cindy's world

At Jordan’s request, here’s a photo of me in the tiara that I was vacuuming in a couple of nights ago. This photo is from my surprise birthday party thrown by my coworkers.

They ACTUALLY put 30 candles on the cake. Took me 2 breaths to blow ’em out.
Photo courtesy of coworker Sandy.

My court reporter came in today all weirded out and told us that something really strange happened yesterday.

Her teenage kids were all out for the evening doing their various activities, so she cleaned up the kitchen, did all the dishes, took a look around the empty countertops and sinks and thought, “Now THIS is how I like my kitchen,” then took her dog out for a walk. She’d left a back side-door to her office open for air, as she is accustomed to doing.

She returned with the dog 45 minutes later, walked into the kitchen, and there was a cup sitting on the counter by itself. She looked into it and there was some residual liquid in it. “That’s strange, it looks like milk,” she thought, tilting it into the sink. Some drops of milk trickled out.

But there’s still no one home.

Freaked, she looked in all the closets, under beds, behind doors and in showers in case someone were inside robbing the place. Not another thing appears to have been moved or taken. When her kids came home at night, she questioned them and none had come home in the early evening before going out again. Her youngest daughter looked in the fridge and saw that the new gallon of milk had been opened with the screw cap only lightly screwed back on.

She’s not friendly enough with her neighbors that they’d come by to visit, she doesn’t have friends just drop by, adults usually don’t drink milk anyway given all the other beverages in her fridge they could’ve chosen. She herself doesn’t drink milk by itself. Who’d drink milk and leave the cup on her counter for her to find and wash, but not do/take anything else around the house? Is this perhaps a ghostly encounter?

Late yesterday afternoon, I was going through some divorce cases when I came upon one that was mostly done correctly, which was impressive because neither side had an attorney, altho it was clear that a paralegal was involved in the paperwork. It was also impressive because there are 2 minors involved in the marriage, and when there are kids, the requirements increase and get more stringent.

The only thing wrong with this paperwork was that altho they had agreed to $450/month of child support that the father is to pay to the mother upon finalizing the divorce, they didn’t specify how much of this $450 pertains to the 8 year-old and to the 7 year-old. Because one kid will reach age 18 before the other one, I don’t want a situation where the father decides that he intended $440 to be for the older kid and now that the older kid’s support expired, he was only gonna pay the mother $10/month for the younger kid.

I decided to be a nice person and call the petitioner (who happens to be the mother) and ask her what the breakdown is per child and I could just write it in myself, initial it with the notation that the information was given to me over the phone, instead of rejecting the entire divorce packet and mailing it back, thereby causing a huge delay in processing and she’d have to go back to the paralegal who typed up all her paperwork and have it redone, and then mail the whole thing back to me and it’d be behind all the other divorce cases I received before her correction came back. Here’s how that phone call went.

Female voice (with screaming kid in background): Hello?
Me: Hello, may I speak to Isabel, please?
Female: Isabel not here!
Me: Okay, may I leave a message for Isabel, please?
*CLICK* What the –? Oh, no, she did NOT just hang up on me —
*CLICK* (screaming kid again in background) Oh, maybe she just dropped the phone or something)
Me: Hello?
*CLICK*

APPARENTLY she tried to hang up the first time, picked up to check to make sure it was hung up, realized it didn’t hang up, and then hung up on me AGAIN! I am SO rejecting this divorce packet. I should hold it for a month and THEN reject it, but I’m not, I’m just gonna reject it today. I don’t know whether it was Isabel I was talking to or not, but if you’re not going to do anything with phone calls, don’t pick up the damn phone!

Ya know, when it rains, it pours. When work goes crazy, this would be the day that random stuff gets assigned to me to overlap the existing stuff, and the jury hangs but then changes its mind and decides it has a verdict at 4pm so that we’re totally running late (court normally recesses at 4p so we have an hour to get our stuff done), and this would also be the day I’m trying to juggle 2 jury trials. And to really put a nice spike into the shoe that’s kicking me already, this is also the day I get my feelings hurt by someone who could’ve made my day had things been done differently. Instead, I’m kicked and then left alone to bleed.

Hmm. Why does this sound familiar? Men are so oblivious to how far a little comfort and commiseration could go in their favor. Aren’t we entitled to getting upset over something small when we’re having bad days already? Can’t men just give us a hug and stroke our hair and tell us it’s going to be better soon, instead of getting all touchy and adding to the stress?

At least I got a 3.25 mile run in during lunch, despite the fact that court ran late into lunch, too.

I am so lethargic. How do I wake up? Aside from taking drugs, I mean. I got enough sleep last nite, went to bed about 10:30p, and but I so did not want to get out of bed. Didn’t drag my butt out until almost 7a. And at lunch my legs were too heavy to work out at the gym, so I went and got a salad, after the consumption of which I took a 2o minute nap. Now I want to sleep again. I wonder what it is. Maybe it’s just hormonal. Maybe I’m just bored, listening to this petty theft trial while doing overcomplicated divorce cases at my desk.

Yesterday after work, I went to meet up with a couple of my coworkers who regularly have an Outback Steakhouse happy hour on Fridays. It turns out that they actually invited the courthouse to a surprise birthday party for me on the outdoor patio deck. There was a huge cake, flowers, those blower noisemaker things (except they didn’t make noise), presents. Bailiffs, reporters, courtroom clerks, clerks’ office clerks, law clerks, family members of people were in attendance. I felt special. Except for the fact that Mr. W refused to attend because he wanted to sit around the house all day and night, even tho he was off from work the whole week. Aside from that breaking my heart, I felt truly special. It has really been a great 29th year for me. My life had taken a 180-degree turn for the better, and I am so grateful for the people around me. The old friends who continue their support and whom I’ve gotten closer to, the new friends I’d made in the last year who’ve become my close friends today. It’s enough to make me shed a tear, man. *sniff* Thanks for putting that together for me, coworker Sandy!

Tonight: birthday dinner with my parents at Chomp sushi.

My judge just offered to recess the trial an hour early (ONE HOUR EARLY!) to accomodate me so that I could still leave early. Wow, that is so huge! He normally hates any delays in trial, works right up to the hour and a lot of times, past the hour, just to squeeze in any little time he could. He also has trial attorneys start earlier than what others feel is reasonable given the attorneys’ other court appearances in the mornings. An hour is really, really generous. Yay!

On top of everything that’s going wrong to delay me, I wrote out this big entry about it and instead of publishing it, the browser went to “site not found” and LOST THE ENTRY! DAMN IT.

I badly need to leave work early today to rush home, feed/water my cat for the weekend, grab my luggage, and dash through massive traffic to Dwaine’s house so he could get us both to the airport on time this evening. Dwaine had spontaneously decided to go to Arizona for the weekend, and his flight leaves 45 mins after mine. The civil trial we have going on right now was supposed to be done by noon today, so things were supposed to line up perfectly.

So of course that’s not what happens. Our sentencing this morning had a wrinkle come up: a guy convicted by our jury of raping his daughter was sentenced by our judge this morning to 25 years in state prison plus 25 years to life. The “25 years to life” part was due to a special allegation that adds 25 years to life if the guy had a prior conviction of the same crime (i.e. repeat offender who clearly can’t help himself from molesting kids), which he did; he’d molested his daughter’s friend years before and was convicted in Orange County of that crime. So anyway, now the question is, does this “25 years to life” addition apply just once to the entire sentence, which is what we did this morning to get 25 years plus 25-life, or does it apply for each of the 3 counts he was convicted on, which would bring his sentence to 25 years plus 25-life plus 25-life plus 25-life? Both the judge and the DA are researching this right now, and I’ve called the defense attorney and left him a voice mail. I can’t do the commitment paperwork to send this guy to state prison because his sentence may change, but they need SOMETHING to send him off before the end of the day. Obviously I still need to do the sentencing minute order in the computer which is getting more complicated by the minute. And of course we can’t address it right away because we’re stuck doing this stupid civil court trial where people are fighting over a house.

Which brings me to the other reason I’m working through lunch right now instead of doing a nice long run like I’d planned to. I gotta figure out what these 20 paper exhibits are that the defense just introduced, and log their descriptions into my exhibit list and minute order.

ARGH, I better not miss my flight. Things like this always seem to happen when I need to get somewhere by a certain time after work.

Minutes after our last trial (elder abuse) reached a verdict, we got word that we were being sent another one. Because we were occupied most of the morning with taking the verdict in our earlier case (not guilty), we didn’t get started with picking the jury on our 2nd case until the afternoon. I went out at 1:30p into the front hallway of the courtroom to take roll and do my introductory song and dance. When it was time for these jurors to go into the jury room, 34 jurors filed past me trudging into the courtroom, and the last one, a 30-something bespectacled white male dressed neatly in a short-sleeved blue button-down shirt and khaki pants, met my eyes, smiled, and thanked me for holding the door open.

During initial background interview of these jurors, that man answered the usual questions (area of residence; occupation; marital status; occupation of spouse if married and of children if adults; prior jury experience) like this:

THE COURT: Juror number 12, if you could please answer the questions, sir.
PROSPECTIVE JUROR NO. 12: Yes, Your Honor.
I live in Long Beach.
I am a force and budget manager.
I am wonderfully married.
My wife is a children’s pastor.
My daughter is a minor.
And I have two little Foster boys, too.
THE COURT: All right.
PROSPECTIVE JUROR NO. 12: Prior jury experience, last one was in Long Beach. No. It was in o — sorry. It was in — I can’t think of it. It starts with a C.
THE COURT: Compton.
PROSPECTIVE JUROR NO. 12: Compton. Thank you.
THE COURT: All right.
PROSPECTIVE JUROR NO. 12: In Compton. It was a criminal case and a verdict was reached.
THE COURT: Do you remember what the charges were in that case?
PROSPECTIVE JUROR NO. 12: Yeah. It was — it was — I don’t know what you would call it. Stopping for prostitution.

Who can’t remember Compton? People not in this state or country have heard of Compton, the infamous capital of gang warfare, police scandals and racial violence. And “wonderfully married,” surrounded by his kids and foster kids, skipping and holding hands in a circle surrounding Juror 12 singing “For he’s a jolly good daddy” while his wife brings out freshly made pie that everyone can enjoy when she reads them bible stories by the fireplace. This guy has a great life.

Ya know, you can always tell when someone has a good home life. This guy glows, as with my family law reference judge down the hall, who once told me in his very comfortably decorated chambers surrounded by photos of grinning spouse and children that being married to the right person is wonderful — it’s like a great date that doesn’t have to end.

…it’s the accuracy.

I just found and took a typing test online. A few seconds into the test, another bailiff and the judicial secretary walked in and carried on a noisy conversation with my bailiff. It was distracting, to say the least, but here are my results after a 1-minute test.

Test Name: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Gross Speed: 102 WPM
Errors: 6 Words
Net Speed: 96 WPM
Accuracy: 94%

The judicial secretary pointed her finger at me and said, “You’re NOT supposed to type faster than me! That’s my job security!”
“It’s okay,” I said, “Nobody knows.” Heh heh.