Salvation Amy

As a relatively new family law attorney, I have noticed a practice, common among some of you, which I would like to address. This is, specifically, the practice of attempting to engage me in some sort of second grade back and forth game I like to call "Oh, yeah? Well, your client did this…." wherein you tattle on my client, telling me, I assume, things you think or hope my client hasn’t told me. I’m really trying to figure out why you do this. So far, I’ve come up with the following possibilities:

1. You are attempting to undermine my trust in my clients. If so, this is not a particularly effective means to that end. Every single thing any of you have ever told me, to my knowledge, either a) had no basis in fact, or b) was true, but I already knew. I usually begin representation with a lecture about candor. My clients are all very much aware that the last thing I want to deal with in open court is some damaging fact that I’m not prepared to deal with. They know that lying to me whether openly, or by omission, risks hurting their case, and making me look stupid. They know I don’t much care for that.

What you are undermining is my trust in you. You might take some time to think about whether that helps your clients much when I’m negotiating with you. Or, you know, don’t. Whatever.

2. You are attempting to undermine my respect for my clients. Cut it out. Plus Shame On You for even trying. I respect my profession. I know myself well enough to know that for me to be an effective advocate, I must have respect for my clients. I recognize that my clients sometimes do some lousy things, and I also recognize that my clients are people going through very difficult times in their lives. If they are doing things that are inappropriate, I try to help them see the legal ramifications of their actions. I spend a lot of unbillable hours trying to keep my clients focused on the big picture of life beyond their immediate family law disputes. For the most part, I feel like I’m pretty effective at this. And really, how dare you try to undermine the one relationship that people have during this uproarious time that absolutely should be based on trust and respect. How dare you, as a cog in the machinery of justice (if I may be so melodramatic), be so cynical and, well, gross?

Again, what you are undermining, is my respect for you.

3. You are trying to make me dislike my client. Grow up. That’s so very eighth grade lunchroom that I don’t even want to discuss it.

4. You are trying to take advantage of my inexperience by making me feel stupid. If this is your aim, then you are a little bit effective. Whenever you do this, I get a little bit flustered. Because most of your allegations, I’ve noticed, have absolutely no legal relevance. But I always get a little nervous, because of your many years of experience and my not very many years of experience, that you know something that I do not.

However, don’t think for a minute that I don’t double check the minute you and I finish talking. And what I am learning fast is that my first instinct is good, and often right. So here are the things that happen in my mind. a) I suspect that you might not be very smart and you go with nasty because nasty is all you have. b) I start to suspect that I have both the law and the facts on my side, and you know it. I check it out. I’m usually right about this. c) I suspect that you are way too involved playing games I have no intention of playing. d) I start to relish the thought of beating the pants off of you in court.

Anyway

The only other reason that I can come up with for your behavior is that you are just kind of mean and nasty and petty and unhappy. If this is the case, I am truly sorry for you. I hope things turn around for you. But I’m still going to do the best I can for my client. And since you’ve made me feel a little insecure and inexperienced, I will probably be a little scared of you, and I will probably over-prepare.

Just for the record.

I woke up at about 3:30 this morning from the unease of knowing that Scott was lying next to me, wide awake. He wasn’t moving, I just had this weird sense of it. I drifted in and out of sleep til about four, feeling his restlessness beside me until finally he started wiggling.

“Hey,” I said, “Why are you awake?”

“I don’t want to tell you. You’ll get mad.” He said.

Well, not telling me something when I know you have something to tell is sort of like Kryptonite to me. I kept bugging him, until, finally, he sighed and spilled it.

Apparently I was snoring loudly and woke him. Apparently he keeps earplugs in the night stand for just these occasions. Apparently, he didn’t want to turn the lights on to find them, always considerate and afraid of waking me is he. Apparently he found the bottle of Melatonin that he keeps to help him sleep. Apparently he decided that Melatonin would be a good earplug substitute.

Apparently, the Melatonin slipped into his ear canal, and had no plans of coming out.

He later confessed that, no, he was not really afraid I’d be mad. He just knew I would make fun of him, and he was prepared to lie there suffering, rather than risk that. So, of course, I must tell the entire internet.

We poured hydrogen peroxide in there, and it dissolved the Melatonin, and we cleaned out the little bits of dissolved Melatonin with Q-tips. (In case you ever have a Melatonin lodged in your ear canal, you now know how to get it out).

He says it is sore, and I’m a little worried that left over pieces of Melatonin will irritate him and cause an infection. I don’t think he’ll go to a doctor, though. Because, you know, then he’d have to explain what happened.

I have been raising children for sixteen years. Never once have I ever had to have anything removed from any of their cavities, although I know that happens sometimes with some children.

Six years with Scott. He’s 44. And he stuck something in his ear. To avoid my snoring. And to avoid waking me.

I feel more than a little guilty. But also, this is the kind of thing that makes me really adore him. That he would think of this as a solution. That he would be so careful not to wake me, when I loudly woke him. He’s a sweet, considerate man, with, er, innovative problem solving skills.

Problem solving skills, by the way, which he has passed on to his oldest son. Sometimes our refrigerator door gets stuck and won’t close all the way. One morning Scott & I were waking up, and in the kitchen getting coffee, when I noticed that Andy had had the refrigerator door closing problem. His solution? He held it tightly closed, and sealed it with every refrigerator magnet in the house, lined up down the side, over the seal. It worked.

A Peep-ful March on Washington.

Who knew that one could be made entirely of sugar and gelatin, and yet, politically relevant?

The following link made me laugh so hard that tears rolled down my cheeks.

Up until now, I thought my mom was the only person on the planet who really liked those marshmallow peeps. You know, the little bits of marshmallow, rolled in sugar, shaped like chicks? I think they are wrong on so many levels. First of all, isn’t there something utterly icky about eating little baby chicks like that? Second, who on EARTH would think, “Mmm, you know what would improve a marshmallow? Rolling it in refined sugar.” I feel my teeth start to rot just looking at them.

But this guy apparently thought he liked Peeps as much as my sainted Mother. Mom, I think you could take him on. (For the record, she’s also the only person I know who actually LIKES and SEARCHES out those nasty nasty nasty Circus Peanuts). Cecil apparently knows more.

Weird Peep Guy Link Courtesy of Pop Culture Junk Mail, home of all the Peep related news you need.

Fitting in with Lisa B-K’s thoughts on revolutionary breadbaking:

Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even.

Daniel Berrigan

The Gender Genie is quite cool. It analyzes writing and tells you whether it thinks the writer is male or female.

Overwhelmingly, the Gender Genie thinks I am a man. It thinks, in fact, that I am a really really HOT man. The Gender Genie? Wants me bad.

And it’s giving me an identity crisis.

That draft thing? It was all just a mistake. Nothing to see here. Don’t be alarmed.

Because, you know, Donald Rumsfeld is completely trustworthy.

Here is another article on Tami Silicio, the employee of the private contractor who lost her job for releasing the photo of caskets of American soldiers, oh, excuse me, military personnel.

Said Ms. Silicio:

‘It kind of helps me to know what these mothers are going through, and I try to watch over their children as they head home,’

You can see, of course, why she had to be punished.

As I am believing more and more, the solution will be found in the mothers.

Yesterday I posted a picture of coffins of American Soldiers which I found on Alternet.

The woman who took the photo, Tami Silicio, has been fired. As has her husband. Who did not take the photo.

Bastards.