Spring Break Day 5: Take Your Lady to Work Day

Or so it was designated sometime around the middle of the day.

Today I was Atty Trizzle's shadow at work.  It was awesome!  I met a bunch of his coworkers and got to see some court action.   No trials today, but wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, we went to the court room.  It was not what I was expecting.  The judge came in and the bailiff said "stay seated."  What?!  It was a scheduling thing I guess, but it looked like a zoo (and made me want to watch Night Court.)  Everyone talking at once, people in green and yellow jumpsuits coming in and out, attorneys up and down and in and out.  Yet, the judge was exceedingly efficient and got everything done in a fairly orderly fashion.  If someone wasn't there or wasn't ready, she moved on and came back to it later.

The Judge sent Atty Trizzle down the hall to his favorite judge's chambers to take care of a couple plea deals.  That was really neat because it was just him, the public defender, the defendant and regular court room ppl (reporter, bailiff, judge, etc.).  Then it was back to the zoo room for more scheduling.

Atty Trizzle was on trials, which means he had about four cases, any of which could be sent to trial today.  He wasn't expecting any of them to go, but the judge sent one: a DUI, .15bac w/ resisting arrest.  So we hopped back down to the courtroom with his favorite judge.  The judge didn't want the case to go to trial because it wasn't really worth it, so she encouraged Atty Trizzle and the public defender to work something out.  Atty Trizzle had to keep going back to his boss and the public defender had to keep talking to his client, so it took quite awhile for them to sort things out.

During one of the public defender's conferences with his client, Atty Trizzle and I took a break to visit the jury people waiting downstairs in case the trial went through.  Why?  Because Atty Trizzle's mom was in the jury pool today!  Pretty sure she would've been struck if the case had gone to trial. ;)  We said "hi," chatted for a bit and headed back upstairs to take care of finishing up the plea deal.

Many of his coworkers were like, "is this the lady?!" and his fav judge said, "You're the Valentine!"    Not sure what he's been telling them about me, but didn't seem bad (he must be lying).  One lady asked if I was the one that sent the tree.

That was the morning.  We had lunch out, despite my having packed sandwiches, cuz neither of really wanted sandwiches (it was cold inside!!) and we had to go to the Post Office.  Atty Trizzle got Chinese food and Taco Truck for me - except Atty Trizzle had to order cuz I don't know enough Spanish.

After lunch, Atty Trizzle worked on filing and I worked on my paper (in between my naps).  He actually left early today, before 5:30 even!  And it was sunny when we left :)  A nice dinner at a local, and amazingly good, Vietnamese restaurant (the one we tried to go to first on Sunday) and then time to relax.  It was a good day.

 

This is Atty Trizzle in his office with his G and a copy of the check from the case he won Monday.  His coworkers hung the check up in his office.  When I saw the G hanging on his door, I thought it was cuz he's a G.  But no, it's a G for Guilty because he won the most recent case and the defendant was found guilty.  It was a check fraud case.  From the picture, you'd think he was the one found guilty.  (I had to beg just to get this grumpy shot.)

Spring Break Day 4: Family Time in the City

Today, I spent most of the day hanging out with my Uncle Stevie.  We toured art galleries in San Francisco in the morning.  I had no idea there were so many art galleries tucked in all over the place like that!  There was some pretty interesting stuff and some pretty scary stuff as well.  We also visited the Yerba Buena gardens  and walked behind the MLK waterfall.  We toured the area a bit, too.  (Art galleries don't open very early....)

For lunch, we met up with Uncle Stevie's good friend who works just a few blocks from where we were.  We had a really yummy lunch at a Asian Fusion restaurant called Unicorn.  When we first arrived, we were still waiting for Uncle Stevie's friend.  The waiter sat us at a small table in the center of the main aisle and said he'd add a chair later.  Then Uncle Stevie's friend showed up.  He knew everybody.  They moved us to a bigger table out of the path of the wait-staff.

After lunch, Uncle Stevie and I walked down to the Embarcadero to go inside the ferry building.  We glanced at the shops, looked out over the water, and headed back inland to see some sculptures around the city.

It was raining on and off most of the day, but the rain was very nice to us.  It only rained when we weren't walking outside.  When we went to get the car out of the parking garage, it was sunny and actually starting to get warm.  As we pulled out of the garage in the car: torrential downpour!  It worked like that most of the day.

We headed over to the East Bay in the early afternoon to avoid traffic later.  We hadn't been out of the car 2 minutes in Berkeley when we saw a booth for signing petitions to overturn a state law.  Vampiring Berkeley.  We tried to find some good things to do in Berkeley, but didn't have much luck.  The Berkeley Botanical Gardens were closed because the first Tuesday of the month is maintenance day.  The Berkeley Art Museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.  So we settled for wandering around, visiting bookshops and game stores and having an afternoon snack at a small Italian cafe.  It was still fun, but boy are my legs sore!

In the evening, we met Mr. Trizzle and his mother for dinner at that Chinese restaurant we almost went to on Sunday.  That's the reason Uncle Stevie and I had come into the East Bay in the first place.  Dinner was nice.  The food was good and the company quite enjoyable, despite the varied interests at the table.  Mr. Trizzle was still on a great high from having won a hard case in trial last week.  (Jury came back Monday, guilty on all counts.)  Trizzle's mom was glad to be out of her regular work/study routine.  (She's taking a teacher's exam in two weeks.)  Uncle Stevie said he enjoyed the day out and about (and wouldn't have to leave his house for another week after all this).  And I was glad to be with so many fun people and enjoying my spring break.

Hooray for another happy day. :)

Spring Break Day 3: A Greater Appreciation for Vandy

Today, after a morning of working in the hotel room, I voluntarily went into Berkeley.  Why do I do these things to myself?

There was a book I wanted for my paper.  Found the full text online...in Italian.  Not very helpful.  Found out from WorldCat that the Berkeley library and Boalt library (Berkeley's law school) had copies of the book.  And also that the closest copy to Nashville was probably at Nathy-Boo's school in Iowa.  Easy enough decision, time to get on BART and head to Boalt.

On the mile-long, completely uphill, walk from BART to Boalt there was a girl standing on the sidewalk handing out pamphlets.  (in your best sing-song voice) "It's a beautiful day to save the forests; let me tell you more about it!"  Vampiring Berkeley.  It was overcast, cold and rainy.

Boalt Hall is ug-ly.  Vanderbilt is very pretty.  Boalt is also under construction.  I found the library fairly easily, even though there was no welcoming Miss Phyllis to guide me in the right direction.  What I could not find easily was a seat in the library.  At quarter to three in the afternoon, every seat in the place was taken.  At Vandy, the place is nearly dead that late in the day, especially on a Monday.

I needed a little help finding my book because the library has several floors of stacks.  The girl at the Patron's Desk directed me to the 4th floor.  I took the elevator up and exited into a hallway with three unlabeled doors.  Well, one door had a label; it said "Stairs."  50/50 chance with the other doors.  What do I do?  Listen?  Go In?  Walk into a Wall?  I listened.  I heard a Tax Collector.  Oh no!  Run away!  Wait, the Tax Collector is chasing you!!!!  Just kidding.  I didn't run away.  I went in.

And it seemed like I somehow walked into a 4th floor dungeon.  The ceiling was so low, it barely cleared the top of my head.  Row after row of metal shelving units spanned the room, rising out of the concrete floor and blending in with the pipes above.  In the dim light, I could hardly find the call number I needed.  A row of windows lined one side of the warehouse like room, but they were covered in that white-don't-look-in-my-bathroom sheeting material, taking away much of whatever extra light the overcast sky was willing to share.

I headed back downstairs, book in hand, to scour out a seat.  No luck.  "Maybe there's secret study places like at Vandy..."  I started exploring.  Floor after floor of dungeon.  I found a help-me-I'm-short stool against a wall of empty shelves (where study hutches would have fit perfectly) with outlets in the middle of the wall.  I pulled up the stool, turned my jacket into a cushion and made myself a little study area.

After I finished in the library, I wandered around the Cal campus until Mr. Trizzle was finished with work and could get to Berkeley.  The campus is actually pretty nice inside, once you get away from the streets.  Minus those protesters and vampire.  There's tons of trees on the campus!  And this one area has such big trees and vines and bushes and stuff, I was totally expecting a dinosaur to step out into my path.  I don't get why people are sitting in trees behind the stadium when there's a bunch more of the same trees everywhere on the campus.  Oh, and a circle of fresh cut stumps with a sign that the "open space" is going to be utilized by planting a garden.  News for you: garden = no longer open space; it's a garden!

After wandering around long enough to get my fill of beautiful old buildings scrunched in with weird-looking modern ones, bicycles flying past and people dressed like sloppy clones in the name of 'diversity where everyone belongs', I headed over to the blue and yellow restaurant to meet Mr. Trizzle for dinner.  Dinner was very nice.  He got Chinese; I didn't; we were both happy.

P.S. I counted people in high heels during my 4.5 hours in Berkeley: 1.  3 if you count like Mzzzz Jones.

 

Spring Break Day #2: Lunch Fail

The day started out with a simple plan: do work.  And for most of the morning, that's what we did, worked.  Then, around 1:30ish The Legend im'd Mr. Trizzle and soon there was a massive group g-chat about all getting lunch together.

Basic plan as we left the hotel: get SassyCarrot from the Del Norte BART station near the hotel then pick up The Legend at his house and go to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant.

Change in plans #1:  As we were headed to the BART station, another one of Mr. Trizzle's friends who had been involved in the massive g-chat but seemed not to want to get out of bed called.  She was waiting for the bus with one of her friends to come along after all.  After various phone conversations, Mr. Trizzle and The Legend got them directions to the restaurant.  All good.

Change in plans #2:  Mr. Trizzle, SassyCarrot, The Legend and I rolled up to the designated restaurant.  It was closed!  The bus girls were called and given instructions to get off the bus at the El Cerrito Plaza BART station bus stop.  We headed over there to pick them up, and on the way The Legend suggested a different Vietnamese restaurant on San Pablo.

Change in plans #3: The bus girls got off at the El Cerrito Plaza stop instead of the El Cerrito Plaza BART station stop.  After some more phone calls, we arranged to meet them in front of Ross.  After a successful pick-up and some squishing in the back seat (yay for shotgun!), we headed to the Vietnamese Restaurant.

Change in plans #4: We found parking near the restaurant on San Pablo and headed to the door.  Closed again!  As we tried to enter, the waiter told us they were closing now and would re-open in an hour and a half.  We headed towards downtown Berkeley, throwing around suggestions the whole way.  Eventually, it was decided we would try the Vietnamese place on Shattuck next to the movie theater.

Change in plans #5: After circling a few blocks several times we gave up on finding parking and decided to find something else.  We decided to head up to a Chinese place on University, a few blocks up.

Change in plans #6:  As we headed to find parking near the Chinese place, one of the bus girls commented that there was another Vietnamese place just 2 blocks from there.  We decided to park by the Chinese place and walk down to the Vietnamese place.

Change in plans #7: It was closed.  So what did we do?  Did we walk back 2 blocks to go to the Chinese restaurant?  Nope.  We walked four blocks the opposite direction to go back to the Vietnamese restaurant by the movie theater.  They were open and we finally got to eat.

After lunch, we split up.  Most of the group was much closer to their homes than where they had all bused and BARTed to in the beginning.  What an afternoon.

Spring Break Day #1: Round and Round the East Bay

Hello from the Yay!  Yesterday was my first full day of the "vacation" part of my Spring Break.  It consisted of a bit of a tour of the East Bay.  (click on images to see larger version)

Start: El Cerrito - I'm staying at a Super 8 in El Cerrito.  It's pretty nice.  The room has a separate little living area with a couch, table and desk; plus, there's a fridge and microwave.  The hotel has free wi-fi and a continental breakfast every morning.  A big bonus, which will be very helpful later in the week, the BART station is close enough that I can see it from my window.

Stop #1: Richmond - Being Saturday, Mr. Trizzle had to go into work.  He was in trial most of last week and had several witness rosters to fill out, plus some filing to do and an appellate brief to finish.  His office building and the adjoining courthouse sort of look like a middle school built circa 1950.  I liked his office because his desk reminded me of my daddy's (see photo).  I think the tree adds just the right amount of needed color.

Stop #2: more Richmond - After finishing up and Mr. Trizzle's office, we headed to The Legend's house to visit him.  He wasn't there. :(  We had tried calling first, but his phone was off.

Stop #3: El Cerrito again - It was well after lunch time (for me, Mr. Trizzle often forgets to eat) so we headed to El Cerrito Plaza for lunch.  And guess what we saw!  Berkeley students protesting. Imagine that.  Apparently they don't want Panda Express on their campus for a bunch of reasons.  They were handing out pamphlets that articulated their reasons in one very long quote with bad grammar and poorly structured sentences.  These reasons included that the food isn't healthy, the inauthentic nature of the cuisine will offend the authentic diversity on the campus, and the chain doesn't buy local "animal friendly" ingredients.  Ummm.... ok.  After eating at Panda Express, Mr. Trizzle wanted his picture taken with the protesting panda.

Stop #4: Berkeley - After lunch we headed to Mr. Trizzle's house in the Berkeley hills so I could watch him do his laundry and chat with The Legened on gchat.  (Ok, ok, I was supposed to be working on my paper, but it was frustrating and my seat on the bed was not comfortable, and there's a bit of animosity in that house.)  Somehow, all this took several hours, so by the time we left it was after 8pm.

Stop #5: brief layover in another part of Berkeley - We had to drop off some stuff Mr. Trizzle had borrowed from his friend J.  It was quick stop on the way to dinner.

Stop #6: Albany - Dinner time!  We had yummy (and cheap enough) burritos at Gordo's in Albany.

Stop #7: El Cerrito - We headed back to El Cerrito Plaza to do some grocery shopping at Lucky's.  I figure, being in a hotel for a week and a half, I'm not eating out every single meal.  So, we picked up some snacks and sandwich materials.  that way I can  also pack Mr. Trizzle lunches for work.  (Like I said before, he forgets to eat.)  Mr. Trizzle was so funny in the grocery store, "isn't this place huge?!"  It was the same size as all our Pick 'N Saves back home, but it is much bigger than the grocery stores out here, so I'll give him that.  El Cerrito Plaza is one of my favorite places out here.  Besides having a big grocery store, it has a Ross, and my absolute favorite, a brand new HUGE Jo-Ann.  ;)

Stop #8: Back to Richmond - Last stop of the evening, Mr. Trizzle had to pick up some more files from work to work on that evening and today.  It only took a few minutes.  He just had to sort through those huge stacks on his desk and pull out all the DUI's and petty thefts.

End:  Back at the Super 8 in El Cerrito.