End of August, and Into September
Sunday, August 29, 2010: Still "exhausted", but glad it's cool again today; got up to about 78-degrees. I worked on my Trek story most of the day. I STILL have Alegbra homework to do, and I still cannot focus my mind onto it. This lack of focus had better LEAVE pretty soon, I still have school, y'know!
House Stuff: A woman came by the house in the late afternoon from whatever development company currently has possession of the house we're living in. Marty is very smart, and is waiting to see if she'll give him "cash for the keys" like most places do when they want tenants to move out without having to go through the cost of the eviction process. She was quoting him $500 to $1000 if he could be out by the end of September; sounds pretty good. We were planning on being out by then anyway, so it's nothing we're particularly worried about.
Marty's been spending his days going over to Nona's and helping Scott clean up and revamp that place. He said the tiling Scott put into the bathroom is so pretty he wants me to go over there and take a photo of it. There are large tiles, set on the diagonal, set against strips of tiny glass tiles. Sounds gorgeous. I might be able to go this coming Friday, when I don't have any classes.
Legal Stuff: I put a call in to the Waltz law firm again; I'm still hoping they'll be able to help me with a suit against Gus, AND I told them I may also want help with a suit against the DA, but I don't know if they can handle that. I had also sent an e-mail to the Berg Law Firm in Redding to see if he'd help with that suit; he hates the Shasta County DA's office and he's now operating out of offices in both Redding and Sacramento, so he could go back an forth between the two counties easily. I'll be sending the letters off to the State Bar, the ACLU and the Attorney General tomorrow... We'll see if anything comes of that. Things progress so s-l-o-w-l-y in the legal realm, it might be another 6 months before I hear anything about this. One of my classemates asked if I "sue for a living", and I told him point-blank, "I've been around for 55 years and NEVER sued anyone. But after the scammers took my home, and the DA killed my pets and charged me with a crime he knew I didn't commit, I got pissed off. NO ONE DESERVES TO BE TREATED LIKE I WAS TREATED, and I think it's sad that the ONLY way you can get people to even "pretend" to do the right thing is to sue them. I don't like suing people; I sue them because I have no other recourse. They refuse to do what's right, so I'm going to MAKE them do what's right."
Other Stuff: My old NDTH boss, Jeanne Spurr, has started a new business called "Reflections" in Tehama County. She writes: Reflections will be offering services in Tehama County starting in September through a partnership with Northern California Child Development, Inc. (NCCDI, also known as Head Start). If you are interested in referring clients for services or are seeking services , call 226-5100.
I'm glad she's got something to occupy her again...
Monday, August 30, 2010: Back to school -- even though my brain still is functioning as well as it should. I took a test in both of my classes. In my Word 2007 class I got a 97% on it, which kind of ticked me off, because the two I got wrong I actually KNEW. Have no idea why I flubbed those. Then in Family Law class we had a test and I think I did okay on that one, but I did forget the term "rebuttal presumption of correct support" on one of the questions, and didn't remember it until AFTER I'd turned the test in. D'oh! See?! My brain's not working... After the test, the teacher, Mrs. Englund talked yo us a little bit about the ethical problems that come up for her in her own law practice: like when her client wants to claim that a spouse commited child abuse, and she (Mrs. E) knows it's unfounded, but she has to file a complaint with CPS anyway... I do NOT want to be a part of 'family law": waaaay too much drama for me... It was really nice, weatherwise, all day; only got up to about 80-degrees. That, I can handle...
When I got back home, I watched the last half-hour of "Judge Alex" and then cooked up some supper for Marty and me: steak tacos with lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, sour cream and onions. Super-yummy; we both had seconds. Then I tidied up my room a bit, throwing out all the paper that had been accumulating during my (depression) "down" before the dismissal of the charges against me ; on an "up" cycle again, finally. That was about it for the day.
Oh, I did get an e-mail from the Sacramento branch of the ACLU giving me the e-mail address of the Shasta County chapter, so I sent them my letter of complaint against the DA. Let's see, now, if they'll actually DO anything. If they don't take it it, I'll try the Northern California group (out of San Francisco) and see if they won't take it on themselves. I also printed out and readied for the mail my letters to the State Attorney General's office and the State Bar. Going over them, when I read the part about 2 of my dogs being mauled to death in the County shelter, I started thinking about Tigerlily again this afternoon and cried for about a half an hour. She was SUCH a beautiful dog --- and Animal Control let her die a horrifying and painful death. By Grabthar's Hammer.... [[That's her in the photo above.]]
Tuesday, August 31, 2010: Had a headache again this morning, but it wasn't as bad as before. Aleve took care of it eventually. I finished Chapter 26 of my Trek novel and then went off to school. Just had my Criminal Law class today, and left for the first five minutes or so to take a test (which I had missed last week). When I got back to class, Mr. Cashdollar was going over all of the answers with the class, and I got all but 2 of the questions right. So, that's another 98%. I missed the two questions becasue I "over-thought" them and found what I thought were flaws in them that weren't actually flaws. I should just go with my instincts and first impressions and not think so much...
The rest of the class was on the crimes of Kidnapping, including kidnapping for money/extrotion purposes and kidnapping for other criminal purposes (like murder or rape). "Child Abduction" in California, isn't treated the same as kidnapping because it assumes the crime is against the other parent, not the child itself. Weird, huh?
We also talked about "False Imprisonment" and, y'know, in my case against the DA, I may have a claim for that, too, since -- as long as I was under the false criminal charge -- my liberty to come and go as I pleased was curtailed. I HAD to be available to show up for court, for over a year... so the confinement, based on a crime I hadn't committed and for which the DA had no proof, was also for an unreasonable period of time. Under the law, a tort action for "false imprisonment" must meet the following elements: (1) willful detention, (2) total restarint (no means of escape), and (3) the person who is confined must be aware of the confinement or harmed by it. The DA's false arrest of me and dragging the case on for a year when he knew there was no evidence to support it was certainly "willful". I couldn't go anywhere for the year because I HAD to be available for court at a moment's notice, or a warrant would have been issued for my arrest, so I had no real means of "escape". And I was certainly aware of the conditions of confinement all the while I was confined... That might be stretching the interpretation of the laws, but, hey, let's just pile it on the asshole and see what sticks to him. As Mr. Cashdollar says: criminals should have to pay for their crimes in kind... (He's an ex-cop, though, so he's a little jaded.)
Wednesday, September 1, 2010: My sister Monica's birthday; she's 62 today. It was a little warmer outside today than it has been; around 94-degrees, but not bad.
School Stuff: After missing some school time last week and the week before, I'm now caught up in all of my classes except my Algebra class, and I should be back on track with that one by Friday or Saturday. I checked my "portal" on-line which shows all my grades in my courses to date (except the on-line course), and grades are figured on a standard of 100 points. For my Family Law class I have 99.87 points out of 100; for my Word 2007 class, I have 97.83 points out of 100, and in my Criminal Law class I have 97.66 points of out 100; so that's "A", "A" and "A"! Woo-hoo! I also bagged some extra bonus-points on my Family Law class exam this week, so I did better on iy than I thought I would (and on my Benchmark project for that class I got at A++!) I rock; hah!
Wow, I just realized that the end of this month is "it" for this quarter! Wow, that went by fast!
House Stuff: The lady from the title company came over yesterday to take photos of the Cabrillo Way house. She promised Marty $1000 if he'd have us all moved out by October 1st, and I don't think that will be a problem. Of course, I'm expecting Publisher's Clearing House to give us our millions any day now.
Legal Stuff: You will not believe who I heard from today... my "Hollywood" attorney, Gus. A freaking YEAR after he vanished off the face of the earth -- abandoning all of us as clients -- and only after I'd filed charges against him with the State Bar, does he get the nerve to call me. I was really angry; it was hard to keep my temper, but I did. Even now, it's difficult for me to be polite or objective. He made up some lame excuse about "overwhelming family problems" (that, apparently, miraculously cleared themselves up once he realized the State Bar was coming down on his neck), and claimed he wanted to "make amends" and "Settle our settle our issues". Y'know, I don't care if terrorists bombed his house: he still should have called or e-mailed me, told me what was going on, and referred me to someone who could take care of my case. He just vanished, without word or explanation, and left us all out there confused and hurt -- for a YEAR. So, I have no sympathy for whatever his "problems" were, and I'm not interested in listening to any of his excuses.
I told him I really didn't feel I could trust him anymore, and that I believed, because of his negligence, the statute of limitations had run out on our cases and we couldn't sue now anyway. He said he could find out what the statute was, and would look into jump-starting the case again; maybe bring in other lawyers who might be interested in it. I'll wait and see what he comes up with first, before I make any other decisions. I told him I'd let the State Bar know he's contacted me, but I'm not going to send them anything until next week -- to see if he actually does any follow-through or not. Asshole. Grrrr. He makes me soooo mad.