And now the final conclusion to Trial: The Reckoning
The real trial prep comes in little pill bottles - So it might be tempting, fate but I think (wish/hope/pray) my portion of the trial prep process for our upcoming case has been "completed" (in that it's ready to hand off primary responsibility to Leslie until the inevitable questions start coming... But this is progress).
I cannot fathom why and how getting trial stuff together can be so stressful and time consuming, but it always is both stressful and time consuming in spades, hearts, and even clubs. Yesterday/this morning, I finished the substantive "briefing" (ironic term, as legal briefs are never that) and drafting part of things. When we call that the fun part, we don't exactly mean "fun" in an ironic sense, but admit that affixing such adjectives to such turgid tasks is reflective of a lawyerly type's sick sensibilities.
Having completed the "fun" things is always bittersweet. There's that glow of accomplishment, the satisfaction of work well done, relief upon debouching from the caverns of legal uncertainty having achieved some simulacrum of a cogent argument... and then, there's the dreadful knowledge that it's time for the the tedious bureaucratic paper-deluge American Ninja emotional and clerical obstacle course!!
Such simple work - inventorying, labeling ordering, and preparing exhibits. So easy - photocopying. Except it never is. One is usually juggling several stacks of different copies of mostly (but not entirely) the same papers. These papers need to be arranged and presented in unique configurations. Papers assume quantum properties, and exist several places and/or no places all at once. Anomie! Paper rebellion!! And inevitably, no matter how many times one has looked through all relevant lists and documents something we absolutely need will be missing.
Let us not speak of the insidious typo seepage that all my trial briefs and proposed orders inevitably suffer. Needless to say the printer and copier will also suddenly be afflicted with the digital equivalent of krohn's disease... After unspeakable horrors, I can only hope I will emerge bloody and scarred, an acid cocktail fermenting in my belly, with a max heart rate that would make +Andrew Wright jealous.
Knock on wood, I truly have completed my portion of the task... for now. I had to miss the gym, but somehow I think pounding paper is far more of a workout than pumping iron sometimes. And I'm sure I can hippity hop like a good little gym bunny this weekend with the fella. By which time, my heart rate may have returned to something approximating normal.
While I speculate a return to normalcy, such talk is grossly premature. There are contravening forces at work: (1) things aren't filed and together yet, as much as they've been delegated to another portion of the office. With quantum legal files and notebooks such as we have, I could easily be dragged back into the fray; (2) eventually we will receive the other side's documents - I guess you could call them the Bizarro Notebook and Bizarro Pleadings, mostly in reference to Superman/Seinfeld, but then again, one must always consider the peculiarities of the attorney and party on the other side. This makes for an uneasy waiting game. In theory this is what settlement talks/conferences are for: showing everyone your legal hands and getting real before the last possible minute. Didn't really happen in this case, as they usually don't if they make it all the way to trial.
Who knows what pleadings may come!
Until then, time to kick back, pop a bottle of tums and tend to my paper-tiger bites and scratches...
At the End of the Loooooong Week of Trial Prep, Everything is a Little Bizarro: Would you be surprised if I told you we just got word that... (ok, I believe there should be at least a drum roll, if not a twenty minute rockin' out drum solo going into this one... wait for it ... wait for it...) there's a not-so-outside chance that our(oh you can taste the gooey goodness already) trial (yep, the one next Tuesday)that we spent all week freaking out
Given all the stuff for trial was due sometime yesterday, I had mostly expected Bizarro Brief to arrive at about 4:59 p.m. today - just enough time to panic and obsess over whatever Bizarro legal authority and Bizarro conclusions possibly posited. Maybe, there'd even be a refreshing summery Motion in Limonade (I'm spelling that wrong, aren't I??) to sip at. And it may well have arrived just before close of business today, since I leave work before such time...
Will we get a sneak peak at Bizarro Brief before the trial is rescheduled to August of 3045 A.D.? Or will it abscond, as most of the other side's case has thus far, into the deepest recesses of the Bizarro Fortress of Solitude, happy to send out its temporary order minions to pique and pester? Actually, I'm not up on Superman very much. Is there a Bizarro Fortress of Solitude? Would it be the Open Tent of Togetherness? Ah, well google - further enabling the tangent of no return, tsk tsk - informs me that it was the Graveyard of Solitude. So apparently, Bizarro Brief and all its wee Bizarro exhibits may well have retreated to the lonely graveyard wherein also lies any chance of ever getting anybody divorced or parentage matters finalized.
But what to do other than change gear ratios and spin my pretty head a good 180 from the workweek to a weekend of... more cycling! And running... and somebody else driving. The cycling is a mix of my obsession with the Tour de France and Andrew's obsession with hurting himself in various creative and sweat-drenched fashions. The other activities are auxiliary to these obsessions.
My obsession involves milling about on a couch at my mom's house, snacking, and occasionally pushing the fast forward button between segments while - apparently - every one else in the house falls into a sounder slumber than the bastard love child of Rip Van Winkle and Sleeping beauty after an overdose of ambien. Seriously, my Friday evening was chattering at far-flung cyclists plugging up the col de somethinghuge in sweeping rains and winds, accompanied by the stereo-snores of my viewing companions. I get it: not everyone finds cycling a riveting spectator sport.
+Andrew Wright's obsession involves getting up on a Saturday to run really hard around the lake, hop on a bike and ride really fast around some hills, and then run really fast around the lake again... oh yeah, he is paying to do this. That's right DUDEATHLON! And then, because apparently he didn't have enough bikes, he is driving to Seattle to pick up his new pet hei hei (yes, the bike is called a hei hei and it does sound like he's saying "heeeey heeey girlfriend" when he references it).
While he journeys to find his hei hei (yes, his super macho mountain bike sounds like a 1990's epicene greeting superceding"girlfriiieeeeen" and yes, he actually now refers to it as "the new hotness") I will be hiding in a dark hole - more of a den of tranquility than a fortress of graveyard despondency - while Mr. (W)right hits the road again. Or maybe watching a movie. Or maybe popping by the office just in case Bizarro Brief made it to our door step... Must enjoy the weekend. Must relax. Work life balance. Gen X... Ommmmmmmm....
Tour de 1990's Promoter Rave and the Libidinous Loris - First off, Merry Julychristmas. Maybe the heat finally cracked us, but it's a very #sockwars Xmas in July this week. No snow yet, but any excuse to eat chocolate and humm seasonally inappropriate songs to myself... Can we have pretty lights as well?
Speaking of "pretty lights," today Andrew and I had to say goodbye to a good friend and July companion, the Tour de France. And boy did they go out in... well, a bad '90's rave/drag show lighting display. The actual final stage of the tour was enjoyable - a mish mash of victory parade for presumptive winners, plus a little extra criterion snapped in at the end for every one else to try to grab. And awards. And a really oh-so-faaaaaaabulous attempt at eclat via lighting designs projected against Arc de Triomphe... which apparently is going through a bit of a midlife crisis at the moment. Note to Paris: light projection fireworks are not as cool as real fireworks. At all. And if you want to go with a late 90's energy-drink-sponsored Rave motif, c'mon and light the Champs-Élysées with black lights and let the riders dress up! Peter Sagan, would be glowing green, we all know it.
The Tour is a quirky event from start to finish. As I may have explained before, there are several competitions going on (oh yes, points ain't just for track bananas, baby!) and the "leader"/winner of each competition is said to be the "
Me? I'm pretending the weekend is not over, while irresistibly contemplating the final outcome of Trial 2: The Recknoning. Last night I dreamt the Bizarro Brief did show up at our office and it was a little Lisa Frank notebook covered in stickers with scattered notes in it. I'm pretty sure the term "ming vase" was used. Likely this would make a lot more sense than any tardy brief and papers we actually receive in this case!
Time to throw on some Bing Crosby and deck the hell out of some halls, somewhere...
Sequels Always Are SOOO Derivative, Aren't They? Trial 2 is allgood fun, but mostly disappoints in the final stretch - It is Tuesday, the day of reckoning; and, yes, TRIAL: THE RECKONING has indeed reckoned itself to a tidy (non)conclusion. I must say, as a sequel, it didn't break any new or novel ground... really just milled to dust the same old bumpety bump..
Monday mainly involved an omnipresent state of hyper-vigilant awareness... trial fever was at full pitch and about to break. Would the trial be bumped assertively into the next millennium Would we get anything other than an unsigned tax return from Bizarro Attorney... say, like a trial brief? Proposed finals? A cute picture an undignified kitten in a suit saying "I can haz trial"???
Every chime of the telephone was suddenly ear-shattering. Heads whipped about at the slightest stir, a form of perpetual horizontal head-bang. We were rockin' out to adrenaline over here, baby. I feel a bit like somebody needed to take us aside and say "It's ok, honey, but this trial... it's just not that into you, so you can stop waiting by the phone all day." Except what if it was just that into us??
Our Attorney-Avenger - the bosslady, +Pamela Englett - was just a bit more excited about, well, everything today. Our Plucky-paralegal-par-excellence was Belgian-waffling-with-whipped-cream-on-top between chatty and reclusive, and I channeled my inner paranoid delusional personality (I call her Bev, for no particular reason) by increasing my normally oversensitive receptivity to external stimuli to deafening levels.
In the midst of which, the royal baby was born. Which we know, because the very exuberant bosslady cried out in alarm at the occurrence. This prompted the rest of the office to stampede into her office all atwitter with anticipation. A minor traffic jam ensued as one by one we shrugged diffidently and tromped back out of the office into the oncoming rush of still-anticipatory atwitterers... Nobody was killed in the making of this royal moment.
What a relief when our answer - not the one we wanted, but an answer nonetheless - burst our bugged-out blister bubble. No trial! And immediately, pent up energy released in a flurry of temporary order motions, trial settings, calls to various parties. The fervent flurry and final crazed catharsis was better than deleting Facebook photos on one's ex. There will be some screaming, of course, and maybe a bin of Ben and Jerry's in time, but for now... breathing.
And coffee, because all that anticipation is exhausting. Of course since Tuesday was trial day, I am utterly uncertain what day it must be today. It doesn't quite feel like Wednesday, but we've been at chipping away at this granite block of a week far longer than a Monday would merit... what is this strange limbo?
So, back to celebrating Xmas with that little extra kick of delirium that comes from riding the trial dragon and/or wearing a Santa Suit in summer weather. Ho ho ho ho ho ho every one!
THE END...
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..........OR IS IT?????
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| It's not over under the fifty-foot radioactive zucchini eats New York!!! |
It's never over... not when there are several more trials looming. Perhaps... one of them will actually make it the full distance? Something final may happen? Maybe? The most recent settlement conference we had for our next scheduled trial didn't go so well. Well, it went great as modern ode to Ionesco et al: Waiting for The Bald Birthday Party Soprano to Take us to a Zoo Where We Can Have Happy Days: The Musical (ok, to my understanding there was no actual singing, but a lot of conversational waltzes of a staggeringly atonal and post-rhythmic style). Since this trial is two days after my birthday, during a visit from my sister and nephews, and the case that may be our heftiest morass of them all, the odds that it won't be settling anytime soon are exponentially increased!
Until then, we retreat back into the land of the ephemeral: Temporary Orders for every one!! And some covert trial prep just to keep in the game. I'll get Lisa Frank on standby so we're well prepared for the next round. I demand glitter unicorns on all relevant exhibits!!!
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