Oh, what will this year bring?

Tis grand

Gretchen — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:46:39 +0000

In January, I received a summons for grand jury duty. I had been called for jury duty once before but was dismissed when the case suddenly settled out of court just as the jury interviews were to begin. I remember feeling grateful that, although I feel strongly about fulfilling my civic duty and felt initially excited about serving, making decisions about people’s lives is not something I feel comfortable with. I felt better about the grand jury since I wouldn’t have to make decisions of guilt or innocence, just whether the case had enough merit to go to trial.

Not regular jury duty that lasts for a week, but grand jury duty which is a 10-day obligation spread over a 4-week period. I look at the dates they needed me and I looked at my calendar. In order to satisfy the obligation, I’d have to cut short my vacation, cancel all my business travel for the month, and reschedule my colonoscopy. I could do it but I wasn’t very happy about it so I called to see what was involved in deferring my commitment. They were very good about working out a different set of dates for me and so, with a blank calendar in hand, we rescheduled for late May and June.

In preparation, I cleared my schedule and let my clients know that I had reduced availability or, at least, my reaction times would not be as fast during this period. I was obligated to be in court for 2 or 3 full days each week. Since I don’t get paid if I don’t work, that meant spending all day in court, then coming home and putting in a full day’s work at home. I mentally prepared myself for the mental exhaustion this would bring on.

My first day of reporting was on May 28. I dressed appropriately as the instructions directed. I packed up my laptop and book and latest writing project to take with me so I’d have plenty to do during long periods of waiting. I picked up a Starbucks coffee, and drove downtown to the Hall of Justice. I couldn’t predict how long it would take me so I arrived early, very early, but still I wasn’t the first one there. I waited with the others, and watched more jurors arrive, as we waited for security to open to check us for weapons.

At the designated time, we shuffled through security, then waited in the open hallway for more instructions. We were then herded into a courtroom where our names on small pieces of paper were tossed into a wooden box. The commissioner of jurors spoke to us about the grand jury process, why the extended demands on citizens’ time and how they realize that’s a burden for a lot of people, and asked about any reasons any of us should be dismissed. A few people were removed and the rest of us good to go as jurors.

The summons we had been sent separated us into two groups, A and B (my group). The commissioner cleared a seating area of the courtroom, then drew names out of the A box to fill 12 seats. I watched as people filled in the seats, some looked resigned, a few looked nervous, one or two looked pissed off. Then the commish cleared another seating area and started to call the B names. One by one, he drew small slips of white paper out and called the names of the jury. One after another, my name was not called. When he had filled the 12 seats, he removed the A jury and the B jury from the courtroom. They would make up the grand jury. The rest of us were not needed.

The commissioner gave us three choices: have our records marked as Service Fulfilled which would take us out of the jury pool for six years, agree to be called for grand jury duty again in the future, or ask to be put in the pool for regular jury duty which lasts one week (you call in twice a day to see if you’re needed).

The commissioner’s assistant called the names of the unselected. The first one asked for Service Fulfilled, as did the next one, and the next. They seemed happy about it, like they had beaten the system and were now free of obligation. After half a dozen people asked for Service Fulfilled, a man said he’d do grand jury again. He looked like he was retired and had the time to spare to serve. The assistant thanked him, then continued to call the unselected who picked up the pattern of feeling they had served enough already.

I thought about what I would choose. I have to admit I wasn’t eager to be called for grand jury duty again, to clear my schedule for another month, and to endure the loss of income during that period. It was a big personal commitment: the drive to downtown, paying for gas and parking out of my own pocket, stepping out or bringing my own lunch. A part of me was quite grateful to be dismissed. To request Service Fulfilled would make my life much easier.

The assistant called my name and I stepped up to the desk.

“I’ll take regular jury duty,” I said.

“Really?” she said. “Thanks!” She handed me a calendar to select the week I would be called. I chose September 8 - 11.

I chose those dates for a reason. It seemed fitting that I would serve that week, that fateful day, the same day that seven years earlier, Nick had told me that if there was a war, he’d sign up to fight. He was 15 and two years later, he signed his enlistment papers for the Marine Corps. He spoke an oath that he would defend the Constitution of the United States, with his life if necessary. His term of service was four years.

The justice system didn’t ask four years of me. They didn’t ask me to go to a foreign place for 6 months, a year, two years. They asked for a week, even then, they might not need me. They didn’t ask me to carry an M-16, to put myself in harm’s way. They asked me to make a decision of guilt or innocence. They didn’t ask me to defend the Constitution; they asked me to make it work.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans serve in the military. All of them have taken the same vow. If they are willing to risk their lives, especially for those who have given up their lives in service, I want to honor them, their sacrifice, and their commitment.

And all it takes is a week of my time.

Author

Gretchen — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:58:51 +0000

Gretchen Stahlman is a writer living in upstate New York. She has two sons: Nick, a Marine and newlywed who is finishing up his second tour in Iraq and Paul, a high school senior who is planning on pursuing his dream of being a cagefighter.

Gretchen currently makes a living as a technical writer. Her company, The Write Angle, provides documentation services to both large corporations, such as Kodak, Xerox, and Thomson Publishing, and smaller companies such as ForHealth Technologies. Visit her company website at www.WriteAngleOnline.com.

When she’s not writing user manuals, Gretchen writes essays, often about the experience of being the mother of a young Marine who is in harm’s way. She is a member of the Blue Star Mothers of America, Inc. She also writes about the antics of her younger son who doesn’t just march to the beat of a different drummer, but instead foxtrots to the beat of a different rapper. Never a dull moment.

Currently Gretchen is training to run her first half-marathon (the Historic Half sponsored by the Marine Corps) and her first marathon (Marine Marathon). She will be running on behalf of the Semper Fi Fund.

In August 2008, Gretchen will start the MFA in Writing at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. Her writing can only improve through this great program.

Gretchen has a story coming out in the upcoming A Cup of Comfort for Military Families. Watch for it at your local bookstore.

Run!

Gretchen — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:57:23 +0000

I have two running goals in 2008: run the Marine Historic Half-Marathon on May 18 and the Marine Marathon on October 26. I’ll be running to benefit the Semper Fi Fund. I appreciate your donations!

Posts about why I’m running:

Flat Earth

Gretchen — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:50:33 +0000

In honor of my decision to give the decade of my 40s one last swipe before moving on to bigger and better things, here’s a link to Flat Earth, a video where I’m credited as a contributor.

http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/flmov.html

Here’s the “back” story:

In an old blog, I posted this story:

I’ve been experiencing some lower back pain this week. Couldn’t figure out why. I thought maybe it was from not stretching enough after my morning walk. But the more I think about when it first started, the more I think it is a result of Jill’s ringtone on her cell phone.Every time someone calls her, her phone plays

I’m Bringing Sexy Back by Justin Timberlake. And I feel obligated to stand and do a booty shake.

Jill laughs, Nick groans, Paul rolls his eyes, and I get a backache.

It ain’t easy bringing sexy back.

A month after I posted that, I got an email from Alison Craighead, an artist in England. She had this request:

I am an artist based in England, and I would like to use a small section of your blog to be spoken on the soundtrack for a four minute animation I am making called, ‘Flat Earth.’ The animation is being commissioned by the Arts Council England and is a non profit project. ‘Flat Earth’ will be constructed completely by data found online, so that the narrative is from blogs (like yours) and imagery is from maps and satellite photographs also found online I am very happy to cite your name in the credits and to send you a quicktime or similar once the work is completed.

Of course I said yes and had a good laugh (and a blog entry) from it. Then promptly forgot about it until I received an invitation to its premiere and although I wasn’t going to be in London that weekend, I appreciated the invite. Since then, Flat Earth has been shown on television in England, at a video exhibit in Amsterdam, and in a gallery in London. I am really shaking my booty all over the place.

I have to admit I hadn’t watched Flat Earth until last week. I think it’s funny that the voice of a young woman is used for my blog line. It gives it a completely different bent, so trivial in its meaning, than when uttered by a middle-aged woman who is laughing at herself. Interesting!

The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet

Gretchen — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:19:18 +0000

We just got back from our first national television appearance. I’ll post our story later but you want can watch us here:

http://www.mandjshow.com/videos/is-a-college-degree-necessary/

We had a fantastic time. What a great adventure!

Rejuvenating the Old Brown Cat

Gretchen — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:19:48 +0000

When we got our kittens, Pam and Ana, Nick was in 1st grade and Paul was just three years old. The sisters were lively things and so nearly identical that our neighbor called both of them Pam-or-Ana because she could never tell them apart.

Sadly, Pam died about 5 years ago, and since then, we’ve lost Patch the aged guinea pig, Cosmo the lazy golden retriever, and, most recently, Paul’s 10-cent goldfish that lived 3 years. But Ana has hung in there and considers herself the queen of the household pets because she has survived them all. She turned 15 last November. Over the years, she’s lost her tiger stripes so now she’s just a muddy brown. She looks like an old woman in a ragged fur coat, the kind who still fusses over her thinning hair and puts on lipstick before going out. She’s aged but she still has a certain humble dignity.

Over the last year, Ana has lost weight. She was never big to start with. At her height of vigor, she weighed in at 10 pounds 2 ounces. When we noticed that she seemed thinner, we started giving her a daily dose of wet food to supplement her dry food that is always out for her. That seemed to help and she plumped back up a bit. But lately, she’s back to looking thin again.

“Mom, I think we should take her to the vet,” Paul recommended.

I admit I’m a bad cat Mom. I haven’t taken Ana to the vet in years. She’s healthy, she’s the only animal in the house, and she never goes outdoors. Even the vet told me that it wasn’t so necessary to keep up her vaccinations in her case. Besides, it was expensive. I stopped taking her because I didn’t want to pay for him to tell me she’s a healthy cat. And even now, she eats, she poops and pees with regularity, and she frolics (occasionally). She doesn’t really seem sick, just old.

When Paul suggested taking her to the vet, my first thought was “nope, too much money.” I’m not proud of this. She has been our faithful cat, a good nurse when one of us is sick, comes when she’s called and is always quick to snuggle (usually with Paul). And yet, I let money come into play when her health was in the decline.

Fast forward a LOT of years and here’s the scene I imagined:

Nick: Hey, Paul, Mom’s really old and looks sick. We should take her to a doctor.

Paul: Nah, too expensive.

I called the vet and made an appointment at a time when Paul would be available. It was, after all, his idea.

Just minutes before the appointment, I pushed Ana into her carrier (it had been so long, she didn’t even tussle), then picked up Paul after school. At the office, the tech weighed Ana. Seven pounds. She was definitely thinner.

She was such a sweet girl while the vet examined her, poking and prodding. He noted that her kidneys were a little small but that happens in aging animals, nothing to be alarmed about. The tech took Ana from the room to draw blood and urine while the vet explained that he didn’t feel anything but the blood tests and stool sample (which I was to drop off the next day) might reveal a cause, like a parasite. Ana came back in and we popped her back in the carrier.

At the check-out, the clerk announced that the amount due was $200. I took out my charge card and handed it over. I didn’t shriek at the price, I didn’t pass out, I didn’t even emit a heavy sigh, but I wanted to. It’s a lot of money to tell me that my cat is old.

The vet called today with good news that all of Ana’s tests came back clear. She’s healthy as a, well, horse. He suggested serving her kitten food which is higher in protein so we’ll give that a try. She might like it. Instead of being an old, brown, scrawny cat, it might make her feel young again, just like when her boys were young.

Listen, Watch

Gretchen — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:11:10 +0000

I often write about my experiences as being the mother of a young Marine in Iraq. I want to explain what it is, how it feels, what this is all about. I am not alone in this. There are many parents going through the same things, and although the details may be very different, our experiences are the same.

I cannot say it better than they do: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20624292/

Run!

Gretchen — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:28:49 +0000

I have two running goals in 2008: run the Marine Historic Half-Marathon on May 18 and the Marine Marathon on October 28. I’ll be running to benefit the Semper Fi Fund. I appreciate your donations!

Posts about why I’m running:

The Wii Generation

Gretchen — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:59:38 +0000

I’ve heard that one of the reasons the Wii is so hard to find is because its popularity has expanded beyond the usual gamer demographic. Because it’s so easy to use and good but not particularly strenuous exercise, old folks have discovered its allure. Grandparents have finally found a game they can play with their grandchildren. Senior living facilities are snapping up game units to keep their residents physically and mentally active.

On Saturday night, Paul and I took a pizza and the Wii system to my parents’ house. We got them all warmed up on Country Sweet Chicken Pizza, then hooked up the Wii to the TV. We started with bowling, the easiest game to play. Paul played his character (ultra cool with his indoor shades) and I played mine (blonde, glasses, cute as a button). After a few frames, I handed Dad my controller but he said he wanted to watch this game, then he’d give it a try. Paul and I played on like we do at home which is to say with the trash-talking, groaning over splits, and the butt-waving dance when we get a strike.

Then it was Mom and Dad’s turn on the Wii. I fastened my controller on Mom’s wrist so it wouldn’t fly into the TV went she went wild. Dad took Paul’s controller and, after a few instructions, they were off and playing. It was a little bit of a challenge because Mom had never even bowled in real life but she caught on pretty quickly. Dad figured it out right away, then started experimenting with throwing harder, faster, and with a curve. Dad won but Mom held her own.

We switched to boxing. Paul and I hooked up the nunchuks and showed the old folks how it’s done. Paul won. Paul always wins, well, ever since he figured out that he was punching over my head and so he has to aim downward to hit me. Mom wasn’t interested in boxing so Dad took over my controllers. Dad is always interested in Paul’s boxing efforts and endures Paul’s idle threats to take him down so here was his big opportunity to show Paul who the big dog is.

The bell rang and Round 1 began. I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. I’ve played boxing but I’ve never watched anyone else play it. In my mind, when Paul and I play, he floats like a butterfly and stings like Ali and me, I dance like Laila. But the reality is that it’s not much at all like real boxing. It’s a flurry of punches thrown as fast but not as hard as real boxing. The faster you punch, the more punches you throw, the more you score against your opponent. Now Dad and Paul are both big guys and pretty feisty: at 78, Dad’s still got his inner Marine working and, at 18, Paul is the poster boy for teenage anger management. But when it came to Wii boxing, they were moving their hands in fast, small but tepid movements.

It looked like a sissy fight.

And Paul won. But Dad put up a pretty good fight.

My nephew Simon stopped by, and he and Paul bowled. Then Dad offered to take on Simon in bowling. By now Dad had improved his skills and was throwing strikes. We explained that the Strike Dance was mandatory so he gave it a little wiggle. He beat Simon soundly in bowling.

“This thing really is good exercise,” Dad admitted. But the part I think he liked best was being able to play a video game with his grandsons. Although, I think he liked beating a grandson at a video game even better.

Paul packed up the Wii and we headed for home, satisfied that we had converted a geezer into a Wii-zer.

The coffee’s on Mom

Gretchen — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:07:41 +0000

Similar to the gift to Dad of buying a soldier a meal in a sit-down restaurant, my gift to my mother this year was she would have the joy of perpetrating random acts of kindness via Starbucks. I got the idea from an article I read about a Starbucks drive-thru where one driver after another paid for the coffee for the person in the next car and it went on and on and on. When the chain was finally broken, after over 1100 people had treated each other to coffee.

I bought Mom a Starbucks card and wrote her a note explaining that the card wasn’t FOR her, it was FROM her. She was to use it to buy coffee for complete strangers whenever she felt like it. I wrote YMLY with a Sharpie on the card, which stands for Your Mother Loves You which is what she has always said to my sister Stefani and me. I also offered to take it with me in my travels so she could buy coffee for people all over, far beyond her usual haunts.

With the card in hand, I walked into Starbucks this morning on Granada Boulevard in Ormond Beach, FL. There was just one woman in line ahead of me, ordering a venti something that sounded rather complicated. The cashier gave her the total and she fished in her purse for the money.

“That’s on me,” I said, thrusting forward the YMLY card. “Well, actually, it’s on my mother.”

The woman looked at me. “Do I know you?” she asked.

“No,” I said happily. “I’m a complete stranger.”

I explained the meaning of YMLY and that Mom had asked me to take the card with me in my travels and buy coffee for complete strangers from her. The woman was very surprised, but laughed, and was definitely very pleased. The Starbucks manager said, “That is so cool!”

She went to wait for her drink and I placed my order. I wandered over to wait for my drink too.

“Where are you from?” she asked me. When I told her upstate New York, she said she is from Schenectady (about 200 miles from Rochester). I explained that I’m in FL on business.

“I’m here because of my Mom. She’s 91. I just dropped her off for some blood tests,” she explained. “I told her I really needed a coffee while we waited, so I came down here.”

The barista announced that her drink was ready. She picked up her cup. “Tell your Mom Thank you for me,” she said.

“I will,” I responded, “and good luck to your Mom today.”

So, the card works. It works pretty darn well. Today it reminded a woman why she had traveled so far to take her elderly mother to the doctor. No matter where you are, no matter how old you are, your mother loves you.