I took 2 hours off of work today and met up with my parents to get all their estate documents signed and notarized at the probate attorney’s office, across the street from my work. They came by my work so they could meet my new courtroom assistant and say hello to the judge. Afterwards, we went to nearby Applebee’s for dinner. The food was mediocre, but my parents enjoyed what they ordered. As we were walking to my car, my mom said to me, “That suit looks good on you. It makes you look thin. Did I buy that suit for you?” I told her that indeed, she did. She continued, “I gotta buy you a new suit — this one is out of style already.” I was too bewildered to be offended. Cuz, like, how does she know THAT? She doesn’t read fashion magazines, every time I’m over the TV’s on some Chinese news station or her Chinese soap opera DVDs, and she doesn’t shop a lot. At least, she doesn’t bring new stuff home often. I wouldn’t know if something’s out of style cuz I can’t and don’t care to keep up with trends, but how does she know? Giving the suit a little bit of thought, however, I remembered that she’d bought it for me shortly before college graduation, in ’98, so I’m sure she’s right that a decade-old suit is out of style.

Remember that DA I dreamt about the other day? He called my courtroom out of the blue today. I wasn’t at my desk, and when I got the message I was shocked, just cuz we hadn’t talked for a long time. I called him back and turns out, he recently got a case in which my judge is on the witness list. Surprised, he called me to give me the scoop. The defendant is a paralegal who, instead of turning in his clients’ court papers to be processed and signed by the courts, forged judges’ signatures to feign processing and entry. My judge was one of the identities he “stole” in this scam. “So how should I serve the subpoena on your judge, should I get a body attachment?” the DA joked. A body attachment is usually a warrant for an uncooperative witness so that police can pick the witness up and force him/her to appear in court to testify. I promised to give my judge a hard time about it and went into chambers to harass him. Although amused by the case, my judge actually was concerned about having to appear in court as a witness, as he’s planning a trip to Ireland with his son. Maybe a body attachment for his appearance DOES have to issue. That would be funny.

Another funky unexpected thing happened at work. I received a large manila envelope addressed to me at work, with the word “personal” written underneath my address. There’s a sticker on the envelope that says “California Overnight: LAX Beverly Hills 90210” so I know it came from Beverly Hills, CA. In the envelope is a page of last week’s LA Weekly, with a post-it attached that reads:

Hey Cindy!
I thought you’d like this article. It’s called: “How to get Divorced by 30, a Beginner’s Guide to Ending Your Starter Marriage”

The envelope and post-it are unsigned, although I have a good feeling who it is. Haha! That’s faith for ya! The article isn’t what I thought it was, though. It’s a 29-year-old’s memoirs as she realizes she would be divorced before she’s past 30, and she reviews what brought her to this point, what was wrong with her prior mentality. Things like, jumping into a relationship prematurely just because the new guy is the opposite of the recent bad ex, believing that opposites attract and having blind spots to fundamental differences that should be taken more seriously, forcing your life to adhere to an arbitrary timetable. Oh, and getting married just cuz all your friends are doing it. Interesting stuff to make sure I’m not doing.

Since I’m going backwards telling all the oddball stuff that happened this afternoon, that brings us to noon, when I was walking down the stairs in the stairwell at work and my left heel caught and stuck on the edge of a step. I grabbed the handrail on my right but at the awkward angle of my feet couldn’t stop myself from sliding forward as the base part of my right heel ground against the edge of the same step and snapped off. I went down and hit my left knee on the cement, the right knee following but without as hard an impact. After the shock of the pain wore off, what ticked me off was that I couldn’t just stop myself from dropping all the way down. What was I doing all those damn squats and lunges for?! But in retrospect, because my heels caught in a way that put my feet at a diagonal against the front edge of cement stairs, there was no way to balance myself. At least all I did was slide into a knee-drop, my hands didn’t even hit the ground. I guess if I didn’t work out, I may have totally lost control, flown forward and done a face-plant. That would not have been attractive. Thank God my coworkers are mostly too lazy to take the stairs at work.