Month: December 2003

Three and a half hours. That’s how long I sat in court today (with Lisa at my side). You can’t imagine how absolutely furious I was getting by the end (and how much I really had to pee 🙂 ). And I knew by that point that they were just waiting for the officer to show up. Even when he did, they held my trial for the very end. Outside of the actual court staff, there was simply myself, Lisa, and the patrolman sitting “in the stands”. When they finally called me up, I justed wanted to accept the lesser plea and get it over with. It’s amazing how quickly you realize that “the principle” really just doesn’t matter that much. Then it happened. The officer who hit me picked up the phone to call the one who had written the ticket. I turned to the prosecuter and said that I was willing to accept the plea, since I didn’t want to waste the officer’s time and didn’t feel confident in going to trial without an attorney. But the public defender quickly hit me and said “No!” I turned to her and she explained that they were about to dismiss!
Continue reading “Free at last, free at last…”

My sister Maureen’s longtime friend Billy (he’s a longtime friend of the entire family to be honest) works for Barnes and Noble. He convinced Maureen to edit a book for them about sisterhood, and lo-and-behold it sits at #139 on their best sellers list. It’s pretty cool to see her name up there, and the publisher’s comments verify that it is our Maureen Slattery:

In Sisters: Reflections on Sisterhood, editor Maureen Slattery uses hundreds of well-chosen quotations to evoke the joys and vexations of sisterhood. One of six sisters herself, Ms. Slattery draws on sources as diverse as Virginia Woolf and Ashley Judd; Emily Dickinson and Bob Dylan; Jane Austen and Jan, from the Brady Bunch. This bountiful anthology offers quotations to confirm-and dispute-your fondest notions about sisterhood.

I’m two days from yet another court day in my continuing saga of my car being totaled by a police officer. I’m supposed to talk to a lawyer about this one, which should be the final trial date for the ticket itself. I actually call someone and give them the basics. Ok, that’ll be $750 to come to court with you. Yeah sure, I’ll call you right back. If I accept the plea, it’ll be something like $150 for the ticket and possibly an outrageous lawsuit against my insurance company. If I actually lost the trial and took the ticket you can tack on a couple points and an insurance hike. The lawyer can’t guarantee anything about this and my insurance has already skyrocketed thanks to this accident. What’s the point? The worst case scenario basically has me paying the $750 to my insurance company because of yet another increase rather than the lawyer. I guess I’ll be chatting with the public defender before drinking my troubles away later that night.