Another exciting New Year's Eve. Sitting here with my cat watching bad tv, eating leftover pizza while drinking champagne and
still
fucking
married.
Oh well, I guess those papers will show up eventually. So much for the whole "fresh start to a new year" thing.
I have set a personal record for the completion of my Christmas preparations. Now that it's Dec 20 I would typically be just beginning the task of shopping for gifts, but I'm already done. They're all wrapped, tagged, bagged and either waiting for delivery or already shipped out. The wrapping stuff is all put away and all that mess cleaned up.
Cards were mailed a little later than usual but I think they'll still make it in time. Hey, I had to do something late or it just wouldn't seem like Christmas.
I even got adventurous and made some chocolate chip cookies. They were awesome, by the way. If I can find the chocolate I was looking for I may even make another batch just to see if they come out even better. Who'd have thought it would be so hard to find Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips?
So today we finally had the big settlement hearing that was scheduled by the attorney hired by my soon-to-be-ex (but nowhere near soon enough). We don't really have much in the way of possessions, we don't stand to make a lot on the house and we aren't sitting on hundred thousand dollar bank accounts so why they felt these expensive hearings were necessary is beyond me. As it turns out, I sure am glad they felt that way!
I went in with a proposed settlement, it cut her a few breaks but was still skewed in my favor. The judge was apparently completely unimpressed with the behavior of swcnbn, this is when all of her lies, pettiness, thievery and general asshole behavior came back to bite her in the ass. Not only did I end up with everything I asked for, I somehow got more! WTF? I think she has no idea how much she gave up because she never got to see my actual proposal. The judge kept tossing us out of the conference room so I think most of the details were worked out between the judge and the attorneys. I get back everything I wanted returned (she has 4 days to return it all) and she somehow ends up paying me more money than I asked for. The weirdest part? She voluntarily walked away from any and all profit on the house. Willingly. At the suggestion of her own attorney. That was reinforced by the judge when she made sure to word her report accordingly, forbidding swcnbn from receiving so much as a penny of the proceeds by order of the court.
When it was all said and done, the judge had left and my soon-to-be-ex and her attorney were gone leaving me sitting there with my attorney I had to turn and ask her, "What the Hell just happened?" She just smiled.
Step 1 of 3 is now complete, the next step should be done by the end of the year.
Kidney stones? Yes please, because once is never enough. I've been in some pain the past couple of days, and having had kidney stones once before I knew exactly what it was. I'd hoped the stone(s) would pass without incident but no such luck. Today the pain got bad enough that I had to drive to the ER and go through that whole mess again. This time I have three stones, all 3 millimeters in size with two still in my kidney.
I've been drugged (multiple times), CT Scanned, sonogrammed twice, jabbed with needles and catheterized all while sporting the latest in hospital gown fashion. The hospital staff unsuccessfully tried to figure out how I could suck down 2 large glasses of water and over a liter and a half of fluid from an IV yet still remain unable to pee more than a teaspoonful because my bladder was empty. Where'd it all go? Nobody knows, it's just one of those "things that make you go hmmmm" I guess. So after all of that I came home and took a quick nap to clear my head somewhat then painted a couple windows and a door. The show must go on.
Tomorrow was supposed to be the settlement hearing for the divorce but that's postponed now. I need to be able to think clearly and a mind exhausted by two nights without sleep and possibly still under the influence of percocet probably won't be very clear.
Blah!
As part of his never ending attempts to blow our divorce completely out of proportion my wife's jackass attorney has been demanding I come sit through a deposition. He's wasted hours of billable time communicating this desire to my lawyer, scheduling it, rescheduling it, screwing up and rescheduling again, preparing the questions then the actual deposition itself.
What was so important, you may ask? He spent all of 15 minutes asking questions regarding two main points; my employment history in high school and immediately thereafter as well as my current financial information. Seriously, it really matters where I worked in high school 2 years before my soon-to-be-ex-wife even set foot in this country, 9 years before I even met her and almost two decades before we married? Even the financial questions were a waste of time, he asked about current balances when all that matters were the balances at the time of the separation and he's had that info in great detail for 6 weeks now.
Personally I think the fucktardian douchebag is an unethical prick, nothing better than a thief. He exemplifies every negative stereotype of divorce attorneys. I really don't give a damn that my wife is stupid enough to allow herself to be robbed but I'm getting pretty tired of forking over money for unnecessary bullshit simply because she's too stupid to figure out that she's being played. Between us I'm guessing we had to fork out over a thousand dollars for this complete waste of time. Fortunately her cost will be twice whatever mine is, I hope she chokes on his next billing statement.
So my charming bitch of a soon-to-be-ex-wife shows up the day before her court ordered deadline to empty the room she's left filled with her possessions. She takes less than half of what's in there and tells me she doesn't want the rest, leaving me the task of getting rid of it all.
The next morning I send her an e-mail listing everything she claimed she did not want since I need it in writing before I dispose of anything. No reply... surprise! The next morning I send her another one, again no response..... surprise!!
Now e-mail number three is on its way, reminding her that she is under court order to remove her personal possessions and advising her that any farther lack of response would be interpreted as permission to discard everything she left behind. This whole "one-sided cooperation" thing is getting really, really old.... I knew she'd ignore the court order, her arrogance makes her actions easily predicted.
Today I was scheduled to give a deposition, I would have to sit and answer a whole lot of unnecessary questions while under oath. Of course my soon-to-be-ex's attorney scheduled it on a day I couldn't leave work because I was the only one here and he didn't have the common courtesy to consult with myself or my attorney before scheduling a day and time.
Fortunately I have an eye for detail and noticed that he screwed up the court papers ordering the deposition. Whomever typed up his standard "copy and paste to suit current needs" form accidentally left two little words remaining which should have been deleted. Those words were "by telephone" and as insignificant as they may seem they pissed him off when I brought it to his attention 2 days ago at the hearing he cancelled. He apparently doesn't like giving 2 hour long dispositions over the telephone and seemed pretty perturbed that the only way he'd get any answers out of me today would be over the phone. Wah.
So today the phone rings at the appointed time, I answer and it is his office, the conference call has begun. In theory anyway. I could hear my attorney just fine and she could hear me, the enemy could hear the both of us just fine but we could not hear him. Every time he spoke it sounded like his phone had a loose cord, just a bunch of clicking with his voice cutting in and out. They tried 3 times, none were successful. He really wanted to interrogate me, I could hear the frustration in his intermittent voice even through the clicking. It probably didn't help any when I just started ignoring him completely and talking to my own attorney, lol. Yes, that was the highlight of my day.
Now he has to reschedule and swcnbn has to fork out more money, for which she will get nothing of any use. The saga continues....
