jury duty

In our community -our county-seat-city of 7000 nestled in our county of 20000- jury duty policy is such that we serve for six months at a time. My six months will be up the end of June. So far I haven't served; I've been called from the galley to the jury box a time or two but both times I had reasons which disqualified me.

It's a distasteful business, this deciding guilt or innocence, this determining sentence upon another, but... someone's got to do it; I'm glad I haven't had to do it yet, and I'm happy to be doing my share, just by showing up.

I'd be happier if I had better nerves. The last few years I've been better able to cope when I'm multitasking - - when I have some type of "handwork" in my hands. My first day in jury duty I was told I couldn't bring my knitting needles. Actually I wasn't *told* anything. Instead the young woman at the metal detector pulled the needles out of the sock I'd been working on. I retaliated by repeating over and over, calm but incredulous (and loudly), "I can't believe you did that," which hopefully made her feel really stupid in front of the dozens of people in the room. I haven't tried plastic circular knitting needles yet, but I think that's coming.

For the next four months I took quilt squares and pieced them.

Last week I brought a small cross stitch. One of the bailiffs saw me working on it and told me "No sewing in the courtroom!" called my needle a potential weapon and said I couldn't bring it any more.

On hearing this, a friend of mine suggested I get a really big plastic crochet hook and work on an afghan - or did I think they'd consider an Afghan a terrorist?

Some people bring books or crosswords. I sewed, because I can sew and pay attention at the same time. If I were reading, I'd not be paying attention.

how to get a lot done or at least have the illusion a lot is getting done

Make a list. Make it a numbered list. Every item has a number, but they don't need to be done in numerical order.

The first item on the list is #1) Make a list.

When I have all the items I could *hope* to get done in this one day on the list (including inconsequential items like

8)take a shower
9)make a sandwich
10)eat a sandwich and some chips )

I make the last item on the list like so:

#xx) make a new list

then I transfer everything I didn't get done from the old list to the new list AND the extra things I hadn't put on the old list but got done anyway

( call Xyzabc about yyxxqq ) and
( fold two loads of laundry )

- I put those on the new list and cross them off. and once the new list is done I can cross off

#xx) make a new list

from the old list AND

1) make a list

from the new list. So I always start off with stuff already accomplished.

This is how I reward myself with a feeling of progress for every little thing I get done. I haven't made many paper lists lately - I keep them in my head. And I haven't got much done lately.