Wanna-be optimist

i woke up around 9:50am Three Sundays Ago, sleeping in the guest bedroom in my Mother's house in New Jersey.
i would have liked to have kept on sleeping, but i forced myself to get out of bed because there were things that needed my attention.
There Are Always Things That Need My Attention.

after doing my morning things, i went down to the kitchen and i looked through my Parents' taxes.
with my Father in the hospital when tax season came around, we had to hire a professional to do my Parents' taxes, because i had other problems.
the CPA sent over what he'd done, and i had to look it all over, and then get my Mother to sign a bunch of things.

after that, i went back up to the room, fired up my computer, and sent an e-mail to our New Jersey Real Estate Attorney with pictures that i'd taken of the deed to the house, and a property survey and my Mother's driver's license and my Father's death certificate.
all stuff that he will need to effectuate the sale of the house at the end of April.

next, i had to spend some time installing new smoke / CO2 detectors around the house, because the ones that we have in the house aren't good enough, somehow.
the fucking smoke detector cartels have rigged the system where you can't sell a house in New Jersey without certifying that you have the right kind of smoke detectors in all the right places, and the local firemen all get a taste, doing code inspections.
we failed the inspection that i'd hastily arranged, so now that i am in town, my Mother and i had to buy new smoke detectors for $180, and now i had to install them.
which wouldn't be a problem if i grew up in a normal house, but my Father's tool kit consists of one hammer, one Phillips-head screw driver and a roll of masking tape.
i never even saw a power tool until i got together with the PSE, and whenever my Father needed anything hung up, he would just call a handyman.
so, i had to hang three new smoke / CO2 detectors with just a hammer and screw driver, no power-dril, no way to put in drywall anchors.
which was obnoxious and also, quite possible against code, depending on how much the Fireman Inspectors want to be assholes?
i guess we'll find out.

i spent a little while going through all of the keys on my dead Father's key ring, figuring out which keys were for which doors in the house, and then labeling them accordingly for the people who will be assuming ownership of the house.
then, at 12:30pm, i toasted a bagel for lunch.

at 1:00pm i set myself to task of sorting through my Father's papers, search and destroy.
this was what took up most of my time during the month i was in New Jersey in February and March, looking over the volumes and volumes and volumes and volumes of papers that my Father had gathered and curated and archived in manila envelopes and boxes from the liquor store.
i thought i'd finally dealt with all of it, but then my Mother found another large box in the attic with more manila envelopes from the 1970s and 1980s, so i had to get into all that shit, now, too.
i looked through police reports from a car accident where nmy Father's father crashed my Father's Buick into a diner, and the ensuing civil lawsuit from a lady who got knocked on her ass.
they settled for around $300,000, which was the maximum of my Father's insurance. he didn't have to pay anything out of pocket.
i looked through insurance records from 1985, when my Parents took me to have tubes put in my ears.
tubes in the ears was the superfluous medical trend of the 1980s, like Ritalin in the 1990s, and my Parents fell for it.
i'm not sure what problem tubes-in-the-ears was supposed to treat, but somebody told my Parents to do it, so they just went with it, like jerks.
my Father's insurance didn't want to pay for the procedure, but he wrote them several letters expressing his dissatisfaction and they did in the end.
and i looked through medical records for my Father and Mother from 1980, where they each went to reproductive specialists to see why they were unable to conceive.
my Father's semen count was low, and my Mother's ovaries were frazzled.
ultimately the prognosis was that conception was possible, but still, eventually, they went out and just picked me up.
which is for the best, i think.

at 2:30pm i took a break from sorting through my Father's old papers to go return all of the cable equipment to the Verizon Store.
my Parents' had two cable boxes and an wi-fi router, and Verizon wanted them back.
so, i unhooked my Mother's TV, and i unhooked the wi-fi router, and we drove them up the block to the Verizon store.
i asked the lady manning the store to go ahead and close my Mother's account, but she said that she couldn't do that because she just sells cellphones, and expecting her to know how to close a cable TV account is asking too much.
i tried to call Verizon's Customer Service phone number, but it was a Sunday and they were closed.

when we left Verizon, my Mother and i drove over to the cemetery where my Father is burried.
i thought it would be appropriate to go say goodbye to my Father's corpse, to let him know that my Mother and i were splitting town.
which, of course, is a silly thing to do, but, i felt like propriety demanded it of me.
my Mother doesn't have those kinds of feelings of duty or obligation, but i asked her if she wanted to come along to be polite, and she said she would because i guess she thought that i thought she should.
or maybe just because, with no cable box in the house anymore, she didn't have anything better to do.
so we went out to my Father's grave and we placed some stones on the little placeholder sign with his name and dates of birth and death that is there until a proper headstone is made up.
then, we put stones on my Father's parents' headstones too, since we were there.
i felt weird saying goodbye to my Father with my Mother there next to me, so, after we got back in the car i ran back out again to have a few words with the lump of dirt on top of my Dad's rotting corpse.
“alright, Pop! i miss you! i love you! i'll see at some point down the road!”
which, of course, isn't true, but it's one of those things that's nice to say, i guess.

after the cemetery i stopped at the grocery store to pick up a gallon of water.
by the time we got back to the House it was 4:10pm, and i decided to talk a walk around town.
with my Mother leaving town and the house being sold, i didn't have any real reason to come back to my home town anymore.
so, i walked up the block and through the park where i used to sled and ice skate and hunt for Easter eggs as a child.
i walked into downtown and i sat on the stoop where i used to loiter as a teenager.
i walked past the Häagen-Daz where my first crush used to give me free ice cream, and i walked to the high school.
i walked passed Sharma's house and Heather's house, and Dotsko's apartment complex and Mice's duplex.
i walked past Anthony's house – the one he lived in when we were in high school, his dad's house, not the one he lived in in elementary school, his mom's house, which is also the one he still lives in now.
i walked past Alicia the Land Troll's house, where my friend Daniels got stoned for the first time and i convinced him that he was covered in creepy-crawlies.
i walked past the corner where i had an epic snowball fight with Keith Stromboli, and i walked past the graveyard where i once tried to have a threesome with a couple of gals but got interrupted by cops and we had to keep circling around a tree until they went away.
i spent the first seventeen years of my life in this town, and i have memories in most corners.
i walked past all of these places, all pregnant with memories, and i felt sad to be leaving my hometown in a way that i never was when i was a teenager, because now, i don't know that i will ever be coming back.
i will probably see my hometown again, but i can't imagine why or when, so, there is much more of a sense of finality now that the safety net of my Parents' house has been removed.

i was back to my Mother's house a little after 5:15pm.
i set myself to task making spaghetti and meatballs from the freezer.
the meatballs weren't my Fathers, we used up the last of his meatballs on the day of his funeral.
this was a vintage i made back in October, when my Father was first hospitalized and i came out to see him and my Mother was figuring out how to be in the house by herself.
i didn't want spaghetti and meatballs, i wanted to have one last Joe's Pizza, but my Mother wanted to use up as much food in the kitchen as possible, and i guess there is a logic to that.

after dinner i went upstairs to write LiveJournals, and my Mother just haunted around the first floor like a ghost.
with no TV to watch she had nothing to do but rattle around and think about her life decisions,which, i don't know that she's ever had to do before, with the omnipresent analgesic of a TV normally shouting at her.
i wonder how she took it?
i guess i could have went down there to keep her company, help her pass her time, but, with my Mother living in my basement, i'd be getting more then enough of her soon enough, so i went and had a shower instead.

after my shower, and my after-shower things, i spent an hour and a half ripping up my Father's papers from the 1970s and 1980s until i had a large cardboard box full of paper scraps, that a chinchilla might like to nest in.
but, having no chinchilla, i bundled them up into plastic bags to take to the dump, and there goes the last of my Father's life's work.

i flossed and brushed my teeth and i got into bed around 1:45am, and i slept in my Parents' house for the very last night.

//[get excited!]

my alarm went off at 8:17am Eastern Three Saturdays Ago.
i was sleeping in the guest room in my Mother's house in New Jersey.
it was not a great night's sleep, because of timezone changes, and because my Mother threw out the fan that i normally put in the window for temperature and white noise reasons, and also because the bed is uncomfortable.
but, despite not getting a full night's rest, i had to get up and start the day.
i brushed my teeth, but there wasn't time for a shit before, at 8:50am, my Mother and i drove to the bank up the street.
they didn't unlock their doors until 9:00am, so we had to stand out in their parking lot for several minutes, like a couple of jerks.

i had several small-dollar checks in my Father's name that needed to be cashed, but, when i tried to cash them the last time i was in New Jersey several weeks ago, the Wells Fargo told me that they wouldn't accept them, that we needed to set up an Estate Account in my Father's name, with my Mother as administrator.
these fucking people know my Mother, and my Father, they've been customers for years, they know that my Father and been sick for a while and eventually died and that my Mother was the named beneficiary in his will, and that i am helping my Mother with all of this shit because she doesn't like to deal with this kind of shit herself.
they know that, but they insisted on us going through the Probate process because Nothing Is Ever Easy.
so, my Mother and i had to go to the Courthouse in Newark to get them to send a letter telling the bank “yeah, it's fine, it's cool...”
my Mother had no idea if they actually sent that Probate letter because, again, she doesn't like to do anything herself, so i was all anxious before i got to New Jersey, preparing for more trouble, but, sure enough, the Probate Letter was there at the bottom of a pile of mail my Mother never bothered to read, so, we took that letter to the Wells Fargo and spent an hour setting up an Estate Account.
we deposited four checks totaling $230, mostly prorated refunds for services that my Father paid for before dying, but, the Wells Fargo requires a $500 minimum balance in the account or else they feel like they are entitled to $10 a month, so we had to move $300 over from the regular checking account.
i can't wait until all of our estate stuff is done, and i'm going to take my money some place else.

we left the Wells Fargo around 10:00am and we walked across the street to the Post Office.
my Mother put in a Change Of Address form a few weeks ago, but one of the letters in the pile of mail said that the request hadn't gone through yet, that i needed to enter some kind of a code on the internet.
i entered that code, and the internet told me we were good, but i wanted to let the Post Office know that my Mother would be moving out of her house soon enough and not to deliver her any more mail.
the lady at the Post Office said “yeah, sure, we'll forward it...” but she didn't inspire me with confidence at all.

after the Post Office my Mother and i drove over to a different bank where my Parents' had some money stashed.
we closed all of those accounts first thing after my Father died, and they gave us most of the money that day, but there was $104,000 in an IRA that was exclusively in my Father's name, and we couldn't take that our then.
they had to send it to the Home Office for processing, and that would take weeks.
but, it's been weeks and we still haven't received that check yet, and that's obnoxious so we wanted to go see what was going on.
the people at the bank told us that my Mother would need to sign a form, but they didn't have that form for us, and they would have to mail it out to her, so, we left empty handed.

next, my Mother and i drove up to the Target.
i needed to buy a phone charger because i forgot to pack one, and also because we needed some more at the House because they break easily.
and then, while we were there, we got my Mother a cellphone.
when my Mother moves out to Colorado to live with the PSE and Dax and me, she isn't going to have a landline because it's not 1995 anymore, and it is time she step into the 21st century.
so, we walked up to the clerk and asked where the phones for old people are – you know, the ones they advertise on Fox News all the time, flip phones with large buttons for people who can't or won't learn how proper I-Phones work.
the Clerk pointed us to the Consumer Cellular kiosk where they had a flip phone for $50, with service for $20 per month, though, with my Mother's AARP membership, it will be $19 per month.
that'll work, so my Mother signed up for her very first cellphone at age 83.
later, back at the house, i spent a while showing her how to make phone calls.
she is going to need more practice, but i think she'll figure it out.
the phone can also send and receive texts, but i think that is probably asking too much.

when we left the Target my Mother and i went back to her house, and i grabbed a few bags of garbage to run them over to the Municipal Dump before they closed at noon.
there was a box of old Nintendo Power magazines that i never knew i had, and a bag full of personal items that my Mother cleaned out from the attic, including an old framed photograph that i thought was Ron Howard from The Andy Griffith Show, but it turns out was my cousin Glen.
we don't need that!

after the dump i drove over the the Bagel Store and got myself a BLT for lunch, and four bagels to-go.
there was a wait at the Bagel Store because there always seems to be a wait at the Bagel Store, but, it was worth it.
then i drove home and i ate my lunch, and, at 1:20pm, my Aunt Joan was at the door.

my Aunt Joan drove down from Manhattan for a quick visit.
first, i guess, she came to say goodbye to my Mother who she may well never see again now that my Mother is moving to Colorado, and to me, who it is more likely she will see again, though, not guaranteed.
she also came for one last look at her brother's house, where she spent many a Thanksgiving and Passover and other family occasions.
but also, she came to drop off a pair of lithographs that she went on a fool's errand with.
the lithographs were a pair of Picassos that i found in my Parents' attic maybe five or seven years ago.
they came with the house when my Parents bought it.
when i finally noticed the word 'Picasso' i got super excited, and the PSE and i took them both to an art appraiser, looking to cash in for a few hundred thousand dollars.
but, according to this one appraiser, the pair of them weren't worth more then $500, which was what he offered to give me for them.
i declined, thinking that i'd like a second opinion, but then i never got around to it, and the lithographs just sat in my room ever since.
then, after we recently cleaned out my old childhood bedroom, the lithographs got hung up in the guest room, where i guess my Aunt Joan noticed them one day when she came out to take her brother's wife out to lunch while i was on my cruise, and she went through the same excited 'oh my god! we're rich!!!' journey that i went on.
Joan took the paintings and she had them appraised, and, i don't know what she would have done if they were worth anything, but her appraiser told her that they weren't worth anything.
Joan wanted to give them away to charity [i'm not sure why, if they are worthless,] but i told her “yeah, naw, those are ours!” she she came to bring them back.
thanks, Joan!

at 2:00pm, the lady who would be conducting an Estate Sale stopped by for a visit.
Joan left, and my Mother and i spent a few minutes talking to the Estate Sale Lady about how things were going to go.
we showed her everything that was left in the house after my Mother and i spent several weeks packing things up and throwing things out.
everything that's still here is up for grabs, we told the lady.
we also told her when my Mother would be leaving the house, which gives her two and a half weeks to get things priced and set up and advertised before holding a two-day Estate Sale at the end of April.
i gave her a spare key to the house and said “alright! let's make some money together!” and let's see how that goes!

at 3:00pm my Mother and i went to the Home Depot to buy some fire / CO2 alarm.
apparently whenever you sell a house in New Jersey the local fire chief has to certify that you have proper fire alarms installed, and it is on the seller to effectuate that, which is something i didn't know until, like two days previous.
i called the local fire department and i had them go out to go check my Mother's fire alarms and certify that they were up to code, assuming that they were because my Father was a fastidious man.
but then it turned out that the fire alarms in my Mother's house were all in the wrong places and all the wrong kinds, meaning we would have to go buy proper fire / CO2 alarms and replace them.
that cost over $180, somehow, because not burning to death isn't cheap.
i will figure out how to install them some other time.

back from Home Depot, i retired up to the Guest Room for a while.
i spent maybe an hour alternating between writing LiveJournals and fucking around on the computer until 4:30pm when i just couldn't keep my eyes open anymore and i went down for a nap.
my Mother came knocking on the door around 5:30pm to ask if i wanted supper [if i wanted to make supper,] but i declined and i went back to sleep.
i could have slept the rest of the night [i assume,] but i hadn't brushed my teeth, and also, there was other house stuff that needed doing, so i forced myself to wake back up around 7:45pm.
and then, at 9:00pm, i got in my Mother's Chevy Malibu and i drove two towns over to get myself some Carvel.
it may well be the last time i get to have the stuff.

back at my Mother's house i ate my soft serve, then another bagel.
the last bit of business that i did was to wipe all of my Father's personal information from his computer, to prepare it for the Estate Sale in several weeks.
then, i did my nighttime things and got into bed a little after 1:30am.

//[get excited!]

my alarm went off at 9:12am Three Fridays Ago, sleeping in my nice, comfortable big bed in The House That I Own in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
i wanted to go back to sleep, I Needed Sleep after running around as hard as i had been for the past several weeks, but, There Is No Rest For The Weary, i still has shit that i needed to do.
so, i got up, i did my morning things, then i spent a few minutes packing a rucksack.
i would be getting on an airplane for the fifth time in seven week.
it would be a short trip this time, i hoped, so i only really needed a change of underpants, some pajamas, a toothbrush and my computer.

at 10:20am i kissed the PSE and Dax and the Monster goodbye, got in my Wagon and drove up to the airport in Denver.
there are no direct flights between Colorado Springs and Newark, you always have to stop over either in Denver or Dallas, and there is always a lay over that is obnoxious to have to deal with.
sometimes it is easier to take the layover, but, when i am traveling by myself, without the Monster and Dax slowing me down, sometimes it is easier to just drive up to Denver and have a single, direct flight to Newark.
the PSE booked me a parking reservation at an off-site parking lot for maybe $45.

i stopped for gas as i was heading out of Colorado Springs and, at the pump next to mine i found a lady talking on the phone with somebody who was explaining to her how pumping gas works.
she wasn't a child, she was somewhere in her twenties.
after a few minutes i went over to help her – she said she thought she had the gas flowing into her car, but she absolutely did not.
“you don't know how to pump your own gas?” i asked, incredulous.
“i'm from New Jersey,” she said, by way of explanation.
“well so am i!” i told her, meaning that that's not a fucking excuse to not know how to do a basic thing, but i think she just took it like we were fellow countrymen, and then went back to talking to her boyfriend on the phone.
before i drove away, she was taking selfies in front of her gas pump, proud of her accomplishment.

the drive up to the Denver Airport took 75 minutes.
it was an easy drive, not congested, with no major slow-downs.
i arrived at the Parking Lot around 11:50am, and i parked over in Row H.
a van pulled up too collect me, then it collected another few people, then it drove us fifteen minutes over to the airport.
i never know if i am supposed to tip these airport shuttle drivers or not.
i normally lean on the side of giving them a few dollars, but this guy played KLOVE, Christian Radio, and after several songs about being saved by Christ, and then a lengthy pledge drive solicitation, i wasn't giving this creep any of my money.

it was an easy process getting through security.
there was no real line, and TSA didn't give me a hard time about anything.
inside the airport's security zone, i took a tram to Terminal B.
i arrived around 12:30pm.
i went looking for food but wasn't having any luck looking for anything, so i stopped at an off-brand pretzel stand and got an off-brand pretzel.
i stuffed my face as i kept walking and eventually found the McDonald's that i was looking for, so i got myself two hamburgers and a medium french fry.
i took that back to my gate, B35, and i shoved food in my face until 1:10pm, when it was time to start the boarding process.

the flight took off a little after 2:00pm Mountain Time.
i had a window seat in the second-to-last row.
i talked briefly with the guy in the middle seat who was going to Lisbon with his girlfriend, until the engine roar made it too noisy to talk, and so i watched a movie instead.
i was flying United, and United gives you TVs in the headrests with movies and shows to watch.
all of the other flights that i had been on over the past seven weeks had been American, and they expect you to just watch movies on your phone, but, i had one of the newer I-Phones that doesn't have a headphone jack, so i could watch movies on my phone, i just had to sit there.
so, United wins.
i watched a ninety minute movie called A Real Pain [watch for a review coming out in, i don't know, September?] and then an episode of Family Guy and an episode of The Simpsons.
i haven't seen either show in years and, my god! they were both notable in their tedium.
then we landed at 5:15pm Mountain Time, which was 7:15pm Eastern.
the sun was still out, but by the time we parked at the jet bridge and deplaned, it had gone away.

at Newark Airport i had a pee, then i made it down to baggage claim.
i hadn't checked any bags, just my laptop computer, but they have a Dunkin' Donuts kiosk in the baggage claim area, and i got myself two chocolate glazed.
then i went out to Passenger Pick-Up and i called myself an Uber for the very first time.
Uber has been a thing since at lease 2013, but i never bothered to learn how to use it, partially because i am a crank, but mostly because the PSE is in charge of shit like that.
whenever i fly back to Newark i always just take a taxi, but the taxi from Newark Airport to my Parents' house is fixed at $58, plus tip, and the Uber was only $36, plus tip.
so, i stepped into Obama's second term, and i called my own Uber and twenty minutes later, i was at my Mother's house, a little after 8:00pm, Eastern.

my Mother had gotten a haircut and a dye job since the last time i'd seen her three weeks ago.
she said it was going to be her last. she planned on just going gray in Colorado.
i sat with my Mother for an hour, telling her about my cruise.
she said she would like to go on a cruise, so, yeah, Ma! let's do that!
i like the idea of my Mother having a second life now that my Father is dead, getting to do fun things that my dour no-fun old Dad never wanted to do.
then we spent a while looking through all of the mail that had come in since i left, and all of the things that it wanted.
of course, my Mother didn't really deal with any of this herself.
she figured, i could come back and sort it out for her, so, that is what i will just have to do.

at 9:00pm i fried myself up four potato blintzes from the box of Golden's frozen blintzes, and i ate them with a cup of Mott's apple sauce.
i ate alone, on a folding card table, because my Mother shipped the kitchen table to my House in Colorado.
my Mother went back to the TV room to finish watching Tarzan, The Ape Man from 1932.
after dinner, i washed my plate and the frying pan, which is notable because I Don't Do Dishes.
but, i can't very well expect my octogenarian Mother to clean up after me, even though it is her house and she could show some fucking hospitality.

after dinner i called the PSE and Dax to wish Dax a goodnight.
then i went up to my Grandmother's old bedroom, which is the guest room, which is where i stay when i am in New Jersey, and i spent another few hours writing LiveJournals and fucking around on the computer.
i got ready for bed around 12:45am Eastern, which was 10:45pm Mountain.
i forgot to pack my special prescription toothpaste, so i had to use whatever cheep stuff my Mother had laying around.
hopefully that won't be a problem, and my teeth won't fall out of my mouth.
i did stash some special prescription mouthwash from the last time i was here, and hopefully that can get me through.
i got into bed a little before 1:00am Eastern and discovered that i'd also forgot to pack an I-Phone charger.
that's going to be a problem, i expect.

-

meanwhile, Back In Colorado...

between 11:00am and 1:00pm the movers came to unload all of the stuff that my Mother wanted shipped from New Jersey to Colorado.
we paid $2,400 to ship a bunch of furniture, and fifty cardboard boxes, mostly clothes, halfway across the country.
the movers loaded the truck on Saturday 14 March and now they were turning up for delivery nearly three weeks later.
the PSE sat and supervised as the movers hauled everything down into the basement.
it took them maybe ninety minutes total.
she gave each of the movers a $40 tip, for their troubles.
the PSE called me after the job was done.
it is so crowded in the basement now.
the kitchen / dining room area is pretty much entirely taken up with cardboard boxes.
i don't know that my Mother really understands the reality of how small her accommodations are.
i guess she will find out.

later that night, after Dax went to sleep, the PSE set herself to work building a floor-to-ceiling shelving system down in the basement kitchen / dining room area.
she had previously ordered four IKEA bookshelves and had them delivered.
then she assembled them, and built a little platform to mount them on, and ran electricity from the wall down to an auxiliary outlet she installed into the platform base.
then she framed the whole thing out.
then she added internal lighting, so that the whole thing lights up if you hit a switch.
it was some pretty cool craftsmanship that my Mother will almost certainly not appreciate.
but, she'll have some place to keep some of her crap, and that is what is important to her.

//[get excited!]

Two Thursdays Ago, At Work:
i woke up at 7:20am two Thursdays ago, 13 minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off when Dax came into the bedroom to get her day started.
i tried to lay in bed for the 13 minutes until my wake up was supposed to be, but then i decided it would be a more prudent use of my time to go have a shit, so i went and did that.
then i got dressed up in a Lawyer Costume and i kissed my family goodbye.
Dax told me that she didn't want me to go to work, that she wanted me to stay home with her, and that it made her sad when i have to go off to work.
i know, kid! i know!

i got in my car and i drove down to the edge of downtown, where the on-street parking is free, down by the tire store, and i walked five blocks over to the Courthouse.
i met up with my New Felony Docket Partner walking into the Courthouse and we walked up to my New Felony Courtroom.
my New Clerk was there, and the New Prosecutors.
hello, shits! long time no see!
but my New Judge wasn't there. he was out sick and we would have a Substitute Judge.
the Substitute Judge said that the last time he saw me, i had just had a kid “she must be, what, three now?”
goddamn, Substitute Judge! look at that memory!

i had eight cases for five Clients on the Docket.
at 8:30am, it was time to get to it.

first, i had an out-of-custody Client who was up for a Probation Revocation because he had a new misdemeanor case.
that case was set for jury trial at the end of the month, so we reset beyond that.
the Client's Misdemeanor Case may actually be winable, he is charged with possession of one Fentanyl pill and a pocket knife, but the Fentanyl Pill is really just, like, an antihistamine, and it's not a crime to have a knife.
the Misdemeanor case isn't really my problem, but it's my Office neighbor's so i hear about it, sometimes.

next i had an out-of-custody Client charged with strangling his girlfriend.
there is a protection order in place and both the Client and his alleged victim want it modified so that he can go back to living at her house [legally. he is already living there in violation of the Court order,] but the Judge was hesitant to modify it.
one guy murders his wife while out on bond and every Judge gets their fucking panties in a bunch.
after the Judge denied our request for Modification, we set over so that the Prosecution can make us a non-carceral offer.
the Prosecutor was looking to send my Client to prison, but after i let him know that the Alleged Victim was in our pocket and down to play witness chicken, he found a sense of pragmatism.
hopefully we can work out a negotiated resolution here.

i had two in-custody Clients, but both of them declined transport from the jailhouse to the Court.
one was just an FFJ, a Fugitive From Justice.
he was wanted out of Texas for a child-diddling case.
he will be sent back to Texas after he resolves his Misdemeanor up here, one way or the other.
all we were supposed to do was to check on the status of Texas' demand.
it seems like they'd followed interstate protocols correctly, and the transport order is legitimate.
my Client didn't really need to be in Court for that, and i guess he preferred to not miss lunch.

the other Client is an Incompetent.
the court date was to receive the Competency Evaluation where a Psychiatrist officially opined him too screwy to make any legal decisions about his own case.
i don't know why the Client didn't come to Court, i assume he was chasing butterflies around the jailhouse.
the Substitute Judge issued an order finding the Client incompetent to proceed based on the Psychiatrist's opinion, and now he will be transported to the State Hospital some time in the next several months.
they have a backlog that is pretty much unconstitutional, but nobody seems to give a shit.

i was done with Court at, like, 10:00am.
my New Felony Docket Partner and i walked out of the Courthouse, but, whereas she turned up the street to go to our Office, i went the other way to walk to the bank to take out some cash.
i was back to my Office around 10:30am and i spent the next hour sorting through all of the e-mails that had accumulated during my six weeks where i wasn't on the job.

at 11:30am i had a jail call with a Client but he declined to come to the booth so i didn't get to talk to him.
this was my Client who was convicted of molesting two boys, was facing a mandatory sentencing of 36 years in prison, absconded on his last day of trial, and then, about a month later, had a shoot-out with cops who came to try to find him hiding out in his trailer. ~allegedly~
he tried to kill himself on the scene, but was unsuccessful and was taken alive.
so, i guess he's feeling pretty gloomy these days and not up for a chat.

at noon, i went and got myself two bagels for lunch from the Einstein, and a blueberry muffin, too.
after i paid, the cashier offered me a free apple strudel, so i took that, too.
i brought my lunch back to the Office and i ate with my regular lunchtime friends in the Third Floor Conference Room, same as i've been doing for the past several years.
they were astounded at the amount of carbs that i was eating.
my regular lunchtime friends all commented that lunch wasn't the same with me gone, which was very sweat of them to say.
it is important for me to hear that the world really does revolve around me like i want it to.

at 1:20pm i put my lawyer shoes back on, put my lawyer jacket back on, and tucked in my lawyer shirt.
i walked from the Office back to the Courthouse, talking to some Misdemeanor Court Girl about fashion.
i told my old joke about how, if left to my own devices, i would go to the thrift store and pick myself out the most outlandish Bernie Mac suits.
and then, after a minute it occurred to me, this girl is, like, five months out of law school, she can't be any older then twenty-six, what the fuck does she know about The Original Kings Of Comedy.
when i asked she admitted her ignorance and, i mean, no shame, she was, like, six when Bernie Mac died, but then, why did she laugh at my joke if she didn't get the premise? just to be polite? just so i would leave her the fuck alone?
i am a firm believer in speaking up when i don't understand something, though, i get that that takes a certain amount of confidence.

back in Court i had one more Client on the Docket; a girl set for sentencing on three different felony cases, all petty, stupid thefts, caused by drug addiction.
the sentencing range was Open, cap 4, meaning she could get Probation, Recovery Court, the Halfway House or between 2 and 4 years in prison.
the Client had been hoping for Recovery Court and so the plan was to go in there and fight for it, but, to my surprise, the Prosecutor also asked for Recovery Court, so we didn't have anything to fight about.
but, because of some kind of a technicality, my Client couldn't be sentenced to Recovery Court just then, so we had to set her over two weeks to get it done formally then.

i was done with Court around 2:00pm and i walked back to the Office with my New Felony Docket Partner who told me that she's been doing a thing lately where she comes in between 8:00am and 8:30am, and puts in a full fucking day, leaving at 5:00pm, five days a week.
why the hell do you do that!?! i asked.
she's working, like twice as much as i am.
she told me that she feels good because she's getting a lot of stuff done and, sure, i bet she is, but, like, don't you feel like a sucker? don't you feel like work is getting the better of you?
i'll never understand people who don't try to get one over on the bosses? who put in an honest day's work and are just okay with it.

back in my Office i spent the rest of the afternoon sorting through my e-mail in-box, filing things into the appropriate Client folders and updating the Client files accordingly.
by the time i was done for the day i got my in-box down to 46.

i had maybe a dozen new opens, cases that had been recently assigned to me while i was out, and i had to spend a while looking into the charges they are facing, their bond situation, their previous criminal history and whether or not they might be Habitual Offenders, and their potential sentencing outcomes.
then i have to write that all down in their files, both digitally and the paper files that i keep in a pair of folders with kitties on them, like a real professional
each Client work-up takes, like, ten minutes.
i got through maybe a fifth of the New Opens in my In-Box before i decided i was done for the day.

i tried to leave for the day at 4:15pm, but, just as i was walking out the door my office phone rang, and i had to talk to one of the New Opens for a while about some low-level drug case that she is all worked up about.
all i wanted to do was take the long walk across downtown back to my car and go home, but this lady wanted to suck my attention, so i didn't actually get to leave the Office until around 4:40pm.

-

and then, Two Fridays Ago, i was back on an airplane again, Because This Fucking Shit Doesn't Stop.
stay tuned!

//[get excited!]