecution never made the connection between the gun and Mr. L. Possession, that was their whole goal: proving he had possession. They couldn't do it. They fell short. All defense had to do was to instill reasonable doubt.

I was doubtful. Even without defense's excellent questions of the witnesses.

At 11:15am today, prosecution rested their case. Still without making that final connection.

We stopped for a mid-morning break, came back and were thanked for our service. The defense had asked for a directed verdict while we were out of the room and the judge, who said he's only ever taken the choice away from the jury about 2-3 times in his years and years of sitting the bench, acquitted. We never got to deliberate. It was all over.

So we filed back into the jury deliberation room and finally talked about the one thing that brought us all together and that we were to have no impact on. One person mentioned being surprised, another had no idea what had happened, while a third expressed dismay that the judge got really mad at the prosecution at one point when they wouldn't accept that he was sustaining an objection from the defense. The judge ripped into prosecution angrily when they tried to argue with his Sustained. I was a little surprised at how fierce he got, but as I told the other juror: this is a game with very specific rules and the judge is the referee. What he says goes. We started generally talking. Finally I started laying out what I had been convinced of and I had the whole room listening intently.

I may have started talking with one person, responding to some comment they'd made. I can't remember. Inside two sentences, I had the whole room's undivided attention. I laid it all out, the arguments that I'd planned on using against the rest of the jury if they tried to convict when I was certain the connection had not been made. I didn't tell them specifically that I was going to acquit, but I pointed out that of all the things the prosecution had proved, ownership of the gun was not it. That was the key thing and it hadn't been proved. I was convinced when I left this morning that I was going to be the cause of a hung jury. Whew!

The jury slowly trickled away. The Lady That Had to Go and I chatted for awhile longer down in the jury waiting room while waiting for our respective rides. I wowed her with my calm logical analysis and eloquence. She asked me in a sort of stunned manner, "What do you do again?" and I told her about my plans for a plant nursery. She thinks I should be a lawyer.

Hah! No thank you!

After a little while, and much dissection of the trial, we turned in our badges, walked out the front door of the district courthouse and talked about plants.

Out front, Mr. L was being congratulated and hugged by his friends and family. One family member walked past me and said, "Thank you, ladies". I responded gravely, keeping in mind that we still weren't really supposed to interact with the parties involved, "You're welcome."

Eric arrived, I said goodbye to She Who Had to Go and we went our separate ways.