cindy's world

Here are some Easter photos and videos, a week late. =P

Mr. W and I went grocery shopping on Saturday, the day before Easter, and he talked about wanting to buy pre-boiled, pre-dyed eggs. There’s no such thing, I’d said. Half the fun/point of Easter egg hunts is egg creation, isn’t it? At least, that’s what my inexperienced little Asian perspective of a mostly-Western tradition tells me. I’d always wanted to dye/make Easter eggs as a kid, and since we’re Chinese in a (mostly) culturally Chinese immigrant household growing up, I couldn’t explain to my parents why I’d want to make a mess like that with perfectly good food. When I moved out after graduating college, I saw a P.A.A.S. egg-dying kit at the grocery store and bought it, wanting to add the missing piece back into my childhood, but never got around to even opening the package. I may have read the instructions in the back and decided it was too much trouble for just myself. Mr. W said that now that we have a baby, we need to give her these quintessential childhood experiences so I would have to get my virgin feet wet in egg dye. I sort of rolled my eyes about the hassle (since she’s still too young to really appreciate or participate in egg dying), but a small part of me was interested, too. Well, guess what we saw in the grocery store.

Gosh darn it, but he was right. We get to be lazy parents for another year. We tell ourselves NEXT year, we’ll really do it “right” because she would be old enough to enjoy and “help.”
Allie’s paternal grandparents had come to visit a couple of weekends ago and brought her her first Easter basket (I didn’t know about Easter baskets full of goodies being a “thing” until, like, last year, either. Apparently these Western kids get goodies, gifts and junk food in as many occasions as excited parents can muster up, often well into the kids’ adulthood. I wasn’t spoiled like that. I’m a little envious.). In it were a pair of small bouncy chick and bouncy bunny wind-up toys, hairbands/bows for her head, and this gorgeous little Easter dress that we put her in. Her nanny left a surprise Easter basket for her, as well, full of sand toys and a book, and we used her nanny’s felt Easter bag for her egg hunt. Shoes and basket from her nanny, dress from her paternal grandparents, hat from me ($1 at Target), and here’s her ensemble:

While my parents, her gong-gong and po-po looked on, Allie went to the backyard where Mr. W had randomly placed the eggs on the lawn, and Allie had her first Easter egg hunt. (We knew we didn’t want to take her to a public one just yet; I’d heard too many stories about parents getting into fights with other parents over egg hunts that somehow became a aggressive contact sports with audience participation.)

Allie enjoyed herself so much, and kept saying “More? More?” that her dada simply took the eggs out of her basket and tossed them back on the lawn in places where she had her back turned. It was, like, perpetual eggstravaganza.

My dad, her gong-gong, was super-impressed at how she knew to pick up the eggs and place them in her basket. “How she know to do that?” I said that based on this 20-second video my mom shot, it was because they were all shouting directions at her.

After the egg hunt, dada cracked open an egg and fed it to Allie as a snack.

Allie: “Wait a minute…so you’re telling me that I have to eat ALL that stuff I picked up off the ground?”
BTW, yes, the swing outside has become her outdoor high chair. Works super-well. Then we had a quickie parents-and-Allie portrait…

…and then we all went to dinner at Claim Jumper. Stepkidlet came along. She’s really good at self-portraits, even group ones.

Did I tell you guys Allie’s a mommy’s girl right now? Here’s 30 seconds of proof. She hugs me, pats my back, but when Mr. W asks for a kiss, she shakes her head. My mom then asked for a hug and Allie knew that she couldn’t reach my mom from across the table, so she pretended to reach up and hug my mom (hugging the air in front of her) as a joke. And then when invited to kiss me, she hugged me again.


The stepkidlet, who filmed the above video, laughed and joked about how Allie didn’t want to hug Mr. W, but then we passed Allie over to the other side of the booth, the stepkidlet asked for a hug, and got the same head-shake. “HA, not so funny anyMORE when it happens to YOU, is it?!” Mr. W gloated. Stepkidlet good-naturedly found that really funny, as well. In case you’re viewing this off an Apple device and can’t view videos, here’s a still of a hug. 🙂

Awww. 😀 Good note to end the post on. heh heh.

I’m kind of known to my friends as the girl who never pays full price for big-ticket items. Cars, cruises, hotels, jewelry. I’m not going cheap imitation — what I get is the same as what others get; I just don’t pay nearly as much. Some of it is luck in timing (thank you, Universe!), another part is knowing where to look and how to purchase. In the jewelry department, I’ve just received Item #2 of my Top 2 Best Purchases, Ever. You can see both #1 and #2 in this photo:

Here’s how I did it:

Item #1: The diamond chevron wedding band.
This is, of course, #1 in chronology, but it’s up in the air whether it’s better than #2. Mr. W had spent a small fortune on the engagement ring (also pictured), so I was determined not to create another giant expense on the wedding band. It was hard finding a band that worked well up against a 3-sided engagement ring anyway, so I only perused here and there, thinking if I didn’t see anything I liked, I’d just have the elaborate engagement ring double as a wedding band. A couple of friends with uniquely-shaped engagement rings had done just that.
On a drive to Vegas to visit Mr. W’s parents, we decided to make a stop at an outlet mall to stretch our legs and have lunch. We wandered by Ultra Diamonds, a retail chain jewelry store that I’m fairly familiar with, just to browse. This white gold and diamond chevron ring was deeply discounted on clearance. The price was still well into the hundreds, but I asked to see it anyway, having explained the hard-to-fit problem to the store clerk. I put the engagement ring and diamond band together, and the two matched up like they were meant to be a set. The dip in the band was at the exact right place, had the exact right width, and the little bead-set round diamonds were even of a similar color, size, shape, and setting as the diamonds on the sides of my ring (you can’t see the sides of the engagement ring in this photo, but you can see it here.).
The store clerk (I think he was the manager at that branch) told me they were doing a promotion where if we sign up to be on their emailing list, we would receive a coupon code for $50 off any purchase. He suggested Mr. W sign up, too, so that we would get $100 in discounts. I asked if this store stacked discounts, and he said they did. So we put the ring on hold, signed up, and left for Vegas in order to give the coupons time to be sent. Meanwhile, I had another reason for waiting. Ultra Diamonds was a “platinum partner” of my primary credit card, which means that my cashback bonus from the card can be redeemed for a giftcard to this retailer for double its original value. I used $100 of my cashback bonus for a giftcard to Ultra Diamonds, which gave me a $200 e-giftcard. With the other $100 in the email promo coupon, we stopped by the outlet again on our drive home from Vegas at the end of our visit and not only did I get my diamond chevron band for free, but they gave me something like $7 in change back. Basically, it was like, “Here, take our jewelry, and some extra cash, too.” Better than free.

Item #2: The Solar Seiko watch.
On Sunday, my ESQ watch started doing the tick-once-every-few-seconds thing, indicating it was running out of battery. The last watch battery I’d purchased less than 2 years ago had cost a little more because it had a 3-year warranty. The problem was that I couldn’t remember what store I’d purchased the battery from, and I couldn’t find the receipt, so I wouldn’t be able to get a free battery replacement. I could just get the battery replaced at another place, but with Murphy’s Law I’d probably find the receipt right after I did that, so I would’ve voided the warranty for nothing. I started browsing for new watches online. The crystal of that ESQ watch has a big deep scratch on it, anyway. I may be in the market for another watch.
In my surprisingly difficult hunt for a simple, clean-looking ladies’ watch in silvertone (i.e., steel with no yellow gold) with a date function, I discovered Seiko’s “Solar” line. The Solar watches run on any light source, even fluorescent. The light penetrates the watch’s face and is converted to energy for a self-recharging battery that runs the watch, and it does that so efficiently that a fully charged watch will run for 6-12 months (depending on model) without another encounter with a light source. If the watch happens to die from lack of charge because, say, you left it in a closed drawer for a few years, it needs only to be exposed to sunlight, incandescent light, or fluorescent light for minutes before it jumps to life again. 1-2 minutes in sunlight equals an hour of charge if the watch needs charging; 3 hours in sunlight will fully charge the watch. My Kindle won’t even finish charging in 3 hours. Anyway, it’s very green (as in environmentally friendly) and the never-needing-a-battery-change perk appealed to me. I think houses should be powered by Seiko solar cells. As a huge bonus, I found the line to have attractive ladies’ watches with calendar dates! The only downer is that the watches with calendars are priced between $200 and $500. Kind of hard to justify spending hundreds on a new watch when a battery replacement on my current watch with another 3-year warranty costs under $25.
I went to bed to sleep on it after looking into this watch line on Monday night. Tuesday, the image of a beautiful Seiko Solar watch was “suggested” to me thanks to sophisticated web search engines remembering what I’d looked for previously. This watch had a calendar but was way dressier than my usual taste in everyday-wear watches. It also cost $425, thanks to the 24 diamonds around its bezel. I thought I’d check out my go-to discount watch site, BlueDial, for this model anyway, just for kicks. And saw that this model was on sale for $163. Wow! I’d prefer to keep it under $120, but $163 wouldn’t break me. I decided to “think about it,” and then something else caught my eye. One of the check-out options was to pay through Amazon. I do tons of shopping on Amazon and had linked two credit cards’ cashback rewards to Amazon so that my purchases there would be made strictly from cashback bonuses, i.e., free for me. If I could pay for this watch through Amazon, that must mean that BlueDial is an affiliated seller of Amazon’s, which means I could buy through Amazon and apply my cashback toward its purchase. I logged into Amazon and did a search for this watch. There it was, only 1 left through BlueDial. I threw my remaining cashback bonus at this purchase, and ended up paying…$21 and some change out-of-pocket for a $425 watch. Score!
As a bonus, this watch arrived in 2 days and I got it on Thursday. I brought it with me to work on Friday to show my favorite Family Law judge, who is a collector of high-end watches. I’d told him the story of this watch on Thursday and he’d asked me to bring the watch in after I received it, so I did. He was very impressed (although this watch is small beans compared to the $4000 Omega Speedmaster Moon Watch he’s currently on the prowl for), and said that this watch was a better deal than my better-than-free wedding band. He recommended a trustworthy local jeweler/watch repair shop to me and Mr. W and I went there at lunch to get 4 links removed from my new watch so that I could wear it. (While I was there, I also had the jeweler re-rhodium-plate my engagement ring, and they inspected and cleaned both rings for free.) The watch face is bigger than any other watch I’d owned, but that’s the current style. And my left hand is now WAY more blinged out than I’d ever thought it would be. Less than the price of a battery change.

The jeweler, a really nice guy named Raul, was very impressed with my jewelry. The engagement ring caught his eye right away when I came in, and when Mr. W told him about the heart facet in the diamond, he immediately took out his jeweler’s loupe and checked it out. He was delighted, saying he’d never seen anything like that before. Doing the inspection of the band, he noted that the diamonds are very good, as well as consistent in shape, color and quality. I told him the story of the acquisition of #1 and he was wide-eyed and more impressed. When Mr. W told him how I got an amazing deal on the watch (which is a line the shop carries, altho they didn’t have that specific model and he was very admiring of it), he guessed, “What did you pay? Let me guess, $300?” When I told him the out-of-pocket amount I paid of $21, he froze in amazement and said, “How did you do THAT? I couldn’t even do that when I liquidated!” referring to when he was manager of a top-of-the-line fine jewelry chain that has since ceased to exist after a court-ordered liquidation. Hee hee!

BTW, I’d found the watch battery receipt and had gotten my other watch’s battery replaced for free. Now I have 2 working watches, which is good, because I probably don’t want to wear my diamond watch all the time for casual or athletic encounters, even tho it’s waterproof up to 100 meters.

One of the most fun times I’d had in recent memory happened this past Monday. It was a court holiday (thank you, Cesar Chavez), so Mr. W thought he’d take advantage by taking the day off and addressing some car issues he’s had. Nothing big, turned out he had a nail in a tire which the dealership charged $33 to patch (ouch). He could’ve gotten it done for free at America’s Tire, where I go, but he already had his car there for an oil change so he just paid the extra. That’s not the fun part, in case you’re wondering what the heck is wrong with me.

When Mr. W got the call that his car was ready for pick-up, we put Allie in my car’s carseat (forward-facing for the first time, but we had to because we had to move to the next carseat size up and it didn’t fit properly backward facing. Allie is past the legal height and weight requirements for mandatory backward-facing, altho the recommendation is back-facing until age 2. She’s still backward-facing in Mr. W’s car, which we use to transport her 99.9% of the time), I drove, Mr. W climbed in the front passenger seat. I popped in a Pussycat Dolls CD, and I could see in the rear-view mirror and when I’d glance over my shoulder for a lane change that Allie was bopping along to the music, but whenever I or Mr. W would turn and look at her, she’d stop and just solemnly look back at us, first at one, blink, then eyeballs roll to the other parent, blink, eyeballs roll back to the first parent. Mr. W commented she looked like she was watching a very serious ping pong ball match.

Soon we dropped Mr. W off, and it was just Allie and me in my car driving home. The music came back again, and THIS time, she wiggle-wiggled to the music, bobbed her head, threw her hands in the air to the beat, smiled and laughed. I car-danced with her to PCD’s “Wait a Minute” and we both laughed and watched each other (me being careful to only turn around during red lights, of course). I guess she was just self-conscious when dada was in the car with her. She has been Team Mommy for awhile now. It made for a great drive home.

The stepkidlet took this photo of Allie on Easter Day (Sunday).

Simple photo, not much to the composition. Allie’s just standing and smiling in the living room holding her Easter basket, ready to go in the backyard for her first egg hunt. But here’s what it took to GET that shot!

Crazy, huh? The things we have to do for kid photos…

The last time this happened, I was able to see the bright side and was and still am grateful. However, this just should not, on principle, be repeatedly happening. I’ve just had to write this email to my bank:

I’m writing to report an incident that has occurred, for the second time, with my Chase Premier Personal Checking account.

A fraudulent check was allowed to go through on this account on 3/20/13 in the amount of $29.95, despite the fact that the check (which has a scanned image available online) has many glaring obvious signs that it is fraudulent:
1.) The “authorized by” name is not mine; it’s “[Mr. W]”, which is a name that is NOT on this account. (This is not a joint account.)
2.) The sequence of the check number is totally off; among a bunch of legitimate check numbers in the 600s (612, 613, 614), the fraudulent check number is 6052994.
3.) The check is issued under Washington Mutual Bank FA ASB, and not Chase Bank like all of my other checks.
4.) There’s no signature whatsoever on this check either by the supposed issuer of this check, or by the payee.

I’m alarmed that with all of the above red flags, the check was still permitted to go through and be honored by my checking account, the only link to my account being the routing number and account number at the bottom of this fraudulent check.

Even more alarming is the fact that this is the SECOND TIME something like this has happened at Chase Bank, the first time in January 2011 under very similar circumstances (fake check with a different name, address, banking institution name, no signature, sequence number way higher than my current sequences, and my name was nowhere on the check, only my routing number and account number on the bottom). Upon the first incident, I had alerted Chase Bank and the fraud department recommendation is that as it appears the account has been compromised, I should close the account immediately and open another checking account under a new number. I did this, to much trouble as I had to stop and transfer all direct deposits, automatic billpays, and everything linked to this account.

I again alerted the fraud department this time by calling 866-564-2262 on 3-26-13, and was again advised to close this account and set up a new one, and that I would be credited the fraudulent check’s amount of $29.95 and get a return call from someone within the fraud department within 24 hours. It’s been 2 days and I haven’t received a call nor seen the credit applied to my account.

Chase Bank has always provided me with excellent customer service, pretty much unrivaled by any other bank I have done business with, and I would prefer not to switch banks. With Chase, I have my checking account, a joint savings account with my husband, a credit card, and a HELOC. It is a hassle to move everything to another bank, and I would prefer not to do that. However, I have no confidence that Chase Bank has security measures in place to prevent money from being stolen from me, even in the current small amount of $29.95. It seems far too easy for a fake check with blaring signs of its inauthenticity to pass muster with whomever processes the checks, and it’s a scary to think that I may have easily lost thousands of dollars due to fake checks because of someone’s carelessness in making sure the name on the check at least matches the name on the account. It is equally stressful to think that I would have to close/reopen accounts, unlink and relink billpays, direct deposits, etc. every couple of years because of something like this recurring, even though I’ve already changed account numbers from the last fraudulent check’s processing.

I regret that I may not be able continue doing business with Chase Bank, but would like you to be aware of what is occurring with regards to your security measures.

Thank you.
Cindy [last name]

There are such striking similarities between this occurrence and the last one in 2011 that I now think it’s a total scam by the same people, possibly an inside job. How else could people possibly keep linking my individual personal checking account, in which Mr. W is never mentioned, to Mr. W, even tho this is 2 different account numbers? They must’ve started with our joint account and then used his name to issue the fake check from the linked checking account, this time made out to some “Web Entertainment” company that I also believe is fake because the reference phone number of this company again is not a working number. So someone makes up a fake company, opens an account under the fake company name, steals a bunch of $29.95 payments in fake checks from checking accounts and puts it in their fake company account, then withdraws the cash and closes the account before many red flags are raised by the victims, who may see an ambiguous “Web Entertainment” company and just figure it’s some online purchase or subscription they’d forgotten about. I don’t use e-checks often, maybe once a year to occasionally pay my property taxes that way (which was done AFTER the date of this scam this year), so it’s not like my checking account info is all out there with shady companies. The inside person looks up checking account info on the Chase databanks for the fake checks, then he or someone in alliance allows all these fake checks to go through.

As soon as I find a fully-accessible bank that won’t nickel-and-dime me for billpays and fees and ATM usage, I’m out. Bye, Chase. You made perfect products for me, but this is just not acceptable.

It’s amusing to see the kind of stuff a toddler can reach just because she’s taller than she should be — or at least, taller than the average girl her age (by a lot!). There’s no hiding things above Allie on the counter or the desk or the couch or the shelves, because she can see the item from a few feet away, so she just walks up to the surface and waves her hand around on top and she can reach pretty much anything. I’m glad I didn’t waste time babyproofing the lower parts of the house. If anything, she misses lower items (wires and electricity sockets) because they’re below her line of vision. This extra height also means she completely skipped the ways babies normally learn to descend stairways. My godbrother used to turn and get on his stomach, then slide down the carpeted stairs on his tummy feet-first. Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump. When he got older, he would booty-scoot by sitting on the top step with his feet on the step below, then carefully bringing his butt down to the step his feet are on, lowering his feet to the next step, getting to the edge of that step and sitting, then going down another step. MY kid is tall enough that she can take each step one foot at a time, so she goes up the stairs holding on to the vertical bars of the railing, putting one foot on each step, and she goes down the same way. I’d prefer her to take a step down with one foot then let the second foot join that first foot on the same step before she moves on to the next one, but she doesn’t always do that. And her legs are strong enough to support her body weight and bring herself up/down to the next step single-leggedly. Scary. When she was younger, we would let her crawl up the stairs while we stood close behind her in case of a backwards tumble, and we simply wouldn’t let her go down the stairs on her own. Now that she’s coordinated enough to go down, she totally skipped the baby methods. She actually has visible calf muscle definition. I may have wished a little too hard for her to grow up when she was an infant.

Here are two favorite videos, sent by my mom, to illustrate some of the stuff I was talking about in my last post.

This is Allie doing the slide on her own.

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
And this is Allie in her first co-ed soccer game with some kids from my parents’ neighborhood. (She’s the youngest one by FAR; the next one up is 3 years old.)

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
I found the last one HILARIOUS cuz Allie’s just following the kids running around, and at one point she gets distracted and wanders off the “field.” One of the older kids tries to get her back on track and points out the ball to her, but she doesn’t see it and goes the wrong way. And then she puts out her hands in a shrug and says, “Ball?” Like, Where’s the ball? And then she decides it’s more fun to march to the beat of her own drum anyway.

Baby-boo is 16 months old today!

We celebrated by doing one of Allie’s favorite things: taking a bike ride to the beach.

Allie loves this baby seat, the Ibert. Mr. W did a lot of research and this came highly recommended. Not bad at about $80, easy to install and to remove if Allie isn’t going to be riding with him. Her legs don’t get in the way kicking. She feels nice and secure with the snap-down bar and the straps. She loves that thing so much that the other day, when it was time to get her out of the bike, she protested, and pulled the bar back down and snapped it closed herself, holding it down with her hands so Mr. W couldn’t lift her out. He thought that was hilarious. This also gives her more visibility than pulling her in the bike trailer, and allows more interaction between the rider and the baby. The trailer is good for less ideal weather, longer rides, or multiple/bigger kids. The extra interaction is how Mr. W discovered that Allie hums when riding, and occasionally says, “Wheeee.” She also points out stuff to him as they go.

Allie vocabulary seems to have blossomed this month. She uses words we didn’t even know she knew. Walking through the garage, she pointed at our bikes mounted on the wall and said, “Bike?” We thought Jayne pointed out our bikes to her when they would leave for their stroller walks to the park by exiting the garage, but Jayne said she never did. “We see other kids ride bikes, though, and I’d tell her to look at the kids on their bikes.” Sure enough, Allie points and says “bike” whenever she sees anyone ride by on a bicycle. Earlier in the week, she pointed up and said, “Moon.” There was indeed the moon hanging in the sky. We theorize that she got that from our readings of “Goodnight, Moon,” because each time she points out the moon, it would be followed by a wave and a “bye-bye.” Riding on the bike, each time we pass a playground, she’d point and say, “Pock!” (park) and whimper in protest when we wouldn’t stop. We took her to my parents’ house this morning and she got to play most of the morning at the playground across the street from their house. When we left, she said waved at the direction of the park and said, “Bye-bye pock.” Today, she called her snack smoothie a “smeemee” and pointed whenever she was ready for more. She also says more, although it comes out more like “mo.” She attempts to emulate words more, saying “beet” when I fed her beets. She got a playful glint in her eye earlier when she emptied all the blocks out of the wooden box they come in and said, “Hat,” then turned the box upside down and put it on her head. Also today, she pointed up at the wallpaper trim of Pooh and friends in her room and said, “Pooh.” Even when she’s not talking, we’ve all been surprised recently by how much she apparently understands. “Hold on to the swing,” “throw the ball,” “put that rock over there,” “put this shirt in the hamper,” “blow a kiss,” “where’s mama’s eyebrow?”, “pick up that hat and bring it to me,” “blow this dandelion fluff.” She did it all.

In the car this morning coming home, after playing at the park, I noted the glazed look on her face and said to Mr. W, “She’s pooped.” Allie snapped out of her reverie, looked at me with a surprised expression, moved her seat belt buckle aside, pointed at her butt/diaper, and said, “Poo?” I laughed.

She takes her single nap at noonish, and we can’t figure out why she’ll sleep over 2 hours with us and about 90 minutes with Jayne. I’m thinking Jayne talks on the phone when Allie’s napping and Allie can hear it. Allie still nurses twice a day, about 10 minutes in the morning after she wakes up and 20 minutes before she goes to bed.

She’s still a mama’s girl. We took her for a quick visit to Dwaine’s before getting to my parents’ house, and as she’d only been there once, she was very shy and clung to me. We did manage to get a picture, though.

If she’s scared or hurt, dada isn’t enough, she verbally would request me. Most of the time, if she’s with Mr. W so I could get something done, I can’t walk by her without her dropping whatever she’s doing and whining until I pick her up or she gets to follow me around. I consider this only fair given that for the first almost-year of her life, she was totally daddy’s girl. As long as she’s got better things to do, however, she’ll let others watch her without me. At the playground by my parents’ house today, I wasn’t there half the time, and she had a blast playing with some other kids who were there, chasing around a ball, being pushed by grandma and grandpa on the swing, and she realized she could climb up a toddler section on her own, walk across the short platform, and sit at the edge of a small slide, push off, scoot herself off the slide the rest of the way, and get down all on her own. She’s on her way to independence.

Jayne reports that Allie is usually the best-behaved girl at the park; she’d run up to strange kids and play with them, help them put sand in their buckets, touch them and hug them. The problem are the mean kids who would push her away and the other day, Jayne let Allie crawl into a playground tunnel after a little boy, but got up to check on them, and saw the little boy in the tunnel trying to step on Allie’s fingers. Mr. W is a little concerned that because Allie doesn’t interact much with other little kids (like siblings), she doesn’t learn to be wary of kids so she’ll get abused when she eventually goes into daycare or preschool. I won’t worry about that, yet. For now, I’ll just enjoy the fact that my baby is friendly and loving and loves to help and share. She’s big enough to stand her ground if she needs to, and besides, both Dwaine and Andrae had offered to give her karate lessons when she’s older. 🙂

I was quietly hurrying down the stairs earlier (quietly because the baby and the hubby and the cat are all asleep) when a mental image popped up of me tripping on the stairs and falling down, then being unable to get back up. First thought: “How do I fall quietly so I don’t wake the baby up?” Second thought: “If I were stuck here with a broken leg, how do I get hubby to wake up and help me without waking up the baby?” Third thought: “If I were seriously injured here and needed medical attention, would I REALLY avoid calling out for help cuz I don’t want to wake the baby? Would I really just resign myself to laying here quietly hoping to be discovered soon?” I was actually stuck on that last one. So I just slowed down and walked more carefully, lest I actually have to make that decision due to carelessness.

My judge needed to work on some stuff that had an impending deadline, so he took a vacation day to come in to work. For him, this means that since he’s technically “on vacation,” he won’t be sent new hearings and he could put all his attention on the deadline stuff uninterrupted. For me, however, this means I can be floated to fill in for anyone, since my courtroom is technically “dark,” or not open for business. Usually I dread these days cuz this is how I ended up nearly locked out of the parking structure (while my car was locked in it) in Compton after hours, how I had various days from hell including this one in Torrance Court, and why I cried when I was very pregnant and I was told to take public transportation to Compton Court to fill in.

Today, however, I was floated out to a judge just upstairs in the building whom I like, and that courtroom had an easy enough morning that I was able to bring more pertinent work with me and finish it up before anything happened in that judge’s courtroom. We ended up getting a 1-count child molestation jury trial, and we started the rather difficult task of picking a jury (since this is a sensitive issues to many people). The judge in his usual style jokingly picked on me, and laughed or played along when I’d occasionally dare make a comeback comment. I had a great time, made even more interesting because at lunch, a film crew came through to film a courtroom scene segment for a program that the local law enforcement, fire department, and some parent groups were putting together for high school kids for prevention of drunk driving. This judge did a cameo, playing himself as he sentenced one of the high school kids in the hypothetical scenario they were depicting to the high-term of 10 years in state prison for vehicular manslaughter. The bailiff also did a cameo, walking in with the student in handcuffs and chains, and I was just there as a prop at the clerk’s desk so it looks like the courtroom is in full swing. I asked the director/cameraman if I could snap a photo of the behind-the-scenes as they set up a shot, and he said sure, as long as I don’t capture his bald spot. We all laughed, and I thought, “I don’t even see a bald spot.” So I took this one really quick.

It wasn’t until way later after work when I examined this photo that I realized, oops, I did what he’d told me not to do. But it’s blurry anyway.
The people were really nice, and very grateful for our allowing them to do this and for all the advisory answers we gave them to their courtroom procedure questions. The director/cameraman invited me to go down and pretend I was setting up the shot, and he took these photos on my cameraphone for me. Ah, the eye of a professional.

An artsy angle:

I’d overheard them discussing something about a verdict scene, so I asked them if they needed sample verdict language. They said they hadn’t planned to film the verdict scene today, but asked me about it and the director had the sudden inspiration of doing a voice-over of the verdicts being read while the film showed images of photos of the defendant from baby to the mess he was in now. So I typed up the two verdicts, printed 3 copies out so the production team, school and student actor could have them as souvenirs (they requested them), and the director asked me to do the voice-over for the reading of the verdicts, since it would be my job in a courtroom anyway. I went to the mike, recorded it in one take, the director was happy and excited, and even had me turn the microphone toward the crew as they stood far away so they could chorus “yes” as voice-over pretend-jurors when I asked, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, are the verdicts that I have just read, your verdicts, so say you one and so say you all?” When the production team left, they shook my hand and promised to send copies of the finished film and asked me for the T-shirt size I wear, so I guess I’m getting a thank-you gift. I wonder what would be on the shirt.

Super-fun day at work.