The Emmy Winning K Show

Dear Barb,

I love Yahtzee! What a great picture to add to our blog. I'm jealous of your evening with the girls, it definitely sounds like just what the doctor ordered. Apparently you need to send me your chili recipe...? I'm the only one who hasn't had it :)

I only have a few minutes before I have to pick M up from the hairdresser (cut and color today, pink and black), but wanted to write now in case I run out of time this evening. I didn't sleep at all last night, tried to nap this afternoon and was unsuccessful, so my plan is to hit the hay at 8:30 with an Ambien and see if I can't get caught up. Today I went to court for my custody hearing - in a nutshell, it was a complete joke. I wish I weren't such a detail-oriented story teller and I could leave it at that, but I am, and I can't. So here's what "it was a complete joke" means:

We were told to arrive at 8:00am. The judge was a half an hour late. He came in, didn't introduce himself or shake hands or anything, said "Sorry I'm late, I totally forgot I had this this morning", and sat down. It was immediately very clear that he had not reviewed any of our paperwork, didn't know who we were or why we were there. It was also very clear that he was bored and disinterested in why we were there; he wanted to get it over with. (BTW, what we did today was called a settlement conference - basically a mediation between both parties to come to an agreement on the parenting plan, child support, etc. ) Remember, now, that K chose to represent himself and not get a lawyer. So he's had eight months to read up and get educated and know the numbers, etc, but today he came in and, even though all the paperwork was drawn up as he specified, didn't want to sign because he wanted to have his lawyer look at it first. I am not f***ing kidding. The details of the settlement are irrelevant here, other than the fact that K was clearly in the judge's favor. He put on a damn good show; all choked up and shit about how much he loves his son and blah, blah, blah (do the jerk-off hand motion here - sorry to be crass). He went on and on about how I've damaged his relationship with his son and the judge actually admonished ME twice about not trying hard enough to foster their relationship. I tell you, it was a classic K performance; so good I couldn't even dignify it with an argument in my own defense. It wasn't even worth it.

As JB pointed out this afternoon, I may have forked out several thousand dollars and a bunch of my time and energy, but at the end of the day, K has the wording he wants on a legal document and I have my son. Simple as that...and that is worth a lot. He's done his own damage with that relationship; regardless of what he believes in his heart, M and I and everyone else on the planet knows the truth.

What a colossal waste of my time, though. And thank God that judge is not up for re-election because if he were, I would probably have to black out his name on the ballot with a Sharpie just to make absolutely sure I wasn't voting him back in.

So that was my day. I allowed myself a few hours of dead time on the couch and finally got up and went on. Tomorrow is day two with my new psych and the topic will be "I'm tired of my life just being one crisis strung to another, endlessly. Stop the insanity."

More later - glad to hear you had such a nice evening!
Love,
A

P.S. Since my life currently is one crisis after another, I forgot this part: J insisted on going with me today, even though we're not speaking to each other. Complete silence all the way there, complete silence all the way home. Boy, was that comforting and supportive.