Smiling

Today I finished jury duty (after a 13 day sentence - and, yes, it did feel like prison while we were in deliberation...). It was definitely an interesting 13 days...

The first case I was seated on was a civil trial concerning a car and motorcycle accident. The plaintiff wanted a $15,000 pain and suffering settlement in addition to $15,000 in medical bills that the insurance company felt was too high of an amount and the plaintiff was unwilling to settle for less - hence why the jury was needed. Unfortunately, there was not enough evidence to find for the plaintiff - so he ended up getting nothing in the long run - too bad he didn't settle for whatever the insurance company was offering - at least he would have walked away with something... I guess the lesson I learned from this is to never get too greedy or you could get nothing.

The second case was a criminal murder trial (the one we, the jury, all felt imprisoned us in the deliberation room). You can read the media's perspective here...a little different from testimony we heard in court which only goes to show how the media tells the story they want to tell and why the court admonished us to not look up any details on the case. I get it now in hindsight since I can finally look up my own details on the case.

I am relieved I can finally talk about it and share the details with Chas - it is hard to keep all these things to yourself for two weeks when you naturally want to share with others... Anyway - the short story is we ended up as a hung jury and the case will be tried again in court. I walked away feeling completely vindicated though after talking with the judge and hearing how she addressed questions and concerns about the case. I feel justice will be served the second time around.

Getting around to the title of the post - today I felt like doing nothing but smiling after leaving the library with Trey. A complete stranger stopped her car in the parking lot as I was putting Trey in the van to compliment me on how well I (and this credit naturally goes to Chas as well) was doing on raising him and how well he speaks and how well he listens. I was absolutely amazed and humbled that someone else noticed whatever she wanted to notice at the library and felt so compelled to send out a compliment. I can't help but be proud of my son that he can elicit a response like that from a stranger just for his behavior - we must not be doing everything completely wrong with this whole parenting thing...