Barb’s Burblings

I volunteer pretty regularly, at two popular attractions in DC. I’ve volunteered at one since 2001 and the other since 2009. At one of them, I wear a shirt that say “Volunteer,” but it’s pretty small. And I get a lot of questions that start with “Do you work here?” I’m never sure where the person is going with that, so I usually say, “Well, I volunteer here.” Most people then launch into their question, but more and more, I get people being all, “Oh, you’re a volunteer? Thank you!”

I never know how to respond to that. Usually I say something about how it’s a good outlet for me to blather on about random history topics, because they don’t come up in conversation that much. And then, a lot of the time, the person will say, again, “Thank you!”

This may go into the same category of how I can’t deal with compliments. (Example: Coworker: [Other coworker] and I were just saying how much we like your top! Me: Really? I mean, thank you.) I do spend my time trying to help visitors have great experiences, and hopefully making the lives of the people who DO work there easier. I’m not sure whether something has shifted in our society that I’m getting more thanks from visitors than I used to. I think part of what makes me uncomfortable is that a lot of times, there are staff members in the area, and I see these people as making bigger sacrifices than me. I’m giving up part of a weekend, but a lot of the people who work there don’t make very much money and work long hours there.

So I try to make up for it. Like the time a visitor gave me a gift card to Starbucks; apparently he carries them away just to give away to do-gooders. I gave it to the staff member on duty, who had spent a large chunk of the morning being chewed out by that guy’s wife because we had run out of passes to get into the site. I can pawn upset visitors onto staff; they’re the ones who have to take the brunt of the anger.

I discovered a few years ago that my cat Colin doesn’t like speakerphone. I was working from home and called in to an all-staff meeting. He kept coming into my office/second bedroom and meowing angrily. And generally, he’s not a loud cat. So I thought that it was a bit odd, but he certainly has his qurks, so I didn’t think about it much. After all, speakerphone isn’t something I use terribly frequently.

And then I discovered something odd. I was in bed one night, using my iPod Touch to watch interviews with Dan Stevens on YouTube. (He’s adorable AND funny!) Colin started growling. Which was odd. He had just been laying on the bed, dozing. But no, growling. And then he walked over to Pem. And started to, in slow motion practically, attack Pem. So I turned the video off–it was late.

Then I got a Kindle Fire. Which came with Amazon Prime. So I decided to try watching an episode of Better Off Ted. Bad idea. I thought I was OK; Colin was in another room. But it’s like he was drawn to it. He came in, attacked Pem. I paused the video; he wandered away. Start the video…Colin stalks over to Pem.

It’s honestly the oddest thing. He doesn’t have a problem with the tv or my laptop. Are the iPod and Fire on some weird frequency? Though really, it’s not like I needed further proof that Colin is both sensitive and strange.

I was in a training session for volunteering at Ford’s (they’re opening a new Center for Education and Leadership, which is very exciting and you should go see it when it opens) and we were discussing working with various age groups. The leader was saying how much she enjoys working with elementary school students, and another person in the training talked about how it was in 4th or 5th grade that he really started getting into history. And I thought about it and yeah, 4th grade was when history happened for me.

We moved to Connecticut the summer before 4th grade, and I remember getting a lot of books out of the library. One of them was a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt. (Of course, the mere fact that I was browsing for books to read for pleasure in the children’s biography section says something.) I read it and…that was it. I was hooked. Read other biographies of her. Read biographies of FDR. Begged my parents to take me to Hyde Park. I’m not sure why this didn’t extend to reading about Teddy Roosevelt, but there you go. I still devour books about Eleanor and Franklin.

And we started learning about Connecticut history. That didn’t intrigue me so much (well, maybe the story about shoving the state charter into a tree did a bit), but it was this time that I read The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Calico Captive. If there’s something that sparked my interest in history, particularly the Colonial period, it’s reading those books. I still love them. Part of me doesn’t want to go to Montreal, because I love it too much in my imagination from Miriam goes there.

Maybe it’s because that’s the age that kids start grasping the concept of different time periods. I don’t know. But that’s certainly when the history bug bit me.

I just finished reading Bossypants, Tina Fey’s book. Getting it was something of an epic quest–I wound up on the queue for it at the library twice (missed my pick-up the first time because I was in Russia), so I’ve essentially been on a waiting list for it since, like, March. Anyway, it’s a really enjoyable book. I’ve been watching 30 Rock compulsively since it went into syndication. It’s on from 5:30 until 8 every night–and it’s on twice in one of those time slots. (Unfortunately, another station that airs it at 11 airs one of the episodes from an earlier timeslot, which I always forget and wind up frustrated.) So actually, reading the book now was perfect timing.

Fey is very relateable, and one of my favorite passages was this, from page 173, when she finds out that the pilot was picked up:

I was a little excited but mostly blorft. “Blorft” is an adjective I just made up that means “Completely overwhelmed by proceeding as if everything is fine and reacting to stress with the torpor of a possum.” I have been blorft every day for the past seven years.

I LOVE it. Mostly because that’s exactly how I react to feeling overwhelmed. I needed a word for that feeling when I have 8 million things to do, but all I can focus on is playing Doodle Jump on my iPod Touch. One of the questions my boss asks in job interviews is how people react to stress. The only indication I give that I’m stressed (for the most part) is that my desk gets really messy.

Like everyone else, I totally want to be BFFs with Tina.

There are a lot of bad things that go with being single. (There are a lot of good things, too–don’t get me wrong.) I’m not talking about the underlying fear of dying alone and being eaten by my cats or hearing comments from grandmothers about hoping to see me married before they die. No no, I’m talking about issues that people with significant others take for granted.

Today I bought a new tv and a new tv stand, because the pretty, pretty television doesn’t fit in my old entertainment center. You know what makes me twitchy? Having to maneuver electronics that I just spent hundreds of dollars on up a staircase, by myself. Even harder? Getting the incredibly heavy tv stand box up the stairs. Those things are heavy, yo. But I did it! Yay! Of course, that meant I had to get rid of the old, huge entertainment center. Luckily, I ran into my neighbors in the hallway, and one of them helped me haul it out back. (As a bonus for him, he got to see how insanely out of shape I am, as evidenced by my face turning bright red and having to stop for breaks every few feet.) And then…I had to set everything up. Which was the last thing I felt like doing. I was tired, and I have a LOT of work I need to get done this weekend. It would’ve been so awesome to be all, “I need to proof these evidence tables; can you put that together?” But no such luck. I had to do it myself. It does look pretty good, though I put off putting on the doors. Unfortunately, I also have a bookcase to put together. (My DVDs have to go SOMEWHERE.)

I should’ve realized how the day would go when my first stop today involved stopping at a mechanic to get a slow leak in one of my tires taken care of. My plan was to drop the car off, then do some shopping and grab lunch. The shop was booked up, though–I wouldn’t be able to get my car until 5 or 6. Could I drop the car off Saturday, or Monday? Well, no. I’m busy all day tomorrow, and Monday I have work. And the place isn’t particularly close to me or a Metro or my office. And I don’t have someone who can pick me up and drop me off, etc. I’ve run into that in the past, and it doesn’t get less frustrating.

On the positive side, my new tv is AWESOME. I heart it.

I was going through all entries of this blog when I ran into an entry from 2005 in which I mentioned that my workday normally started at 7:30. This was particularly appropriate today, because I had to get into the office at 7:30, and spent a LOT of time complaining about it. At some point in the past 5 years, I’ve gotten SUPER lazy. After that job with hours starting at 7:30, I had a job in which I worked, I think, 8 to 4:30. But that job was downtown, so I was probably catching a bus a bit before 7. Which meant I was getting up at 6 or 6:15. This is unfathomable to me at this point in my life, which sees me getting to work anytime between 8:30 and 9:30. Of course, I’m leaving work later, but that’s OK. (Particularly on nights when I go downtown for a show or book club, and don’t have to be there until 6:30 or 7 anyway.)

Really, I can’t imagine getting myself back to that point. I’m sure I could; I didn’t have THAT hard of a time with it this morning. Honestly, my alarm goes off at 7:15 nowadays and I mutter “Blergh” at it and hope it goes away. I’m just going to say that it’s because people in my office tend to work a later schedule, and blame it on that. Peer pressure!

I put up my Christmas tree tonight (and it’s looking a little sad–it may be the last year for this tree. Not a bad run; I got it back in 2000, so definitely worth the investment!), and after hanging up lights in the living room, I turned on Invasion of the Christmas Lights on TLC. My favorite thing driving around this time of year is seeing cars with Christmas trees strapped to the roof; but seeing how people decorate is definitely up there, too. (And flying at night this time of year is fantastic.)

It brings me back to when I lived in Montana. The town we lived in was mostly flat, settled along the Missouri River. But on the edge of town was a hill, with a development of houses on the hill. And we lived on that hill. When I told people at school where I lived, they asked whether it was true that there was a clause in the contract when my parents bought the house saying that we had to decorate for Christmas. I doubt it, but it’s true that people in our development sure did decorate. That was the first time I remember my dad ever putting lights up on the house. (Actually, my sister may have done it one year.) We kept it pretty low-key, but some people put up some nice stuff. And you could see it from around town, the houses on the hill, covered in lights. And people would drive up and around the development, looking at the lights. Which was an issue. There was only one road leading to the development, which was set up like a V, with roads between the two edges. It took us a LONG time to get back to the house after Christmas Eve services.

Of course, none of us went as crazy as these people on TLC. I feel like the people who live across the street from them must have special curtains to block out the lights at night.

I’m having one of those times when I feel just really, really fortunate in my life. Hugs from a Tony-nominated actor? Third row seats to see Les Mis? Geeky history talk with another actor? Family coming for Thanksgiving? Tickets to see Hugh Jackman on Broadway? Going on a cruise (and a cabin with a balcony)? Stay in a hotel room overlooking Camden Yards? Nothing to do until Monday?

Woo! Life is really good, sometimes. I’m very lucky.

Last Labor Day was when I had my kidney stone. That was not fun.

Minus the kidney stone, I had a similar weekend planned for this year’s Labor Day–going to the movies, having dinner with a friend, and heading up to my grandmother’s on Sunday. My mom was in town, so I could see both of them. And it was going OK, until I got close to the exit for the Harbor Tunnel, when the check engine lights came on. I was near my dealer, so I went there. Service was closed, but the guys there thought I’d be OK to make it to tomorrow, and just bring it back then. I kept going to my grandmother’s. When I was getting off at my grandmother’s exit, the emergency brake light came on and the car started making a high-pitched noise…and then, a half mile later, the gas pedal stopped working. I pulled over and restarted the car, and made it to my grandmother’s, but it was doing it again by that point. I had AAA tow my car back to the dealer and my mom drove me home.

I got home and picked up the letter I got about a recall for my car, and cross-referenced it with what had happened, and, happily, it matched up. Apparently the brake light and noise were the signs from my car that it was about to quit on me. When I talked to the dealership this morning, they confirmed that it was the water pump, which was covered by the recall. YAY! I had been so worried at having to fork over thousands of dollars. I did have to fork over some money–I needed a new battery (the regular kind, not the hybrid one, and seeing how I’ve had Seth 7 years, this wasn’t a surprise), and wiper blades, and an oil gasket something something. But I can afford the few hundred dollars a lot easier than a few thousand. Phew.

(Also, I had spent Friday and Saturday cleaning my apartment. And because my mom drove me home from my grandmother’s, she got to see my apartment at the Exact Right Time. Perfect! Now I can pretend my apartment is ALWAYS clean.) (Mom, pretend you didn’t read that. My apartment IS always perfectly clean.)

Anyway, now I have a fear of Labor Day weekend. Or, the Sunday of Labor Day. Next year, I may just stay in my apartment, hiding in bed.

…or, How I Won at Jury

I was called for jury duty this week, for federal district court. I’ve been called a couple of times before, but this time, I actually sat on the jury. I was no longer Barb; I was Juror #4. (Or 93, which was my number in the total group called that day.)

As an experience, it was really interesting. A lot of my friends have mentioned–and this was my attitude, too–that they want to serve on a jury. They want to see the process, experience what it’s like.

In some ways, it was really cool. There were times during the trial that I had to stop myself from smiling just at experiencing stuff I’ve seen on tv and in the movies so many times. One that really got me was when the defense attorney was questioning a witness. Prosecution objected, and the judge overruled, but did the whole, “I’ll allow it, but get to your point” routine. And when the defense attorney objected during the prosecution’s rebuttal because it was so repetitious. (Because it was INSANELY repetitious.) I also found myself giggling almost every time we went into the courtroom because we had to line up by number, but we didn’t sit that way in the jury room, so we’d be scurrying around in the little ante chamber, trying to line up. I felt like I was in elementary school again.

It was a criminal case, with two counts–felon in possession of a firearm, and possession of a firearm with an altered serial number. We started on Tuesday; that morning was just selection and swearing in. In the afternoon–after the earthquake, which hit one sentence into the prosecutor’s opening statement, and the subsequent evacuation–we had the prosecution’s opening statement and two witnesses. Wednesday was the prosecution’s second two witnesses, and they rested. We got the defense’s opening statement and two witnesses. And then lunch! After lunch was rebuttal, the (long) jury instructions, and closing statements. And then we were sent to deliberate. Which we did. All day Thursday. And all Friday morning.

The problem is that part of “possession” is that the defendant knowingly possessed it, and there just was not much evidence of that–and what evidence there was came from one witness. It all came down to this one guy’s credibility. And the questioning was just completely inadequate. The prosecution rested, and I was like, “What? No! I still have so many questions!” I’m sure part of that is that there was undoubtedly evidence that they weren’t allowed to submit for whatever reason. But just things about timing of things, and where people were. The prosecution just focused on completely the wrong thing. And their “star” witness was a bit belligerent during rebuttal. The defense attorney did a good job of redirecting us, I think, and managed to get a witness who was with the defendant at the time of arrest. The case came down to a he said/he said scenario.

When I heard the charge, I was like, “This has to be a slam dunk–how can there be questions?” But when you’re given very little in the way of hard evidence, you’re left with a ton of questions. We actually started heavily in favor of not guilty. My reasoning was that I just didn’t know–and if I didn’t know, I couldn’t vote to convict. We talked. And talked. And talked a lot. It was a great group, honestly; there was a lot of diversity, both in race/gender/age and in opinions, and everyone treated each other with a lot of respect. And there was a lot of laughter, too. Really, I couldn’t ask for a better group. Which is good, because as I said, we spent 8+ hours (longer, you’ll note, than the time spent actually presenting the case) in a small room, talking to each other. (Not taking into account the numerous times we waited in the jury room for the court to be ready for us.) After 4 hours of discussion, we got stuck. The judge told us to keep going. So we talked more. Gradually, the room moved more toward guilty. But early on, we had people say that they were not “sway-able.” Too many doubts to convict. No doubts. The rest of us moved around, and we agreed on a verdict for the second count (not guilty–the prosecution submitted literally nothing into evidence that the defendant knew the gun had an altered serial number). But we hit a wall. So we wrote another note to the judge explaining where we were and how we got there. And so we submitted a partial verdict, and were dismissed.

(How did I wind up voting? I spent a lot of time undecided. But this morning, we read something in the jury instructions that brought me over to guilty. I explained my thoughts ["I'm ignoring all of the controversial stuff and just focusing on the fact that there was a gun on the floor of the car. And this instruction allows me to use my common sense."], and another juror said that I had swayed her. I totally win at Jury!)

But first, the judge came into the jury room to talk to us. He didn’t seem terribly surprised, and acknowledged that the prosecution didn’t do a good job at all. It really should’ve been an easier case than it was–here was a guy in a car with a loaded gun at his feet. But they brought up enough extraneous information–and they did it, not the defense!–that we wound up questioning the credibility of the main witness. So we were a hung jury; there was a mistrial for that count. The defendant will probably be tried again on this charge, and he may very well be found guilty. As a group, we sure thought he was guilty–but did the evidence prove it? Not enough.

It was a good experience. It took longer than I would’ve hoped, but it was really fascinating going through the process, considering everything, debating points. It helped that the other jurors were so respectful and good-natured. I’m not foaming at the mouth to serve again, but I certainly wouldn’t mind. If nothing else, it would be interesting to compare the experiences!

Plus, I have an awesome certificate of appreciation, suitable for framing.