Making Rain

I heard today that airplanes cause precipitation. Perhaps now we have our answer to drought? I didn't grasp all the intricate details of this, but prop planes, at just the right altitude and temperature, can cause ice crystals to form in clouds. I guess if you get enough of those, you're going to have precipitation! The odd thing is that although the plane is relatively narrow, and occupies a small space, the resulting precipitation frequently covers a wide area. Now I guess we just need to learn to control this effect and we're all set.

Fourth of July

What does one do on the Fourth if she does not bbq? I tried once buying a bbq, but couldn't bring myself to use it. Too chicken, and I don't like big hunks of meat anyhow.
Perhaps I should go to the beach for once in my life? Go to a parade? Sleep all day? Revel in home ownership?

Almost Finished

My cousin is almost finished with her drawings, she says, and I will be sending the completed chapbook out wherever I can. I asked her to please try to finish it during July, so I can take advantage of open reading periods during this month, having missed the June ones. Even some of these charge a reading fee, but at least they won't shred it unseen.
I have also managed to get on to Red Room, the publisher of Leza Lewitt's yoga poetry (or at least the newest one, forthcoming soon). I noted the publisher on her book announcement, and wrote to them. But I have to learn to do as Marly does, posting impressive looking stuff on Red Room so I can appeal to potential publishers. I guess posting a previously published poem (I'm sure Qarrtsiluni won't mind!) or putting a link to that publication where people can hear the audio would be a good idea. Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Zoo No

The Zoo apparently did not think my idea was so hot. They quickly refused it. Too bad.

New Direction

Some weeks ago, I posted my vita online, and since then have been getting various communications by email and phone. Just today, I got an offer to travel abroad with high school kids. It's worth a thought! Something different, and it does come to me at a time when I was wanting very much to travel.

Sleepy Monday

It is almost July... hard to believe! This week, the first draft of the first paper will come in. We are working our way steadily toward it right now. I can see the students still need work on the concept of thesis, on the notion that one could create a coherent argument about two different works. Now that I was trying to come up with a thesis and plan for this comparison or contrast paper, which I had envisioned as rather simple, a gentle introduction to analysis, I found it to be not nearly as simple as I had thought. Of course, that is always the way with me. It is probably the way my mind works, a writerly tendency to complicate, to see the baroque underpinnings of a seemingly simple idea that everyone else simply accepts at face value.
I had an idea that I am now pursuing. I belong to the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park, and the last time I was unemployed, I thought longingly of working there, perhaps writing the Zoo's educational materials, their magazine, or other materials they put out on their website, perhaps. I could not really see myself as a keeper, though I spent much of my life hauling animal crap, cleaning cages and tanks, gentling creatures. I am just not very big or strong, and most of the keeper jobs require such strength, as well as manual dexterity, which I lack in spades. But I have always wanted to at least go on one of the Zoo's behind-the-scene tours or overnights. They are just so expensive that I could never afford to do it, except by going alone, and that wouldn't be nearly as much fun as going with R or J or both of them.
But now, as I said, I had an idea. I will volunteer to teach a workshop there, a poetry workshop for adults. We will have a tour and spend the night or perhaps just have a tour, feeding and getting up close to some animals that are usually far away, in their enclosures. Then I will do the workshop, reading works featuring animals to the class and giving them an exercise. That way, perhaps I will be written up or be on the news or both, and someone who needs someone just like me or realizes that s/he does after seeing me, will give me some sort of job. If not, it will still be fun, and I will get to go on one of those tours.

Do Cats Watch Television?

I was watching Nova the other day with my cats on either side of me. It was a show about Victoria Falls, quite spectacular on the big screen. As the film spotlighted the local wildlife, the elephants frolicking in the spring abundance of water, the hippos with their periscope eyes and ears topping the water, the sounds and flights of birds coming in for a feast, the cat sat alert, scanning the screen with his eyes, his head turning to follow the creatures on the screen and the sounds they were making. When the commercial came on, he laid his head on his paws and went to sleep.

Beautiful Day

This afternoon, after a long day of cooking and preparation, we hosted a commemoration at my parents' gravesite. I read two poems I wrote for them ("Harvest" and "Just Before," which have been posted here in one form or another in the past) and the assembled group read some short readings appropriate for the situation. Richard played a couple of numbers on the harmonica. Then we went back to the house and chowed down for quite a while, and hung the mezzuzah on the doorpost, once Richard determined he had found nails small enough to fit into the tiny holes. It was clumsy, as my parties usually are, but no one went away hungry. And everyone seemed to enjoy touring the house and basking in the light in the living room with their plates of food or else outside on the front lawn, drinking their lavender lemonade (a recipe from Native Foods' cookbook). It was sweet to spend time talking to friends I generally only greet in passing.
Thank you friends for sharing the day with me.

Another Week

Just finished week 2 of the summer class. The students are so sweet, and so young. Most are high school students, and they make me feel that if I didn't have to work full time, teaching advanced placement high school students in a private school would not be too bad at all, or even in an Irvine high school, where so many of the students are comparatively well-prepared. But I know myself. I don't think having to censor what I say will work. I'm better off dealing with adults. And dealing with behavior problems is also not something I want to have to do.

Wondering

I was reading a book of Leslie Silko's ramblings (not a novel, not exactly essays) and could not help but wonder despite myself. I was reading that book Neurodiversity a couple of weeks ago, where the writer discussed how in some cultures, what we call psychosis would be a cherished and much exalted ability to speak with spirits and hear the voices of the earth. Native American culture is certainly among those cultures that value this ability. But where does one draw the line, or can one draw the line?
I am not an entirely rationalistic person. I certainly believe in worlds beyond this one, in God, in spirits both benign and malign. But to hear the voice of the Star Beings in the fan or the radio??? How do I think about that? Am I being narrow and small minded if I feel doubt about the sanity of this sort of assertion? Perhaps.

Memorial Park

Yesterday R and I went to the Memorial Park for the first time since last year, when we were there for the funeral. I wanted to be sure that the stone I ordered from VA for my parents had arrived, as I was notified it did, back in February or so.
I never would have found the site myself, so I was very happy to have R there. We put two pebbles each on the stone, which was a lovely marker by the way, in a light gray granite, with both their names on it. We said kaddish, and then Richard played a tune on his harmonica. I asked him to do that again on Saturday, when we will be there with the assembled group again for the unveiling. I am not sure how to veil the stone, what kind of covering to use, or where I will get it. But I am glad I went.

More About Memory

I suppose you might have been watching 60 Minutes last night. Sometimes one has to turn on the tube to hear news of what is going on locally. On that news show, which I seldom watch, last night, I heard a fascinating story about work being done by a famous cognitive scientist teaching at UCI. He has recently discovered in the deep deep well between our ears more riches, in the form of people with super-developed temporal lobes. And "temporal" they indeed are, it seems. In addition to more than a touch of OCD, these people with interesting if somewhat mundane superpowers have the ability to scan that part of their brain and download the most minute details, including sensory and emotional impressions, of what was happening in every second of their lives. Given a date, they can tell almost everything of what happened that day, what day of the week it was, what they were feeling, etc. They never forget anything, and with the except of one heavily burdened and apparently depressed individual, of the 6 that have been found thus far, they seem quite well adjusted and happy about their talent. Interestingly, though some are in the arts (a violinst, an actor), none are literary writers. Think what a gift that might be for a writer! But on the other hand, if one had this gift, she might not need or want to write to retrieve an impression that could be as easily gotten by merely scanning the contents of a corner of the brain. Why work for it? All the same, it gives us an idea that, as in the ocean, there is so much yet to be discovered in the brain.

Father's Day

I still have not visited the cemetery where my parents are buried although it is only half a mile from my house. I have tried to get various people to come with me including my son and my husband, but they don't want to.
Next week I have planned a commemoration, and I am hoping that the stone I ordered from Veterans has been put in place there. Today I am going to have to make myself go, to check this out.
I am not sure exactly why it is so hard for me to go to the cemetery again. I am not in denial about my parents' death. I know quite well they are gone. I think about them every day, just about.
Today would be a good day for me to go, if only to dispel the fear or reluctance or whatever it is.
I want to take Richard to breakfast this morning, especially since Jeremy moved back into the house yesterday afternoon without much fanfare, and then went off to work the night shift at the market, getting home after midnight.
I don't want to wake Jeremy as early as I would need to; he has summer school coming up this week. But naturally I want him to go to breakfast with his dad.
Breakfast is R's favorite meal. I don't like breakfast at all, and have the urge to eat dim sum or left overs or fruit at breakfast time. Most of the time I eat very lightly at breakfast because I am going to go to yoga class in a few hours, and I can't have anything big in my stomach.

Last Night at Synagogue

Last night there was a lot going on at synagogue. I brought a noodle salad with black sesame seeds, radishes, and Persian cucumbers to the international potluck, which turned out mostly to be an event related to the synagogue's pre-school. Although I love these sorts of affairs and there was lots of appealing food from all over the world, made by people from those countries dressed in national garb, somehow, once I had a full plate, I suddenly did not feel like eating it.
The cheerful gathering and kletzmer tunes played by a terrific ensemble buoyed my spirits a bit, but then the congregation said kaddish for my dad, among others whose yartzeit, death anniversaries, were commemorated on that date. Next week is my mother's yartzeit, and the gathering I have planned at the memorial park.

Second Class

The second class went very well. The room had already thinned out a bit. Not everyone returned. I was rather surprised that the older, unemployed gentleman in the second row hadn't showed. Probably the subject matter didn't interest him. If the other sections have political or social themes, he would rather take one of those classes. The time could be rather inconvenient too. I remember his saying he was checking out an earlier class. Someone who had been enrolled but hadn't shown for the first class came also, and I had to add him back into the class. So I have probably about 24 students now, if the people I gave add cards to turn them in.
I was feeling that I was doing extremely well today, and that if anyone who had any doubts about my teaching had been there, they wouldn't have such doubts anymore. I was introducing the students to the idea of analyzing texts. Then we looked at student samples and began to work on the Bishop poem ("First Death in Nova Scotia").

First Class

I had my first class of the summer session this evening. The room was packed. In fact, I had to ask a few people to leave because there weren't enough seats for students who were enrolled, but showed up a little late. Their seats were taken by hopeful individuals who wanted to add. Five spots dwindled to three, and there were still 4 on the priority add list who had come with the intention of taking any spots there were.
But as a whole, the campus was quite empty. Finding a parking spot was not hard because so few classes have apparently been offered that they are spaced out throughout the week. I don't even know if they all started on the same day because Jeremy's humanities class at the college starts tomorrow.
Other unnerving events: the projector on which I had planned to project my syllabus so students who wanted to add could see it did not work. It was in a clear state of disrepair, and sure enough, the technician showed up a few minutes into the class asking when he could fix it. I told him to go ahead because I knew I'd need it, as would other classes scheduled in the room for today and tomorrow. I'll be back there tomorrow, and I'll need it then as well, so I tolerated his loud, squeaky ladder, his ringing cellphone (and conversation), and the fact that he had to climb into the ceiling to fix the thing. I got a bit befuddled by all the clamor.
But the projector is fixed! The semester is off to a start.

In response to Something I Read

I was looking at Lisa Alvarez's (Reb's) Mark on the Wall blog this morning, where she had posted part of a Paris Review interview with Katherine Anne Porter. This was the bit in question: "When you get sudden flashes of perception, it is just the brain working faster than usual. But you’ve been getting ready to know it for a long time, and when it comes, you feel you’ve known it always."
That started me thinking. It's exactly right, isn't it? What seem to us like moments of sudden insights that strike us blind in our paths, they really have been coming on for some time, rather like a cold. It's just some final bit of the puzzle that transforms a state of not being sure to a state of knowing.
The interview in question was about the genesis of art, of story, but I think it applies far more widely to any sort of knowing, whether connected with art, with scholarship, with emotions, or just with life in general.
When I look back at any number of situations in my life, I am not surprised things turned out as they did, though I was blind-sided by them at the time. As Porter says about her characters, she wants to tell them they can make other choices, but they really can't, given the choices they have already made, which have led them in the direction they end up going.
We are all rather like web-building or nest-building creatures, who shape our own habitations. I suppose the thing is to shape them knowingly, with care and forethought, rather as I have the house I am living in now, and not haphazardly or in a self-destructive way, working with a blueprint of someone else's making, someone who did not necessarily have this person's own best interest in mind at all (which could be part of one's own self looking for a self-fulfilling prophesy). Easier said than done. And then something I have learned from making this house to order, one can always undertake reconstruction. That doesn't entirely wipe out the past; nor would this be a good thing, if it were possible. The lights still go on and off unexpectedly in this house, for example, but we have learned to use this to our advantage for the most part. Understanding where the problem was to begin with and rebuilding from there is what therapy is all about, after all, and any sort of life-changing people undertake. So I am not a fatalist, like Porter. But I take instruction all the same from her words.

More on Buggy Food

Here's a clip on cicada ice cream. From the description (nuts) it seems that it's crunchy, but I don't know whether the cicadas themselves make up part of the crunch, only that the FDA ruled out the sale of this stuff.

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/gutcheck/2011/06/cicada_ice_cream.php
Hm... other sources disagree.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/10/news/la-heb-cicada-ice-cream-healthy-20110610

Recipe for Green Onion Sesame Bread

I made the bread tonight for supper, and found that it tasted exactly like the bread at the restaurant. However, it was several times smaller. I also needed to translate the measurements to cups, etc. so I could make it. But I found that I mostly worked by instinct anyway. The flour the recipe suggested I put in was not enough to make a substantial dough, or perhaps I put in too much water or using egg whites rather than whole eggs changed the consistency. But in any case, I used my judgement, and the bread turned out perfectly. I recommend it! You might double it though, if there are more than two of you. We ate the whole thing in a trice.

Cicada Ice Cream

I heard an interesting story on the radio yesterday about the FDA stopping sales of ice cream made from an abundant but questionable source--cicadas. I am sure that anyone with good hearing (counts me out) in the proximity to a wave of 17 year locusts newly emerged from the ground and anxious to announce their presence to other 17 year locusts would have fantasies of ridding himself of these creatures, whose loud and insistent chirping could make anyone crazy.
I don't know how the ice cream was supposed to taste; however, I have tasted chocolate cake with earthworms in it in the old days when I used to eat chocolate and chocolate covered grasshoppers and ants. Chocolate is a big theme as is deep frying, which I suppose distracts people from the nature of the things they are eating. The cake was very moist and full of protein!
Thinking about what one is eating can subtract from one's enjoyment. I recall I used to love pickled tongue sandwiches when I was small. But one day, I realized what it was I was eating when I paid more attention than usual to the pebbly texture of the meat. I never ate a tongue sandwich again.

Sooner Than Expected

Unfortunately, the idea I had for a place to publish my yoga chapbook has not panned out. After reading the much vaunted yoga memoir, Poser, which I admired, I noted the publisher, and sent Jonathan Galassi at Farrar Straus Giroux a few samples (with drawings). He wrote me back a nice note declining them but saying that he liked them anyway. That's something. On to the next, less ambitious plan!

Strange Stuff on a Friday Morning

Though June in these parts is known for its "gloom," a marine layer hanging over us until about noontime, when it burns off to reveal the usual sunshine, rain during this time of year in the past has been extremely uncommon. However, it rained again this morning. Though I think it has stopped for the nonce, I am surprised at the fact that we not only got gloom, but actual precipitation! That's okay; I don't have to water my plants, which I too often forget to do anyhow.

Cat Perspective

Today I was browsing a cat behaviorist's blog and found this terrific video of a cat's day from the cat's own perspective. You'll recall that a while back I wrote a poem from my cat's perspective ("Shadow's Night Patrol"). This will give you another look at a cat's-eye-view.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k0PduP7PXx0

Summer

I'm beginning to enjoy my summer leisure, just as it is about to end. Recent events have overshadowed that enjoyment, and of course, not much really has changed on that score, but as the Dog Whisperer is always saying about his canine charges, the thing is to make the mind move forward, as it naturally is prone to do. My mind is moving forward, even if the future is uncertain. There are new challenges to take on, and I am ready to deal with them.

A challenge

Shavuot is also about studying the ten commandments, according to the rabbi last night. He challenged us to think and write about these commandments, which are only the "greatest hits" of the much more numerous commandments contained in the Torah (613). Contrary to popular opinion, their meaning is not at all straight-forward or obvious, and there are many controversies. Several of the confirmation students last night spoke about the second commandments, about worshipping God in relation to other gods and about iconic representation of God or perhaps of anything at all material.
It has always struck me that a God as insistent as this one, constantly advertising God's power and presence and manifest superiority to other, rival gods, makes a point of remaining invisible, or at most, only partially visible, being associated with dissolution of materiality in the form of fire (burning bush, pillar of fire), The absence of presence seems to be the point. So powerful is this God that no materiality is necessary.
With Kieslowski's Decalogue films in mind, perhaps you could whip up some commandment curds in the form of commentaries, poems, or whatever? I'd love to see and post them.

Torahthon

Last night our synagogue celebrated Shavuot, one of the Torah's Pilgrimage festivals (the others are Passover and Sukkot, in the spring and fall respectively), with its annual Torahthon.
You may remember that last year I took part by contributing a commentary on one segment or parashah of Torah, but this year the Rabbi apparently wanted fewer participants. Each person had several pieces of Torah to discuss. Most of the commentaries were thoughtful and interesting. I particularly enjoyed on that took the form of a fictional dialogue that illustrated the extremely strange rules of purity, nothing if not obsessive.
Traditionally, Torah scholars study all night, but 10:30 was late enough (too late for me), since I had miles to go before I slept, and a passel of hungry cats to wade through before I could actually go to bed.
I like this new tradition, particularly since Shavuot is usually celebrated by eating dairy foods, and I don't like them, so I never really connected with this holiday before.
Another impressive event of the evening was the confirmation of 4 young people about 17 years old from the synagogue who willingly sacrificed their Sunday mornings for a year I believe to become confirmants. They were really terrific, sweet kids. Their Torah commentaries often reflected good minds at work and excellent writing skills. When I think of Jeremy at that age, I cannot imagine that he would ever have been on that stage. Not a joiner, like his dad.

A Nose For It

I have, fortunately or unfortunately, a nose that works rather well, sometimes too well for my own good. I can catch the whiff of uncleaned cat litter from the doorway, when the litter boxes are far off on the other side of the house. The odors of an ethnic grocery store are almost too much for me sometimes, and when I was a child, I had to flee the smell of pizza, which made attending birthday parties rather difficult sometimes.
We eat with our eyes, but also with our noses, and this is perhaps why I enjoy walking into a bakery or restaurant, even when I am not hungry, feeling almost as satiated by the smell as by the actual consumption of food I buy there.
But what caught my attention yesterday on NPR was not something involving food but the smell of perfume, and what scents have been favored over the years.
Perfume is necessary for humans, I assume, because our noses work rather poorly, when compared to our other mammalian counterparts. Cats and especially dogs put us to shame, catching and reading the meaning of the most subtle signals of emotion, illness, or sexuality. The sensitivity of their olfactory apparatuses goes far beyond the simple reproductive function of locating a mate by pheromones, and becomes a whole different dimension of existence. The dog with its nose to the pavement can suss out whole histories we walk over and past, oblivious. Like archivists of scents, they could tell us, if we could comprehend their language, who had passed here and when. Sherlock Holmes had nothing on them.
But perhaps feeling our inferiority in this department, we have sought to strengthen our own personal smells, to personalize and thus own them. The most natural desire of human beings is to want to emanate a pleasant odor, most often one associated with flowers or perhaps with more homely domestic scents, like lemon or other fruits, herbs, such as rosemary, or vanilla, which I suppose is a flower (an orchid) after all).
Yet as any canine could confirm, smell is not always about attracting another of the species. Sometimes it is a kind of a warning, a territorial claim, like the scent of a dog, urinating around the periphery of its perceived property, which might include the unlucky owner or his property.
As the commentator on NPR last night proclaimed, this impulse is not extinguished even among the most refined artists of scent. Sexuality is directly linked to scent, as we know, and perfume, though it masks our natural scents, makes use of them as well. One famous creator of French perfume went on record as saying that he always included in his blends "a whiff of his mistress's behind." And perhaps this explains why some current scents hew to the more raw scents of our lives, like Lady Gaga's "blood and semen," the odors she desires to enshrine in her new perfume.
As long as the purveyors of perfume stay away from eau de mildew or the like, they will always have my attention, if not my dollars.

Forgot Something

I forgot the recipe! I have been looking for recipes for one of my favorite dishes--Mongolian Chinese Sesame Scallion Bread. There is an Islamic Chinese restaurant near Irvine, and I used to like to go there, but aside from this bread, the rest of the dishes aren't as good as they used to be, so I want to make this dish myself. It is an incredible thing to look at too--huge and puffy, full of green onions, and scattered with sesame seeds. I found a recipe online. Though the grammar is a bit iffy, it's the only place I've been able to find one.
It's on a blog at www.wlteef.blogspot.com

A recipe and a book

I haven't been reading much, aside from the things I was teaching, in the past months, and I missed it terribly. So I went to the library the other day and found an intriguing book in the new books area called Neurodiversity. Apparently, while I was elsewhere occupied, a movement has developed that emphasizes the strengths of people who are neurologically challenged, like so many in my family, discussing the special abilities of people with ADHD, Aspergers and Autism Spectrum disorders, etc. I wish we had had this when I was advocating for Jeremy in the schools and bringing him up. It would have been very helpful, though we did figure out some of the things such as encouraging active play by ourselves. When he was about 10, we used to give him (by his own request) a styrofoam box and a hammer and send him out on the patio to break the thing apart. It prevented rage attacks and occupied him for a while. He never destroyed anything else in the process, including his own toes or fingers. We just had to sweep up the mess afterwards, and everyone was happy. It was rather like the three hour baths he used to take with bath chalks, writing all over the walls in soapy letters that were easy to wash off. It's a good development, this attitude toward neurological difference. I'm happy to see it.

Library Day

After a vigorous and fun yoga class this afternoon, in which Bob focused on fixing my hip (which consequently feels as though it is part of someone else, slightly achy, almost disembodied) and took us on a field trip to the banisters outside the yoga studio, where we did an impossible twist not in any yoga book, I went to the library. I hadn't been to the public library in some time. Generally, it is frustrating to go there because if I have something in particular in mind, and I often do, they are sure not to have it. But because I just wanted something, almost anything, to read, it was rather nice to visit the small library in town today. I decided to read about food. I figured they would have a reasonable selection of books about that, and they did, though Anthony Bourdain's books were not in. I think they have all been stolen. That tends to happen in the public library lately. But I got some MFK Fisher and an Indian cookbook I have been poring through.
I had an idea for about the yoga book. But uncharacteristically, I'm not going to tell you what it was till I see what comes of it (probably nothing, but one never knows). It will be about 8 weeks before I know.

The Wheel of Fate

In Medieval Lit, and also in Classical and later works, one is reminded constantly on the world's fickleness, and the unreliability of worldly happiness, renown, fame, and comfort. Along with "memento mori," this may be one of the most constant themes of all literature.
In the modern world, surrounded by our crafted bubble of medical science and manufactured comforts, we forget sometimes just how vulnerable we are. But being human, we are just as prone to a fall as any human ever has been, perhaps more so because of our technological hubris, added on to the usual kind, that only creates an opportunity for error and destruction on a global scale.
I may have thought I cheated fate in overcoming the disadvantages of my early life, and by dint of sheer will and effort, climbing the face of a rock to reach a modest pinnacle. I got my house, after years of dreaming, and it is all I would have wanted. I have a loving husband and son and a wonderful community who are all I would have asked for.
But it is clear that I am subject to the same turn of the wheel as everyone else. Yesterday, on the one year anniversary of my father's death, I received notice that I may still owe thousands of dollars for my parents' medical bills, the part uncovered by medicare and the secondary insurance they held at their death. I had assumed because of a lull of perhaps 6 months in bills that I had paid all of them, so I did not have their mail transferred to our new address, but it appears I will have to contact the post office and have those things sent here, and somehow pay the bills, and all this in the face of an uncertain future.

Another publication!

Qarrtsiluni has accepted by poem, "My Memory Palace" for their Imprisonment issue. It took a while, but they liked it! Meanwhile, my cousin Nina is finishing up the drawings for the yoga series. I have a few places in mind to send it, if they are still reading manuscripts. If you have any suggestions of good publishers who would "count" with academia, let me know.

Jury Duty

I have put off jury duty for years, it seems. Now I have finally done it, sitting in the courtroom from 8:00 AM to 2:30 PM. Despite the fact that there were two cases, demanding oodles of jurors, we were all dismissed, finally, after I got a good ways through a doorstop sized book about the movement to free Soviet Jewry and did most of my preparation for the first week of class, which starts on the 15th of June.
I have served on a jury only once because of teaching, parental duties, and the demands of caring for a child. It seems that R goes every year, but even he says he made it onto a jury only once. Despite the inconvenience, it was an interesting experience.