Waiting

I am on call for jury duty this week. I hate the waiting, not knowing whether I'll be called in and whether I'll make the cut for the jury. I have a dr. appt Thursday, made before I knew this was my week for jury duty. Do I reschedule? And, trivial as this sounds, I really want to watch the "Criminal Minds" season premiere Wednesday, but if I do end up serving, I probably won't be home in time. I feel like a bad American, but I'd be much more willing to serve if there was a way to reschedule or somehow not have to put myr entire life on hold for a week or longer.

I wouldn't want me on a jury anyway.

Also going on: Myriad cranky people sending me e-mails. Overnighted a check to my bank; it was supposed to get there at noon Saturday. At noon today, it still hadn't arrived. Until it does, I have 41 cents in my account. And no food in the fridge. And yeah, I know, I need to budget better. Even the good raises I've sometimes received don't do much to keep up with the exploding costs of gas and electricity.

Someone from the Savannah property maintenance dept was supposed to revisit my house today to see if I had cut my 10+ inch weeds and grass. I spent most of the weekend cutting the darn stuff; I have a blister on my thumb, scratches all over from the blackberry thistles, myriad bug bites, and sunburn. But there was some grass waaaaay at the back of the yard that may or may not even be on my property that I did not get to. The next door neighbor doesn't have hers clipped that far back either. So I am hoping that doesn't net me the potential fine of $1K or up to 30 days in jail (cuz we don't have enough real criminals here clogging up the jail cells). I figure, though, that since I called the inspector twice and left my work and cell numbers in a voicemail, specifically requested more information about my alleged violation, and she never called back, I have valid grounds for a complaint if they do smack some sort of penalty on me.

More than anything else, I am upset about my grandma, who is not doing well. I haven't been emotionally invested much up to this point as she's gone through various surgeries, emergencies, etc. I don't know what's changed; I think until last week, I believed she just wasn't ready to let go, and when she was ready, she would die. But she IS ready to go. She had surgery last week to repair a stress fracture in one of her vertebrae, and she said afterward that she had hoped not to wake up from the anesthesia. She is going to be 90 in less than a month; she had another surgery when we were there in early August; they can only operate so many times on someone that old and frail. Now an old fracture has re-broken, and they don't think they can perform another operation on her. She's in terrible pain. She wants to die. Maybe this is (to my mind) more of that refining cruelty of God. My aunt likened it to Job (Bible book) in an e-mail today. My grandmother has eight children and a constantly growing number of great-grandchildren. She lost my grandfather 18 years ago and believes she will join him in heaven when she dies. So why won't God just take her?