Q: Do I have to make my children go on visits if they don't want to go?
A: Yes, the children need to go on visits that a Court has ordered, even if they don't want to go. You should try to find out why the children do not want to visit the other parent and work out any problems together or through counseling. Only in rare cases does the Court limit time spent with the other parent.
This, to me, is very sad. It is also linguistically dizzying.
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I met Ms. B today.
When we had just sit down for lunch, she burst in on the high school interns and asked them WHAT THE FOUL FILTH AND IF YOU WANT THE FOUL CHAIRS AT ALL WHY THE FILTH AREN'T THEY IN THE FOUL FILTHY FOUL? I missed many of the key details. Things got rather hushed in the lunchroom.
To my dismay she and two other partners came in to have lunch with us. She looked at the salad. ARE THESE WALNUTS? No, a legal assistant said, they are pecans. BECAUSE I AM FOUL ALLERGIC TO FOUL-FILTH WALNUTS. She burst into the kitchen again to ask the remains of the interns to identify the nuts. K leaned forward and murmured to me, "They're pecans. If they were walnuts, I would be wheezing and breaking out. I'm allergic too."
After seeing the package of nuts from Costco, with the words PECANS scrawled across the top, she asked for an entire new salad made for her, sans nuts.
As she sat down -- at the table behind me, facing my back -- talk quietly began to cautiously resume. But it silenced when she asked the assistant on her left, WHO'S THAT.
Dead silence in the lunchroom.
The assistant says sweetly, "oh, she's a new admin...I forgot your name?"
I turn to her (the assistant .. not all the way to Ms. B) and hold up my hand while smiling and shrugging...I'd just had the biggest bite of potato one could possible have. D was like "oh of course I'll let you finish your bite..." and on and on, and in a way I was grateful for the slight moment of..oh big breath here it comes. "Maggie" I said eventually.
The assistant smiles saying 'oh right!'
Ms. B says WHAT.
I turn all the way to look her in the eyes .. which is the first time I'd really seen her. And thought in my head, wow B was right she does look like a man. My face had the most effervescent sheen of pleasantness. I said, "Maggie. Nice to meet you."
She grunted.
I turned back to my place as Mr. J, sitting next to her, added quickly, "Welcome!"
Talk resumed in the lunchroom.
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People kind of look at me differently on the streets when I walk around in my Power Suit. I forget this, so it weirds me out not to be panhandled or looked at by the 20-30 somethings in normal clothes; to instead be looked at by the other Suits, and to be smiled at in a different way than normal from the elderly. On my way back from lunch, a black man (mid-40's?) with a cap and a backpack said to me, "you look very nice." Not said in any way other than sincere, and it made me smile. Ah shucks.
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The first real thing I was asked to do was to go into the kitchen, get a small creamer and bring it back up to the front desk. I did not know the key factors: where the creamer was, where the dishes are, how full, and so forth. I was told to ask C, another admin, to help me out with this.
My Supervisor, P, had used his finger and thumb to give me the size of about two inches when telling me what size receptical. C used a rather large creamer thing, and filled it up full. I did not say anything. I brought it back to P who said, "Yeah. That's about six times too big." He brought it back later and told me to have it back, and turned on his heel. Alone in the hallway, I couldn't ask if it was kosher to pour the remaining unused cream back into the carton, so instead I poured it down the sink and rinsed the sink.
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I went both up and downstairs today. I have the passkeys to the doors now. I have seen the overwrought finery of upstairs (attorneys, shareholders, and legal assistants) and I have seen the unkempt filing rooms downstairs where actual music and laughter could be heard. The smiling-est people are down there. Too bad they don't need assistance.
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At about 3:30 I was asked to walk Ms. B's laundry down to the cleaners, on behalf of her assistant. I wasn't given many details, but I'm good with finding stuff here, and my bus passes the cleaners I figured they meant. My instructions were fairly concise. "Go there, tell them who sent you, and say this is her bedspread. Get a receipt or a piece of paper or something that says a.) how much it is, and b.) when we will get it back." As I was getting ready to go, I was told, "one more thing...bring your phone!"
Immediately after this I walked for 20 minutes (one way) to go take pictures of chocolate displays at a shop, because they didn't have a catalog and their website was down. I didn't particularly mind. I will be paid salary to walk, and despite the strangely hot weather, that is fine in my book. It did feel very strange -- I kept apologizing to the salesclerk on the phone and she waved it off as though it were perfectly normal for some pampered woman-child to send a clueless assistant to do some Rather Extravagant Thing.
Anne, the clerk at the chocolate shop, was awesome. She gave me all sorts of little print-offs and some samples to take back to win the heart and mind of Ms. B. She even offered me a little something off the sample tray "for my trouble," which felt outlandish and decadent, but was also appreciated. What I really wanted was some water -- it was 98* out and I was in a coat and tights -- and I got that too.
I was on the phone finishing the chocolate details -- trying to figure out the dimensions of some of the gift boxes -- when P walked by and told me to go home. He said Ms. B's assistant would just have to finish it off himself, and that my job was to be here from exactly 8:30 - 5:30. He thanked me for my work that day, telling me I'd done well.
Earlier, at 5:03, P told R: "oh man...go downstairs and get me a Corona". HR yelled from her office, "MAKE THAT FIVE." R, P and HR all sipped coronas during the last 20 minutes of their workday. Had I not been wrestling with iPhoto and the Chocolate thing, I probably would have been offered the same.
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Of everything, I'm most excited that I have not been asked not to wear my rings. The ear cuff hasn't come up (after the confusion I've opted to go without), but I've worn all six rings every day and the only comment they have elicited was from my bus seat mate this morning, who gushed, "oh! Your rings are wonderful! I love silver!"
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