Wolves Weary and Family Flees: Teeter Totter Out of August Anomie (and a fall into Fall Frenzy)

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Moon-howling Mad-Olympian Cohabitation: Despite her terror, our Auntie-DINK plunged forward through the mirror-maze of specialists to the final test of little lobby girls who wanted to play. Wolves bayed at aquatic slots, while children scampered and screeched. Our little matrilineal mob shuffled three young lads to the home of The Great Wolf. Many traffic toils were (barely) conquered! Jungles were razed. And waves were decidedly wild!  Our DINKs held rendezvous in enemy territory for a night of pure passionate exhaustion and passing out, before mountains were scaled and final traffic torments taken on. 

Coming up: Returns of returns of returns. With final smashing of breaks and retching of nephews, the grand Bellingham Stage of Falconer Vacation comes to an end. I-5 determines to foil the flight of our little companions. Will Gramma Pam and google maps speed them ever on their way to Antarctica/Mars? Or will they be doomed to roam the side streets of Everett for all eternity?? Auntie Adella officially declares naptime, and our DINK comes leaping out, then tumbling down? Will fitness manage to put the final quietus on our "healthy" hapless heroine? Will she ever find a comfortable sleeping arrangement between the ache in her side, the twitch in her husband, and the implacable fussiness of perfect bedroom climate control?? Looby lady pills and orange barracudas get new playmates and perfectly pitched pill-regimens are toppled all turvy. Will new pills bring new perfect schedules? Will stickers be golden or silver? And Englettlaw licks its maws after a months' starvation. Will Associate Adella and Mom-Boss rise to the occasion or be eaten in the neglected August emergency slush and ash? 

Prepare the bandages, ice your wounds, and pick up a box of donuts before joining us to find the answers below...

Return to Tiny Sphynx Cat Casa   Of Olympian Ichor, Climate Wars and a side of stabbing ouchie
I have ventured to the Wolf's lair and emerged only psychically scathed (more than can be said for my return to DINKdom, but we'll get to that later).  A buzzing breakfast buffet, one last splash around the water park, an emergency poop operation (successful), and one final splash in the bath and we were on our way. Into traffic! And boy was there plenty of it. Ian was stalwart in surviving a good two hours in the back of our car with no functioning kindle or dvd player. Thank god we stopped for lunch eventually so he could get the other kindle. Also, I have now sort of heard The Nut Job, even if I have no idea what the heck was goin' on beyond good old fashioned shenanigans and moral lessons about the rule of law for small rodents. 

And today, the whole brood is off to Chicago. They never actually go home. Falconer trips are truly epic. I believe after visiting Ryan's family and their old haunting grounds, they will then be off to either Mars or Antarctica. Whichever one has the better theme park. It took some wheeling dealing and engineering innovation to shove the luggage into the trunk, but somehow we managed. The boys started off in good enough moods, but were cavilling cavalierly by the time seatbelts on signs lit up. I'm sure that the drive and subsequent ride will be a delight for all involved!

And like that I'm a DINK again. Well maybe after I rinse the lemonade and Mike&Ike hair treatment out and dust the remaining cinnamon toast residue off my pants. But we're back into childless territory with a great wham and slam. 

Yesterday morning, Andrew and I again arose next to each other, but with the twist that we were in our familiar little bedroom. Breakfast was another buffet, but the placid climes of Old Country with my fairly sedate (if rapaciously ravenous) Papa T. This was kind of the penultimate birthday hurrah "meal out" with bonus socks to be displayed in future exhibits! Andrew talked about his ridiculous race around Capitol Forest and ate roughly five breakfasts to refuel. I drank roughly twenty cups of decaf, which brought about a sufficient buzz. And with hugs, we departed off to our abridged weekend routine. 

First off, a run! I also took a quick run on Thursday before heading out. This is promising. Two runs in one week and they're starting to feel pretty good. Mostly. Good news, the injury to my arch is slowly adapting. I don't feel any pain from my Thursday and Sunday lopes around Padden. More good news: the pain in my pectoral from pilates seems to have subsided (no heart attack required!).

 The inevitable stinger: Ok, I took a total spill on the trail, during I which scratched up my right side a decent amount and - wait for it - have once again pulled my the ornery intercostal that I originally pulled trying to breakdance and then subsequently re-pulled trying to mountain bike. So much for my theoretical grand return to pilates today! Physical fitness is maybe not really all that good for your health I sometimes think! At least when you're kind of clumsy and not an unbreakable pre-teen. 

After our run and a grocery kicker, Andrew went off on a post-bike-race-bike-ride and I had a final hurrah with the family before coming home and even managing to start a few of the usual weekend chores. 

Toddler triage abandoned it was time for a return to our own portentous problems: the absolutely perfectly pleasant climate control settings for our bedroom. Naturally, I am particular about my sleeping climate. I prefer slightly cold with warm slippers on my feet and a hefty blanket for snuggling. I'm willing to negotiate on this one for the summer months but only begrudgingly and only because I'm also plagued with a miserly eco-guilty bent. In winter, I may sleep with the electric slippers on and I'll definitely have the heated mattress pad. 

The old bike-and-chain, it turns out, actually has specific preferences as well.  I swear, I used to think Andrew was completely immune to nocturnal discomfort. His old cave in Seattle was a stagnating swamp in the summer and  a hibernal hell in the winter. He slept on a crotchety twin bed with missing slats and a mattress reminiscent of camp with only a top sheet and a threadbare comforter many years beyond comfort. And he slept! In the same pjs throughout the year. 

Eventually, I learned he gets hot sometimes. Like when he stayed at my drafty condo, he didn't seem to appreciate the extra fluff of my old down comforter and incalescent heating pads. By which I mean, I'd wake up next to a sweaty irritable-looking shirtless boyfriend entirely on top of the sheets and thrashing. Similar issues in my next two residences. 

Then we moved to our current place. The stuffiest bedroom conceivable to my sensibilities. At this juncture the open windows and assisting fans were way too breezy and he got cold. I can't deny this one, though. It was a bit of a airplane hanger, and apparently he actually didn't like the sensation of "sleeping outside on a cliff-bluff in Oregon" (whoops, forgot he didn't like camping). 

So we moved our bedroom around to take him off the bluff and bought an air conditioning unit. When we first got it, it sounded like the exact settings were up to me, and I should choose what was comfortable for me, because he was comfortable in warmer rooms than me. And his main priority was not being wind-swept into the abyss in the middle of the night. 

Turns out, he's found himself waking up in a torrid sweaty humid blecky mess in the middle of the night. He has subsequently appraised himself of air conditioning usage. Being me, I turned this all into a conversation about how we could discover our mutually optimal settings and collaborate so as not to be undermining each other in a silent battle of settings in the middle of the night. 

Not sure this really gels with Andrew's "if I'm uncomfortable in the middle of the night I'll either be a man and suffer stoically or be a man and take steps to fix it," but we try. The experiment yesterday was to turn the a/c down lower. He thought he'd turned it to 70. I had turned it to 69 after that. We also tried the fan on the middle setting, which he turned to low in the middle of the night. Not saying they're related, but I did wake up in the middle of the night feeling overheated and needed to throw the blanket off myself and disrobe by a few levels. 

As of this morning, he claims this was a good setting, but then again he spent the entire evening tossing and turning (to the plaintive chorus of tired uxorial sighs at each jarring toss), so I'm not sure it was a fair test. I'm also fairly convinced that when the temperatures hit a certain level in the evening, it is better to open the windows back up and switch to fan, but it's really hard to pinpoint exactly when this is.

Oh how hard it is to be a DINK! The things we put ourselves through!

While the kiddos speed to Seatac, and the hubby groggily finishes up testing with nary a Screwpocalypse in sight (knock on wood, but his work project seems to be finally coming together), I'm back at the office in a dreary daze. My life has been waiting for me, it appears, but I think I'll ask it to hold off for a few more hours anyways. The monkeys and I would like to gather some wool and stuff it into our heavily contemplated navels, if possible.

May all your Mondays be Merrily Madcap and full of Monkey-business!

Kickin' Back (Into Associate Hyperdrive) The Feverish Falconer Dallas Delerium, and Workdays Looming

The wolf may have left its prey undigested, but there are plenty of neglected work demons licking their lusty maws and waiting to pounce now that family is gone. Is family gone? Just barely! As apparently is now par for the course for any air travel and/or drive through Seattle, it was ACTION PACKED. Accidents to the left of them, vomit to the right... and a reschedule/late plane/minor apocalypse/etc, with a dalliance in Everett of all places.

Being at the office, I only got the slightly panic-soaked text messages requesting that I continue watching google maps to ascertain where the accidents were and what the time estimates were. Not entirely sure why but somehow maps wasn't quite cooperating on the in-car phone, so I got the zesty and delightful request to tell them how to get back on the freeway from Highway Something Or Other Of No Return. Anyways, I threw a bunch of speculation (having no clear sense of where they actually were) at the chat window and suggested there were later flights, since they were not prolly gonna make their planes all considered. 

Apparently they ignored my unhelpful suggestions and found their own way back to Seatac with minutes to spare... in somebody else's context of time. Alaska offloaded them to American. And off the family went to Dallas, where a connecting flight and some additional upchucking children awaited them. Last I heard, they all survived, and are now in Chicago visiting Ryan's side of the family.

According to Braden, this part of the trip is WAY better than the Bellingham portion. If only we were out to please exclusively him, I'd rejoice at this declaration, it basically being a pass not to even try (and oh lord do we try) to amuse or entertain him, since apparently the real path to a four year old's heart (other than being the land where his lifelong best friend lives) has to do with Daddy buying him donuts and grandparents making him freezer biscuits.

Donuts? That sounds a lot easier than the various excursions to children's play palaces, wave pools, arcades, and theme restaurants! Ah well. Nobody really tries to please the fickle but fabulous Bray-bray Jiggs (duh, he's the middle child anyways), so it's moot. And since I've seen some pretty happy moments from the kid during this trip, I can only take it as a testament to how freakin' awesome Daddy and those freezer biscuits really are. Life-changing, I bet. Which is funny because usually when Ryan brings the kids treats in the morning, they almost entirely ignore them.

 Did I mention kids are fickle? Fickle as a pickle if pickles were fickle. You should hear the bitter sweet epithets thrown at mommy, the worst most beautiful most awful terrible wonderful mother in the world. Is it just me or are our totally unhealthy codependent relationships from those netherlands of late teens just practice for being parents? 

Having ensured that our kin were well provided for, Gramma Pam sped back in a race against all clocks to reach her 2:00 mediation. She made it with only a five minute deficit, though we did have to forestall the rental car return until later in the evening.

 Needless to say, none of the other exigencies brewing were acknowledged, let alone addressed. I did manage to note them on the case status sheet and to set about the fairly daunting task of billing my mom's last week of "vacation" work. This involves trowling phone, email, and chat records over several days and checking against our billing records. Since she was consistently handling the crucial flow from Wednesday afternoon through Saturday, I had a fair bit to trudge through. And this does not count the 16 new messages in her inbox from yesterday! 

Or the meeting with one of our clients who may not technically be in emergency, but who operates in panic mode regardless. 

I, for my part, will have work assigned to me by the ton in a few hours, but currently all is pending. I have a free mediation/legal options consult coming up in an hour or so for which I'll need to round up paperwork. The real question, do I let on in advance that my clients have an uncanny knack for reconciling? Probably we'll just keep that my little secret for now. And between the pleasant meet and greet and the flurry of looming exigencies, I'll be back volunteering at the DRC. Except my new supervisor is on vacation for the next two weeks. My original supervisor's successor claimed he was going to think of things for me to do, but we'll see... I'm sorely tempted to write and say "hey no biggie if there's not much to do, as I'd love to just go home and take a nap while propped up gingerly in the only pillow configuration that doesn't hurt my intercostals!"

Oh yes, the joy of my little recurring intercostal annoyance is that it's pretty ok with being upright or sitting, but laying down hurts. Which makes sleeping... interesting. I may need to get more pillows tonight as my half solution last night left my neck a little sore. 

It's gonna be a wild ride today, but don't hassle me: I'm on vacation from vacation (from vacation from vacation). 

Hungry Hyper Happy Hippo-Thyroids Evolution of the Pill case

Now that the children are on their merry way and Aunt Adella has mostly receded into the booster seat inexplicably still lurking in her kia rio, the quest to max out that insurance deductible continues! Now that I'm with specialist^specialist, I've got all kinds of new excitement coming up. First off: new pills. How did the Girl Scout ditty go? Take new pills, and keep the old, one is silver and the other gold? Something like that.

 New pills will beget new blood work to check on new pills, which may or may not spawn even newer and better pills. I've also got some other tests and blood work waiting to be done once old pills  are finished with their last hurrah. 

I had my old pills all figured out, but now... oh now there are more! And they come with their own drug/food interactions and specific instructions that turn my little twice a day pill regimen into a full on LSAT logic puzzle. Take the synthroid at least 4 hours but no less than twenty before and/or after the iron, but take the iron on a full stomach and in combination with the prenatal compound with the vitamin C that can be taken with the calcium but never with fermented yak's milk unless you are also taking the estradiol, which you should definitely take at a different time than the crushed beetle antlers which should only be consumed while slathered in holy pumpkin and during a full moon... something like that. 

No, really I just added a small dose of synthroid, which I'm promised shuffles me down the road of ART excitement yet to come. I'm just barely "normal" but "normal" isn't good enough for somebody as fabulous as me, right? Anyways, it's supposed to be taken on an empty stomach, which is challenging because my dietary habits are sort of centered around constantly eating food from waking to sleeping. It also should be taken at least a few hours apart from any other vitamins or medications and at least four from calcium or iron, both of which I was previously taking in the morning. With a huge glass of milk and a fair bit of coffee and/or fiber, which may or may not be relevant in terms of dosages and absorption. 

Anyways, I'm enjoying the puzzle aspect of it. I realized if I take it immediately upon rising, then I usually don't actually have breakfast for about forty-five minutes anyways. Of course if I start making lunches in the morning, I do munch on those, so it's easier to make lunch the night before (for several reasons, really, but to avoid the munching also). Then I can put off my previously titled "morning pills" until noon, and keep my evening pills the same.  I skip my coffee, which is just fine because so far the psychosomatic and/or other type of side effect of this new regimen involved feeling pretty wired in the morning. Have a much smaller amount a few hours later in the morning. I hear that we're actually better served by coffee putting off the first cup until a few hours after we get up anyways, so my coffee flavored milk can wait. 

But clearly, I need (1) a new pill case, (2) a compliance chart that I can fill in with stickers and/or gold stars. The pill case, because I've found that having a record of days helps override the usual "did I or didn't I do that automatic pill popping earlier and if I'm not sure should I risk over or under dosing myself today?" quandary.

The chart because I like charts and I like stickers. I used to have little achievement charts when I was taking piano. Lots of pretty sparkly stickers involved in those...

Anyways, after a bit of a dither yesterday, we are nearly caught up at the office and ready for things to start heating up and slipping away again over the impending Labor Day holiday. I'm thoroughly unaware of the fact that our trip is in less than three weeks. We did look at a guide book and like our itineraries. I speak um... English and we have a phrase book. I'm sure it'll all be fine. And that exploding Iceland thing is apparently not a problem according to several very assured scientists and desperate aviation industry representatives who think this is all totally different than 2010. 

Plus I got a dehydrator for my birthday! As is my wont when I travel, probably 75% of my luggage will be devoted to foodstuffs. I suspect the durability and versatility of dried foods might actually enhance that portion of my luggage. Of course, I'll have to actually remove it from its packaging and utilize it to enjoy the benefits. Packing the dehydrator would probably not be an ideal solution. 

And it's Wednesday!!! This is a pleasant surprise since yesterday had the panicked pallor of Monday for us. 

Happy humpday all! May all your meds be consumed in responsible doses and your stickers gleam and glisten!

The De-Labored Pre-Labor Day Work Day

I guess we're not the only ones lodged between summer vacation frenzies and Labor Day last hurrahs: This day just doesn't wanna happen. Like I'm back in law school and TGIT (yes, we actually did break with business-school tradition and have classes on Fridays, but the traditional law school drinking started around mid-Thursday with a TGIT party in one of the classrooms), this sardine packed Thursday keeps reducing itself to a glaringly vacant calendar. 

First they came for my mom's appointments: a client dropped a Protection Order hearing so no need to prepare, another client moved to next week, another call couldn't be handled until after speaking with the client. 

And I said nothing because I still had a morning consult.

 Then they came for her hearings: a presentation hearing had to be cancelled because - yet again - the wrong commissioner was assigned to this day. We did actually try to check this with the clerk before setting the hearing, but oh well.

 And again I said nothing other than "grumble grumble" because I had my morning consult and a volunteer shift at the DRC in the afternoon. 

And then, oh beautiful then, I came into work this morning to find a message from my putative morning consult. She believed she had an appointment with a - um - Adella Wright?? Anyways, she doesn't anymore. FREEDOM! It's like having your classes cancelled due to a prof no-show. 

After a double-surge of frenetic productivity, the unexpected lull is a blessed relief that I may or may not have the energy to exploit for productive purposes. You know those days right after exams, where you are so mentally done that despite all those fantasies about "what I get to do when I'm no longer studying/writing/scrambling," you find yourself sitting still on a sofa for straight hours staring inscrutably into space as time laps over you like a gently incoming tide? That may be my morning. Or, I may go out and get some blood drawn! One can never predict!

Yesterday, despite all my reconciliation juju, I managed to get a client divorced. It only took them a decade or two (most of which, due to complications with prior attorneys, they were unaware that they were still married)! And, I may have hooked a couple into Collaborative Law. I've sent out the forms and I believe it when I see it, but it would be really exciting to work with them. 

In far more important news, I discovered the secret of the ZERO and/or "AGENT" command. After Andrew's laboriously involved quest for the perfect phone and phone plan, I came to understand that (1) I just wasn't ready to switch to AT&T even if I could theoretically save money doing so (after having to buy a new phone anyways);  (2) Given my data usage, I could save a decent amount of money (like half my bill) switching to a newer plan from Verizon; (3) Given my mom's non-existent data usage, she really really needed to switch as well.  

Of course, the Verizon automated phone tree was absurd, and the internet didn't want to let me make that switch. But then Andrew revealed the magical back-door cheat code. If you just push zero a whole lot or ask for agent, you eventually get piped to a living person. And, in my case, that person was extremely helpful.

While Andrew's subsequent dalliance (with my phone on the unlimited talk and text single line plan I had switched to just in time for such telephonic tangos with the hold line) AT&T was fruitful, and his phone is now set up and his number transferred, I did note that he was on hold to some really awful music several times and was cut off and had to call again several more. So I may still be happy with Verizon for now, now that I know the secret of the zero. 

Having accomplished these things already within the week and having given today a good sporting go at preparation only to have it flake out on me, I'm quite ready to celebrate Thursday old school. TGIT, I say! Bring on the leis and the grass skirts, because I declare it time to limbo. 

Bluesing to Adoption While DINKs Take on the Zombies

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohowloweenitation: Love wasn't the only thing biting when treadmills attacked, and orange barracudas smiled. Only Aragraconiselcius the Third and a prayer or two could sweep in to the rescue and pluck our heroes from the gaping maw of eternal nullity. Groundworks were laid to build (other people's) families after so many demolition jobs and good omens from a flaxen trio from the mystical lands of baby yogaquazumbananaoramdingdong. 

Coming Up: Orange deepens and roars as the crazy man and his army of Jovaviches charges forward? Do the plucky couple have any chance of survival? Will they willingly enter and survive a Fred Meyer's grand opening? Relationships of the soul are forged in paper and ink. Adoption Day arrives! Will Adella arrive in German Leiderhosen throwing glitter? A blues night opens portals to the past and memories flood in. Will they carry in their currents the final untwisting of a very hard massage? Will Blue battle Orange for supremacy? And another week, another weigh. Postive results show promising signs of future domination (of Krispy Kremes, perhaps). Will they stick? 

Read on for the answers and more...

Super Socktober Date Night: Let the Zombies In -

 It's a week and counting to Howlowhooopeeeen and time to start celebrating in earnest (if not in Earnest, than in Frank and/or in Bernice). Not that wandering around hummming ghost noises and screaming into echoey chambers isn't a start, but at some point, you've got to fall back on the film marathons and glitter. Glitter has been purchased, so on to the movies! I was feeling a bit off-kilter (nothing new these days, as I'm not sure I even distinctly remember the sensation of being atop kilter) and unfit for public consumption.

So for our date night, let's say that I dressed up like  a leopard (leopard print pjs totally count meeeeow) and surprised my husband with some no-longer-frozen burritos and the beginning of what we hope might be an appreciable Resident Evil marathon. Of course, as we've learned from canistream.it, the only Resident Evil movie available for the lazy online streamers is the first one. This worked just fine last night, but may in fact necessitate an actual trip to a... qu'est qu'il dit... movie rental place?? Something like that. I imagine these are hot commodities for this season, so we'll see what gales of fortune gust into the sails for our journey through the years of Umbrella Corps waltzes with semi-nude Milla. 

This morning is Adoption Day! Like all days in which a new test arises, I have mostly been fretting over potential logistical gaffes. In law school, it was the crippling nightmares about computers exploding mid-essay and/or some kind of difficulty making it to the testing site. At the bar exam, well, the same. This is less computer-centric of a procedure, so the mild suggestions of panic dreams left unexplored are mostly of the exploding briefcase and/or tsunamis interfering with my five minute walk to the courthouse. So far, the weather forecast looks good, although time appears to be travelling backwards, if you trust my "trusty" atomic clock (currently claiming that it is 10:36 p.m.). Never a brilliant sign.  But I've got a few incantations and fairy dust (I did buy glitter after all) to throw in the face of a smirky Norn or two. 

Once this hearing nonsense is completed, I've got a single ladies night, since my husband is going to Seattle to try on clothes. He's chic and only a touch epicene in that fashion (har har). No, really, it's for his new team "kit" order for 2014. Since the cycling uniforms are made in Europe the extent of vanity sizing is minute and it takes some trial and error to identify the correct size.

 I shall be celebrating by watching episodes of Face Off and possibly staring into the vacant vortex behind my conscious awareness.

But for now, load up the glitter guns, I'm off to the adoption! 

Adoptalypse Now! A Very Happy Family Law Moment - 

Yesterday was Adoption Day 2013. Not the technical national holiday one. The personal one for me and my bestie-clients. Marcus is now Dylan's dad! Like legally and stuff! I can't say how much of an honor it's been to be a part of this process, edifying a longstanding relationship after many years with a bunch (and I mean a bunch) of paperwork. 

Adoptions are cool, albeit fairly anticlimactic. The "final hearing" was in judge's chambers (i.e. the judicial batcave). It took roughly five minutes. Dylan spent the "hearing" playing with a magnetic desk toy (the toy was magnetic, the desk was not). When asked if he wanted to be adoption, Dylan was temporarily distracted just long enough to say "sure" (oh he is so ready to be a teenager, which despite all appearances he's not quite yet). Emma spent the time giggling and blowing epic snot bubbles (better her than me). She did not give her opinion as to the adoption process, but chimed in anyways with a rousing chorus of "mamamamama" that I think might have been directed at the judge.

 And in the grand traditional of legal realities, we spent more time in the clerks' office getting copies and filling out paperwork for the Department of Health than we did in chambers. 

 Dylan is definitely an inch plus on me when I'm holding myself upright. How on earth that happened, I'll never know, but since we're inundated with GMO labeling debate right now, I can only assume he'll soon be labelled as a genetically modified organism. I'm practicing my neck crooks for looking up at him when he hits his apex. I did mention he's not even officially a teenager yet, right?

That aside, I was quite happy to hand certified copies of the adoption to decree to Molly, Marcus, and one to Dylan. I told Dylan to keep his copy for future reference when deciding whom to blame for any psychological problems he may develop. Might be a useful tool as he sidles towards driving (and motorcycling age) as well. So far, he's contended with his active schedule of musical instruments, track, and - of course - heavy Xbox practice. But it's only a matter of time... I hear in his more private moments, he has already demonstrated some skill in the requisite teenage qualities of "being a bit fat pill" to match his newly developing second tenor timbre.  

Molly's mom and step-dad showed up just after the official document signing and well in time for the exciting waiting and/or galloping around the clerk's office (galloping courtesy of Emma, who'd held still and been child of secondary attention for far too long).

While the family loaded up into Molly's  new minivan, I said my farewells, blinked back a sprinkling of moisture, and strutted back to the office. My saunter was far less prideful than relieved, because somehow I did manage to avoid singing any German drinking songs while jigging on the judge's desk. After the paperwork has been properly filled and filed, the attorney's job (thank goodness) is mostly to stay out of the way and let things run their natural course. Possibly to smuggle any beepable contraband past security if clients are running short on time. Fortunately, Marcus had time to return the knife in his pocket to the car, so I didn't have to stash such a thing in my briefcase.  

Apparently the witching hour leading into adoption extravaganza has faded and time is resuming to normal in atomic clock land. Thanks goodness. The world returned to some semblance of normal in time for me to run down to the Y to run a bit more and then make funny faces and slight groaning noises atop several silver sneaker machines. I may have been a little wired between the morning's festivities and the intervals I choose to pepper into my "warm up" on the treadmill. 

And for true celebration of familial formation, I went home and had a single lady night! The darling boyfrianceband was off trying on silly clothes and eating pizza. Yes, I might be afraid of shopping and sartorial consumerism, but he has no qualms about socializing at events that involve in depth discussion of inseams and chest measurements... and a fair amount of spandex to boot. 

Andrew is soon to be the proud owner of a medium sized team kit (ooooooh medium in those teeny tiny Italian cycling clothes, so you know that weight loss goal really is coalescing). And... drum roll please... a skin suit!! He is one step closer to Captain American. I suggested he would need the time trial helmet and a small cape, and then he could endue himself in such before the next Avengers movie. Of course, I'm not sure Thor (the next Avengers movie) quite gels with Andrew's brand of supercyclist vestments, but then again he might look quite strapping with some Loki thorns added to his helmet. This suggestion has lathered up quite the internal dialog about aerodynamic properties of Loki horns. I think there's a good chance, the boyfrianceband will end up racing in a large horned headdress by the end of the year!

Ever wild, my single lady evening consisted of swearing at netflix for not working when I wanted to watch House of Cards. I fell into the solace of amazon prime and old episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark, including one of several episodes of this 1990's Snick (echo-boomers unite in nostalgic pop cultural references!) that presaged the supposed "twist" to 6th Sense. I also - hang onto your hats here - took a shower and (promise you won't report me to the ABA ethics committee for this craziness) went to bed early!! And, I must hang my head and admit to even experimenting with a few complicated crosswords that were explicitly labeled as "weekend crosswords" Oh my! Did I just admit all of that publicly?? I must be giddy. 

Anyhoo, it's been a big ole' week and I'm surfing right through the orange barracuda towards whatever comes next. I'm going back to just-estrogen in a couple of days per the tenebrous Rx regimen that seems hellbent on whipping my internal cycles back into some kind of regularity despite their sniveling and chaffering at the thought (yep, my entire endocrine system might just be a teenager, which would explain why I feel a bit like I'm going through puberty yet again!) One fewer pill sounds good, but since progesterone balances estrogen out, well we could be seeing a situation of all yin with no yang coming up! 

Show me the Weigh to Go Home, Go Home

 Actually, I kind of know how to go home, so you can just show me ... well I don't know, what do people want to be shown? Say, that state? You know. The "Show me" state. What do people in Missouri want to be shown exactly. This has frequently perplexed me. 

But as I have successfully found what I feel comfortable dubbing "home" I will turn my furrowed brow to other concerns. I am officially of the ranks of millions of Americans on the weigh up, poundage speaking. I'm happy to report that my weekly weigh-in showed positive (literally and otherwise) results. While I continue to demonstrate a healthy skepticism (unlike my generally questionable reflexive skepticism of all things that move and breath - or do they?) about the objective quality of the body fat reader, I will happily report having my first reading in the 20% zone. And, but for about half a pound, I am ten pounds heavier than I was two months ago. 

Just as it was on the way down, I have to laugh at how minimal the difference in appearance is. Even most of my body measurements are hardly different. With the exception of a few snug pants, it seems that "my size" so far comfortably straddles at least ten pounds. In fact, the most noticeable change in size seems to be due to the sudden and extraordinary chiseling of calf muscles I'd commented on earlier. Incidentally, all this definition definitely complicates shaving. Somehow I'll survive. Needless to say, ask yourself if you feel no different and you cease to do so. I've spent the rest of the day feeling that I am bursting the seams of all clothing that was ever the slightest bit fitted. On the bright side, I've deluded myself into thinking I'm brimming over with decollatage and rounded edges. 

To celebrate, or just because it's Saturday, +Andrew Wright and I hit the domestically blissed out "trail" (and tread) for our Saturday DINKStravaganza. We ran a bit further today than the mini-run last week, but since our official run only went about 50 minutes, I again hopped on the treadmill for another 20. It works pretty well, since Andrew takes far longer on his weights and it saves me the wait (oh homophones, how I will use you like the tawdry trollops you really are). 

Having survived a post-workout Fred Meyer's battle (it's their "grand opening" which means "one last surge of horrific before hopefully things stay where they're supposed to and every one chills back out") and scrubbed myself down to some semblance of squeaky, I'm ready for a looong and deep massage. And, thank goodness, I actually get to have one of those in about an hour. 

Crazy Mike Gave us His Video Collection! 

Actually, this "mike" gentleman gave them to my mother and David. I know this because she texted me saying she'd acquired the rest of the Resident Evil movies from this barmy gentleman. We arranged to meet somewhere between the perdition of the produce section (sample and surly celebrant central) and the relative quiet of the men's athletic clothing section (naturally, having tried on some athletic clothes on Thursday, Andrew is unstoppable in his quest for more more more). Thus Halloween was saved and Resident Evil movie marathon could commence. Well, for a marathon, we really do pace ourselves. We watched one Wednesday. And one yesteday. Fortunately, they aren't due back to the store until Thursday so there's plenty of time to watch armies of naked Milla Jovovich's kick various undead butts. 

We might have watch two whole movies, except that there was actually a chance for me and Andrew to go blues dancing last night! And we were both up for it! And and and... it happened. It's going to be a new fourth week of the month dance, so there may be a chance for a repeat. While tango is my baby in some regard, there's a poignancy about my time blues dancing, perhaps more concentrated as it seemed to have mostly culminating in meeting my future husband. Blues was actually the last dance I learned, and I did so just after graduating from Western. A sweet smelling reckless self-styled James Bond tanguero was mainly a blues dancer and there was an alluring madness and vulnerability to his dancing that surely whetted my appetite after many months of another partner encouraging me to try it. At the time, Blues didn't exist in Bellingham and the scene was focused on one or two major events in Seattle. When the next guy I met reported a history of going to Blues Underground, I couldn't help inviting him to go to the next one. I immediately fell into full infatuation (in several regards) that first evening out. For the next couple of years, blues hit my life in several strange ways. There were the highest ups and downs and some incredibly long sleepless trips and festivals. Moments of crystalline spiritual lucidity and the murkiest confusions between on the floor and off the floor sensations of intimacy that had only been hinted at in my prior tango experiences. And there were house parties. Oooh the house parties. When I went to bed at 5 a.m. instead of rising then, how they did delight me. 

And in the end, I met Andrew. Our first kiss was just after our first dance at Wade's. I won't say that ended my blues dancing run, but things began to expand and fragment in the blues world in Seattle around that time, so it was harder to track down my cadre of reliably ooey gooey incredible leads. School got harder. I was less starved for that emotional and physical comfort. And schedules got in the way. 

There is more blues in Bellingham, but the biggest event starts at my bedtime on a weeknight. And I just don't travel to dance like I used to. At this point I'm so rusty that I'm a little nervous about putting my bare hips into the hands of some stranger without some lathing of rust and wear.  

Still, it was fun to feel that rush and energy again - every moment exploding into a single shared second on the dance floor last night. I even had a blast of a west coastish dance with a fellow I'd met a while back named Jared. I almost asked the guy who was teaching that night to dance, as he looked fun, but wussed out in the name of a bum knee. Andrew and I danced for the better part of an hour and shared some moments of utter newness - like strangers having an affair on the the dance floor. So it was all a delight. 

Needless to say, I've undone all of the toil my poor masseur put into untwisting me (apparently, I'm twisted - I guess he knows me better than I think!) Yes, speaking of intimate experiences, I had quite the massage yesterday. You know you're in for something when your masseur croons "you will thank me for this later, but you're going to hate me right about now." I didn't hate him, but boy did I discover all kinds of interesting things going on in my hip flexors. I only almost cried and thrashed. In other awkward massage experiences: sheet wedgie. Only a little one, but I really hope they actually change out all the linens between clients, because... well, sheet wedgie. Also, having a runny nose while face down is an interesting impediment to relaxation. 

Somehow I survived. And then resnarled my body for the cause of blues. It was well worth it!

Arbit(ray)ation

So... it has come to this! What you ask? This, I say (type) slyly. Obviously this, do you not listen? And who is rounding second base, as we quibble. No, the final hangover of my first year of law school was wrapped up with a pretty ticker-tape bow yesterday. Well, almost, at any rate.

For those who haven't tuned in in the last year or so, I was involved in a four car pile up in April of 2009. I don't recall many of the details of the crash, but needless to say, there were four cars, it was scary, and I was the one in back. I had thought our insurance companies had handled every thing closer to the accident. My premiums definitely went astronomical, which appeared to be a decent indicator. But last August, just frolicking in the free time of post-bar-pre-admission summer pleasantness, I got served with papers from the person second to the front who also sued the guy in front of me. She will hereinafter be referred to as "the plaintif" because "annoying person who forced me to muddle with memories of a part of my life I find amusingly akin to a bad country western song" is a bit prolix.

 After some brief panicking and inability to locate my insurance company from that time, I managed to hand it off just under the response deadline and forget again all about the accident. Until the deposition! While that was a fun medley of "I do not recall" crunched into a half hour of actual deposition and two and a half hours or tormented traffic to get there, it was only the opening act for the ARBITRATION!

It was in Bellevue and it was yesterday. And it was kind of like the deposition on steroids. Yes, arbitration is like your deposition went out and got really drunk and became loud before needing to be escorted home and put to bed with a convenient trash can nearby. For one, I got to hear the other versions of what happened. It's kind of like an amazingly dull detective novel. Nobody has the same story. I don't even have the same story as I had when it happened, which a transcript of a phone call with my co-defendant's insurance company made very clear (did he skid? Was he halfway out of the lane or all the way or not at all? Apparently I have believed many different details about the incident before deciding I had no idea).

 At some point the plaintiff's lawyer was asking me to explain how I would have finished a rather flailing recorded sentence about my codefendant and I actually just said "look, I don't remember saying any of this, but it's obvious from the transcript that I was struggling with remembering and articulating what exactly had happened. I don't know if I knew at the time what I was going to say, but I definitely don't have any clue now."

Nor did the police make any kind of report based on the memories reported by us seconds after the accident. The officer showed up after we'd all moved to the side, didn't appear to take real statements from any of us and concluded that I had caused the accident in a way that reflected damage that wasn't there and was completely at odds with every other version of what happened. The arbitrator said that the report only served to convolute an already convoluted mess. Also, kind of explains why my damned insurance is so horribly high. Grrr.

The plaintiff's story was that the car in front stopped suddenly. She stopped, narrowly missing a rear-ender by a few feet. But then(!!) was pushed forward when my codefendant slammed into her, and then again when I hit him, which hit him into her, which ... something. She swears up and down that my codefendant was directly and squarely behind her and that the damage happened right to the middle of her car and that she got out after the accident and we were all bumper to bumper.

My co-defendant remembers seeing the plaintiff slam into the back of the car in front, having jammed on his breaks and veering to the right, missing her car entirely. He knows I hit him (we've dealt with all of that) mostly dragging across the side of his car, and doesn't recall me hitting her.

Now, I remember seeing  brake lights, my co-defendant veering right, my trying to veer left, and scraping across the back left of his car. At some point I "remembered" hitting the plaintiff's car (so I said in the interview with an insurance adjuster a month after the accident), but I also think that I thought this because the way the damage was recorded on the police report, it seemed like I would have had to have been the one to hit her.

The first driver remembers... well nobody knows because he was not a party to this lawsuit! He was also not a witness. He is, in fact, "missing" according to plaintiff's lawyer. And nobody knows exactly why he stopped so damned short on the freeway, except that both plaintiff and codefendant saw that there weren't cars directly in front of him.  The arbitrator thought it a mite odd that he wasn't somehow involved. As did the rest of us.

Anyways, my best guess about what actually happened is that the driver in front was an idiot who - like many Seattle drivers - has issues with appropriate breaking while driving fast and a car that was well-equipped to facilitate this idiocy. I'd further posit that the plaintiff didn't have as good of breaks as his and did in fact slam into the back of his car. And that probably my codefendant did not hit the back of her car. And that possibly I did hit the back of her car after being significantly slowed by the impact with his. but that this was not what caused the damage to her car or whatever neck problems she had. So, that's my theory of the case. And that she took her damned sweet time, paying out of pocket because she didn't have any insurance, then couldn't find the dude in front and needed some cash from somebody.

Lord knows what the arbitrator will decide. He has about five fathoms of paper pictures for various cars and various damage to these cars that may or may not have been pre-existing. There's a dispute about the color of paint on the rear bumper of the plaintiff's car and some tiny cracks on my codefendant's car. There are all kinds of minor disagreements in recorded statements. And of course the fact that nobody really remembers the same thing.

Neither defense attorney disputed her damages because they were asking for a defense verdict, but I did find it interesting that she was asking for $7,000 in chiropractor's bills. about $1,000 of work done on the front of her car (virtually no damage to the back), and an extra $10,000 for something like lost wages because her stiff neck made it hard to find work. I'd imagine that her having recently been fired for shoplifting to have made it harder for her to find work... that and the recession. Of course, while I was objectively fascinated at that strategic decision, the fact that the damages fall far underneath the cap for insurance covering my liability means that even were I the kind of attorney prone to kibbitzing about fields of law I know nothing about aside from how I'd answer a Bar Exam question on the matter, I still probably wouldn't be too invested in that dispute.

The lessons of my experience are plentiful. I'm sure I understand something more about my client's experiences. And of course, It's a nicely stunning reminder that our memories are largely simulacra - with tiny bits of true sense memory cemented together by rather convincing neural conjecture and highly edited story telling. Even more important: driving in and around Seattle sucks! The true moral.

It was also a nicely circular event, as the arbitration took place just a block away from where I did my first year summer internship with PeaceHealth a few months after the accident. Same exit and everything. It was also where I went last year to buy my bridesmaid's dress for Molly's wedding. Funny how little geographic themes emerge and reemerge when you least expect them. Bellevue appears to be mostly, though, the place I go to put an end to the horrors - the bar exam, the uncertainty of an empty summer for a fetid 1L, and now this car saga!

As of two twenty today, I have been deposed

Deposition I say? How exciting! How salacious and legalistic and utterly thrilling and important! I love the smell of Grisham in the morning! "You can't handle the truth!" Etc. etc.

For those who don't know me very well - or are terrifically poor stalkers - I was involved in a four car pile up at the end of my first year of law school. I'd make a witty comment about the experience, but I've already made all of them explaining the story to various people. Suffice to say, it was apparently in April of two-thousand-something. I'd forgotten much about that 1L April, happy enough t discount it as that sucky month, shortly before the much better months to come. But all the legal documents I've seen have said this little crashamajig happened in April. It is, or so I hear, the cruelest month, so that makes sense.

 I do remember "it" nipping at the heels of a hellacious week: there was a half-expected break up over Easter weekend mixed in with about 16 weekend hours of intensive detail-oriented writing homework. And the inevitable exacerbation that comes with a pretty horrendous sleep debt. Oh and I had yet to get back any of my grades really for the entire year so I was fairly certain that I was either failing out of law school or - horror of horrors - stuck there for another endless two years. As an aside, I will say that the following two years felt far shorter than the first half of the first quarter of my first, so my fears were generally mislaid. But anyways. Mostly I remember a jarring impact, then sitting at the side of the road laughing hysterically. Because at a certain point it is just horribly funny and you kind of have to shrug and say "ok, life, you got me."

Needless to say, when I was - three years later - served with papers on my birthday, I was not entirely optimistic about my chances of escaping liability. For one, I was admittedly at the tail end of a really crappy Country-Western-worthy week at the time. It wasn't a stretch to imagine I wasn't driving all that brilliantly. Lawyers actually are notoriously poor drivers, so imagine how much worse law students are! It's a miracle I wasn't turning every road I drove on into a demolition derby, really! For another, I was at the back of the crash-pack and rear-enders are presumptively at fault in our state. Not to mention that I had gotten a ticket for the whole thing... Damage is pretty much done (har har) to my insurance rating. Once I got the insurance company to engage an attorney, I was pretty much ready to ignore the whole thing, aside from my lingering PTSD panic attacks on the freeway and random rants about people tailgating and how *DANGEROUS* it is. Never ride with somebody who has been in an accident - they are insufferable passengers.

Anyways, car cases are weird and I'm only peripherally involved, so have paid very little attention to the case as its developed since August But it was D-day today! So time to be involved again. I hit the road with obscene amounts of time to spare -slightly more than an hour earlier than needed, just to have some "wiggle room" if I got lost or in some other "it would just figure" vehicular mishap. I figured, if all went well, I would wait at the Starbucks for a while and sooth my nerves with something decaffeinated. I figured incorrectly. No accident, but no luxurious wait at Starbucks tinkering with my smart phone either.

In fact, I ended up getting there with only two minutes to spare, because - if the accident itself didn't make clear - driving in Seattle is God's punishment to mankind. Some car had "stalled out" which for some reason took up two lanes on the freeway in downtown Seattle. It took me forty minutes to get myself from North Seattle to an exit remotely close enough to downtown to wing it and wind my way through the abstruse/obtuse city "grid" of one ways, curving streets, roads to nowhere, and pointless swerving vehicular dervishes that is Seattle traffic.

But, hell, I made it. I found the parking garage. I found guest parking. After wandering a bit, I found the elevator debouching from the bowels-of-earth-parking-structure. I found an escort at security. I found a bathroom (thank god!), and I found my deposition room with lots of surprisingly nice attorneys. I then proceeded on to give twenty minutes of perhaps the most worthless testimony under oath in the history of depositions.

Two and a half hours of turmoil and tooth-gnashing to go on record saying "I don't remember anything except that it was really really scary." The attorney for the plaintiff didn't even bother to question me other than to ask what field of law I was in and congratulate me on passing the bar. The attorney for my co-defendant asked some questions but then said she wouldn't need a record of my deposition when the clerk asked. So... it was pretty awesome and I'm sooooo glad I had to take the entire day off to be useless! Yeesh! I can be useless at the office! Har har, just kidding potential clients. I'm super useful, I swear. For one, I look pretty sitting next to you at hearings!

Really your honor, my client is a super
nifty parent! *wink* *wink*

Anyways, I found out why on earth this hasn't settled yet. I guess the plaintiff has no damage to the back of her car. She was second up in the pile up and is claiming my co-defendant pushed her into the car in front of her, and then I purportedly pushed him into her and this pushed her more into the front car. Or something like that. My co-defendant is pretty sure that she hit the car in front of her and he never actually hit her. And I'm pretty sure that it was pretty scary and I just wanted to go home. Aaaaand apparently there is virtually no evidence of impact in the back of the car. She also wouldn't give a straight answer about where she was living, or an account for why she was recently fired for stealing from the BGO... I guess her attorney is opting to keep her away from a jury so it will likely go to arbitration instead of trial. Darnit! I was so hoping to pull some kind of exciting Matlock in the courtroom. I can sniff out a murderer and trick him into confession while being sassy and swelly in a grey suit! I just know I can. Family law cases - particularly collaborative cases where there are binding contractual agreements to stay out of court - so rarely go to trial that I'll have to commit a crime to have my moment in court any time soon!


Thank you for your time and patience. I am now going to sit at my boyfriend's house - he is still in class - and stare at a wall while muttering "I took vacation time for this?"

The J.D.-But-Not-Attorney Party Doesn't Have the Same Ring as Bachelor Party Does It??

Tomorrow I officially get sworn in to the Washington State Bar as an Attorney at Law. That's right, I will no longer just be THE LAW DOCTOR (J.D.'s gotta mean something, right? And I've gotta be obnoxious, don't I??). I will be a tried and true shark authorized to tell people things that my malpractice insurance shall rue twenty years down the road! Yes, this time tomorrow, I will be completely allowed to hold the lives/livelihoods/trust/finances of others in a terrifying fiduciary relationship. Be afraid!! Be very afraid!!

The swearing-in is a ceremony involving oaths given by officials and a major lifetime commitment (that can ended with a fair deal of public embarrassment), so basically it is like getting married to WSBA. It's the culmination of three years of investment, planning, sacrifice and struggle and will be a deeply emotional time marking a milestone in my life. It is also, as mentioned, a commitment full of promises about future behavior and dedication.. Leading to this point was a blood-chilling level of time, emotional energy and money thrown into making this day possible.

Instead of wedding invitations and save the date cards, I have business cards and announcements in the bar news. Instead of a new (optional) last name, I get a WSBA number. Instead of a white dress, I'll probably wear a suit (ok, my getting married won't involve a white dress either because that is *so* not my color). On second thought, maybe I really should wear a wedding dress to my swearing in. Instead of my parents "giving me away," my mom - as mentor and boss - will be "introducing" me. Oh and there will be handshakes and hugs and many congratulations from people I somewhat know, but mostly know of. 

So, since today is my last day as a non-lawyer, what I wanna know is: where is my legal equivalent of a bachelor party? Do I get to go out tonight and break every single rule of professional conduct? Draft wills giving myself big legacies for non-family members? Contract for media rights to clients' stories? Make defamatory comments about judges? I just don't know. Or do I celebrate one last day by defying the lifestyle itself - e.g. Not drink heavily, suffer depression and anxiety, or pet my smartphone more than my cat?? Do I dress up as a fairy princess, make completely visceral comments on recent press-covered jury trials, and use the word "clearly" without any kind of "well it depends" qualification?

Also, do I get a bar-swearing-in cake? First dance??

Advice? Suggestions? All will be considered.


Also, I can't seem to cut and paste the official bar announcement with my photo, but this was the announcement my mom published in the Bar News:

LawOffice of Pamela E Englett, PLLC is proud to announce that Adella Thompson, daughter of Pam Englett, is joining the firm.  Adella will be sworn in on November 4, 2011.  She graduated with honors from the University of Washington Law School and will be practicing Family Law.  She has a couple years of mediation training and practice and has completed the Collaborative Law training.  She comes with a background that includes dancing and teaching Argentine Tango and was the Dance Sport Champion of the 2007 Star Ball in Seattle.  She is accepting new dance students now and will be accepting Family Law clients after November 4, 2011! J

Today is just a little bit more the first day of the rest of my life

Shakily leafing through handfuls of ads and bills, I stood in the little cul-de-sac where my mom lives. There it was: "to Adella Thompson, luv the Washington State Bar Association" typed neatly in more official words on the outside. The dreaded envelop of life changing portent! Inside that innocuous white paper lay the key to my career or the agony of at least six more months of bar-angsting agony. Standing there, judging the weight to decide if it was heavy enough to be an acceptance letter, I had one of those "red-pill-blue-pill" moments. But it was too late to turn back. Ripping open the outer seal, I saw forms. Forms are good - things to fill out, checks to write... these are good. Anything but a slim sheet of tersely worded "NO" is good. There were demographics surveys. That was good. But there would be no release until I saw those words "We are pleased to inform you..." Surely they wouldn't be pleased to break my heart and crush my dreams. Surely!! Right??? YOU HAVE PASSED THE BAR. Six months of dizzying panic, tears, gnashing of teeth rushed from every pore in a not-entirely-comfortable catharsis. I screamed "oh thank god," startling the children playing near by, and crunch over in a sudden onset of tears. I remember these tears. When the report on my mom's hysterectomy came back with stage ONE (i.e. "highly treatable"), they were the same tears. Sheer and utter relief and the dying thralls of those omnipresent lingering "what ifs" that seep between our human optimism. "IT" was over.

Not wanting to scare my mom - waiting patiently inside - with the teary eyes and staggering shakes that were coursing through me, I took a moment to breathe and compose myself, wandered into the house and nearly whispered "I passed." We hugged. I cried a little bit. I'm pretty sure she cried a little bit. The hug lasted roughly the duration of the Reagan administration. There were forms. Yes, forms. Before telling any one else, there were forms. To make it real. I wrote the licensing check three times in decreasingly chaotic scrawl, still shaking and shaking my head. I filled out each additional form, liberally crossing out the unrush of typos and misinformation that gushed from my pen in the haze of relieved stupor. Envelops? Of course not. But minor details.Finally, I reclaimed my backpack, laden with the Barbri books I was too superstitious to get rid of until I knew I wouldn't be needing them again. Books went into the recycling.

At the end of the day, this is the end of limbo! Even before the end of the day. At the end of mail service. The hold placed on my life this last six months (three years?) has officially been lifted. Now it's business cards, advertisements, malpractice insurance! In two weeks, I will be a sworn in member of the legal profession authorized to "practice" and boy had I better practice, because I am breathless at the kind of responsibility I'm about to acquire in my newly formed fiduciary relationships.

Over the next two weeks, it is slowly going to settle in - those questions and feelings and fears that I might have expected at graduation, but was too busy to reflect upon. For now, though, forget what it means to have the future wide open and to be forming a permanent professional relationship with the same pomp and commitment as the marriages I'm planning to help dissolve (ok, hopefully the marriages that won't need my services)... for now, let it rest merely with this: I never ever ever have to take the bar exam ever again!!!!

Seattle, Collaboration and 'Cross

I am now steps closer to being a Collaborative Attorney (oooooh aaaaaaaaah). This means eventually I will have to start initiating legal actions by finding the respondent's attorney and throwing flaming pitchforks at said attorney screaming "OUT VILE CUR!!!" Darnit! Also, since I'm not an attorney, per se, probably doing so may be a slight issue of unauthorized practice of law (and, uh, ok for old time's sake arson in the the 1st degree, assault in the 1st-2nd, and probably theft of a flaming pitchfork in the 1st degree - thanks Bar Exam for learnin' me some gud law!)

 The final hurdle remains hanging in the air in a poor sword of Damocles imitation involving this coming Friday and an increasing anxiety over the mail box. Dammit, Bar results really will get mailed out after this long phase of denial and deferral! And yes, I am having the requisite flashbacks and anxiety dreams. I would like to request that people defer their "oh I'm sure you passed" and "after next week when you're an attorney" support, because it really does just make me feel more anxious and in my typical attorney way, it is more comforting to me to work on my "if I didn't pass" plan in tandem with my "if I did pass" plan and weight them both equally for the time being in terms of likelihood. Ok, enough of that crap. Bleck. Yes, this paragraph is probably liable for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress.

Hanging in legal limbo

BUT, I have my facilitative dispute resolution training more than satisfied and after this weekend also have my actual Collaborative Law training... I'm not sure exactly how much extra I learned on the final training, which may have fared better on the usefulness scale had I been more rutted into the mindset of the "traditional attorney." This was a constant theme - shifting our paradigms, except the paradigm they were assigning to non-collaborative law was simply alien to me. This is not only a result of my other mediation training, but because all of my practical skills classes at UW teach from a client-based/interests-based-negotiations model that is far more akin to the Collaborative Paradigm than the "Litigation Model" that they were touting, in which lawyers are cold, bossy, adversarial, fact-pattern monsters who think they know best and want to duke it out in gladiatorial combat instead of recognizing that emotions play a huge part to an effective resolution of any legal issue.

Collaborative divorce requires changing the narrative of what divorce is. It isn't failure, it isn't brokenness, it isn't eternal conflict. It's a major life transition, in which there will be fear and grieving, but also unprecedented opportunity to redefine the future for both parties and take agency over the closing of one chapter of their lives. 

This gels well with my experience of divorce-as-opportunity. I was a little taken aback when a child specialist attending the training told me and another attorney trainee that (1) all children think divorce is their fault, and (2) that even into adulthood, they wish in some part that their parents would get back together. Maybe I did and am suppressing those feelings, but I'm pretty fucking skeptical. I honestly think divorce was one of the best things that happened to my parents during my life and that I'm not really sure if I'd have a relationship with my father if not for the divorce. Anyways, regardless of all of that, analogizing from break-ups and other major life upheavals, not ending is without a beginning and these tumultuous events often are what give us the impetus we need to make changes we were too afraid to make when it risked losing the status quo.

 It's always interesting to wonder - going over the plethora of people skills - why on earth attorneys should be at the center of these facilitative models. Unquestionably, the training for this approach is available in law school, but it is not the dominant set of skills taught (although arguably, the ability to connect with people will be the ultimate gauge of future success far more than most of the learned skills). I have seen the value of involving attorneys in the mediation process, particularly because knowing the law contributes more than you'd imagine to the holy grain of ADR: the durable agreement. I also think that knowledge of the law is extremely helpful in mediation or collaboration as a resource for objective measurements if parties are stymied, for reality testing (they didn't teach this per se, but essentially did under the name of "client education"). And I suppose, not just knowlege of the law, but that ability to foresee all possible snags and contingencies that might make an otherwise great plan deflate. Still, that we are the ones meant to be managing the process, well ok, if any part of the attorney stereotype resonates it's that attorneys are control freaks and we're more than familiar with process, so maybe it works out pretty well.

Incidentally, the pictures above were taken at the site of the training, Hotel Deca, which is gorgeous and surprisingly located in the middle of the U District.

*** Abrupt Transition Please ***

Between and after training, there were my typical Mr. Wright related sundries with-special-guests... his Dad and Uncle who were up from California on a road trip that surely could qualify as a winner at the next Sundance Film Festival should anyone have thought to record it. Andrew's Dad brought us presents - mine being an extra large shirt that reads "Love an Engineer" (which I do, if we accept that "engineer" is more an internal quality than a piece of paper/job description... or maybe he suspects I'm having an affair with one of Andrew's classmates), and Andrew a large silver thing that looks a bit like a trumpet or a horn of some sort and which we postulate may have been one of those huge airhorns they put on semis.My shirt was extra-large so I could wear it both in my "present condition" and any "future conditions that might result from my relationship with his son" (badabing badaboom, I think even if Mr. Wright didn't hear that one out loud, there was a chilled disturbance in the parents-embarrassing-me force, which cracked me up)

. But seriously, I love Andrew's dad: he's completely adorable. I want to buy some kind of kettle corn or other family-type-comfort food from him.

Naturally, since Andrew had guests, he had to race for them, so we found a cyclocross race that he would not have ordinarily attended out in Tacoma. Of course that it was in Tacoma would sound like an excellent reason he might not have attended, but actually it's just that it's a different group putting it together and they have lots more stupid rules. And more people as it would turn out. And more people meant more crashes. Some fairly spectacular wipe outs, actually. Glad to say that nobody got too badly injured and the rain maintained a steady low of mist instead of all out spectator-hostillity. Andrew's Dad was tickled pink, his uncle was disappointed there weren't more crashes, and I was just glad that I actually had forethought enough to pack some food this time around. Oh yeah and Andrew thought he could have done better, but I'm mostly just happy he's alive.

I think my favorite moment from the race was a little father-son heartwarming that did not originate in the Wright blood lines. Across the way from Andrew's truck there was a dad with his son. As the cyclo-cross motto "what happens in the parking lot stays in the parking lot" pretty much guarantees that few people have the residual modesty to cover themselves while changing, the father drop kit entirely when getting into his shorts. It's something you just kind of get used to diverting your eyes from when it comes up... and hoping that they are not doing this changing right in front of one of the driver's side mirrors as is sometimes the case (objects in the mirror really are larger than they appear?? I'd hope so!). In this case though, the son was acting as voice of modesty and actively trying to block the public view of his father's derriere. He didn't look ashamed, but fully resolute in his duty to protect his father's dignity. I thought it was cute anyhow. Here's a photo of them both fully dressed.

Speaking of children at 'cross races. This child is insane! He was at the begining of the cat 4 men and stayed there.

not a short adult - that's a kid

Anyways, all was well and I came home to an excitingly hectic week of two trials and another Continuing Legal Education day (retirement assets and family law!). I probably should stop taking these before being admitted to the bar, since I'm wasting all kinds of credits that could be going to the mandatories. But then again, it's a good distraction and just in case I do pass, it might be good if I'm semi-competent going forward. I am after all, a law school graduate and finally have the damned paper to prove it:

That only took uh more months than my math savvy is willing to count