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Jury Duty

  I take my civic duty seriously; so seriously in fact, I wore shoes, long pants, a shirt with a collar, and even put on deodorant this morning.   Up and gone at dawn so I could be at the Corpus Christi Courthouse by 8am, I was seated in the jury room right on time.  There were several hundred chairs.  Over the course of the morning, all of the chairs were filled with people, then people were moved, names were called, and people were seated in groups as jury panels.  Bailiffs moved them out.  More panels were assembled.  It was a well-organized, meticulous, laborious process.   Finally, they finished assembling and marching off all the jury panels they needed.  To the best of my knowledge, my name was never called.  I was part of the leftovers.  They let the leftovers go home.  My civic duty done.   There was one slight glitch in the process, which accounts for me being almost, but not completely, sure my name was not called.  We started at eight am.  They allowed a bathroom break at nine.  I didn’t have to go at nine, but it wasn’t long after that until I did.  Problem was, by then, they were steadily calling out names and shuffling people.  I held out until eleven, name never called.  At the first lull in activity I headed off for a quick trip “down the hall”.  As I was going out the door, I heard the namecalling start again.  No time for that, I was on a mission.  By the time I got back, they had assembled another pack of sixty.  I waited and listened for protests about the missing juror, but I heard none, so there it is.  By default, my name was never called.   Okay, so there was one other slight glitch.  During the hurried trip down the hall there was an unfortunate incident that involved water and a baseball cap.  I had left all extraneous articles in the car; sunglasses, jacket, anything I didn’t actually need while I was inside.  As I was checking in through security, I saw the sign declaring “NO HATS”.  Oops.  I still had my hat on, my favorite hat, even though earlier I’d decided not to wear it in.  It just went in on my head of its own accord.  No problem.  I took it off and stuck the bill in the waistline of the back of my pants.  It rode comfortably there, out of sight and out of mind until the unfortunate incident down the hall.   It was my favorite hat!  I couldn’t just leave it there.  But now I had a new problem.  I didn’t want to carry a wet hat back into the jury room.  I certainly didn’t want to wear a wet hat back.  I didn’t want to lose it.  I couldn’t just leave it out in plain sight.  I found a secret place to stash it until I could come back later and recover it when the coast was clear.   The plan worked.  Duty done.  I’m home.  The hat is in the shower.    
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Sunday birding

Not a bad day birding. 66 birds, and we were home for lunch and football.

1 Black-bellied Whistling-Duck wood stork anhinga pond
2 Greater White-fronted Goose sandia roads
3 Snow Goose sandia roads
4 Ross’s Goose sandia roads
5 Gadwall sandia roads
6 American Wigeon sandia roads
7 Blue-winged Teal hazel bazemore park
8 Northern Shoveler hazel bazemore park
9 Green-winged Teal hazel bazemore park
10 Redhead sandia roads
11 American White Pelican sandia roads
12 Brown Pelican sandia roads
13 Neotropic Cormorant wood stork anhinga pond
14 Anhinga hazel bazemore park
15 Great Blue Heron sandia roads
16 Great Egret hazel bazemore park
17 Snowy Egret hazel bazemore park
18 Cattle Egret wood stork anhinga pond
19 Black-crowned Night-Heron wood stork anhinga pond
20 White Ibis hazel bazemore park
21 Roseate Spoonbill hazel bazemore park
22 Black Vulture sandia roads
23 Turkey Vulture hazel bazemore park
24 Osprey sandia roads
25 Harris’s Hawk sandia roads
26 Red-shouldered Hawk wood stork anhinga pond
27 Red-tailed Hawk sandia roads
28 Crested Caracara sandia roads
29 American Kestrel sandia roads
30 Common Moorhen wood stork anhinga pond
31 American Coot sandia roads
32 Sandhill Crane sandia roads
33 Killdeer hazel bazemore park
34 Black-necked Stilt hazel bazemore park
35 American Avocet hazel bazemore park
36 Greater Yellowlegs hazel bazemore park
37 Long-billed Curlew hazel bazemore park
38 Marbled Godwit mustang island. packery channel
39 Least Sandpiper hazel bazemore park
40 Long-billed Dowitcher hazel bazemore park
41 Wilson’s Snipe sandia roads
42 Rock Pigeon sandia roads
43 Eurasian Collared-Dove sandia roads
44 Mourning Dove hazel bazemore park
45 Inca Dove hazel bazemore park
46 Golden-fronted Woodpecker hazel bazemore park
47 Downy Woodpecker sandia roads
48 Eastern Phoebe sandia roads
49 Say’s Phoebe sandia roads
50 Vermilion Flycatcher sandia roads
51 Great Kiskadee hazel bazemore park
52 Loggerhead Shrike hazel bazemore park
53 Green Jay hazel bazemore park
54 Marsh Wren hazel bazemore park
55 Ruby-crowned Kinglet sandia roads
56 Swainson’s Thrush hazel bazemore park
57 Northern Mockingbird hazel bazemore park
58 Common Yellowthroat hazel bazemore park
59 Lark Bunting sandia roads
60 Savannah Sparrow sandia roads
61 Northern Cardinal hazel bazemore park
62 Red-winged Blackbird sandia roads
63 Eastern Meadowlark sandia roads
64 Great-tailed Grackle sandia roads
65 Brown-headed Cowbird sandia roads
66 House Sparrow sandia roads

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Jury Duty!

  It happened.  I finally received a jury duty notice in the mail before the actual date-to-appear, and, at the same time, we’re actually in the state.  So tomorrow morning, Monday, bright and early, I get to show up at the courthouse in Corpus Christi to do my civic duty.   Here’s hoping this is not just a sting operation to bust all the slackers who have previously received jury duty notices and failed to appear…   I’ll let you know…