cindy's world

Hellos to everyone from the Courthouse! Yup, we’re here for one day, off for Christmas day tomorrow, then back on Wednesday. Same thing next week for New Year’s Day which falls on Tuesday. I’m not complaining though…things are slow around here so it’s pretty painless, and hey, I’m happy I’m employed. I’m also glad I have these two consecutive Tuesdays off. And I’m glad I’m not in pain from my procedure last week, and I’m glad they found the abnormal stuff early so that they’re doing cancer prevention by removing the potentially bad stuff. When I get my results back from the doctor, I hope to be glad then that they got it all and that it’s confirmed to not be full-blown cancer. I’m glad my cold is going away (except for the occasional cough), that I can work out soon, that my loved ones are still around and not terminally ill (despite what my mom thinks), that my fiance gets along with my family, that I get along with my fiance’s family, that I’m not mentally or emotionally hurt right now. PMS is doing a number and every little thing steps on my nerves, but I’m glad I’m with someone super tolerant. Crazy tolerant. Sainthood tolerant. I’d hate to be with me at this time of month.

Over the weekend, I felt a small spark of inspiration to write a post counting my blessings, but since I have that new policy of not accessing my blog from Mr. W’s laptop, and I was there most of the time, I didn’t write the post and have since then forgotten what I was going to write. But this forward, which I saw on email today, probably says it better than I would’ve:
~ * ~
I hired a plumber to help me restore an old farmhouse, and after he had just finished a rough first day on the job: a flat tire made him lose an hour of work, his electric drill quit and his ancient one ton truck refused to start.
While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence. On arriving, he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands.
When opening the door he underwent an amazing transformation. His face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss.
Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier.
“Oh, that’s my trouble tree,” he replied. “I know I can’t help having troubles on the job, but one thing’s for sure, those troubles don’t belong in the house with my wife and the children. So I just hang them up on the tree every night when I come home and ask God to take care of them. Then in the morning I pick them up again. Funny thing is,” he smiled, “when I come out in the morning to pick ’em up, there aren’t nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before.”

My gym trainee and I were just having a discussion about large looming expenses (wedding & house for me, her son’s education for her) and how to best accomodate those expenses, and we started discussing second jobs. The only things we could do after our current work hours would be in, like, food service or retail. So I suggested Bath & Body Works and/or Victoria’s Secret, cuz think of the employee discounts at two of my favorite stores! She absolutely refused to consider retail, saying she’d end up owing THEM money (shopaholic). And then she suggested bartending. My court reporter piped up that her oldest daughter, doing part-time bartending, brings in a ton of money in tips per night.

Hmmmmmmmm…

I called Mr. W and made the suggestion and he wouldn’t hear of it. “I don’t want you to have to take a second job just to marry me,” he said. I explained it’s not like I’m forced to do something I hate, like working in a Chinatown butcher shop or something. He kept laughing at me and saying the idea is ridiculous. So he’s just going to prevent me from realizing my dream of bartending that I’ve had for the past 6 minutes, just like that.

But he DOES have a slogan which he tells me all the time in relation to his job — “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.” So maybe, one day, I’ll be telling him, “No, I can’t go over today. I’m starting my first day on the new job. See you at 2am when the bars close.” 😀

It’s the weekend! Finally! This has been an exhausting week work-wise, health-wise and personal-life-wise. I kinda absorbed Mr. W’s stress earlier in the week so since he didn’t sleep more than a few hours the first few nights, I didn’t, either. The coughing keeps me up anyway. I was so mentally exhausted at work yesterday that I forgot to charge two trial attorneys trial fees, but luckily they were really good about it when I called them and told them they each owe me $450 big ones.

Aside from the Tuesday I worked through lunch and couldn’t hit the gym, I’ve been hitting it hard at the gym. The strength-training program I’ve put myself and my gym trainee on is working. She’s moving some major weights around, and on body parts like hamstrings, she’s stronger than me. The new thing in this routine that I’m not used to doing is bench pressing, cuz to me it’s a stupid guy competitive thing. I just do my other chest machines. But now that we are benching, I find myself trying to remember what an impressive barbell weight is. If a guy can bench his own body weight, that’s a big deal, is that it? I don’t think there’s any way I can bench MY body weight, but I do barbell reps of 10 with 60-70 lbs. When guys say they bench their own body weight, that doesn’t mean they do reps with it, right? They just have to push it up once?

4 more days until I’m not “allowed” to work out anymore for 6 weeks. You know something REALLY concerns you when you dream about it. Earlier in the week, I had a nightmare that some doctors looked at a chest x-ray/MRI of mine and saw a strange spot in my left shoulder area, and then told me that it was a problem that they’ll have to fix, but that doing so would add another 12 weeks of no-exercise recuperation time. I panicked in that dream. I wasn’t even concerned about what could be wrong with me or about the procedure, I was scared to get fat.

Just thinking about toting around excessive fat makes me sad and tired. I want to go home and sleep. But Mr. W’s parents drove down from Vegas today to see us so I need to go over tonite. They’re so nice — they’re visiting because we’re unable to join them for the big family Christmas this year. Christmas falls on a Tuesday this year, which means we’re working the day before and the rest of the week after. Same with New Year’s. Suck-olas, man.

I had a whole post typed up yesterday updating all sorts of things but as soon as I clicked “publish,” the internet connection farted and I lost everything. Drat. I hate when that happens. But since all things are supposed to happen for a reason, I was probably not supposed to write some of the stuff I wrote, so I’ll do a bland version of that post today.

Yesterday, I missed the noon workout because the judge worked us into lunch in an attempt to give the jurors maximum time to deliberate when they got back from lunch at 1:30p. It did work, as disgruntled as I was, because they came back with 4 guilty verdicts at 3:40: attempted murder (for stabbing his then-wife between 14 and 19 times); assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury; aggravated mayhem; unlawful taking of a vehicle. Yes, the first three counts all come out of the one occasion of stabbing, so for those of you thinking about violently marring someone with a sharp pointy object, consider all the years in state prison that would come out of the many connected charges.

I was unhappy to have only a 15- minute lunch yesterday, because I only have a few workout days left until the surgery next Wednesday. The medical professionals involved in my procedure advised me to refrain from strenuous exercise and lifting heavy weights for 4-6 weeks after the procedure, “heavy” defined as more than 20 pounds. Nothing I do at the gym is under 20 pounds. Since I gained 5 pounds after my 2 weeks of not working out due to my recent sickness, 6 weeks would be a 15-pound gain, which experience has taught me takes a year or more (or 1 month with severe emotional trauma) to lose. I don’t have a year before I have to look pretty in white. Let’s face it — white is not flattering on most people, and I’m betting I’m in the category of “most people.”

Speaking of the wedding, I had a 5pm teleconference call with my bridesmaids yesterday. We are so advanced. We all called into college roommie Diana’s northern California office with our little codes and had our first meeting of minds and voices. I am delighted that everyone seemed to get along so well and we got some important decisions out of the way. I love my girls, they are smart, professional, efficient, and beautiful. I should do a post on them soon.

My mom has been really down recently because of the liver cirrhosis diagnosis (which I still insist is preliminary but which she still insists is a death sentence), and she and my dad appear to have the exact same sickness I have. We all got sick at the same time with similar symptoms, and like me, they kept getting re-sick instead of feeling better. I’m re-coughing, too. My mom took the long recovery as a sign that her immune system is shot, something else she added to her growing list of signs that she’s headed to an early grave, but I pointed out that I’m still sick, too, and I’m darn healthy otherwise. She wouldn’t let us visit for the past 2-3 weekends in a row as she and my dad are “hiding out” from any and all visitors in fear that they’d infect others with their apparent plague. Every time I’ve called her and asked if she was feeling better, the response was a very moody, “No.” She started talking last week about how she was going to die before she saw me off on my wedding since we hadn’t set a date yet. So I pulled out the big guns.
“You can’t die yet. [Mr. W] said he wants you and dad to teach the baby Chinese and that way he could learn some Chinese on the side, too.”
“What baby?”
“Oh, he wants to have a baby.”
“YOUR baby? OH!” After that it was all sunshine and rainbows and she sounded exponentially better.

Some days after that conversation, my mom lapsed into depression again over her health. In an email conversation in which she offered to help out financially with the wedding, I told her it was unnecessary as she’d paid for so much for me already in raising me and beyond. She wrote back that she wants to help pay for the wedding because it’d likely be the last thing she could help me with, what with her early grave thing and all. I wrote back, “The wedding would NOT be the last thing you’d have the opportunity to help me out with, because I’m not going to be paying you for babysitting.” She wrote back something changing the subject, so I took that as a good sign. Yesterday, walking on the Japanese Garden grounds, she made a comment about the wedding date and said something about how if she’s going to babysit, I need to get married sooner rather than later so she’d have the strength to pick up and tug around a kid. It was great to see her and my dad in such high spirits yesterday when we finally dropped them off at home at night.

I hope I’m not just in denial about her health concerns. Ideally, it’d be just an early diagnosis of liver problems that modern medicine can halt and she’d live out the rest of her natural life just fine. But I understand that to her, having watched her father waste away and die from the same disease, it’s one of the scariest things she could be diagnosed with, especially as a non-smoker and non-drinker who has no lifestyle vices to change to help her situation. She’s also concerned about my dad’s little health issues here and there (not little to her, of course), deteriorations and ailments that come with age.

Which is why I did not tell her about my surgical procedure on the 19th this month, next Wednesday. I found out that my judge is taking vacation that Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, so since our courtroom will be “dark” those days, my supervisor offered me all those days off to recover from surgery. I hope to be “recovering” at Disneyland. Hey, when life gives you hot water, make tea and heal yourself, right?

Email convo between me and Moms this morning:

Mom: “Maybe was the tea, I couldn’t sleep all night!”
Me: “I couldn’t sleep last night either, but that was because I was coughing.
If I don’t get better by August, I’ll sound like this:
Judge: Do you, Cindy, take [Mr. W] to be your lawful wedded –
Cindy: *COUGH COUGH!!*
Judge: Uh, to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold –
Cindy: *COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH HACK HAAAACK!!*
Judge: Is that a no?”

So like, the defendant in our current criminal trial (we’re still picking a jury right now and haven’t heard any evidence) allegedly stabbed his ex-girlfriend 17 times but apparently is a bad shot cuz he didn’t hit any vital organs so she survived.

A lot of thoughts come to mind. Is she a big girl and the extra cushion saved her life? (I’m not being facetious, this HAS happened, and in a trial in this very courthouse, too.) 17 stabs means he was angry; what made him so angry with her? Did he MEAN not to hit any vital organs so he was just swiping with the blade and not sinking it in? Maybe he was sitting on her and pinning her down, that’s why he couldn’t hit things like her liver cuz he was blocking it with his own body. I thought *I* had relationship problems. Were there signs of violence before that she ignored like women with battered wife syndrome? Did he leave her for dead or did something make him stop? If she’s like the typical battered wife who refuses to testify and wants to get back with her abusive man, would she think a 150 people-capacity at her wedding venue is ridiculously small?

Returning from lunch gymming, waiting for the elevator to pick me up earlier, I ran into my head supervisor.
“How’re you feeling?” he asked me.
“Okay. Just some residual coughing, but that’s normal –”
He looked at me meaningfully. “No. I mean the OTHER thing.”
“Oh,” I said, somewhat embarrassed, because he’d been on me to schedule my LEEP procedure last month and I’d kinda brushed him off saying that my doctor said as long as it’s done within 6 months, I’m fine. And I still hadn’t scheduled it. The elevator doors opened behind me and I backed into the elevator gratefully, shrugging at my supervisor sheepishly and saying I’ll get on it.
He firmly placed his forearm against the side of the elevator door, keeping it from closing, eyeing me very deliberately. “Cindy. This is serious. Get on it.”

When I walked into my courtroom, the phone was ringing. As I still had a few minutes until lunch was over, I didn’t pick it up. Then my cell phone rang and caller ID showed an unfamiliar number. I picked that up.
“Hello, this is Cathy from Dr. [K]’s office. We did a biopsy on you a couple of months ago with instructions for you to schedule a LEEP procedure, and don’t see on here that you have an appointment set up yet. Can we schedule that right now?”
*sigh*

So the LEEP procedure, based on doctor availability and my current menstrual cycle, will take place December 19. I filled out the time-off request form and walked it downstairs to my supervisor. After I told him about the call, he said, “You know what my nickname was as a kid, right? I’m not kidding — my friends and my dad called me this until I was a teenager.”
“No, what is it?”
“God.”
*sigh*

Something’s getting wronger with me. The fever is at an all-time high and everything, externally AND internally, hurts. I feel like my organs are twisting up and my brain is screaming about being smothered as the pressure in my head heightens. My eyes are burning, and I’ve been sipping water at my desk all day but have not gone to the bathroom, so I think I’m burning it all off or something. My joints ache and my face is so hot that I keep putting my ice-cold hands on my forehead and eyelids because it temporarily relieves some of the discomfort, but I think the jurors (who sit facing me) are taking my cupping my face and head every 2 minutes as a sign that I’m not liking the DA’s closing argument. And I’m cold. I’m freezing. And the formation of goosebumps on my arms hurt my skin. If I get delirious, things may get more interesting in here.

*gag* Uh-oh, the nausea is back…

This morning I had this GREAT DREAM that I found myself at a party with 19 (yes, I counted in the dream) mounted stripper poles, and the little monkey that I am, I totally had my fun on one! I was SUCH a gymnast in the dream, I was able to twirl around on it and spin (which I can do in real life anyway), and I was able to do a move that flips me upside down on the pole so that I hung feet-up! And it was so incredibly easy when I tried it in the dream, that I doubled it by flipping over right-side up again, still hanging on the pole, and then flipping upside down again, like doing a slow somersault down a pole. I was SO impressed at how athletic I was and how effortless the moves were, that I jumped around excitedly in the dream and declared that I wanted to buy a pole for my house. I know that last part was due to the fact that a coworker had tried to get me to buy in on a collapsible stripper pole ($300+!) so that they could get a bulk discount. I turned it down, but in the dream, I REGRETTED THAT DECISION SORELY.

The flippy move in the dream was inspired, I’m sure, by this little minute-long video that another coworker emailed me on Friday:

I’m in pseudo-costume today. A memo came out to all employees of the Superior Court, as Human Resources sends every year, forbidding us to be in costume if we have to deal with the public (darn, we’re in the middle of another trial), and ordering that if we ARE in costume, it has to contain no dangerous objects (I had to put my porcupine costume with real quills back in the closet), no weapons (there goes my idea of raiding the criminal exhibit closet for murder and assault weapons), and the costume can’t interfere with our job functions (had to nix the costume of being a giant tomato cuz it won’t let my arms stick out more than 2 inches so I won’t be able to reach anything or type).

Therefore, I am here today in a fitted gauzy black top with shoulder and arm cut-outs, hanging sleeves, black pants, and accessorized with my Celtic trinity knot bracelet (the symbol on the Book of Shadows in the show “Charmed”) and an amulet of a dragon holding a 5-pointed pentagram, with a blue topaz stone at each of the 5 points (it’s a Wiccan protection amulet).

No one has said anything about my attire yet (except for my bailiff, who thought I look cute). Either it’s really subtle or it’s expected of me.

See and read about my first Halloween here.