Day 1308: Mineshaft

[nagi_schwarz]

We've been here before, we already know where it goes, it goes down...

My first week covering for Dannon while she's gone and I wanted to shoot myself. Spent most of my weekend not writing in burnout shutdown mode, marathoning NCIS and not moving a lot. Did a bit of laundry. Did some cleaning. Cody did more cleaning than I did. When he cleans, he goes to town. I just do enough to get by, but I keep us going.

It's been nearly impossible to impress upon the caseworkers that while Dannon is out, I am covering her hearings but not anything else. Not answering questions about her cases, not going to her team meetings, not doing her home visits. Just a warm body in court, dutifully reciting what she has told me to say. Got an emergency? Call my supervisor. The same way I call your supervisors when you're out.

But naturally one of her cases blew up, and so a dozen people called me and wanted to freak out at me. And then a bunch of my own cases blew up, and more people wanted to yell at me.

The evenings were fun. Monday night we had dance practice. Tuesday night, Naomi and I had a henna party. Wednesday night we had dress rehearsal. Thursday night we had our performance. Thursday was generally a rough day. Drug court. Rough cases. A headache fit to burn. And me being so, so done with crazy people. During one meeting I drank a load of caffeine and compulsively pet a stuffed octopus to stay sane. Some of the other attorneys were worried about my sanity by the end of the day.

I took migraine pills when I got home but was silly and took them on an empty stomach, so I felt pretty queasy. Wasn't sure how I was going to turn on some maximum charm for a restaurant performance when the audience is up close and personal. But Cody came home, and we drove together. We got there early enough to get a good table and order food. Cody had taken about two bites of his meal when he got a phone call from his mother.

His father had been up a ladder doing construction work and fell. Hit his head against a wall on the way down. He was conscious and responsive as they loaded him into the ambulance, but the total damage was a broken palate, broken nose, broken ankle, fractured skull, subdural hematoma, fractured T-12. Two surgeries later, he's on soft food for 3 weeks and has to take it easy. Cody finished his food and took off, so I did the show best as I could, and then Naomi drove me home.

I barely slept, waiting for Cody's check-in calls so I knew he made it up to the in-laws okay. Cody was gone for Friday and most of Saturday, came home late Saturday. I spent all of Friday on the road, doing home visits to the middle of nowhere, getting yelled at. Clean-up crew, not wrecking crew here, people. Also, fer cryin' out loud, does no one understand attorney-client confidentiality? It means what is discussed between me and my client as it pertains to my case is confidential. And no, you can't listen in. That destroys the privilege.

The nice thing about the long drive time was I got to spend a lot of time listening to a book on tape, so that was fun. Really enjoying how that book is going.

Sunday I ended up teaching Sunday school for a group of fourth-grade girls. That was an adventure. But they were actually super well-behaved.

And today...today was wall-to-wall court. Twelve hearings in about eight hours. The judge did give us a mid-morning recess so we could watch the eclipse. We were all sharing eclipse glasses between the lawyers and the bailiffs. One clerk had a welding helmet. We had fun today, though. Laughed and told jokes. Shared sodas. Played games. I work with good people. Even when the work is hard, the colleagues are okay, for the most part. I am grateful for them.

An old acquaintance from college is crashing with us for a few days while she gets some advanced job certifications. I knew her brother better than I knew her, but we have some fun things in common, so it's good times. She's pleasant. We went out to dinner together the first night. Hoping to go out to dinner with her and another friend later this week.

I'm getting mixed reports on how long Dannon is going to be on leave. Some say two months. Some say three. Here's to hoping I can handle three. I am hoping that lawyer number nine is hired in the interim to take some of the load. We shall see. I'm running up against writing deadlines. Hoping I can make them too.

Here goes...

Comments

[tetsubinatu]

You are incredibly resilient. You shouldn't have to be, but I am amazed. That sounds like a horrible smash - hope he is ok.

[nagi_schwarz]

Thanks! I'm not sure I'm resilient so much as white-knuckling it, but I'm still here, so that's what counts. I actually talked to my father-in-law tonight, only briefly, but he sounded good and lucid, so I am glad.