cindy's world

Looking back at the entire day yesterday when we picked a jury for our auto accident trial, had to virtually immediately excuse one juror because he disclosed privately that he saw the plaintiff running out of the elevator but upon seeing the jurors, slow to a walk and start a limp, and heard the first expert witness on spinal disk hernia and surgery, the MOST interesting thing that happened all day was this:

[My judge and I in the back hallway waiting for the employee elevator at lunch recess. Elevator dings and doors open. The elevator is packed with judges already.]
My judge: [stepping in around the other judges]Holy cow!
Another judge: Who’re you calling a cow?!
Me: But he said “holy”, your honor.
Other judges: Haha!

What a sad day for entertainment.

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.

There’s a lot of bad stuff going around in the blogosphere today. Instead of adding to it in Cindy’s World, I’m gonna leave instead the Judge’s joke du jour:

Did you hear that they came out with a new Barbie doll called “Divorced Barbie”?
It comes with all of Ken’s stuff.

I’m trying to do more divorce cases but the family law computer program’s down. And then I tried to do a criminal law entry but I couldn’t get around the criminal system’s locks on this issue. I didn’t feel like working out today, so I took a walk to a local law firm and paid for my parents’ living trust documents. Even with a very generous $375 professional discount that this probate attorney gave me, I’m still out $1200.

I really, really want to go home, burrow in my bed and go to sleep.

This evening after work, I’ll be attending my first bartending class at a local college. Woohoo, four and a half hours of playing with colored water and bottle-spinning! Unless the first day is full of lectures about the historical origin of alcohol, the period of prohibition in the old South, and the molecular chemical breakdown of ethyl. That would not be fun. I remember in high school, for a full period of German class, our teacher Mr. Englyng (Dwaine and I now have a phone # and address, but we have yet to call him) talked about the beer making process and hops and fermentation, complete with diagrams drawn on the whiteboard. Sure, beer is a part of German culture and the discussion was held in the German language, but I learned very little. Mr. Englyng even remarked toward the end of that period that I was quiet that day. Yeah, no kidding! What do I have to contribute in a beer discussion?!

I told my judge yesterday that I would be leaving early to take a bartending class every Tuesday this month. He was surprised, but said, “I think you’ll be great at it!” He said there’s something about an occupation that entails physical exertion that makes you feel like you’ve put in a good day’s work, things like being on your feet all day during bartending and like his old college job of working for a moving company, loading heavy furniture into a moving van. “I think you’d be making money hand-over-fist,” he continued, then paused. “I’m afraid you’d be making so much money, however, that you may leave me.” I reassured him that he has nothing to worry about as I can’t even tell my parents about the bartending class and possible future gig. I can see it now:

Mom: WHAT?! You had a REAL job and now you’re serving DRINKS to people? You did not go to college to serve alcohol!
Me: Well technically, I did…

Eh well, it’s just 5 weeks, not much of a life investment to open a new door. And we do come out of the class certified.

I did a test drive from work to the college yesterday, and the drive SUCKED. There’s construction on the main street that the campus is on, reducing the 3-laned road to a single lane in both directions. I also didn’t buy campus parking, so I’m a little afraid that my car’s gonna get jacked parked on a street somewhere. We’ll see how it goes.

Even though today is supposed to be a day off for me (Cesar Chavez holiday, the NorCal folks hate that I have this day off), I’m here. At work. Getting a couple of things done. Of course my judge is here, too. He was surprised to see me and already gave me a couple of things to look over. There are a surprisingly high number of employees in the building. “Is this a day off?!” a law clerk friend said earlier, looking at all the coworkers around her.

Not that I came in during regular hours, nor am I planning to stay long. I’m just giving my roofing guy a few extra minutes to email me the roofing invoice, so that I can print it and include it with my homeowners’ meeting minutes and demand for payment for my roof to the other homeowners in the association.

I had a list of things to do today. I already reviewed and made changes to my HOA documents as requested by the other officers, I got Dodo more cat food and litterbox crystals, bought some necessities at WalMart (I usually go to Drug Emporium for toothpaste, shampoo, contact solution, etc., but I was dismayed to find that it’s shut down!), and am now at work. Soon, I’ll leave here to test the drive to the the bartending class (1st day of class is tomorrow after work!) and then meet up with MOH Vicky at the gym at 3:30.

Just for kicks, guess what Mr. W is doing all day! He’s attending employee training seminars/lectures at the Museum of Tolerance! I spoke to him at his lunch break and he said a guest speaker coming up in the afternoon is an actual survivor of the Holocaust.

Yesterday, I had to forego my noontime workout because we had a mandatory meeting. Something about sexual harassment policies and how we’re strongly urged to report any harassment we feel we’re victim to. At the end of the meeting I asked the district administrator, “Does this mean I have to stop making racial slurs?” He laughed and said that’s probably a good idea for workplace conversation. I asked, “What if I just make fun of my own race?” He indulged me (knowing who I am, after all) but still said in a supervisory way, “Well, people who overhear you may still take offense to what you said. Like maybe you’re perpetuating the negative stereotypes or something. At our meeting downtown about this, they talked about tons of things that I never would’ve THOUGHT would be offensive to some people, but to some, it’s harassment.” I bitched about oversensitive, overly-PC people these days with no senses of humor, but we all know people like that we have to tiptoe around at work or in social circles because they take everything wrong. Those people are so no fun, always looking for an opening to accuse someone of racism, sexism, bias, so they can file a grievance. I think those people are the least colorblind of all, reading color issues where there were none.

After work, I called Vicky and dragged her out to the gym with me. Actually, I didn’t have to drag, she eagerly agreed to meet me there at 8p. She’d just gotten her gym membership reinstalled at my gym corporation, so I got a solid lower body workout in plus we did a heaving hour’s worth of cardio together on treadmill and elliptical trainer. It’s fun to catch up while being physically productive, so different from a few days ago, catching up while shoving food in our pieholes.

On food:
Yesterday after work, I saw that a supervisor who usually has a variety of cookies in his clear pastic cookie jar (how he lures us into his office) had individually wrapped Ding Dongs in there instead. “OMG, I haven’t had one of these since I was 8!” I exclaimed, and he told me to enjoy one. Since I’m an obedient little girl, I grabbed one on my way out. I guess I’d expected my childhood food preferences to be tainted with kid-like ignorance, like when I thought Pixie Stix, colored rock candy, and button candy were cool. As adults revisiting these things, Pixie Stix is just sourish sugary sand; rock candy is just hunks of sugar crystals, and button candy was RETARDED with the amount of paper you had to spit out after ripping those little tasteless sugar dots off the strips. But that DING DONG…omg…it had a thick chocolate coating, the inside chocolate cake was moist, and that white cream in the center added the “MMM!” to “YUMMM!” It was a good thing I was in the car leaving work when that thing was finished, or I would’ve gone back for more.

On drinking:
I was emailing with Dardy and he mentioned that he didn’t like hearing about girls getting drunk, because it made them seem irresponsible or something. He wondered if it was a double-standard, since he’s fine with guys drinking. I told him that I don’t think much of girls who get drunk either, but that it was more of a safety issue to me. I think safety has to always be in the forefront of a woman’s mind, and when she’s hobbling and being stupid, she can’t defend herself in a situation and she doesn’t have the good judgment to remove herself from a bad situation before she steps in it. (That, and you don’t see men getting wasted and jumping into bed with a stranger then waking up the next morning crying about how lonely and cheap they feel.) I think it’s more responsible of women to drink when they’re in a secure safe environment, not like at a bar or out at a party with rowdy strangers when they need to drive home hours later.

On safety at work:
Today while my judge was engaged with some attorneys in a closed-door settlement conference in our jury room, I heard a big boom and crash, then lots of metallic jingling. The noise came from the back hallway behind the courtroom, right outside the door that’s 10 feet away from me. I gave the commotion 2-4 seconds to settle before I realized from the cussing and yelling in the hallway, as well as the continued banging around, that there is a struggle between our bailiff(s) and an inmate. I stood and hit the “emergency!” red button, only the 2nd time I’ve had to do that in my entire career. The loudspeaker instantly came on, connecting my courtroom to the sheriff’s office downstairs, and a female voice asked what was happening. I announced the struggle and location into the intercom. I then moved away from the door. My court reporter gave some time to pass before she opened the far end of the courtroom door to peek into the hallway, and by then she described 5 sheriffs trying to contain an angry hostile inmate who was already on his knees on the floor. One sheriff was saying over and over to him in a soothing tone to calm down, calm down. By the time all the sheriffs who were available in the building responded to the call, there were probably 12 deputies in the hallway and only minutes had passed. Impressive. One of the female deputies who was there first hurt her arm and elbow when the inmate tried to kick and rush her. This deputy came by after things settled down and thanked me for calling for help. I’m glad I wasn’t drunk at work, or I may have opened the door and walked out in the hallway to see what all the noise and banging was about!

On wedding etiquette:
One of the black belt instructors from jujitsu (who’s become a friend over the years) is getting married in 18 days. I know this because that’s what his wedding website ticker said when I visited online yesterday, due to his email urging me to visit his site. It was a very well-done site, entertaining and all, but it’s like, “18 days? I guess I’m not invited.” That’s not a big deal, tho, especially since he soon emailed me after sending me the website, to explain that he’d wanted to invite us but had limited capacity at 120 people. As it was, he said, even some family were not invited. I told him I totally understand and am dealing with the same thing myself, and that I didn’t take it personally. Today, I get another email from him. He writes that he really does want Mr. W and I to attend because we’re “fun” but that there’s no room for us, so how about we go and crash the wedding? There’s no seating room for dinner, but come after dinner, after 7pm! All the information’s on the website! Come anyway!
Now that puts me in an awkward situation, cuz altho it’s nice that he seems to genuinely want us there, to ask us to CRASH? After dinner? What if people we know there think we’re rude for being soooo late, or if they know we weren’t invited, think we’re rude for crashing? And are we supposed to bring a wedding gift when we crash a wedding? I suppose I have another 2 weeks to think about this. There’s no RSVP to mail back when you’re crashing.

You know what sucks ass? My judge is on jury duty, IN THE BUILDING upstairs, so he’s around still doing some work in chambers which I’ll probably have to process. But because we’re technically “dark” (meaning the judge is unavailable and the courtroom is not open to receive cases today), administration wants to send me to Compton in the afternoon to sit in on a criminal jury trial. You’re telling me that in the entire West district where Compton courthouse is, there is not anyone who is available to babysit a trial for one afternoon, that they have to send someone from NORWALK? ARGH.

Now that that’s out of the way, Mr. W and I had a productive enough weekend. Saturday, at our wedding food tasting (all the food you can eat and champagne/sake cocktails you can drink!) we pretty much decided our wedding menu. We’re considering ordering a hosted sake bar for the reception, and coming up with a signature east-meets-west cocktail drink. I’d never had sake cocktails before now and they’re DELISH! After the food tasting we went to our wedding cake bakery and ordered our cake. It fits perfectly with our theme, and will be 3 round tiers of chocolate cake layer+amaretto bavarian creme+light streak of raspberry jam+white cake layer. I know it sounds funny, but it tasted good and was a good compromise for us. If our guests don’t like it, whatever. Fill up on the food and alcohol.

Sunday, we had dim sum brunch with our realtor and his wife (who are close and old family friends of mine) and then the wife went home while the three of us did concentrated house-hunting. The houses are increasing in quality, but my favorite were two Chino Hills homes with beautiful entertainment backyards. One has a view of rolling green hills right beyond the yard that you wouldn’t believe is in overpopulated Southern California. I love the flowy layout of that house, too. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for that one, but won’t let my hopes soar too high since recently, everything we really liked was GONE the day after we saw it.

And then we went to my parents’ and had dinner there, telling my parents about our househunting adventures, showing them online photos of a few of the ones we saw. My mom is blown away by the high price of housing these days, but such is life. And the decline of the almighty American dollar.

* House-hunting is getting old and making us feel poor.
* I booked our venue wedding coordinator consultation and our venue rehearsal, and tomorrow we’re attending the food-tasting to pick our meals.
* Today I received my order of more face powder and 3 eyeshadows from Sephora; starting tomorrow everything on my face will be Bare Escentuals and the switchover will be complete.
* We’re on Week 1 of Phase 2 in the psycho workout routine, both I and my gym trainee are looking the best we’ve looked since we can remember, and I was very proud of her when she told me she’s decided to wear a racer-back tanktop dress this weekend to visit her cousins in San Diego to “show off” her toned arms (since we did upper body today).
* I finally got to select vacation days for this year, and I got the week after my friend Jimmy’s upcoming Sunday wedding off so we can take our time coming back from Northern California after his wedding, BUT I didn’t have enough seniority to even make the WAIT LIST for the week of my own wedding. >:-(
* Dodo’s being a good sport in letting me brush some clumps out of his fur this week, altho it seemed somewhat painful, and he’s stopped jumping into the shower to lap up leftover bathwater in the mornings.
* The Association finally signed and mailed back the roofer’s contract this week, and I received an email from the roofer saying he hopes to start work around March 10; I was afraid to tell him my Association neighbors are asses and all still refuse to pay their contribution toward the repairwork.
* At Mr. W’s house without a TV in his bedroom and being unable to watch TV in the living room w/o disturbing his son who’s sleeping in the upstairs loft overlooking the living room, I am unable to fall asleep (obviously).

I think in our last trial, the attorneys actually managed to assemble a collection of 12 of the stupidest members of society to act as our jurors. Even with surveillance video footage, even with a signed confession-like document in which she promised to repay everything she stole, she claimed she didn’t understand the word “theft” and wasn’t really confessing to any wrongdoing when she signed the document.
DA: Although you’re saying now that you were lying when you wrote that?
Defendant: What do you mean lying.
DA: You weren’t willing to pay back? Were you willing or not?
Defendant: I am willing to pay back if they prove it to me that, you know, I am actually stealing money from the [store] but I am not going to pay them back if they didn’t prove it to me that I am stealing money.

Uh…WEREN’T YOU THERE TO KNOW THAT YOU STOLE THE MONEY? The camera footage said you were! Jeebus.

Anyway, the jury acquitted.

And then after the trial was over, the judge put a written quote on my desk, saying as he did so, “Words to live by.”
It said: “The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom. – Aristotle”
HUH???

Justice is ALL confusing today.