Wingin' It

Tomorrow we're headed eastwards. LAX to Heathrow, then a drive to Stansted and on to Tours the following day. And we're staying in a stranger's house. And they're staying in ours. And tomorrow, at LAX, we're going to give him the keys to our car and the keys to our house and just say, 'Au revoir, Hervé.' And that's it. Trusting souls, aren't we. Back in a month. xoxo

If I'm disinclined to post words, I'll try and post pictures.

Quick Fixes

My two-year old granddaughter, Sophie, still uses a pacifier at times. She doesn't call it a pacifier. She calls it 'this' because when my daughter would be looking for whatever soother Baby Sophie needed she would ask, "Do you want this (holding a bottle), or this (holding a toy), or this (her blankie) or THIS (her pacifier). Sophie would point and say, "this." And Jane would give her the pacifier. To this day, when times are tough, she will ask for her 'this.'


And so today I am celebrating a significant birthday. I could get all serious on you and talk about how seven years ago I was bald and sick and wondered if I would celebrate another birthday and now, here I am, not bald and hopefully healthy. But I wouldn't do that. Because really, now besides wishing for continued good health, I find myself wishing for a more youthful appearance. I don't want to look young...just younger. But I'm cheap so easy low-cost fixes are the only option.

And this morning the answer arrived. Thanks, Pat. xoxo

$1,000,000,000

Well, the trial is over and I guess I'm glad I was an alternate. As an alternate I was allowed to spend six weeks in the Malibu courthouse but I wasn't allowed to vote or to sit in on the final deliberations by the jury. While I don't agree with the jury's final decision, I do understand that their jury instructions made it difficult to find differently. But I also wonder, deep in my heart and in spite of what people say to the contrary, if the plaintiff's attorneys didn't maybe turn a few stomachs when they threw out the number $1,000,000,000. One billion. It doesn't taste right, does it?

The decision will be appealed and I suspect Johnson & Johnson/McNeil Pharmaceuticals will settle some enormous sum (but not a billion) on the plaintiffs and that will be it...for a while anyway. There is bound to be another, equally heinous adverse reaction to ibuprofen.

Alternatively, We Could Play Pictionary

So, closing arguments were on Friday and yesterday I was given the stellar news, along with three other gals, that we are alternates. Those three other folks, the ones who fell asleep with some regularity during the trial, the one who never took one fucking note and the ones who hacked and generally didn't feel all that well for many days of the proceedings...those three are on the jury. So the past six weeks and the four legal pads (front and back) that I filled with notes are worthless and, most horrifically,I just have this deep-in-my-gut feeling that eight of those 12 jurors are going to find for the defendants...and in this instance that fills me with a feeling close to despair.

And while those other 12 jurors are in the deliberation room talking non-stop about the minutae of the last six weeks, the three alternates and I sit in the 'snack' room with an impromptu table crafted out of a trash can with a cunningly placed cupboard shelf perched on top...playing Pictionary, still instructed to say notonefuckingthing about the case.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along

So, I'm still a juror. We are now beginning week #4. A couple of days ago there was an official check in the mail...for me. It won't quite cover my daily lunches in Malibu, but it will help.