Holiday Chaos

We planned many months ago to take the kids to Disney for Christmas. The trip has been booked for months and paid for weeks ago. I chose that week, in part, because it is the easiest time for me to get away from work. But now it is apparent that this is really not the best time to be taking a cross-country trip.

MIL has been stuck in cancer-center town since before Thanksgiving, and we have learned since then that we likely have only a few months left with her. So we have been struggling for the last few weeks with whether to cancel our trip. We decided to proceed as scheduled because 1) we are never in hometown for Christmas, always the weekend after, so we are not really breaking tradition by not being with family on Christmas Day itself. In our view, it doesn't matter the exact day as long as the whole family is together;2) the kids know about this trip and are counting on it; and 3) DH's sister is having a planned c-section on December 28. So by going to hometown after Christmas, we can see the new baby and MIL can truly have the whole family together.

Still, it was a difficult decision to come to and we are feeling a little judged by the people around us.

And the situation has gotten more sticky in the last few days. MIL will be having surgery next Friday--the day before we are scheduled to leave. She'll be hospitalized for the week following, so she will not be able to return to hometown by Christmas. Hopefully she can return home by New Year's.

So the current plan is for DH to drive to cancer-center town on Thursday so that he can visit with his mom before the surgery, and sit with his dad during. I'll head down with the girls Friday night after work. We'll all head out on our trip Saturday morning, and FIL will have the use of DH's car while we are gone. On the way back home the following weekend, DH and the girls can spend another night there while I head back to town for work on Monday. And then for New Year's we'll head where ever MIL is.

So is it totally selfish to still take this trip? I don't know. I don't think that we would spend the week in cancer-center town if we weren't going to Disney. And DH's other, not pregnant sister and her family will drive down Christmas weekend to be with the inlaws. Regardless, the whole family couldn't be together, because he pregnant sister certainly can't travel that far from home. And if all goes well, the whole family will be together the next weekend.

In the meantime, I have to get us completely packed THIS weekend. And we have volunteered to work a huge event Sunday morning. And I don't know when we will have our small family's Christmas. Most of the gifts I have bought the girls revolve around this trip. We were planning to open gifts the night before we left, but now DH won't be here. And I will have to load the car by myself. after I get home Thursday night so that we can leave the second I get home on Friday night. And I have a hearing on Friday, and I know that I am likely to work late, wrapping up all the loose ends that must be taken care of before I am out for a week.

So I am feeling guilty and stressed and grinchy. Both DH and I have been very blessed up to this point and have never had to deal with a long, horrible, painful ending to the life of someone we love. The whole situation has us dazed and in a funk and wondering if we are handling things the way we are supposed to be.

Happy Dance--The Third

Had my performance review today. Got a glowing review, they love me, have no complaints. :) And I got a raise and a bonus.

This has been a good week.

Happy Dance--Part 2

So my work computer died today. Kaput. Wouldn't boot at all.

Which sounds like a bad thing, except they have already replaced with with a brand new imac with a 27" monitor and wireless keyboard and wheel-less scroll mouse. Yeah, it's pretty awesome.

I heart my new humongous monitor. Just in time, too, since I billed 11.5 hours today and the rest of the week (or year) isn't looking much better. Maybe it will prevent me from going blind before I'm 40.

Doing the happy dance!

I'm getting a new secretary--woot! Another secretary put in her notice, so they are reassigning my secretary and I will get the new hire. Which also means that I will get to participate in the interviews for the new hire. Yea!

I don't think it's possible to have such a poor match again, but I it will be great to have some say in who I will be working with.

Allowing your kids to fail

I pushed PS into trying out for all-city orchestra. She has been playing the violin for about a year and a half now. She isn't really enjoying it, but I told her that she must at least finish out the year. She doesn't practice unless I nag her, but I thought that part of the problem is that there was no real goal to work toward because her school doesn't have chair tests. (Apparently there is a problem with attrition in orchestra--so they don't chair test so that the poor performers don't drop out. That is a whole separate issue that I won't get started on right now.)

Anyway, when I saw the note about all-city orchestra auditions, I pushed PS to do it, hoping that having a goal to work toward would compel her to put more effort into the violin and actually practice. She has had weekly private lessons and group tutorials with her orchestra teacher in the weeks leading up to the audition. I worked with her once early on and again last week. (And was reminded why I could never home school. Our session went something like this. Me: "That was supposed to be an F sharp. It was an F sharp yesterday, and an F sharp this morning, and guess what, it's still an F sharp! PS: I did play an F sharp! ME: Uh, no you didn't. Here is what it is supposed to sound like [play on flute]. Do you hear the difference? PS: It only sounds different because you are playing the flute and I am playing the violin. ME: No, it sounds different because I am playing the right notes and you are not, which should not be the case because I haven't played the flute in 15 years, and you have supposedly been practicing this music for the last month.)

Soooo, I knew that since she was still missing notes that she was not prepared for this audition. But I had no idea what her competition would sound like and I still thought it would be a good learning experience.

And then we arrived for her audition. We immediately learned that 1) all the kids would be auditioning in the same room in front of one another, and 2) she got first draw. My heart sank--neither was good news. I did many, many auditions as a kid, and the only one in front of everybody was state (which I blew because I crumbled under the pressure of auditioning in front of everyone else.)

So she had two strikes against her going in (besides her failure to practice). And then I heard the other kids in the practice room. They were good. Really good. Much better than PS.

I was just sick. I felt so badly for pushing her into this, and now realized that I had set her up for public humiliation since she would have to audition in front of everybody. Of course, I hid all of this from her and tried to remain upbeat.

Afterward she said that she thought she did ok, and that there were lots of kids worse than her. She didn't make the orchestra, but didn't seem overly distraught--and for that I am thankful.

I don't want to be the parent who tries to force my kid to fit the profile I select. Music was my thing, and as much as I had hoped it would be PS's thing, it just isn't. I won't pressure her to do another audition, and I won't make her continue with the violin after this year. She's been at it for two years now, and it is clearly not something that she enjoys enough to put her best effort into. So we'll keep looking for what will be the thing that she loves enough to be really good at. Because, as I told her Saturday after her audition, she may not have made the all-city orchestra, but I know that she is destined to do great things.

Whoa...

I had three best friends in high school. They were all parts of different circles and none of them ever really hung out with each other. And they were all very different.

I wrote about one the other day. She is the one who I tended to do the crazier stuff with, but she also tuned out whenever she had a serious boyfriend.

The second was my most laid back, steady friend. She lived with her grandparents, and I practically lived there for much of high school. She had a '68 Mustang that her dad restored for her, and she would let me drive it on the weekends when we were out cruising for boys. We have been in touch, on and off, but our lives are pretty different now and we aren't especially close.

My third best friend was a gay guy. But I didn't know he was gay at first. We kissed once and realized that there was nothing there but a platonic friendship. Not long after that he came out to me. In fact, I was the first person he ever came out to. And I was the person he confided in as to how and when he would come out to his parents and the rest of his family. We grew apart after a couple of years because he was becoming involved in risky behavior that I was not down with.

I've tried to find him online a couple of times, but had no luck. But tonight he found me on FB. Turns out that I haven't been able to find him because he has been in prison! I was stunned. We chatted for quite a while and he told me the whole story. I just can't get over my shock! He was always such a nice, never hurt a fly, type of guy.

Anyway, he told me that he thought about me a lot while in the clink and that I was always part of his coming out story. Because when he told me, my response was "That's great. Now we can go to the mall and check out guys together!" Of course, at the time it was happening I had no idea the significance of being someone's "coming out" person. I had never known an (admittedly) gay person. But he was my friend and who he wanted to sleep with wasn't going to change that.

I hope that I handled his coming out of prison story with the grace that I handled his coming out story as a 16-year-old girl.

Weekend Update

We survived out impromptu Thanksgiving weekend. Actually, my take-out dinner turned out pretty darn good. May have to start a new tradition--no prep work, no clean up.

We were glad to spend time with the inlaws, but the weekend was very stressful. MIL is not doing well. She is extremely thin and is on so many drugs that she was in a fog much of the time we were there.

They are very fortunate to be staying at the home of a friend-of-a-friend. She has graciously offered to host my inlaws the last few times they have had to visit the cancer center. It is a huge savings in lodging costs and it provides a much more home-like setting. And speaking of the kindness of almost-strangers, one of our fellow MILPs invited us to Thanksgiving when she heard about our last minute trip. We had to decline, but it was such a nice gesture. What a great group of ladies we have!

We didn't want to overwhelm MIL with the kids (or keep them cooped up too long in a strangers house) so I took them to a wonderful local park where we visited the zoo and rode a pedal boat. The girls also enjoyed swimming in the hotel pool. Overall though, it was a stressful trip.

It became apparent that this is likely MILs last round of holidays. FIL told DH that he thought she only had a few months left--and he told us today that he asked the doctor about hospice care and the doc agreed that it might be time for it.

There is just this overwhelming sense of unfairness. MIL is only 54. She has never smoked or taken so much as a sip of alcohol (FIL won't even eat food cooked in alcohol--and it isn't a religious thing--they're catholic!). She was in good shape, not overweight, and took a walk every evening. And MIL is one of the most moral and faithful people I have ever met. She just doesn't deserve this long, painful ending to her life.

I guess this is part of the reason I don't believe in god. How could a good and merciful god do this to one of his most faithful followers?

Anyway, we are still struggling with what comes next. It is hard to imagine DH's family--and especially his dad-- without his mom. And even though she is only my "in law," I have been part of DH's family for almost half my life--and my in-laws have been there many times when my own parents were not.

Thanksgiving insanity

Had a federal court filing that kept me at work until 8:30--then I still had to go to the 24-hour post office. I finally made it home at 9:30.

We were intending to return to Hometown for the weekend, but MIL was sent back to the cancer center in another town and will be stuck there through next week. Since they have no family there and it is closer to us than Hometown, we are heading to cancer center town for the holiday. So I was scouring the web in between revisions of my pleading in hopes of a great hotel deal (Crowne Plaza @ $60/night--suites, no less!)

MIL will not be able to go out to dinner in her current state so we would need some kind of take-out option. This left us without any plan whatsoever regarding Thanksgiving dinner and no time to cook. So at 10:00 p.m. I was pondering the possibility of going to the grocery store and throwing together some semblance of a meal. Instead, I found that a yummy regional cafe is offering a traditional dinner and I order takeout online! And they gave me a 25% off coupon for my first online order.

Yea! I am a planner and was not coping well with the possibility of no plan for T-day dinner.

Now I just need to pack--I have done absolutely nothing. Fortunately our nanny packed the girls and even did my laundry (which is generally outside the scope of her responsibility.) Hopefully I can just throw a few things in the suitcase and be done with it.

Now the suck... MIL's condition is getting worse. She is having to endure increasingly painful and humiliating conditions as her cancer progressions. She will likely have surgery next week to treat some of her symptoms but her tumor is compromising nearby organs (it is at the base of her spine) and there is nothing that can be done to stop it.

It's about time, Facebook

So I've been on facebook for about a year now. Most of my tech-savvy relatives have managed to find me, a couple of my friends from my adult life and a fair number of old classmates. And more than a few people who went to school with me and are friends of friends, but who I honestly don't recall AT ALL. Who I haven't found on facebook are old friends who were really friends. Nobody that I actually cared about ever getting in touch with.

And then this week I found my BFF's from both middle school and high school.

My middle school BFF moved before we started high school and we lost touch. It was nice to say "hi" and see where she's at now.

But I was even more excited to find my HS BFF. She was even the maid of honor at my wedding, but we had a falling out several years ago and it has been almost 10 years since we've spoken.

We were about as opposite as you can get. She blond, blue-eyed, short and curvy; me dark-haired, taller, thinner and straight as a board. We met in freshman biology, and most of the other girls didn't like her because she was the type who wore her clothes too tight and was prone to steal your boyfriend. I was far more conservative and didn't draw the animosity that she did. We had one or two spats over boys, but for the most part it was a non-issue. We were so different that the boys who were attracted to one of us wasn't interested in the other--and we generally didn't go for the same guys.

Most of the trouble that I got into in high school involved her. The most memorable event was when we were 16 and she had a fight with her boyfriend, a college student living in a college town about 30 miles away from us. She decided that she was going to get drunk and have it out with him. I didn't drink at all in high school and did not condone her behavior, but I wasn't going to let her drink and drive. So she grabbed her 4-pack of wine coolers and I grabbed her car keys and off we went.

Boyfriend was not happy to see us, and shooed us into a back room when another girl showed up. Yeah, that didn't go over well. BFF became belligerent and he and I literally carried her out to the car. I locked her in, jumped in and took off. She was pissed and screaming at me. It was dark and I couldn't find her headlights, so I ran over a parking block trying to get the heck out of there. She took the opportunity to jump out of the car and start running back to the boyfriend's apartment. I tackled her and dragged her kicking and screaming back to her car.

At that point I realized that I had seriously messed up her car when I hit the parking block. The car wouldn't turn left--and I had to drive the 30-mile trip back home without making a left turn. I also couldn't stop, for fear that she would jump out and I would have to chase her down again.

We had my dad look at the car the next day, and it turned out that I bent the frame. Oops. Of course, we never told anybody how it actually happened, and we remained BFF's for years after that.

There was definitely some craziness, and we disagreed about a lot, but in hindsight I realize that she is the only friend I ever had to whom I could tell anything and not be judged. She might disagree with me and she would certainly tell me so--but she wouldn't judge me or think less of me. Friends like that are hard to come by.

Update

So I was very impressed by how calmly I handled the TT issue. I emailed the principal late Wednesday night, informing her in no uncertain terms that this new policy would not apply to my children and that it was inappropriate and unlawful. I was fully prepared to argue to the death if I encountered any resistance.

But the principal called me at 7:15 Thursday and told me that she absolutely agreed with me and that she had already informed the staff that the policy was gone.

Apparently the genius behind the new restroom policy was the new assistant principal who was trying to combat messes in the bathroom. He is young, apparently inexperienced and this is the second of his policies that I have nixed in the last two months.

The other asinine policy involved taking attendance for 6th graders 5 minutes before the morning bell rang. I found out about that one after he reported PS to the state truancy board for multiple absences--when she had never been absent or even late! I laid into him for that one--but I wasn't even going to bother with him on this issue. I went straight to the principal.

I really like our principal, but she really needs to rein in her AP and his idiotic ideas quickly. And frankly, it doesn't speak well of her that she is not paying enough attention to the "policies" her AP is instituting.

In case you were wondering...

Peeing is a fundamental right subject to due process protection. Glaspy v. Malicoat, 134 F. Supp. 2d 890.

Pissed Off Mama Bear

TT had an accident at school today because the teacher wouldn't let her use the restroom when she asked. Now, I was horrified by the thought of this, but thought perhaps TT's account was skewed to her benefit. So I calmly emailed the teacher and asked her if TT's (haha, I just got the pun!) account was accurate. The teacher said yes, the principal just instituted a new policy and children are not allowed to go to the restroom unsupervised--so no kid can go unless the entire class goes.

WTF?? These are third graders! And my kids drink a lot and pee lot. In fact, we encourage it, due to DH's and PS's history of kidney stones. Not to mention that I had teeny-tiny bladder as a child--and even had (unsuccessful) surgery to try to stretch it out--so its not a leap to think my kids also have teeny tiny bladders.

I am so furious that my kid had to suffer the humiliation of having an accident because she wasn't allowed to use the restroom that I think my eyes are glowing red. I already responded to the teacher and told her that I would be requesting a conference with the principal.

I haven't emailed the principal, because I wanted to do a little research (and calm down) first. If there is any law even suggesting that my kid has a right to pee at school I am damn sure gonna find it.

It Sucks to be the Little Fish

Busy day. I had to finish up my off-site doc review and then rush back to the office for a meeting with a new client, followed by a long chat with Big Boss.

Attitudey Judy will not be getting the boot, at least not until after the holidays. It's not my call, or the outcome would have been different. But, having been at my firm a mere 3 months, I'm not really in a position to throw down an ultimatum.

I am a little frustrated by the situation, because I feel like I've done everything I can to work for her, and now I really don't trust her with important tasks. Which just rewards her with less work and punishes me with more.

Big Boss did make clear that they don't think I'm causing this problem--which was a relief. I didn't want be the new kid turned problem child who can't get along with anybody. And when he meets with her for staff reviews he will reiterate that I am the boss, like it or lump it.

I guess all I can hope for is that she finds something else quickly or has a miraculous transformation. Meanwhile, she is ignoring me unless directly spoken to--and then I am rewarded with a grunt.

Well that was interesting

Today I had to do a doc review at the firm that offered me a job before Satan f/k/a Big Boss torpedoed it by refusing to waive a conflict.

The associate working on the case for the other side was actually one of the many, many people with whom I interviewed at that firm. When I reminded him that we had met before, he said "oh, yeah, you're the one from [former firm]. I've heard a lot of bad stuff about that firm."

Later in the day someone else popped into the conference room I was working in and said, "wow, you look really familiar, have we met before?" To which I replied, "yes, you interviewed me for a job here." "Ohh..." she said, as the recognition started fading in.

I may forever be known as "the girl who got screwed out of a job" in my local legal community.

Holding Pattern

Don't know what's going to happen with secretary aka Attitudey Judy (I love that Gillian!) I do not have the authority to fire her. Big Boss is supposed to be handling it, but he is out of town.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Attitudey Judy sent an email late today informing the office that she has a "follow-up doctor's appointment" tomorrow. I am 98% sure that "doctor's appointment" is code for "interview."

In addition to my many other complaints, she is late a lot--like 20 minutes-plus every day and she takes extra-long lunches. I haven't even addressed this with her because it is the least of my concerns, but my firm uses an old-school time clock and the administration has noticed. She has also had quite a few doctor's appointments, car problems and other miscellaneous absences in the 3 months that she has been with my firm. So we've all surmised that she has been interviewing whenever she has a doctor's appointment or car trouble.

Attitudey Judy allegedly came to us to with glowing recommendations. I now understand--I would gladly give her a glowing recommendation to get rid of her and make her somebody else's problem!

I am soooo tempted to send her a response and say that I hope her "doctor's appointment" goes very, very well.

Pirates and Princesses and Rodents, oh my!

Looks like we are all systems go for spending Christmas at Disney. I got the ok from my bosses, sent vacation letters to the courts and made the final payment last week. We're booked for breakfast in Cinderella's castle on Christmas morning, and I just made reservations for pirate makeovers for the girls, thanks to a 50% discount for resort guests.

I'm excited, I've been wanting to take the girls to Disney for the last 5 years, but something always came up. I wanted them to go while they were still young enough for it to be a magical experience. I have great memories of Disney--DH and I went there on our honeymoon--but I'm a little afraid I will hate it now that I'm old and curmudgeonly. Children running about everywhere and ginormous crowds (this is peak season for Disney) are not my idea of a good time. But I have employed multiple planning resources, so hopefully it will be a pleasant experience for all.

Oh and if you're just tuning in for an update with the secretary situation--well, today sucked. I spoke with the office administrator first think this morning and she told me that I needed to confront secretary and get her side of the story, and then go to Big Boss.

Speaking to secretary did not go well. She was openly hostile and refused to give me a straight answer. She started ranting, and I just said, "We're done now."

Afterward I went to Big Boss. I'm not sure I conveyed how truly dire the situation is, but he said that he would get to the bottom of the current situation. Not really sure what that means.

I am so sick of dealing with her incompetence and hostility. It is exhausting and I really don't trust her to do anything for me anymore--in fact I gave her my receipts from my business, and , of course, she missed one of the receipts and my check was short (yeah, she didn't bring it to me to sign off on either). Argh!

Yep, it's Monday

Learned first thing this morning that the other female association put in her resignation. That will definitely mean more on my plate, and I am pretty darn busy already. And that leaves just me with all the guys.

Also learned that the situation with my secretary was even worse than I thought. A couple of weeks ago she forwarded to a client a citation that she had filed with the court. Yeah, that sounds strange right? The court issues the citation--you file the return of citation with the court. The return of citation includes the process server's statement of the time and place that the petition was served.

So I asked her for an explanation. She assured me that she had in fact filed the return with the court, but that it was on the back of the citation and that she simply hadn't bothered to copy the side with the return--only the front side with the citation.

I explained that I needed copies of the full document in the future so that I could verify that service was properly effected and that the return was in order in cases I needed to prove up a default judgment. I also explained that a savvy client would be wondering why we were filing the citation, just like I had.

The day before I left for my business trip, she brought me a file-stamped copy of the citation with the return attached to the back. The citation had two file stamps with two different dates--one of which had been crossed out by the clerk. This seemed odd, but I was wrapping things up before leaving town, so I simply set it aside.

This morning I took another look at the double-stamped citation and then at the return. The first file-stamp was Oct. 27. The second was Nov. 3. When I turned to the return, it was not sworn to until Oct. 29.

There is absolutely no way that secretary could have filed the return with the citation on the 27th--as she swore she had. The return wasn't sworn until 2 days later. She did exactly what I thought she did and then lied and tried to cover her tracks.

I am furious. Lying and hiding things are not ok. If it were solely up to me I would fire her tomorrow. I understand mistakes--and her original mistake would not have been a big deal if she were a new secretary and fessed up. But she constantly reminds me that she has 20 years' experience and that I should quit questioning her competence. And this went further than a mistake--it was outright lying.

I basically avoided secretary all day for fear of what I might say. Tact isn't one of my virtues, and I wanted to speak with the office administrator before I confronted her on this issue. Unfortunately the office administrator was out today, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. I keep thinking that maybe I am being overly harsh--and then I get smacked int he face with something like this.

Mommy Fail

Last night at dinner I accidentally sent a naughty text intended for DH to PS. Oops. Fortunately I immediately realized my mistake and demanded her phone to delete the message. And it was more innuendo than overt, so hopefully she won't be scarred for life if she manages to pull the deleted message out of the trash can.

Glad crazy week is done, but it has led to a busy weekend. The girls signed up for a fun run Saturday morning, so we had to be out of the house by 7:30. And all three kids have school projects due next week. Since our weeknight time is so limited, we have to do these things on the weekends.

PS has to build an accurate 3-D atom model. And she picked gold, which is heavy and has about a zillion particles. We bought rubber tubing into which she will insert tiny pompoms to make electron orbitals, and she will glue larger pompoms to popsicle-stick base make the nucleus. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

TT and SS have to disguise turkeys. SS is covering hers in silk flowers and hiding it in a field of grass. TT's turkey is becoming an astronaut. It is covered in aluminum foil, and we went to the dollar store just to buy a vending-machine toy so that we could get the plastic case to use as an astronaut helmet. DH thinks I'm nuts for making a special trip to buy a $.50 toy just to get the plastic shell it comes it. I think my astronaut helmet is genius!

Also have horseback riding lessons for the twins today, need to help PS practice for all-city orchestra auditions, need to work on my pro bono case, and DH needs to work on our fence before it falls into the neighbor's yard. He has replaced 60% of the wooden posts with steel ones, but every time we get a storm the remaining wooden ones start leaning. I keep trying to convince him to pay someone to take care of it, but he is stubborn and his blue-collar roots won't allow him to pay someone to do something he thinks he is capable of (even if it means he will be complaining about his back for the next week.)

Crazy Week

We've known for weeks that this week would be crazy, and it has lived up to the hype. DH left on Sunday for a conference--which left me playing the part of the single parent for the first half of the week. I have to say kudos to the single and military moms out there--I'm found it exhausting for only two days, and I have a nanny/housekeeper to help out.

He returned today--but I left for a conference in Denver and won't be home until Friday. So DH will get a taste of the craziness I have been dealing with.

I couldn't get out of the office until after 6:30 on Monday, talking PS through her homework on my commute home. (Thankfully it was English. Her math homework is killing me, but I can diagram the hell out of a sentence!) I got home in time for dinner together, homework folders and bedtime snuggles and that was about it. Fell into bed about an hour after I got the girls down.

Tuesday night I got out of the office earlier, but had to run errands to pick up some stuff for my trip. So I got home, grabbed the girls, ran our errands, back home and straight to bed for them while I did my packing.

This morning I had a site inspection, back to the office for a couple of hours, and then off to the airport. I had a raging headache by the time I landed, but some aspirin, yummy cookies and a big comfy bed at my hotel have made it all better. This is the most down time I've had all week. I guess I should enjoy it, but I really miss DH and I'd rather be home with my kiddos--even with all the crazy.

Frustration

So the problems with my secretary have continued this week, culminating in a Friday afternoon showdown where she informed me that I was "condescending and micromanaging." I responded that I would absolutely continue to micromanage her because she had made several calendaring errors, even when I had given her explicit instructions, and that it was ultimately my responsibility to ensure that all matters are calendared correctly. She continued to be very defensive, even when faced with undeniable proof of her errors.

And Friday's issues began with me simply asking for an update. As in an email that said, "Hey Thelma, can you please give me an update on the status of 1) [issue 1], and 2) [issue two]." Yep, that is totally micromanaging.

Instead of actually giving me an update, she gave me a snarky non-response to issue 1 and and told me to make sure that had all of my revisions exactly correct as to issue #2, because it was an unsaveable pdf and she had to retype the 1 page document every time I made a change (umm, hello, if you had typed it accurately the last time, it wouldn't have needed to be revised a second time).

Issue #1 had to do with entering my time. When she finally got it done, she had lost more than $3000 of my time and had billed several entries to the wrong client. But I was micromanaging again when I asked to see my time before the final deadline when prebills went to the partners.

I'm at my wit's end. I don't think that I handled things on Friday quite as professionally as I would have preferred. And I'm concerned that, since I'm the new girl in the office, I'm going to come off looking like I can't get along with the staff. And I don't know how this has happened, because I got along very well with the staff at my last firm. I don't generally have a problem getting along with people, but I am absolutely not going to let this secretary roll over me.

There is a review process in place. We had fall staff reviews and the consensus was that since she was so new she needs a little more time, but she will have to show improvement before spring reviews. In the meantime, I have been encouraged to take a firm hand to encourage her to work to her perceived potential (instead of getting frustrated and doing it myself, which is the much easier route.) That is clearly going well.

Smackdown

So, I know that I sometimes complained about my secretary at my old firm, but today I seriously contemplated sending her a email telling her how much I under-appreciated her.

I am having major issues with my new secretary. We'll call her Thelma. She started the same week that I did and she is assigned to me and the other young, female associate. That's it. There are secretaries out there who dream of a world where they only have to support two attorneys.

Since she's new, I figured part of the problem was just an adjustment period. But it's been 3 months now. Then I started thinking that maybe she's never been a litigation secretary. Nope, apparently she has 20 years experience as a litigation secretary. But I hadn't said much about her problem areas until the other associate, Rita, came into my office one day and asked if I had been having problems. Apparently we are both having the same issues.

The biggie is attention to detail. I give her documents to be formatted and corrected and they aren't done. She has sent incorrect and incomplete sets of documents to clients and courts--or sets with the pages out of order. She mixes up exhibits for court filings. One of my petitions was left at the courthouse for 3 weeks and she ever noticed! She isn't calendering--even when I specifically tell her to calendar something. And she doesn't respond to email.

So in anticipation of upcoming staff reviews, Rita and I decided that we needed to discuss these things with Thelma. Rita met with her last Friday, and I met with her on Tuesday. She was very defensive and indignant. She said that she did not appreciate that we were questioning her competence. I listened to her side of the story and offered potential solutions to the issues that we raised. And it seemed as though we were done.

And then she sent an email demanding to meet with Rita and me together to discuss "miscommunication and competency issues". I responded that we had had an adequate opportunity to discuss these issues already and another meeting would not be a productive use of time. Also, a joint meeting with Rita and me was not necessary because we have different preferences and requirements. But, I also told her that if she had any specific issues to address with me to please see me.

Apparently Thelma did not like my response, because she next tried to circumvent me by going to the senior associate who handles all of the administrative crap. Now that just pissed me off! Thelma said that she was trying to meet with me and that I was being "uncooperative." Umm, how about the part where I said to see me if you had any specific issues?

Anyway, I met with Senior Associate this morning. She was already aware of the other issues and I told her what I had discussed with Thelma and why I had responded the way that I did. She strongly recommended that I meet with Thelma again, but to schedule the meeting for a limited amount of time to address specific issues. She agreed that this is a staff problem and that it is best if I handle Thelma to send a clear message that I am her boss.

So I told Thelma that we will meet tomorrow morning at 9 for 20 minutes and to have a list of questions prepared. Yes, I intentionally scheduled this meeting for first thing in the morning because she is frequently late. And I very tightly defined what this meeting would entail, because I suspect that what Thelma really wants is a rant session, and we are not going down that path. And she is clearly pissed at me because she didn't get what she demanded. Yea! There's nothing better than a secretary who hates you!

I do not give Thelma more than she can handle (in fact, there are days when I don't give her anything at all) and I am never disrespectful or rude to her. All I want is for her to do her job the way it is supposed to be done. And apparently I am going to have to become the Wicked Witch of the West and point out every mistake she makes to make that happen. And micromanage to ensure that my calendaring is actually done and done properly and that my citations are actually served. Because if a deadline is missed or we have a limitations issue because a petition doesn't get timely serves, it's my head that will roll.

Ugh, I hate managing people.

My brain hurts

I have spent the last two days researching issues that take me right back to 1L civ pro. In retrospect, I'm not sure that civ pro is a great first year class--or maybe its just the way it was taught to me. I mean, I know that civ pro covers fundamental issues that are relevant to every type of case, but I just did not really understand the impact back when I had absolutely no understanding of the law. I did not connect the dots and fully understand the concepts back then, and so now I am having to relearn to fundamentals to research very pointed issues. Of course the great irony is that civ pro was one of my highest grades in law school and I had one of the highest grades in our section (top 10).

On the flip side, I took state procedure classes my second and third years, when I had a better understanding of the law and some actual experience from internships. I felt like I really did understand those classes and I have a great grasp of state procedure now. Those classes were my highest grades in law school.

And for my final irony, my worst grades and most detested classes in law school were in contracts and UCC classes--and my practice now revolves around contracts.

Good for you, Payless!

Last week I attended a conference and one of the break-out sessions was on using social media to promote your business. The presenter talked about the importance of monitoring Internet chatter so that you know what people are saying about you, and then responding in the same forum. She gave an example of a Motrin ad campaign that went way wrong when blogger moms started complaining about it in the blogosphere, leading Motrin to pull the ad within days--but not before hundreds had voiced their discontent via twitter and blog posts.

So yesterday when I checked my stats and saw that someone from Payless HQ had been checking me out, I knew exactly what was going on. A couple of days ago I made an off-handed comment about Payless, and they somehow picked up on the needle that dropped in my tiny little corner of the Internet.

From a business perspective, it is very savvy that Payless is so proactive in protecting its brand. From a consumer perspective, it is a little scary to know that every word you say on the Internet is being monitored by someone. And let me tell you, after attending last week's conference, I visited several Internet monitoring sites to see just where my name is popping up.

Now, before Payless comes after me for mentioning them once again, I will say this: On two separate occasions I have commented on another professional woman's fabulous shoes (one of whom had her Louboutin's tinted red in her black and white wedding pics, so definitely some shoe snobbery there), to have them confess that the fabulous shoes were from Payless.

Batman wears the same suit every day and no one accuses him of being poor

Last Thursday the twins brought home a form to enroll in an after school club that was starting today. The school does club sessions once a semester and they usually fill up quickly, so there have been times when the girls did not make it into the club they wanted. The club they both signed up for this semester required a $15 supply fee, but I did not send it in with the enrollment form because I didn't know if they would make the cut, and we usually receive a notice if they are able to participate.

This morning we were wondering whether the girls had made it into the club and I planned to email their teachers as soon as I got to work this morning. But one teacher beat me to the punch and sent out an email saying:

YOur girls turned in forms for the after school cllubs on Friday. They asked to be in the craft club. You basically have two options. They can be in the craft club but the fee is $15 per girl for supplies. It would be due asap. The other members of the club had to pay by last Friday. The other option is they can be in the spanish club and it is free.

I replied that we never saw the forms before Friday, that we returned them as soon as we got them, and explained why we hadn't sent in a supply fee (see above).

The teacher replied:

I wanted to make sure that the fee wasn't too much for your family because you have to pay double the amount. That's why we gave you the option of the spanish club.

Perhaps I am being overly sensitive but I totally interpreted this as the teacher implying that we can't afford $30 in supply fees for our 2 kids. And I know it shouldn't, but it really, really bothers me. Something we have done has caused this teacher to think that we can't take care of our children. (And she clearly has no clue what we spend on horseback riding lessons, violin lessons and soccer, because $30 for two kids to participate in a club for a semester is a steal!) And its not like we don't encounter a double fee for every single activity the twins participate in.

So I've been pondering all day what has led this teacher to determine that we are in financial straits. Of course there is the general state of the economy--but that must not have been a serious consideration, because she assumed that everyone else participating could afford the $15 supply fee.

I think it boils down to the superhero shirts. Yes, my kids are THOSE kids. Right before school started I bought them sparkly, girlie Superman and Batman shirts. And they wear them as soon as they come out of the laundry--often twice per week. DH warned me that the their teachers were going to wonder about them, but I poo-pooed him and said that they can't be the only 8-year-olds who wear their superhero shirts at every opportunity. Nevertheless, we bought them a pink glittery Spiderman shirt and a Wonder Woman shirt to put into the rotation--which to the kids just means that they can now wear superhero shirts 4 days a week!

Of course they have a closet full of clothes--they just choose not to wear them. And while I refuse to shell out the big bucks for designer duds for kids, they wear decent-quality stuff. My own economically challenged childhood ensures that they always have the "right" things. (Growing up in the preppy late 80's and early 90's, THE shoes to have were Cole Haan loafers--but only the elite actually had them. The middle class in my high school had the less expensive, but still leather Eastland loafers. And the poor kids like me had the plastic Payless loafers. My kids just can't understand my aversion to Payless--but they've never had to wear plastic shoes.)

And perhaps there were other misread clues. We recent got a notice from the cafeteria that the twins lunch accounts were $30 overdrawn. I'm sure the teacher put the notice in the folder--but she doesn't know that the accounts were overdrawn because the cafeteria applied the whole of a $150 check to only my oldest daughter's account.

And we didn't order fall pictures. (As a kid, one of my biggest humiliations was at picture-taking time because they lined us up in the order of the size of the package your parents were purchasing. I usually got the smallest package, putting me right at the front of the line.) I never order fall pictures for the kids because you can't see proofs before you order--and they are usually awful. I have hundreds of beautiful pictures of my kids and I refuse to be peer-pressured into buying crappy school pictures.

So I know that I shouldn't be affected, and that I should be thankful that the teacher isn't assuming that we are rolling the the dough--as is so often the assumption people make when they hear "lawyer." But I am. We have a teacher conference on Thursday. Is there a non awkward way to ask, "so why exactly do you think we're poor?"

Maintaining the balance

Finally we have had a nice, even week. All of the kids are healthy again. I left the office before 6:00 every day. No emergencies--except for the microwave suddenly quitting for no apparent reason. But in the scope of the disasters that we have had lately, replacing the microwave was fairly easy and inexpensive.

I don't expect the upcoming week to run quite so smoothly. PS has an orchestra concert tomorrow. We have teacher conferences on Thursday, and we're taking the kids to an uber-geeky multimedia concert experience on Friday. My work to do list is blessedly short--but there's no telling how long that will last.

I've often though of my my work v. life balance as walking a tightrope. Sometimes I fall off on the side of family and sometimes I fall off on the side of work. But there is a net below, and I always manage to climb back up the ladder and keep on going. The last few weeks it felt like I fell every time I took a step, and there were moments when I wasn't so sure I wanted to keep trying. But I did and I survived, because I'm a mom and that's just what we do.

Ummm, no thanks

I received an email early this morning from one of the secretaries at work. It said that there would be a potluck on Friday and suggested that we would all need to bring dishes. And then I saw that the email was addressed only to the females in the firm.

WTF?

I work in a heavily male-dominated firm. All of the partners are male. The only other female attorneys are one other associate and a senior associate who works reduced hours. Of course, the entire staff is all female.

I didn't reply immediately--unsure if it was indeed an office-wide luncheon or if the staff was having its own potluck and merely inviting the other associate and me. But the other associate replied, expressing my exact thoughts. And the email-sending secretary confirmed that it was an office-wide potluck, but the "guys" never brought anything, so they didn't even bother asking them this time.

Again, WTF? Sorry, but it's not in my job description (or the staff's) to feed the men in the office. I'm not a huge fan of potlucks in the first place, and I'm not going to scramble with two days' notice to prepare a dish for an event for which only half the office will contribute. Other associate and I are in solidarity that we will not be participating. I've never been one to cater to men, and I'm not about to start now.

Boo!

I can't believe how far into October we are already. We got a costume magazine in the mail a few weeks ago, and the kids have been pouring over it. Unfortunately, most of the pre-teen costumes are trashier than I am comfortable with. So I promised PS that I would make her an awesome (non-slutty) witch costume. We made the witch tutu this afternoon. It took us about an hour and the supplies cost $6. I already had the hat--I picked it up on clearance a couple of years ago for about $5. It has purple hair attached, but you can't tell in this pic. Yea for cheap costumes! Now if I can just talk the twins out of the $40 Clone Trooper costumes they are pining after. They went as Darth Vader and a Clone Trooper last year, but are convinced they need the newer cooler costumes that are out this year. I'd rather make more cute, cheap witch tutus.

The beat goes on...

I keep thinking we're in the clear with all the kid stuff ... and I keep being proved wrong. PS was feeling better on Tuesday, but had to stay home because she was not yet fever-free for 24 hours.

I asked the nanny to come in at 10, planning to leave PS alone for a couple of hours after I left at 8. When I was 20 minutes into my commute to the office, the school called to tell me that both of my twins were in the nurse's office vomiting. I was 99.9% sure it was a reaction to the final dose of Tamiflu that I had just given them (makes you nauseous if you don't eat enough), but the school insisted that I retrieve them.

I hung up and seriously lost my shit. I started bawling uncontrollably. I needed to go to work (I had received a couple of calls late Monday afternoon regarding crises that could have been averted if I had been in the office) and I needed to not have any more sick kids. It was just the straw that broke the camel's back in a completely out-of-control week.

I'm sure the office staff though I was nuts when I picked up the kids all red-eyed. I then cried all the way home, and then for another 10 minutes, locked in my bathroom. Then I cleaned myself up and waited for the nanny so that I could go to work. Of course, the kids were perfectly fine.

Wednesday the kids had no school and again seemed fine. Thursday, everyone was back in school and I thought we were back on the road to normalcy. DH and I went to a concert with friends, so he picked me up from work and we left my car at the office. We finally made it home at midnight--way past my usual bedtime.

And then at 2:00 PS came crawling into our bed, complaining of stomach pains. We were sure it was another kidney stone. I gave her some pain meds and she was able to get a little rest.

She still had pain this morning and we knew she needed to see a doc in light of the recent kidney stone. DH was going to step up and deal with it, because I have a big research project with a short deadline--but we only had one car at home.

So we both took her to the doc. They confirmed that she had blood in her urine and that it was likely the same stone that had never passed. The doc ordered an ultrasound and suggested that if it does not pass soon they may have to go get it.

Fortunately, PS was feeling better by the time we left the doctor's office. She and DH dropped me off at work at 11:15 and DH took her to the ultrasound. We still don't have the results, but the doc told me that he would call tomorrow if he didn't have them this evening.

I worked until 7:30 and will spend a large portion of my weekend hanging out with Lexis. And once again, I'm exhausted. I got about 4 hours of sleep last night, I don't know what is going to happen with my kid, and I feel like my life is never going to be normal again.

I hope that my employers are not questioning their decision to hire a mother of 3. But they haven't said a word about my crazy schedule lately--in fact, I have heard multiple times that everyone is very happy with my work product.

I just hope life levels out soon, because I'm not sure how much longer I can maintain this pace.

Yes, children are resilient

So the sick kid decided to put her ticket money plus her birthday money into an ipod touch. She spent all evening loading it up with tunes and apps, and seems to have forgotten about the concert she missed.

I do feel a little indulgent allowing my 11 year old to have a $200 device that I couldn't have even dreamed about at that age. I want my kids to understand how fortunate they are to have the things that they have--and I don't think they're there yet. But she's a good kid and she bought it with her own money, so hopefully this will be a lesson in responsibility (and not the kind that ends in tears.)

So here I sit

blogging, not working. Took PS to the doc this morning. Yep, she has the flu. No concert for her tonight. She's taking it fairly well, and DH managed to sell the tix to a coworker.

Now I'm just trying to line up childcare for the rest of the week. I am fortunate to have a nanny willing to care for flu-infected children and PS doesn't seem to be nearly as affected as her sisters were. But, PS will have to miss school again tomorrow and all three are out on Wednesday for "fair day." And nanny has class today and Wednesday. Then DH and I have plans to go out with old friends on Thursday--not the best week for this, but they have already purchased tickets. Hopefully by then everyone will be back to normal.

DH and I have both stayed miraculously well. Hopefully that sticks.

Now, I really need to bill some hours. I crossed all of my big projects off my to do list last week, but I have a brainless doc review that I can work on today while PS chills on the couch.

Problem Girl

I somehow managed to survive the last week, although there were moments when I was not sure that I was going to. The work/mommy balance has been a real struggle--harder than it has been since my first year of law school, I think (when SS had pneumonia 4 times!)

After DH missed work on Monday and Tuesday, the nanny stayed with the kids on Wednesday, but I left work early to take them to the doctor when it became apparent that there was more than just a cold going on.

I absolutely hated leaving them to go to work on Thursday--but my nanny was ok with watching them and I had hard deadline for an MSJ response and I was the only person who could take care of it. I had hoped I could file it early and head home to care for my kiddos, but the day stretched on, beyond my control, and I was left working until after 6:30 and feeling like the sucky mom of the year.

By Friday, the twins' fevers had broken (but they had a 24 hour waiting period before they could return to school) and I felt much more comfortable leaving them with the nanny. But, by 2:00 the nanny had developed a fever, so I headed home early.

Twins were fine when I was home on Friday, and again on Saturday. Finally let them out of the house today and we ran a few errands. By the time we returned home, they were completely pooped and passed out on the couch. I hope they can make it through the school day tomorrow.

And now my poor PS has a fever. She is devastated because she got concert tix for her birthday, and the concert is tomorrow. I feel so badly for her, it was supposed to be her first concert and she was so excited. And we aren't sure what to do with the tix. We can try to sell her tickets, but I'm not sure of our chances of success at this late date. DH and I offered to buy the tix from her and let her use the money for whatever she wants--but she is not at all happy about the prospect of us going to "her" concert. I don't blame her--it is salt in the wounds to see someone else enjoying something that is supposed to be yours. But I also cannot bring myself to throw away $80 worth of concert tickets. I have suggested an alternative activity for next weekend that I think she is on board with, and may ease some of the pain of missing her concert. But still, it's not what she has been looking forward to for weeks.

So, it appears likely that PS will be out of school tomorrow, and that I will be home with her because our nanny has class (but nanny is feeling better and does not have the flu.) And I'm sure I need to take PS to the doc to rule out the flu--her symptoms are different from her sisters' so hopefully it is just a cold.

And I have the constant pressure of guilt. Guilt when I'm not at work, because I fear that in the interview process I built myself to be someone that I am not. Guilt when I'm at work because I should be the one taking care of my sick kids. Guilt that I'm not doing the best job possible at being a lawyer or a mom right now and wondering if I have deluded myself into thinking I could handle it all when I am really not handling it all very well right now.

I'm exhausted

Between sick kids, insanity at work, and my pro bono client demanding action after she sat on her petition for two months I am just about at my breaking point.

Fortunately, PS seems recovered from her kidney stone and the twins are quickly getting over the flu.

And I got my brief filed at 6:00 tonight.

But there are certain aspect of my job that I am not very happy about right now. Mostly office management type stuff. It really feels like the secretaries are ruling the roost, and every time one of them bitches, it adversely affects me. Unfortunately, having had my job a mere 2 months, I don't really feel like I can bitch about these issues.

Hopefully I can make it through tomorrow with no major issues. And then spend all weekend hiding under the covers pretending I have the flu (provided that my germy little critters who love to snuggle when they're sick don't actually give me the flu.)

Not getting any better

SS was sent home from school yesterday with a fever and TT was sent home today (and we checked her this morning and she was perfectly fine!) Turns out they have the swine flu. Seriously--I have three kids and two get the swing flu and the third gets a kidney stone ALL IN ONE WEEK?

Meanwhile I have an MSJ response due tomorrow. I just got it Monday afternoon and I have never worked on the case before. The attorney to whom the case belongs had a last-minute mediation pop up and he will be out tomorrow. Which means that I have to finish the damn thing tonight so that he can sign off on it before he heads out in the morning.

And I would already be done, but I had to take the twins to the doc. DH already missed Mon and Tue with sick kids and I couldn't dodge again.

And somewhere in the middle of all this we bought a new car today. It's nice to be rid of the clown car, but it is just one more thing that I did not have time to deal with today.

Ok, must resume work on my MSJ response--but I had to bitch a little first. Can I have a caffeine IV please? This may be a long night.

Update on Other People's Parents

I just received another comment on this post, which reminded me that I needed to update this story.

So the week after Friend spent the weekend with us, she disappeared off the face of the planet. Apparently she came to school on a Thursday, told some kids that she was packing up to move, was pulled from school early the same day, and hasn't been seen since. There is a for sale sign in front of her house.

PS is sure that Friend had no idea that she would be moving. How bizarre is this story?

Sunday's post: Blogging from the ER on my iphone

Apparently I jinxed myself with yesterday's post. There has been plenty of butt-sitting today, but it has all been at hospitals.

Turns out, PS has a kidney stone. Who the hell has ever heard of an 11-year-old kid getting a kidney stone? The poor kid spent most of her day curled into a fetal position. DH gets stones. And I've seen him writhing on the floor in a fetal position, so I can't imagine how hard thus is on a kid. The stone was causing an obstruction earlier in the day which had us concerned, but it seems to have finally moved and PS seems much better.

Now if the darn hospital will just let us go. It is insane here, right in the middle of flu season. Everyone is wearing masks. And we were sent to the children's hospital--which is supposed to be a very good hospital, but it is also a public hospital--so there were many, many people there who appear to be using the ER as their PCP. And they were not happy when we got bumped to the front of the line.

Why the hell do people feel the need to bring the whole damn family to the ER for non-life-hanging-in-the-balance treatment? And of course, being a children's hospital, there is constant crying and screaming.

There have been two cops parked outside the room across hall all night. A mother started crying hysterically when the took her baby. I knew it was coming--why else would you have cops outside the room at a children's hospital? As hardened as I am after being a GAL in the child ad clinic at school--and attending grand rounds for lectures on how to identify child abuse in this very same hospital--it was heartbreaking to see a mother lose her child. And, of course, LL's story popped into my mind. I simply can't imagine how I would function if someone took my child away.

Update:

PS was released late last night and is doing much better.

And on the 7th day, she rested

My life in chaos has continued this week. My to-do list at work was frighteningly long at the beginning of the week, but it is manageable again after I knocked out a couple of research projects that took much less time than I anticipated.

We have been car shopping for DH, so I had to rush home Monday night so that we could return a car that we had been test driving over the weekend to a dealership 20 miles away. Stopped for dinner on the way home, which took an excruciatingly long time, and finally walked through my front door at 9 pm.

Tuesday was no more than the standard chaos--well except for getting up at 5 to book reservations for breakfast with Cinderella on Christmas morning (this is supposed to be a tough chick to book with, but I was successful). Wednesday I had time to come home, have dinner with the family, and head back out to Target to pick up necessaries. Thursday was PS's birthday--and the night of 5:00 and 7:00 soccer practices. So we all went to PS's 7:00 practice and then went out for dinner--which again took an excruciatingly long time, and again we didn't get home until after 9.

Then my aunt came to visit on Friday, so we went out for dinner and drinks and headed home. Up early this morning for soccer game #1, two-hour break, soccer game #2, shower and change to go to touristy place for PS's b-day, where you are forced to eat barely mediocre food with your fingers and really bad actors on horses are kicking up dust everywhere. (Kids LOVED it, though.) Somewhere in the middle of all of this, Aunt and I went to the craft store and proceeded to make headpieces for the girls to wear to the touristy place.

Finally home and sitting on my butt for what feels like the first time this week. I hope for more butt-sitting tomorrow, although we really need to paint and install the baseboard that was removed because we just redid our dining room floor.

I feel surrounded by chaos. Work is chaotic. My house is chaotic with only the dining room floor installed and the furniture all out of place while work is in progress. Kids' school and activities is chaotic. Trying to find a new car is chaotic. (Apparently I live in fantasy-land regarding the cost of cars.) I feel much busier than I have in the past--I don't know why. I'm sure it's partly the pressure to prove myself at a new job. Maybe we're just trying to take on too much at once--but it has felt like a real challenge to juggle it all lately.

Life is still chaotic

I am somewhat freaked out by my to-do list at work. It is long, and I am already juggling more cases than I ever did at Old Firm. I have been handed a few small cases to run with, and several medium to large cases that I am second or third-chairing. And then there are the projects on cases that I am not really involved with, but the attorney's just need a little help.

And in the middle of all the business, the school called on Wednesday and insisted that TT had pink-eye and that I pick her up. It didn't matter that I know my child, know she has allergies that affect her eyes, and had seen her a mere hour and a half before when she was most assuredly pink-eye free. I had to leave work to retrieve her and then make a doctor's appointment to acquire a note stating that the kid has allergies that sometimes make her eyes look red. (DH often deals with these kid emergencies, but he was launching a new international website last week and could not get away.)

So, missing a day of work has not helped, and I really need to put in some time today so that I don't get any further behind. I also have to draft a petition for my pro bono client. The one I picked up 3 months ago, when I was unemployed and had nothing better to do. She just last week returned the documents that I need to file her petition--arghhh!

And in the middle of all this, we had two soccer games yesterday and horseback riding lessons today. And I got the smackdown from PS's Russian violin teacher last week (she is very strict and I love her!). I told her that we were considering dropping violin lessons because PS did not seem dedicated enough to continue. Violin Teacher basically told me that it was my job to push PS to practice, that PS had the talent and ability to be a very good violinist, but that PS needed discipline. Violin Teacher then basically stated that white American children are lazy and undisciplined and not living up to their potential, and that the top orchestras in this area are filled with Asian musicians because their parents push them harder and they are far more disciplined.

The thing is, I push the girls very hard at school. I have had more than one teacher tell me that I push too hard. I have on many occasions asked for more challenging work for my kids because I don't think they are being being challenged to work to their full potential at school. But I don't do this with their extra-curriculars. My mindset has been that the girls need to find their "thing"--what they are good at and what they enjoy, and that the internal drive to be the best will follow.

I am extremely competitive. When I played an instrument, I wanted to be the best, and I practiced a lot to make sure I was the best. My parents never told me to practice--and honestly, probably wished that I had practiced a little less. I guess I expected the same from my kids.

But Violin Teacher made a very good point. Teaching kids the discipline to do something, even when they don't want to, is key to making them successful adults. Acquiring the discipline to practice the violin teaches PS the discipline to study when she gets to college or graduate school. And this is especially important for a smart kid who breezes through school.

So maybe we'll stick out the violin lessons--at least through the end of the year.

I am a sucky blogger

Yes, I have been derelict in my duties to the blogosphere lately. Not so much in my own blog--although my own posting has declined lately--but in my interaction with other bloggers.

I'm still reading, ladies, even if I'm not commenting. In fact, I have about 10 posts from various MILPS starred in my reader that I intended to come back and comment on. I tend to read posts through my reader at work, but I don't want to comment from there. Because I am paranoid about my office tracking my internet usage--and some of you link back to me. But I get home at night and get busy and never get around to commenting.

Also because my reader is registered under my real name gmail account, but I comment through my LC account. For all of you who use blogger, which is tied to gmail, I can't comment unless I switch accounts. It's a pain and I am lazy--and then I never get around to commenting.

So I'll try to do better. I know it's nice to have feedback, and everybody has a lot going on lately.

I live at the circus

I really wonder if other people have to endure the craziness that we do.

On Friday, we were late getting out the door to school. Then TT knocked over her bicycle and was completely incapable of picking it up. I couldn't get to it because the car door was open and blocking the way. So I started screaming,"Get in the car! Get in the car! Get in the Car!" So that she would get in the car and close the door so that I could pick up the bicycle--because it was 5 minutes before the tardy bell rings at school. I picked up the bike, threw myself into the car and started backing out only to see the neighbor setting out the trash. I yelled back to the kids, "great, now the neighbors think I'm nuts." I am certain the neighbor heard this because he looked up and smiled at me.

On Saturday we all dragged our butts out of bed to make PS's 9:00 soccer game on a dreary rainy Saturday morning. I had received an email from the coach the night before, confirming the time, and had checked the league website about 500 times to make sure that it wasn't canceled because of the rain. We got to the soccer fields at 9:00 on the dot, only to find that the email I had received was from last season's coach (whose team we aren't on anymore) and PS's game was actually at 2:00. And of course her new friend was with us, who found it all very amusing.

On Sunday we spontaneously decided to put a new floor in the dining room. Yes, 2 weeks after I had a ginormous antique piano delivered by two burly men. DH and I are not the equivalent of 2 burly men and looked more than a little ridiculous trying to move a ginormous piano. I now have half a dining room floor and bare concrete on the other half. Hopefully I will have the other half of the floor by end of next weekend.

Tonight DH ran out to the car to get something. On his way back in, Bob rushed past him through the garage and dove under the closing garage door that was still a foot off the ground. The garage door bounced off Bob and started going back up, but it didn't stop Bob from escaping.

DH and PS then dove under the garage door after Bob. I grabbed the leash and the car keys, and also took off. We've been through this before. Bob escapes at every opportunity. Yet getting him to go to the backyard to pee is a major undertaking. Apparently we need training. Anyway, he will not return once he escapes--except to the car, because he likes to ride in the car. And he runs so far that's is nice to have someone to haul everyone back once he is captured.

So it is late dusk when Bob takes off. And by the time I got the car down the alley, I couldn't find DH, PS or Bob anywhere. I circled the neighborhood for 20 minutes with no luck. Finally headed back home in case I missed them. Nope. Grabbed my phone, and called DH who tells me that they have spotted Bob, but haven't captured him. And he is very close to the highway in a semi-wooded area.

I headed that way and hopped the curb with the Suburban. It quickly became clear that I was not going to be able to get past the trees to where DH and Bob are, so I put her in reverse. But it has been raining for 3 days and I had no traction and the suburban was stuck. 10 minutes later I managed to maneuver my way out of the grass and head the other way toward DH and Bob. Finally, DH captured Bob, but they were right in the middle of the wooded area, with a long walk back to the road.

I again hopped the curb to try to meet DH. But there was a little hill, still no traction, and I immediately started sliding backward. Which was probably a good thing, or I probably would have been stuck again. Waited for DH, PS and Bob and finally loaded up and finally made back home at 8:30.

Now, every time Bob sits still for more than 10 seconds, someone yells, "hey Bob!" Because Bob has recently had his heartworm treatment and isn't supposed to be active at all for 30 days. Hopefully, the damn dog hasn't gone and killed himself.

Other people's parents

Friday PS called me at work to ask if a new friend could come over. PS said Friends moved to her school late last year and hadn't yet made very many friends. I said ok, as long as Friend's mom knew there was only a babysitter at our house and no sleepovers because she had a 9:00 soccer game this morning.

When I got home from work I asked how long Friend is allowed to stay. PS said, "well, Friend thought it was a sleepover, so she brought her stuff."

I said, "no sleepovers because of soccer, she needs to call her mom and find out what time she needs to be home tonight."

Apparently Friend's mom disappeared for the evening, and Friend could not reach her at all. Also, Nanny told me that Friend's mom never asked for our phone number or any information about us--just dropped off Friend and didn't even come to the door.

Now, PS and her BFF have ventured into the waters of parent manipulation before and have not gone back after they got in trouble from both sides. I really don't think that PS was trying to pull one over on me. I think that Friend's mom just checked out.

This morning, I told Friend that we had a soccer game and that she needed to call her mom so that we could drop her off beforehand. Friend couldn't reach mom again. So we took Friend to soccer game (well, sort of--that's another post).

I finally decided that if Friend's parents had so little interest in her whereabouts, she might be just as well at our house. And as of 3 this afternoon, still no peep from Friend's parents. I finally told her to call home and make sure someone was there so we could drop her off. I guess we could have kept her all weekend.

I am just astonished that this child's parents let her spend the night at someone's house, having never met her parents, and left her there for a full 24 hours without ever checking in on her. She was very polite and well-behaved, but you just have to wonder what is going on on the home front.

Maybe I'm smarter than I thought

Leaving old firm may have turned out to be a better decision that I realized. As I was heading into the office Friday morning I saw one of the secretaries from old firm crossing the street. I know she takes the train to work, and she wasn't especially close to a station, so I pulled over and offered her a ride.

She let it slip that the firm's big moneymaker case had been stayed due to a bankruptcy--basically bringing all billables to a screeching halt. The firm had hired three associates and two paralegals exclusively for that matter. Everyone who was contract has been canned.

Now, I probably would have been safe, even through this. I did the initial work-up on the moneymaker case, but I was moved off of it fairly early on. Instead, I was very deeply involved with all of the other cases in my practice group. And I was hired before all of those who were working on the moneymaker case. But, still, it is possible that I could have been laid off if another big fish weren't reeled in soon.

Of course, I am "last in" at new firm. So, presumably, if things go south I will be first out. But new firm seems to take major financial decisions--like adding a new associate (I was an expansion, not a replacement)--very seriously, and I don't think they would have made that leap if they weren't confident that they had the business to keep me around. And the current economic climate is actually a bit of a boon to the industry I am working in now.

Holiday Weekend

We were all supposed to be driving to Hometown this morning. SIL turned 3o yesterday, and his family makes a big deal out of the big birthdays. MIL's b-day was also this week.

We found out a few weeks ago that MIL's cancer is inoperable and incurable. She has already undergone two rounds of chemo and one round of radiation and the tumor did not respond at all. It is pressing on the nerves at the base of her spine and causes constant pain. If it grows larger, it will compress the arteries running to her legs. She is currently undergoing a third round of chemo, just to keep it from growing any more. She'll return to the cancer treatment center next month for a fourth, experimental treatment.

Anyway, MIL was really looking forward to having all of her kids together for SIL's birthday bash. Unfortunately, two of my kids started running fevers yesterday and have nasty colds. Of course, we can't bring them anywhere near MIL right now (really, they're not fit to be anywhere in public.)

So I am home with the two sickies and DH took the third kid with him to Hometown.

It's raining men--or jobs, as the case may be

You know how when you're single it seems as though all the good guys have disappeared off the planet, but as soon as you are in a relationship again, eligible men are suddenly everywhere?

Apparently the same holds true for jobs. It took me two months to find a job. I sometimes went weeks without hearing a peep from anyone. But as soon as I am off the market, jobs start popping up everywhere. In the month I've been employed I've had at least 3 interview requests, and in the last week I have had two almost job offers. One from a firm I interviewed with letting me know that they suddenly have an opening and asking if I was still interested. The second came today from a friend at the DA's office I interned at in law school. They just received a grant for an intake attorney and he was giving me a heads up that the DA was going to call me to see if I was interested.

I somewhat reluctantly told my friend that I am off the market. I sort of feel like a sell out. Being a prosecutor was what I wanted to do more than anything coming out of law school, and if he had called 6 weeks ago I would have jumped at the offer.

But I will admit that the first thing that popped into my mind was that a move to the DA's office would require a 50% pay cut. I would have been ok with that kind of salary starting out, but it would be tough to swallow after acclimating to a higher income.

And intake attorney doesn't sound like that much fun. And they grant is only for one year. And it is in podunkville, and I'd rather practice in Big City.

But I have friends there. It is closer to home. The hours would be better.

For now I'll stay where I am. I'm not quite loving it, but I know that it will take some time to adjust. And I don't think it's fair to abandon ship without giving it a fair shake. (How many metaphors have I mixed in this post?)

When is free really free?

PS and I were playing with a keyboard at Costco the other day. She asked if I could play anything, and I responded with the truth: the only thing I can play on the piano is Silver Bells. She was quite impressed with my ability to peck out the first few bars as I sang out the notes ("C-A-G-E, C-A-G-E, E-D-C, A-A-A").

Then she said, "Oh, that's how you do it," and proceeded to play a song that she knows on her violin. The child knows nothing about the piano, but was able to play an actual tune. She also taught herself a few simple tunes by ear on her violin and the kiddie keyboard she has at home.

I played the flute for years (and was very good) and cannot play ANYTHING by ear. And I certainly could not play anything on the piano. I think my child has musical talent. (I did not have talent, Ihad work ethic. I practiced a lot.) She is doing ok, but not great, with the violin--but I think it is because she's just not that interested in it. I think she may have more interest in the piano.

So, last night on craigslist I found a free piano. There were pictures posted and it looks nice enough. The ad said it was in good shape and just needed to be tuned. I am always leary of a craigslist ad, but I think it's within the realm of possibility that someone would give away a piano just to avoid the cost of having it moved.

And of course, it will cost me a couple of hundred bucks to have the "free" piano moved and tuned. I will go see it before I start coughing up cash, but I know nothing about pianos or what to look for. I guess as long as it plays and there are no visible defects it will work well enough for a starter piano.

Cell phone demons

Would you be concerned if your lawyer whipped out this phone? I LOVE this case. It screams something, but I'm not sure it's professionalism. PS said, "it doesn't mean your not a grown up, it just means you're a grown up who likes to have fun."

Perfect Day

Left the house at 7:15 so that I could make it to the office by 8 for an 8:30 meeting with a client. Made it to work at 8:35. (Fortunately both boss and client were late as well.)

Spent all day doing off-site doc review with client.

Broke for lunch and backed into a low concrete wall that was completely invisible from the driver's seat of my ginormous SUV--with client in the car. Am sure client now thinks his lawyer is a crazy woman driver. Have a nice dent in my bumper. (Shhhh, don't tell DH.)

Finish doc review at 6:30 and my head is pounding, drop client off at office at 7:15, make it home by 7:45. Sit down for dinner and spill an entire glass of iced tea into my lap. Possibly ruined suit. (I always change clothes as soon as come home from work, but tonight I was so tired, and dinner was on the table, so I was still in my suit.)

Head still pounding, too tired to eat, go take a bath.

Headache gone, exhaustion setting in.

Last day of summer

The girlies go back to school tomorrow. DH escorted them to Meet the Teacher night on Friday. They were bouncing-off-the-walls excited. PS and TT got the teachers they wanted. SS did not, but the way it worked out is really great.

SS and TT's teachers will be team teaching this year. SS's teacher will handle math and science for both classes and TT's teacher will handle language and social studies for both classes. So they will have the same teachers for all subjects!!! This is a dream come true for a mom of twins, and will make my life much, much easier. They were not doing this when PS was in 3rd grade, so it was a very pleasant surprise.

PS is assigned to the super-cool male science teacher for homeroom. I am thrilled for her because she LOVES science. And this teacher runs the Lego Mindstorm robotics program that PS is dying to be involved with. He told her that she should be a shoo-in since she is such a science nut and was in his science clubs last year. She will also be in the same class as her BFF for the first time ever. It will be interesting to see how that works out.

All of the kids are going to be up for big changes. I think 3rd grade is a big transition year, and PS's 6th grade curriculum sounds very challenging. She is in pre-AP math--I hope that I can still help her!

Of course, the next few weeks will be insane, as we get back into the routine of getting everybody out the door in the morning, and the dinner, homework, baths before a school-night bedtime rush in the evenings. Plus their fall activities, and only having a few hours each evening to fit it all in.

And the forms, my god the forms. Every year I start cursing at the number of forms I am required to fill out. So far it is 14 per kid (42!!!). But those are just the official school district forms. There will be more from each teacher, the PTA, the specials teachers, etc. The freaking forms drive me to cursing every single year. This year I finally got smart and just left the first name blank and photocopied them all, so at least I only had to fill out one of each form.

Now I just need to iron PS's first day of school outfit (why did I let her pick out something that had to be ironed?) and I think we're all set.

Never criticize your husband's mashed potatoes

Crazy day. I had a dentist appointment that made me about an hour late for work. (I had to be fitted for a crown. I have been putting it off for, oh, 2 years, but I am losing my dental coverage at the end of the month, so it was now or never. I've been on DH's health insurance forever, which includes dental and vision. New firm covers the full cost of health insurance, but doesn't offer dental or vision, and it's not worth paying for me to stay on DH's health plan just for vision and dental.)

As soon as I got to my desk, I had messages from two of my big bosses. One of them was an emergency that I had to deal with because he had to be out of the office and the other attorney on the case is on his honeymoon. So that kept me busy all day, plus about a million other little things thrown.

I finally made it home about 7:15, as DH was just about to put dinner on the table. I helped bring everything to the table, and then started serving up the kids' plates. And I might have said, "honey, I think you added too much milk, your mashed potatoes are more like potato soup." He huffed back into the kitchen.

I finished serving the kids and we waited and waited for DH to return with the green beans. When he finally arrived I said, "the hardest part about being a cook is figuring out how to get all of the food on the table at the same time."

Apparently he considered that as an additional criticism of his cooking, and it all went downhill from there.

So, the crazy day isn't getting any better. Maybe I should just go to bed.

Reason # 5,928, 546 why I made the right decision when I left Old Firm

Friday afternoon I was talking to New Boss when Old Firm came up. New Boss said, "Boy, Partner really didn't want to talk to me when I called for references. He told me that my call should be directed to human resources, but I would talk to me because it is you."

I replied, "well, he volunteered to serve as a reference, but that doesn't really surprise me."

New Boss said, "He was very reluctant. If I asked him pointed questions he would answer truthfully, but I could tell he didn't want to."

WTF??? Partner called me and offer to serve as a reference--and yet when I use him, he acts like a total a-hole! I am so royally pissed. First, Old Firm screwed me out of a job, and then Partner could have very well cost me a second job.

Fortunately, I think New Boss does not have a very high opinion of Old Firm, and recognized that the issues are theirs, not mine. Thank god I found New Firm, because I might never had found a job with the bad mojo of Old Firm hanging around.

ihappiness

To celebrate 2 weeks of gainful employment and my first paycheck in 3 months, I finally got my iphone last night. I had been debating between the iphone and blackberry, and since my office runs macs and our calendaring email system is a mac-based system, the iphone seemed to make the most sense. And it's just cool.

I spent too much time last night loading it up with apps. Some not so useful, like the iglowstick, some moderately useful like urban spoon, the essentials like facebook and google mobile, and some that are just freakin' cool like Shazam (DH is pulling out his obscure music trying to defeat Shazam.)

Of course, there are plenty of law-related apps out there. I'm just not sure that I need the Rules of Evidence on my phone. Good to know there out there though.

iphone J.D. specializes in reviewing iphone apps for lawyers, and recently posted a list of reviews in one handy-dandy blog post.

This blog has also done a nice job reviewing quite a few apps for lawyers. The date calc app seems handy--but can it calculate the Monday following the expiration of 20 days? Oh wait--I found a legal deadline calculator specific to my state--woot!

So my phone is becoming all tricked out--now I just need to get the hang of the virtual keyboard.

The bane of youth

Today I met a client with whom I telephone conferenced earlier in the week. He asked if I had been doing this very long. My boss piped in that I had just started with the firm, but that I had been practicing for a couple of years. Client said, "well you couldn't have been practicing very long, you sure don't look very old."

Of course, as a woman, I am always pleased to hear that I look younger than I am. But I'm not sure that my allegedly youthful appearance is a virtue for my professional career. If I had gone straight through college and law school, I could have made partner by now. In fact, a couple of the partners at my firm are my age.

And this isn't the first time that others have assumed that I am a twenty-something. In law school virtually everyone assumed that I was their age. And once they learned I had kids--and how old they were--you could seem them mentally calculating whether I was a teen parent. A few were bold enough to ask my age, and were usually very surprised.

My former boss certainly had no clue how old I was until well after I was hired (and I wasn't about to disillusion him.) And my current boss actually asked how old I was in my interview, and then informed me that I did not look my age. (And yes, I did tell him that he is not supposed to ask age in interviews.)

The thing is, I don't really thing I look so much younger than I am. I don't dress "young." Today I was wearing a cardigan and slacks. I definitely don't have the figure I did at 25. And I don't really think I look younger than friends my own age.

Anyway, the point is that I don't think looking young is helpful to my career. I'm not sure the client I met today would be as comfortable with me handling his case as he would with someone who appeared older. But there is not much I can do about it. I'll just have to prove my competence to gain the confidence of my clients.

P.S. I do not know what was up with yesterday's post. It was a little umm, redundant, or something.

New job: week 2

Tomorrow marks 2 weeks at the new job. I think this week is going much better than last. Last week I was feeling pretty overwhelmed with getting up to speed on several cases at once. At old firm I was finally at the point where I had brought most of my cases up from their infancy and I was very familiar with them. Now I am having to learn a new practice area and get up to speed on 10 different cases all at once.

But I am getting a handle on things and am no longer so overwhelmed. I worked late tonight, but otherwise have been regulating my hours better.

Nothing exciting to write about.