Good-Bye

I have always secretly enjoyed moving. I mean, not the lifting of heavy boxes or the saying good-bye to friends and family if the move was long distance, but the opportunity to purge and reorganize and find the best pizza place. Then again, I have never lived in my dream house. Or dream apartment. I've lived in perfectly lovely places (and some not so lovely ones, to be honest) but I've never moved anywhere and thought, "THIS. This is IT."

My parents did that almost 40 years ago, though. Which perhaps is partly what has allowed me to gallivant around the country for most of my adult life. My childhood home was always there. And it was a great home to grow up in - lots of nooks and crannies, a huge yard to play in and even my own bathroom when I was a teenager. And this weekend my parents moved out of it.

I have such a mixture of emotions about this. Part of it is guilt - they've helped us so much, did we force them to move sooner? Or, if I had been more financially successful, could have I paid their crushing property taxes? I also feel heartbroken for my mom - she never wanted to move. And then there's disappointment that we don't get to enjoy more holidays at the house, that my kids don't get to keep sledding on the lawn. I'm also still a little horrified by the sheer amount of stuff and how much of it was mine.

But mostly, I will just be relieved when it's over. When they've settled into their perfectly nice, more practical, slightly closer new place, I will be glad to hear my mom complain about what she doesn't like about her new kitchen, and to hear how many times my Dad's gotten pizza from Kinchley's. Because while I was fortunate to grow up in such a wonderful house, I was way more fortunate to have the parents I do. And as I look at my Facebook timeline, heart saddening for a friend who's just lost her mom, or for a friend who's mom never got to meet her daughter, or for a friend who's just had her first Christmas without her dad, I realize it's not the house that has always given me a sense of home and safety, it's my parents. And the fact that we get to make new memories in a new house makes us all very lucky.

Ticked Off Tuesday: American Idol Style

I spent last Tuesday watching My Cousin Vinny, Walk the Line and the first part of Castaway.

I wasn't sick, I was at jury duty.

In New Jersey, we have a flat screen TV, blu-ray player and Bose speakers in the jury room. No wonder our property taxes are so high. We also had 2 jury wranglers, who were very nice.

I'm still flabbergasted that someone though My Cousin Vinny was a good movie to show prospective jurors. And Castaway seems kind of sick when you consider that everyone's basically trapped at the county court house, away from friends and family, unable to leave of their own volition. Apparently these are always the choices. I'm going to assume that these are the jury wranglers' favorites, though I couldn't listen to my favorite movies every day without wanting to kill someone.

Between that and my choice of Animal House, I'm guessing they'd never hire me as a jury wrangler.

Anyway, every single case that was up on my day settled except for one.

They needed two jurors on my day. Two. We were there from 8 until 2:30 (with a long break for lunch) so that two people could serve. Normally, people are there until 4:30.

So at least I was lucky. Though not as lucky as the people who checked in the day before and found out they didn't have to show up at all. I never even got called into a courtroom. It seems like such an archaic system, despite the Bose Speakers and the online forms.

Like, shouldn't we be able to watch online and vote that way? Or at least call it in like people do for American Idol?    Wouldn't everyone hate jury duty less if it meant they had to stay home and watch TV? Plus, it would be much easier to enlist the chronically ill, agoraphobics, stay-at-home parents and the unemployed that way.

The only thing I would have missed if I'd gotten to stay at home would have been the delicious lunch I had at Casual Habana in Hackensack. Totally owe my dad one for the recommendation.

But it's not like I could not have gone there on some other occasion.

So yeah, I think the whole concept of jury duty should be overhauled. And put online. Yes, that might eliminate people who don't have internet access or smartphones but. . . .shouldn't we let them out of jury duty anyway? They've got enough to deal with. Or they could go to their local library, which is probably closer than their county courthouse anyway.