The Week that Work Ate

       Hello my dearest bloggy buddies!  My beloved Cheap Winos, have you missed me?  Why do I even bother asking?  Of course you missed me!  I haven't blogged all week!  WTF? 

      What a freaking WEEK!  If you read my last post (and you damn well should have, you've had a frigging week!), you know that I was thrown a little off kilter by events late last week.  You may have also noticed that I posted twice on Saturday (when usually never post on weekends), that's because I was standing duty.  Always a joy.  Erg.  So after I was already thrown off by the tragedy, I got to stay up all night (minus about 2 hours) Saturday night. 

      Got home Sunday morning just as Flintstone was waking up.  Wrangled the family for church, and we were off.  After church, I tried to take a nap, but only got maybe 20 minutes since Flintstone was NOT interested in sleeping.

       So, we can see I was really primed for Monday.  If you follow my Twitter feed (which you obviously do because I am super amusing in 140 character snippets), you know that I got bad gouge about PT Monday morning.  I thought PT was at 0600 again, as it often is.  So I got up at 0430, got myself ready, got Flintstone up and ready earlier than I ever like to, dropped him off (thankfully he went right back to sleep when we got there), and showed up to a dark building.  No one - not even Snarky Paralegal - was there yet.

      EEEEEEEEEEEEFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

       So I went back home and at least got to spend a quality hour in bed with MacGyver.  I left Flintstone at school because he was sleeping anyway.

        I could see where the week was headed already.  I tried to tell myself otherwise, though.  I told myself I was lucky, I'd gotten the suck out of the way first thing.  The rest of the week would be smooth sailing.

      Yeah.

       Like that EVER happens.

      The morning was good.  I went to court and won an adoption for a very sweet family.  It was touching and wonderful.

       Then MacGyver and I got our wires crossed about where we were meeting for lunch and we both ended up eating alone.  And it begins again...

        That's when things started ramping up.  The clients started flowing in.  Back-to-back-to-back-to-back...  And they just. didn't. stop.

      And they were ALL divorces.  Usually, I handle mostly Consumer Law issues.  It's what I enjoy.  I feel like I'm helping people.  I do a fair bit of child custody and support, too.  Those can be depressing, but I still feel like I'm helping people.  Usually, I only see one or two divorces a week.

      Not this week.  Aside from trying to keep on top of the bunch of continuing open cases I have, I was slammed with divorce after divorce. 

      It's not that I'm unwilling to help people obtain a divorce.  And it's not that I don't think I'm helping people by doing so or that I view these cases as any less important.  Ok, sometimes I do, but if you're eating up my time bitching about who gets the XBox you clearly should NOT have gotten married in the first place.  At 19.  Ugh.  The problem is that these cases are depressing and emotionally draining.  Half the time, I think people come to see a lawyer because they're too chicken to go to marriage counselling.  I'm sure getting more use than I ever expected out of my minor in Psychology.

      Legally, these cases are usually easy.  They are usually the easiest ones I do.  But there is SO much to them that goes beyond the legal.  Faithful stay-at-home moms who have supported their Marine and lived the very trying Marine Corps lifestyle for years only to have their husbands clean out their bank accounts and leave them with 3 kids and no money.  Emotional abuse.  Crushed dreams.  PTSD.  Adultery.  The list goes on and on and on, and the legal remedies are not really what my clients are looking for.  I have counsellor's phone numbers memorized.  I hand out pamphlets and sympathy as often as divorce worksheets.

      Then you have the "come to Jesus" clients who we have to "talk off the ledge," so to speak.  Why in the world are you trying to financially brutalize the mother of your children?  NO, it is NOT my job to get you out of your child support, asshat.  I promise, it will be much less stressful and much cheaper for both of you - and better for your kids - if you can just move past her effing Facebook posts long enough to fill out this paperwork amicably.  Are you sure you want his command to investigate the Adultery?  You realize that means you risk loosing your spousal support?

      Divorces are draining.

      And, for some reason, the entire freaking base decided to get divorced this week.  For three solid days, that's all I did.  I barely had time to think or eat.  I actually left my breakfast in the microwave overnight one night because I got so busy I forgot I had even put it in there.

      Wednesday, I saw more clients than I have ever seen in a single day.  All but one of them were divorces.

        Something must have been in the air this week.  Something was upping the discord and strife around here.  I noticed it in the Facebook feeds of my friends.  I even noticed it at home.  MacGyver and I were both on edge.  We didn't fight, we weren't mad at each other, but we weren't quite as close and - obsessed with each other - as we usually are.  Maybe that was just a biproduct of the gobs of stress we were both under (he had a crazy week, too, dealing with really obnoxious people).

       But I prefer to blame Venus in Pisces and opposed to Mars retrograde.

       Because I love astrology.

      Do I really think that the positions of some random rocks in space the day I was born have any effect on who I am?  No - OK, yes and no.  No, not the way astrology would have us believe, but yes in as much as I think we are all much more effected by minor changes in our environment than we realize.

       Really, though, I think Astrology provides a great lense for looking at things differently.  If I'm feeling introspective, I'll pop open an astrology book and read about Scorpios to see what fits and what doesn't.  That helps me pin down characteristics in myself I might want to emphasize or work on.

      The masterful Douglas Adams put it amazingly well in Mostly Harmless:

“In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. It's just a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge. The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. It's like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that's now been taken away and hidden. The graphite's not important. It's just the means of revealing the indentations. So you see, astrology's nothing to do with astronomy. It's just to do with people thinking about people.”

      So I love astrology.  And I also think that the prevelance of astrology in our society tend to encourage people - some people, at least - to behave more like their signs just because they've read them so many times.  Sort of like labelling theory.  If you're told you are intense and vindictive often enough, you are likely to grow to believe it and will then fulfill it.

      I'm also feeling particularly fond of astrology this week because the other day MacGyver and I were browsing through an occult shop and looked up our birthdays in The Secret Language of Birthdays (or was it The Secret Language of Relationships?).  Each individual birthday gets a profile and it also lists birthdays that are good for friendship, work partnerships, marriage, etc.  MacGyver and my profiles listed each other's birthdays as Soul Mates (and there were only 3 or 4 for each day - out of 366).  Not surprising, of course ;-)  but fun, none the less.

      One day I'll have to do a dorky Astrology post about MacGyver and I.  We both have really odd birth charts (in my opinion).

      So, back on track:  It's been a frigging whacko week.  Go, go, GO! 

      Last night, I led the Imbolc ritual for our UU Pagan/ Earth Centered Spirituality group.  Trying to get that ritual written over the course of this week was more than a minor challenge!  I'm damn lucky I did most of the work last week (totally unlike me).  Thankfully, the ritual turned out really well.  It was outside around a fire and the weather was just perfect.  Everyone seemed to be pretty moved by the ritual.

       If I have time later, I'll try to do a post about Imbolc, or at least post the ritual.

       This morning, I had to get up at 0430 again, which sucked because Flintstone did NOT sleep well and wanted to nurse all. night. long.  Then, at 0415, he was up and raring to go.  At first, I was peeved, but then the little bugger threw his arm around my neck and covered me in baby kisses.  How could I be annoyed when I had extra time to spend with my favorite little charmer? 

       I think that's right about where my morning turned around.  MacGyver and I showed up for PT at 0600 - which was actually the right time today.  I ran 3.2 miles in 24 minutes - not a great time for my (I try to stay around 21 minutes for 3 miles), but not bad, either.  And, more importantly, I didn't feel massacred after.

      I have two clients today even though as a rule we don't take clients on Fridays so we can catch up on paperwork.  But things are starting to look up.  Can't wait to have lunch with MacGyver.

      Anyone else have a MAD freakin week?