Phone: ring, ring.
Cindy: *whispering* Department E.
Mr. W: Oh, you’re still messing around over there?
Cindy: *whispering* I’m not messing around! We’re still on the record in trial. I’m working. There’s a difference.
Mr. W: I’m about to go home. You coming over right after you get out?
Cindy: *pause*
Mr. W: Hello? Are you coming over?
Cindy: *whispering* Actually, I was gonna go home, even tho I have no reason to…
Mr. W: You have no reason to go home, or no reason to come over?
Cindy: *whispering* Well, both. ha, ha.
Mr. W: I’m not enough of a reason?
Cindy: *whispering* A Riesen is a candy caramel coated with chocolate.
Mr. W: Oh. Well, I can stop by Rite-Aid and get a bag of Riesens. And then I can give them to you, and that way you’ll have a whole bunch of Riesens. But you’ll have to come here to get ’em.
Cindy: *giggling* So you’ll give me lots of Riesens to go over there? *looking up in alarm* *whispering* Oops.
Mr. W: *laughing* Yeah. I’ll see you over here.
Cindy: *whispering* Okay.
Uh. I mean, I got my receipt for my $18 donation to the Houston Fire Fighters Burned and Crippled Children’s Fund in the mail today. *side glance*
I let my reporter open the envelope to brighten her day. The result was a hearty suggestion from her, “Let’s all move to Houston and start a fire!” Yeah, bonfire in a hay barn! Let’s roast marshmallows! You’re all invited!
On the freeway on Sunday, I spotted a white semi beat-up late 80s-to-early 90s model Chevy Pontiac Grand Prix to my right. Thinking it may be, on the off-chance, a coworker of mine, I looked into the driver’s window as we passed and saw a very content looking man in his late 40s or early 50s, a stranger to me. It struck me that he may have had this car for decades, he may have purchased it used, but the expression was of someone having a great time in this old car. I instantly thought at him admiringly, “You’re a better person than me.”
My court reporter is one of those inspirational people who always has great compassion and insight from having walked through hell herself. She’s also goofy and will make you feel good cuz she laughs at any joke you crack, no matter how lame you really are. She comes back to work tomorrow after being out the past 2 weeks. All the temporary relief reporters just made us miss her more.
She had taken the last two weeks off to take care of Coby, her white labrador retriever, who had leg surgery. I guess labs have thin leg bones and it’s common for big happy dogs to bounce their way into injury. She’d called two days after the surgery to let us know how things were going. The poor dog didn’t sleep well the first night due to all the pain. She said that aside from a couple of 45-minute intervals when he’d passed out, Coby cried and whimpered and shivered the whole night from pain. The pain pills the doctor gave my reporter to take home did nothing; she said she probably gave him three days’ worth in one night and he never got comfortable. No one slept those first few nights. She even called an emergency 24-hour vet, who couldn’t do anything in the middle of the night because they’re not mobile and could only give Coby a pain reliever shot if she brought him in, but a 90-pound dog who’s not mobile is not easy to carry around. The bandage was seeping blood still. With her daughters’ help, my reporter managed to get Coby into her SUV the next evening and drove him to his regular vet, who came out to the car and gave him a morphine shot. He slept better that second night. But he wasn’t able to go to the bathroom, as every time he leaned back on his haunches to go, the pain in his injured back leg made him leap back forward whimpering.
I can’t wait to see how Coby’s doing when we finally get our reporter back tomorrow. Here are some dog sayings in honor of Coby:
The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.
-Anonymous
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.
-Will Rogers
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.
-Josh Billings
The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.
-Andy Rooney
We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It’s the best deal man has ever made.
-M. Acklam
Anybody who doesn’t know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.
-Franklin P. Jones
If your dog is fat, you aren’t getting enough exercise.
-Unknown
My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to $3.00 a can. That’s almost $21.00 in dog money.
-Joe Weinstein
Ever consider what our dogs must think of us? I mean, here we come from a grocery with the most amazing haul, chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we’re the greatest hunters on earth!
-Anne Tyler
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein
Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
-Roger Caras
James asked me a few nights ago that knowing what I know now, if I had the chance to make a different decision regarding my last relationship, would I? Would I enter once again what was undoubtedly the hardest segment of my life to date, harder than all the difficulties I had ever faced in the rest of my life combined? I really didn’t know.
I know that there are a lot of things that weren’t all good that I definitely would go through again, because what those things did for me were well worth the few struggles. College, for example, wasn’t easy, but it is something I would never take back. But the last relationship? I don’t know that the ends justified the means. Even when I was going through the hell and people told me it won’t make sense until later why it was necessary for me to experience such pain and violations, I wanted to believe them and look forward to the day it’d all be clear. But at the time all I could see was, “Like I didn’t know that being lied to and cheated on and treated like crap wouldn’t feel good? I don’t need to experience all this to get this lesson!” And now, it’s been a couple of years. I guess if forced to examine how it changed me positively, it gave me a depth that I didn’t have before. It’s like growing pains, you’re being stretched beyond what you can handle and it hurts, but afterwards, you’re more, uh, stretchy.
I was talking to Mr. W about this last nite. I didn’t know when I was in the relationship that salvaging it would be an impossible goal to attain. The relationship was set up from day 1 to fail (the day after we got together, he went to a girl he’d been seeing behind my back when we were just “dating” and started what would become the “affair”). But the beauty of a situation in which the goal is impossible, is that it forces you to reach beyond where you’d ever reached in the past, it forces you to try everything within your power, make up new powers, combine old knowledge, test new concepts, attempt new combinations in the struggle to reach what you will never reach. If the goal were a hop, skip and a jump away, I would’ve reached it and not gone any farther. But an impossible goal that you don’t know is impossible forces you to keep reaching.
In addition to the depth I earned, I also gained perspective, and what Mr. W calls my “level-headed, loving communication style”. I think the depth makes me more able to relate to people and to be more relateable. I can counsel people with more heart in addition to the logic now. People have always gravitated to me for counseling, and I’ve always done what I could to offer them a new perspective. I was talking to a bailiff about this at work the other day and I think his orthodox Christian lifestyle made him a bit scared by what he thought I was saying. He asked if it was witchcraft or voodoo. I told him it’s not the occult; it’s just being able to get in someone’s head. He looked alarmed. I reassured him that I don’t do it to manipulate people; I look and see what’s in there, but I don’t move anything. All I do is add some flowers on the counters, and then I walk out. And I explained my opinion that tampering with someone’s free will is an absolute violation to me. He insisted that I could manipulate people and I gave my usual joking line of, “But I use my powers for good, not evil.” I could, but I don’t. Everyone is here on their own journey, and I can illuminate things for them, but no one is anyone else’s puppets. He still thinks it’s trippy that I can just sit there at a bar and strangers will tell me secrets and life struggles that they’ve not told their closest friends about. He thought it was trippy, at least, until he realized he’d just told me stuff about his relationship with his ex-wife and things he’d done in the past that he normally does not ever bring up, and that I’d talked him through that until he had a look of relief on his face. And then he walked out wide-eyed in a daze. “But don’t you feel better? And you don’t feel manipulated, right?” I called after him. “I fold,” he said, “All in.”
I told Mr. W in our conversation about this that if it came to just me, the last relationship wasn’t worth it. It challenged me in a trial by fire, and I’d almost died three times. So it gave me a depth, so what? But if that’s what I had to go through to help people around me, to use my experience to help lift their lives, sort of in a share-the-wealth type of way, then it would have been worthwhile. And that happened almost immediately after the breakup. People came to me really early to ask for help and advice on how to survive the aftermath, and I did what I could for everyone that was open to me. In a self-serving way, what I went though made me recognize Mr. W for who he is, whereas before, I wouldn’t have and actually did not give him a chance, and before, I was wrong.
I’d told James in another conversation some time ago that what I want to do with my life is to leave a mark of some sort, to know that my life made a difference somewhere. He told me that he just wanted to live well and be happy. I guess that’s a constitutional right in this country, the pursuit of the American Dream, of happiness. He asked, if I know that I’ve made a difference, would I gain “happiness” from that knowledge alone even without riches or the “perfect” material life? I think I would be satisfied.
I wrote this post some time ago about the heart-wrenching nature of George Michael’s rendition of Bonnie Raitt’s “Can’t Make You Love Me.” James and I were IMing about music conveying experiences you don’t really “get” until you’ve gone through hell, and I asked him if he’s heard this version of the song. He hadn’t, but soon found this:
I’ve raved about George Michael’s version of this song to Mr. W, who claims to also have never heard it. And he’s a hu-uge Buffy and Angel fan, so he’ll enjoy this. As will Wilco, my other partner in crime for enjoying the guilty pleasure of teeny bopper shows. Whoever made this video seems to have interpreted George Michael’s rendition the same way I did. Plus, I’d always rooted for Buffy and Spike, so with that added to the impact this song already has on me, I again had to wipe tears off my face. Or maybe it’s just because of the late hour since I’ve been up till now completing my and my parents’ TAXES. Ugh. My head and eyeballs hurt.
A new blogger is born tonight. It was lots of hard work to set up her laptop to my network provider, set up an associated gmail account, and create an identity on blogger.com. It even took overtime from the Group Leader of Audio Modem Products at Conexant to do some tech support and creative brainstorming with us. This is the result of blood, sweat, tears, and Bailey’s on the rocks with Charlie’s Angels playing on the big screen. (Hey, it IS my house.) Give her some love… it’s my jujitsu buddy, my ex roommate, my very good friend…
So I’m doing my taxes right now on TurboTax, and up pops this question and statement:
“Income in Any Other States? Select Yes if you earned income in any states other than California.
If you earned income in Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington or Wyoming, select No. These states don’t collect income tax so you won’t need to file a return.”
WHAT the…? How come WE have to? How do OTHER states manage to make it without taking money from their residents?
Our trial was about a robbery that occurred at a hair salon really close (at least so it appears based on the address) to my ex’s optometry practice. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re on the same block.
Last night I dreamt that I drove by the hair salon, saw that it’s 2 doors down from the ex’s optometry practice, and I thought to myself, “It IS the one I thought it was!” And then the salon owner, the woman whose hair products and purse were stolen by the defendant, came out with her family and they asked me the result of the trial. I told them the jury found the guy guilty of the robbery. They asked for the sentence, and I said he hasn’t been sentenced yet. I told them he’d be sentenced on April 10th.
This morning, we got the verdict. Guilty on second degree robbery, and the judge and the attorneys set the sentencing for…April 10th.
