12 angry men

last week (the 17th through 21st) our kids were on spring break an di was very motivated to clean my desk off, do some serious filing, and prepare for our district validation review. wednesday i woke up with a sore throat and feeling lousy so i called in sick. wednesday night, when i called my toll-free number to see if i had to report for jury duty as luck would have it i did. of course. so thursday morning i wake up extra early, feeling like death warmed over and take the train downtown to be at one of la's many courthouses by 7:45 am. we heard all the spiel about what was going to happen and around 10:30 they started assigning courtrooms. department 45 here i come. i was called as juror #1. they started by interviewing 18 of us with 18 spares. 2 days later, when jury selection was finally completed, they were down to 12 jurors and one alternate.

we listened to the evidence from three police officers and the defendant, who was charged with one count of solicitation of the act of prostitution, a misdemeanor. monday afternoon we started deliberating and were locked at 6-6. tuesday morning we went straight back to the jury room, talked some more, and were still locked at 6-6. in order for the defendant to be declared guilty or not guilty we had to be unanimous. there was no way 6 people were going to change their minds, so we tolfd the attorneys and the judge and he declared a mistrial. i think that means it is up to his discretion whether to retry the case or something. anyways, i feel like it was a waste of taxpayers time and money. then we owed the state money on our taxes. hmmm... seems like an area in need of some house cleaning!!!

i will be looking forward to my compensation check to come in the mail ($15/day, starting on the second day of service, mileage one way OR a metro card = $45 and a week pass for the train) so i can send it straight back to the state. stupid.

thats civic duty for you.

easter fun

our third annual koci family easter (the satellite los angeles edition) was a great success. we had a smaller crowd this year (only six of us, and seven if you count cricket, who really liked the ham) and it was very laidback. we ate ham (and i had lamb) and mashed potatoes and green bean casserole and salad and deviled eggs and bread... it was all really really good. i made most of it so yes i am bragging a little bit. after dinner we played settlers with jeremy's new river tile addition (it was a little bit confusing at first but now we have the hang of it) and then had fried fruit with whipped cream for dessert. very yummy.

we had two easter services at our location for church this year - normally there is only one service. that meant we had to get up really early because we were directing. im talking like 4:30 in the morning. sheesh. in between services there was a great brunch and we had a cool dance and video combo. the video portion is below. i get goosebumps every time.

by about 8 pm i was exhausted so i went to bed really early.

baby's first bath...

after a long week of work and two hours at the gym, i came home to help jeremy give cricket a bath. she is so good natured we werent terribly worried about how she would react...

she didnt LOVE it but she was pretty tolerant of us as we soaped her up and tried to get rid of some of her extra hair that floats around our apartment like crazy... she scratched me a little bit when i tried to get her to stand up in the bath but after we moved her out of the standing water and just poured water on her she did just fine. she i sreally really fluffy because she looked so pathetic and pitiful all wet. she reminds me of the old english sheepdog that lived across the street when we lived on arlene... what was her name... maggie or something. when they gave her a bath it was like she lost 100 pounds. hilarious.

anyways, we dried cricket off and brushed her and now she has forgiven us and is watching the colbert report with us. what a good baby!

i'm coming home

to the place where i belong...

jeremy and i bought our plane tickets for kansas yesterday. we fly into austin on may 31 and drive up to wichita on june 1. we will sty in wichita until wednesday-ish and then head up to topeka.

things i want to do while in kansas (besides see family which is the obvious thing we are going there for):
see mandy and jill and beka in wichita
spend at least two hours in manhattan so erica and i can have our satc movie date and i can get sweet love by the fire from bluestem bistro or whatever it is calling itself these days... oh and a fish tank!!!!
see missy in kansas city
eat at n and js

who else wants to play that week? any suggestions?

i am turning in my request for time off tomorrow and then we need to make our hotel reservations for austin. anna are you going to be there? wanna share?

!m!

vet school?

yesterday after work jeremy and i performed surgery on cricket. thats right - our time spent cleaning kennels and holding snakes at the vet school at k-state really came in handy.

we have had our baby cricket for three weeks and it was time for her spay stitches to come out. we could have driven way into the city and gotten them taken out at the hospital where they performed the surgery, or taken her to the vet and paid $50 for a visit to get him to take them out, or dont what we did.

she laid down (because she is the best cat ever and soooo well behaved) and i petted her head and scratched her ears and jeremy got the wire clippers and tweezers and went to work. five or so minutes later we were done. and cricket was so happy to have the itchy stitchies out. i vacuumed because she sheds like you wouldnt believe and i had been petting her which made it worse. so then we were all happy. i had a clean floor to exercise on when jeremy left for his man date with zac.

i was doing my exercise video, minding my own business and i hear a knock on the door. our downstairs neighbor was like "i thought you were coming throught the floor - are you guys ok?" i was really embarrassed and told him i was just exercising and he was all "oh ok just wanted to make sure you werent being attacked or something." thankfully the video moved to abs and stretching after that and we left the loud disruptive cardio far far behind...

!m!

bee-ch day!

mosaic had their second annual beach volleyball tournament on saturday. yeah it was warm enough to go to the beach on march 8. pretty much socal rocks! i was a very good girl and kris would be sooo proud of me. i reapplied sunscreen on my face multiple times and wore my hat (oh that would be my 80th annual academy awards hat thank you very much) ALL day long. my face survived the day barely even pink. the backs of my knees and the top of jeremy's head did not fare as well. we are both in a very small amount of pain.

our recreational volleyball team did fairly well. we made it into the afternoon finals but did not win the tournament. we had a blast though. it has been too long since we had a good game of volleyball going.

the worst part of the day was when another team on a different court hit their ball into a bee hive. yeah a bee hive right there in the sand. our courts were swarmed with bees for about twenty minutes. thankfully we werent playing for the championship at that very moment because that definitely would have thrown off our game. only one girl was stung out of all those people and all those bees and she lived. so all in all a good day at the beach.

we went home and showered then drove over to universal studios citywalk for dinner with my aunt and uncle who were in la for the weekend celebrating their anniversary. it was great to see them - i had not seen them in six years and jeremy had (obviosly) never met them. we had a great dinner and hang out time. we took the requisite picture in front of the universal studios globe:

baby owen

meet owen frantisek steller, born feb 25 weighing 8 lbs, 1 oz and 20.75 inches long. isn't he precious???? i just wanted to eat him up! jeremy didnt get to hold him because he was fighting a cold. so sad. just meant more time for me!

i'm it!

Adessa tagged me! Here goes!

1.Link to the person’s blog who tagged you: adessa

2. Post these rules on your blog.

3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.
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A. i can run two miles without stopping, which i could not do a month ago and wouldn't have even dreamed i could do three months ago.
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B. VERY shortly after entering my mid twenties i found my first grey hair. what is the world coming to?
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C. i have read 90 books so far this year. yeah thats not a typo. 9-0. ninety.
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d. i spend every saturday in june, july and august at zuma beach.
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E. since marrying jeremy, i have been camping more often than in the 21 years before we were married. and actually enjoying it.
——————————————–
F. because california is common property lawed state, i own several firearms.
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G. our cat acts more like a dog. maybe she is a cog. or a dat?
—————————————–
4. Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
anna
mandy
amy
aunt norma
nikki
john/emay

yeah thats six but no one else i know blogs.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

jukebox hero

that title has absolutely nothing to do with my post but the song is stuck in my head for some reason. prolly from a commercial.

q: how sad are we to see danny and asia'h and luke and cady go?
a: not at all because they werent very good and in some cases really freaking annoying. also in the girls' cases (and i am one to talk) someone needs to learn how to spell. what is with the apostrophe h?????

we have been so busy this week!!! i have been putting in a ton of overtime at work because of all the state and district reviews we have coming up. we have a busy weekend coming up too. hopefully we get to see my aunt steph and uncle earl that jeremy has never met because they will be spending the weekend here in la... saturday is mosaic beach day/volleyball tournament (yes it actually is warm enough here to go to the beach but NOT to get in the water - not that i ever get in the water no matter how warm the weather is)... sunday we are serving at church, losing one hour of sleep (curses on spring back), and i have to work at school in the afternoon.

i went to the foot doctor this morning. he gave me a cortizone shot in my foot and a referral to a physical therapist. i start next week - 3 times a week for a month. insurance paying for someone to massage my foot. if it wasnt for the huge lump on my foot and all the pain i would say that isnt such a bad deal.

!m'h!

2/3 of the way

before 8 am this morning i had completed a 5k, running 2.3 of the 3.1 miles. what did you do?

jeremy drove kris and i downtown ish for our race. there was a small parking problem (we didnt bring any cash so he had to drop us off and find an atm) but we just made it in time. we ran/walked the thing in 30 or so minutes - our official time will be posted later tonight. apparently i was really booking it for those first two miles - kris said she thinks i was going 6.5 or 7 miles an hour which is waaay faster than i ever go on the treadmill!!! we are signing up for a couple more races in april and may - my goal is still to run the whole 3.1 miles.

when we got to the finish line, jeremy was waiting for us.

he barely made it in time to see us cross! when we were walking to the car, after grabbing our snacks, he told us that when he went to the atm, which took forever to find because all of the streets were blocked off because of the 5k, bike race, and marathon, he was putting his card in and this guy came up to him and said "i have a knife. give me twenty dollars." jeremy replied "i have a knife too. no." and the guy walked away. jeremy was kind of insulted that the guy tried to rob him because it was an older short man who kinda walked with a limp. jeremy could have easily layed him out plus jeremy was already mad that he had to go get money to park in the lot for a race that we payed to enter. we were glad that he survived an attempted mugging and that the guy was lame and doesnt know how to pick a good mugging victim.

when our official time is posted i will let you know.

!m!

it was bound to happen...

sooner or later. yesterday in the mail:

OFFICIAL Juror Summons

march 17 -21 is my week. i have to call in the night before every night that week and see if i have to drive somewhere way the heck in the city proper and sit for several hours so they can send me home, i can miss a day of work, and pay for parking. if i have to go a second day they reimburse me $15. woohoo. plus gas mileage one way. strange? i think so.

i was on a 6 year streak of no jury duty (since i turned 18 and became eligible) so like all other good things, it finally came to an end.

!m!