Monthly Archives: December 2011

Dr. ChuckleNugget MD

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Don’t you like to do certain things, like, once, and then leave it be and be done forever? I have been patronizing the same dentist since my graduate school dental insurance kicked in in 2002. I had a decent pediatrician for the girls and then she ZOOP up and moved to California a couple of years ago with no notice. I know they’re not required to send one, but a letter would have been nice. My experience with the girls’s doctor since then has been a little uneven, to say the least.

I like the clinic, because it’s a small practice in a small building, and you see the same people every time. The old place was GIANT MEDICAL CONGLOMERATE THING and felt pretty impersonal. The first year went pretty swimmingly, and then things got a little weird. Last Christmastime Strudel got really sick for a really long time, and her symptoms were a little weird. I took her to the doctor, who suggested a tuberculosis test, which, fine, because there is a small outside chance that was what it could be. I like non-risky, better-safe-than-sorry testing. We were supposed to read the results of the scratch test on her arm a couple of days after, which would have been a Saturday. The girls’ doctor offered to meet us at the office, though it was closed that day, and take a quick peek at her arm. We agreed upon ten a.m. and she was a no-show. I Dr. Googled the results and guessed it was negative, and we spoke on the phone later. Nothing came of it, but a TB test can make a person a wee bit panicky, and to have a no-show…I thought then about switching and then thought better of it–maybe I was being hasty.

I was given a vaccine printout a few months ago and I saw that our old address was on it. The PA had me look over their records for us. “We’ve got this terrible duplicate record thing happening, because the practice changed ownership recently,” she explained. Hmm.

I took Franny in for a vaccine in October and we were sent to our typical exam room to wait. It has a fish hanging from the ceiling made from an old CD that has had fish features markered onto it and fins taped on. I can always hear a radio turned to talk radio playing softly somewhere, but only from that room. The PA walked in abruptly, as she always does. Lately she has been covering her facial tattoos with foundation.

“Well. Where is it?” she asked. We were confused. If we found the vaccine syringe would we get a prize? Franny glanced at me for a clue.

“Where’s…what?” she said.

“The wart,” the PA said.

“We’re here for a vaccine,” I said.

“Oh dear,” she said, and went out again.

I got a call a couple of weeks ago asking us if we had changed our address since a piece of mail had bounced back to their office. It was my old address–the old duplex that we have not lived in since moving in July 2010.

Today I got a call about “Strudel’s appointment tomorrow,” which I found a little distressing, since Franny is the one who has the appointment tomorrow. I called them shortly after they left a message.

“Hello, this is SJ I am returning your call about–”

“Strudel’s appointment?”

“Yes, but Franny is the one with the appointment.”

“Ohhh.”

“I was wondering if she could be seen for an injury on her foot tomorrow? I know the doctor wasn’t supposed to see her,” I said.

“Sure, how about 11:30?”

“Great, can her vaccine she was supposed to have be rolled into that appointment?” I asked.

“She’s not supposed to get the HPV until she’s 12.”

“Well, here’s the thing, she already HAD the first one, and this appointment was for the SECOND one, and I was hoping she could have both her foot looked at as well as the vaccine.”

“Okay, we’ll see you at 11:30!”

I assume they will be seeing Strudel tomorrow at 3 for a burst appendix.

“If it isn’t Captain Clip-On.”

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ONE THE GIVING OF THE FANGS

Recently I asked Strudel what her favorite part of Christmas is. I almost Pocahonta’d my pants when she said “FEAST.” Franny did the same, asked me what I was making before she went off to her dad’s for her first leg of the Xmas Cycle. (I get her back on the 26th.) I was thinking of not cooking at all since it’s been such a disaster lately.

I don’t think I even wrote about Thanksgiving and how it went–I wrote about it right before things went all LEGAL DOCUMENT and OMG A CAMEO STARRING MY MOTHER etc.

I was thinking about bunking on cooking because I was the first one with the stomach bug that was going around, and I was still kind of weak on Thanksgiving. The girls INSISTED I cook, and I already had the ingredients, plus I invited my sister, so I figured I should go for it. Sadly, I had to cancel on her last minute because P. was vomiting ON Thanksgiving Day, and I did not want to bring her into to a den of germs.

So we rallied and started cooking while P. was laid up moaning.

The girls helped, which was awesome.

Just as we were sitting down to dinner, Franny left and started barfing. Later on Strudel pretended to be barfing. “Yes mother, I made it to the toilet, vomited neatly, then flushed,” which had much the same effect in that I ended up coddling her and made a little bed for her on my floor. About a week later Strudel caught the bug for real.

2011 can bite a nutsack really. I am stabbing this year in its back on the way out.

I decided to just do a breast this year, which is still a sizable chunk of turkey. Of course I brined it and it came out very well. I took a picture and was going to post it, but it was a little…hmmm.

Uhhhhhhh

Ah yes, that’s what legless turkey makes me think of.

There was also some sweeee potato casserole, something I have come to very late in life. Dunno why.

And I made a pumpkin cream pie, which was mostly eaten by the person who was well enough to eat it, me.

I redid Thanksgiving a few days later using leftover stuffing and turkey and fresh cranberries and potatoes and there was much rejoicing.

Back to Christmas, which I started with waaay up there. Now through all my ambulations you can maybe understand why I am hesitant to cook a “FEAST” for Christmas. But if I do, it will be duck.

TWO A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DEADBEAT DAD

A few days ago Strudel asked me about Christmas Steve. I had been telling the girls that I thought they were well-behaved enough this year that he might not even show up.

“I think YOU are Christmas Steve,” Strudel said.

“Mmmm,” I said noncommittally from the cheese log where I was perched.

“I think YOU do all the things.”

“Do you really think I would eat part of your gingerbread house and give your sister a trophy that says #1 SUCKY on it in Sharpie?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“I see.”

“Are you Christmas Steve?”

“Yes, I am,” I said. She cried a little then, but now she thinks it is very funny.

“It was YOU ALL ALONG,” she says.

THREE RANDOMATA

Franny asked for guinea pigs for her birthday, and has been asking for them for months. I felt bad because as her birthday approached in October, her dad was serving me with paperwork to get back to 50/50. I did not want to be a dick about it, but I also did not want to be solely caring for her pets half of the time. I have lovely cats and chickens and other things that deserve my attention. My attitude is, guinea pigs are not my thing, but I will help and supervise to make sure they are getting proper care and nutrition.

So, after things had been settled court-wise, we took the plunge for Christmas.

This is Cloud and Misty. I am relieved a hundred times over that she did not name them Hammy and Porky as she originally threatened to. Misty, interestingly enough, is the name of one of my lawyers. Franny heard it and loved it. And now we have Legal Pigs. They are darling. I really wish I would have kept them as a child instead of hamsters, but they would not have done well with my mother’s laissez-faire attitude toward pets.

Speaking of fuzzballs.

Gertie hogs my cheez log. The girls have been with me for about a year now and they are doing really well. The kittens turned a year old in September but they still have a little of that adolescent thing hanging on. One thing that I did not really expect is how separate they all are. There will be no more than two cats on my bed at any given time. Gertie is like Nietzsche in that she will follow us around and see what we are up to. Matilda will sleep on my shoulder at night. Mere is still kind of her flaky temperamental self, but does well as long as I don’t pet her below the shoulders. She’s got that cat-sensitivity thing.

Someone stole the ladder, so we decorated the pear tree this year. Tres Charlie Brown, no?

What is happening in legal doings? I will tell you. Last time we spoke, I had just emerged from a courtroom, where I felt like I had been put on that life-draining rack Wesley ended up on in The Princess Bride. Since our next orders were to mediate, I thought things would be kind of calm since then. NOPE.

SeaFed’s lawyer sent an email saying that he had been “forced to withdraw” from SeaFed’s case. There is some speculation that it is less money-related, and more personality-related. I did not blog about this, but as we were standing in the hallway post court hammering out details of the parenting plan, his lawyer said to mine, “Your client is being VERY cooperative in this.” SeaFed would not move on anything.

At first I read this as a condescending head-pat, but now I wonder. Of course I said nothing and kind of forgot about it, since there were bigger fish to fry, and we were busy frying them.

I also discovered that SeaFed had been spraying my lawyer with emails, which she was ignoring, since he has counsel who should be contacting us for anything crucial. Then the withdrawing-attorney thing came out. Then last Wednesday SeaFed started hammering my lawyer and cc’ing me. He was threatening legal action over some confusing language in the temporary plan. He is absolutely a cornered animal right now.

I know I shouldn’t be at this point, but I was pretty shocked how nasty his tone was and how pointless and inappropriate his questions were. My lawyer advised me that this is a common tack to run up the other party’s bill. I implored her to shut him down and begin ignoring him. I think he is going to be a nightmare on a pro se basis as this continues.

And there was one other thing I did not tell you, because I did not realize it until a day after court when I got all my paperwork and read it. SeaFed was suing me for attorney’s fees in the motion to modify the parenting plan. As if I was just opening that frivolously!!

So, I have a couple of theories…behold the crinkling of my tin foil hat. SeaFed retained his lawyer to fight child support, and his lawyer suggested the best way to smash child support was to make a motion go back to 50/50 time. At the same time, of course, I was moving to modify the parenting plan, so I assume his lawyer hung on for that. Perhaps SeaFed did not see that as my next logical step. Attorney withdrew because of lack of funds, because SeaFed gambled everything on me losing the motion to modify. Or, he withdrew because of jackassery. It will remain a mystery.

This is the worst cat-and-mouse game ever. I am invisible and the cat has bells glued all over it.

The next move is to mediate. Our deadline is by the end of January, and the mediator is not even available until after the end of this month. She has requested that we mediate separately, and she is a guardian ad litem with training in child psychology so she wants to speak with Franny separately as well. This seems hopeful.

I have a bad feeling SeaFed will dig his heels in and not move on anything here, which will push us to trial next year. What’s he got to lose if he is going pro se? Or perhaps they will mortgage his house or he will beg his father for money.

The next thing also is I have a trial date on January 13 that I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT in all this–child support hearing. I was sent the paperwork alerting me that the trial is approaching and the prosecuting attorney’s office wanted me to sign all the motions and child support worksheets. If we both sign, it’s just settled.

Since he has not submitted one jot of requested financial information, I assume he is not going to sign the paperwork either. They have all his financial information from their research. I submitted up-to-date paystubs and bank statements and signed it all and sent it back. I reckon what will happen is that I will be made to show up on January 13th and it will go through automatically, really. The prosecuting attorney’s office had already decided there was justification to modify the child support order from $0, and now they have appended the recent court actions granting the right to change the parenting plan. I am hoping this will be the most in and out, non-teary court experience I have had.

The potential amount I am being awarded monthly is $340. I want to tell you I think all of this is over $340 a month. I cannot help but wonder what his wife thinks in all this. How would you feel if your spouse/partner had a child who someone else took care of most of the time and took care of 90% of the financial stuff, and not due to an agreed arrangement?

Anyway, that amount should cover her food, really, which will be a great boon. No complaints. It gets bumped again next year when she turns 12, and that should be it until she’s 19. We should “break even” on court costs and legal fees about two years into child support, but the knowledge that there will be official paperwork in place keeping everything straight is priceless.

Strudelday

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What is important to know is that Strudel speaks very quickly and precisely. One time at her summer camp, one of the counselors asked Franny where her sister was from due to her “accent.”

“What is that story called, the children in the box-cart?” Strudel said.

“The Boxcar Children?” I said.

“No, that is not right, it is about children in a box-cart, what is that called?”

“THE BOXCAR CHILDREN.”

“I don’t think so.” She went back to playing in a non-greasy pizza box that she kidnapped from last night’s dinner. “OHH we are the pizza box children!”

**************

A Dream.

“I had a dream last night,” Strudel said.

“I know, you were crying a lot this morning,” I said. A wee bed invader shifted me out at 4:30 after I made the mistake of using the bathroom.

“Can I tell you?”

“Yes.”

“Can it be more than two sentences?” There is a rule in our house that dream recitations should be limited to two-sentence summaries so breakfast does not turn into the Buffy show.

Strudel took a deep breath.

“Last night I dreamt that you took me and my sister somewhere and it was BAD and then you stepped on a place where cannonballs go and you exploded yourself. You ended your life! And you said, ‘Come on girls, you too!”

“What happened then?”

“My sister and I decided not to explode ourselves so we went home and we called 9-1-1. That was the end!”

I laughed, which was a terrible mistake.

“Why are you laughing? It’s not FUNNY! You ended your life!”

“I just like the ending that you called 9-1-1. Very practical.”

“Okay. You are not going to end your life, are you, Mom?”

“Me? Nooo! I want to know you for my whole life.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, I promise.”

The Curious Incident of the Asshole in the Afternoon (Epic)

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“But it’s Mine!” screamed the bird, when she heard the egg crack.
(the work was all done. Now she wanted it back.)
“It’s my egg!” she sputtered. “You stole it from me!
Get off of my nest and get out of my tree!”

—Horton Hatches the Egg

Dear Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity Diary,

So what happened in court? I hope I am not boring you with my, um, life, but I have to get this all down so I don’t forget it. Yesterday I was the petitioner, so I got the opportunity via paperwork to make the initial arguments, he replied, and then we got one more chance to rebut statements via more arguments and exhibits. The action was a Motion to Modify the Parenting Plan.

As I mentioned in a previous post, what was at stake was:
1. Would we be allowed to modify the parenting plan? The problem with the parenting plan was that it was 50/50 time, which does not work out when a kid has over an hour commute to her father’s house. This is a tricky one and I’ll discuss it in more detail.

2. Would we be allowed to roll back to the “temporary” plan that we had followed since he moved in 2008? Last month the temporary judge had ruled that we would be moving back in time to 2005, meaning she would be commuting 3 hours on school days and one time on Sunday.

3. Could a guardian ad litem be appointed to examine the child’s life, speak to her, her family, look at her home, and so forth, in order to speak for her in court should the case go to trial?

His argument was that we should keep the 2005 parenting plan.

The trial date is set for October 2012. I guess this problem is solved since the world is going to end next year anyway! Just kidding, this situation is still going to keep stinking up a small corner of my life.

Short answer: the commissioner ruled in our favor. She said a LOT of things, some of which I will describe. First, she was about a half hour late returning. Court was supposed to start at 1:30 p.m.–we were the only case to be heard (the other two were no-shows) and we sat adjacent to each other, waiting, waiting. I felt like we were twisting, dangling over a cliff.

I snuck looks at SeaFed and it looked like he was working on his laptop and chatting with his lawyer occasionally. He was wearing the same terrible suit coat and tan pants and a blue tie. When he first came to the hall and walked by us in he was wearing a flat cap and snapping his gum. I had that feeling like I wanted to kick him under a table or something, which I have actually done before.

Seattle courts don’t look anything like the pristine courtrooms of stage and screen. There are boxes of printer paper laying around, the clerks have mini-fans and cacti, and there were coats piled up on what I think is a witness stand.

Finally, we were called up. My lawyer was allowed to make arguments for more than the allotted five minutes, since the courtroom was empty, and his lawyer did the same. His lawyer led with a paraphrase from Sherlock Holmes, saying what was significant was that the dog didn’t bark. Either I am about to see some wind get inherited, or he has nothing, I thought to myself. His lawyer talked about the fact that the document we submitted about her crying in class was the first day of her commute, and nothing after that. I found this frustrating, because she had continued to talk to her counselor and some of her teachers, but indeed, there was no other written documentation about the fact that Franny was still upset throughout the month. Thus, “the dog didn’t bark.” THE DOG WAS BARKING, OK?

The commissioner gave her opinion then. “Does this meet the requirements for modification?” she asked. “I will go through them, all four points, and speak to them.” I could have died then. If I lost, I would have to hear her opinion on all the points. She had already spoken at length by then, and I felt like I was being roasted over a spit on some mezzanine of Hell listening to her opening remarks. The RCW is lengthy on this, but she hit four points.

1. Was what was happening considered to be permanent by the parents and child? Was the child integrated into my household? She spoke at length to this, but my summary is, yes. The commissioner said that she felt three years was long enough in a child’s life to constitute a permanent change. Not to be outdone by SeaFed’s lawyer quoting Sherlock, she paraphrased Shakespeare and commented that you can call our living situation a rose all day, but it was actually a daffodil.

She asked the opposing attorney if he could say that Franny could not be integrated into our home because she already WAS integrated into our home (which was his argument), due to the fact that we started at 50/50, would he take it to the extreme and claim that a child who was under a 50/50 plan but lived with one parent for 363 days a year and spent the other two with the other parent–would he not say that child was logically more a part of the majority household just because the plan in place said the parents were 50/50? She rejected the notion that a wibbly-wobbly 50-50 custody plan could not be changed just because the plan was supposed to be equal. Shit, bitches, this is when I am so happy to have a lawyer. Also, according to their side, I was trying to pull a “fast one” on him by sneakily taking care of our kid after he moved.

2. Was there a substantial deviation in the parenting plan? Yes. It was no longer 50/50. Franny’s life takes place in Seattle. Her father lives in another city. The commissioner talked about the importance of friends and social activities for a teenlet and how it’s important to respect that.

3. Was it by agreement, was there consent given to change the parenting plan? Yes.

By this point we had racked up three and I tell you I was shitting myself. You don’t want to stand there stupidly in your doofy clown clothes looking crazy, so I settled for wringing my hands instead of crawling under the table or wetting myself. I did start crying when I realized we were winning because I was so relieved.

The commissioner decided that because SeaFed had signed paperwork in our 2007 mediation that looked VERY like the schedule we were following from 2008 onward, and for the simple fact that he had allowed the schedule to continue, that his consent was given.

4. Would keeping the parenting plan in its current state harm the child? YES. YES. YES. That’s about all I can say about that.

So she rolled it back to the “temporary” parenting plan, which we have been doing for the past 3+ years. She ordered that we mediate in the next 60 days. I liked what she said about how many times we have found a way to agree on arrangements in the past, which is absolutely true. We also were ordered to appoint a guardian ad litem in the hallway in case mediation failed.

SeaFed bargain-basemented on the GAL, picking people solely on price. His attorney did not really know many of the GALs, which made sense to me, since my lawyer cannot remember opposing him in family court. (My lawyer mentioned that she trained to be a GAL but then was advised that she should park at peoples’ houses and other places with her car facing out for a quick getaway and then realized it was not a life for her.) This sounds right for him, really. Penny wise, pound foolish. I thought it was funny in a way, because I know he just bought himself and his stay-at-home wife and retired mother-in-law new iPhones. IN A WAY.

I picked Franny up after and broke the news to her.

“We won.”

She was SO HAPPY. We went out to our favorite teriyaki place and my appetite has shrunk to about half of my normal bento-hoovering abilities, but that will change soon enough. She is looking forward to VISITING his house this weekend and coming back home on Monday.

So, mediation again. I am a bit nervous that if he runs out of money he will hit up his Daddy Warbucks for it. As always, stay tuned, and thanks for reading and telling me I am not crazy. Court is hard. Court lines (don’t do it). On the other hand, if $LASTNAME vs $LASTNAME is someday precedent for getting someone out of a pickle when they are 50/50 and in an integration dispute, I would be happy, though I will never know.