Notes from the North Coast

My adventures in the diabetic-industrial complex

2009-12-18T19:31:00.000-08:00

Starting tomorrow I can get a discount at our local aquatic center and at Denny's. Luckily, for me, I'm at the swim center a lot more often than at the restaurant.

Self-blame and type 2 diabetes, let me count the ways. So yeah, the nurse practitioner where I go for my medical care said I have blood sugar levels that indicate borderline Type 2 diabetes, the kind where my body can't keep up with turning food into glucose because my pancreas is tired. Why is my pancreas tired? Well, there is a genetic component to getting this, and most of my female relatives have some variation on the sugar problem, at least on my mother's side. Other reasons, quite simply, are eating too much and moving too little. (And I can't help wondering how much of my attitude toward my body has been passed down the generations too, a kind of weariness, as well as a kind of wariness about doing things differently.)

Diabetes, of course, is a chronic illness much like asthma, which I've had since I was three. So why the big guilt trip for me with the sugar and not with the air? Maybe it has to do with those 7 deadly sins -- with ol' greed and gluttony raising their ugly heads, with sloth not far behind, although I can trace many asthma attacks to being to lazy to vacuum under the bed. Somehow though, wheezing doesn't trigger the guilt and self-flagellation that "bad labs" do. Maybe it's something like having the feeling that I've squandered something precious -- my health and energy -- just by eating too much. Whatever. I felt awful out of all proportion to the little physical discomfort I was experiencing.

When I got the news, I moved in with gusto -- followed the food plan (about 1400 calories a day), upped my activity by walking about 3/4 of a mile on both my daily breaks.

I also tested my blood sugar 4 times a day, on the blood glucose meter that the doctor's office gave me for free. The little test-strips cost though, and I had to argue with my insurance company to pay for more than 2 tests a day. (I figured that if I were to really get the hang of this, and figure out what makes my glucose rise and fall, I'd need all the data I could get. Eventually they came around.)

The "educational" emails I got from various players in what I call the diabetic industrial complex were contradictory and confusing, the majority promising that I really didn't have to give up much of anything, as long as I stuck with whatever product the given company was pushing. There are also social networking sites just for people with diabetes, and some members "friend" everyone who joins. Who needs 2700 "friends?" Pointless. And if, as I've come to believe, the food is trying to fill another kind of emptiness, utterly unhelpful and somewhat disappointing. I really don't want to define myself in terms of what my pancreas is or isn't doing.

Anyway, the process of eating differently and moving more was hard. I had to focus like never before, and I got to see just how much I relied on food for stress-relief. In 6 weeks I dropped 16 pounds, and when the same nurse practitioner looked at the stats that were stored in the brain of my little meter and said I wasn't really even borderline Type 2 yet, as long I ate less and moved more. Then she said she'd see me in 3 months.

Three months?! Might as well be a year. Too long. My determination wavered and I went back to solving problems with food. Canceled my next appointment. Started noticing things I'd rather not -- my feet have started bothering me more, painful after a day of standing and walking; I put 4 pounds back on, not too bad really, but still the feeling of failure; and when I eat chaotically I don't test my glucose with any meaningful regularity.

I intend to turn this stuff around. I will check in again around mid-March on this subject and let you know how I'm faring with changing habits in a positive direction.

Thanks to those of you who are reading silently, and those of you who've let me know you're there.

Cookies or a Camino? Pizza or a pilgrimage?

2009-12-13T07:06:00.000-08:00

Last time I wrote about this, I had two weeks till I turn 55. Now I have less than one week. Hmm. Guess it's gonna happen whether or not I'm prepared, eh?

Writing this blog now seems more risky than I ever dreamed. When I traveled in Australia in 2001 and sent back email dispatches about my adventures, I got a lot of feedback, much of it immediate and much of it positive. Maybe it was because the stories came directly into people's inboxes? Perhaps now the idea of clicking on a link is like doing one more errand in a busy day? Perhaps, as I always dreaded, my words have become mediocre and dull. Maybe Blogger's comment function is too obscure. (Click on the link below a posting which says, mostly, "0 Comments" and let me know you're reading.)

Anyway, the beginning of my Thousand Things list is simple (and most difficult): To arrange my life and my habits to allow me to have a prayer of setting other goals and perhaps even reaching them.

Therese Borchard of Beyond Blue at BeliefNet inspired me with her post "My goal in life? To finish."

Her post refers to resisting suicidal thoughts and all the elements that she has to line up to make that happen. Her life is way more complex than mine, and, thanks be, my depression symptoms are much less severe (right now) than hers.

But the similarities are obvious to me. If I skip a meal, eat too much of the wrong foods or don't get enough exercise, the results are immediate and pervasive, and they don't go away for days. First there's the bitchy blood-sugar-out-of-kilter loss of temper and lack of perspective, and not so much later there's the food obsession, like how-about-a-trip-to-the-ice-cream-shop -- on the coldest day of the year -- after which the cycle repeats. Which results in being unable to relate civilly to people around me (much less with the warmth I would like), get any meaningful tasks completed (computer Scrabble for hours? No problem!) or set any goals at all.

But let's say one of my Thousand Things list items is to walk on the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route in France and Spain. Diabetes screws up your feet. So the short-hand is I can either have the first scoop of raw cookie dough and the first cream puff at the office holiday party -- which lead pretty reliably to the above cycle -- or I can go on the Camino. Stark choices. (Thanks to Ernie N. in our Ukiah office for this image. He said, of his own blood sugar challenges, "I can either have dessert, or I can have feet." He's dropped about 60 pounds.)

I refuse to let this become one of the plethora of navel-gazing blogs, however much they help the writers and the readers. I won't be listing my caloric intake and exercise logs or recording my night-time dreams. But I will post once more about this before my Big 55, then I plan to revisit these issues about once a quarter. I hope someone is reading.

Susan and Frank's excellent Thanksgiving adventure

2009-12-05T05:48:00.000-08:00

Today, a guest column of sorts. Frank shares his take on What Happened at Thanksgiving, from an email to his family. Thanks, hon.

We had a Thanksgiving that was wild, not by Jack's job interview stories (delayed flight, personal note from Donald Trump), but a good one nonetheless. We drove 3 hours to Susan's sister Korie's home on the Russian River, where Sturmz, I and a macho little dog named Max were the only males among 16. Korie was seen with a knife. (Turkey may have been male too!)

Max peed on the floor when he arrived, Sturmz stole hostess Bella's bed, but then Sturmz waited until the peak of post-dinner poetry reading to begin howling for leftovers while farting out the other end. Naturally, this ruined the mood and cleared the room. I offered to take Sturmz to the car (along with Aspen, who as usual didn't quite realize she is too big to be under the table).

When I got to the car, I discovered we couldn't get in. This began a 3.5 hour search for Susan's car keys. Channeling great Dad searches for glasses or keys, we even laid out the garbage and sorted through it. Korie had converted her garage with some very cool wall hangings into the dinner space. We took the place APART! No keys.

So we stayed over. Highly amped AAA tow truck driver next door helped look for the keys. He is Korie's next door neighbor. We decided he might tow us home the next morning. But AAA sent him to Oakland (thank heaven!) and we got a former Napa-kin who now lives on an ocean bluff a half- hour south of Korie. He loaded the car onto the flatbed for 3 hour ride on winding blufftop road to Fort Bragg. Susan has AAA Plus, so 100 miles of the 107 were covered. He gave us the final 7 for free.

Seemed beyond ridiculous to me, but Dan, the driver said he does this all the time, towing people with perfectly good cars when only the keys are missing, Keyless cars get towed all the time and he recommends avoiding them. As we pulled out in the tow truck, the horn began honking on the car up on the flatbed, occupied by Sturmz and Aspen. Dan said, "I think they want us to go faster!"

I looked in the side rear-view mirror and could see Sturmz standing up on the driver's seat, paws on the steering wheel, barking and barking. After three sessions of horn-honking in about 5 minutes, the beeping ceased.

When we got to the gas station in Jenner, Dan discovered he had forgotten his wallet at home. He left the four of us for an hour while he went to get it.

We got coffee and Susan went off somewhere. The other three of us met a husky youngsta. She was bowing to Sturmz, but Aspen doesn't quite have the art of dealing with overly energetic puppies. She wants to herd them but then chaos ensues.

So on we went, past the most incredible scenery anywhere, cliffs are even higher than in FB.

Dan and I swapped Napa stories, even got to debate the veracity of valley rumors about a secret military base in the Macyacamas. Story is true -- there were tridents there at one time, and there were black helicopters there in 1990s, for whatever that is worse. Susan would have drifted off mid-conspiracy, but she was working too hard in the middle seat to keep from getting the gearshift slammed into her knee. Anyway, we got home.

Thanks to Korie for dinner and the fun and for giving up her bed! Gracie the cat may have been most impacted by having two more dogs overnight.

PS from Susan: Got a voice mail when cell reception came back: the keys were found in Korie's car, which I had entered only for a second to turn off the dome light, and which two guests had then borrowed as theirs had died.

The "thousand things" delusion

2009-11-21T08:53:00.000-08:00

We've all seen them, the books like "One Thousand Places to See Before You Die," with variations "One Thousand Books to Read," "Pieces of Music," "Works of Art," etc, all before you shuffle off this mortal coil and theoretically miss your chance. Cool. At first glance it looks like folks might be giving a nod in the direction of their own mortality.

But first let's do the math. One thousand places. Unless you're independently wealthy, you have a day job, and you get the American average of 13 days paid vacation per year. So, at the outside you might get to 2, 3, or 4 of the must-see locations in a year, what with home repairs, the cost of gasoline and plane tickets, and taking the dog to the vet. One-thousand divided by 4 is 250. Anyone you know living to 250 years these days?

Far from actually coming up against the fact that this life and its opportunities are temporary, the Thousand Things genre feeds the illusion that we are immortal. It's definitely a young person's gig. No real choices necessary, it's all possible.

On the cusp of five and a half decades, I have been feeling strongly that the concepts of "choice" and "priority" are looming large. At the same time, thanks to the wonders of menopause, I've never felt more scattered. Goals have always given me trouble, with no faster way to wipe every thought from my mind than the dreaded questions "What's your five-year plan?" "Where would you like to be in 10 years?"

So here in the next month I will be working on my own version of a Thousand Things list, suitably modified to fit my station in life -- by that I mean, I'll be thinking hard about what's important to me, what's doable, and what I want to put my time, energy and passion into.

Thanks for reading. If you have some experience with setting and accomplishing goals, including what inner obstacles, if any, you overcame to do so, I'd be grateful to hear from you.

The dog who knew Santa

2009-11-15T11:04:00.000-08:00

Aspen, the dog who's full of surprises, surprised us again this weekend. Frank happened to catch some of it on film.

A fundraiser, pet photos with Santa, held at a feed store to benefit the beleaguered county animal shelter on the coast. I'm paying for the photos, and Frank, Sturmz (his 15-year-old shepherd/husky mix), Beth (my 11-year-old "little" in the Big Sister program) and Aspen head back toward the Santa mash-up.

As Frank describes it, Aspen leaves Beth's side and dashes up to where Santa's sitting, waiting for the next visitor. She jumps up next to the jolly old elf and snuggles right in close. The photographer, who seemed ill-suited to the task and the chaos associated with it, stands with hand on hip, exuding impatience, wondering where her next real customer is.

Then I get there with the receipt and we descend on Santa en masse. For the first paid pic, Frank and I are snuggled next to Santa, Aspen sitting proudly in front of me, and Sturmz decides to show his butt to the camera -- no matter what. Sturmz' feet drop into the cracks between the straw bales, panicking him -- which he shows by wide-mouthed "heh-heh-heh" panting. Frank hauls him around several times, and each time Sturmz' tail is prominently featured. Santa, presumably having a bit of experience with the situation, finally grabs both dogs with a ho-ho-ho and a hug, and finally the flash goes off.The second paid pic features Beth and me with Santa and Aspen, and it goes off without a hitch. But then it's time for Aspen to say goodbye to Santa, and she just can't. Her immensely strong tail is wagging in circles, and it doesn't help that Santa knows exactly where to scratch her.

I imagine the initial recognition that Aspen showed for Santa as a variation on "It's a Wonderful Life," two incarnate angels comparing notes on their work here on earth. "How many bells have rung on your watch? Have trouble bringing anyone down off the railing?"

On the way out we meet James, an elegant retired greyhound, and Aspen is impressed.

The Daily Slug Toss: Some instruction

2009-11-12T18:27:00.000-08:00

1) Locate the banana slug and pick it off the front door/window/wall/azalea plant

2) Grasp the slug with two fingers, not too firmly because the slime doesn't come off easily, and not too lightly because that will mess up the trajectory

3) As you either curse or say a prayer of gratitude for the fact that you are a bleeding heart/a Bhuddist/a wannabe/have a weak stomach

3a) Hurl the banana slug as far into the ivy/grass/redwood sprouts as possible

4) As you wipe the inevitable deposit of slime off your thumb and finger on a least visible part of your clothing/wall/door mat

4a) Search out the next traveler

5) Repeat as necessary

Other duties as assigned

2009-11-10T20:40:00.000-08:00

After a numbing 2-hour meeting this morning, and after the hour-and-a-half drive back, it evolved that one of the social workers couldn't find a cleaner for a certain client's apartment, which is piling up with garbage. He's used to living outside, camping, being "free," but now he has a terminal illness and lives in Fort Bragg's only single-room occupancy building, and he lets the trash pile up. And he is in danger of being evicted. So my colleague went and bagged up unidentifiable items for an hour.

Just before I left for the day, another social worker stopped by my desk with a black plastic bag. "____'s clothes. You want to wash them or shall I throw them out?" Our friend with the previously-maggot-infested feet had gotten wet in the rain and she had given him dry clothes. I took the wet ones home.

Just this week Frank had reminded me of the verse in the New Testament about what we were supposed to do to help "the least of these" -- "...hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me drink..." to which I silently added today, "...dying and you cleaned my apartment, incontinent and you did my laundry."

We held our noses, but we did it. For today, that was enough.

Hazel's revenge

2009-11-09T21:00:00.001-08:00

Hazel has been reminding me that Aspen has been getting ALL the attention, just for following a few stupid commands. "Whatever happened to the value of independent thinking?" she asked, none too rhetorically. So her day in the sun, or on the blog, has come, and not because I feel guilty. Just because she's such a diva

Doggie Training, part two!

2009-11-08T12:10:00.000-08:00

Aspen and I started in a new class yesterday.

One of the behaviors we worked on was "back up," paired with a wave of the hand, fingers down. She already knew how to back up when she came to us, and we figured she was raised in a trailer, because she was expert at backing down the hallway in our our narrow park-model travel trailer. So it's a matter pairing the hand signal and the voice command with her behavior. We practiced for about 5 minutes in class.

Last night, we had both dogs in the van, and Aspen came forward out of her rear seat and stood next to Sturmz' seat, panting. Frank gave her the fingers-down wave, and she backed up and got back on her seat. Smart puppy!

I hate Blogger's new templates

2009-11-05T18:47:00.000-08:00

As a former graphic artist, I'm horrified by the look of the title of my blog.

I clicked on "Customize" to jigger to look of the page, and up popped a box that warned me I could lose changes I'd made before. New and improved, of course.

I clicked OK and my blog title was never the same. I had three choices regarding the photo in the title space: Put the type over the photo, delete the photo, or replace the type with the photo. Huh!?!?!?

Also the profile section looks painfully dorky.

Not sure if the "fashion police" in my background can allow this look for long. I may be site shopping....

A slice of social services life

2009-11-04T19:39:00.000-08:00

I had left my cup of decaf in the car, and I went out to get it. On my way back into the building, I ran into a guy carrying a giant backpack and an armful of fluffy puppy. “Quite a load you have there,” I said.

“You wanna dog?” he asked. “I’m tryina get rid of him. I’m suicidal and I can’t handle him.”

“He’s gorgeous. You don’t think he can keep you alive?”

“I think a lot of people are putting that on me. He barks at night and I think I’ll slit his throat.”

Oh God.

“Well, if you’re serious about getting rid of him, I can call the Humane Society and they can find him a home.”

“Nah, he’s not goin’ to the Humane Society.”

“They wouldn’t put him down. They’d find him a home. It’s way more efficient than walking down the street asking people if they want a dog.”

“Hmm.”

“I can hear that you’re feeling really bad. Have you had a chance to talk with anyone about it?”

“I have an appointment with the bald f**ker who works here. I’m about done with all of it though. Next stop for me is off the bridge.”

(I knew he needed a referral to the county mental health office, but we have not had the best of luck sending people there. If the client has been self-medicating with street drugs or alcohol, they are rejected for having a substance-abuse problem. If the client is over 60, they are rejected for having dementia.)

“What’s your name?”

“My name don’t matter. My name is death.”

“Well, let me call the Humane Society and see if they’ll take him, OK?”

“Yeah, go ahead. He doesn’t need to be with me, ‘cause I’m gonna take him with me off the bridge if I keep him.”

I went inside and spoke to M, the notoriously soft-hearted receptionist, about the situation. She shot out the door and started talking to man and dog. I called the “bald f**ker” to warn him about his prospective client’s mood. M called me to say the puppy was a littermate of the one she had rescued yesterday, and that she would be taking it. About a half-hour later the phone in our unit began beeping to let us know someone had dialed 911. The read-out said it was the “bald f**ker” who had called. Yeah, someone said later, he had a jumper...

Aspen, the rescue mutt, is a Canine Good Citizen!

2009-11-04T19:21:00.000-08:00

After 6 weeks of Saturday classes, and not really enough practice in between, Aspen, the 90-pound rescue dog from Lake County Animal Shelter, passed her AKC Canine Good Citizen test. I promised her and Frank that I would feature her triumph here.

Read here about what's involved in the test.

Next week we start in a "tricks and service dog" class.

Meanwhile she's having a well-deserved rest.

So why write this, then, if it's dangerous?

2009-11-02T20:48:00.000-08:00

First, I don't think it is. The circles I run in don't intersect much with the witnesses in this trial.

Second, I realized that this is part of my dance with the dark side -- long walks on the beach poking dead things with a stick.

Third, I decided that the experience was important enough to me to risk whatever happens by writing about it on my obscure little blog.

And fourth, but perhaps most importantly, I'm my father's daughter. He believed in doing what he could to stand up against bullies, whether it was the Hitler Youth of his boyhood, to whom he stood up by not collecting money for them in his neighborhood, or racism in the US South, which he countered by annual donations to the NAACP up till his death. He countered his fears by doing and saying what was in his heart. Now I have too.

When the next chapter unfolds, I will write an update.

Meanwhile, as we discussed at our last lunch as jurors, I'll be focusing on more uplifting aspects of my life now.

All's quiet, and then ....

2009-11-02T20:16:00.000-08:00

I didn't hear from ADA Tim Stoen again for some weeks, then emailed him asking what was happening -- Neither the Red Giant nor I had heard from the defense. Could I assume they had switched tactics?

Yes, he wrote, they had. A new defense attorney had gotten a statement from the defendant's wife saying she had seen contact between jurors and witnesses on several occasions. She had not mentioned these to the judge during the trial, so Tim didn't think her statement would be accepted now. Attached to that statement was another request to have juror information made public.

Tim sent me three other documents -- a copy of his opposition to disclosing juror information, citing the murder of witness Michael Peacock, which I read with complete shock;
a declaration by the DA's investigator as to the condition of the Big Red Dog, implying that the defendant's wife had committed perjury in describing where the toy had been;
and a declaration by a gang expert that
1) through Richard Peacock and his Peckerwood connections, the defendant had likely involvement in the Aryan Brotherhood white supremacist gang; and 2) among the photos retrieved from the defendant's camera was one of him posing in front of a speedboat with the license plate "Rogers Klan," suggesting another white supremacist connection.

Tim said he would argue against the release of our info, that our safety would be threatened.

Well, I was deeply affected by the turn this had taken -- the murder of the shooter's brother, Aryan Brotherhood and Klan connections? It was all feeling very surreal.

I wrote back to Tim Stoen that my information had already been made public. Did I need to worry? (I was worrying already, of course.)

No, he said, for one thing this was all worst-case strategy. For another, if Michael Peacock was killed for testifying, it would have been planned while the defendant was still out on bail. Now he is confined to the Mendocino County Jail, and his calls and visits are closely monitored.

Indeed the judge denied the request to have (everyone else's) information released. The story ran in the Ukiah Daily Journal, and is for some reason now unavailable in a search.

My personal info becomes public

2009-11-02T19:56:00.000-08:00

Assistant District Attorney Tim Stoen emailed me a list of what would likely happen at the September 11th (!) hearing -- the defense would move for juror questionnaires to be be released based on possible juror misconduct (mine), but he felt sure that wouldn't go anywhere.

The day before the hearing, the Red Giant dropped a sheaf of papers by my office and said it had been his paper's court correspondent who had leaked our connection to the DA, who was then obligated to inform the defense. It made sense that Don would have assumed we were married: He and the Red Giant have in common a background in fundamentalist Christianity -- he's a minister, and my honey has fallen away. So of course the assumption would be that the Red Giant would never live in sin...

On the day of that hearing I was on my way to Ashland, Oregon, for an annual weekend family reunion and a surfeit of Shakespeare.

When I returned, the Red Giant sent an email saying that he and I and our relationship were written up in the Anderson Valley Advertiser, more or less accurately, he said.

The Anderson Valley is home to Booneville, a linguistic fascination that during the late 1800s had its own language. It could be described as isolated. The Anderson Valley Advertiser cannot really be described as a journalistic endeavor, although it takes the form of a weekly newspaper. The flamboyant editor is prone to emotional screeds full of character assassination and guilt by association and implication. I was not hopeful that the story would be remotely accurate.

But, it was submitted by the same Humboldt County reporter who did the good summary referenced earlier. It named both of us and described what I had said to the investigator almost verbatim. Hmmm. Well, I wasn't too worried. Yet.

Finally! Someone wants my side of the story

2009-11-02T19:46:00.000-08:00

The ADA had told me I might be contacted by one or both sides of the case about my relationship with the Red Giant. Arriving back at my desk from a home visit, I found a voice mail from an investigator at the DA's office. I had liked him when he testified, and I happily called him back.

We went over all the basics -- I had indeed lived with the reporter in question, but had moved out of our shared space in January of '09. We are not and have not been married. I did not discuss the case with him while I was a juror. I told him how relieved I was that I could tell my side of the story, and put an end to the rumors. We joked that before the defense was done telling the story, I was sure to have been blogging from the jury box.

When I hung up, the co-worker in the neighboring cubicle "prairie-dogged" over the partition and said, "THAT sounded like an interesting phone call!" I filled him in.

A naïf shows up for sentencing: “Why are you here?”

2009-11-02T19:42:00.000-08:00

Thinking I would simply set the record straight about not being married to a journalist, I felt kind of good being back at the courthouse. On a restroom visit, I noted that the courthouse had the same leaking soap dispenser as other county bathrooms, with the same garbage can underneath it to catch the drips.

“L” and I had a great wide-ranging conversation of the way over, and she suggested we let the DA’s office know we were there. I thought the right room was on the second floor, but I followed “L” up to the fourth, where we entered the District Attorney's Office of Victim/Witness Services. “L” told the receptionist why we were there, and we were asked to wait. A moment later the victim/witness worker appeared and asked us to wait in the hall. We sat there for 10 minutes or so, then she came back and said, “Why are you here?” Her tone was icy and perplexed. I felt myself wither. I have worked with her in cases involving some of my clients and have found her unfailingly warm and supportive. I was in the middle of some kind of faux pas, I decided.

“I thought I would be able to tell the court that I’m not married to a journalist. All this is happening because of a falsehood.”

She looked perplexed. “Sit right here,” she said. “I’ll let the ADA know you’re here and see what he says.”

Another long 15 minutes, during which Alan Simon and his supporters passed by several times, then disappeared down the stairs. I heard Alan say to someone on the steps, “Ahh, it’s something about one of the jurors. He was SUPPOSED to be sentenced today, but defense is moving for a mistrial.” Oh. Crap.

Finally the victim/witness worker reappeared, accompanied by a public defender, the very one that Richard Peacock had rejected. “I’m here to tell you about your rights,” the attorney said, and my stomach did another swoop of panic. This was bizarre.

Any juror, she told me, once they’re dismissed, is a private citizen, with the right to refuse to discuss the case with anyone who asks.

But I wanted to set the record straight.

Attorney and victim/witness worker exchanged glances. Victim/witness worker said, “Well, you have the right to be in the courtroom as a private citizen. We could get a couple of extra bailiffs to be between you and the gallery.” Huh?

Slowly, as if she were a teacher in a special-needs class, the attorney said, “This is a very emotional case. If you go into the courtroom, you may be exposed to hostility from the defendant and his family, and also, truthfully, from the people of Westport. They were hoping to see a sentence passed today.”

I felt about 2 inches tall. It seemed at once so unfair that I couldn’t just say my piece, and also so humiliating that I had not thought of all this before I came. Of course she had had me wait in the hall – she had had Alan Simon in her office, probably going off about how disappointed he was that there was a jury mess-up and his assailant was not going to be sentenced today.

As I sat there nonplussed, trying to sort out my emotions and decide what to do, the attorney excused herself, and the victim/witness support worker said, “Think of it as a chess game. This is just one more move.” With that, I decided to drive back home with “L” without going into the courtroom. I realized that I was holding on too tightly to the outcome. Tough as it was, I needed to let it go.

Aftermath, part 1

2009-11-02T19:27:00.000-08:00

The evening of the verdict I got this email from the Red Giant (Kate is his editor. He had started to write about the verdict.):

-----------------------------------------

From: Red Giant
To: "Susan Fernbach"

I think this has something to do with why Kate didn't want me to do the story

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Markham
Date: Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 5:24 PM
Subject: RE: Reporter with question about kenny rogers trial
To: Frank Hartzell

Mr. Hartzell,

I recently learned your wife was on the jury in this case. I would be interested in speaking to her if she is willing. I am always interested in getting feedback from jurors in any case I try. Please let me know if she would be interested in speaking to me.

Thank you,

David Markham

--------------------------------

Who the hell had dropped that bit of inaccurate info?

My stomach took a downward swoop, and over the next days I spent hours googling “juror misconduct,” just in case the questionnaires were released as the defense was requesting, and my parsing got me in trouble. I read about jurors cited for contempt and verdicts thrown out, and I was near puking from anxiety. All that work. All our dedication. Potentially wasted due to my clever word games, my love of hair-splitting, someone's wrong-headed idea of my relationship?

Two days before sentencing was scheduled, feeling really awful, I ran into a fellow juror, “L,” in Safeway and mentioned what was going down. She called the ADA and, I learned later, told him I had not tried to influence any other jurors with whatever knowledge I had of the case from knowing the Red Giant. "L" and I talked on the phone and agreed to go to the sentencing together.

A special kind of meaning

2009-11-02T18:56:00.000-08:00

In being on the jury, I felt like I was doing something that, in addition to completely absorbing my attention, would ultimately "make a difference." This is in frequent contrast to my county job.

Example: A homeless alcoholic man, classified as a dependent adult due to alcoholic dementia, fell into my ongoing caseload. He was hospitalized with maggots in his feet. After discharge he was prescribed whirlpool sessions to help his feet heal, so I was tasked with driving him to the physical therapy department of the local hospital. While I had no quarrel with this assignment - he's a pleasant enough guy - I had no illusions that my time and effort would result in any major change in his life. He's still a homeless drunk, but his feet are healing.

The polar opposite was true of the trial.

Deliberations, day 3, and the verdict

2009-11-02T18:51:00.000-08:00

The two jurors who had more than reasonable doubts about proof of the defendant’s guilt had their questions answered by a reading of Michael Peacock’s testimony, oddly more revelatory in the read-back without his meth-fed mannerisms.

Before we adjourned to lunch before our final appearance in court, I told my fellow jurors how much I appreciated the fact that all of us were taking this with the same degree of seriousness, no one was hurrying us to a verdict so we could be dismissed, and no one took the task lightly, even though it inconvenienced all of us daily. It was, I told them, a welcome antidote for the river of sleaze we’d been swimming in for the past 3 weeks. We all agreed we were the kind of jury we’d want for ourselves or a loved one.

At lunch four of us compared reactions over the past 3 weeks. We all found we needed as much beauty and harmony as we could pack in, in order to compensate for all the darkness we’d seen and heard about. The drive to the coast provided that for 2 of us, and a third mentioned how much her garden meant to her now. We all marveled at how, with no real structure or instructions on HOW to do it, we had become a working jury with minimal conflict, and we had come up with a verdict.

After lunch we filed back into the courtroom for the last time. In the gallery, the defendant’s wife and sons held hands and prayed. It struck me that it was too late for that – their prayers should have been said at the time there was a choice about which actions to take. Again, I was reminded of the deity to whom I myself pray, and how incongruous some of my supplications must seem – too little, too late. The defendant himself sat with his head bowed and hands folded. When the foreperson read our verdict, guilty, and the judge asked each of us if that was our verdict, the defendant dropped his head to the table, then looked at us and mouthed, “I didn’t do this.”

The judge thanked us, and we were dismissed. The ADA attempted to shake our hands, something I felt uncomfortable with. We ran a gauntlet of defense team members handing out business cards and asking us to call them to discuss the trial. The youngest juror spoke for all of us when she said, “I just spent 3 weeks of my life on this, I doubt I’ll be talking to you.”

Walking into the hallway a private citizen, I felt like a hot-air balloon that had lost its tether – weightless, suddenly free but not sure which way the wind might take me. I wandered down to see the jury coordinator and get a document saying I really was there all that time. I thanked her for helping us through this experience with such humor and grace. She said we did the right thing, because “There was a lot you didn’t hear.” I told her the experience had been amazing, life-changing really. She smiled as though she heard that a lot.

Sentencing was set for August 14, a Friday.

Deliberations, day 2

2009-11-02T18:48:00.000-08:00

We arrived to a box of 2 dozen Danish from the bailiff assigned to us. “Make it a good day,” said the sticky note on top. Great. Twelve people, high anxiety and 24 Danish. I had been doing pretty well with my newly-diagnosed type-2 diabetes -- I had steered clear of temptation for over a month. This did not bode well for my blood sugar… But, my, were they good.

We had no access to transcripts of the testimony. We could, and did, ask the court reporter to read back sections to us, a task she clearly did not relish. She read extremely fast and seemed to forget what she was actually doing. The identifying “question” and “answer” tags soon got misplaced, and it came out like this:

“Yes. Question.”
“What did you see then? Answer.”
“Nothing. It was dark. Question.”

She reacted impatiently to a request to slow down, and it seemed that hearing the re-reading took more focus than the original testimony.

We asked for the presence of the Big Red Dog, described previously.

When we left, close to 6 pm, we found the lead detective and Alan Simon and several others waiting down the hallway from the jury room. We hurried past them, and left the building. As I waited to cross the street in front of the courthouse, an over-sized pickup was waiting at the light. Mexican music blared from the cab, and a long flowered couch occupied the bed. Looking at the driver and his passenger I thought, “I’ll bet there’s a pretty good chance those folks have not been dealing with issues of life and death all day. Boy, do I envy them.”

More about deliberations

2009-11-02T18:44:00.000-08:00

The first few hours of deliberation were one big spew – We had seen and heard things over the past days that had made big impressions, but we had not been able to talk to each other about them.

We covered a white board with a list of questions, many having to do with the order in which events had occurred. Because the time-line was not actually a piece of evidence, we were not allowed to have it in the deliberations. Soon most questions were answered by other jurors, and we had a whole list of new ones.

But it was time to go home and lie awake feeling the import of the decisions we were making. I felt a great flood of compassion for the defendant and for his family, and yet at the same time I knew that justice demanded that he experience the consequences of his actions. It was a humbling experience, a glimpse of what judges and perhaps even the old-testament deity may have felt in similar circumstances....

Instructions and beginning deliberations

2009-11-01T19:25:00.000-08:00

On Monday of the third week, the judge told us we would begin deliberate on Tuesday. Closing arguments that day included one more run-through of the time line the ADA had so carefully constructed, and a PowerPoint presentation by the defense attorney, delivered in the same half-bored manner as much of his questioning.

In his instructions, the judge reminded us to render a verdict without regard to possible penalties. He reminded us that we did not have to find guilt or innocence beyond a shadow of a doubt, only beyond a reasonable doubt. He again told us not to read or watch or listen to news reports on the case, and not to discuss the case with anyone.

We left the courtroom one more time, said good-bye to the alternates we'd spent each day with, and went up to the fourth-floor jury room. It had the disused look of a temporary storage room. Most cases in our county don't go to a jury trial -- they are settled out of court by various means -- and now the room showed that. A jumble of audio and video equipment filled one corner, backed by stacks of extra chairs and a few bookshelves. We sat down at the long conference table and began to talk for the first time in two and a half weeks about all we'd seen and heard. There was very little structure that first afternoon -- we were too full of images and impressions we had not been able to share with anyone. We did elect a foreperson, a pleasant, low-key middle-aged man who favored Hawaiian shirts, who turned out to have just the right combination of tact and organization to keep us on track and make sure everyone had their questions addressed. The youngest member of the jury had volunteered to be foreperson, but another member pointed out that the discussions we would be having called for "a bit of maturity."

Things get old

2009-11-01T19:21:00.000-08:00

By the end of the second week, I wanted my life to go back to normal. As fascinating as the court procedure and its poetry were, I missed my co-workers, I hated the hot weather, the hour-and-a-half one-way drive was getting to me, the river of sleaze we were bathing in was making me sick, and I was tired of it all. I drove home on Thursday glad for the weekend.

The 911 Call

2009-10-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

We read along from copies of the transcript as the tape was played.

"911. What’s your emergency?"

Then Alan Simon's voice explaining that someone had been pounding on his door, very aggressive, yelling something about Kathy.

The operator asking him his address and whether the person was still there.

The sound of Alan opening his front door, saying something, then the "pop," Alan cursing in surprise, the door slamming, then the rapid "pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop."

Alan’s shocked voice saying, "He SHOT me"" The operator inquiring as to his injuries, asking if the man was still there.

Alan asking where the sheriffs were, couldn't they please hurry, maybe call the Westport fire department and get them to turn the fire siren on to scare the shooter away, just in case he was still there.

Her patient voice explaining it would take at least 20 minutes for the sheriffs to get from Fort Bragg to Westport, that the Westport fire department couldn't come yet because it might not be safe – the shooter might still be in the area.

The call lasted probably 15 minutes, ending when a sheriff arrived at the door and identified himself and the operator verified that it was indeed a sheriff, and not the shooter.

There was something visceral about Alan's shock, and about hearing first the adrenaline in his voice and then hearing his speech slow down as the jolt began to wear off.

Everyone on the jury agreed, the operator had done a wonderful job calming him down and staying with him, although he still must have felt very alone. Not a job any of us wanted, we all said.

The Red Dog

2009-10-07T21:04:00.000-07:00

During his trial for the shooting of Alan Simon, Richard Peacock got an anonymous note at the jail. It said in part, "I will get the Red Dog to your kid." Richard Peacock burst out in open court with "Red Dog is a gun! They're gonna kill my daughter!" The prosecution's contention was that Richard Peacock was correct. The defense of course had something else in mind.

On about the third day of the trial, we entered the courtroom to face a 5-foot stuffed replica of Clifford the Big Red Dog. I knew things were about to get very interesting.

The defendant's wife testified that day that Kenny Rogers had won the big toy at Great America by climbing a rope ladder. The dog had spent some time with other prizes he'd won -- a unicorn and an octopus -- in their kids' bedrooms, in a storage space and in the office of their Sacramento auto body shop. She testified that because she had "fallen in love with" Richard Peacock's baby daughter, she and her husband had talked over the years about giving her the Red Dog. (This was the same daughter, it turned out, who was present at Kenny Rogers' property during pot harvest season.)

So, the Red Dog was either a gun with a red handle that had a dog logo on it (prosecution) or a giant stuffed animal (defense). The Red Dog took up residence in the jury deliberation room, the goofy tongue-out grin presiding as the twelve of us discussed. In some ways it was inconsistencies about the giant dog that decided the case. Here is some of what was said:

"That's not just any red dog, that's Clifford. Anyone who has a kid at home would call this thing 'Clifford.'"

"If this was in a kid's room for any length of time, it wouldn't look this clean."

"It sells musty, like it's been in storage longer than they said."

"If it had been stored in an auto detailing shop, even in the office, it would have grime and dust on it."

To us it was unlikely that the Red Dog was this toy.

Reluctant witness: The shooter's brother

2009-10-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

A witness for the prosecution, Michael Peacock had been granted immunity in exchange for his testimony. Thin and jumpy, he looked like he could have used a shower.

From the moment he took the stand, I felt like Mr. Spock in the old Star Trek episode when he mind-melded with a rock (which was actually a sentient being) and when his hand touched it he wailed, "Pain!" This man was frightened, he spoke in many unique phrases, and he seem accustomed to being trapped:

"Is this the car owned by your brother's girlfriend?"

"I'm not for sure she owns it. She was driving it, but whether it's her car or not I can't say."

"Did you testify on Friday that you saw your brother on the day before the shooting, and that he told you he was bringing a gun to Westport, just in case?"

By the end of the long complex questions the ADA asked, Michael Peacock forgot what the question was and vamped with a bunch of filler: "I'm not for sure, uh, that is, it might have happened that way, but I don't recall exactly."

The prosecutor began to get impatient, raising his voice and repeating the questions with exactly the same confusing clauses.

Defense attorney: "How did you feel when Kenny kicked you off his property?"

Michael Peacock: "I felt unjusted by the whole thing."

ADA: "What was the relationship of your brother and Miss ___ ?"

Michael Peacock: "I'm not for sure what you mean?"

ADA: "What was Miss ____ to him?"

Michael Peacock: "One night stand."

Although I can't recall the context now, a phrase he used many times was "That's a horse of a different color." During deliberations, we had many examples of "on the one hand, on the other hand," and several times a few of us said in unison, "Now that's a horse of a different color!"

About six weeks after the verdict, Michael Peacock was found dead in this Placer County travel trailer. Homicide is suspected.

The 3-hour "45-minute break"

2009-10-07T20:18:00.000-07:00

I felt exhausted from paying such close attention -- every detail seemed vital because I couldn't tell what would be important in the long run.

Each piece of evidence followed a similar pattern. "Do you recognize this?"

("Yes.")

"What is it?"

("Front door, Ruger, shell casings, bullet fragments.")

"How did you first encounter this piece of evidence?"

("Night of the shooting, processed it according to protocol.")

Glacially, the narrative crept along, slowly, gradually building into a coherent story.

Several times the jury was "excused" (read: invited to leave the courtroom) while legal maneuverings were carried out. The most memorable of these was when the shooter himself was called to testify.

Already convicted and serving a sentence of 70 years to life, Richard Peacock (all the "Clue" jokes have already been made) was wheeled into the courtroom handcuffed and shackled to a wheelchair. He wore an orange jumpsuit with a black-and-white striped vest over it. He looked many pounds more gaunt than the man in the photo glaring balefully from the back of a sheriff's car.

He nodded to the jury. "Hiya. How's it going?" As the lawyers conferred with the judge, the bailiff unlocked one cuff and applied a band-aid to a bloody scrape on Mr. Peacock's wrist.

Conference finished, the shooter was sworn in and declared that he wanted an attorney and an hour to meet with him so as not to do or say anything to jeopardize his appeal. A female public defender's name was read out, and Mr. Peacock went ballistic. "Nah, nah, nah, nah!" he bellowed. "I wouldn't take that broad for all the tea in China!"

The judge told him to keep a civil tone, and then said to us, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we'll need to conclude some legal business, so take a 45-minute break."

That break stretched to three hours, and the only other time I saw Richard Peacock was when he was being wheeled into the elevator by a deputy. He was laughing and cheerful.

That night on Yahoo! News I saw a local headline, "Alleged Mendocino Hit Man Refuses to Testify." I recalled the judge's daily admonitions about avoiding media coverage of the trial, and I forced myself not to read the article.

Three generations in the courtroom

2009-10-07T20:15:00.000-07:00

For several days I saw an elderly couple in the front row of the gallery. The woman listened to the proceedings with an audio-enhancing device provided by the court. The man wore the scowl of bewilderment I have seen on many old faces. These were the parents of the defendant. Like his son, the father was lean and probably extremely handsome in his younger days. Now he looked tired and pugnacious, sported the same sneer at times, a certain curl of the lip.

Watching that couple and the two young men sitting with the defendant's wife, I thought about how families' philosophies are passed down wordlessly, a strange amalgam of parents' actions and their interpretation by immature minds. I wondered whether Dad had, unwittingly or otherwise, taught the defendant a "might-makes-right" view of the world, and also whether the defendant's two sons had inferred it from their father's behavior.

The majority of jurors said they spent some time sleepless over the effect of the verdict on the defendant's parents.

After we rendered the verdict and had been dismissed, we read in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat an exact answer to my musings about fathers and sons: After we left the courtroom, the defendant's first-born let loose a string of obscenities at the lead detective, the dominant theme being, "You were out to get my dad. If it hadn't been for you - " Another generation learns to lay blame and take no responsibility.

"Jury will disregard"

2009-10-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

We heard from Alan Simon, the man whose front door, bookshelf, scalp and wrist had felt the effects of 9 nine-millimeter bullets.

At one point the DA apologized for a delay springing from technical issues with an overhead projector. "No problem," said Alan. "I've waited 4 years, what's another 10 minutes?"

He described how the defendant had come to his home and asked Alan to remove his name from the recall petition. Alan refused.

"What happened then?" asked the DA.

"You want to know what happened next?" Pause. He looked genuinely uncomfortable, took a deep breath.

"Mr. Rogers said, 'Do you want a nigger running this town? Do you want this town run by VB, who's sucked the c***k of every man up and down the coast?'"

Defense counsel, in a bored voice, said, "Objection. Hearsay."

Judge: "Sustained. Jury will disregard."

DA: "Tell the jury what happened after that."

Simon: "I said to him, 'You don't know how I was raised. You don't know what I believe. It's not what you believe. Now get out of my house.'"

I admit I've never understood how exactly a jury manages to disregard something they've already heard, and it didn't get any clearer for me in this case. Alan Simon's words stuck with me, wormed their way into my psyche. The contrast between the defendant's cordial courtroom demeanor and that reported spew of racism and misogyny shook me to my core. I admit it stayed in my consciousness as we deliberated. A few other jurors said the same thing. Later I came back to Alan Simon's testimony as a confirmation that we had made the right call.

(My recollection of this exchange is different from that of the reporter in the summary here. The reporter recalls that the defense counsel was questioning Alan Simon when he told of the racist and sexist comments. I remember it as the ADA doing the questioning.)

So, what exactly is "a piece of junk"?

2009-10-07T20:06:00.000-07:00

They passed around the 9mm Ruger that was used in the shooting. Each of us got to heft and inspect it through the saran wrap as it nestled in its cardboard bed. It was shiny and seemingly well-cared-for. So it surprised me to hear three witnesses refer to it as "a piece of junk."

One described staying in a trailer on the defendant's property and being wakened from a sound sleep with the muzzle of that gun in his face. "He didn't like my snoring, told me to sleep outside. So I went and slept in the bushes that night."

"Describe the gun."

"It was a piece of junk, that one there."

I figured he was just saying what the prosecution wanted, and it was a different gun he'd seen. But a tall sad-faced man in prison orange, a defense witness serving time for felony drunk driving, referred to the gun the same way, and so did Michael Peacock.

It wasn't until we were deliberating that a young buzz-cut Mexican-American man, "C," said, "I'd call it piece of junk too."

Middle-aged and illiterate in firearms, the majority of us hung on his words. "Why is a piece of junk?"

"It's old," he replied. "What is it, 1980s or something? It's heavy, and the barrel is long. Now they make 'em this big" (he spread the fingers of one hand to demonstrate) "and way lighter. Yep, definitely a piece of junk."

The front door

2009-10-07T20:04:00.000-07:00

They brought the front door of the shooting victim's house into the courtroom. The burly detective and a bailiff lugged it to a spot near the witness stand and leaned it against the wall. Painted a deep purplish-blue, it had a small window in the upper center with a beveled-glass diamond shape surrounded by smoky-looking glass. Nine bullet holes marred the surface -- one at head-level had shattered the viewing glass, the rest formed a downward arc from right to left. The small bullets had pierced the front metal and left inverted pockmarks on the back.
We were impressed.
But what made even more of an impact (pun intended) was the photo and testimony about the shelf of cookbooks - one bullet pierced first the front door, then the side of a wooden bookshelf, then went through several paperbacks and one hardcover and came to rest in a space on the shelf between books. Tiny bullet (9mm), deadly force.

The charges

2009-10-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

Kenny Rogers was charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

The ADA took pains to impress upon us that a person could be convicted based on only circumstantial evidence -- it is just as valid as direct evidence -- and also that a defendant has the absolute right not to testify on his own behalf. The defendant, he told us, got into a murderous rage because he felt he had been disrespected, and had arranged with an employee who was also a felon, to kill the person who had humiliated him. The ADA's intro to the whole matter was appropriately dramatic and black-and-white -- the defendant is a bad guy and we should find him guilty. The defense attorney's presentation was perfunctory and delivered in a monotone, the gist being that there were multiple misunderstandings and that we would see that his client was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Reasonable doubt was a big topic. We heard several times that "beyond a reasonable doubt" is not beyond a shadow of a doubt, or beyond a minor doubt, but doubt that a reasonable person would draw from hearing the facts. I both liked this angle and felt some anxiety about it. Remember, daily the judge reminded us that we were not allowed to discuss anything with other jurors until the deliberation phase, and that we were not to discuss the trial with ANYone -- spouses, friends, religious advisers, therapists -- so my self-doubt and basic insecurity went undiluted for two and a half weeks, long enough for the inner voices to get pretty loud.

Hyperbole: It's our job

2009-10-07T19:33:00.000-07:00

The assistant district attorney painted the events in Westport as an epic encounter between forces of good and evil. It's what Shakespeare plays, soap operas and novels are made of: ambition, pride, perceived humiliation, revenge. The fact that the battle took place in a town of about 300 residents, that several of the main characters were habitual criminals, that one was the head of the rural county's Republican party, are mere details.

Those details also provide some insight into the fickle nature of the American media. When the shooting first happened, in 2005, and the murder-for-hire charges were filed, several news outlets picked it up, including the Associated Press and Reuters, under their "Odd News" heading. Four years later, when he was finally tried and convicted, there was not a word of follow-up. Westport was just the punch line to a big-city media joke.

A good summary of all the drama can be found here.

The ladies and gentlemen of the jury will be seated

2009-10-06T19:24:00.000-07:00

Each time we filed into the courtroom and entered the jury box, everyone stood. The attorneys kept their eyes on their notes or on the floor; the lead detective was always smiling, like this was something he really enjoyed; and the defendant smiled and looked each of us in the eye, greeting whoever would meet his gaze. As one of the jurors put it, "It's like he's welcoming us to his backyard barbecue!"

I recalled something I'd read (or seen on a crime drama) that members of a jury would not look at a defendant if they were inclined to find him guilty. Perhaps this was some sort of reverse psychology -- "If they look me in the eye, they won't convict me."

Filing into the jury box ended up an elaborate dance. We were assigned to our numbered seats and invariably the people seated at the far ends of the two rows were the last to enter the courtroom, so those of us at the near ends of the rows would lean against the bullet-proof window that separated us from the gallery. Each time I stood there, the thought crossed my mind, "Does this jury box make my butt look big?" For the verdict, I wanted us to file into the jury box in order, so no one had to wait, but others didn't share my enthusiasm for choreography, so we did the daily do-si-do to the end.

Diverse jury, with stairs and trees

2009-10-06T19:23:00.001-07:00

We turned out to be quite a diverse jury: Six middle-aged Caucasian women, one Mexican-American man, one pacific islander man, one Fillipina woman, one Asian man, one Caucasian man, and one Latina woman. The alternates were a Latina, and two Caucasians -- a man and a woman.

We noticed immediately that only people who were securely employed (salaried with paid jury leave), unemployed or retired could afford to be on a jury, wondering what that meant for "jury of one's peers." We had diverse employment among us too -- home care worker, printer of wine labels, construction worker, gardener, grocery store cashier, bank publicity expert, stay-at-home mom. In addition, two were retired and two were County workers.

We spent all day together, from about 9 am to 4 pm. We listened to testimony, we heard strange and awful things, and we couldn't talk about any of it with one another until deliberations. This made for some interesting social interactions. I noted that the male jurors clumped together on breaks without saying much of anything.

The two youngest women were smokers who raced outside at every break to get the nicotine flowing and check on partners and children via cell phone.

That left the rest of the women together or in smaller groups, and we found out a lot about each other. "L" had had back surgery 6 months or so ago and was ecstatic to be able to walk up and down stairs, of which there were four flights in the courthouse. "S" was a thin, pale, vocal Christian who wore long-sleeved, high-collared lace blouses in the 90-plus-degree heat. "V" was a consultant in disability and independent living, and was looking to change careers. "M" did gardening for the family of a famous movie director, recently deceased. "F" showed us a cell phone photo of her two-year-old daughter getting her nails done, looking bored.

The first few days of the trial, the weather was kind to us, with clear skies and temperatures in the high 70s and low 80s, soft breezes. The section of Ukiah that the courthouse is in has pleasant shaded streets with a small downtown shopping district -- funky boutiques and a cool bookstore. We non-smokers walked around outside on every break.

As the second week of the trial started, the weather became more characteristic of Ukiah -- temperatures soared into the high 90s and low 100s. Walks outside became almost painful, especially for those of us who, like me, were used to the natural air conditioning of the Coast. So, we counter-acted the sedentary nature of jury duty by developing an indoor circuit of stairs that we traipsed up and down on every break. "Just like a stair master," one of us puffed, "except you end up somewhere else."

On the third floor we could look out at the twin four-story magnolia trees, likely planted when the foundation was laid in the late 1800s. As the weeks passed, and we heard about more and more antisocial behavior, I grew to love those trees.

Jury Selection: the next phase

2009-10-01T17:50:00.000-07:00

The following Sunday evening, I called the jury line as instructed and heard that we were all required to come back on Monday. Oh, well, another day off work.

Once again the jury room was packed, and after waiting about an hour we were all herded into Courtroom B, a place we would get to know well in the next weeks. Eighteen of us were directed to sit in the jury box, and the rest sat in the gallery along the side of the room. I got my first look at the defendant, Kenny Rogers, who was watching each of us carefully. He was wearing what would become a familiar outfit -- khaki pants, a button-down oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up, loafers.

Then the questions began.

Both Tim Stoen, the assistant district attorney, and David Markham, the defense attorney, had copies of our questionnaires in ring binders. Tim Stoen also had a sticky note corresponding to each person in the jury box, arranged, as we were, in two rows of nine. The two men alternated questions. At the end of each round of questions, one of the attorneys could ask for the potential juror to be excused.

One man was asked if his notation on the questionnaire that he "did not feel qualified to judge another human being" meant that he could not be a fair and impartial juror. (He said he could not.) A woman was queried about her family member who worked as a sheriff's deputy. (She said she knew she would be thinking of the situation from a sheriff's point of view.) As a potential juror was excused, Tim Stoen moved his yellow sticky notes around to remind himself who was left. Each time a person was not objected to, the judge asked him or her to move to a certain numbered chair. A fast game of legal musical chairs.

David Markham asked me about my response that I had read the story in our local paper, The Fort Bragg Advocate-News. Had I discussed the story with other people? (Yes, I had, it was an unusual occurrence on the coast, and everyone had talked about it.) Did I recall any facts about the case? (Yes.) Did I feel like I could be a fair and impartial juror? (I believe so, yes.)

The judge asked me to move to seat number eight.

A while later, after some more eliminations and musical chairs, the judge said, "We have a jury." The young woman next to me began a quiet freak-out. She didn't have child-care, her job would only pay for 3 days of jury duty, but she insisted she didn't want to say anything.

We were sworn in.

"You can't be on this jury -- I'm a journalist!"

2009-10-01T16:03:00.000-07:00

When the Red Giant finally looked up from his laptop and registered what I told him about the case, his eyes got big. "We talked about that when he got kicked off the water board! You know too much about this case. You can't qualify for this jury, hon."

I shrugged. I rejected out-of-hand that I couldn't be an objective juror because he'd written a story about a raucous water board meeting. Truth is, I hadn't allowed the details to take up permanent residence in my brain. The Red Giant writes a lot of stories, full of technical detail, and I often read them for egregious grammar errors. But I don't retain what I've read. So, I walked, open-hearted, forward into the process.

The jury duty notice

2009-10-01T11:31:00.002-07:00

I opened the envelope from the Jury Commissioner and groaned. I was supposed to report to the superior court in the county seat, an hour-and-a half drive away. Oh, well, I thought, all the other times I had called the night before and didn't have to go.

This time was different. I called on Sunday night and heard the recording say, "All groups must report." Oh, well, a day off from work.

There were at least a hundred of us in the jury room. We heard a bare-bones summary of the case, and immediately my interest was piqued. We were handed a 15-page questionnaire to weed out people with obvious biases. The questions were remarkable: What did we like to read? Did we watch crime dramas on TV? Did we know any of a list of about 100 people involved in the case? Did we know anything about the case? If so, where did we learn it?

For some reason, more than anything, I wanted to find out what this process was like, so I wanted to get past the first elimination round. Was anyone in my household involved in the media? This one I admit to parsing. I had lived with a journalist for a few years, and had just moved into my own place in January. There are probably a few lawyers and judges among my ancestors, and I admit to enjoying occasional hair-splitting. This would come back to haunt me.

Sumary of this summer's trial

2009-10-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

Rogers trial summary

The link above provides a really good summary of the trial on which I spent 3 weeks as a juror this summer.

Following posts are my takes on the experience.

Falstaff has a new home!

2006-09-10T21:59:00.000-07:00

A Bay Area couple took him for a test-drive one weekend, and now he's theirs! Lydia at the rescue group said they have questions for me, and I said to send them my email address, but so far I haven't heard. I'm happy someone took him. I'd like to think Frank and I and his mother filed some of Falstaff's rough edges down.

a photo of the edge of the earth

2006-08-28T14:03:00.000-07:00

More Falstaff updates

2006-08-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

here is where Falstaff is listed by the rescue group.
http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=6856151

Lydia, who runs Special Pets Rescue, sent me email saying that Falstaff was having a test visit with a Bay Area couple who are crazy about him. In her next email, she asked if I was open to fostering because I'd done such a good job with Falstaff. I nearly cried, having felt like such a total failure with him the whole time -- I told her it was largely Frank and his mom who civilized the dog. But it did give me new confidence.

And, aha! I saw a pattern: I've quit a few jobs in my life, based on how I felt inside about them, which was totally lousy, only to have people say, oh, you were doing such a good job, why do you want to leave. What's the lesson here? Ask for more feedback? Do a satisfaction survey? Assume that unless I hear otherwise, I'm doing fine? My default setting is just the opposite. And even when I get good feedback, I still feel like an impostor. "Boy, am I fooling them." Can I get an amen?

A faint hum in my life

2006-08-16T15:28:00.000-07:00

You know how your ears ring after a long loud noise stops? Well, now that Falstaff's continuous-motion-machine is not in my life, there's this kind of a hum leftover -- I catch myself thinking suddenly, "What's he getting into?" or "How long has he been with Frank's mom today?" or I brace myself when the door opens, but it's only Frank and Sturmz, no explosion of wiggle and jump. I'm suspended between "whew" and "waahh."

Falstaff goes out with a bang

2006-08-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

I drove Falstaff to Sabastopol yesterday, a trip of about 3.5 hours south. We met the gal who runs Special Pets Rescue, Lydia, and the foster mom, Shawn, and the resident girl dog, Ayowan(?).

Falstaff of course made no effort to make a good impression -- after kissing up to Ayowan, he grabbed the tennis ball from her and raced around the open field, looking over his shoulder like "Chase me!" Then he dodged all three of us and took a tour of the house, flew back out and, in one fluid motion, grabbed up a dead gopher and kept running. Since in those situations he takes my screams of "leave it!" to mean "grab it and get away fast!" I got ahold of him and pried his jaws open and shook the critter out. No way was I touching it.

Well, I figure there will be no honeymoon period, and Shawn professes to like the chaos that comes with fostering, so with Falstaff she will not be disappointed.

I had a good cry on the way down there, but when it came to the actual transfer I felt embarassed by his performance and by their reaction to my 2 pages of notes on him and to the package of cream cheese and tube of liverwurst I had included with the inventory of his belongings.

Well, I don't know how other people give up their dogs, but that was how I did it.
Bon voyage, baby. It was never dull.

So Long, Falstaff (I can't say goodbye)

2006-08-13T15:02:00.000-07:00

After a couple of months of advertising and postering and posting on the web, a mixed-breed rescue group out of Lake County (northeast of us) has room for Falstaff. I'm supposed to bring him to them tomorrow afternoon.

He's been so much better for the last month, even coming back to check in when we're on off-leash walks.

So now the second-guessing starts, the self-doubt. Was I really just not patient enough, didn't I have enough faith, was growing up all that was needed, am I just repeating some old losses (moving a lot, other wounds)? Am I incapable of crafting a long-lasting relationship? Do I have the right to set my own terms for a canine companion? People who know me and have seen me with him have laughed at the mismatch, yet the doubts continue....

Doggie news

2006-07-10T18:58:00.000-07:00

First a really sad note: My sister's dog Cena, only two and a half, dropped dead while playing frisbee. Some thoughts and prayers for Korie and Kate would be much appreciated, as they grieve the huge empty spot in their lives.

On a mixed note: I've decided to find a new home for Falstaff. He's such a wonderful dog, he deserves an active family where his energy will be an asset rather than a irritant. He's listed on Yahoo! and craigslist and a place called nextdaypets.com. A couple from North Carolina was interested in him, but we both realized at the same time that shipping would prove a problem (airlines refuse to transport pets if the temperature at either end is over 85 degrees, not too much of a stretch for North Carolina). So the search continues. I know they're out there.

Another Sporadic Update

2006-06-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

First day of summer yesterday, a little trip to the beach, too lazy to carry my shoes, hot sand, fairly severe burns on my soles and toes. Clinic appointment today. Just proves I don't get out enough.

Falstaff's listening more, but I'm still not sure he's the right dog for me. It's still REALLY hard to get him to listen with all the stuff out there -- birds other dogs, what Sturmz is doing, all those smells. Reminds me of the guy who hits the mule over the head with a 2x4 and says, "First, you gotta get his attention."

I'm still working too much, but the Hudsons (my weekend job employers) are headed for Maui at beginning of July for a month. Not a moment too soon for me to get weekends off. Yard sales! Church! Naps!

2005-11-20T21:14:00.000-08:00

Sturmz, Frank's 11-year-old Shepherd/husky mix, and Falstaff, my great Dane/lab puppy, play whenever they have an audience....

Falstaff tries to hold his ears up, but they're just too heavy...

Despite his serious look here, Falstaff has quite the sense of humor, and a nearly constant joie-de-vivre.

Oh, no! I forgot to blog!!

2005-11-20T21:10:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's been over 2 months.

Biggest thing has been a problem with my hands -- 8 or 9 years ago I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome (numbness and pain in my hands) with moderate nerve damage from bad computer setups. I've been having a BIG flareup since I've been working at the Senior Center. Combination of bad computer setups (get a donated desk, slap a computer on it, call it a work station), stress (tight shoulders & eating too much of the wrong things), bad diet (too much dairy, chocolate etc) and Falstaff pulling on the leash. The food thing bugs me the most, because I know that some of the things I eat are bad for my body, but I eat them because I associate them with calming and relaxation, two things in short supply these days.

Frank and I are both working too much -- he's starting out in real estate, I've got too many commitments. One of mine -- respite care for Michael, twice a week after my Senior Center job -- will end in mid-December. Not a moment too soon for me. I really like Michael, but it's time to have a bit more time for myself.

Let's see if I can post a couple of photos.

The more things change....

2005-09-13T12:10:00.000-07:00

New dog: He's really great. I worry about his dominance, of course, but he's so darn cute. When he sees something he doesn't understand or needs to study, he sits very straight and puzzles over it, his ears attempting to stand up straight and the wrinkles in his forehead becoming more pronounced. You can just see him going, "Hmm, what's this?" So far he knows "sit" and is pretty good at "down," especially for the jingle ball or a treat, and he goes into his crate and settles down when bribed, but "come" is abysmal. He definitely seems to have a sense of humor -- the other night he went racing in circles around the living room furniture, grabbing pens or papers in his mouth without even stopping. I was in hysterics. He's killed all the stuffed toys by shaking them (high prey drive), and had his butt kicked repeatedly by Sturmz and Hazel the cat. Huey the rooster ran at him the other day too. I figure he needs all the limit-setting from any quarter that he can get. He still growls at me sometimes and puts his teeth on me when I try to get his leash on, tho less frequently. He plays well with other puppies, I was relieved to see, even though I won't be able to take him to puppy class (not enough vaccinations yet, not enough bucks yet, time conflict). More photos soon!

New job! I started at the Redwood Coast Senior Center on the day after Labor Day. My title is Outreach Worker, and for 30 hours a week I answer questions about various services, assess people for home delivered meals, schmooze in the lunch room, keep track of contracts with the county social services department. It's very laid back, and my direct supervisor is more like a friend. I actually know her from Big Brothers/Big Sisters. The difference between this non-profit and the private business I was with before is like night and day. There, I couldn't do enough, know enough, do anything right. Here, they're so grateful that mostly I know what I'm doing and take initiative. It feels great! They're also willing to train me in areas I'm weak in or interested in, so today I went to a seminar on communicating with clients with dementia.

Old jobs: I'm still looking after Michael 2 afternoons a week, and getting Todd up on weekends, so effectively it's still 7 days a week, but feels more spacious. Frank is getting set up in real estate (is working for a broker in town) and we both feel quite hopeful about his prospects, like there's some sacrifice now, but at some point things will change for the better -- like we'll be able to buy some land and I can quit the weekend job (which is in trade for part of the rent).

Say hi to our newest family member...

2005-08-19T08:55:00.000-07:00

Falstaff is an 11-week-old lab/great dane mix. He came from the Coast Animal Control office, where these pictures were taken. He's been home just about 24 hours, and we're all learning fast. Frank's dog Sturmz sets constant limits and the little guy tests them mercilessly. Falstaff retrieves fairly reliably, and uses his crate with moderate good will. The pound lady told me he "sleeps through the night," which is kind of a relative phrase. I went to bed at 9:30 last night (Frank was driving for the County) and when Frank got home at 4:30 am, Falstaff decided it was morning. After all he'd been asleep for more than 7 hours! I took him out and aftere much whining by the side of the bed, he got to snuggle in with me, and we all slept a few more hours. Then, about 6 am, Huey started crowing. Through some glitch, most of chickens, including Hugh, had spent the night outside the coop, and he was announcing MORNING. Usually he doesn't get out till about 8 am,and then he doesn't crow as much. I decided it was indeed morning, and I got up and took the puppy out, then got Huey back in the coop where he was quiet. Trying to run Falstaff's energy off is going to help me lose some weight....

Falstaff (Sir John) is a character created by William Shakespeare. He first appears in Henry the 4th, Part 1. He's a disreputable guy, but brings much-needed humor to the history play. We think the puppy will grow into his name, tho he's already adding humor...

Time vs. Money: The eternal conundrum

2005-07-25T17:14:00.000-07:00

So now I have lots of time. I feel GREAT about that. I've been sleeping till 9 every day, putting minimal effort into finding work and keeping up the house, going into town to get my mail, and working on beaded jewelry. I feel like I could be happy like this for a long time. Problem is my checkbook, while not yet running on fumes, is rapidly being drained. The unemployment folks are going to call me on Thursday for a phone interview, to ask me why I was fired. ("Was I warned?" "No.") Then hopefully the payments will kick in. The whole thing right now reminds me of some elaborate game of "Chicken" -- how long can I hold out before the on-coming train destroys my credit rating...

Ahh, Unstructured Time

2005-07-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

I used to think I handled my time well, but not this time around. Yesterday my big accomplishment was sorting through the mountain of clean laundry and matching up all the socks. That and buying Beth a new mouse to replace the one that died.

Then I saw my job advertised in our local weekly, about 5 inches of classified liner ad, ending with "Training & Support provided." My, my, they must've changed something since I left.

It looks like I will go back to one of my previous gigs -- doing respite care for Mike, one of my favorite kids. (If this post goes right, there'll be a picture of him in it, taken just before I left for the full-time debacle.)

He's a fun and interesting kid -- hears perfectly but talks like a deaf person, has extra sensitivity in his hands, feet and head, so cutting hair and nails is cause for screaming fits. Thus the long-ish hair. He uses some sign language and I do a running translation to make sure i've got his meaning. As a respite worker I'm not allowed to transport him in my car, so we spend our time together walking to the playground or the ice cream store or just walking the alleys so he can indulge his fascination with cars and trucks and heavy equipment. On rainy days he turns over the two living room swivel chairs and we go for long "truck rides."

Too bad the fun factor doesn't correlate positively with the pay -- in fact it's the opposite: The more fun the job, the less you make.

The Universe has the Last Laugh

2005-07-17T11:53:00.000-07:00

Remember at the beginning of this blog I said I wanted to sort out what in my life had to go? The universe was listening. So on 7/7 it said, "Whssht. The job is the thing to go." I was fired. "Things aren't working out." Fat severence check. "Oh, by the way, write up a report of where things stand so the next person will be able to take over easily." And on my way out of the boss' office, "Oh, and thank you for all you HAVE done." I couldn't muster a reply. It crossed my mind to do a bit of sabatoge. wipe out some scheduling records, maybe for the entire month of July. But instead I called each of my employees and told them what had happened, and that I appreciated their work with our clients.

For several days I felt "irrational exuberance" -- then one of the office people called asking about the status of a particular case, and boom, I started crashing. I got so ANGRY, mostly with Frank unfortunately, but then grief for me has always contained equal amounts of fatigue, sadness and irritability. Talking with Frank I figured out it isn't the actual job, the reality of it that I'm grieving for -- it's being told in essence, "You didn't learn fast enough. Now your chance is over."

Ironically I felt like I really was getting the hang of it. The venting here actually helped. I got back on good terms with the bi-polar client, the word just hadn't reached my boss.

Now I've applied for unemployment, Frank and I went to the City last weekend with his mom and nepehew, did the frantic tourist thing, and now I'm logged in from a cafe in San Rafael, near where we're house-sitting till Monday.

I was already contacted by someone from one of my old gigs and asked to come back. Too bad it's only a few hours a week at half of what I was making as a supervisor...

After that, I plan to get some "healing time" in every day, going to the ocean mostly, trying to quiet the buzzing in my head.
Then Frank and I are starting in on a business venture together. More on that soon.

This is a Keet

2005-07-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

A keet is a baby guinea fowl. This one is in good hands with Frank.

And something even cheerier

2005-07-06T13:09:00.000-07:00

The newest baby chicks, summer of '05. In this picture, they're about 2 weeks old. The small blonde one is Marilyn (as in Monroe); the black one is Chess (Frank had one similar years ago that he called Checkers); and the big blond one is a rooster called Supper (for now).

Beth on her first long ride, summer '04

2005-07-06T04:28:00.000-07:00

Posted by: goingwalkabout on Buzznet

Beth on her first long ride, summer '04
That's Beth (between the ears), when she was about to turn 6. She's 7 now, and we've been matched in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program for over a year and a half. For her 7th birthday I took her riding again, and this time she didn't need anyone to lead her horse. The outing that this picture was taken on was a big group of Bigs and Littles.

What I Hate About My Job

2005-06-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

On both hands, maybe toes too:

Dealing with crazy people, with no support -- none -- from my boss -- everything that happens, I should've done something different
Dealing with crazy people, with no training -- none -- except what I came by naturally, and it's not all that effective.
Having to carry and answer the pager every other week. Staff and clients call with emergencies, or sometimes situations that aren't even urgent. Even when the other staff member carries the pager, I still have to respond when she calls me. It's like I'm never "off."
The "life & death" nature of the work we do. There are some clients that need us for their very survival, have no family, no friends, no one but us. Someone's car breaks down or their kid gets sick, and this client has no food in the fridge and that client may fall trying to get to the bathroom and the suicidal one may finally do it.
The way it tests my faith every single minute of every single day. I have to come face to face with my lack of belief in people, and my lack of belief in myself, and my lack of belief in any real pattern that the universe operates by. If you ask me in other situations about all those things, I would say, of course I believe, I believe in the people who work for me, I believe in my ability to at least learn what do in most situations, I believe the universe is orderly and runs on real, often-easy-to-observe principles. But this job tests every one of those beliefs, and today I don't feel like dealing with the struggle at all.

Here's how it goes: I'm doing my job, matching caregivers to clients, scheduling, re-scheduling, re-re-scheduling, building and re-building my little house of cards, and a client and caregiver get into a disagreement. Each one says, "I can't talk to her, tell her this" or "I can't talk to her, tell her that." Against my better judgment I get pulled in, and I'm not good at handling mentally-unbalanced people. The debacle du jour involves a bi-polar woman who periodically goes off her meds and gets mad at everyone, just like today. Only in the past she's called to apologize and said she's going to a hospital, to get her meds adjusted, and we all forget about it. Today, instead, she's made an appointment with my boss. I know where I'll come out, on the shit end, because he seems constitutionally incapable of supporting me. "Oh, yes, dahling, it's a terrible job" is the extent of his understanding of where I am.

OK, I'm finished venting, I'm going to lunch.

What I Love About My Job

2005-06-28T13:10:00.000-07:00

On the fingers of one hand:

The view from my office window (trees and a bit of the Noyo harbor)
A regular paycheck (after deciding each month which bill to defer, it's nice to pay them all)
The things I've learned (how to think more linearly, how to organize a to-do list, how to make a lot of phone calls without thinking about it)
Seeing the same people each day and hearing continuing stories

Today's Tight Itinerary

2005-06-27T12:19:00.000-07:00

This morning I got new eyes at 8:45. Glasses AND contacts are now updated, so I can see the world again. Whew, all that foliage out my office window -- I was missing that.

Work has its usual share of bizaare-nesses -- a client and a caregiver feuding, with me in the middle. The last supervisor did all the communicating between client and attendant, I prefer to let them talk to each other. Whatever I do, I'm wrong anyway, so tra-la-la.

At 1:30, I go for a brain-drug check. My anti-depressant and anti-anxiety meds are working well, so I'll tell him that and get charged $45 for the 5 minutes.

But after that, things get interesting. I have a job interview at 2:30 with the Mendocino Art Center. They need someone to do publicity. I know the executive director from another context (I babysat her 40 chickens, pot-belly pig, and several dogs and cats a few times). Hopefully the image of me with mud and chicken feed on my jeans will be erased by my current gussied-up state!

The bottom line is I have to believe in the work I'm doing, and the more I see around here (at the home health company) the less I want to be associated with it, the more I want to have an organization I can respect and be proud of. I know there will be challenges anywhere, I'm just looking for a place where I don't feel morally challenged on a daily basis....

As The Rooster Crows

2005-06-24T10:51:00.000-07:00

Baby Huey is a rooster. And as such, he has decided to crow each morning. Frank heard him first and tried to describe it -- humorous -- but when I heard it myself I doubled over laughing. Huey jumps to the top of the big wire cage we have in the chicken yard, stretches up to his full 14-inch height, flaps his wings and emits a sound that is something like

a crowing harbor seal
someone messing with a comb and tissue paper
someone playing a kazoo.

It's missing a syllable too. Err-a-ruh.

Somehow the hens are not impressed and run after him pecking.

Pictures soon.

Critters: Hazel the Cat

2005-06-16T21:39:00.000-07:00

I met Hazel 3 days before Christmas, 2003. She was about a year old and living in a posh cage at the Humane Society in Fort Bragg. When I let her out and picked her up, she drooped over my shoulder with loud purring, leading me to think perhaps she's part "rag doll," a breed that's bred to relax when they're picked up.

I delayed my decision till Christmas Eve day, when I decided I had to have her, because if I didn't I'd be thinking about her and regretting it. They were closed on Christmas Eve day. What if someone had already adopted her?

The day after Christmas I went to the mobile adoption fair in Mendocino to see if she was still available, and there she was, ready to become mine, as much as a cat ever can.

Hazel turned out to be a bit of a comedian. When Trudie arrived, Hazel sniffed her tail and then smacked her nose, sending Trudie yelping away. The dog never fully trusted her after that, rarely looking at her directly, but Hazel was comradely in her superior position, and when I opened the garage door after a long day, she and Trudie would run down the hall together toward the kitchen. Hazel would hear the jingle of Trudie's tags or the click of her toenails on the kitchen floor, and she'd crouch down just out of sight around the living room corner and jump out at Trudie with a body laugh. She later did the same thing with the 2 big chickens, just to see them flap.

(When we got the baby chicks we had to start squirting water at her when she stalked them. She's gotten the idea, I hope.)

Playing "mighty hunter," Hazel has brought home her share of dead little trophies, sometimes making the gesture of sharing them with me -- the headless gopher on the front porch, for example -- but mostly she enjoys her kills in solitude. The songbirds (about 4 in the time I've had her) always make me feel sad and conflicted. I rescued one from her, setting the poor shaking thing in a bush next door, but I held out little hope it would live.

For a long time she didn't know her own size when her veldt fantasies took over. I saw her stalk a raven, the huge black bird nearly twice her length. When it flew up to the feeder board on the back deck and scolded her, she got up on the railing and swatted at it. My heart was in my mouth because the beaks on those things are about 3 inches long and the birds are known for their ornery ways. That one flew away, but a few days later I was watching some deer browse in the back yard, and saw Hazel start to creep up on them! I wasn't close enough to hear, but the little buck swiveled his ears at her and I got the feeling she was talking some trash. He came closer to her and she rolled over on her back. I had the feeling he was going to stomp her, and sure enough, a delicate and precise flash of the hoof and she beat it back under the deck.

When Frank first brought his dog over, Hazel wanted to play with Sturmz as he dozed on the floor. Frank, unsure about how Sturmz would react, bellowed at her, "NO!" For months she remained offended, glaring at Frank at every opportunity and spurning any attempt he made at friendship. (Now she deigns to let him pet her.) Meanwhile she went through a phase where she viewed Sturmz only from the roof. Then she came down and made her way past the big black nose to get where she was going, stopping to sniff his brushy tail and bat it once or twice. It's an unresolved relationship, one in which Sturmz seems to see "prey" and Hazel seems to see "playmate." We try to keep them both safe, but sometimes it feels like touch and go.

Sometimes Hazel can be patient and forebearing -- I've seen 7-year-old Beth, my Little Sister, pick her up and haul her around like a sack of potatoes while Hazel just purrs. Sometimes Hazel acts a bit more like a dog than a cat -- she comes running to meet me when I drive up.

There are times when I look at her and she takes my breath away, the lines of her body or the sapphire of her eyes. I tend to fret if she doesn't come in before I go to bed, realizing how much I love her and how I'd miss her if she didn't come back. Trudie awakened my compassion, but Hazel opens my heart.

Link to Frank's website. (He's famous!)

2005-06-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

www.frankhartzell.com

He's used to being more in the spotlight than he is up here, people telling him off and praising him over his controversial editorials. The picture is from before he lost all that weight, but the writing's still splendid enough to make Rush Limbaugh sit up and take notice, even if His Ditto-ness did put us on the wrong coast.

Critters: Trudie the Dachshund

2005-06-14T22:54:00.000-07:00

Trudie, the little Prussian as I called her, was 9 years old when I got her from a small-dog rescue group in January, 2004. She was 10 1/2 when I had her put down in May of 2005. The final episode was a diagnosis of pancreatitis, an extremely painful condition in which digestive enzymes get backed up and start to digest the pancreas. In dogs this shows up as a puke-and-poop-fest with extreme dehydration, outside every 20 minutes all night, and she had it 3 times in 6 weeks. (It may have started with the way her original family overfed her -- she was quite obese when I got her -- but later the vet was thinking tumor and blockage.) Each time she had it, restoring her cost me $500. The second time, they sent me home with an IV setup and showed me how to give her subcutaneous fluids. The third time, I'm afraid, was the charm.

When I first got her, she was diagnosed with a bladder tumor, which turned out to be a thickening of the bladder wall due to chronic urinary tract infection. She announced that by peeing blood on my carpet.

Even when she wasn't mortally ill, she seemed extremely depressed. The only times she appeared happy was certain moments running with Frank's dog, Sturmz, and Betty Lou's dog, Ruby. She didn't particularly like either of them, but she loved running with a pack. Looking back, I think she must've been in pain most of the time -- if one of them accidentally stepped on her or bumped her, she'd go into "land shark" mode, snapping and snarling but never making contact.

The way she appears in the picture was pretty typical. She loved the oval, sheepskin-lined cat bed, and as she was always cold, she also loved Mark O'Brien's old plaid blanket. The bed was like home base for her, and she'd race over to it and jump in, even when I wanted to take the bed in the car.

Quirks she had: She'd never come to me. I had to turn away from her and start walking, and then she'd follow me. She growled at men with loud voices (my landlord) but didn't mind women or men with soft voices (my landlord's Mexican helper and Frank). When I first got her she lay in the recliner chair all day every day for about 3 months. I had to put the leash on her and pull her out of the chair to get her to go outside. She was so completely inert that when I mentioned to a house-call vet that the adoption people had said she was "no trouble at all," he said, "Well, neither's the carpet." (She came out of her shell a bit after those 3 months, but she was never truly happy.) She was seldom affectionate with me, but she kept a close eye on me at all times, getting anxious when left her sight and often following me back and forth from room to room. Toward the end she got very close to Frank too, keeping track of him as carefully as she did me.

I felt terribly guilty about the thought of putting her to sleep, but after I made the decision she seemed to come out of her fog of illness and on her final beach walk the night before, she raced up and down the dunes like a puppy for about a half-hour. She seemed genuinely joyful that I was going to set her free.

That man o' mine

2005-06-13T16:24:00.000-07:00

I love telling people this: Frank and I met on Yahoo! Personals.

He found me. My search criteria had the ages settings set to exclude him (he's 9 years younger than I). His opening (email) line was "You have very alluring ... words." Turns out he's a newspaper guy from way back (reporter in Ohio and Yuba County, CA, and managing editor at Napa Valley Register) and a former college professor (journalism at Dominican College in Marin County).

When we met for the first time at a Fort Bragg cafe, I thought, "This is a face I would like to look at for a very long time." He likes Christmas and baseball and animals, and had just moved to the Coast a couple of months before we met. He was living 2 1/2 miles from me.

On our second date, I went to an abalone barbecue at his mom's house and met several visiting relatives.

The stats: He's 6'8", 275 lbs (he's lost 60 pounds in the past year on the low-carb approach), red hair, blue eyes. He laughs with his whole body, and he laughs often. The phrase "gentle giant" was coined for him, but there's a confidence about him, perhaps from years of athletic training as a football player in high school and college.

We have words, digital photography and gardening in common, as well as having moved around a lot as kids. We are far too much alike in many ways. Both of us often have trouble recalling where we put things (keys, wallets, gardening tools). Makes for some interesting living conditions. Politically we're both lefties, though he has a touch more anarchism (is that a word?) in his philosophy than I do. Although he is the youngest child (by 9 years) he acts like an oldest, no problem taking charge of various situations or having a game plan for any eventuality. He's wildly intelligent and maddening absent-minded. We have fun giving voices to the various critters we have (his dog, my cat, the chickens).

He spent more and more time at my house (had been living with his mother after Dominican) and when we bought the chicks together it was more or less official, we're living under the same roof. It works out pretty well, now that we've done some rearranging and he has the spare bedroom to use as an office. (Since I've been working full-time, I have no desire to be on my computer at home.) It's still a small two-bedroom house, but the price is right -- I pay less than half the market-value rent of $900 by trading several hours a week looking after my neighbors' brain-injured son and spending the nights next door when they travel. Frank pays for a lot of the groceries ("I eat the most," he says), and it works out.

Right now he's working at the local weekly newspaper as a reporter; for the Fort Bragg schools as a middle- and high-school substitute teacher; and occasionally drives County mental health clients from Fort Bragg to wherever there's an in-patient bed for them. He recently got his real estate license and is looking for investors for buying a local motel to convert to a board-and-care facility for elderly folks.

Ever since I really got to know him I've felt like we are "forever." He's helped restore my faith in a future. There's a steadiness about him, along with that whacky humor, that is just perfect for me. He's brought a lot of fun into my life, and he's a great cook.

We sometimes play the "what if we'd only met when we were younger?"game, but the answer is always the same -- we wouldn't have been ready.

What all this means
One evening during the worst of my recent cold and sinus problem, we were eating dinner and he said, "How come we never talk about getting married?"

"Ubh....." I said, acutely aware of my complete unattractiveness at that moment -- my red nose, stuffy head and yucky cough -- and was immediately also very moved. We enjoy spending time together, value one another's opinions, already feel "committed."

We don't feel like there's any rush, but we've been talking about getting married.....

Frank with his nephew Jack and Frank's dog Sturmz

Anyone can comment now

2005-06-09T14:27:00.000-07:00

I reset the "comment" setting, so anyone can enter a comment without having to join and create a blog of their own....

The Grumpiness Factor

2005-06-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

I've been even grumpier than usual lately -- I've been sick and the office manager has been on vacation, so I've had to answer the phone every day, all day. I feel like I have a head full of porridge still, but my voice is back. It's fun to croak out, "Caregivers, can I help you?" when someone calls, as in "I'm at death's door, but I can help you with your home health needs. Just let me come over for a few minutes and hang out and in a few days Grandma won't need us anymore."

Also, it's raining. It's June. We never have rain in June. Usually it quits in April, early May at the latest. Eveyone forgets from year to year, though, and there are many discussions about this everywhere I go. Rain in June here on the Coast would be like snow in June other places. Rain is a winter thing here. Time for it to stop.

I was glad not to have to water the yard tho, and, actually, the landscape is incredibly beautiful in the mist. The cypresses that lean inland away from the sea breeze have lost their tops in the fog, and the fields near my house have a silvery-dewy look.

The young chickens don't seem to care about getting wet, and were foraging merrily when I left, stopping to shake themselves every few seconds. Negrita looked the worst, her little ostrich plumes drooping down sadly. We've determined that Baby Huey is a rooster. We took him and a Brahma hen from Frank's mother's flock and gave her LaVerne, the brown Americana, and LaVerne's best friend, another Brahma.

Huey's first public relations move after he was dropped into the new flock was to attack every single hen, and he was pecked back without remorse. Even tiny Negrita flew up at him, to his utter surprise. When it got dark everyone but Huey went inside the coop, and he sat in the pen cheeping miserably. "Betcha wish you'd been nicer to all these girls," I couldn't resist telling him. We've instituted an intensive taming program for him now. Clipping his wing was the first step, and now we catch him regularly and carry him around the house and pet his comb a lot. (Their combs and wattles are the most sensitive parts of their bodies.) We are trying to keep him from becoming the kind of rooster that terrorizes small children and pecks cats' eyes out. Time will tell.

Next: How this man ended up in my house, my life, my heart

Spot the omitted paragraph

2005-06-07T15:13:00.000-07:00

My first encounter with this client was her yelling at me over the phone because her caregiver had asked to be taken off her case. The second encounter was when she complained about the replacement's "attitude problem" when faced with cleaning up 8 weeks worth of cat hair and uncleaned litter boxes. The client sent a scathing evaluation of me ("send susan to intensive people-skills training") and suggested that I had ruined her relationship with her previous home helper. By the way, this client is not disabled or elderly -- she collects insurance money from an auto accident several years ago for people to wash her hair and vacuum her house. But you'd never know anything was wrong with her physically. In response to the evaluation my boss and I agreed I'd write a letter to try to salvage this account.

Can you find the paragraph I didn't include in the final letter?

Dear MV–

When H asked me to read the evaluation and letter you sent, I could feel your frustration coming off the page like heat waves. It was quite eye-opening and humbling for me to see the impression I made on you when I was a brand new supervisor.

I'd like to chop your body into little pieces and feed them to piranhas. I’d like to tie you up and roll you on your cat-hair-covered rugs for about half an hour. I’d like YOU to have to clean up someone else’s pet-shit and 8 weeks of accumulated fur and see if you could do it with a smile on your face. You won't even clean your own house. You are totally unreasonable, and every caregiver knows it. The fact that L could be nice to you was just evidence of how good a liar she was because she knew just as well as anyone how many caregivers you burned through just to keep that bogus insurance payment coming. And don’t blame me for ruining your relationship with C. I’m sure you were capable of doing that all by yourself. But because you are the client and no one backs me in this job, it is up to me to eat shit and come up smiling. Soooooo…..

While reading your evaluation was painful for me, I’m glad you wrote it, because it gives me a chance to try to correct my mistakes – a chance everyone would want, and which I hope you will give me.

I want to assure you that I have heard your concerns and will do anything I can to restore your relationship with our care agency. This includes attempting better communication (for example, I have passed on all your messages to C) and prompt return of your phone calls. I am willing to work with you on any problem that I am aware of (for example, if a caregiver is consistently late, I cannot address the problem unless I’m notified of it).

I’m very sorry we got off on the wrong foot, and I intend to do better in the future.

Sincerely,

Long-Weekend Fallout, The Exploding Breakfast and The Great Chicken Chase

2005-06-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

Long-Weekend-Fallout
So Memorial Day, Monday May 30, was the my second full day off since I started with Mendocino Caregivers on February 21. (Weekends I get my neighbors' brain injured son out of bed and ready for the day. That's a trade for part of my rent on the great 2-bedroom cottage with the fenced yard and "white water" ocean view, which Frank now shares with me.) After I slept in on Memorial Day (aaahhhhhhh), Frank and I went to Orr Hot Springs to soak and to Montgomery Woods State Reserve to hike, and it was all glorious and sunny and I could feel my real self coming back, and then on Tuesday I got to work and it was like I had never done the job before. Scheduling program? Never seen it before. Phone calls? Oh, well. I swilled around for a while and after an unpleasant meeting with my boss, who seemingly speaks to me only when something has gone wrong, I realized, "Square peg, round hole, I've been here before," squashing my artistic sensbilities into the tight box of the bureaucrat or the narrow slot of the "helper." That night I had a dream about some sick, dissapated people who were trying to rip me off, and on Wednesday I applied for a publicity job with the Mendocino Art Center. It closes June 10, so I'll keep you posted.

The Exploding Breakfast
I had left my car at Frank's mother's house and he had an early meeting at the Fort Bragg Advocate News, so we were in a hurry this morning. I got out of the shower to the smells of bacon and boiled eggs (Atkins diet, dontcha know). Something was humming away in the microwave as Frank made his dash for the shower, and then *pop* *BAM* something happened inside the microwave. I opened the door to find a fine mist of boiled egg yolks and chunks of whites sprayed all over the inside. It felt good to laugh so hard so early in the morning.

The Great Chicken Chase
Lest the only story be told on Frank:
When I got home yesterday, some of the chickens were in the yard, some locked in the chicken house run. We keep the tiniest ones in there all the time so they don't fall prey to one of the neighborhood cats or a hawk or raven. The others are big enough now to put up a fight.

I got it in my head that I would put them all in the run before I left for Frank's mother's house to meet his best friend from Iowa and his wife and their baby.

Now, chickens have basically three thoughts -- "food," "brood," and "panic." All their interesting behaviors stem from variations on these three things.

Ours aren't laying yet so they are too little to be "broody," which happens when they decide to try to hatch eggs. They become coo-y and soft and sit in one place and talk to themselves and they also become very defensive of that spot and chase other chickens away. Which leaves "food" and "panic."

We've conditioned ours to associate food with "Here chick, chick, chick" or "Here chook, chook, chook" and it works. So I got my bowl of chick scratch (coarse corn meal) and scattered some at the open gate to the run, saying the magic words and they came running -- from both sides. The ones who were in came out and half the ones who were out went in. The other half of the ones who were out continued to pick at the clover like nothing was happening.

I made a big, slow circle and shooed the ones who were out toward the gate, while the ones who were now in ran flapping out. Hazel, my long-haired Siamese decided this was a good time to get in on the action and did a butt-wiggling crouch followed by a pounce that sent the ones headed for the gate into "panic." They scattered.

This time the big, slow circle netted me 2 in and 4 back out, and I caught my pants on some chicken wire that was patching a hole at the bottom of the fence. The next attempt resulted in the tiniest ones out and the 2 biggest in, and I caught my pants on a zig-zag piece of barbed wire that was protecting some new vegetable plants. Then I swore at the top of my lungs. Big Mistake. PANIC! Chickens in all four corners of the big yard, racing past the open gate and into the little cul-de-sac by the deck, cowering in the corners of the deer fencing. I finally resorted to catching them one by one, and to their shrieks of indignation and protest, tossing them into the chicken house run, closing the gate after each toss.

I used to say of something chaotic, "It's like herding cats." I think from now on it'll be like herding chickens.

Chickens

2005-05-31T12:37:00.000-07:00

Notes from the North Coast

This blog could well be only about chickens. I have 11 at the moment, 2 "legacy chickens" that my sister gave me when she moved, 7 teenage chickens that Frank & I bought as day-old babies at the feed store and 2 pre-teen chickens.

The two old galz, Buff and Red, still lay eggs most days, even though they're over 7 years old. Red is pretty benevolent towards the pesky little ones -- she mostly ignores them -- but Buff shows them no mercy. "My food!" *peck* "My water!" *peck* "My space!" *peck* "I'm bigger!" *peck* "You're annoying!" *peck peck peck*

Once I get up to speed on putting pictures in here, I'll include some. But for now the thousand words will have to do. There are 2 Brahmas, beautiful black-and-white speckled feather-footed birds that will reach 9 pounds. Two are Rhode Island Reds, kind of the classic "little red hen" looking ones. They were the first to eat from our hands and taught the others we were ok.

One is a Black Austrolorp, a black hen; PJ is a Buff Orpington, a pretty golden-cream color; one is called a Gold Sex-Link, a cross between 2 kinds of leghorns in which only the hens are gold, so you don't get any pesky roosters unless you want them.

The 2 babiest ones are an Americana and a bantam Black Silkie. The Americana, LaVerne, is a cross between an Aracauna, a Chilean breed that lays blue, green or pink eggs, and some American breed. We have no idea what ours crossed with, but she looks like a little Kiwi bird, kind of speckled walnut color. The bantam Black Silkie, Negrita, is a tiny busy black ball of fluff, with another ball of fluff for a tail. Her feathers won't be like average chicken feathers, but more like tiny ostrich plumes. She has feathers on her feet too, and will have a swanky-looking top-knot when she's mature.

LaVerne and one of the Brahmas got sick with a disease called coccidiosis, a protozoan that lives in their guts but which can make baby chicks sick. So we had the two of them in a hospital cage in the garage for several days and medicated the water that all the chickens drink.

Frank's mother, Betty Lou, has half of the chicks we originally bought and raised in my dining room. Hers are all the same as ours except she has a bantam White Silkie named Danni and a bantam Salmon Favarole, a feather-footed dark-gold hen. Her Americana is more gray than ours, and it's named Baby Huey because even as a 2-day-old chick it was a huge handful, with gigantic cheeks just like the cartoon character.

At various times we've suspected that one or another is a rooster (there's a 10 percent error rate in sexing standard breeds and a 50/50 chance with bantams) but so far we're not really sure. The oldest are about 3 months now and the youngest are about 5 weeks. We should know soon.

As you can see we took chicken-taming very seriously. If you don't get them early, all they wanna do is play Tetris. This one is learning to Google.

Seen in Rush Hour Traffic

2005-05-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

Notes from the North Coast

Now that I have a regular schedule, more or less, I leave my house at the same time each day, and each day on Highway 1, I pass the same car coming in the opposite direction. It's a small blue sedan with no hood, the engine gloriously naked as it churns down the road. There's a "For Sale" sign in the driver's side rear window. Depending on whether I'm early, late or on time, I might pass it close to my road, or near the little grocery store and gas station in Cleone, or closer to Fort Bragg. Each time I wonder, Why doesn't he get a hood for that thing? Who does he think would buy a car with no hood?

Hello, again, all

2005-05-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

The last time you heard from me about life up here on the Mendocino Coast, I was keeping a hundreds-of-addresses email list, and that was quite a while ago.

Even though, or perhaps because, my life has speeded up a bit since I got here, I decided to jump in and try this method of updating. Hopefully it will keep me motivated and entering a few lines won't seem like such an undertaking.

I live in paradise, at the edge of the earth -- the Pacific coast 4 hours north of San Francisco -- and also sometimes on the edge of existence -- the economy up here is a tourism economy, plenty of low-wage, no-brain jobs, lots of money in the hands of visitors, very little in the wallets of locals.

For two and a half years, I clung to the economic underbelly of this place, combining several part-time jobs and never making ends meet. I did respite care for a county agency, looking after disabled kids so their parents could have a break; helped older and disabled people in their homes; took care of people's yards; declared myself a specialist in bulk mailing for several non-profits; wrote plant descriptions for a local nursery with a nationally-distributed catalog; wrote thank you letters and news releases for a charity out to get kidney dialysis services on the Coast; wrote and designed a couple of newsletters. I also had to make monthly decisions on which bill to defer. And when I met Frank, my sweetie, his unemployment checks seemed like notable regular income. But somehow in the midst of all that I still had time to go to the beach!

In February, challenged by my partner Frank, I applied and won a full-time job as supervisor in a caregiving agency. I hire and schedule workers, keep track of their hours for payroll, enroll new clients and market the business, all with varying degrees of skill and success. I also work weekends and some overnights as a partial trade for a lovely two-bedroom cottage with a fenced yard and an ocean view. I also see my Little Sister, Beth, once or twice a week. I am also still involved with the dialysis charity. I also daydream about retiring early, collecting a bunch of animals, planting trees, and getting an unlisted phone number.

So I intend for this blog to be snapshots of my life on the North Coast and also of the strange rat-race quality my life has taken on. In documenting that, I hope to be able to sort out what's essential and what can go. And maybe I'll entertain a few people along the way.