Life Update
Oct. 5th, 2010 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberfocusSo today went fairly well as far as pain goes. I was able to manage the two steps on the porch without the cane and holding onto the rail, but I still need it to get in and out of the car and if I walk more than a minute or so. I need it or the shopping cart to lean on at the grocery store. I'm going back to the doctor on Friday though, because my knee is still swollen and I think it needs to have more fluid drained out of it. The doctor can decide whether or not it needs another cortisone shot. It probably does because I still get these violent pain twinges out of nowhere, but it's manageable. I am going to attempt just taking Ibuprofen tonight instead of hydrocodone. I'm sick of being mildly nauseated from the narcotic. I was able to put on socks and regular shoes today instead of just shoving my feet into flip flops. This happened at just the right time as it was 40 degrees out this morning when I drove Rose to school.
On the looking on the bright side section of life front today, my tightest jeans are no longer tight. I wouldn't call them loose or roomy yet, but they now fit comfortably, the way they are supposed to fit. And this week I wore two more shirts that were tight when I bought them at Disneyland last October, but I wanted them anyway, and they fit right now. One is a haunted Mickey Mouse-headed bat shirt appropriate for the season, although I suppose the Tower of Terror shirt is also appropriate to the season. So, yay. No swimming today, pool is closed for family swim on Tuesday. My shoulders did not ache at all today, so I think 30 laps was the right call yesterday. I will do 30 again tomorrow and then if I'm still good the next day I will consider upping it to 32 on Friday or Saturday and see how I do. I'd like to find that place just underneath the pain threshhold, so that I can push myself to get the most exercise with the least discomfort.
Tomorrow I am going to make the attempt to quit soda cold turkey. I have been trying to taper off, but it's not working. Even the sugar only (instead of high fructose corn syrup) pop is highly addictive and I drink too much of it. I finished the last can today so no more fizzy drinks. I hope I can pull it off. It's certainly been my bugaboo all these years and just because I'm drinking the natural version does not mean it is good for me. Because of how it affects my digestive system, I'd like to be totally off it in time for jury duty in November. What? you say? Jury duty? During NaNoWriMo? The first year you were seriously going to attempt to write for it? Why, yes, now that you mention it.
I got a summons for jury duty today. It's the thirteenth summons I've received in my life. I know people who have never been summoned in their entire lives and it seems like once a year without fail I get called up. Sometimes twice. I'm sure I must have skipped a year here or there, but it doesn't feel like it. Still, I've never had to serve because it's always been something like I was on bedrest for pregnancy (twice), had newborns and was nursing (twice), had just had a hysterectomy, or was homeschooling. The last time was during the summer and I had no reason not to do it, but they didn't want me because I checked the box marked "have you or a family member been the victim of a violent crime?" Apparently this makes us biased or something if we check it. It's for November 1-12 and Chris will be home on the 4th through the 16th, so I could probably actually manage to serve this time. It makes a huge difference when your kids aren't being homeschooled and you don't live 45 minutes away from the courthouse. I'd have to rely on Mom to get T to school the 1st through the 4th but we can swing that.
I could probably get out of it because of my knee needing to be elevated so much of the time and the parking lot being far enough away from the courthouse that I can't easily walk that far. I don't have a disabled parking permit (though I'm going to talk to the doctor about getting one on Friday), but if I did I could park right next to the courthouse. I sort of would like to serve. I think it would be interesting. I'm just afraid if I have to take painkillers that my mind would be slightly altered and I wouldn't be able to focus properly. It's almost a month away though, so things could improve vastly, but they also could decline again. I wish you could sit a court case from the privacy of your own home over the internet or something. The technology exists. Why can't they catch up to modern day stuff? Like just have people go in for selection and then for the actual cases use webcams. Oh, I'm sure there're all kinds of reasons why not, but it'd just be nice.
Kind of annoyed about the appropriate clothing thing they have on the summons though. I live in jeans and sweats and t-shirts. I don't have and I'm not going to go out and buy professional attire. Sorry. You want a stay-at-home-novel-writing-Mom on your jury, that's what you are going to get. I promise it'll be my nicest t-shirts and jeans, nothing faded, or tattered, or ripped, and it won't be tank tops and shorts, but it's not going to be business casual. It's just not. All right, I do have some nice tops I wear at the holidays, but aside from my long black funeral skirt, jeans are it. Nice jeans, but still jeans. Although I could be convinced to buy a nice new pair of dress shoes, but only because my old ones are wearing out. And they're gonna be Dr. Scholl's. I'm not that much of a pushover. You'll get no heels out of me.
I wonder if they'd ever really want me on a jury. I'm so opinionated and while I'm not prejudiced against people for race, color, nation, creed, sex, sexual orientation or any of those major things, I do have issues with stupid people. Not people who are mentally disabled. People who are perfectly mentally abled and just behave in stupid, stupid ways that cause them to do stupid, stupid things. And if that's the defendant, then that's what I'm going to look at them like they are and I'm not sure that consitutes a fair trial with a jury of your peers. I also couldn't sit on a jury of a teen being tried as an adult, because the human brain doesn't even finish devloping until you are 25. And I'd be comparing it all the time to, "what if it was my kid?" I wouldn't be able to see it fairly. I'd see it through the eyes of a mother. Well, I suppose I will find out. Unless I am dying and in need of surgery, I'm going to send the thing in and not try to get out of it.
On the looking on the bright side section of life front today, my tightest jeans are no longer tight. I wouldn't call them loose or roomy yet, but they now fit comfortably, the way they are supposed to fit. And this week I wore two more shirts that were tight when I bought them at Disneyland last October, but I wanted them anyway, and they fit right now. One is a haunted Mickey Mouse-headed bat shirt appropriate for the season, although I suppose the Tower of Terror shirt is also appropriate to the season. So, yay. No swimming today, pool is closed for family swim on Tuesday. My shoulders did not ache at all today, so I think 30 laps was the right call yesterday. I will do 30 again tomorrow and then if I'm still good the next day I will consider upping it to 32 on Friday or Saturday and see how I do. I'd like to find that place just underneath the pain threshhold, so that I can push myself to get the most exercise with the least discomfort.
Tomorrow I am going to make the attempt to quit soda cold turkey. I have been trying to taper off, but it's not working. Even the sugar only (instead of high fructose corn syrup) pop is highly addictive and I drink too much of it. I finished the last can today so no more fizzy drinks. I hope I can pull it off. It's certainly been my bugaboo all these years and just because I'm drinking the natural version does not mean it is good for me. Because of how it affects my digestive system, I'd like to be totally off it in time for jury duty in November. What? you say? Jury duty? During NaNoWriMo? The first year you were seriously going to attempt to write for it? Why, yes, now that you mention it.
I got a summons for jury duty today. It's the thirteenth summons I've received in my life. I know people who have never been summoned in their entire lives and it seems like once a year without fail I get called up. Sometimes twice. I'm sure I must have skipped a year here or there, but it doesn't feel like it. Still, I've never had to serve because it's always been something like I was on bedrest for pregnancy (twice), had newborns and was nursing (twice), had just had a hysterectomy, or was homeschooling. The last time was during the summer and I had no reason not to do it, but they didn't want me because I checked the box marked "have you or a family member been the victim of a violent crime?" Apparently this makes us biased or something if we check it. It's for November 1-12 and Chris will be home on the 4th through the 16th, so I could probably actually manage to serve this time. It makes a huge difference when your kids aren't being homeschooled and you don't live 45 minutes away from the courthouse. I'd have to rely on Mom to get T to school the 1st through the 4th but we can swing that.
I could probably get out of it because of my knee needing to be elevated so much of the time and the parking lot being far enough away from the courthouse that I can't easily walk that far. I don't have a disabled parking permit (though I'm going to talk to the doctor about getting one on Friday), but if I did I could park right next to the courthouse. I sort of would like to serve. I think it would be interesting. I'm just afraid if I have to take painkillers that my mind would be slightly altered and I wouldn't be able to focus properly. It's almost a month away though, so things could improve vastly, but they also could decline again. I wish you could sit a court case from the privacy of your own home over the internet or something. The technology exists. Why can't they catch up to modern day stuff? Like just have people go in for selection and then for the actual cases use webcams. Oh, I'm sure there're all kinds of reasons why not, but it'd just be nice.
Kind of annoyed about the appropriate clothing thing they have on the summons though. I live in jeans and sweats and t-shirts. I don't have and I'm not going to go out and buy professional attire. Sorry. You want a stay-at-home-novel-writing-Mom on your jury, that's what you are going to get. I promise it'll be my nicest t-shirts and jeans, nothing faded, or tattered, or ripped, and it won't be tank tops and shorts, but it's not going to be business casual. It's just not. All right, I do have some nice tops I wear at the holidays, but aside from my long black funeral skirt, jeans are it. Nice jeans, but still jeans. Although I could be convinced to buy a nice new pair of dress shoes, but only because my old ones are wearing out. And they're gonna be Dr. Scholl's. I'm not that much of a pushover. You'll get no heels out of me.
I wonder if they'd ever really want me on a jury. I'm so opinionated and while I'm not prejudiced against people for race, color, nation, creed, sex, sexual orientation or any of those major things, I do have issues with stupid people. Not people who are mentally disabled. People who are perfectly mentally abled and just behave in stupid, stupid ways that cause them to do stupid, stupid things. And if that's the defendant, then that's what I'm going to look at them like they are and I'm not sure that consitutes a fair trial with a jury of your peers. I also couldn't sit on a jury of a teen being tried as an adult, because the human brain doesn't even finish devloping until you are 25. And I'd be comparing it all the time to, "what if it was my kid?" I wouldn't be able to see it fairly. I'd see it through the eyes of a mother. Well, I suppose I will find out. Unless I am dying and in need of surgery, I'm going to send the thing in and not try to get out of it.
