TGIF

One of Brian's buds called and asked him if he wanted to go have a couple beers at the local watering hole, so I thought I'd take advantage of the quiet time and do a blog post.

This week seemed as though it last forever. I can barely remember Monday. We had zero trick or treaters on Halloween. Someone did come to our front door at about 9:00 p.m., but it was too late and we didn't answer the door. We just let Sagan and Pepper keep barking till they went away. I didn't carve a pumpkin this year....I didn't even buy pumpkins so that I could roast the seeds. I hate it when Halloween falls in the middle of the week like it did this year. Next year it'll be on a Friday b/c of Leap Year. A year from now, every single commercial you see on American TV will be a political ad. We're coming up on a very, very important election year. If you don't like where this country is headed, then you have got to vote for change.

I had my physical on Thursday and I passed except for my doctor riding me like Seattle Slew about my weight. If you're gonna ride my ass, at least pull my hair, you know? Hmm. What part of I HAVE A HEEL SPUR ON MY LEFT FOOT AND I CAN BARELY WALK MUCH LESS GO TO THE FUCKING GYM does she not understand? Did she forget that she gave me the referral to the podiatrist? He gave me a cortisone shot in my heel that relieved the pain for a total of 2 days. My orthotics should be in shortly & he's probably going to have to give me another shot.

Don't Forget!!

Clocks FINALLY go back this weekend. I really don't see the point of the extended daylight saving time this year. Truly. It's just as cold and dark today as it would have been last Sunday if the clocks had gone back like normal. I love being on Standard Time, or "real time" as we call it. Back in the mid-70's, I want to say like 1973 or 1974, they tried leaving the clocks on daylight saving time for the entire year. The experiment bombed. I remember my elementary school had to move our start time to 9:00 a.m. because the kids were out in the pitch dark waiting for the buses. Sandwich is a large town, size-wise, and there were a lot of kids that lived far away from the school so they'd have to get on earlier buses than kids that lived closer to Sandwich Village. But then school also got out an hour later, at 4:00 p.m., so now kids were getting off the buses in pitch dark and walking home from their stops.

Washington does not need to observe daylight saving time. We are far enough north that the sun goes down pretty late in the evening and comes up just a few hours later.

It's finally November

I love November. It's the month of my birth. I'm truly a winter child. I love the dark, cold days and crisp nights. I'm not crazy about driving in snow, but I like snow. I loved to ice skate & sled. Never been on skis though. I love the wet and wild Pacific Northwest winters, although I am not eager to see another storm like we had last December any time soon. I share my birthday with Jimi Hendrix and Carolyn Kennedy. I'm a Sagitarrian through and through. My poor parents didn't have a chance as I was also born in the Chinese Year of the Dragon. It's killer to have a birthday that usually falls over Thanksgiving holiday weekend, although this year it's the following week which kind of sucks. Every now and then, it falls on Thanksgiving Day itself. Thanksgiving weekend is my favourite holiday, more than Christmas. My birthday is just far enough away from Christmas that no one could get away with giving you the dreaded "combo birthday and Christmas present" that some of my friends with mid-December birthdays often got when we were kids.

Foil Hats-R-Us

Some of you guys know what's been going on at my work. My job has been extremely stressful for over a year now, ever since Robyn took the Court Commissioner job. Steve absorbed all of her pending cases which meant twice the workload. Any thoughts that Debby or I would be laid off have gone out the window because there is plenty of work to keep 2 paralegals busy. And we could stand to hire a person to just answer the phones too. However, Debby's father, who is in his mid-90's, has suffered an enormous amount of illness, injuries and surgeries this year. Stuff that would have killed me like 10x over, but he's one of those tough, ornery Washington coal miners. Anyway, the end is near, and she's taken a leave of absence to care for him. Now, I know that's a really nice thing to do, but it's not something that I could EVER do. I would have to have a nurse come 24/7. From a selfish point of view, our office is now short staffed and guess who is carrying the entire load. Yes, that's right, yours truly. And my anger and resentment grows exponentially with each passing day. I know it's selfish, I'm well aware of that and well aware of that flaw in my personality, but I'm only human and that is how I feel.

In fact, I overheard Steve tell a client, "Just throw all the stuff in a box and bring it in here and I'll have my paralegal organize it next week". When he hung up, I called out from my office, "Are you on drugs? Just when am I supposed to find the time to do that little project?" We have 3 trials this month. 3. One of them is next Friday. I have to write a Trial Memorandum, Chronology, PreTrial Information Form and all the other time consuming documents that are generated for trial and he is volunteering me to organize some putz's financial papers? Is he out of his fucking mind? So he backpedaled and said he'll actually have to do the sorting. But he doesn't have time for that either. It's a friggin nightmare.

If we had a practice that specialized in just personal injury, probate or estate planning, it wouldn't be so bad. But 95% of our practice is family law and lemme tell ya, there are some crazy ass people out there. I know that our clients think of me as brusque....even rude. I have to maintain an arm's length relationship with them. I try to be friendly, for the most part, but when it's the same person calling day after day after day asking the same questions over and over and over, well....as the saying goes, "I have one nerve left and you're getting on it." They drop in without appointments and say, "Steve here?" Then stick around when you tell them that he's with a client or on the phone. Meanwhile I have a deadline I'm trying to meet and they just don't get the fucking hint that our office is not somewhere for them to hang out and chit chat. But see Debby mollycoddles our clients and spends time on the phone with them discussing the minutiae of their lives. I just don't have that kind of time.

I deal with a lot of heartache and sadness every day. From the woman who is shattered over her husband's affair and request for divorce, to the father who has watched his wife and mother of his children descend into alcoholism, drug use and risky sexual behavior. You don't often think of the women being the "bad guy" in a divorce. Usually it's the philandering husband having a midlife crisis who is banging some slut. I'm here to tell you that the women are as bad as the men. We represent plenty of fathers who have primary custody of their kids. And the only people who end up suffering are the kids. Another really sad thing, is that Steve now represents some the children of our clients, ones who were in their teens when their parents divorced and are now in their early 20's and repeating the same patterns and mistakes that their parents did.

Because I do the kind of work that I do, I tend to use humour as a defensive mechanism. We laugh a lot at work which is good because we need to laugh to keep from going crazy. Of course the Xanax doesn't hurt either. wink.

Never A Dull Moment

I had Pepper with me at work today. Sometimes I'll bring her in if I know that Steve is leaving really early or isn't in. Today was such a day. Steve was leaving at 11:00 to drive over to Spokane, which is 5-6 hours east of us, near the Idaho border. Brian and I don't want to leave Sagan all alone when I have Pepper with me at work, so we will take him to the Doggie Daycare...er, I mean "Canine Activity Program"...at Sumner Vet. I really don't have room in my car for both of the doggies, so Brian was elected to drop off and pick up Sagan from Sumner Vet.

Pepper and I left work at about 1:45 and enjoyed a nice, quiet afternoon here at home; a break I desperately needed. Brian leaves work at 4:30. Now, usually, I'll send him an email or call him and say, "Don't forget to pick up on a Sagie!" Today, I mentioned it in the morning to him via email.

At 5:00 I heard Brian pull into the driveway. I hear the sound of only one car door. The sound of the garage door going down. I walked to the foot of the stairs and as he opened the door to come in I said, "Um, where's BooBoo?" Brian's eyes bugged out and he yells, "OH SHIT!", shuts the door and leaves. Meanwhile, I have started to laugh hysterically. I am in the family room now, literally doubled over and howling.....then I hear, just barely audible from outside, "Laugh it up, Laughing girl..." and that sent me into more gales of hysterical laughter.

You have to understand, this is Classic Brian. Back when we lived in Fairfax, he would often call in a food order to M&G Burger in town, go pick up his order and bring it home. There were several times when he'd get up to leave and I'd say, "Don't ferget to get yer burger" and he'd be like, "Ha ha. Funny." 10 minutes later he'd come home w/ a 6-pack from 7-11 and I'd say, "Where's your burger?" To which he'd usually reply, "Fuuuuuuck", turn around and leave again.

Have a great weekend everyone and I'll catch up with ya later!