Jury Duty: Unexpected Beauty! Also, photos: art studio update; kinetic truck sculpture

Several weeks ago, the dear Lord in his Vaulted Elysium sat upon his crystal throne, an elbow upon the great Knob of his knee, a fist beneath his pensive chin. (From which flowed a white beard.) Unsure what to do with Chris on the morning after the American election day, he spun through his cylindrical index of Bothers & Agitations - Minor and soon his fingertip came to rest upon an old reliable: Jury Duty.

"That's just the thing," he thought quietly to himself, before committing the assignment to the routing system (i.e., snapping his fingers) and moving on. "He was such an ass about it last time, making a grouchy sport of getting kicked out."

At 7:56am this morning my bleary-eyed bride dropped me off at the county courthouse, just a hop-skip-p'too from her office, and I bustled in to perform my way out of my civic duty. Soon I had wiggled my fine adult bottom into a chair, and shortly thereafter an official lady took confidently to the lectern to outline how our day would go.

To paint a picture and bring you in with me: she was compact, dressed in officey black slacks and crimson blouse, and upbeat in a way that was measured but still excessive for the task of addressing our involuntary number. She had a very thick accent, but fairly decent English. (Certainly better than my version of whatever her native tongue might be.) The unmoved silence which a hundred people offered her at each opportunity for response and engagement did not daunt her in the slightest.

As she described the restroom usage guidelines to us, she offered the following treasure of a sentence, which I transcribe verbatim not in mockery, but in appreciation of its poetry:

"All the toilet are self-flushing, but they are not perfect. If you turn around and still can see what you have done, please do the flush manual, or some time a people come after you and see the sadness and disaster."

It was so lovely.

The only thing better than that was when she returned to the lectern an hour later and told us we were all dismissed because both of the day's cases had agreed to settle out of court. Huzzah! I hopped on a bus, went home, and — bonus of bonuses — sold 120 wedding wine glasses to some nice lady from Facebook Marketplace.

I fully anticipate the arrival of another summons this afternoon, slung from Mercury's own satchel. But for now, I'm happily back at my post, posting and painting and pains-taking, which I've been trying to return to with greater frequency ever since the honeymoon ended. (The honeymoon is over, as they say.)