Happily, I didn't actually have to go down to Hastings to get told I couldn't serve on a jury. (Because I really, really didn't think they were going to put me on a jury.) I just had to keep calling each night, and once in the middle of the afternoon, to see. The woman who recorded the messages started sounding really apologetic in the last few days. Finally this evening she said we were done. There was apparently only one trial in that time that wanted jury selection. At least twenty-five groups of potential jurors for that. The ratio of registered voters to felons in Dakota County, MN, is pretty phenomenal.
Anyway. As I said, wrestling with side effects. Some of you know. Nobody is actually standing over me going, "You haven't finished that yet?" Except for, um, me. I just finished my birthday thank-you notes today. I realize that for many of you the response to this is, "You write actual thank-you notes?" rather than, "How dilatory!" But yes, I am a gently-reared young person and a credit to my upbringing. Sort of. Mostly. Some of you will be able to tell that you received the last one I wrote, because I was a little punchy by then, and the salutation is...fond but eccentric.
We are getting ready to scatter to the corners of the earth.
markgritter and timprov leave Monday. I don't leave until Thursday. I already have my Canadian money in a comforting little bank envelope, heavy with coin. Chocolate, crispy spinach, book discussion, and more. So excited. I am doing bizarre half-organized things like telling markgritter, "All right, I've washed darks and jeans, so only wear light-colored clothes until the weekend." But we'll get it all handled one way or another, I feel sure. 