Work Crap


Mr. W and I went to a Japanese curry house for dinner last nite, and I ordered chicken curry udon. I brought the leftover half for lunch today, and I’m eating it right now. It is so good. I don’t know whether it’s good cuz 2nd day curry’s good, or because I’m starving after my noon workout today. I should eat lunch more often. Altho, on days when I skip the workout to have lunch, food doesn’t taste this good.

I got stopped twice on my walk from the courthouse out to lunch by people who wanted to praise me about my car. I seem to have shot up in popularity points just because I dished out for a Lexus. If I had believed that this is how popularity worked, I would’ve bought my way to homecoming queen in high school. But instead, I’d believed in being who you are and having faith that your inner beauty will find worthy fans. *guffaw* For the past few weeks, anytime I talk to people (especially men), it’s because they want to ask questions about the car. “I heard you got a new car! How fast does that thing go?” “Is that your Lexus down there in the structure? The blue one with the beige interior? It’s beautiful!” “I saw your car yesterday! I’m not worthy!” *kotowing* One bailiff came into my courtroom at 9am the first day he was back from a 2-week vacation and said, “I heard you got a new Lexus!” I guess people are buzzing in the building about the car.

I have to say, I am really happy that I have the only IS 350 in the structure. I’ll enjoy that while it lasts. My bailiff said that I’m likely the only clerk in the county to have that car. I ran into my old bailiff in the building earlier, who also brought up having heard about my new car, and said, “How could you afford that? You’re a clerk!” like it’s a bad word. I ticked off my fingers. “I’m single. I’m not divorced. I’m not married. I have no kids.” “Say no more, please!” his clerk begged.

As an off-handed thing, when my cat greeted me with his meows this morning at the door, I patted his fuzzy little head and said, “Hello, my little kitten caboodle.” And then I thought, “That’d be a GREAT name for a cat! Caboodle!” Cuz then you can say, “This is my kitten, Caboodle.” Especially if the kitten’s the only thing you have in your life, as is my case with my Dodo. He’s my entire kit n’ caboodle. He’s my kitten Caboodle. I wonder if it’s too late to change his name.

SPEAKING of Paris Hilton, a coworker saw her today at, of all places, McDonald’s. “What’s she doing at McDonalds over HERE?!” people asked him. “How should I know?! I just saw her, that’s all.” I said, “She CAN’T go to McDonald’s. She has a contract with Carl’s Jr.” I remember reading about how a particular star who was the spokesperson for one brand of product had to sign a contract that he was not to be seen purchasing or using the competitor brand. My coworker said, “Maybe she was just going in to use the restroom, I don’t know!” So what happened was he was sitting in his police car at the Norwalk McDonald’s (across the street from work) driveway about to go in at lunchtime and she left her new silver Aston Martin sports car, took the long way so that she deliberately walked in front of his squad car to cross the parking lot to enter the walkway to McDonald’s. And she was wearing a skirt that was entirely too short. And of course he looked and of course said she was beautiful, altho he didn’t get a great look at her face full-on. I guess her ass and legs were beautiful.

This post’s for you, James, because you’re impressed by the unlikely “coincidences” that happen to and around me.

I just got back from lunch with some coworkers and I gave them a ride in my new car to the restaurant. They were really impressed and one declared the IS350 to be her next car. At the restaurant, we met up with a retired coworker who announced she’s selling her dark green 1998 Toyota Supra (only 65,000 miles on it! How does she do that?). When asked why she’s selling it, she said because she bought a new car. What did she buy? That’s right, the Infiniti G35 Coupe. Again, I’m so glad I didn’t get that car.

I got a taste of a bad telemarketing job today. I had to call 15 jurors while we’re in session and whisper, like a creep, to them that altho they’d been ordered back for 1:30p this afternoon, we’re now postponing their group to 9:15a tomorrow morning. Those whom I didn’t reach in person I kept calling alternate numbers I have for them and leaving messages and voice mails everywhere I could. I had called them all yesterday already to postpone their appearance from 10:15a this morning to 1:30p this afternoon. I’m probably going to get a bill at the end of the month from my managers asking why there’s incessant phone calls going out from my line these couple of days. Oh well, that’s what happens when we have a dual jury for a trial and one jury’s picked WAY fast and the other is going WAY slowly.

On the brighter side of things, Vanessa ordered and received (per her voice mail to me left last nite) two belly dancing veils from Ebay. She said in her message that they look awesome. Our instructor had advised us to bring in twin-bed-size sheets or blankets for our veil work this evening. Now we get to learn how to dance with a veil while using actual veils! Yay!

The 88 prospective jurors today are way whinier than our remarkably cooperative 91 jurors last Monday. Monday’s panels were so great that we already swore in 12, we just need to find our 3 alternates from that panel. Today, instead of 90, we started with 85 because some just failed to appear, and others whined their way out with doctor’s notes claiming anxiety, and get this, “cough and headache.” One elderly juror just announced that she was here on trial 3 years ago before us on another case. “How’d I do?” my judge asked her. “Very well,” she replied cordially. “Thank you. That’s the right answer,” my judge said to the laughter of the courtroom.

Despite my grumbling about certain aspects of this job, it’s interesting when I consider how badly I really, truly wanted this job before it was mine. Weren’t we all like that? All of us who complain about coming to work in the mornings, who gripe about a day “ruined” by having to get up too early to sit in a cubicle/office/courtroom or to visit clients on the field, didn’t we all at one point beg the stars audibly or inaudibly, “Please, please PLEASE lemme get this job! Please like me after the interview! Please give me a call-back! I am SO RIGHT for this job, I SO WANT this job!” ?

Funny, ain’t it?

When I was in judicial assistant training class 7 years ago and we had to memorize all our oaths, the trainers told us that we were all going to have times we blunder our oaths, say the wrong oath, forget our oaths in the middle of recitation, etc. I thought, “Heck, that’s not gonna be me. I’m prepared.” And I had all the oaths well memorized.

In the real professional world, because we always have our oath cue cards (mine were written out on 3×5 inch index cards), we don’t say them all from memory. My personal tendency is to glance at the card to get rolling, and then I roll the rest of the oath from memory.

Today, about 40 minutes ago, I was coming in the front doors of the courtroom from letting in our 91 jurors (I’d just done orientation w/them outside in the hall), and I was still walking to my desk when the judge told them all to stand to be sworn. Rushing to my desk, I reach into the cubbyhole I keep my oath cards and…empty. I had a quick panic. They had us/me cover so many courts in the last couple of weeks that I have no idea where I’d taken those cards. I whispered toward the bench, “Your honor, I can’t find my oath cards, so I’m gonna TRY to do this from memory.” He said confidently, “All right.”

I did not deserve that confidence. I stumbled through the first few words, hoping it’d come back to me, but the thing with long memorized strings of words is that unless the first few words are correct, it doesn’t cue the rest of the words. So I stopped the stuttering, and said to my judge, “I’m sorry, I need my oath cards.” He said okay and then instructed the 91 jurors to please remain standing until they’re sworn. ACK! I madly called the last department I was in that I could’ve taken the oath cards to. No answer. I looked at my reporter and said hopefully, “Do you have a hot key for that oath?” (so that her machine would transcribe that oath without her having to type everything in) She doesn’t have a key programmed for that particular oath. I tried typing it out on MS Word hoping that writing it without the pressure of saying it would bring those words back to me. It didn’t work.

“Oh, I have it in a transcript,” my reporter said, and darted off to her office. Meanwhile, 91 jurors still stood and stared, judge sat there in the uncomfortable silence, 2 defendants, 2 defense attorneys, a district attorney, and 2 bailiffs did I don’t know what cuz I was too busy still trying to type out the oath to look at them. I thought I got it, and said hopefully to the judge that I think I have it, he said great, let’s wait for the reporter to return, and then I realized I DIDN’T have it after all. She returned with a transcript, flipped a few pages, and said, “Oh, it’s not on this transcript. Wait, lemme get another one.” She darted off again. I tried calling another clerk to borrow her oaths, but then my reporter walked in triumphantly with a thick transcript turned to the correct page.

As she ran back to her transcription machine, I turned to the 91 jurors and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a demonstration of Murphy’s Law. This has never happened before.” They laughed and relaxed. I read the first 13 words of the oath and the rest was clearly recited from memory as I never looked down again, so they were probably wondering why I couldn’t have done that earlier.

“Do you, and each of you, understand and agree that you will accurately and truthfully answer, under penalty of perjury, all questions propounded to you concerning your qualifications and competency to serve as trial jurors in the matter now pending before this Court, and that failure to do so may subject you to criminal prosecution?”
“I do.”
“Is there anyone who does not or can not agree to this oath? No response. Thank you, please be seated.”

Jury selection went on, I called another courtroom I may have left the cards in, and that clerk said there was no such cards on her desk. I ran to the clerk next door and borrowed her oath print-outs, which are outdated, but I knew them well enough to revamp them, and then I re-wrote all the oaths out on index cards. Meanwhile my gym trainee had emailed me and asked if I was going to the gym today. I emailed back:

I don’ tknow yet. still trying to live down one of the most embarrassing things that had ever happened in my professional career here, and of ocurse it has to happen in front of 91 jurors during our 4-deft trial.,

You can tell how flustered I am by the quantities of my typos. My trainee is going to take me out for lunch instead. Cuz what I need is a drink to help me slur through the rest of the day.

I’m still in the busy criminal court today. I have to say, it certainly does make me feel productive. I didn’t work thru lunch again, tho. I went and ran a 5K with hills, because I wouldn’t be able to run after work. I’m going to Vanessa’s place after work to meet her new kittens, and she emailed me that she’d already told the kitties that their Auntie Cindy is coming to visit them and they’re looking forward to it. I gotta see them before they get too big. After visiting kitties, we’re going to belly dancing.

Sometimes I really like my life. =)

Now back to work.

My entire staff is taking over for a busy criminal calendar courtroom today and tomorrow, since that entire staff is on vacation (except the bailiff, who’s here with my bailiff running the guys who are in custody). Mr. W had a lunch shabang that he’d invited me to twice before, and I’d been unsure but I turned it down now that I’m so busy and I may have to work thru lunch. I figured that if I can get enough work done before lunch, I’d join my coworkers for their usual Tuesday lunch out. A retired coworker who drives down weekly for this lunch had emailed everyone to say that she would come out to meet us, and I wrote back that if I’m not too busy, I’d meet them. Before lunch, I got a call from Mr. W asking if I’d be able to join him and his lunch crew. I said no, we were still on the record. But some time went by and I had made some progress, so I walked out to meet my coworkers. They weren’t out there. I called the retired coworker and she said, “You didn’t get my email?” Turned out she’d written me back to cancel lunch due to many people’s unavailability for lunch today, and I didn’t get the email cuz I was so busy in here that I didn’t see it. I didn’t bring my workout bag to go to the gym, either. So I just came back inside to work and blog thru lunch. Yay, fun.

On the brighter side of things, yesterday evening’s run felt good. I’m getting more optimistic about my ability to run the Disneyland half. On the darker side of things, the sun was bright and beaming at 7am this morning, so if it stays like this till the run, I’d be miserable running in direct sunlight.

I’m trying to do damage control on a rumor situation at work. Tuesday morning, a coworker was taken to the hospital. Another coworker who was with the sick coworker that morning, who accompanied the coworker and the paramedics to the hospital, has been telling people that the sick coworker was “drunk” that morning. Since then, people have been talking about the sick coworker and her “drinking problem.” When I first heard this, I disputed the “drinking problem,” saying that I’ve hung out with her or had dinner with her before and she could barely finish a glass of wine. I also don’t know her to be drunk. Nevertheless, new allegations came out of the woodwork about how “people” (vague, I know) have “smelled” alcohol on her in the elevator or in interactions with her. I personally have never had this experience, and I work on the same floor with her, and I have for years. Another coworker hypothesized that the sick coworker’s current hallucinations and disorientation are due to her detoxing at the hospital from her drinking. I said I didn’t know people hallucinated when detoxing from alcohol.

The only first-hand information I got was from another coworker who actually spent the past few days in the hospital with sick coworker. Sick coworker seems normal in her speech, except that what she says doesn’t make sense in our reality. For example, she’d claim that this judge or the other is taking care of something right then for her, or that she gave some papers to another clerk, but all of that isn’t true and these people haven’t been in the hospital with her. She’d also pet her shoulder saying that her kitten is there, and point at the floor and express how cute her other kitten is, and of course the kittens aren’t at the hospital with her, either. Things like that. The hospital so far doesn’t have a diagnosis for her condition. She also suffered a seizure the first night she was in the hospital.

Because I live very close to her house, I took her keys and stopped by last nite after work to feed her kittens. I hung out with them for an hour, turned the TV on for some normalcy for them, and after an initial period of shyness, the kittens played, frolicked, chased each other, jumped on my lap, batted my purse strap, and they did eat. I cleaned and refilled the litter box, went thru her fridge and threw out anything that seemed about to rot, such as a leftover salad and some greens. I went through all her cabinets looking for the trash can, trash bags, food for the kitties, etc. The only alcohol in her house is a half-finished glass bottle of wine cooler in her fridge. In her sink, she had some cereal bowls and glasses, but not wine glasses, they were water glasses that may have held milk. In her fridge was skim milk, orange juice, diet Coke, and water. On her TV coffee table was a half-drunk plastic bottle of still water and a smaller bottle of flavored seltzer water. All her wine glasses were put away in her cabinets, seemingly untouched. I’ve never seen a house this dry. My own house has a mini bar/wine rack table that’s holding 12 bottles of wine on the rack, with open bottles of tequila, Bailey’s, whiskey, cognac and sherry sitting on top, plus a bottle of white chilling in the fridge, and heck, I’M not a drinker. So knowing how little I drink and how much variety is in my house — I just remembered I also have at least 15 miniature assorted bottles of alcohol that my flight attendant cousin gave me from her plane — I can imagine what people, if they think sick coworker is a drunk (when she apparently can’t even finish a bottle of wine cooler and has to refrigerate the leftover portion), would think about me if they chanced upon my house as I fell into a strange ailment.

As for drugs, the only drug I saw there was a bottle of potassium vitamin supplements. And yes, I looked in her trash. I had to as I was throwing out stuff and cleaning the litter box. No empty alcohol containers. Some paper and cat food cans.

Maybe this post will reach the coworkers I can’t speak to in person.

I need a little time to process my photos to blog about Hearst Castle this past weekend. In a nutshell, we drove up Friday afternoon, stayed on the edge of Cambria and San Simeon that night, went to the Hearst tours in the morning, took lots of pictures (that turned out a bit hazy cuz it was SO foggy and overcast, but it felt really good after the heat wave back at home), hung out in Cambria for dinner, stayed in San Simeon beachside Saturday night, and on Sunday, we drove back making detours through Santa Barbara and of course, Solvang for its Danish pastries.

I’d also like to say, my bailiff’s on vacation in Yosemite with his fiance these couple of weeks, and I’ve had a new bailiff in here whom I *love*. =) She is wonderful. So I’m happy to be back at work today, too.

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