cindy's world

No pretensions
No drama
Laughter
Understanding
Consideration
Strength where I am weak
Appreciation where I am strong
No judgment
Full effort
Communication
Eagerness to learn more
Patience
Generosity
Supportiveness
Ease
Simplicity despite complications
Inspiration
…this is who you are to me.

I have been so spoiled lately. I love being a girl. I’m not a feminist at all. I like old-fashioned gender-related courtesy. I love my friends surprising me by going out of their way for me, a green tea frapp w/ boba here, a grilled chicken and Spanish rice lunch delivered to my courtroom there. A phone call informing me of a great laptop deal, a comforting hug, compliments and acknowledgment of my hard work.

Is this the good karma that’s balancing out the bad experiences before?

At about 11pm last nite at my parents’, I stretched out on the 3-sectional sofa, my dad lounged on the 2-sectional, my mom curled up in the recliner, and I think all 3 of us fell asleep in front of the TV. When I awoke alone in their living room this morning, it was to the alarm clock my mom had placed by my head sometime in the night, which was saying obnoxiously, “*BING!* It’s six…o’clock…a.m… *BING!* It’s six…o’clock…a.m….” I shut it off and realized my mom had also thrown a blanket over me sometime in the night.

I didn’t know there’s already traffic on the freeway at 6:15 a.m.. I got home close to 6:30a, showered and got ready for work. I think I did this last week or the week before at their house, too. I hope I’m not making a habit of not going home at night.

I’m sitting in my parents’ living room right now, full from my mom’s cooking and fresh lychees and longyans. I don’t recall ever having had fresh longyans before, but my parents said I had in childhood.

How am I blogging from their living room? I’m doing my first ever blog from my new laptop. =)

I know material things shouldn’t make me so happy, but really, is it the material laptop, or the joy from knowing I can now release my innermost thoughts and vent from anywhere? Yeah, uh, it’s the latter.

I’m gonna explore this laptop now and all the programs my friend put in. 🙂

I just finished printing out my last corrected minute order from yesterday’s calendar. The stack of minute orders that need to replace the ones in the files will just have to go on my supervisor’s desk. I’d already told him about this and he was very supportive, told me we have people who can take care of that busy work for me, just get the calendar entered. Another stack of minute orders to replace the microfilm ones. And today’s calendar is finally done, too.

Thanks, everybody, for your patience and sympathy, emails and calls. Thomas, thanks for being so understanding and dismissive about my sailor cussing and snapping at you; Tim, thanks for calling me and “apologizing” for the day I had when you read my blog. I don’t know how you do it. Talk about newfound appreciation, geesh.

I’m finally going home. 8pm on a Friday nite; I hadn’t eaten all day but now I think I lost my appetite; I was cold but I think the stress evened it out. I feel disoriented, achy and my vision is blurred. Maybe I’ll go home and order a pizza from Five Alarm or Three Alarm or whatever. (Numbers don’t stick with me. I’m an English major.) Perfect day for a hot bath.

I was told I would be in my own department today, altho dark, to clear out my stupid family law divorce case load. Did that happen? No. I am presently sitting in an actual family law department, for which I have had zero training and zero experience, and I don’t even know how to do a calendar on their computer program. At least the bailiff in here is a friend of mine. We used to dance at the after-work parties so he’s more familiar w/me than some other people. He already said he’ll do most of the work for me. =/ But he can’t do the computer work.

He just checked everybody in. It’s a freaking full house. I am going to be in a very foul mood today. Oh, just now I found out we have a 1:30p calendar, too.

You know what this means? I am going to have a ferocious workout at lunch. I almost left the house this morning w/o my workout bag. I had my car halfway backed out of the garage, and then when I realized what I was missing, I ran back into the house and threw my workout clothes together. This morning, I was down 3 lbs with a 1% increase in body fat which means I am debloating. Ugh. I am so cranky, I feel the black clouds swirling.

My judge is at a dude ranch right now with his family on vacation, so I’m manning another courtroom which is presently engaged in a robbery jury trial. The clerk who’s normally in this courtroom took the day off to go to the Ford dealership to pick up her new 2005 Mustang Saleen.

A girl walked in with a motion that needed to be filed next door, so I instructed the bailiff to direct her there. She left, and a few minutes later the relief clerk next door came into the courtroom with her papers to reaffirm that it’s supposed to be in that department, and I explained it to him. Then he asked, “Did you go to Diamond Bar High School?” I looked up at him in surprise. “Yes…” I racked my brain for who this relief clerk was in high school; he looked a bit older than me. He then explained that the girl with the motion had asked him to find out because she had recognized me.

I had no idea who the girl was because, as usual, I made no eye contact with strangers. After learning from the relief clerk that she was still in his courtroom, I walked over, looked her square in the face and… did not recognize her. She greeted me warmly. I said, “I’m sorry…” and she took the hint and told me her name. Cathy. Oh my gosh! Is that what a little eyelid surgery does for Korean girls? She looks so cute! She and I didn’t hang out directly, but we had a lot of common friends and we would often be at the same event. I think she was even my tennis partner in PE at one point. We caught up on our common friends, I broke the news to her about Grace’s passing, and complimented each other on how we look now. Heh. I guess she changed more after HS than I did, altho she said she wasn’t totally sure it was me.

While I was driving around yesterday after work, running all my errands, I was playing phone tag with Thomas, and I therefore blame him for distracting me enough with his entertaining conversation (by that I mean, listening in on all the female attention he got while walking his apparently babe-magnet dog) such that I FORGOT TO CALL IN TO JURY SERVICE. I came into work this morning and as I walked into the courtroom, it struck me out of thin air that I possibly am supposed to be in Fullerton Superior Court at that very moment. I ran out to my car to get the jury duty notice and called in; luckily that courthouse didn’t order any jurors last nite for today. Whew.

FedEx made 3 daily noontime attempts to deliver my plane tickets to my house. Obviously, I was at work. I also don’t go thru my front door, so I didn’t see the tags until Saturday. The FedEx phone clerk assured me that my tickets would be at a particular FedEx building until today, and that if I didn’t pick it up today, it would be returned to Orbitz.
So I drove straight to FedEx after work. The guy at the counter looked up my tracking number in the computer and told me, “Unfortunately, your package has already been rerouted back to the sender.” “What?!”
I explained what the customer service rep on the phone said about the package being there. He said that yeah, the person was apparently trying to save himself the extra work of setting up a control # and logging in the conversation and requests in the system, and therefore FedEx did not know I called and that I wanted them to hold the package for me for pickup today.
I tell ya, it pays to be courteous and female. While I was patiently asking him for suggestions on what my options now are, since I do need my plane tickets, another FedEx counter guy overheard the conversation, looked at the computer screen over the shoulder of the guy I was talking to, and said, “Lemme see if on the off chance, it might still be here in the loading dock.” I gratefully thanked him. The guy I was talking to said that the other guy used to work in loading, so if anyone could find it, it’s him, altho it’s difficult to know which truck it’s been loaded into if it’s even still here. I sat down and waited about 10 , 15 minutes. The second guy came back and said, “Do you have your ID on you?” I lit up. “Really?! You found it!” I kept thanking him for his efforts and kissing his ass, and then I thanked the guy I was talking to for his suggestions and information.
The second guy said to me as I left, “You have a nice day.” “I definitely will now, thanks to you!” I sang.

Among the many errands I had to run at lunchtime today (I’m too sore to work out anyway) was getting gas and a car wash. For both, I went to a local Shell station. I pulled up behind a truck using the 2nd pump and waited for my turn. The car at the 1st pump in front of the truck finished and left. Before the truck could finish gassing up and leave, however, a beat-up car pulled up into the 1st gas pump and blocked the truck. Subsequently, a van pulled up behind me to wait its turn at the pump, so I had nowhere to go.
The man who drove the truck in front of me walked up to the guy in the beat-up car and altho I could not hear him, I could tell by the gesturing that he was telling the front guy to back his car out because I had been waiting behind him for my turn. The front guy looked toward me and ignored truck guy and walked into the building to pay. The truck guy turned and met my eyes, shook his head at me, then followed the front guy into the building. There was another altercation, more heated, between the two outside the building as front guy walked out to go back to the pump. Truck guy went back into the building presumably to get an employee.
Then front guy walked up to my car. I lowered the window. “Can you move your car to let the gentleman in front of you out?” he asked me. WHAT?! “Are you parked in front of him?” I asked. He said yes. I said, “I’ve been waiting here behind him; I can’t back out, there’s a van behind me. Why can’t you go around and use the pumps on the other side?” Both pumps connected to our pumps facing the other side were UNOCCUPIED, by the way. He ignored me and started walking back to his car.
Truck guy walked out of the building indignantly with a service attendant in tow, pointing toward the beat up car and gesturing angrily. Truck guy yelled in my direction, “Don’t back out! You don’t have to!” There were more dramatic yelling and gesturing and eventually, front guy backed his car out, let the truck out, and moved back in, and I moved up to the second pump. What an ass!
I got out of the car and put my hand up to the truck as it passed me on the street, mouthing “thank you.” He waved back.

Good samaritans.