Allie’s been rolling from her front to back for awhile, which is very disruptive to her naps (that she takes on her tummy), because she hadn’t been able to roll back to her front. During our road trip earlier in the month, Mr. W swore Allie rolled from back to front while she was playing, but I didn’t see it. She’d been getting close, sometimes “accidentally” doing it, but often trapping her arm underneath. Early this morning, we saw on the monitor that she was peacefully sleeping on her stomach in the crib altho I’d put her down as usual on her back. I think it’s official now. And I’ll have to remove her bear that she sleeps on and wrestles and cuddles with, now that it’ll become more of a suffocation risk. 🙁 I hope a flat mattress instead of a cozy bear, when she’s half-awake and reaching for comfort, doesn’t jar her fully awake.

We’re in day 2 of a Family Law divorce trial. Not really interesting, and it’s been a challenge to pump while trial’s going on. I’d simply leave and pump in the jury room with the door closed, and while I’m gone, my judge will swear in any new witnesses and jot down new trial exhibits identified, and when I return to my desk, I check my court reporter Louise’s realtime transcript on my computer and compare it with notes, and catch up for my minute order. This is all going to change. With the $15 billion deficit that our governor announced earlier this week, California has been cutting its budgets by going beyond trimming the fat, deeper than the muscle, down to the bone. For us, in addition to other measures, this means the state is ripping every court reporter in our county out of their positions, lining them up by seniority, laying off the 60 lowest on the totem pole, reducing the next 60 into part-time workers, redesignated a bunch of courtroom as no-court-reporter and/or partially-reported courtrooms, and the remaining reporters are going back into available courtroom positions by seniority. With this upset, we are losing the reporter we’ve had since I’ve worked for this judge (which is practically my entire career of 13 years).
We’re a trial courtroom and we do primarily Civil Law trials. Under the new rules Civil Trials will not be provided a court reporter. If the parties/attorneys want the proceedings recorded, they have to provide their own private reporters. This is crazy to me. How are they going to appeal anything without transcripts? What if there’s a dispute as to what happened? It’s all going to be he-said-she-said? For me, it means also that I no longer have realtime, so when I leave (to go pump) and miss something, I miss it completely, forever. I guess I can have my courtroom assistant take some notes for me, but it’s still very uncomfortable as she’s unaware of what kind of information I would need written down. And I’d have to count on her to pay attention AND understand what’s going on, both of which are not guaranteed. :/ Also, if I’m going through my notes at the end of the day and I realize there’s a discrepancy, like I have two exhibits with the same number written down, I can’t just go to my reporter’s office and say, “Hey, I think I may have misheard an exhibit number…can you check your notes for me?”
On a more personal level, Louise has been more than a coworker to me. She’s been a big sister, giving me guidance with work issues, personal/emotional issues, and a friend who’s been kind unconditionally, not just to me, but to people around in general. She’s been my outlet at every major emotional episode since I was 21, using her own life experiences and compassion to help me through very hard times. She gets my humor and laughs when I made oddball comments that go over other people’s heads. She’s changed my life in so many ways. Emotionally, she’s taught me to recognize the difference between negative actions stemming from my ego feeling hurt, vs. legitimate reactions to protect or improve myself. She’s taught me about the strength of acceptance and inaction (i.e., resisting retaliatory behaviors, or in childish terms, not “getting someone back for what they did to me”). My physical health has improved thanks to her, too. I started running way back in 2000 with her advice and encouragement, as she has been a lifelong marathoner and gave great tips on training. We worked out at the same local gym for some years, and would give each other new workout ideas and exercises and tips. Since she started her health and nutrition kick some years ago, she’s been sharing her knowledge (and sometimes, cookies!) with me, taught me so much about nutrients, vegetables, organic foods, cooking. Oh yes, and we took a few cooking classes together for fun at a bakery she’d discovered. And she found Rebecca. She’s also helped me out in so many little ways when I was overwhelmed at work, whether it be from putting a cart of files together (when I was in Law & Motion) or by babysitting the courtroom because I had to get away to do something in another part of the building. She also co-threw me my work baby shower.
She’s still in our courtroom reporting this Family Law trial because Family Law has been designated as reporter-required proceedings, but as soon as this trial is over, she’s released from us, as if the Powers that Be just cut the cord that bonds us all to this courtroom, and she’s being dragged away and will be sent on a day-to-day basis to who-knows-where. Wherever her assignment office decides they need a reporter for that day. Louise has been well-adjusted about it all and her perspective is that she’s grateful to still have a job and a reliable paycheck, but our little work family is going to be forever changed.
I keep telling myself that my losing her as “my” reporter doesn’t mean I’m losing her as “my” friend. She’s not disappearing off the planet, and I still have her phone number and we’re online social networking friends so I can still stalk her (heh). As far as my finding one of my favorite people in the world, this job has already done its job. Staying in each others’ lives is in our own hands.
One of the joys of coming to work is dimming, though. Mr. W is becoming ever more eager to leave California as we watch this state go on its downward spiral…and I’m starting to come around and resist less.