Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Our local paper opts for the cute

Sure enough, today's headline is “On ferry with Kerry.” As the candidates make their campaign rounds I can hear the cutesiness pick up. Imagine: “Eating sushi with a Bushie” or “Allegheny with a Cheney” “Drinking Rheingold with a Feingold.” One could make a game of this. But what about Edwards?? My mind draws a blank.

Can I outsource the very idea of over-the-phone computer fixes?

Day two of computer issues: three far, far away Dell technicians later and one close-by geek and I am still without a diagnosis and without a solution. That is all fine. The local geek has sworn up and down that he knows what needs to be done (by Dell, under warrantee). But how to get there?? Still more steps ahead of me: first I have to find another distant, distant Dell techie to again mislead me about quick fixes by phone and then, at that moment, I have to shout “AHA! Gotcha! It’s not working! Now please, just send me a new hard drive and we’ll call it quits.”

Yeah. That’s the conversation for tonight. After that, it’s back to the geek who can then install the new hard drive and we’ll be coastin’ along.

Money spent so far saving files (without being near a solution): $104
Time spent so far (2 hrs + 3 hrs + 2.5 hrs + 1 hr. + 2 hrs): 10.5 hrs

Expenses ahead (presumably moving us closer to a solution): $200 maybe more
Time still left to handle the techies, geeks and tired Dell employees who’d rather be sleeping in their time zone I’m sure, rather than walking me through irrelevant steps that WONT WORK, damn it: 10 hrs. maybe more.

Anxiety level: marginal disturbance noted, but in reality, I am getting so used to this. I feel almost jovial if truth be told. It is the fourth laptop I have had crash. I know the routines. It’s like taking out the garbage – I’m on automatic pilot now.

Years of practice

This afternoon I met an attorney friend for a cup of coffee downtown on the Square. In the time I spent there, I saw many many familiar faces – mostly people from the Court, people with whom I had almost daily contact back in the days when I worked with law students on custody and abuse & neglect cases.

Two years have passed since my last court appearance, but I remember it vividly – down to the clothes my client wore. It was a custody battle and we lost. There wasn’t much chance of our winning since the attorney representing the child’s best interest hated, absolutely hated my client (the mother in the dispute). The judge almost never overrides the opinion of the child’s attorney. Still, I had been convinced that my client could survive the brutal questioning and that she would be seen not as a loser, but simply as a sometimes-down-and-out mom who tried her hardest (she really did), even though she could not always get it together (neither could the dad – let’s just say they both had their issues).

I can’t say I was sorry to stop trying these cases. I felt that after all those years representing parents, many of whom allegedly neglected or even abused their children, I would welcome the break. When parents come to you bewildered, stunned by the callousness of the process, not able to comprehend why their children were being taken away from them, your head can spin from their agony.

But although I do not really miss the Court routines, I do miss speaking on behalf of people who truly needed my help. And I miss sitting with them outside the Court room, waiting for the trial to begin. And meeting their extended families. I miss seeing all that human grit and spirit in the face of stress and chaos. We seem like a pretty whiny lot over at (UW) Bascom Hill by comparison.