Between innocent and not guilty

I've spent some time editing my photos, getting them printed and hanging them up. Zion from a moving bus

Also buying art while looking for frames

I liked these dog collages made from pieces of maps and documents

do I need more glass plates? But these are so pretty

The newly cold weather means some plants had to come inside. The  hibiscus hates cold

We have her for the whole weekend as her dad is training somewhere and her mom works. She loves putting on my boots and shoes

We visited Chewy the hamster but Maya was so excited to see her cousins, she ignored him

Years ago, I had jury duty for district court. Before we would be empaneled, the judge would ask each of us three questions to make sure we understood the difference between guilty and not guilty. The third question: If the preponderance of the evidence does not overweigh any reasonable doubt, how do you find the defendant?

Correct answer: Not guilty

Fellow juror's answer: Innocent

The judge told him that it wasn't correct. The juror said: innocent, not guilty...same difference. The judge tried to explain the difference but gave up. And yet this guy was empaneled with me. He had been complaining bitterly how much showing up there was inconveniencing him. You'd think not understanding a simple premise would get him excused but no. And once he was on the jury in which I was appointed foreperson as I was the only woman just to see what the judge would call me (who speaks for the jury? as it turned out), it turned out he knew the defendant and his family, another no-no. He told us fellow jurors that the whole family was rotten. Of course we were asked in advance if we knew the people in the case and he lied. As the foreperson I suppose I had the duty to report to the judge that we were poisoned by this man but then I polled the jurors to see if this changed their minds. Not really. One man said he had a criminal brother himself and would hate to  be judged because of that.

But my stupid fellow juror probably didn't have the advantage of his rich daddy buying him an Ivy League education so he might be excused on not understanding the difference between innocence and not guilty. Do I think Kavanaugh was guilty? Yes I do but not in a legal sense as it boiled down to he said-she said so no preponderance of evidence as the book his friend wrote about that and similar incidences was hearsay but he is hardly innocent as the Orange Clown kept trumpeting. And his demeanor as a blustering teenager caught in a lie should have shown he was not judge material.

The new these days is so depressing but the worst part is so many drinking the Kool-Aid.

Sad.

Fall has began with its cold mornings. OK for running but hard to bicycle. Usually Sunday mornings are my long bike ride days but I will have to wait a bit or get frost bit. In the meantime, we have Maya who is very sweet but very demanding.

I did finally have the opportunity to wear one of my fancy dresses the other night (the one pictured in the About me section though I wore some fancy black fishnets with it and red heels) at a Thank-you dinner for supporting the Cancer Support Center. Steve chose to wear a t-shirt so we were a bit mismatched. I thought I would see some of my fellow classmates there but no except a man who comes to help the   instructor cut up vegetables. His wife has stage  4 lung cancer despite never smoking. He did bring his wife though. When I met to meet her, it was clear we knew each other. She was the mother of my son's first wife's best friend so she had been at my son's wedding and the wedding shower before that. Small world. First wife: Julia Second wife: Julie. Confusing?

Also there and on the board for the organization was the husband of my yoga instructor Momma Sunflower who died of breast cancer. I told him how much his wife meant to me.

We were to have a lantern launch but it was too windy. I do have a lantern to set off one night to amuse the grandkids. Meanwhile it was nice to be out dressed up.