cindy's world

This is a memo sent to all employees, and I’m posting it as my public service announcement for the year:

~ * ~
This is to remind all employees that Daylight Savings Time will occur late this year on Sunday, November 4, 2007. Normally, the time change takes place the last week in October.

If not accomplished electronically, please ensure that all necessary security/fire alarm systems, access control systems, building management systems, telephone systems, PDAs, cell phones, etc. are adjusted appropriately.

In addition, employees are reminded to adjust their personal watches, clocks, and alarms so to avoid delay in reporting times.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

After two weeks or more of having cut lunches, working through lunch to meet some crazy demand of our jurors’, staying so late on the record into lunch that it wasn’t worth the drive anymore, getting shocking news from the doctor to drain my energy and motivation, and having the women’s locker room closed yesterday, I was beginning to think I was fated to not work out anymore. Today, my third attempt to hit the gym this week, I FINALLY got to work out.

Maybe it’s because of the weeks off, maybe it’s because I actually went grocery shopping for the first time this year and had dinner last nite, but I hit the weights with a vengeance. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t dispirited and drained after every set and I didn’t have to break up my supersets in order to rest. I was gonna write it off that I was just getting old, but today disproved that theory. I did the first two sets of my exercises at slightly elevated weights from what I’d normally use, and on the third and last set, I increased all the weights about 25% and hit reps of 10 instead of 15. I figured I’d train to failure, except I never failed. This shocked me, and is making me wonder whether I’d been weight-training waaaay below where I should be. My isolated lat pulldowns today went to 55 lbs per arm; I did single-legged squats with a 12-lb dumbbell in each hand; my supine chest presses were completed with a 20-lb dumbbell in each hand. And I could’ve pushed out more than 10 reps altho I hadn’t the time to test and see what my “failure” point is. I didn’t even get dizzy or light-headed, which usually happens when I’m PMSing (due to low levels of iron). And I am PMSing. When I took my bra off I could actually feel the weight of my bloated boobs pulling on my collar bones.

This is an interesting turn of events, and very inspiring. I’m definitely capable of cranking up the workouts, then. If my gym trainee reads this post, she’d tell me, “I’m scared…”

My jury came back with their verdict today, after being told this trial would take 3 weeks and being here today for the 32nd day. I began reading the 20-page verdict into the record at 10:30 a.m., polled each juror as to each question (to make sure every question on the 70+ question verdict has no bigger voting split than the mandatory 9-3 maximum), and by the time we were done, it was 1pm and we’d worked through most of the lunch hour. The judge ordered the attorneys back at 1:45 p.m. to start the punitive damages phase of the trial, and with less than 45 minutes of lunch break permitted, I missed the gym for the second week.

I was really looking forward to starting a new workout regimen with my gym trainee, too. In the last 2 years we’d been working out together, I’ve brought her to be at my level (or better, depending on the exercise) for resistence training, which means she weightlifts what I do, or more. Her cardio is much improved, and she’s able to pull off supersets without needing breaks in between exercises. Our current regimen has us doing a 10-minute cardio warmup, then 3-4 weightlifting exercises hitting all the major muscle groups (legs, chest, back) in 3 supersets of 15 reps each, then a 10-minute cardio cooldown. She’s done really well with the added cardio and has lost a significant amount of body fat, so now I think we need to step it up. The plan is to really strength-train, i.e. hit only 1 body part a day and max it out at 6-8 reps of many exercises for that target muscle group, do different body parts each day in the week, and cardio on Wednesdays and weekends. This should tighten up our muscles and raise our metabolism from the extra muscle density. Not to mention the extra strength! (Don’t worry, contrary to non-weight-training girls’ beliefs, we are not going to turn into our Governator — women don’t have enough testosterone in the body to get muscular-bulky. And we’re not gonna take steroids or enter ourselves into Miss Olympia pageants.)

I was thinking I’d go to the gym today after work, but life is SO luxurious hanging out in my clean, vacuumed, candlelit living room with my cat, watching “Two and a Half Men” on TV and playing Bejeweled on my laptop, that I believe I’m developing sores on my ass from my leather couch. Oh well, tomorrow is another lunch.

Mr. W and I attended a coworker’s daughter’s wedding on Saturday. The coworker had the reception for 200+ people in her home, and the spacious backyard was decked out in strings of light and rustic hand-made decorations that made it look like a fairyland. The mom of the bride went all out — there was a dance floor and DJ at one end, clothed tables throughout the house, yard, patio, front yard, garage-turned-recreation-room, catering from a local rib restaurant, commercial heat lamp torchieres, fancy flushing port-o-potties, a free photo booth, and shuttle service between their home and the church. I don’t know if scanning a long strip of photos would turn out for the purposes of posting, but the first strip of 4 photos Mr. W and I had, we did the cutsie 1) smile at the camera; 2) him kissing my cheek; 3) me kissing his cheek; 4) him doing a goofy expression with a peace sign as I stuck out my tongue. And then I had the brilliant idea of acting out a word with each of the frames, and then seeing if people could guess the word. Our words were 1) suspicion; 2) innocence; 3) horror; 4) exhaustion. As soon as I saw the photos, my formerly “brilliant idea” shattered and I announced my new revelation, “We’re dorks.” =P But other guests at our table thought our idea was brilliant, and they took our list and did the same thing, so we got good laughs passing around each others’ photos and seeing others’ interpretations of the words.

Sunday morning, we again got all dolled up after hitting the gym for a 4-mile run, this time to attend my old friend Edgar’s 31st birthday party. When I say “old,” I mean simply that he and I have been friends since we were 14, with a stint of maybe 4 years in college of being “best friends.” We were excited to see the champagne brunch location, a hilltop venue called Coco Palm, because it could be a wedding possibility for us. We were SO excited, in fact, that it turns out we got there super early…
At the front hostess stand, we were informed that there was no reservation for a party under the name of either Edgar or his girlfriend Ruby, who I know made the reservation. I stepped outside to call Ruby, and looking at my cell hone, it hit me. Edgar’s birthday, and thus appropriately his birthday brunch, is next Sunday. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s a good thing Edgar has proclaimed long ago to not like blogs, or I’d surely not hear the end of this one. Ack. The venue is indeed exotic with flowing water, waterfalls and koi fish (and a pair of parrots named “Ricky” and “Lucy”), and I think it could be a beautiful place to host our wedding reception.

Brunchless, Mr. W and I sought out my parents to see if they had lunch yet. I knew that they were out fishing at Redondo Beach with relatives visiting from Minneapolis this weekend. Mom said they were on their way back for lunch, so Mr. W and I killed a little bit of time having great pastries and coffee at a new French patisserie I’d stumbled on some time ago, Vanille, and were so impressed by the creative fondant cakes on display that we think we may have found our wedding cake makers.
Lunch was at a muslim restaurant where I enjoyed the kosher dishes but had to choke down what tasted like rancid goat meat soup. The relatives’ two young sons were very well behaved at the dinner table. I thought about how when I was their age (approximately 6 years or so), if I decided I was done eating, I’d be under the table annoying my dad’s feet.

After lunch everyone dispersed and Mr. W and I went back to his place to watch some more “Buffy” and “2 and a Half Men” on DVD.
Halfway through our viewing, we noticed huge yellow-brown smoke plumes covering the sky when we look out the window. And then we flipped to the news and saw the Southland on fire. The dry, hot Santa Ana winds this weekend was apparently too much for some arsonists to resist lighting some fires, and even now, schools are shut down and hundreds of thousands of acres, and hundreds of homes, are burning and destroyed in Canyon Country, Malibu, Orange, and San Diego. The wind changed direction at one point and the brown smoke rolled over Mr. W’s area, making me gag as I ran around his house trying to figure out where the smoke was entering from. Turned out it was the chimney flue. Today, I excused one of plaintiff’s two attorneys from having to come in for trial because her home was ordered to be evacuated this weekend being 100 yards away from the Malibu fire and in the fire’s path. And today’s her birthday, too.

Trainee: I wish my computer would just shut down so I can go home.
Me: kick it.
Trainee: I have done nothing but answer emails since I came back from lunch. I’m about to kick Prince up and party Like it’s 1999. As a matter of fact one of my friends just used the country-est saying I’ve heard in a long time. He said that the person he was talking to need to stop griping before he told her how the cow ate the cabbage. I was in here cracking up.
Me: I have never heard that. What does that mean?
Trainee: Don’t react before you know what happened. I never heard that one either, but out of all the country ones I heard this was just straight back woods country.
Me: I wonder where statements like that come from. Like 200 years ago, did this happen? :
Farmer: OH MY GAWD!! The COW’s in the cabbage! And it ate it all up! YOU’RE supposed to be watching Bessie, the cow! I’m gonna kill you!
Wife: No wait! You don’t understand! Stop griping before I tell you HOW the cow ate the cabbage!
Farmer: All right, fine. HOW did the cow eat the cabbage?
Wife: One bite at a time.
Farmer: I’M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS! *kick kick kick kick*
Trainee: if anybody else read these emails they would swear our lunch was liquid.

Just when you think it’s over…

This afternoon my supervisor came up to my department and pulled me out of my trial to have a discussion in the back hallway about the trainee. He wanted to know what I was implying on the phone to him yesterday. I told him in detail (minus the part about her email with another clerk about my being “rude”, as that’s hearsay anyway) what transpired between us in the first morning she was in here, but was clear that she more than made up for it in the next day and a half, proving to me that she’ll be fine as Judicial Assistant/Courtroom Clerk. I turned in my training report, he looked it over and noted my backhanded compliments. I told him that I had no problem telling him about our tiff off the record, but that I didn’t want it to come up in our meeting with the trainee on Friday and I don’t want it to negatively impact their assessment of her skills.

A few minutes ago, the trainee popped into my courtroom and handed me a small white envelope with my name on it. I opened it and it was a cute thank-you card that even matched my suit today. She wrote:

Cindy
Thank you for my experience in Dept. E. I really appreciate all you did for me and for the information/handouts you gave me. I know we didn’t start off on the right foot, but I’m glad we worked it out and I got the chance to sit in with you.
[trainee]

Now I feel like a shithead for even writing the backhanded compliments in her evaluation! And I already turned it in! Waaaahhh!!

I’m open-minded to change. Doesn’t mean I’m not surprised by it. Which is why I’m surprised that my work trainee totally redeemed herself the day and a half following my last post. (I only get her 2 days, yesterday and today.)

I’d written that last post at noon, and it seems that at lunch, my trainee did some thinking and came back a different person. I had her swear all the witnesses yesterday afternoon and today, which she did without referring to her oath cards (which she probably didn’t have on her anyway), and the oaths went smoothly, including her directions telling them to be seated, state and spell their first and last names for the record, etc. This morning, she returned my notepad and showed me she’d brought her own, so she was prepared today. Despite her feeling mentally unprepared to take over our big ugly messy trial by herself (so I didn’t force her to), she did everything else I told her to — took correct notes, did the minute order, corrected the things I asked her to, filled out the exhibit labels, etc. And as for attitude, there was none.

She handed me her evaluation for me as a trainer (I was surprised I was even allowed to see it before she turned it in to a supervisor, but *shrug*), and then had the balls to say, “Thank you so much for these two days. I learned a lot. I’m sorry we started off on the wrong foot, but I’m happy we got past that and I want you to know I appreciate everything you showed me.” Gah. I smiled and said something about being glad she was cool about our tiff yesterday morning, and then she left for the day.

Her evaluation for me rated everything, on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much s0), 5s across the board for being well-informed and explaining the job, for exhibiting work skills she felt she should pattern after, for being available or giving a resource when she felt in doubt, for allowing her to observe and then perform courtroom tasks. In the comment section, that requests her to write both positive and negative experiences, she wrote:

Positive part of this experience was finally getting to sit in on a trial. Negative part was that I came in mid trial and was unable to view a trial from beginning to end. Cindy is a great trainer, she gave me information that will definitely help during my training.

So I marked her “Acceptable” (as opposed to “Unacceptable”, my only other option) on all categories being evaluated. Here’s my attempt at honesty in back-handed compliments:

1. PRODUCTIVITY:
No calendar these days, but trainee did an extensive trial minute order on day 2 using her own notes, with minimal significant corrections. Minute order was completed before day’s end.
2. QUALITY OF WORK:
Day 2, trainee completed exhibit labels accurately and neatly. Trial notes are legible and complete.
3. WORK HABITS:
Trainee stayed late the evening of Day 1 to finish training. Very receptive to instructions and direction, but is honest in advising me when she’s not ready for a task (e.g. doing Day 1’s minute order or taking over courtroom prematurely at Day 2).
4. APPLICATION TO DUTIES:
Asks good questions to heighten her understanding of court proceedings (and computer system) and applies her learning immediately to her work.
5. ADAPTABILITY:
(no comment)
6. COURTROOM DEMEANOR:
(no comment)
7. ADMINISTRATION OF OATHS OR AFFIRMATIONS:
Despite not being prepared with her oath cards on Day 1, trainee nevertheless administered oaths to various witnesses from memory, even with stage direction, clearly and authoritatively.

BEFORE you all call me a wuss, lemme first tell you that in addition to the fact that she put in 100% today, lost the attitude, and apologized about yesterday morning, I also got this email from my supervisor today:

[Trainer 3] and Cindy,
enclosed are the instructions and Evaluation forms. Please get an eval to me either separately or jointly by Friday in the morning. I will go over it with the trainee that afternoon.

Thanks for training.
[supervisor]

I emailed back:

My understanding was that the trainee would not see our evaluations?

He replied:

No, it will be discussed with her on Friday. You can opt not to be in the room at the time. Your presence is welcome.

Gah! I can write a bunch of shit and not be there to deal with it, but then I also won’t be there to defend myself if her answer to my evaluation is, “She’s a psychotic bitch and has hated me right from the start for no reason. In fact, I think she’s racist.” My supervisor followed up his email reply to me with a phone call asking if I think she may not pass, because if it’s as serious as a no-pass grade, he and I can talk about it first. I told him no, it’s probably not that serious, I’m not comfortable being the one to determine whether someone passes or fails based on 2 days with me so I’ll just write my evaluation honestly and let the supervisors decide whether they want to delve deeper into it with me or the trainee.

I walked off the elevator this morning toward my courtroom and bumped into my supervisor. “Well HELLO!” he said in mock sarcastic joy. “ConGRATULATIONS! You have a trainee.” I walked in and so I did. =P

I set up all my stuff, and then turned to her (who was seated too far away, really) whether she knew anything about jury trials. She said, “A little bit.” So I told her we’ll just start with her taking notes in our trial today and we’ll compare notes at the end of the day so I can see if she’s noting the right things and picking up on the important things in trial that will need to go into her minute orders. She agreed, but just sat there. “Do you have a notepad?” I asked her. “Not today,” she said. Who doesn’t bring a notepad to an on-the-job training? But I got a notepad and had to walk it over to her as she seemed content to just sit there and let me keep getting up and handing her stuff or to talk to her.

A few minutes later, I got up and walked to her again (as court was in full session and I had to whisper) and asked her whether she knew her oaths. I know from my training classes that I had to memorize all my different oaths and recite them on command from the instructors. She said, “I don’t have my oath cards on me today.” She was dependent on note cards for her oaths? We were told that you needed to know them when you hit a courtroom. They stressed this over and over, that they’d fail you immediately if you didn’t have your oaths down. And who goes to on-the-job training without their oaths on-hand? So I asked her whether she had memorized her oaths in classroom training. She got defensive and said, “YES I learned my oaths in class and I PASSED my oaths but on a daily basis I am not required to HAVE my oaths — ” She was wrong, but I cut her off and hissed in a loud whisper, “You don’t have to get defensive on me. I’m just trying to see if you know your oaths because if you do I’m going to have you swear in the witnesses in our trial today. I’m not accusing you of anything, I’m not trying to make you defensive, I’m just trying to see what you know from class because I don’t know whether they’ve changed the class.” Jeebus! She backed off and said, “No, that’s fine, they didn’t change the class. I can swear in the witnesses.” I was TICKED.

She did chill after that and at breaks and during sidebars, I was able to bring her copies of forms to explain them to her, bring her the trial file and go over it with her, basically I had to bring everything to her, kneel by her on the ground and point things out. She never moved her fat ass out of the chair. But I’d rather do that than to have her breathing down my throat in my desk area, so I didn’t tell her to move closer. She told me she had a doctor’s appointment she’d leave for at 11:45a, and I said that’s fine. And then it started looking like a new witness was going to come in before lunch. I told her she can swear in that witness, and she cut me off with, “Well actually, I was gonna tell you that I’m going to leave at 11:30 instead. And they’re going to finish up with this witness first before the new witness.” Fine. Whatever. She was still sitting there at 11:26ish when our witness concluded early and the new witness was walking in. I turned to her and told her she can swear in this witness before she had to leave, and she stood and said, “I’m just going to leave now,” and left.

And then later another clerk emailed me to tell me the trainee told her I was rude to her and told her to just take notes all day.

Is she AWARE that I am going to write her training evaluation?!

…that people were protesting Columbus Day parades with violent bloody demonstrations, i.e. pouring fake blood all over paraders and stuff, cuz they’re saying Columbus was also a slave trader so he shouldn’t be celebrated? Slavery in today’s official opinion was a very bad thing, but it was not illegal back in the day which, yes, was a horrific unfortunate thing, but I don’t understand how you can protest 500-year-old history. How far back do we get to go? Do I get to protest the way the US turned its back on Chinese immigrants after they blew us up on the railroad construction? On Japan taking over Taiwan in my grandparents’ generation? On the Communists overthrowing the Republic government in China? On the invasion of the Mongols on the Great Wall back in Qin Dynasty? On predatory birds, dinosaurs and stuff that had stomped on or eaten my pre-human ancestors? What does protesting history accomplish? I bet the protestors are enjoying their day off today on Columbus Day anyway. (Or maybe I’m not getting the full story of what their issues are.)

…that some of you guys have to work? I’m sorry. I got up about half an hour ago and I’m going into the living room to continue watching DVD episodes of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” with my fiance now. *yawn* *stretch* *scratch*

The confirmation e-mail sent by the Marine Corp for Saturday’s run has this paragraph in it:

‘THE COURSE: 3-mile run with obstacles throughout. Run is mostly flat. The obstacles range from hay bales to fox holes, to walls and tunnels with 60 drill instructors “encouraging” you along the course. View course map at www.bootcampchallenge.com.’

I find it funny that the word “encouraging” is in quotes, cuz Vanesssa said that she watched a drill sergeant run alongside a tired man last year at this event and scream in his ear, “You gonna let a woman beat you? What’s wrong with you? Where are your balls! Come on, you pussy! Run!” I’m gonna see if I can get more men yelled at this year by passing them. Hee hee.

“What’s a fox hole?” I asked my judge, former Navy.
“It’s a deep hole in the ground that soldiers dig to stay in when they’re out on the field,” my judge explained.
“Like a ditch?”
“No, a ditch is long. A fox hole fits one to four people.”
“Oh. There are foxholes on our obstacle course. I wonder what they’ll have us do with them, just jump in and jump out?”
“Well,” he said with a glint in his eye and an amused smile, “If it’s an event put on by the Marines, it will probably be a mud-filled fox hole.”
“It IS a Marine thing!” I wailed.

What do I wear?!