Christmas spirit is back!

My Christmas ended up being fantastic-it really is a day for family. I spent the day with my parents, siblings, and nephews/neices. It was warm and familiar- kind of like a favorite San Marcos salsa. Everyone knew me in ways that only a few friends do- they remember the different stages of me- the goofy kid, goofy college student, and goofy lawyering- all the degrees of goofiness- from the kid playing chess to the high schooler that was a dungeon master to the college kid that thought he was the next Kennedy to the lawyer that....well, you know.

It was a great time.

Oh, and Noche Buena is the best beer ever! (though it's a little heavy- I only made it through a beer and a half).

Hope your xmas was as wonderful.

I ran over the little drummer boy!

Sometimes I just don't feel the Christmas spirit. I know that everyone, who isn't particularly close to me, expects a warm smile and good humor from me. "I just can't picture you mad," is something that I hear too often. And, usually, I don't mind being the person that cheers people up. It gives me pleasure to be the happy guy, usually...

But today I feel more like being the Bah Humbug guy. I know this guy who has an incendiary blog- he hates the government, people who like apple pie, and probably even his readers. He respects nothing and, I think, few people expect much of anything from him. This leaves him free to act any way that he wants.

Sometimes I think it'd be nice to be the no expectations guy.

What do you do when you got no shoes?

I feel closer to the president elect already. I know what it's like to wear shoes with holes in the soles. You see, I am the type of guy who is loyal to his shoes. I wear my favorite pair of shoes- a black pair of Allen Edmonds- Monday through Friday and occasionally even on weekends. The shoes still look sharp after all this time- I polish them often and occasionally take them to a professional for a buffing. But, the soles are in the end stages of wearing out. It started with a little hole in the left shoe. Now I have big holes in the bottom of both soles. This drives my wife crazy.

"A lawyer doesn't wear shoes with holes in them." Well, not a normal lawyer, I guess.

"You have a closet full of the same shoes," she continues to point out. "About 10 pairs of black dress shoes. All Allen Edmonds!"

But they weren't the same- although all of my dress shoes are of the same brand and may look identical, there's a certain difference in feel between different pairs of shoes. My favorite shoes just feel more solid...holes aside.

"I'm going to throw them away," she says for about the tenth time. I shrug my shoulders, but realize that this isn't an empty threat. Not long ago- maybe 7 years- she threw away my old favorite pair of shoes...

"Okay, Maria." I finally say as I often do. "Next week I'll take them to get repaired." Of course, I am just buying time, but eventually I start feeling too many pebbles beneath my feet.

Finally, I decided to fix the shoes. I dropped them off at a reputable cobbler (is there any other kind of cobbler?).

Now, I am going through withdrawal. My feet just don't feel right!

Crazy, huh?

Don Quixote, Esquire

I have a statuette of Don Quixote on my desk- it reminds me that the job of an attorney is often like the quest of good ol Don Quixote. Sometimes you try to slay dragons, but find that you are just fighting with windmills.
I believe the California dependency system makes a lot of parents feel like Don Quixote. It is a frustrating and insular system that tends to give short shrift to both parents and children in the name of efficiency. The system has a tendency to follow whatever the social workers recommend. It tends to reward compromise and is populated by lawyers that primarily only do dependency cases. I like compromise as much as the next lawyer, but I'm also willing to fight the system to get what is right for my clients. Sometimes this entails fighting with as many as three other lawyers in a proceeding.
I have two clients trapped in this system- one is a grandmother trying to get custody of her grandchildren and the other is a father trying to look for his son. Both clients are very deserving, but only one is getting the attention that he deserves. I'm winning father's case, but Grandmother is fighting an uphill battle. Before I came on the case, she was fighting with windmills- trying frantically to be approved by a system that didn't want to approve her. Now that I'm on the case, the windmills are mine to fight with.
I often feel like Don Quixote, even in victory. Sometimes you win a case for a client and find that the client goes out and commits another action that puts him in worse trouble. Someone once told me to only worry about what I can do and to not carry more weight than that. Yet, I think it's only human to wish that these windmills in all of our lives would stop spinning for long enough to let us pass and get on with the lives that we deserve. Don Quixote will forever be fighting windmills, but the rest of us deserve a break from time to time.