Category: Adulting

Washing dishes is a chore many of us bemoan, while also taking for granted our access to a dishwasher. That’s all fine and dandy until your dishwasher decides to extend its services to cleaning the floor by leaking out the bottom. It is, of course, possible to wash all dishes by hand, but then I’d just have wasted space under the counter where the dishwasher is supposed to be. And to be honest, there are days when that extra energy needs to be expended elsewhere. (We never leave dishes sitting, as the cats would insist on helping us with the cleaning process.)

The most important thing about replacing an appliance is making sure you match – or at least, don’t exceed – the dimensions where it needs to go. It took me a little while of looking through the dishwasher listings to realize that a listing for 24 inches wide is apparently referencing the door width; the inset part (which is what I measured first) is of necessity slightly smaller than that. That realization made shopping so much easier, I was trying to figure out why ours was a non-standard size.

You may recall that last year, we had to replace the refrigerator (for similar reasons: that freezer leaked onto the floor). When selecting a new dishwasher, I decided it would make sense to match the brand and color, as they’re placed opposite to each other in the kitchen. Like with the fridge, I opted to put my Costco membership to good use, knowing they offer high quality products with reliable delivery and haul-away of the old appliances. And without the supply chain issues that frustrated the country last year, the delivery was about a week after I placed the order.

I have mentioned jury duty before in passing as our other civic responsibility beyond voting and paying taxes. Oddly, until last week, I had never had the opportunity to participate in the process. I received a jury summons in college that required me to call in twice a day to see if I needed to show up, and then released at the end of the week without putting in an appearance. Near the beginning of 2020, I received a letter from the county asking to verify my eligibility… and then the rest of 2020 happened.

Earlier this year, I received an eligibility verification letter again and completed the survey for the county. I then received a summons for the first week of August, filled in a survey about myself (including experience with lawyers and law enforcement) but was dismissed on the preceding Friday. A couple weeks later, I received another eligibility notice, which included a question as to the best month for my schedule. I listed November, since my travel/convention schedule is usually light this time of year. Not surprisingly, I received a summons to appear in November, and on the preceding Friday (and Saturday and Sunday), an email hit my inbox saying I needed to appear at the courthouse. (Interestingly, it was a different courthouse than my previous summons.)

Bright and early last Monday morning, I gathered my packed lunch and reading material and headed in. I went through what most travelers would consider light security – I was allowed to take my water bottle in and keep my shoes on. A bailiff directed me to the jury room, where I stood in line to have my name highlighted on a list and my juror number pointed out to me, then in the next line to scan the barcode on my actual summons and provide me with a debit card for the ten dollars a day plus mileage that my county pays. I stood in a third line for general instructions, which was primarily where the bathrooms, coffee, and donuts were located, and found a comfortable seat. Once everyone was checked in – about an hour after the time we were scheduled to arrive – a series of instructional videos ran explaining the overall process. One of the bailiffs mentioned that they were supposed to seat four juries that day – those can be either 6- or 12-person juries – so they did expect to call a good chunk of the people in the room.

I was in the second group called. Like the summons, this is randomized – the bailiff read off a sorted list of thirty-five juror numbers (the high end of the numbers was close to 200) and we assembled near the assigned bailiff who led us to the appropriate courtroom. We were reminded to turn off any electronics before entering the courtroom, and filed in to sit in the first four rows of the audience benches, which look like and are as comfortable as old-style church pews.

The judge walked through some instructions and introductory questions for the potential jurors – making sure everyone was over eighteen and could understand English – and explained the expected duration of the trial before reading the charges, the list of witnesses, the defendant’s, and the attorneys’ names. He (in this case) then asked people to raise their hand if they had an affirmative answer to any of the necessary questions, which were effectively:
1) Do you have a reason to be biased for or against the defendant for these particular charges?
2) Do you have any personal or work obligations that would prevent you from serving on this jury (for the next four days)?
3) Do you know the defendant, any of the witnesses, or any of the attorneys?

All of the people who answered affirmatively then had to give brief explanations for their answers; after a brief break, they were all dismissed from the jury pool for this trial. After that, a randomized group of four potential jurors were summoned to the jury box and asked questions by both the prosecution and defense attorneys about their survey answers and whether they knew anyone who had experienced or been accused of the particular charges this trial was about.

While dismissals at this point were unexplained, the defense appeared to dismiss anyone who had personal experience or close friends/relatives who had experience with the charges (which is logical); the prosecution dismissed one person who had a friend accused on similar charges. There were also some dismissals that seemed related to regular exposure to certain groups of people, particularly lawyers and law enforcement. When someone was dismissed, another random number was called and added to the panel until a group of four was accepted by both the prosecution and defense. At that point, they were ushered by the bailiff to the jury deliberation room and another group of four were called up to the jury box. This process continued until a dozen jurors and two alternates were selected.

I won’t discuss the particulars of the case – that’s better suited for the courtroom and the jury deliberation room – but I will discuss the trial process from a juror’s perspective next week.

Our friend Marinda recently lost her battle with cancer and I want to reflect on some of the memories we had together over the years. Our friendship spanned half her lifetime (though not quite half of mine). We met at Capricon, her first time attending a Chicagoland convention and my second year at that particular one. (She went on to chair that Capricon a few years ago.) We hit it off immediately, bonding over gaming, our niblings (we each only had one niece or nephew at the time), and our black cats.

When we met, she did demos or organized tournaments for one gaming company; we both soon joined the demo team for Steve Jackson Games, teaching many people the joys of Munchkin, Chez Geek, and other games. We were fixtures of the daytime gaming room at many local conventions, leaving our evening hours open to attend the parties. When I decided to hold my bachelorette party at a Capricon, she coordinated with the convention to book a room, and she helped me organize my first baby shower (the friends rather than family one) at a DucKon. She was the obvious choice to be my daughter’s godmother, and the only person other than my ex-husband and myself who was told the probable gender of the child before her birth.

Over the years, Marinda volunteered or worked for several well-known companies in the gaming industry, including her stint with True Dungeon that resulted in a middle-of-the-night text message to me saying “I killed Wil Wheaton!” (He mentioned it here.) The funny thing is she wasn’t a Trekkie and barely knew who he was at that point, but knew that I was a fan. She recruited me as her gaming co-chair for the now defunct To Be Continued convention, where we added “gaming with the guests” our second year, selecting games appropriate for the roles the media guests were known for. I talked her into co-chairing Dorkstock the year my daughter was born, knowing I’d need the extra pair of hands with an infant in tow.

We were founding members of The Lady Gamer, a fan-run webzine, and attended the GAMA Trade Show with press badges together in 2004. (All of the content we produced from 2004-2007 is still available.) That year, we also organized a scavenger hunt of GenCon’s dealer’s hall (under the Fantasy Aspirations banner) with prizes from an assortment of vendors; Marinda was the primary contact for the vendors, helping them develop appropriate clues for the hunt.

I’ve only made it to GenCon a couple times since my daughter was born, each while Marinda was volunteering or working for Mayfair Games. She recruited my daughter to pull winning raffle tickets; every player got one for every demo they played at the company’s booth, giving them the opportunity to win… games! She took her goddaughter to Little Wars one year, a convention I’ve never managed to get to.

We saw Marinda outside conventions too, of course. There was a year when I was working part-time from home and she was renting an apartment a couple miles from our house when we’d randomly schedule lunches. She had a key to our house, and I knew if someone randomly let themselves in during my work day, it was her. When I bought this house, she extended her visit by a couple days and supervised an electrician doing some rewiring while I was at work. She’d pretty much help anyone who needed it, even when it was physical labor that her illnesses, including cancer these last couple years, should have prevented her from doing.

She is everywhere around us. I went to Walgreens the other day and realized we had stopped at that McDonald’s across the street once, after exploring an area park for Pokemon Go (me) and Ingress (her). On my drive home, I passed a forest preserve that we had ventured into for similar reasons (where a guy passing on a bike asked if my daughter and I were twins), and the restaurant, Harner’s Bakery, where we took her to lunch when she visited in June before dropping her off at the nearby Metra station.

There are cat toys she brought over scattered about – one in particular that was rejected by her cat, Kelethin, and excitedly received by all four cats here. There are toys and board games she gifted us, yarn choices that she weighed in on for my never-ending crochet projects, and postcards from her travels reminding us that friendship is not limited by geography.

She’s in my kitchen every time I make an omelet, which she loved, joining the memories of my father who taught me how to make them. The brands of pizza sauce and mustard, carefully selected to avoid her pepper allergy (hint: paprika is made from peppers, and frequently disguised as “spices” on food labels) remind me of her. She recommended our rice cooker, with a locking lid, for slow cooking after Arwen discovered she could open our Crockpot. There’s a slight smile when I put the cast iron pan into the microwave – to keep it safe from cats while cooking in the oven – remembering Marinda’s freaked out expression the first time she saw me do that.

Marinda is gone now, her internment is this weekend. Our memories of her live on.

It wasn’t a terrible-looking bathroom, other than the bathtub that picks up color from the pipes and needs refinishing and a radiator that collected dust and anything that dropped down that narrow space between the vanity and the wall. But the sink drain periodically had issues, backing up soon after we cleared it. We hired a plumber, who disassembled the bits under the sink to clear it out with a “router” or drain cleaning machine (not to be confused with the router connected to your modem or the style used for woodcraft) and found that someone else had done that previously and left a broken metal rod in the pipe. Seriously, hearing the plumber exclaim “What the… ?” is never a good sign.

The plumber put in a good effort, but ultimately said that he couldn’t get the rod out. The vanity would need to come out – outside of his scope of work – and in a worst case scenario, the pipe might have to be cut to get it out. I’m relieved to say that the handyman we hired did not have to cut the pipe to get this well-corroded chunk of metal out of the pipe. He did have to remove the vanity, and it seemed like a reasonable time to update that portion of the bathroom.

The old vanity was 25 inches wide; removing the unused radiator from the floor gave us an additional 4 inches to play with on that side, so we updated to a 30-inch vanity with a 31-inch top. (We were told by multiple people that we could go as wide as 32 inches without interfering with the toilet, but 30 appears to be a standard size). In addition to the vanity, the medicine cabinet is significantly larger than the old one, the light fixture updated, and the walls are a lovely shade of blue. I keep poking my head into the bathroom just to smile at the overall effect of the change.

One of the joys of summer is being outside, whether it’s gardening or visiting the zoo or having a picnic with friends. Some of that is outdoor exercise – in my case, mulching or walking through the neighborhood, which are both easier to do in the summer. So far, this summer has been a little different. First we had a couple warm, dry weeks, where we avoided going outside after the early morning because of the heat. Now we have air quality concerns in Chicagoland because of smoke blowing down from wildfires in Canada: the last three days have had an air quality index over 200 (the annual average is 23). I’m a huge fan of breathing, so I’ve been staying indoors as much as possible.

The remains of my mulch pile sits on the driveway, waiting for that number to drop. My Pokémon Go mileage has dropped, though not all the way to zero because I do have some indoor options that involve the right type of movement for my tracker. Those are options I usually reserve for colder weather: Beat Saber on my Oculus, using the treadmill or elliptical (which help my Pokémon Go mileage), or a Centr.com workout. They’re all valid options year round, but I hate to waste good weather by being indoors.

That said, I know I have to move; I know from experience that sitting all day for work causes my muscles to tighten up, and the pain from that is comparable to the hip pain that sent me for an MRI earlier this year. I need to stick to low impact exercises, which still means doing some kind of exercise. And I know there are many unexplored options online still that would serve me indoors.