cindy's world

The plan for leaving to Las Vegas Friday nite, was that Mr. W was going to go home after work, nap, then hit the gym, and come pick me up at 2 am. While I waited for him I would clean the house, pack, do laundry, and hang with the Fuzzy One. With a 4-hour drive, we’d arrive around 6am.

When, at 2am, I hadn’t heard from Mr. W yet, I called him to make sure he didn’t oversleep and forget to get up altogether. He picked up the phone from inside his car, driving. He said that he was running late because altho he’d finished up at the gym at 1:30a, he saw he’d missed a call from his daughter, and her voice mail said she had decided to come with us. So he’d driven back home to pick her up and she was right then in the car with him. I was excited she would be with us, as she really is a load of fun, but as he told me this I wiggled the ring off my finger and placed it carefully in my jewelry box at home.

Driving to Vegas with Daughter in the backseat, Mr. W reached over and held my left hand. He felt around my finger, and said, “Did you bring it?” I shook my head. “What?! Where is it?” he demanded.
“Home,” I told him.
He looked at me with bug eyes. “Are you serious? Why would you DO that? I wanted to tell my parents this weekend!” I just stared back at him, unable to get into it with his daughter right there, and I gestured behind me and looked at him, like, “Because!” He said, “I guess I’m not gonna tell them,” and sulked. Why couldn’t he tell them without the ring exhibit? Like they wouldn’t believe him? I KNEW it was all about showing off the ring. Ha!

All day Saturday, we hung out with his parents, his brother, bro’s daughter, and her boyfriend. Bro’s daughter had a sparkly on her finger, too. They told us at a Chicago pizza joint (where we all have to go every time we’re in Vegas) that they were recently engaged, and that her boyfriend proposed onstage during karaoke. And it was captured by the karaoke bar and posted on UTube! Which, by the way, we watched instantly by accessing the internet on Bro’s iPhone. The boyfriend went onstage with her, held her hand, sang “their song” while she wiped tears off her face, and then he dropped to his knee and said he loved her, wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and popped the box open. The whole audience was cheering and clapping. It was so cute! When she showed off her 3-stone marquis with the row of baguettes on the white gold band, she said proudly, “All by himself.” I laughed and complimented his taste in the ring, and instantly I felt pretty sheepish. Yeah, I’m definitely keeping this ring. =P

Sunday morning, before leaving Las Vegas, Mr. W came back in the bedroom to wake me up after he’d been up for awhile to hang out with his parents. I told him groggily I think I’m a lesbian, and he asked why, and I said I was just dreaming about being with a woman, and he said, “Oh, lemme go back out there and tell my parents we aren’t getting married after all cuz you’re a lesbian.”
“You told them? When?”
“Just now.”
“What did they say?”
“My mom said, ‘Your dad asked me, “Why’re they coming to Vegas this weekend? They gettin’ married?” and I told him, “No, they wouldn’t do it like that.” And I told your aunt Jeanne you were coming out this weekend and she said, “Are they coming out here to get married?” ‘ ”
“Why does everyone think we’re getting married? What the heck!” I exclaimed indignantly.
“And they asked me, ‘Can we congratulate her? Is that okay?’ and I said, ‘Sure, quietly. And not in front of my daughter.’ Haha.”

So when I walked out to say good morning to them, they each gave me a big hug and a kiss and congratulated me. Quietly.

Another week is over. My judge is now in New York hanging with his family and in-laws. I’d been pulled out of my courtroom all week to handle Master Calendar (specialized courtroom). Next week, when my judge is still out prancing in the Big Apple, I’ll be in another courtroom. But before THAT…is this weekend.

This weekend, Mr. W plans to take me to sunny Las Vegas to visit his parents and brothers, and to make the engagement announcement over yonder in that department. I’m a tad nervous about his family finding out, because we’ve deliberately kept it from his kids (I’d remove the ring when his kids are around) so they don’t go back to tell their mom, who is not on good terms with Mr. W right now due to a heated and court-involved disagreement about child support issues. I just don’t want to be caught in the cross-fire where all of a sudden I’m collaterally damaged cuz the kids’ mom assume I’m controlling or meddling in their child-rearing business, or that I’m manipulating Mr. W’s position for personal financial gain. Cuz I’m not doing any of those things. Those custody/support issues? They can keep ’em.

*looking down* I’m really liking this ring. Shiny.

I was reviewing a divorce case assigned to me yesterday and noticed something interesting. The case was originally filed 5 years ago in 2002, with the wife petitioning for a legal separation against her husband. They had 3 minor kids, and according to documents filed at that time, the husband made over $5K a month and the wife was unemployed. Because the three kids would be with the wife 80% of the time, the temporary spousal support and child support orders, according to computer-calculated formula, came out to be $1600/month for all 3 kids, and $800/month spousal for the wife. The judge signed off on that order, and a wage assignment was sent out to start deducting the husband’s paychecks for those amounts. (Both the husband and wife were at that hearing.) But they didn’t submit a Judgment to finalize anything in that case to close it out.

Now, 5 years later, the wife submits an AMENDED Petition. She is now asking for a divorce, not just a separation. Okay, that’s fine. She’s asking for her maiden name to be restored. That’s fine, too. At the part where they list the minor kids in common, she listed just the 2 younger kids. I looked back at the first Petition and calculated that the oldest of the 3 kids is now 21 years old, and child support terminates as a matter of law when a kid reaches age 18. Okay, that looks normal, too. That’s all that’s asked for on this Amended Petition. The husband did not file any papers in response to the Amended Petition, so he went into default and the courts now are able to grant (at our discretion) everything the woman had asked for in her Amended Petition. So I turn to her proposed Judgment, which was not served on the husband.

This is what she wants us to sign off on in her Judgment:
* she continues to receive $800/month spousal support with no termination date
* she continues to receive $1600/month child support
* she gets the full deed to their house.

Wait a minute. Did she actually expect me to okay this just because the numbers match an old order from five friggen years ago?! The 2002 calculations were based on her not having a job, and him earning over $5K/month. She submitted no current Income and Expense Report, so how do I know that she’s not currently employed? Maybe she makes a lot of money now, and HE’S unemployed? Who knows?! AND…in her Amended Petition, she didn’t request spousal support! Didn’t even mention it. So as far as the defaulted husband knows, the only requests she has are for a divorce and her last name back, plus the mandatory child support for their remaining 2 minors, and maybe that’s why he didn’t bother answering the Amended Petition, cuz he was okay with that. Did she not expect me to catch that she never asked for support, and was trying to sneak that by in a permanent spousal support order? We don’t have jurisdiction to order something the defaulted spouse was never informed of. Plus, the amount of child support she wants was calculated years ago based on 3 minors, but now she only has 2 minors, so we (as the courts) have already lost jurisdiction to award child support as to the 21 year old. 3 years ago, in fact. As for the house, in the Amended Petition she wrote that there were no separate or joint assets at issue. And now there’s a house?

I ran it by the original judge who issued the 2002 order, just to be sure, and he confirmed that I was right and complimented me on my “good catch.” The law’s already unfairly on the woman’s side and she still wants to be sneaky about it. I’m not trying to be anti-woman here, but hearing about and seeing so many women milk the system for a free ride that they didn’t earn (especially since California is a no-fault state so the woman can cheat on her husband, and if he divorces her, she still gets to take half his crap and be paid for life), it just really pisses me off. Gender aside, if somebody gets half of MY hard-earned assets that I’d spent my whole life collecting just cuz a relationship didn’t work out, they’d have to make sure I don’t own weapons of mass destruction. The law may have made sense back in the day when women weren’t allowed to be educated or earn money, but these days, if women aren’t working, in most cases they’re just plain lazy and shouldn’t be rewarded with perpetual money from the ex! These women have such an insane sense of entitlement. Yet, since divorced women are rewarded by the system for not working, or for not earning top dollar, what’s gonna motivate them to get off their asses? “Hey, the less I make, the more free money the ex needs to pay me! Hell if I ever work again!”

I don’t even know why I’m ranting, really. Cuz the worse these women make themselves look, the better I look by comparison.

“Wow, the ring comes with its own drama,” my gym trainee said last week.
“Figures,” I said, “The relationship is so peaceful that the RING has to have drama.”

Mr. W happened upon The Ring in a jewelry shop while we were on our cruise some weekends ago. Once he saw it, and saw the heart through the jeweler’s loupe, there was no turning back for him and no talking him out of the extravagant purchase. And to think that I was just trying to get to the other side of the store to look at on-sale tanzanite stuff! No, Mr. W had found The Ring. To explain the ensuing drama, I’m going to change the numbers to make them more simple and understandable.

The salesperson said that the ring would appraise for $16 bucks, but because we were purchasing out at sea, we were saving sales tax AND there was a discount on the ring, bringing it down to $9 bucks and some change. The ring has a full money-back warranty for the first year and she said that if it doesn’t appraise for over $16 bucks, or if we change our mind on the purchase, we can return it back to the designer/manufacturer. After some discussion, she said if we take it right then and there, her manager had agreed to discount it down to $8 and some change. Well, if we’re getting a $16 ring for $8, that’s half off, so that’s pretty decent, Mr. W thought, and plunged forth into the full commitment, pun intended. As purchased, the ring was 2.5 sizes too big, and the saleslady gave us the information to contact the designer/lab and informed us the resizing would be free, and we’d be reimbursed postage and mail insurance.

A few days later, we were informed that no mail courier service (UPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS)’s shipping insurance truly covers jewelry; that they’d insure your package, but the contract has every loophole in it for jewelry that virtually makes insuring jewelry through them pointless. So we were suggested to take out our own insurance policy on it before shipping the ring off for resize (the lab is in Miami, Florida).

At this point you’re probably wondering why I don’t just get it resized locally. It’s because local jewelers resize by cutting a length of gold off the bottom of the band, and bonding the remaining ring together, forming a smaller circle. With 64 stones sitting on 3 surfaces of this band, no local jeweler could offer a guarantee that the side stones won’t pop off once the circle is reduced by that many sizes. Plus, cutting the band would remove the designer seal and signature on the inside of the band. The original designer would make a new band in my size, remove the current stones, and re-set them into the new band.

Okay, so I called my homeowner’s insurance company. They said they’d insure the ring under my homeowner’s policy for an extra $320 a year, but that policy would only cover $10 of the ring. What about the other $6? They said I can take out a policy just for the ring itself, and that’d cost $500/year. Holy crap. But first, before they write any policy, they want the ring appraised and a formal appraiser’s report submitted to them.

So off I went to find a gem appraiser. I found a really good one who has 25 years of experience, has certifications and gemology degrees up the yin yang, and met with her over the weekend. The appraiser examined, weighed, took photos of the ring, and researched by calling the actual ring designer’s company for replacement value. The 9-page appraisal report came in late last nite. The value? Not over $16 buckaroos like the store claimed. But $10 smackers. Yup. Less than 2/3 of the claimed retail value.

So now I’m ticked. I feel swindled, not by Mr. W, but by the store. And I want to return the ring and get Mr. W his money back. If anyone knows me, they know I don’t pay full price for anything, because I do my research first and walk in with a great bargaining chip or work through reliable connections. Granted, I was not expecting to go ring-shopping or get a proposal, so I’d done no homework, and this isn’t even my money, but it just doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t mind paying $9 clams for a $16 item, nor paying $5 clams for a $10 item, but I don’t like paying $9 for a $10 item. What the hell is that?! Jewelry is marked up so much already that we shouldn’t be paying more than about half of the full retail value.

Last nite, after some brainstorming with an engaged friend, I was thinking that I’d go ring shopping, and see if anything out there really grabs hold of me. Chances are that it’d be a bigger stone or better value for $9 (cuz we’re not paying designer prices for a patented cut), OR it’d be a similar item for $5 or less. And if it happens that nothing out there compares to this one and I fall in love with the one I have, then I’ll insure it, ship it off to get resized. Mr. W is okay with this plan, and it may save/refund him a lot of money.

And then all day today, people kept talking about the ring. “Where’s this amazing ring that everybody’s been talking about, lemme see!” said a male security guard downstairs that I normally have zero rapport with. People everywhere, judges, reporters, attorneys, bailiffs, people I don’t even know, have heard about it and say it’s the talk of the courthouse. Mr. W is now touted as THE man with THE best taste in jewelry. And he really did fall in love with the ring, and came up with this whole metaphor comparing me and our relationship to it in his proposal.

So the dilemma is, is my Asian thrift gene more dominant, or will my sentimentalist gene win over? Argh.
(For more examples of the Asian thrift gene, see here and here.)
What do you guys think about this situation?

This is Cindy the Cartoon Part III (see C the C Part I and II here), or Cindy Simpson Part II (see CS Part I here).

Since I couldn’t get the Simpsonize Me site to work, my friend who told me about it, Erin…

took this recent photo of me and cropped out most everything (including Mr. W) but me…

and created therefrom this version of Cindy…

as in…
.

She also took Mr. W out of the same cruise photo, and here he is…

as in…
.
I laughed out loud when I saw him as a Simpson.

Thanks, Erin, for doing this and emailing me with the pictures!

And P.S…. Stop trying to change him. It doesn’t matter what his hurtful behaviors are. He hasn’t changed YET despite seeing how he hurts you, what makes you think he will just cuz you nag him? It doesn’t matter whether he changes or not. Just let him, and all his issues, be somebody else’s problem, cuz YOU are gonna be the one that was smart enough to get out.

I have a few girlfriends who are going through rough hell in their relationships. I see myself in them, the active analysis of their relationships, of what it all means, what it all COULD mean, and it makes me concerned because I see this line of thinking as the smart girl’s attempts to rationalize herself into staying in something that is hurting her every day.

When I say I see myself in that behavior, I mean to refer to my old self. I’ve been there, where the other half, by simply existing in my life and being himself with all his hurtful behaviors, killed a little of my spirit every day and every morning when I woke up, as soon as I remembered who/where I was, I was sad again. There was always that lump in my throat, the consternation on my forehead, the painful rock in my stomach. I lost so much weight despite not having the energy to do anything, not even work out. When I finally freed myself of that, EVERYTHING was wonderful. The colors were more vibrant, the birds sang just to me, I noticed every beautiful detail around me (like the sparrows’ fuzzy chests as they twirled on their tummies in the dirt), and they all delighted me, made me want to laugh out loud.

I want to tell these beautiful women, make them see, that they’re working so hard to make excuses to justify a selfish guy’s behavior, and you know how much the guy cares? He doesn’t even bother to justify his OWN behavior, much less modify it despite how he sees it’s killing his girlfriend, and the WOMEN are doing all the work in saying, “Oh, it’s my fault, I shouldn’t have ticked him off, I know how he likes his slippers warmed up and fetched as soon as he comes in the door, and I took too long.” “It’s just me being unfair. I knew when I got in that he liked his women and booze. As long as I make myself okay with it, we’ll be fine.” WTF?! And the guy is happily doing his own thing, prancing out the door to do whatever he wants with whomever he wants, too easily ignoring the crying woman on the floor he leaves behind.

Girls, not every man is like that. And you are about to be so happy, you just need to take the first difficult steps on your own and it’ll be so much easier the farther you walk. Stop injecting the false hope and nonexistent kudos with “I think he’s getting it, he didn’t hit me as hard yesterday as he normally does, so it’s getting better, right?” I’m not being literal on the quotes, but you know what I’m getting at, because you women are smart. Now be smart on your OWN behalves.

One thing that screwed me when I considered getting out before, was that I’d think about being “alone” and how “alone” might be worse than staying with crap. To that I now say, “An empty house is better than a house with bad tenants.” Besides, you have to be “alone” first to move on and be whole again, figure out what makes you happy, do it as much as you damn well please. Then when you heal and come out of this emotional mud, your future boyfriend waiting at the other side of the muck will be very happy you left something that wasn’t right for you because now the future boyfriend gets his turn to be with you.

1.) It’s not you, it’s HIM.
2.) Stop making excuses for him.
3.) Yes, it’s hard, and yes, it gets easier.
4.) Walking away from him is walking toward reclaiming your life, your happiness and your future.
5.) It’s about to get SO GOOD.

Unless, of course, it IS you, but my girls who are going thru this and have gone thru this (and you know who you are cuz all of the above are things I’ve already told you), if it IS you I’ll tell you so. Haha.

I was trying to do the Simpsonize Me thing that Erin was commenting about, but I can’t get it to work. First it rejected my .bmp cuz it wanted a .jpg. Then after I converted it, it claimed my photo was too small. And I can’t find a larger photo of my mug. So argh, forget it. Instead, I’m posting my zen.

I was walking by some night market (flea market outdoor swap-meet type thing) in Shanghai, saw this little guy at the bottom of a glass display case in a jewelry booth, did a double-take, doubled back, and cooed and awwed and pointed and giggled until Mr. W took a photo of it for me. It is THE cutest lucky cat I have ever seen to date. I’m posting it to make myself feel better tomorrow when I see this at work.

You guys didn’t know I was doing a blog-quote contest, huh? Well, I didn’t either. But when I ran across this quote on a recent post of Wilco‘s, I knew I had found a winner.

“i have played as a woman for the last two years and was ready to finally play as a man.”

I’m sorry, girls…as impressed as I know you must be by this man merely by his one quote, you must swoon in secret because there is a great woman by his side who’s about to trade in her fiance status to become Mrs. Wilco next month.

“I hate Sandra Bullock. I’m not watching any of her movies.” (early90s)
“I hate rap.” (junior high, late 80s)
“I’ll probably be marrying my first or second boyfriend because I’m so picky that by the time I agree to be in a relationship, he’d have to be perfect.” (1st year of college, mid 90s)
“I hate computers. When I grow up I’m never touching another one.” (elementary school through 7th grade, 80s)