Updates on Very Important Situations

Important to me, at any rate.

My legal woes have come to an end for now. (It's the 'for now' part that scares me) We dutifully went to court where I insisted that the charges against Sam be dropped, expessed my dismay that the wrong person could be arrested and charged when the evidence so clearly exonerated him, threatened to bring the entire justice system to a screeching standstill with my myriad of lawsuits, and generally made an ass out of myself. The charges were dismissed. The prosecutor, after seeing my stunning display of verbal prowess, declined to re-charge me, and let me pay restitution. So that's over. Like I said, for now. Because I am seriously contemplating a suit for recompense. I think Sam deserves compensation for missing work and having to spend a night in jail. I'm debating the pros and cons ie: more drama vs. a probable pittance in awards.

Silas' injuries have healed nicely. A small red line for a scar, and an aversion to trash cans are all he has to show for his tumble.

I have shown no further proclivity to burny hands and feets.

I would give you a growing out the grey update, but it's just too depressing. My hair looks awful. Just nasty. I'm getting it cut tomorrow, so there is still hope. Just not very much.

With that, I leave you until more things of import happen.

Gloom! Despair! and Agony! on me

Oh poppets, where to begin? It's been one thing after another. I'm usually one to roll with the punches, but I believe I may be down for the count. I have been thrown for a loop, or is it through a loop? I've been looped either way. I don't consider myself to be better than anyone else, or above anyone else. At least I don't think I do. But if I don't consider myself better than anyone, why do I feel the need to caveat the following story by telling you that we are upper middle class, hard working, law abiding, contributing members of society? That none of us has ever spent time in jail or has ever been charged with a crime? Because I do feel the need to point that out.

And I need to point that out because last week the state police rolled up in my driveway and took my husband to jail. Because of me. And I am so ashamed. And horrified, mortified, embarrassed, and any other adjective of that ilk that you can conjure. The look on his face when they cuffed him, cuffed him..my husband who has never raised his hand in anger to anyone, in handcuffs. I have never felt so helpless in my life. All those years of law school, trial law, striding confidently into the courtroom, fearing nothing. All for zip when it's someone you love getting pushed down into the backseat of a police car.

Two years ago I wrote a check as a deposit on a new insurance policy for our company. Let me emphasize that I printed, I signed, and I delivered this check. I also signed for the policy. I also own 100% of the company that owns the checking account that the check was drawn off of. I am the one who didn't verify that all checks had cleared before I changed banks. When the insurance company called me, I didn't follow up. When they turned it over to the police, I spoke with the officer handling the case. I asked him how to pay it without having to come in to the station. He said he would find out and get back to me. I didn't follow up. The result of my failure to follow up is my husband facing a felony charge of uttering. The result of my failure to follow up is my husband spending a night and half of a day in jail, jail, waiting to be arraigned for something he knows absolutely nothing about. He doesn't know what to plead, he doesn't know what he's being charged with. He knows absolutely nothing about a check for insurance because HE DIDN'T WRITE IT!

I begged those officers to double check the warrant. I explained that they had the wrong person. I pleaded with them to take me. I showed them my copy of the check with MY signature. I used all of my wiles and charms (there was cleavage involved) to no avail. They had their warrant and that was that. One thing I'm very grateful for is that Silas was not at home. That would have wrecked me. As it was, I spent the night in abject terror. How angry will he be? Will he leave me? Will he make me leave? Should I just pack now? Not very rational thoughts, but in the middle of the night, when your husband is in jail for something you did, reason tends to be scarce. And I do know that if the tables were turned, I would be one pissed off puppy. I would probably be petty enough to use it to my advantage, i.e.: What do you mean "What's for dinner??" I went to jail for you!

I got him bonded out at around 11am. I was waiting in the truck when he came out and I was so ashamed I couldn't look him in the eye. He got in and I braced myself for the well deserved smackdown I was sure was coming. He cracked a grin, gave me a wink, and said he wanted some breakfast. I was gobsmacked! You're not mad? I said. "No, they told me how hard you tried to get them to take you. I know it wasn't on purpose." Sigh. Now I feel worse. It would've been easier if he'd been livid. Round one is over.

Round two begins almost immediately. He bonded out on Friday morning. The paperwork said he'd have a preliminary hearing within twenty days. Monday evening the bondsman calls and says he missed his court date that morning. The magistrate put a capias out when he didn't show up. A capias is a warrant that sends you straight to jail with no bond to wait for your hearing, which can take up to, wait for it...twenty days! The bondsman was amazed that they got a hearing scheduled that quickly. I'm wondering about a little technicality called notice, otherwise known as letting someone know they have a court date. So off to the courthouse we go. Thankfully, the magistrate realized the error, rescinded the capias, and we went on our merry way. Poor Sam was so hyped up, the adrenaline had him shaking for an hour after we left. I didn't get quite so upset, but I wasn't the one looking at going back to jail either. There's a sentence I never thought I'd be typing! Round two and I'm still standing.

Round three has me on the mat, literally. When we left the courthouse, I noticed that my feet were burning, kind of an itchy burning. That afternoon while at the bank doing a wire transfer, my left palm was itching so bad I thought I'd dig right through it. Unfortunately the old "itchy palm means someones giving you some money" saying is a lie. By Tuesday night, my hands were so swollen and red that I couldn't close them. My feet looked like I dipped them in fire. These alarming symptoms were quickly moving up my legs and arms. The itching!! There are no words. I went to urgent care, where they asked me what chemical caused the burns! When I explained that I hadn't been in any chemicals and gave the sequence of symptoms, she determined it was an allergic reaction. To what, who knows? Maybe if I posted more than once a blue moon, I'd have a better recollection of my travels. My course of treatment was to be a shot of adrenaline to "break the reaction". Alrighty then, if you say so.
She proceeded to inject a liquid taken from the fiery depths of hell into my arm. Twenty minutes later, with my heart racing, my blood pressure up, and dizzy, she decides that it's helped a bit, but not enough. More adrenaline, stat! The other arm gets the liquid lava. Then the fun starts. Heart rate is irregular, blood pressure spikes, an ambulance is summoned. Apparently, I'm allergic to adrenaline! After much deliberation, it was decided that my allergic reaction was caused by my body being in such a state of "fight or flight" for the past five days. The adrenaline used to break the reaction exacerbated it. So I am, for now, down for the count. Don't count me out yet though.

And ten points for whoever can place the song reference in the title.

Welcome Home: an Update

Thank you all so much for your concern. Being a solitary sort, I've never been one to share anything private, not even with family, so to put something out there and have actual support is thrilling. I have followed up on my eviction dilemma (like at 7am on Thursday) and am pleased to report that the mortgage company has no idea what could have happened, their records indicate all is well, blah, blah, etc... I won't bore you with the excruciating details, but tracking down the culprit involved trips to the county courthouse, sheriff's office, police station, and finally, law firm where the idiotattorney who did this worksworked.

A brief history: When I practiced law, I tried a case against "Lawyer A (for asshat*)". I won the case and Lawyer A took exception to some of the things I said against his client who was also his sister. He has held a grudge since (over ten years). He has done various small things in the past to try to upset me, but has never managed to do more than make me feel sorry for him. This time, he went too far in that he actually broke the law that he is sworn to uphold. You think he would've known I wouldn't let something like this slide, but he didn't even try to cover up his trail. His signature is there on the affidavit for the eviction!

I requested a meeting with the senior partner of the law firm, and with funky patterned folder full of proof, showed him what his associate did. In exchange for agreeing to hold the firm non-liable, they fired him on the spot. Yay! More reason for the nutjob to stalk me. He will also be sanctioned by the Bar and may (should) lose his license. I think he should go work with these guys. It sounds like he'd fit right in, and without his license, it'll be about all he can do.

I truly do hate to see someone lose their job, but he just went too far. If he would do that to me, over some imagined slight a decade ago, what else is he capable of doing? I shudder to imagine. I have a hearing on Monday for the restraining order, which his firm is handling for me. Can you say "salt in the wound"?

Revenge is a dish best served in a courtroom.

*for the life of me, I cannot remember where I first read the term asshat, but I would credit if I knew

You got served! Or GTFO...

So I'm standing in my kitchen last night, loading my dishwasher, minding my own biddness when guess who pulls up in my driveway? Yeah, the Sheriff. Now, I'm fairly hard to rattle, and I do tend to keep my cool at all times, but I'm pretty sure that a police car in the drive is never good news. Thankfully, Him and SweetieDarling were both home, so I didn't have that fear. (You know, the one where they take off their hat and say "Ma'am, I've got some bad news). Officer Fife spends a good ten hoursminutes shuffling papers and saying important stuff on his radio, while I'm in an agony of suspense. Finally, he comes to the door and, like he doesn't know I'm hovering on the other side (waiting to see if his gun is out) does his official policeman knock. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of the Official knock, it goes a lil somethin like this:

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!!!!!!!!

I answer the door all nonchalant, cause I'm cool like that and he verifies who I am and hands me a....wait for it......five day eviction notice!!!!! FIVE DAYS to get out of the house I've lived in for TEN years. Well, good folks of the internets, lets get one thing clear on the frontside: I'm not late with my mortgage. I haven't violated my agreement with my mortgage company in any way. I know that this is a mistake, a clerical error, the wrong account number transposed, any number of things. I know that, even if this summons is somehow legit, that I can fight it (I do have a bit of a legal background), but even knowing these things, I was more scared than I have been in a looooonnng time. And I don't like to be scared.

Because I got served in the evening, I had all night to worry about this. No one I could call to straighten it out, no one to reassure me that of course it was a mistake, that I wouldn't have to find a place to rent, pack up my house, uproot my children, board the dogs I have left, all in FIVE DAYS. It was one of the longest, scariest, most alone nights I've had for a while.

I had all night to ponder the sweat equity I've put into this house. How I bought it at an auction for $50k and made it worth many times that. How I gutted it down to the bones and rebuilt it the way I wanted it to be. How everything is geared to my height of only 5'. All the cabinets, shelves, anything I need to reach, I can. How the pool is located right up against the east deck, like another room in the house and how I would miss laying under the 80' oak tree in the front yard even though I curse it and wish blight on it when I'm cleaning up leaves and acorns. How the frogs just started singing in the pond last week, and the koi are just now waking, and how piglet's room gets flooded with the morning son and how DARE someone try to take my home. HOW DARE THEY? And then I got mad, good and goddamned pissed off is what I got. Who in the hell has the right to make someone feel vulnerable in their own home? How could someone be so careless as to go through all of the motions of filing an eviction order and not verify that their information is correct? Yes, law is boring and tedious, but it's a very detailed profession. DETAILS, like who you are seeking to evict, are very important.

I spent a night in hell because an under(if at all)paid intern at the law firm picked up the wrong file. I did my time as an intern and I know how easy it is to make a mistake, but I trained my share of interns too, and it was my job to catch their mistakes. Somebody didn't do his job. I know who, and why, and girlfriends, me and him's gonna have us a face to face reeeaal soon. Like Monday. I know what you're thinking, it was a mistake, they happen. Which is true and I admire your live and let live thinking. But a few too many mistakes have happened with this particular attorney for it to be coincidence anymore. He got bested by me a hundred years ago, in another lifetime, and just.can't.let it go. I'll let you know if there are any survivors.

But on a more positive note, I'm really appreciating my house right now. And I'll get that "breathe" tattoo next week.