LC's 2016 Review

So, yeah, I don't hang out here too often anymore.  But I've been thinking about everything that has happened in 2016, and wanted to get it all out somewhere, so here it is.

It feels like this year has been particularly difficult.  But maybe every year feels that way when you're in it. So far this year...

• I made partner.  Yes, a good thing, but it also came with a substantial increase in administrative work.  I got assigned technology and we're changing our practice management software, which basically changes every single thing we do during the day, from email, to calendaring, to how we save files. I've also taken the lead responsibility for training our two associates--which is a  huge responsibility and billable time suck. And work is busy.  The busiest its been in years.  Good news, but I'm stretched about as far as possible.

• My dad had a 6-way bypass, but he's doing great.  I think it was a wake up call for him.

• My beloved grandmother passed away.

• DH started a new job.  He had a great job, but his company was imploding and had laid off 3/4 of its employees.  He now works from home, with occasional travel.  Working from home is pretty awesome, but the travel is occasionally inconvenient with everything else going on. We think it will be better once the twins get their driver's licenses next year.

• Bob the Dog passed away on the day we moved PS to college.  We had dropped him off at the vet for boarding, and just as we were loading up to leave, the vet called us to come back immediately.  He basically had a doggie heart attack.  We were all devastated, and it put a huge damper on college move-in day.

• A few weeks later we adopted Mikey, a yellow-lab mix.  He is adorable, but, OMG, I forgot how much work puppies are! It's like we have a toddler in the house again, he's into everything.

• PS graduated from high school! And started college! It has been a bit of transition, and it took her a few weeks to find her friend group, but she finally did and seems to have an awesome friend group now.  Her roommate situation is, um, interesting.  Roommate is a lesbian vegan who hates straight people and whose dream is to be a pot farmer and constantly reeks of pot smoke. It has been quite an education for goody-two shoes, BBQ and bacon-loving PS, who has loads of gay and trans friends and doesn't understand the straight hate.

• PS's broke up with her serious boyfriend shortly after going to college.  And he went off the rails and got all weird and stalky.  We blocked him from everybody's social media accounts and eventually had to get campus police involved.  Not a cool way to end her first relationship or to start out her first semester of college.

• And then, kidney stones.  PS called us a few weeks ago in immense pain.  We were pretty sure it was a kidney stone because she'd had them before.  I broke many traffic laws heading to college town to meet her in the ER and she was hospitalized for 2 days.  A week later--the Sunday before Thanksgiving-- she was back in the ER, and DH and I went together to get her and bring her back home.  The timing was particularly sucky because we were planning a trip to Paris over Thanksgiving. She ended up staying home with DH while the twins and I went to Paris.  We had a nice trip, but it sucked not having DH there and worrying about PS the whole time. After we got back she finally got in with a specialist, and had surgery to break up the stones and a stent placed.  Unfortunately, the stent has caused more pain than the kidney stones.  The whole situation caused her to miss a lot of class and rearrange her finals.  Fortunately, she goes to a tiny liberal arts school that is pretty easy to work with.  The stent comes out next week, and hopefully it will be all uphill from there. It's been a miserable few weeks for her.

• Besides all of the kidney stone stuff, PS had some weird bloodwork that could be indicative of an autoimmune disorder.  And apparently it is frickin impossible to get in with a rheumatologist. This has me freaked out because my mother had multiple auto-immune disorders that ultimately led to her death.  But dealing with this has been pushed back by all the kidney issues.

• A couple of weeks before PS's kidney stone issue, my appendix demanded to be removed from my body.  Fortunately, that was an easy peasy process and I was back to normal within a week.

• TT came out as gay.  It was not a surprise, DH and I were just wondering when she would finally tell us.  I think we handled it well, and she seems to be thriving. We have not told the rest of our family, which trends homophobic.  We only seem them a couple of times a year, and we'll just let them draw their own conclusions and shut them down when they start spewing hate.

• And SS is just hanging in there. 

So there's been a lot of positive this year, with a lot of hard stuff mixed in.  I'd be ok with a little less hard stuff in 2017.  Especially when it comes to my kids' health.

Sassin' the Mayor, or My Kids Are So Freakin' Awesome

So the mayor of our town decided that he was going to take down Target's inclusivity policy by requiring individuals to use the restroom associated with their biological birth gender and creating criminal penalties for both business and individuals using the "wrong" restroom.

The proposed ordinance was so poorly drafted that it was facially unenforceable.  Not to mention practically and constitutionally unenforceable.  I can't image that an actual lawyer reviewed this tripe.

Big protests were planned for the city council meeting where the ordinance was introduced. SS and TT asked if they could attend the council meeting and request to speak. I didn't have time to help out with their speech, but I told them to make an outline of bullet points to present.

We arrived to find hundreds of people there.  The main room and overflow room were both standing room only. They turned in their form to speak, while I analyzed the ordinance and gave them a couple of pointers on the the legal aspects (and how bad this was for business, which I knew would resonate with out very conservative council).

The meeting lasted 4 hours, and they finally got to speak toward the end.

They were so great.  They presented their points well, and worked seamlessly together.  It was like, "Wonder Twin powers, activate!"  They gained confidence as they went along, and yes, TT did get a little sassy and made everyone laugh.  When they got done, even the mayor said it was the best joint speech he had ever heard.

Sooooo, after the citizens finished speaking (they wouldn't let anyone who didn't live in the city speak), the mayor gave his spiel about how ridiculous it was that we were even discussing this because he was just trying to protect our children.  And then each of the councilmen spoke.  And not one of them supported the ordinance.  It never even made it to a vote, because no one would second the motion.

Y'all, I can't even describe how proud of my kids.  They are natural introverts, but they spoke up in front of hundreds of people and the leaders of our community to stand up for their friends and their beliefs.  That is freaking hard.  It's hard to talk to a room full of people who are on your side, and it's even harder when half of them are completely against you.  I think they were the youngest to speak.  While most of their friends are tweeting and instagramming, they actually stood up and did something. It is the proudest I have ever been of them.  They are awesome!

Life and Death

My grandmother passed away about 6 weeks ago.  While I didn't have a great relationship with either of my parents, I was very close to my grandparents. Her death came quickly, but its shock was somewhat mitigated by the dementia that she had developed in recent years.  I had already been mourning the loss of my grandmother.  She often didn't know who I was and had reverted to a child-like state. I cried every time I called or visited because I had already lost the grandmother that I grew up with.

The week of her death, she was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia.  The first time she had ever been seriously ill in her life.  She seemed to be getting better, and arrangements were being made to send her back home to the assisted living facility where she lived with my grandfather.  But she started having setbacks, and then she had a stroke and was moved to ICU.

I wasn't getting good information from my aunt or my dad about her condition, and so I headed to Hometown to see for myself.  I had had a bad feeling since she was first admitted to the hospital.

My dad thought she was doing better by the time arrived, but once I saw her for myself, I immediately knew this wasn't the case.  She was septic and septic shock likely caused the stroke.  My mother had been septic and I knew how serious it was and the mortality rate. I advised my dad that things weren't going as well as he thought.

My grandmother was semi-responsive when I first arrived and managed to acknowledge my presence and say a slurred "I love you."  She became less responsive throughout that evening, and I volunteered to spend the night with her.

Around midnight her vitals became erratic.  She was medicated, and minutes later her vitals slowed dramatically.  I wasn't overly concerned.  I'd spent enough time in hospice with my mother and MIL to know that the vitals of the seriously ill and heavily medicated slowed considerably.  But she was dying, and passed away before any other family could arrive.

That was not my experience with death.  My mother and MIL both took months to die.  Over and over we thought both of them were on their last day, and each of them had many days left.  But that was not the case with my grandmother, and I am glad.  A long, drawn out death is terrible for everyone involved.

My aunt and my dad arrived shortly after she died.  I waited outside her room so that I could intercept them and deliver the news.  They were both in shock.  Neither could see her and neither could deal with the funeral home. And so I was left alone with her again, waiting for the funeral home and clearing out her things. 

I'm glad that I was alone with her when she died.  That I was the one to take care of things.  I was the oldest and favored grandchild (my brother and cousins will tell you this begrudgingly, and I will not deny it.  I also spent the most time with my grandparents.) She's the person who loved me more than anyone else in the world, except for DH.  Before the dementia, she's the one who wanted to know every detail of my life and my kids.The one I would call with good news.  The one who begged to have PS come spend the summers with her. Who always made sure I had everything I ever needed.  Who introduced me to everyone as her granddaughter the lawyer who also has three beautiful girls.  It seems appropriate that I was the one there.

The next morning my aunt and I went to tell my grandfather.  It is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, and the only time I've ever seen my grandfather cry.  The next two days passed in a haze of exhaustion, making arrangements and playing the mediator between my dad and aunt.  They hate each other and generally don't speak. I played the part of the peacemaker.

I feel like I am not old enough to have experienced so much death.  To have planned so many funerals, written so many obituaries, given so many eulogies.  To have watched two people that I love dearly die. My grandmother lived a long life and was healthy and active for most of it.  But it does seem strange (and unfair) that DH and I both lost our mothers by the time we were 40. And we know there is more death to come.  Our remaining grandparents are all in their mid-to-late 80s. This is just the part nobody told us about this stage of our life.

A weekend in the life of a law partner mom

Thursday:
Worked half a day
Stopped by Costco on the way home to buy food for robotics team (50 people)
Hit the road for out-of-state robotics tournament, sat still on interstate for 1.5 hours
Put in another hour of work after finally arriving at 10:30, received a late filed motion set for hearing next Wednesday

Friday:
Got up early to chop veggies for the team's sandwiches
Emailed associate instructions for starting response to motion and necessary research
Got to tournament & mentored my sub-team
Set up lunch for team
Handled phone hearing from my car while others cleaned up
Mom who hates me works hard to avoid me
Back to tournament until evening
Associate send 3 page response to motion, I keep waiting for more

Saturday:
Back to tournament
Much chaos when power went out
Picked up pre-ordered lunch early because of rescheduling due to power outage, directed others to set up in the meantime
Fed team
Back to tournament--we won!!
Hit the road and back home by 10:30

Sunday:
Happy to be back home
Meal planning
Grocery shopping
Pick up kids arriving back at school on bus
Help DD with scholarship app
Work 6 hours on response to motion--it grows to 10 pages.  Irritated with associate for insufficient work product.
Send instructions to associate to prepare motion for continuance by first thing Monday (now I'm THAT partner)


Monday:

Hit the ground running to complete response and working with associate on  motion for continuance
Office phones out.  Have to make all calls from cell
Want to smack assistant who makes smart ass comment when I ask if internet is up. I need internet for research and filing, and I'm on a deadline.

By noon opposing counsel has (smartly) agreed to continuance, and I can finally slow down and breathe a sigh of relief.

Long Week

Last Sunday I headed to Hometown because my dad was scheduled for a triple bypass on Monday.  It was odd, contemplating the loss of both my parents in less than a year, even if I did not have a great relationship with either of them.

The bypass went fine, although they ended up doing 6 bypasses (I didn't even know they could do that many!), and I spent that night in the ICU unit at the hospital with my dad, who has always been afraid of hospitals. And it was good I was there, because there were a few issues overnight. I left the hospital at 5:00 a.m. to try to get a few hours sleep because I had to make the 7 hour drive back home that afternoon, so that I could make an 8:00 a.m. flight to San Francisco on Wednesday for a work conference.

Being a partner means more travel and networking and getting involved in certain organizations.  So I immediately had to jump into networking mode.  And being a true introvert, networking is stressful and exhausting for me.  But, overall, the conference went well.

DH flew up on Friday, so we had Friday afternoon and Saturday to explore San Francisco, a city neither of us had been to before.  Unfortunately, the weather turned rainy and cold just about the time he arrived.  But we enjoyed exploring the city, and I've had lots of good food and wine this week.

We flew home today, which is also my birthday.  We had the girls meet us for dinner, since I really haven't seen them in a week. And when I finally arrived home, they surprised me with the awesomest, most beautiful cake ever!  The inside is rainbow! None of them are big on cooking, and I can't believe they did it all themselves.  It was the best birthday cake ever, and a nice end to a long, stressful week.