Day 1134: Bottle and shelve all or regrets
Sep. 8th, 2014 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nagi_schwarzOr drink them. Just drink them all.
Last week was only four days, but that was the most exhausting four days I've had in a while. Not sure how my girl KB does protective orders day in and day out. It's tiring. The interviews are the worst. Because pretty much everyone has an agenda. Some people exaggerate a little because they're afraid the PO won't get supported otherwise. Some people lie because their kids are pawns. Most abusers minimize. It's exhausting, listening so intently to everything everyone says and trying to figure out who's lying the least, or not lying at all, who has which agenda.
We're supposed to be unbiased, but a man came into my office, a man who's been systematically abusing his wife's kids, and I could barely look at him. He isn't the first child abuser I've run into, and probably not even one of the worst, but on my regular cases I don't have extended interviews with the parents. I listened to this man, and I could hear all the same excuses and explanations I've heard before. Not sending the kids back to him. And then I listened to his wife, so sure that the kids are lying and exaggerating. And I listened to the kids, teenagers with thousand-yard stares.
Harder still are the tiny kids, because they can't exegesis themselves nearly as well, and all the parents have agendas, and I can't tell enough about what happened to know how to stop it. But I know something bad happened. I don't know how to prevent it from ever happening again. I wanted to cry when that little girl told me what happened to her.
I also picked up my first case with a much-despised attorney (why are all the most despised attorneys the ones who also used to be guardians?). His clients and the opposing clients are far on opposite ends of the spectrum. Usually in PO cases or similar cases where the ultimate issue is custody between two parents, the stories overlap, have some points in common. Not these two. And once again I have mountains of evidence to sift through. Yay.
Poor Cody was sick most of last week with a nasty stomach flu, so he spent a lot of time sleeping and being miserable. But we drove up to Idaho Friday night, slept, picked up the van, headed back south. I spent most of Saturday making calls to ensure an important religious event for one of my clients wouldn't be ruined by the unwanted presence of a relative (whose presence was prevented by a no-contact order anyway, which we had to hold a telephone conference on, and for some reason appearing before a judge by phone is way more frightening than appearing in person). We stopped at my sister's house to pick up a bed, and then we hauled it home.
And then we spent a couple of hours finally unpacking eight boxes' worth of books. Most of them were from my childhood, like my old Nancy Drew and Fear Street novels. I also found my high school creative writing portfolios (which I do not dare read) and the first full-length vaguely coherent novel I wrote in 8th grade (which was part Fanfiction even though at the time I didn't know what Fanfiction was or that I wrote it). It was pretty nostalgic. I have all my old notes from high school and college that I need to sort out.
Due to all the dust we stirred up while unpacking, I started sneezing. Only kept sneezing. And then sniffling. And then realized I had a cold. I was sick most of Sunday, so we only went to the first hour of church, then came home to rest. I went to my client's religious event - it was massively attended, and by multiple lawyers to boot - and then came home and Cody and I watched waaaay too much BSG.
Today I slept in for an extra hour and a half and felt much better for it. And then my boss asked me to cover a hearing for him, so I had to cut my morning meeting short, and I had to rush to find something vaguely resembling a jacket to wear to court because I had not planned on court and was not dressed for court. I was feeling pretty sick and queasy and headachy when I did make it to court. And opposing counsel was an utter prat. My good-natured office manager suggested I puke on his shoes and kick him in the groin. From such a kind woman, I should have known what a pain he'd be.
And then the hearing itself was horrible. I watched this lawyer steamroll this poor pro se mother, and the judge let him do it. At first the judge wouldn't let me speak at all, and when he finally did ask my name he immediately told me to shut up because I didn't have a lawyer there, and it took prattish opposing counsel and sobbing mom and me to convince the man I was a lawyer and I was allowed to speak. After I spoke the judge ignored me anyway (all things being equal, I was an interested party but without standing) and poor mom got hosed.
So I returned to the office, tired and miserable, and my nice office manager bought me a tasty soda. I ate burgers at Sammy's with some of the other girls but was not super impressed. Then I spent the afternoon interviewing six kids and a mom for yet another PO (not sure I can support at this point, sadly, despite the seriousness of the allegations). During the interviews one kid needed two potty breaks and the youngest kid wet her diaper (and grandma did NOT have a spare diaper; luckily, we have some, and I also keep baby wipes in my purse). And then I missed my last meeting because I had the wrong venue down. And someone else had scheduled an important meeting at the same time at a different office and no one told me.
And then I spent another hour after I got home fending off angry phone calls for my PO hearings tomorrow.
Cody and I had junk food for dinner. It rained.
In good news, I crocheted my first sock, which is comfy. I am finally competent at that one piano song I've been learning. Cody and I are attempting to write a diesel punk novel together. And I have training two days this week, so I can hide from the office.
I twisted my ankle again. When I did so, I fell on an industrial staple and it stabbed me in the butt.
For real. Today has been like a bad day off of a lawyer sitcom.
Last week was only four days, but that was the most exhausting four days I've had in a while. Not sure how my girl KB does protective orders day in and day out. It's tiring. The interviews are the worst. Because pretty much everyone has an agenda. Some people exaggerate a little because they're afraid the PO won't get supported otherwise. Some people lie because their kids are pawns. Most abusers minimize. It's exhausting, listening so intently to everything everyone says and trying to figure out who's lying the least, or not lying at all, who has which agenda.
We're supposed to be unbiased, but a man came into my office, a man who's been systematically abusing his wife's kids, and I could barely look at him. He isn't the first child abuser I've run into, and probably not even one of the worst, but on my regular cases I don't have extended interviews with the parents. I listened to this man, and I could hear all the same excuses and explanations I've heard before. Not sending the kids back to him. And then I listened to his wife, so sure that the kids are lying and exaggerating. And I listened to the kids, teenagers with thousand-yard stares.
Harder still are the tiny kids, because they can't exegesis themselves nearly as well, and all the parents have agendas, and I can't tell enough about what happened to know how to stop it. But I know something bad happened. I don't know how to prevent it from ever happening again. I wanted to cry when that little girl told me what happened to her.
I also picked up my first case with a much-despised attorney (why are all the most despised attorneys the ones who also used to be guardians?). His clients and the opposing clients are far on opposite ends of the spectrum. Usually in PO cases or similar cases where the ultimate issue is custody between two parents, the stories overlap, have some points in common. Not these two. And once again I have mountains of evidence to sift through. Yay.
Poor Cody was sick most of last week with a nasty stomach flu, so he spent a lot of time sleeping and being miserable. But we drove up to Idaho Friday night, slept, picked up the van, headed back south. I spent most of Saturday making calls to ensure an important religious event for one of my clients wouldn't be ruined by the unwanted presence of a relative (whose presence was prevented by a no-contact order anyway, which we had to hold a telephone conference on, and for some reason appearing before a judge by phone is way more frightening than appearing in person). We stopped at my sister's house to pick up a bed, and then we hauled it home.
And then we spent a couple of hours finally unpacking eight boxes' worth of books. Most of them were from my childhood, like my old Nancy Drew and Fear Street novels. I also found my high school creative writing portfolios (which I do not dare read) and the first full-length vaguely coherent novel I wrote in 8th grade (which was part Fanfiction even though at the time I didn't know what Fanfiction was or that I wrote it). It was pretty nostalgic. I have all my old notes from high school and college that I need to sort out.
Due to all the dust we stirred up while unpacking, I started sneezing. Only kept sneezing. And then sniffling. And then realized I had a cold. I was sick most of Sunday, so we only went to the first hour of church, then came home to rest. I went to my client's religious event - it was massively attended, and by multiple lawyers to boot - and then came home and Cody and I watched waaaay too much BSG.
Today I slept in for an extra hour and a half and felt much better for it. And then my boss asked me to cover a hearing for him, so I had to cut my morning meeting short, and I had to rush to find something vaguely resembling a jacket to wear to court because I had not planned on court and was not dressed for court. I was feeling pretty sick and queasy and headachy when I did make it to court. And opposing counsel was an utter prat. My good-natured office manager suggested I puke on his shoes and kick him in the groin. From such a kind woman, I should have known what a pain he'd be.
And then the hearing itself was horrible. I watched this lawyer steamroll this poor pro se mother, and the judge let him do it. At first the judge wouldn't let me speak at all, and when he finally did ask my name he immediately told me to shut up because I didn't have a lawyer there, and it took prattish opposing counsel and sobbing mom and me to convince the man I was a lawyer and I was allowed to speak. After I spoke the judge ignored me anyway (all things being equal, I was an interested party but without standing) and poor mom got hosed.
So I returned to the office, tired and miserable, and my nice office manager bought me a tasty soda. I ate burgers at Sammy's with some of the other girls but was not super impressed. Then I spent the afternoon interviewing six kids and a mom for yet another PO (not sure I can support at this point, sadly, despite the seriousness of the allegations). During the interviews one kid needed two potty breaks and the youngest kid wet her diaper (and grandma did NOT have a spare diaper; luckily, we have some, and I also keep baby wipes in my purse). And then I missed my last meeting because I had the wrong venue down. And someone else had scheduled an important meeting at the same time at a different office and no one told me.
And then I spent another hour after I got home fending off angry phone calls for my PO hearings tomorrow.
Cody and I had junk food for dinner. It rained.
In good news, I crocheted my first sock, which is comfy. I am finally competent at that one piano song I've been learning. Cody and I are attempting to write a diesel punk novel together. And I have training two days this week, so I can hide from the office.
I twisted my ankle again. When I did so, I fell on an industrial staple and it stabbed me in the butt.
For real. Today has been like a bad day off of a lawyer sitcom.
