Well what a treat to wake up to a sprinkling of snow on our thanksgiving holiday morning. Well actually we awoke to Ashleigh's squeals of delight and quickly realised what the excitement was all about. We promptly got on as much snow gear as we could find and were outside by 7:15am playing in the snow. The kids were fascinated by the snow the entire day however after going for a bike ride in the afternoon Jack very adamantly declared "I do not like cold".
Just the day before we had spent thanksgiving with friends from seminary who cooked a massive turkey and various other sides and desserts. It was a lovely day and we have been made aware that thanksgiving is in many ways a feast of great proportion, more so than even Christmas. It's a time of being thankful, spending time with family and friends and eating massive amounts.
We were also told the morning of the snow arriving that some shoppers had camped out overnight in the snow to be the first through the doors of some of the bigger shops that were opening at 3am! Apparently the day after thanksgiving has become the biggest shopping day for US retailers. Similar perhaps to NZ's boxing day, just a whole lot bigger.
So the kids have had their first taste of thanksgivng, their first taste of snow and also their first real break from school since starting in August. It's been quite a special few days.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
"I fought the law and the, law won"
You'll never guess where WE were the other day. Of all the places we had imagined going and visiting both since being here in the US and prior to our adventure here, we did not anticipate a US court house being one them. But, the other day that's exactly where Sonia, Jack and I found ourselves.
You see, Sonia had a little mix up as to which red lights you are actually allowed to go through here, along with a little confusion regarding left and right, all while not having her license with her in the car, and then, what do you know, I find myself sitting at the back of court, rising with about 100 others in the courthouse as the Judge enters the room and resides. I can't quite recall her name, but something in my memory is telling me that her name was Judith, so I'll go ahead and call her Judge Judy.
So I'm sitting at the back of the courtroom, trying to supress urges inside me that want to yell "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" and other lines from famous court room movies. However, the grumpy looking sherrif at the door with his hand far too close to a Glock 9mm helped me to keep my seat and my voice down.
Despite not really wanting to be there, I was fascinated with the process. Like most processes that we've observed so far over here, the courtroom process involves a lot of people (many of them not doing much), a whole lot of time, and a vast array of steps in the process that must have taken someone a long long time to dream up. However, despite all these things rallying together to prevent us from making progress in the system, our decision to bring Jack along to the courtroom suddenly paid off. One of the guys near the front of the room who were yelling out names of the accused seemingly at random, looks over in our direction, and says "You! The lady with the baby - what's your name". Sonia very wisely contains her natural reaction to point out that Jack is in fact almost 4 years old and tells the man her name. He finds her file (yes, in a big box of paper files - only Judge Judy is important enough to get a computer in this courtroom, and even then she doesn't seem to use it), and asks her to come up to the front of the room. After a brief discussion, he realises that this case is pretty simple and that all Judge Judy will want of Sonia is to get her Kentucky drivers license (we are still on NZ drivers licenses and haven't been able to get Kentucky licenses yet - that's another story - we're still doing battle with that particular system). He says that he'll suggest that the Judge postpone the ruling date until later in the new year which will give her time to get her license (hopefully enough time - it will only give her 6 weeks) after which she'll only have to pay the $20 fine for the red light incident. Sonia then returns to the pews in the back of the courtroom to await the call from the dreaded (but very young looking) Judge Judy.
We sit in silence at the back of the room. The hussle and bustle of the courtroom activity blurs and fades out into a dim muffle in the background, and time seems to slow down. Somewhere in the room a clock ticks slow and loud. I turn my head to look at the sherrif by the door and he looks my way and flexes his fingers near his hoslter. Suddenly the muffle is broken by the ballif calling Sonia's name for her to stand before the bench. Sonia approaches the bench, Judge Judy continues to ignore her computer and picks up the paper file, reads it for a moment and tells Sonia that she needs to come back early January for a continuation of the case. Sonia thanks the Judge, turns around, walks back to me, and we pick up our stuff and walk out of the courtroom, making sure that I address the sherrif as "Sir" on the way out. He manages a fake smile, barely masking his apparent annoyance, probably due to the fact that he hasn't been able to shoot or threaten to shoot anyone yet today.
However, as we walk out the door I reflect on the fact that the whole ordeal has actually turned out OK, and that it won't cost us much, and even that we won't have to pay until next year. Just as I was reflecting upon this, a young guy in a sharp suit walks up to me, shakes my hand and says "Bradd - have you been getting into trouble here already?" It's a guy from Immanuel (our church here in Louisville) who I didn't know was a lawyer - very embarrassing. The bad situation that had just a moment ago gotten all better, just took a dive again.
It doesn't take us long to get over our embarrassment though, and as we tell him what's happened he laughs and offers to take care of the rest of the process for us so that we don't have to come back into the courtroom again for the next hearing, all for no cost. And he can get the date of the hearing changed for us if we need more time - brilliant! It was all working out good again.
I drove home glad to have the whole thing behind us, and making plans to make flash cards for Sonia with red and green lights and left and right arrows on them. It's been an interesting experience (although Jack says it was all completely boring), but one that I'm not keen to go through again in the near future. The guy with the Sherrif's badge and the trigger happy index finger put me off the whole thing.
Bradd
Ps. A small amount of poetic license has been used in the above narritive, despite the fact that I'm not in any way poetic. 1) I have no idea what the Judge's real name was. There is a chance it may have been Judith or in fact Judy, but it's a pretty minuscule chance. 2) There may or may not have been a clock in the court room. If there was, I couldn't actually hear it. 3) The sherrif at the back of the court house was in fact a reasonably nice guy, although stern when he needed to be. I have no idea what sort of gun he had - I was just impressed by the fact that all the sherrifs in the room were carrying them. I had no inclination to give him a reason to draw it so that I could read the brand.
Pps - this is now Sonia. Wow talk about poetic license. Drama, drama, drama :) I just feel I should explain this wee incident. He has been dying to tell this whole story however I have still been a little too traumatised to speak of it. However just to shed a little light on the picture. The cop told me that you can never go through any red arrows, period! But in Louisville here if you sit at a red right arrow you will have not only one or two people honking their horns at you but five or more and this has happened to me so many times now I can no longer count. So after three months of observing everybody treating red right arrows as give ways, early November I very innocently went through my first red arrow treating it simply as a give-way. Unfortunately it was a left arrow which is far less tolerated ....and well you now know how the rest of it went!
You see, Sonia had a little mix up as to which red lights you are actually allowed to go through here, along with a little confusion regarding left and right, all while not having her license with her in the car, and then, what do you know, I find myself sitting at the back of court, rising with about 100 others in the courthouse as the Judge enters the room and resides. I can't quite recall her name, but something in my memory is telling me that her name was Judith, so I'll go ahead and call her Judge Judy.
So I'm sitting at the back of the courtroom, trying to supress urges inside me that want to yell "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" and other lines from famous court room movies. However, the grumpy looking sherrif at the door with his hand far too close to a Glock 9mm helped me to keep my seat and my voice down.
Despite not really wanting to be there, I was fascinated with the process. Like most processes that we've observed so far over here, the courtroom process involves a lot of people (many of them not doing much), a whole lot of time, and a vast array of steps in the process that must have taken someone a long long time to dream up. However, despite all these things rallying together to prevent us from making progress in the system, our decision to bring Jack along to the courtroom suddenly paid off. One of the guys near the front of the room who were yelling out names of the accused seemingly at random, looks over in our direction, and says "You! The lady with the baby - what's your name". Sonia very wisely contains her natural reaction to point out that Jack is in fact almost 4 years old and tells the man her name. He finds her file (yes, in a big box of paper files - only Judge Judy is important enough to get a computer in this courtroom, and even then she doesn't seem to use it), and asks her to come up to the front of the room. After a brief discussion, he realises that this case is pretty simple and that all Judge Judy will want of Sonia is to get her Kentucky drivers license (we are still on NZ drivers licenses and haven't been able to get Kentucky licenses yet - that's another story - we're still doing battle with that particular system). He says that he'll suggest that the Judge postpone the ruling date until later in the new year which will give her time to get her license (hopefully enough time - it will only give her 6 weeks) after which she'll only have to pay the $20 fine for the red light incident. Sonia then returns to the pews in the back of the courtroom to await the call from the dreaded (but very young looking) Judge Judy.
We sit in silence at the back of the room. The hussle and bustle of the courtroom activity blurs and fades out into a dim muffle in the background, and time seems to slow down. Somewhere in the room a clock ticks slow and loud. I turn my head to look at the sherrif by the door and he looks my way and flexes his fingers near his hoslter. Suddenly the muffle is broken by the ballif calling Sonia's name for her to stand before the bench. Sonia approaches the bench, Judge Judy continues to ignore her computer and picks up the paper file, reads it for a moment and tells Sonia that she needs to come back early January for a continuation of the case. Sonia thanks the Judge, turns around, walks back to me, and we pick up our stuff and walk out of the courtroom, making sure that I address the sherrif as "Sir" on the way out. He manages a fake smile, barely masking his apparent annoyance, probably due to the fact that he hasn't been able to shoot or threaten to shoot anyone yet today.
However, as we walk out the door I reflect on the fact that the whole ordeal has actually turned out OK, and that it won't cost us much, and even that we won't have to pay until next year. Just as I was reflecting upon this, a young guy in a sharp suit walks up to me, shakes my hand and says "Bradd - have you been getting into trouble here already?" It's a guy from Immanuel (our church here in Louisville) who I didn't know was a lawyer - very embarrassing. The bad situation that had just a moment ago gotten all better, just took a dive again.
It doesn't take us long to get over our embarrassment though, and as we tell him what's happened he laughs and offers to take care of the rest of the process for us so that we don't have to come back into the courtroom again for the next hearing, all for no cost. And he can get the date of the hearing changed for us if we need more time - brilliant! It was all working out good again.
I drove home glad to have the whole thing behind us, and making plans to make flash cards for Sonia with red and green lights and left and right arrows on them. It's been an interesting experience (although Jack says it was all completely boring), but one that I'm not keen to go through again in the near future. The guy with the Sherrif's badge and the trigger happy index finger put me off the whole thing.
Bradd
Ps. A small amount of poetic license has been used in the above narritive, despite the fact that I'm not in any way poetic. 1) I have no idea what the Judge's real name was. There is a chance it may have been Judith or in fact Judy, but it's a pretty minuscule chance. 2) There may or may not have been a clock in the court room. If there was, I couldn't actually hear it. 3) The sherrif at the back of the court house was in fact a reasonably nice guy, although stern when he needed to be. I have no idea what sort of gun he had - I was just impressed by the fact that all the sherrifs in the room were carrying them. I had no inclination to give him a reason to draw it so that I could read the brand.
Pps - this is now Sonia. Wow talk about poetic license. Drama, drama, drama :) I just feel I should explain this wee incident. He has been dying to tell this whole story however I have still been a little too traumatised to speak of it. However just to shed a little light on the picture. The cop told me that you can never go through any red arrows, period! But in Louisville here if you sit at a red right arrow you will have not only one or two people honking their horns at you but five or more and this has happened to me so many times now I can no longer count. So after three months of observing everybody treating red right arrows as give ways, early November I very innocently went through my first red arrow treating it simply as a give-way. Unfortunately it was a left arrow which is far less tolerated ....and well you now know how the rest of it went!
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