October 2022 - Jury Duty

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

October 2022 saw me facing something not that fun - jury duty.  It had actually been several years since I'd been called, although with the people I talk to who have never been called, I wonder why they pick on me so much.

Worse, this was Federal jury duty, so I had to go down to downtown LA that day.  With morning traffic, I left very early so the trip down.

I'd actually originally been summoned back in March, and I was supposed to be on call for two weeks (seriously, two weeks?  That's insane!), one of which was when I was on vacation with my family.  Then I got rescheduled to the summer, but the judge wanted people who were vaxed and boosted.  So I got pushed back a third time.  Almost had it around Thanksgiving, when I would have been out of town and then things would have been crazy at work, but they switched me to October to finally get it over with.

I was seated in the jury box almost immediately.  When the morning ended, we had all introduced ourselves, but no one had been dismissed yet.  The afternoon started, and we were slowly working through the challenges.  Fortunately, I was one of them.  I don't know what I would have done if I wasn't since I don't have the time to take off for this kind of thing any more.  Seriously, I had worked the Sunday before (after church) to be able to go.  I just have that much work to do these days.

Ironically, that was the first day we'd decided to come back and work in the office since we were sent home in March of 2020.  So I drove up and stopped by the office to say hi to people and meet our new co-worker in person.  He was the replacement for the co-worker who left in August, but he didn't wind up working out.  Still, it was a nice end to a day.

Plus, since I was sent home early, I beat the traffic driving back.

I had such a big smile on my face when I was sent home that day.

September 2022 - Canada and New England Cruise

 (Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

I won a free cruise last year, and I took it in September.  My friend Cameron joined me.  We had originally been eyeing a Norwegian cruise, but we couldn't do it because it was round trip from Amsterdam, and we didn't meet the vaccine requirements in the Netherlands.  So we went to Canada and New England.

It was definitely cool by my standards - winter weather to this Southern California wimp, but it was fun.  We didn't do much in the way of excursions, but we got off the ship and explored every day we could.  One of the stops was at Prince Edward Island, but the wrong side of the island for Anne of Green Gables stuff.  Still, I had read the book before we went.

This was right before the hurricane hit that area (my parents actually took a cruise right after and reported on some of the damage).  We had to miss a stop in Maine as a result of it coming, but that was the only interruption to our trip.

We got off in Boston and delayed coming home one day to explore that area.  We spent Saturday walking around Boston, looking at the sites there.  Then, Sunday, we explored Lexington and Concord.  Definitely would have liked more time there, but we had to fly home, sadly.

Ironically, this wound up being on the same ship that I sailed on with my family to Alaska in 2016.  So, for my third cruise, I'd been on two itineraries and two ships.