No thoughtful, carefully constructed entry this week. All because I’ve been overhauling my computer. I royally screwed it up. If you think you can mess around with permissions and make everything better in Windows, you are sadly mistaken. Bill Gates pwned me.

My kernel (pun for nerds!) of knowledge to take away from all this? I think I might rely on my computer too much. Time to take a pottery class or something.

I hate the Disney Princesses. I’m not quite sure why they had to make Belle, Ariel and Sleeping Beauty all buds, but when they are together (with their older sister Snow White), the drivel that comes out of their mouths is unbearable. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not denying Girl her innermost desires to dress up in fancy clothes and prance around the house opining about jewelry and fairies. It’s the IDEA of the Princess that gets me. What does she do? She sits around, letting people do things for her, hanging out with her girlfriends, talking about the Prince. I really don’t want Girl growing up thinking that’s all there is to life. Heck it’s hard enough being a teenager – when you add royalty & entitlement to the mix you’ve created a monster.

In my attempt to avoid all that, I try to steer Girl towards more interesting entertainment options. Lately, we’ve been on the old-school kid stuff kick. We’re reading Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, she knows all the songs to Pete’s Dragon, we collect the old read-along books & records, and Tom & Jerry is her favorite way to vegetate in front of the tube. So there you go – no teaching Girl how to lead her entourage around by the nose, she’s learning what happens when you act like Veruca Salt, how to trust your invisible Dragon friend, what sound tells you the turn the page, and that it’s better to be a mouse than a cat. Lessons for life, if you ask me.

I know I’m a mean mom. I’m probably reading too much into everything. But don’t I get to make all the decisions? Aren’t I the Queen in this scenario?

When my jury summons came, I thought I’d give it a whirl – intellectual stimulation (or so I thought), time to read my book (luckily Dylan’s insight into the court system gave me fair warning that I’d be doing a lot of waiting), AND be paid? ($10 a day, yes, but face it, I usually have to pay someone else for a break, so anything in the black is a win, right?) Dylan was willing to stay home with the kids on short notice – so why not?

I was sure I wouldn’t get picked – I’ve never met anyone that’s been on an actual jury, just a lot of people that get summoned but don’t actually serve, so I brought my books, and sat waiting for the ok to go home. During voir dire (the jury selection process), the questions all related to how impartial we could be. How can you really answer a question like that? When someone asks you if you can be open-minded – doesn’t giving a definite answer either way defeat the question to begin with? Regardless of my confused answer, questioning ended, and the 12 jurors were selected. I sat in the front row and wore a bright green jacket, which according to Dylan made me a shoe-in. I guess he was right – I became juror #6.

The trial started shortly thereafter. Lots of instructions for us – telling us we could do no wrong (unless we took the elevator at the end of the hall which lead to the holding cells – that would be wrong) showing us the deliberation room (which was smaller than my bathroom), the cold coffeepot, the overpriced vending machines, and giving us our legal pads and pens for note-taking (which were to be returned – darn economy, I can’t even get a free pen!) Then came opening statements, witnesses, cross-examination, talking, more talking, breaks, recess, lunch, more witnesses, sidebars, more questions, one objection, and closing statements. I won’t give main details of the case, but by the end of all this, I became confused. It seemed too cut and dry. Why on earth were we here? I must have missed something – it wasn’t supposed to be this obvious. Had they not seen 12 Angry Men? Maybe that’s why they have so many jurors. #6 will always miss something, and the other 11 won’t. The trial ended, we deliberated for a time (I apparently didn’t miss anything), and we delivered our verdict. It was a rollercoaster ride of boredom, silence, endless drivel, interesting questions, grandstanding, formality, duty, honest discussion, responsibility, remorse wondering if we made the right decision, then a lecture from the judge telling us everything will be ok. I felt like I had just lived through a semester of college in one day.

Oh, and Law & Order is just a show. Our bailiff said it correctly – the judicial system moves slow but deliberately. Bring a book.

This week hasn’t been our favorite.

Don’t worry, everyone’s (relatively) healthy. No ER visits, no major catastrophes, just a week filled with small painful not-so-great moments. I’m nervous about what could possibly come after this event. As we all know, things like these always come in groups. And for some reason, they cost a lot of money.

Here’s a concise summary: long day for Dylan + bike commute + picking up Dylan in car to be nice + screaming kids + driving on auto-pilot = poor bike. We have now signed up for the “we’ve driven into our garage with a fully loaded roof rack” support group. Our local bike shop said they get at least one of these a week. It’s nice to know we aren’t the only boneheads out there. If you would like to see the carnage, click below. I’ll admit, it’s not as cool as my awesome thumb stitches, but it is gory nonetheless.