"I'm glad Mommy's not a hamster and that she didn't eat [TT]."

The kids were being a little irritating while I was making dinner tonight, so I teased, "You know, some species eat their young."

TT said, "Yeah, Jenna got a hamster for Christmas and it had babies and some of them had stuff wrong with them so it ate them!"

So SS said, "So since the door to TT's heart doesn't close all the way*, if we were hamsters Mommy would have eaten her. I'm glad mommy's not a hamster and that she didn't eat [TT]."

I replied, "Yeah, but I love TT so much that even if I was a hamster I wouldn't have eaten her."

Yeah, my family's kinda weird.

* TT has pulmonary valve stenosis. It is very mild and her doc doesn't anticipate that it will cause her any problems, but it does require annual visits to the cardiologist and antibiotics before dental work.

The lawyers who make a bad name for the rest of us

I just read the sleaziest most unprofessional demand letter that I have ever seen. It was dripping with sarcasm (it actually included the term "gee willakers") and personal attacks. My clients were called despicable, lazy, ignorant, stupid, liars and the list goes on. These attacks were directed at individual employees of my corporate client.

I am furious. This case involves a freak accident--no intentional acts or gross negligence. And many of those who were attacked weren't involved at all. I know my client will be truly affected by the nasty letter drafted by sleazy attorneys. They certainly could have drafted their demand and presented their case without the sarcasm and personal attacks.

Maybe I should have expected as much. This is from a T.V. lawyer--you know one of the ones in the late night commercials with a nickname like "The Bully." And he was a total jerk in the depositions--literally making up questions with absolutely no basis in fact e.g. "Isn't it true that [insert crazy-ass statement pulled from the clear blue sky here]".

And this isn't a dig a Plaintiffs' lawyers. I work with Plaintiffs' lawyers every single day. And we get demand letters in most of our cases. NONE have ever been so unprofessional. The crap that is in this letter is why people think lawyers are assholes.

What does it say about me . . .

that the only Oscar-nominated movies that I have seen are the animated ones?

Pictoral evidence of the chaos that is my life.

We dropped a particularly large load off at the cleaners this morning and I guess DH didn't bother to look through it to see what he was taking.

I can't imagine what the people at the dry cleaners thought--hopefully this happens all the time.

It doesn't look like they charged me for the bra,but it was noted on the ticket. And is nice that they took the time to hang it up.

Life stuff

So my hearing was more of a pretrial conference than a hearing. The judge wasn't even there. I met with the ADA, and got deferred adjudication, which is all I really wanted.

And I made my nanny mad today because I informed her that I was cutting back from 5 days a week to 3 days a week. The reasons were multiple. She is very dependable and the twins love her like a grandmother. But she clearly favors the twins and does not get along with PS.

When she needed a week off last month I was left scrambling for child care, but came up with an awesome sitter. She is a college student and all the girls really liked her. She is definitely more active with them. And she is willing to help out with the housework. That is really the clincher. I need someone who can help out with the house and our current nanny isn't interested in doing housework. And it is more economically feasible to have someone who does child care and house work than to have two separate people. So new girl will come in two days a week, help out with the house and watch the girls.

And current nanny is PO'd. I understand her frustration, I would be irritated, too. But I told her that I have to do what is best for my family, and this is it.

There's not a prosecutor

I forgot to add the funniest part to my rant in the last post. When I called the court clerk today I asked if I could find out the name of the prosecutor handling the case. She replied, "there isn't a prosecutor. The district attorney handles the case."

What have I gotten myself into now?

I have a pretrial hearing in the morning. For my own speeding ticket. Yeah, I should have just 1) paid the darn thing; or 2) hired another lawyer to take care of it (seriously, though, who are the lawyers who go through law school to defend traffic tickets?). I couldn't take defensive driving because it hasn't been a year since my last speeding ticket. And I couldn't get deferred adjudication over the phone--although that is what I am hoping for in the morning.

I'll admit that I'm a bit nervous. First of all, I have no idea what a pretrial hearing for a traffic ticket entails. Should I be prepared with my motions in limine? I can't figure out what I want to keep out. Should I have written discovery requests? There is limited discovery in criminal cases here, but when I interned in the DA's office we usually just allowed the defense attorney to copy the entire file.

I'm not usually nervous about going to court--but this is justice court. It's a different breed of animal and the regular rules don't apply. I've never even been inside a justice court. County court, district court, court of appeals, federal court--yep. But no justice court. And it's different when you are defending yourself.

I called today to see who the prosecutor is, but got nowhere. It's a satellite court and some poor soul gets randomly assigned there. Hopefully the poor soul will be nice to me tomorrow.

How a 7 year old runs up a $30 tab for ice cream.

Every month or two I deposit money into my kids' lunch account for them to draw from. When it starts to get low I get an email letting me know so that I can deposit more.

Today I got an email saying that SS's lunch account was getting low. I had just sent $120 to be divided among the three girls at the first of February. And I only received a notice for SS, when the girls' accounts should have been reduced equally.

So I logged into the lunch payment system and quickly learned that SS had decided that she needed ice cream every single day since the first of the year. I immediately called the cafeteria manager and had a block put on her account so she can't get ice cream any more.

Then I had to come up with a creative punishment. (Yes, she knows she is not supposed to add snacks to her lunch, we have been over this in the past.) So tonight I brought home ice cream for everyone her and said, "OK, any idea why everybody in the house is getting ice cream but you? Because you have been getting ice cream every day and the rest of us haven't."

She was a little miffed at me, but got over it pretty quickly.

I also informed her that she will be brownbagging it for the next 3 weeks until she pays off her $30 debt. I'm not sure how much of a punishment that is because the kids generally enjoy taking their lunch--but I'm hoping that after 3 weeks PB&J will be getting pretty old. And I won't be buying any fun stuff for her lunch.

Yeah, I'm totally the meanest mom in the world.

My little princess

PS is a good kid. She is the brainy kid in class who sits quietly and reads her book even when there is chaos all around her. Every teacher she has ever had has told me how well behaved she is and she never, ever gets in trouble at school. (But believe me, home is a totally different matter. She has no problem creating chaos with her sisters.)

So imagine my surprise when I come home Friday night and DH says to PS, "Tell mom what happened at school today."

PS turned red and suppressed a grin and said, "well, I was having sick burps at school all day today."

"And . . ." I said, thinking that perhaps she had gotten sick, although that did not appear to be the case, and DH had not mentioned it when he reported that her sister was sick.

"And, so, at lunch, I accidentally burped in Cameron's face," she said.

And I said, "how do you accidentally burp in someone's face?"

"Well, I was burping all day and he just happened to be nearby."

"Okaaaay, " I said, "And then . . ."

"How do you know there's an 'and'?" she said.

"A mom can tell," I said.

"And he told on me," she said. "To the vice-principal. Who wrote a note in my folder."

"And what did the note say," I said.

"Burped in classmate's face," said DH.

And this is why I won't be getting the Mother of the Year award. Because a proper mother would admonish her child and come up with an appropriate punishment. But I just burst into laughter. "Seriously you, my perfect child, got busted by the VICE-PRINCIPAL for burping in a classmate's face???"

Yes, I find this hilarious. And no, I did not punish her. It came out later that she was quite upset by being admonished by the vp and cried in front of all of her classmates. She is much more concerned about getting in trouble at school then she is about getting in trouble at home, and I'm sure that her own shame is sufficient punishment.

Besides, I was proud of her for being upfront and telling us what happened at school rather then leaving us to read it in her folder.

Yay! It's finally the weekend.

This week was exhausting. We didn't have much of a weekend last week thanks to the twins' Luau party. Then I was sick for the better part of the week. On Thursday I didn't make it home until after 8 because we received a last minute filing from another party and Big Boss asked me to review it to determine if it was in compliance with the rules. Which I could have done on Friday, except that I was leaving town. So on Friday I left the house at 5:45 to make a 7:30 flight.

The scene inspection took much longer than Plaintiffs' counsel had estimated, which put us behind for the rest of the day and forced me to reschedule my flight. (I had originally requested that the scene inspection take place the day before the 3 depositions, but all of the other attorneys resisted, so we set it all for one day.) I did plenty of stomping around in the fields and am thankful I went with the boots (with basic brown pants and a coral tweed jacket. My attire was perfectly appropriate, but I could have gotten away with jeans.)

Did three depos afterward. The farmers were snickering at us attorneys' lack of agricultural knowledge. The first one was on guard in the beginning, but relaxed before I got through the background questions and I think it went really well.

Spent an hour in the airport bar with the other two defense attorneys. They were both genuinely nice guys.

As soon as I got off the plane, I called DH who told me that SS was running a 103.1 temp.

Stopped by the store to pick up Valentine's goodies for the girlies. (DH and I don't bother with V-day, but I usually pick up something small for the girls.)

Finally made it home at 9:00 last night. Kissed the girls goodnight and tucked them in. Barely made it through the Survivor episode that I had TIVO's (no, I'm not sure why I still bother) and collapsed into bed by 10:15.

I was looking forward to being a complete and total bum this weekend, but SS's fever was up to 103.9 this morning and she was vomiting, so I called the doc. Apparently Saturdays are "first come, first served," which is total BS. I talked DH into taking her and he sat there for almost two hours before ever seeing a doc. I would have been a very unpleasant person to deal with after that kind of wait--so it's good that he went. Fortunately, she does not have the flu or strep, but she does have an ear infection. They gave her a super-shot of antibiotics. This kid always gets hit hard when she gets a bug, so I am so thankful that it is nothing more serious.

They are finally home again and she is a pretty chipper little sick person (and demanding my laptop so that she can activate her new Webkinz). Hopefully her sisters (or DH or I) don't get it and the rest of the weekend will be smooth sailing.

What to wear?

On Friday I have to fly out of town to take depositions preceded by a scene inspection. The scene inspection is on a farm--out in the fields.

This presents a fashion dilemma. 1) I need to look like a lawyer; 2) I need to be dressed to hike across potentially muddy fields; and 3) I need shoes that aren't a royal PITA to deal with in the airport security line.

My work attire consists mostly of wide leg pants and stiletto heels--definitely not gonna work.

My preference would be to wear jeans with boots and a jacket. I might go this route if my jeans looked halfway decent, but they are all getting pretty worn and I have had no luck finding new jeans that fit well. Then there is the issue of wearing boots and getting through the airport.

I do have a pair of ankle boots, but they have an unattractive square toe that I think went in and out of style about two years ago. I suppose I could pair them with a pair of basic brown pants and make it work--I'm just not lovin' the idea. But it's better than looking like an idiot and ruining shoes that I love.

Maybe karma is telling me I need to go buy new shoes.

By the way, I am lusting over these shoes, but I just cannot justify coughing up the $328 for them:

Freaking out just a little bit

I just received an explanation of benefits from my insurance company saying I owe some medical provider that I have never heard of over $1K for multiple treatments for PS over the last year.

I don't think PS has even been to the doctor in the past year. The optometrist and the dentist--but not the doc (and, yes, I am overdue for her yearly!)

The only thing I can come up with is that someone has stolen her ID. I have received a couple of credit card apps in her name--not normal for a 10 year old, I think. But the thing is, I don't give my kids' SSNs out EVER. I don't even know them. I refuse to give them to medical providers for this reason (and yes, they get pissy when I refuse to give them SSNs--but our insurance started using alternate ID numbers years ago and there is just no need for it).

Of course, it is too late to talk to anyone, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow. But I can't even imagine what a PITA this is going to be if someone has stolen her ID. I'm wondering if I should try to order her credit report. But how do they verify it for a kid? I am always asked detailed questions about my mortgage and car payments when I order my credit report.

There's always something fun going on around here!

You're gonna have towork for this one

I am a products defense attorney. Which means I defend corporations, some of which you would instantly recognize. I had a hearing on a motion to compel for one such client last week. Plaintiffs' counsel was visibly agitated that I had dragged him to court for this motion. He whined to the judge, "The only reason we even filed this darn case is because [my client] wouldn't make any offer at all."

Then, in the elevator afterward, he said to me, "Your client is spending more on your legal fees than it would cost to settle this case."

And I said, "That's true. But my client doesn't settle cases. And you have no evidence."

Apparently he thinks that we should throw a few grand his way just because he says (without proof) that my client did something wrong. And he doesn't like that we are willing to file motions, conduct discovery and hire experts when he doesn't want to go through these steps--he just wants to collect a settlement and go about his business.

DH sometimes teases me about being the lawyer for Satan. But is it really worse than the lawyer who brings a meritless claim just because he thinks it will be an easy paycheck?

Don't call me an f'ing princess

Yeah, opposing counsel told me that I was being a princess today. Seriously. And not in a sarcastic way either.

I had just hung up and was scowling at the phone when Big Boss walked by and asked, "What's wrong?" So I told him.

He laughed, "What's wrong with being called a princess? It's better than being called an asshole, which is what most people call me! I'd love it if someone called me a princess."

What am I doing right now?

Going through my old law school notes. Yeah . . . seriously.

We have a case on a specific area of law that it well outside the area of law in which I usually practice. But I took the class on this area of law because it is on the bar. I spent most of my class time surfing the internet (3L Spring semester) and knew just enough to get by in class and pass the bar.

So--our consulting expert is my old law prof. I'm sure he doesn't remember me (although he says he does) because I am quite certain that I never said a word in class--and there were at least 75 or so in the class. But every time I talk to him he says, "Well, since you took my class you'll remember . . ." Or, well, if you go back to your textbook, chapter 7, you see that it says ...."

Yeah--I totally kept the textbook. And I totally remember what I learned in class while surfing the internet 2 years ago. [Please note sarcasm.] But I did keep the nutshell that was authored by my prof and was what got me through his class in the first place. And now I am reading through my old outline searching for cases which might be helpful.

So my word to the wise is to never hire your law prof as a consultant if you don't want a throw-back to your law school days.