I'm a grumpy-pants lately

I have kind of wanted to punch everyone lately.  This is because my thyroid medication is definitely off.  As a result, my mood starts to suffer and I get seriously edgy.  Like I have been lately.  So, I end up having zero patience and then everyone gets on my nerves immediately.  


This is a problem at work, since dealing w/ my clients requires patience.  So far I've been okay at keeping it in check and not revealing the fact that I want to push people over all the time.  Just secretly, inside, I'm constantly thinking, "Shut up! Stop talking! I'm annoyed with you..."  To be fair, I think that about most people when my thyroid meds are off, but at least I can tell other people (like Hat and my co-workers) that I'm crabby due to that reason.  I generally don't discuss my medical issues w/ my clients, however, so I end up biting my tongue quite often and reminding myself that I've got my doctor's appointment in a few days so I will stop feeling so ragey soon enough. 


Some things will always annoy me, though, regardless of whether my meds are right or not.  Such as the clients who begin their first conversations with me by informing me that they have already spoken with some other attorney that they sort of know and that attorney told them that they should tell me to do X, Y, or Z on their case.  Yeah?? Well, go hire that attorney then.  Otherwise, let me do my damn job.


I have no problem if people want to take what I tell them and go get a second opinion.  That's fine.  But, then, if you decide you dislike my advice, don't come back and tell me that some other attorney would do it this way or that way so I should do it like that too.  No, I shouldn't. If you prefer some other attorney's advice/case strategy, then go hire them.  But I'm not them.  Don't tell me what I need to do based on what someone else told you.  I don't need to do anything that I don't think it appropriate--you need to go hire them if you like them better.  Trust me, I won't be offended.  


That being said, I did find out today that my reputation as an attorney precedes me.  And in a good way, not in a terrifying, rumor-filled sort of way.  I recently learned that when one of my clients found out that I was their public defender, they were very happy because they had heard I am nice and that I am a good attorney.  I do try to be nice, so that's probably a fair assessment.   Even when I'm low on thyroid meds and feeling full of rage, I still try to be nice to my clients.  Not nice in a lie-to-them-and/or-give-them-unrealistic-assessments-of-their-cases sort of way.  Nice in an understanding-listen-to-them-explain-things-thoroughly-break-bad-news-gently-to-them sort of way.  


Am I a good attorney?  I think I'm fairly decent.  I know my stuff and I know enough to know what I don't know and I go find it out if I don't know it.  But, I certainly don't think I'm amazing.  I've heard this before from other clients--the buzz at the jail for awhile was that I was "the good public defender"--and I always think this is probably more of a situation of me being nice and that being translated into me being some amazing attorney or something.  I can name many, many more attorneys who are much more polished than I am in court.  There are many attorneys who know case law citations in their heads.  I see much more eloquent and smooth-talking attorneys in court than I sound.  I've read transcripts of myself in court--that's never not-embarrassing.  So, I think I'm a solid attorney.  I think I'm good in the sense that I am not a dolt and if you ask me to explain something to you, I generally know enough about it to explain it.  But, I don't characterize myself as some fantastic courtroom presence or something.  I'd rank myself as average, especially because I'm still a relatively new attorney.  Some things you just have to learn by experience and I've only got 2 years of experience. 


But, it's nice to know that my clients are generally happy with my representation of them on their cases.  Obviously if my incoming clients are hearing that I'm nice and good, that must mean that my current and/or former clients are satisfied.  And that's more important to me than being all smooth and fancy in court.  Because let's face it--I probably won't ever be all smooth and fancy in court.  I'm the same girl who complains about having to wear pants and would totally have pajamas on under my robe if I were a judge.  Smooth and fancy just aren't in my realm.  It's a victory if I don't say "uuuuhhhhh" more than 10 times in one court hearing. 


And in other news, WTF is up with the Twins?? Shameful lately!! Incredibly shameful.  But, at least I'm kicking butt in fantasy baseball.  My record so far is 2-1 and it looks like this week will make it 3-1.  So, at least there's that. 

I get to see Cider on Sunday!!!!!

Birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday. I'm the big 2-8 now.  It was a pretty awesome birthday.  I played video games for most of the morning, then watched the Twins game.  They won, which was exciting.  Then I went to JoAnn Fabrics because I wanted to try to sew some more since Hat got me this sweet sewing box as my birthday present: 

Since it's now a whole lot easier to move my sewing stuff around, I feel like I will be much more inclined to sew.  I didn't have anything transportable to keep my sewing stuff in so I would have to make several trips back and forth to get everything.  Not anymore!  Hat even made sure to purchase all the thread that is in the second picture, along with a seam gauge, a pair of scissors, and a seam ripper.  Plus a gift card to be able to take a class at JoAnn's.  Very thoughtful! 

After JoAnn's, we went to the place nearby that sells pottery that you can paint.  That was a lot of fun.  I had an after-hours get-together, so it was all private and no one else could come into the store.  Very cool!  And my friends all had fun, which I wasn't sure if they would since not everyone's into painting pottery.  Then, they came over to my place to eat some delicious, Hat-made food and chill.  

It was an excellent, relaxing birthday.  Just what I needed! 

Cider was discharged from the hospital today!!!! Best! News! Ever!

Maybe the stupid weather is why I've been gloomy lately. Hawaii will help.

My thyroid medicine is off again. 


I know this because lately I keep having these depressing/crappy thoughts pop into my head that generally don't come to mind when my levels are normal.  Things like, "Good gracious, I have to go to work for 40 hours a week for the rest of my life?! Who made that rule? Effing a, this sucks balls."  and "Damnit, being a grown-up blows a lot more than I ever anticipated as a kid."  While those things are true, I generally don't dwell on them and they aren't a cause for me to feel grumpy.  Not the case lately, where I feel grumpy and out-of-sorts about it.  So, I scheduled a doctor's appointment--it's that time of the year anyway--in a couple weeks and they'll stab me a few times in an attempt to get my blood and then call me in a few days and tell me what I already know--that my medicine is off again.  I wish I could skip the stabbing part of it, but apparently that's necessary.  LAME. 

It was 70 on Tuesday. Today it snowed enough to collect on the ground. I hate you, Minnesota.

Updates

Hat and I recently went to Dave and Buster's to take my mom out for her birthday.  She very rarely gets to do anything fun, so we thought it would be a good time for her.  It was--she had a lot of fun.  We also had a lot of fun.  And, in exciting news, we managed to win enough prize tickets to score this sweet 4-person picnic set: 

Really what sold me was the mini salt and pepper shakers.  They are soooo adorable! What can I say?  I like things in miniature.  So, now Hat and I can go on picnics and/or camping.  Which is pretty cool. 

In other news, technology and I have not been getting along well lately.  In the last week, both my work computer and my cell phone have gotten all weird and janky on me.  I've spent crazy amounts of time on the phone w/ IT at work dealing w/ the computer.  And I spent like an hour+ dealing w/ my stupid phone.  I don't understand why technology constantly needs to revolt against me, but it does.  And I hate it.  I'm going to end up prematurely being one of those people who are all like, "What? What's this new-fangled gadget? What's wrong with my 8-track? Bleeeeehhh...."  

Work has been rather calm lately, strangely enough.  It's refreshing.  I haven't felt like crying or punching the wall in frustration in like a month.  Actually, I think it was the murder trial that has helped the situation, oddly enough.  It appears (although I'm not positive) that I was not getting assigned nearly as many cases as normal while I was in trial, so when I was done with the murder trial, I came back to a mass of paperwork, but not very many new files.  So, this allowed me to 1) catch up on the stuff that had come in while I was in trial and 2) not have a billion court appearances right afterwards so I could really actually catch up on stuff.  So, I have been able to be ready and prepared in court and I've had time to meet with my clients and do other out-of-court work on the cases.  So, that's been nice and different.  It's nice not to want to run screaming out of the office because I hate everything ever.  

Its finally started to warm up in MN. It's amazing how much happier I feel just from being in the warmth and the sunshine. 1000 times more happiness daily.

Does anyone who isn't a Yankee fan not just despise the Yankees? They are so hideous.

Television affected me more than I knew

So, upon starting to re-watch My So-Called Life, I have realized that two things from this show have affected me forever.  The first is my desire to be a redhead.  The color that Angela Chase dyes her hair in the first episode is the color I have constantly tried to replicate in my own life.  The second is my never-ending crush on Jared Leto--or more accurately, on Jordan Catalano.   No matter what Jared Leto does, I always sort of have a crush on him. 

Not too exciting

Baseball makes me happy.  I'm so glad it's back on so I can watch it again, even though the Twins lost miserably on their first two games. 


Other than that, I currently have nothing else to report.  Everything has been fairly mellow lately.  Which is a nice change of pace, for sure.  There's a chance I'll be in yet another trial tomorrow, since we're #2 on the list and I don't know what's going on with the #1 case.  If that happens, things will get frenetic again because I'll quite likely get behind in things at work again.  But, that's just the way things go when you're in trial--kind of everyone expects and understands that. 


And, that's about all that there is.  I'm boring right now, but that's okay. 

Only one day left till baaaaaaaaaasebaaaaaaaaall!!!!!!

Wriggity-wriggity-wriggity-reboot

So, last Thursday, for some reason, all of South East and South Central MN was in love with reading my blog.  And they were all state workers, according to my stat tracker, because they all accessed it from the domain of state.mn.us.  This was oddly enough on the same day that this bill was introduced in the MN Senate, which would permit counties to withdraw from public defender representation for 2 year periods.  This made me slightly suspicious, as I know maybe 1 person who lives in that entire region and that would be it.  So, I'm not sure exactly what the southern portion of the state was doing with my blog, but I didn't like it.


As a result, I removed the last 8 years worth of blog posts, since I had no idea what they were looking for, and I have rebooted the franchise, a la every-new-movie-that-has-come-out-recently (minus the terrible Megan Fox acting).  So, while I will continue to keep blogging, my archives are now inaccessible.  I have not decided what will happen with the new archives, but the old ones have been removed. 


So, I apologize to anyone who had desperately wanted to read about my life from when I was 20 years old (side note--I can't believe I have been blogging for 8 years!), but that's the status.


In other news, I got first pick in my fantasy baseball draft this year.  Last year I was like 2nd to last and that sucked.  But this year, I was first, so that was cool.  I took Albert Pujols since he kills it every year.  I got a decent lineup, including the following players: 

•  Albert Pujols
• Victor Martinez
• Ben Zobrist
• Jose Bautista
• Elvis Andrus
• Juan Pierre
• Omar Infante
• Brett Gardner
• Mike Napoli 
• Juan Uribe
• Carlos Pena
• Austin Jackson
• Miguel Olivo
• Alcides Escobar
• Carl Pavano
• Jered Weaver
• Heath Bell
• Alexi Ogando
• Matt Capps
• Anibal Sanchez
• Jon Rauch
• Jeremy Guthrie
• Brian Wilson

So, hopefully I'll do well this year.  Last year I came in third, so I did pretty decently for my first time playing.  


Other than that, things have been pretty much the same.  Life at work is returning to normal again after the massively long trial.  I'm finally mostly caught up on stuff and I am working now on staying on top of things, so I'm no longer behind on everything.  So, that's nice.  This week is a pretty easy week--only 1 court appearance so I have plenty of time to work on stuff and wrap up anything that I might still have that I'm behind on.  So, this week is nice and stress-free.  Which is an exciting and awesome change of pace. 


In other news, I've discovered that "My So Called Life" is now available on Netflix Watch Instantly.  Now that I know about this, I will have to watch it.  It's been soooooo long since Jordan Catalano has been in my life.  That show is the reason I have always had a slight crush on Jared Leto, no matter how unattractive and/or weird he's gotten.  


Okay, that's all for now.  

Prosecutors have it so easy...

There are many, obvious reasons why it's got to be easier to be a prosecutor than a public defender.  There's the fact that people assume that the prosecutor is always right.  There's the fact that you get to decide your own caseload (to a certain extent).  There's the fact that if you decide on the day of trial you have a crappy case, you can just dismiss it (I'd love to be able to do that!). 


However, there are a number of less obvious reasons why it's easier to be a prosecutor.  It's the less obvious reasons that make me resentful of prosecutors.  I expect that people will believe the prosecutor because they are the prosecutor.  The obvious reasons--I anticipate those things.   The less obvious reasons, the secret ones that you don't realize until you have to deal with them are the ones that make me wish that every prosecutor would be required to do a couple years as a public defender. 

Fish-eyes and gauntlets

I was really excited yesterday because I was finally going to be getting new glasses.  Mine broke about a year and a half ago and I have been living in contacts ever since then, which has resulted in a lot of burning, angry eyes from having contacts in for too long.  So, yesterday, I went to get my new, stylish, sweet glasses and I was pumped to be able to have some non-contact time at home. (Only at home--I look dorky in glasses, so I almost never wear them out of the house). 


I get them home, whip out my contacts, pop on my glasses and realize instantly the prescription is wrong.  Everything looks like it's filmed in that stupid fish-eye lens that music videos love so much. 

Balls.  So, I have to take them back today and wait to get the correct prescription in there.  I don't know what happened--I had an eye exam last year and my contact prescription was right.  I had a contacts AND glasses exam, so they both should have been right.  But, apparently not.  My glasses prescription came out waaaay too strong.  Sigh...more eye burning for the time being. 

In other news, work was beyond horrible last week.  You may have surmised that from my post about crying.  I wasn't just crying--I was full-on sobbing like a crazy nutcase.  I was also kicking my office wall (better not break that state property!) and throwing my stuff around in my office and letting out a litany of swear words that would have made a sailor blush.  

Who knew deliciousness was so simple??

I love chocolate lava cake. LOVE IT. There's nothing that I could love more as far as desserts go. So delicious... But I always thought that it would be so complicated to make. Boy, was I wrong! Here's the recipe for them and who knew it was only 5 ingredients?!


Chocolate Lava Cake:
 4 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
4 oz (one stick) of butter
3 eggs
1/4 c. flour
3/4 c. sugar
cocoa powder


Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 4 large ramekins and "flour" them w/ the cocoa powder.  Melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave (watch carefully!) or a double boiler. Whisk eggs, sugar, and flour until just blended.  


Next (this is the trickiest part), gradually add a little bit of the hot chocolate/butter mix to the egg mix and whisk briskly. It is really important to tempter the egg mixture slowly this way--if you do this step too fast or toss too much of the chocolate into the eggs, then the heat of the chocolate will cook the eggs and you'll get scrambled eggs. So add a few tablespoons of the chocolate and whisk it in, then repeat, two or three times. Then the eggs should be up to the same temp and you can just add the rest of the chocolate mix in and whisk it all together. 


Once it's all mixed, pour into the ramekins. Put on a cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes--the sides should be firm-ish and the tops should look done, but a toothpick in the center should NOT come out clean (otherwise you have no lava).  The cook time is a bit flexible. Depending on how lava-y you like it, you can cook it longer or shorter. I would recommend keeping an eye on it around the twelve minute mark and go a minute at a time. They will continue to cook for a few minutes after you take them out of the oven, so keep that in mind. They might look a little too undercooked, but then you let them sit and they are good to go after a few minutes. 


Serve warm for most deliciousness. Mmmm...