My judge chose today to take off work and accompany his son on some university visits as son decides which college to attend this fall. Unfortunately, procedures would then leave his staff to the mercy of the wind. My bailiff was told yesterday that he would be the bailiff for the courtroom next door. Not too bad, although it’s busier than our courtroom is. My court reporter and I joked yesterday that we’d be left alone to enjoy coffee in her office all day. It really looked that way for me this morning, as at 7:30a the assignment charts didn’t have me listed to go anywhere else. At almost 8:00a, my reporter entered the courtroom and started packing up her stuff. “They’re sending you out of the building?” I asked in surprise. “Yes, they’re sending me to Downey,” she said miserably. Downey Court is about 5 miles away, but it’s never comfortable entering a strange courtroom with strange people calling strange cases with different rules and ways of doing things that we’re not aware of. And then, there was one. Me. At 8:30a, my supervisor approached me in the Clerk’s Office, where I was putting away some documents. He looked apologetic. That can’t be good. Turned out, it wasn’t good. They sent me to Santa Monica Court, over 30 miles away, and that’s not the worst of it. It was close to downtown Los Angeles, through the most hideous driving conditions on the freeways. You think of LA rush hour traffic, cars honking, stop-and-go (mostly stop) parking lot of cars on the freeway, that’s what I sat through to get to a strange courthouse with the strange courtroom with strange people conducting strange business.

I walked in the courtroom in mid-trial. Civil medical malpractice lawsuit, it seems like, tons of paper documents about operation reports, dental records, billing records, specialist diagnoses, photos, basically a paper exhibit nightmare. I didn’t know who people were, who was talking, who was on the witness stand, and no copies of the complicated-looking exhibits. GAH!!

So I’m faking it the best I can. It’s only for a day. I introduced myself to the judge at a break earlier, and he was very nice, offered to let me into an in-house gym they have downstairs. Unfortunately, I’d left my gym bag at home since I didn’t think I’d be working out at a strange location. *kicking self* Luckily, I’d worked out twice yesterday.