cindy's world

When someone calls 911, the 911 operator/dispatcher needs to type up the situation and that gets transmitted to a police car. A recent transmission that came out of Lakewood Sheriff’s Station, which is within my court’s jurisdiction, reads:

“916C [citizen holding misdemeanor suspect] — Male found someone breaking into his veh [vehicle]. He tied susp [suspect] to a tree and left because he had to go to work.”

Here’s one out of Norwalk, home base of my courthouse:

“p5150 [possible crazy person] — Female calling 911 claiming 261 [rape] now, stating she is wearing the sky.”

(“The Open Mike,” Star News, [official monthly publication of the Sheriffs’ Relief Association of Los Angeles County, California, Inc.], June 2006 issue)

ANGRY OWNER USES DEAD PUPPY AS A WEAPON
Attacked dog breeder with Chihuahua that had died, police say

Updated: 2:18 p.m. PT June 8, 2006
ST. PETERS, Mo. – A woman angry that her new puppy had died pushed her way into a dog breeder’s home and repeatedly hit her on the head with the dead Chihuahua, authorities said.

The 33-year-old woman told police she had taken the puppy to a veterinarian, who said it was only 4 weeks old and needed to be returned to its mother. But before she could return the puppy, it died.

Early Wednesday, the woman went to the breeder’s home, pushed her way inside and began fighting with the breeder as she tried to make her way to the basement to get another puppy, police said.

The breeder wrestled the woman out of her house to the front porch, where the woman then hit the breeder over the head numerous times with the dead puppy, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, citing police.

As the woman drove away, she waved the dead puppy out of the car’s sunroof and yelled threats at the breeder, police said. She later called the breeder and threatened her and her family, according to court records.

Police said they are considering felony burglary charges against woman and misdemeanor assault charges.

(Thanks for the e-mail, Vicky. And for the mental pictures.)

Mr. W was napping laying on his right side over his bed with the bedroom windows (directly behind the head of his bed) open. After finishing my last blog entry, I gently laid down in front of him, curled into a ball so that I’d fit neatly into the S-curve in front of his body, my back to his front. He woke up anyway. A breeze lifted a few strands of my hair along with the gauzy antique gold curtains. “I love laying here with the breeze coming in,” he murmured.
“And the curtains flapping,” I added and he agreed. I continued, “Like the gentle fluttering of a mosquito’s wings as it flies away from –”
“– a fly swatter,” we said simultaneously.
“…and my OFF! spray,” he concluded.
I giggled at the analogy. “I wanna go write this down,” I said. Without opening his eyes, he lifted his left elbow up, away from my ribs, and I slid out from underneath his left arm to write this post.

Diana and I are deep into an email conversation in which I’m probing her about the mystery dude who was making eye contact at her from across the room at her recent work-related dinner, as written about in her recent post. I guessed that he must’ve been cute since she uncharacteristically made repeated eye contact with him and smiled back at him. Her description of him was, in part, “…he was cute and had a very nice smile, although i am sure he is older.” I asked whether she’s found that more older men have been interested in her lately, and she thought about it and responded that she’s pretty much always had her share of “very young and very old.” Then she asked about me. Now that we’re forced to evaluate and summarize the ages of people who have been interested, she concluded that her range of admiring fans have been from 22 to 38. She laughingly noted that it’s a huge range. Then she thought of me and my history, of which she’s well aware. And laughed at my 22? to 50s. Ick.

That of course begs the question, which she opened up in a statement: “you must have different qualities that make you desirable to the young and the old. ;)” I wrote back half-jokingly, “Asian fetish and groundedness for the young; brains, youth and humor for the old.” Her response to that came back nearly instantaneously and reads, “or hot, sexy girl for the young; and the mature, witty, hot, sexy young woman for the old.”

That brought a big smile to my face as I wrote back, “I like that better, haha”, and just as I was thinking, Hmm, how do I blog this without looking conceited?, she responded that this conversation warrants a place in the blog. “Yours or mine?” I asked her. She said both, since we have different writing styles. So here we go. I got an email from her like 10 minutes ago saying she’s done with hers already. I said that apparently, my post is longer than hers.

That brings another interesting point between she and I. She noted how “brevity is [her] middle name”, such that when she writes an long post, people know something’s up and that it’s an important post. I, on the other hand, ramble on — aimlessly at times — saturating my posts with detail (show it, not just tell it, my 5th grade writing teacher used to chant), such that when I have an unusually short post, people know something’s wrong because I’m withholding information. Haha.

Okay, I’m gonna go read her post now and probably feel stupid about mine.

***
Addendum –
Diana’s most recent email as I was writing this post:
“ramble faster. i am dying to read urs.” HAHAHA!

So I’m driving to work this morning, bopping around in my car listening to 80s rock at full blast, eating a banana. And then the thought arbitrarily entered my brain that I should lick or eat the banana suggestively when some of these guys who are driving around me look into my car at me. After I had that mental image in my head (which made me laugh), I so wanted to do it! My brain was trying to talk me into it with, “It’s a bigger deal to me than to anyone who sees. They’d just laugh and tell their friends about it. It’s not like I know any of these people. I’ll probably never see them again.” It’s a good thing I don’t get intoxicated before my morning drives, or I may have.

But I’m a good, respectable little girl. Who’s just a little delirious from lack of sleep.

I didn’t finish the Raytheon roughs until midnight, and Sandy was still working next to me on her own laptop. This girl works till about 7p, and then goes to some group meetings at work, and then comes home at 8p, gets on her laptop, and continues working remotely while IMing and telephoning with her project teammates. She says she normally goes to bed about 1a. Anyway, we chatted for a little bit, I showed her some random photos that were taken since I’d last seen her in December (which I wrote about here and here). Then I left at about 1a. After the parking garage gouged me $65 for parking (it was automated, there was no one to argue with, and the $10/hour rate was not posted ANYWHERE, I checked), I drove toward what I thought was the 710 fwy entrance. Turned out it’s changed somewhat in the last 2 years or the sign’s fallen off on the street, cuz I ended up crossing bridges and going to the ports. I was following these big tanker trucks at 1:15 a.m., getting really nervous, cuz there’s nowhere to turn around, and I’m over water. Finally, I managed to get off onto a side bridge and went back up on a street that had a name I remembered passing while going down the 710 South to her house. And I was right. There was an entrance to the 710 North on that street. So happily, I got on… and got detoured off on the very next exit, Pacific Coast Highway. Apparently the freeway was doing some construction or something, and everyone on the freeway (there were amazingly quite a few of us at 1:30 in the morning) got herded off onto PCH. Soon, the “freeway detour” signs disappeared. I found myself driving God knows where passing factories, run-down storefronts, questionable staggering men, and strip clubs. Lots of strip clubs, offering full nudity on their Girls!Girls!Girls! as proudly emblazoned on their neon signs. I finally called Sandy and wailed. She had just come out of the shower so she was still up, and she at first didn’t recognize the streets I was on and told me to pull into a gas station to ask for directions. I refused at that hour at that time of night. Eventually I got to an intersection she was familiar with and she guided me to a different freeway entrance and saved me. I didn’t get home until past 2 a.m..

I am so wired.

My judge’s wife called while we were in session (the attorneys were giving the jury their closing arguments) and I took down a message for him on one of those pre-printed message pad forms. On the line that asks for who called, I wrote his wife’s name, and the line underneath prompts the caller’s identity with “OF _______”, on which I wrote “your Kingdom.” I then passed the message up to the bench to him. After a few minutes, he passed it back down to me. He’d added to “your Kingdom” with “and Outlying Realms of Spiritual and/or Metaphysical Dimensions, including but not limited to, various parallel universes.” Just like that. He took up 3 lines to write that. He later said to me, as he was getting off the bench, that he had to make sure I refer to his rightful realms properly.

What are we gonna do with ourselves, being so politically correct and eggshell-walking as a country so as not to offend anyone by using the old honorary day name of “Secretary’s Day”? What’s an “Administrative Professional,” anyway? I just refer to myself as “courtroom slave.”

I was just in the jury room giving our 14 jurors the orientation and rules for being in the jury room, explaining the buzzer system to them, etc. I asked if anyone had any questions about what I’ve told them. One man raised his hand and said, “Happy Secretary’s Day.” I paused. He had unknowingly belittled my position but with good intent. It’s like when a naive person with no racism in his heart refers to me as an “oriental.” If it were anyone else, it may have been ugly as the well-intended speaker got taught a politically correct awareness lesson he didn’t expect. I said to him cheerily and politely, “I’m not a secretary, but thank you; I’ll let the judge’s secretary know.” He blundered, “Oh, clerk or whatever.”

I can see college roommie Diana (an attorney) wincing at this. If it were certain other clerks, this juror would’ve been thrown out of the building after his blood and various body tissue were smeared all over the jury room walls.

Ah, politically correct America. What’s an oriental to do? Guess I’ll ponder that later whilst eating my fortune cookie, unless my mom calls to give me crap about why I’m not a doctor, engineer or an accountant, which are professions which someone would never mistake for a secretary.

I keep seeing Navy Girl Vanessa’s Cheesecake Factory take-home clear pastic container in the fridge with a small chunk of cheesecake in it. It’s from our take-home Cheesecake Factory dinner the first night Vanessa moved in. She bought us each a slice of Godiva chocolate cheesecake, each in its own plastic container. The first week and a half or so, every time I opened the fridge I thought, “For someone who asked me how I could possibly only eat half of it and stop when it’s sooo good, she sure couldn’t bring herself to finish this.” Then the following week and a half, I just got used to seeing it there. Today in jujitsu, I brought it up to her and asked, “That cheesecake in the fridge isn’t from the first night, is it?” I know she’d taken her boyfriend to Cheesecake Factory after she’d gone with me and introduced him to the restaurant and to the Godiva chocolate cheesecake, so maybe it’s a slice from a later time. She looked at me and said, “That’s yours!” Huh?! “Yeah,” she continued, “I brought mine to work and finished it the next day at lunch!” I suddenly vaguely recalled eating the cheesecake the day after the dinner, and somehow finding the self-control to not finish the whole thing. And then it was my turn to carry Vanessa across the mat on my back, bounce her on my back and throw her.

When we got back home, she was hanging out in her room petting my cat and talking on the phone with her boyfriend. I walked in with the container in one hand and a fork in the other, and said with my mouth full, “It’s chewier, but still pretty good.”

So the moral of this story is, go to the Cheesecake Factory and get yourself a slice of Godiva chocolate cheesecake already! It’ll make you happy AND get you over your depression. I know I’ve written about this before.

Today, college roommie Diana told me about a mathematical formula for determining the minimum guideline age of someone to date: half your age + 7 years.

29/2 = 15
15 + 7 = 22 year-olds
She uses this to justify dating 24 year-olds. Hypothetically dating, not that she IS dating any 24 year-olds. Yet. 😉

To turn this formula around, let’s see what the maximum age I can date is.
x/2 + 7 = 29
x/2 = 22
x = 44

Okay, I’m good.

In a work-information email sent out by a coworker, he decided to add his own unrelated 2 cents. I responded, and this chain resulted:

HIM: Did you know that in Shakespeare’s time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase …………………. “GOODNIGHT, SLEEP TIGHT.”
ME: how do you lay on the mattress and pull the rope to the desired tightness at the same time?
HIM: With great strength.
ME: oh. I’m glad I have a pillowtop over springs, then.
HIM: We have a pillow top also but it is so high of the ground I had to get a ladder for my wife.
ME: whatever happened to the good ol’ days of chivalry when a man would cradle his wife in his arms and carry her and lift her gently over the bed?
HIM: Oh you sweet innocent child.
ME: Hey, I’m almost 30!

Well, that broke up the mundaneness of jury selection on our new drug sales trial. Now, back to taking notes on jury selection, processing and entering a civil judgment on a prior case, doing family law crap. =P