Shall we say cr--rrazy? (Part I)

****So I'm not sure if ethics rules prohibit me from blogging about unnamed psycho clients or not, so just to be safe, I'm changing some of the facts and keeping it as anonymous as possible. And the only reason its part I is not because I'll be leaving you hanging you on the edge of your chair or anything, but its kind of a long story and I have a limited amount of time. And what happens later is what I actually wanted to blog about, but it doesn't make a whole lot sense unless I give you some background, which makes for a lot of reading in one sitting.

Anyway, back in Dec., I had a lady come into work asking for help. She had a court hearing the following day regarding visitations of her young son. She and her ex had been divorced for some years now, and apparently she didn't get to visit her son. Like EVER. I asked her how come, and she said it was because her ex kept him from her. I asked her how long it had been, and she said 2 yrs. I felt a little bad, but was unable to attend the hearing because of a prior commitment (I don't understand why people wait until the absolute last minute before consulting an attorney. I happen to know how much notice people get of impending legal action and it sure as heck ain't one night). I advised that she find another attorney.

Two days later, she showed up back at the office. She had been unable to find an attorney and had represented herself at the hearing. Its actually not that big of a deal -- a lot of people in divorce cases do, and her ex didn't have an attorney either. But apparently, the judge had yelled at her. She was almost crying and asked again for help. Again, I felt a little bad, but couldn't think of that much to do for her. The judge's points had been pretty valid. He had placed the burden of visiting her son on her and reprimanded her for not taking advantage of her scheduled visitations. In two years, although her court order gave her the right to have her son every other weekend, she hadn't attempted to pick him up or arrange a visit once. The judge re-established the visitation schedule and ordered her to follow it.

I told her the same thing. She complained that her ex verbally abused her and prevented her from coming to pick him up. She claimed that the ex enrolled the child in soccer just so she wouldn't be able to take him on wknds. He scared her. He was difficult. And her son believed everything his father told him and didn't want to visit his mother. The kid lived in the east bay with his father, it was hard for her to get out there. And on and on and on. The best was when she said that she believed that her ex did all these things (i.e. made her life so difficult) because he wanted her back. Yes, of course! Such a logical conclusion, no? I'm guessing it was this kind of mindset that drew her to him in the first place and kept him walking all over her. As bad as I felt, I was more frustrated by her helpless.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to sound insensitive or anything but you should have heard her. Pretty much anything I suggested was shot down because she just couldn't do it. And I'm an attorney not a counselor. All I can do is explain her legal options, not give her balls. Anyway, I offered to write a letter for her to her ex to strictly explain his legal obligation regarding the visitation schedule. And I offered to call him to set him straight if he denied her the visitations. She wanted to file for custody then and there. But unless she develops some pattern of visitation, I told her she wouldn't get very far. The son is 11, wants to stay with his dad, and has been doing well with him. As of now, she's the parent that mostly abandoned him. Fair or not, that's how I was sure it would go down in court.

End of story, I thought. I made a few calls and wrote a few letters, and then I didn't hear any more from her so assumed the visits were going well. Well, fast forward to Mon of this week. She calls me, frantically explaning that the ex has moved to Mexico. I couldn't make any sense of what she was saying. But it turns out that he moved to Mexico and the kid was still here, living with his stepmother. Except that no one had picked him up at the end of the wknd visit so he was actually with his mom, my "client." She didn't know what to do, she wanted to file for custody again. And what should she do about her son's school -- she didn't know how to contact them to let them know he wouldn't be in today because she didn't know what school he went to! Dude, what am I, a life skills coach or something?

I called her back with a few questions -- how did she know her ex had moved to Mexico for good and what was her custody status anyway? Did they share legal custody or not? And a few other things about what she ought to do. No response.

Today, she called again complaining that I'd never called her back. Um, hello? Just cuz you don't like what I tell you, you can't pretend you never got the message. The stepmother had gotten the cops involved and came down to pick up the kid. She kept saying "kids" and I was SO confused until she finally explained there's a 19yo daughter in the picture also. So basically, she's managed to isolate 2 children to the point where neither want to visit her. And some how its not her fault but everyone else's. The cops recognized that the stepmother had no say but the kid is a few weeks from finishing school for the year, had testing, etc. So the kid was taken back to his dad's house (even though I guess his dad isn't living there anymore).

Sticky situations

Ew. Ew. Ew. My legs have had just about all they can take this week. First i had this incident with some cream, sugar, and a coffee cup that ended with super sweet vanilla caramel creamer running down my legs. THEN, last night's thing with the dog turds . . . EW!!!! I'm scared to leave my desk at work today in fear of what might happen next.

I suppose the coffee/cream thing was the most dramatic. I was in the break room getting coffee as usual. And I have a pretty specific coffee ritual. First some sugar and cream in the bottom of the cup (it mixes better that way!). Then nuke it for a few seconds (cuz the coffee gets all cold otherwise, of course). So I'm pulling the mug out of the microwave, and I don't know what happened, but I dropped it on the counter. It shattered and I got creamer and sugar EVERYWHERE. All over the counter, the floor, myself. Basically all over the break room. Dude, I didn't even know I had that much creamer in the cup, but it certainly looked like a lot when I saw it streaming down my legs. My skirt was a mess, splotches of cream all over the place. I'm hoping the dry cleaner can fix it. And then of course, I had to be using sugar-in-the-raw, so I ended up big ol' sugar crystals all stuck everywhere on my calves, ankles, etc. I was wearing sandals, too, and got a bunch of sticky creamy under my foot. Basically it was a disaster. I cleaned everything up, I thought, and went home and changed at lunch. Which wasn't soon enough -- I had to sit around in my sticky skirt all morning!! Well, I guess I didn't have to, but I did. I don't know, I got to work late already, I didn't want to be running back home again.

It was great. I was in our bathroom, trying to wash my feet and legs in the sink. I probably went through a dozen paper towels cleaning everything up. I tried to clean the carpet but you could still see all the sugar laying around all over the place. And then I'm sitting at my desk a little later and thought I felt an itch in my toes. I looked and it turned out that I still had sugar crystals stuck between my toes!!! AND when I got back from lunch later, our admin told me that the cream had actually flown a lot farther than I realized. Apparently, it had also sprayed all over the table which sits a few feet away. And there was a nice long stream dripping down the backs of one of the chairs. Lovely. I'm SO glad no one was using the break room for a meeting that day. Every once in a while, if our conference room is already in use, a couple of the attorneys will use the break room to see clients. How great would that have been. As it was, the entire room smelled like extra sweet vanilla caramel (of course my creamer had to be vanilla caramel that day, too), and I'm pretty sure I gave off quite the odor too.

Anyway, that was on Tues. And honestly, I'm still recovering - I haven't gone near the microwave since. So then yesterday evening, I was out walking the dogs. Had all three of them on leash like always. And its always a little bit of a pain with all 3 of them, especially when one of them poops. Cuz then I'm trying to hold them all still while I pick up the turd, and afterwards, I'm walking around with 3 dogs and bags of poop until I find a garbage can. Plus they never want to poop at the same time so I always have 2 that are trying to still keep walking while the other one is hunkering down. So its already a bit of a challenge.

Yesterday, we get to a corner and Tucker starts doing his thing. There's another guy walking his dog coming up on us, so Bandit and Mia are already feisty and trying to check him out. Tucker sees him and can barely wait to finish pooping, too. The guy says he's going to walk around us, and that's cool. I'm trying to hold them all still and reach over to pick up the poop at the same. I should probably mention too that frickin' Tucker likes to kick after he takes dumps -- I don't know what he thinks he's covering, but he usually misses. And its not like he's dumping on dirt usually, so its not that big of deal. Actually, they all seem to like to find the nicest, most well-taken care of lawns before they do their deeds. I feel bad for the owners. But makes it easier it on me I guess, cuz even when he kicks, its just little pieces of grass flying around anyway.

But yesterday, he was so excited by the sight of the other dog that he's not even paying attention to where he's kicking. You do see where this is going right? Before I know it, he's stepping on his own turd and THEN kicking one out right onto my leg!!! And of course it sticks right on my leg, so I'm flailing around trying to get it off of me. I'm so mad at this point that I'm yelling at Tucker and trying to kick him while I'm at it. So he gets even more antsy and confused and kicks his turds around some more. So by this point, the guy with the dog is probably thinking I'm an idiot. And little pieces of turd are lying all over the sidewalk and some body's lawn. Not to mention a streak of it on my leg. I don't know how else to get it off my leg, so I take one of my poop bags and try to clean it up and only manage to streak it some more. And then I try to pick up the poop and its a huge mess collecting all the pieces, half of which has been stepped on and smeared all over the grass. And some how in all the commotion, I even have a little bit of turd on my finger (probably from trying to pick all the crap up) and I see a little bit on the leash too as I'm finally walking away.

To cap it all off, we were in front of the high school when it all went down, and the marching band and color guard were practicing in the parking lot, and probably watching me beating on my dog and trying to get poop off my leg.

So honestly, do you wonder why I'm reluctant to drink, eat, or really do much of anything at all today?

That's my face!

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about growing old. Every time I look through my hair, I find long strands of white. I make G look though them and pull out the white ones. It makes for very exciting Sat afternoons, he loves it of course. :) A few months ago, I did something to my left hip/leg. Not quite sure what, think I might have just pulled it working out and it still kind of aches in the mornings or when I'm walking on uneven ground. I swear, I thought it was sympathy pain or something for Mia when I first felt it, you know what with her hip issues and all. But she's been doing a lot better now and I still hurt. So I don't know. And then a couple of weeks ago, I was carrying something out of my car, didn't see the side view mirror in front of me and banged into it, totally bruising my ribs. I bump into things all the time actually, and don't even know it until I see the bruise a couple of days later.

So anyway, I feel old and creaky. And with another birthday around the corner, I can't help wondering, if I'm like this now, how will I be when I'm really old? I guess that's why I was kind of intrigued when I ran into this website that predicts how you'll look 10, 20, 40 years from now. Its actually kind of cool. Basically they ask you to send in your two ugliest pictures of yourself ever (well, not really, but they have rules for how pics should look and I gotta say, I followed the rules and mine weren't particularly flattering). They also ask you to mark specific features on your face -- that part's a little tedious. You submit, and they send you an email when your reconstructed face is ready, in a few hours or so.

I showed G the pics and asked him how he would feel about being married to this woman
20 years from now, and he started laughing, and thought the face looked a little fat, so I guess it 'll depends on how the rest of me looks.

At 40, all I got was a "Um, babe, I don't know . . . " I know, I know, I married a charmer for sure.

But the program actually does more than just predict how we'll age. It takes your features and shows you how you'd look with European, Southeast Asian, African, and East Indian features. It rates how closely your features actually align with these groups. When you first send them your face, they ask you what your ethnicity is. And of these, I figured I'm the closest to East Indian so I marked that -- though why they'd focus on just the eastern part of India is beyond me. But the kicker was that when they rated my face, I wasn't anywhere close to having East Indian features, or any of the others for that matter. Ha, go figure.

Here's how I might look as a black girl by the way, just as an example:


The program also takes your characteristics and amplifies them. For example, it statistically "beautifies" you, though I'm not entirely sure what that means. Like beautifies you according to who exactly? Actually though, I remember learning in an undergrad class that although personal tastes might differ across cultures, the underlying factors of attractiveness are actually the same and are driven by evolution. For example, I vaguely remember the ideal waist-hip ratio in women being one that best promotes childbearing (and guys are naturally drawn to this over skinny models). Anyway, I'm not sure if this particular software program took the same Ethical Issues in the Neuro-sciences class, but it attempts to statistically gauge your beauty and decided I rated 65% on the attractiveness scale. I'm not sure if I should be pleased or annoyed. Is 65% good? I know its better than average but I thought I was cuter than that!! And is this "beautified" version of my face more attractive? Hmm . . .


The program built a caricature of my face, too, exaggerating my idiosyncratic characteristics, and clearly thought I have huge eyes.

But my absolute all-time favorite is this image of how I might look as a very manly man.

Moving on

I've gotten used to working with smart people, and that's probably one of the things I'll miss the most when I start my new job in a few weeks. Well, that, my five-minute commute, coming home for lunch, being in charge of my own hours, the variety of cases I get to work on, etc. Going in to get fingerprinted last week for the new job's background check, I already began to realize how different working for the federal government will be.

For one thing, around here, everyone's pretty darn sharp. Between them, there's not much of anything I can't get answered. And even the oldest attorney (in his 80s) might not know how to use the computer or remember where he set his file down (honestly, neither can I half the time) but he doesn't miss a beat when it comes to the legal stuff.

I'm pretty sure the conversation I had at the federal office last week would have never happened here. Well, some of the guys here have poor hearing, so maybe if the hearing aid had been running low on batteries . . . . But I'm pretty sure the guy at the new place is just downright dumb.

So I got my fingerprints taken for my background check -- not automated, had to actually run my hands in ink, that was fun. Then I walked over to the office supervisor's desk to hand over my forms. The first thing I mention is that my documents are all partially in my old name, partially in my new. But I brought my marriage license to show that I'm married now, so hopefully they recognize that I'm the same person. Apparently I had launched into Greek or something cuz clearly this guy did not understand what I was saying. He launched into this long spiel about the kind of documents I need (dude, its pretty much the same documents any employer asks for -- either a passport or DL/social security card -- I HAVE worked before for crying out loud and what did that have to do with me getting married anyway?). So anyway, he finished his little monologue, I did try to interject a couple of times to say that I brought ALL of my documents because most of them are still in my old name . . . my DL is interim one and has no pic, my passport is in my old name, my social security card is the only one that's fully in my new name but has no picture ID either. But he seemed intent on whatever his deal was so I finally just stopped talking.

About 10 minutes later, he finally actually LOOKED at my documents so that he could make copies. And I literarally saw the moment his little brain clicked into gear, as he asked, "Oh did you change your name recently?" I explained that yes, as a matter of fact, I had. "Hmm, that might slow down the background check. Let me call some one to ask." So lucky me, I had to sit there for 10 MORE minutes while he tried to figure out how to deal with this totally earth shattering new development.

Awesome, government work here I come.

Photo Moments

Featuring my baby, Mia . . . probably the most spoiled of the 3. Its hard to not spoil when I can remember her being a tiny little puppy curling up on my lap, and she still looks at me with little puppy eyes and starts wagging her tail when she wants something. And she's definitely the most photographed - Bandit is a little more photo-shy and Tucker looks scary in pics.


Here she is sporting her new "purse" - this squeaky toy that she can't seem to get enough of. Don't let the sad eyes fool you either, she might have been growling under her breath at Bandit for getting close to her toy when we took this. Even tries to bring it to bed with her sometimes and we have to take it away.



Checking out G's camera -- just before she licked the lens!

Fresh Dirt

Its been fun to see the daily progress in our garden. We're probably dorks but G and I get so thrilled at every little seedling that makes its way through the dirt. Even the tiniest little spurt of growth is exciting. Our hard work is finally starting to show, too, which is nice. But I think we definitely qualify as gardening junkies now. I salivate over the garden landscapes I see in Sunset magazine. G always points out the nice yards we run across as we're out walking the dogs. Terrible, huh?

The flowers are in bloom. The cherry tree lost its blossoms but has lots of little green cherries, probably 5x more than the small little handful we got last year. The front yard can probably use a bit more work but all in all, its promising to be a good summer.

This last weekend we finally started putting some of our seedlings into the ground. The squash has been coming along well, and they're so hardy that we decided that they'd brave the cold nights just fine. So they've been scattered around the yard.

We have 6 squashes this year so we thought we'd try to plant this one in the shade where nothing else can really grow. If it dies, well, we're already going to have more zucchini than we know what to do with.

These 3 - a zuke, butternut, and yellow squash can battle it out amongst themselves. There should be plenty of room for all of them, but hopefully one doesn't choke out the other.

Maybe the hardiest of the 3, but they're all pretty impressive already. It was crazy, one of them looked a little wilted in the morning so we decided to hold off on transplanting it. But a couple of hours in the shade and it perked right up, getting even bigger than before, if that's even possible.

We planted the strawberries in the front. There's been a lot written these days about edible front yards. And I'm not going there yet, but I have to admit that I'm a little intrigued. We do occasionally get kids messing around in our front yard, so I'd hate to tempt them more. But between the dogs (one night, I let them out when I heard horsing around and some kid who was still hanging around the yard actually kind of dropped to the ground as Mia rushed him . . . probably to lick him, but he didn't know that) and G scaring them off with a pellet gun (that was pretty hilarious too, they took off running), we're probably safe. So we're hoping to start a little something in the front yard this year -- a few strawberry plants, hopefully a blackberry bush if I can find one, and a grape vine for our front porch. If it works, we might be looking at even more crops next year.

One of the strawberry plants already has a few berries!


And of course, our pride and joy is our "pepper kingdom." G ordered a bunch of crazy pepper plants from an online vendor in the east coast. So we're now the owners of some of the hottest peppers in the world. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the hottest pepper is one from India called Bhut Jolokia. Guess whose house you can check it out at this summer? We have some other super hot ones to0 -- 2 different varieties of habaneros, something else called the Trinidad Scorpion and the Devil's Tongue. Plus we still have the tamer ones we grew last year -- some serranos, jalapenos, thai dragons, cayennes. We planted all of the peppers in a planter box last year and stuck it in our dog run where they get the most sun. This year, we've decided to add to the group by planting the new varieties in individual planters that are big enough to house them throughout the season. The entire collection (along with some sweet peppers) is now ready for viewing. And of course, if you're looking for some heat later this summer, come on by.

Its nice to know that our dog run is getting some use after all, seeing as how our dogs don't actually hang out in it.

Next stop, Ghetto-ville

Sometimes, I have to remind myself that I do not, do NOT live in the ghetto. And really we don't. But every so often, something happens and I think, man, you could have fooled me.

Take for example, that time I lost Tucker while we were out walking in the hills by our house. He took off, and I wandered around for an hour looking for him. Seriously, walked for an HOUR in the sun with 3 other extremely tired dogs (we were dogsitting one) calling his name and getting more and more pissed. Turns out there's a little homeless camp tucked away there, and I wandered in thinking maybe Tucker had been enticed by the food laying around all over the place. The nice homeless man that was there hadn't seen him. But he got on his pre-paid cell phone and called his buddy on the other end of the park to see if a dog had come drifting over to that camp. Sadly, no. All right, you're right, that's not ghetto, that's downright hospitable. Who knew there was such a tight knit bum circle in town.

Well then what about that time I found a homeless guy laying on the street when I got into work one morning? He was just laying there, his head on the curb, his bike lying sideways next to him. I tried to ignore him but then felt bad and went over. Called out to him a few times, no response. Finally decided to call 911, thinking he could have fallen off his bike and landed that way. Big shocker, when the cops came out, they said they'd seen him around town a lot and he was probably just taking a nap. But they couldn't wake him up either and ended up calling the paramedics. I might not live in the ghetto but my old office definitely reeked of it.

Not to mention the alley behind our house could have come straight out of ghetto-ville too. And I know, cuz I got into a ghetto fight back there not that long ago. Our garage is detached and leads out to the alley. But the stupid people that live there seem to think its ok to just park where ever they please. So I open the garage door one morning, in a rush as always, and there's this car parked right in front of the garage. I don't know what else to do so I just start honking my horn, all the while looking for the local police number to call to get a tow. FINALLY, about 5 minutes later, this big fat lady comes strolling out in her bathrobe. And mind you, its not that early, maybe like 9? On a weekday! Anyway, she kind of strolled out, clearly in no hurry and walked over to her car as if parking there is completely normal, and actually looking like I might have inconvenienced her a little. So I might have, er, um, gotten into a little bitch fight -- i mean, just verbal, but there might have a bit of the "oh no you DIDN'Ts" coming out of our mouths.

There might have been a similar incident with the family who let their pit bull out to attack our dogs one night while I was out walking them. A heated um, discussion, that ended with one ass-wipe asking for my # and me cussing him out and threatening to call the cops and animal control.

So anyway, I guess it was only a matter of time before I got another taste of Hollister's finest. . . this time in the form of a definitely funky homeless man walking into our office asking to check his email, leaving a fine odor of BO permeating throughout the building in his wake. Damn, I knew we should have taken off the "free internet for bums sign" from underneath our law firm title!