A show of hands

It seems I have been presented with the opportunity to fulfill one of the 'wishes' on my Rocket List.

The Rocket List is my version of the not-as-cooly-named Bucket List : things to do before one expires.

On my very quickly trumped-up list, I had mentioned that I'd like to see what it would be like to go a day without one of the five senses, and I had tacked speech onto the sense of taste because it was in the neighborhood.

So - here I am with a bout of laryngitis which has followed on the heels of a nasty cold that came down on me the day after Thanksgiving. I literally couldn't speak if I wanted to - and when I try, I sound like a sea lion. I have spent this day (apart from emitting the occasional bark) in complete silence.Tomorrow, I am supposed to resume my grand jury duty.

I was randomly selected as the deputy secretary of the panel by the court officer. The next day, the secretary (who volunteered for the post) didn't show up, and the day after that, seeing what was involved, she asked me to continue sitting in. Later, with a wave of her hand said to me 'You can have it'. 

Since then, my note-taking skills have seen some serious action. There are twenty-three of us on the panel. As acting secretary, I receive the dockets from the Assistant District Attorney and log in several pertinent bits of information: the name(s) of the accused and the names of any witnesses due to testify; the docket number, the names of the ADA and the court stenographer, the list of charges and the disposition of the case based on the Grand Jury vote.

@ Joyce Kilmer Park, near the Supreme Court

Everyone is required to take their own notes, but I seemed to be the only one able to get down the entire penal code definitions word for word as given by the ADA when charging us with the vote. They recite the code the way a seasoned Catholic recites the 'Hail Mary'. If you don't already know it - good luck picking it up from what you hear. I suggested that each ADA supply a typewritten copy of the Penal Code definitions based on the charges they plan to bring.  Of course I only suggested this to the other grand jurors, after which they took to calling me the Secretary General.

When we get charged with the vote, the ADA and the Steno leave the room and everyone looks at me like I'm Moses with the tablets. So I read back the code:

"Penal Code 265.03 sub (1) sub (b): criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. A person is guilty of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree when

1) with intent to use the same unlawfully against another, such person

 b) possesses a loaded firearm"

People get a sense of where their gut is based on the evidence heard, and we take the vote whether to indict or dismiss.

Tomorrow will be interesting. I plan to continue my duties, but will hand off the reading of the charges to the original secretary. I can then focus more on reading back my own case notes and participating in the show of hands.

Meanwhile, back on the island...

@ Lapeyrouse Cemetery

My family recently made the trip to Trinidad for my husband's grandmother's funeral - as much for that event as for some face time for my son and my father who have not seen each other in person in about 18 months. It was a short trip, just four days. 

  

I was also able to visit and lay flowers at my grandfather's grave which is located in a very small unkempt cemetery in Petit Valley. I tugged futilely at the tough grass - unable to get even one tuft out with my hands despite all the rain that had fallen (and was still falling) that day.I needed a hoe and an afternoon, and I had neither. I put the flowers anyway - I bought and arranged them myself: pink, white and red ginger lilies; red, pink and white anthurium lilies and Andromeda heliconias. I arranged them in a cut out 2-liter soda bottle full of water. They are good hardy blooms and should have lasted at least a week - if no one removed them.

 On the way home from the cemetery I passed a high-school friend walking along the road. I backed up and stopped to talk to her. She was just finishing up her chemotherapy for a 'tiny lump' which she'd had removed. She was bald but she was bright and optimistic about the future.I had last seen her in 2001 at our high school reunion.

We had one beach day which was rained out - but still lots of fun, and (I thought) beautiful. The rainy season tends to feature days with bright sunny mornings followed by mid-day showers and wild-card afternoons. On our beach day, the afternoon never cleared up.

We made up for that with two lovely mornings of breakfast on the water at one of several boatyards in Chaguramas.

On the way home from breakfast, we passed by these church ruins, (St Chad's Church), a favorite spot of mine.

We rounded out the four days with the purchase of these two paintings.The artist was set up right next to the lady selling flowers by the side of the road. So,I bought my grandfather's flowers and some art in one roadside stop.

Crossing

Crossing 

they say what you can't change you ought to embrace:
the river's run takes it into the sea,
its waters grow murky with reverse.
they say what you can't change you ought to embrace -
dissipating itself in a delta of loess,
a verdant swath marks where it disagreed.
they say what you can't change you ought to embrace,
the river's run takes it into the sea.


-Lorraine Robain

Photo - AMVETS Memorial Bridge, New Croton Reservoir, Taconic Parkway, New York
September 2010

High Human Drama

Barbara, her grandson and great-grandson

At just about the time that Edna Kiplagat of Kenya was striding over the finish line to become the women's 2010 winner of the New York City Marathon, Barbara Rodriguez was drawing her last breath in Trinidad. Edison Pena, one of the rescued Chilean miners who was known as 'the runner', was already down to a walk, and Haile Gebrselassie, arguably the world's best distance runner, had pulled up lame on the down ramp of the 59th street bridge, never hitting First Avenue. He shocked everyone by retiring from running on the spot. I had been transfixed by the marathon all morning. In fact, I am transfixed by the marathon every year. It's high human drama because there is nothing in play (or at work) but the human.

Ma (as we call her) had fallen and broken her femur two weeks before. An avalanche of complications quickly followed until she succumbed on Sunday. She was 94. My own paternal grandfather had passed in February of this year, also at age 94. We know that we've had them for a long time, and we know that the time has come for them to go. That's the last of the grandparents for my husband and myself. The other six are long gone; two of them - we never even knew. My son was fortunate to have had great-grandparents for 12 years.

I like being around elderly people. I actually spent this morning with my eighty year old neighbor on the right (the one with the kick-ass vegetable garden). They have distilled their lives down to the essentials. They wash and wear the same pieces of clothing over and over, they walk reverently to the cupboard to fetch a teacup, in fact there is nothing that they do that isn't a prayer. You feel precious and humble just being around them - whether that is due to the esteem of their age and experience or the gratitude that you feel for still being on the (relative) side of youth.

At midnight, on December 31st 2009, I took part in the New York Road Runners annual 4 mile New Years Eve Run. I did a brisk walk which took me about 90 minutes. Maybe I will do it again this year.

Photo: Easter 2007, Trinidad

Afternoon at the zoo

                                
                                                                  

click on photos to enlarge

Chinese Teacup

Baby

teeth, a Chinese

porcelain teacup, sit

one inside the other 
on the shelf with

books.


                       






Photo: mine 11/05/10