So much has happened recently I am not sure where to begin. As many of you know, D and I were heading to OR to go before a judge and plead his case for a modification in visitation for him and his daughter. The request for more time with D came directly from his (not so) little girl so there was NO way we were not moving forward with it.
D and I left for OR on Tuesday afternoon and arrived at a decent hour. We rented an SUV (Jen’s favorite) and drove from Portland to McMinnville, OR. Once we got there we went to our B&B to settle in for the night. The proprietor had left me an envelope with the keys and a lovely note welcoming me to her establishment. The note also requested that I call her and let her know we had arrived.
After we checked out our “African” room I went downstairs to call the owners. Cheryl, a lovely woman who has been very kind to us welcomed me and asked if everything was to my liking (I am a picky traveler). Of course I was all good with our room. She then asked me if D.W. (she used his full name) was who I was there with. I said yes, ummm, why do you ask? And she says “his ex-wife called looking for him.” My first thought was “Why is Mary calling here?” a fraction of a second later I said out loud, “his WHAT?” She proceeds to tell me the following story:
“Well I got a phone call asking if a D.W had checked in, and of course I said no. Then the woman asked if a K.M. was staying with me and I said yes, thinking it might be the courts checking to see if you had arrived. You see, my ex-husband is a judge on the bench and so I know how these things work and I thought there no harm in saying you would be checking in later. So we hang up and shortly thereafter my phone rings again and the same woman asks if a S.C. would be staying with us (side note, S.C. is the step mom to D’s daughters brother and sister, if you can work that out). At this point I am confused so I ask her who she is and she says `My name is JH and I am D’s ex-wife (wtf?) and he is here taking me to court to get visitation of a daughter he hasn’t seen in FIFTEEN years (wtf again, we had her for a visit a few weeks ago) and to stop him from blah blah blah (personal information about Jen that I will not repeat here, nor would I tell the a PERFECT stranger). So I say to her, `whatever the case may be, my only advice to you is to make sure you abide by whatever the judge orders’ and then we hung up.”
Now picture me, sitting in an overstuffed chair in a gorgeous B&B with my jaw on the floor. I am embarrassed over this crazy behavior, I am shocked and I am pissed off. I start apologizing over and over again for the inappropriate behavior of someone else and Cheryl says “don’t apologize honey, I worked as a pysch ward nurse for 20 years, I am familiar with this kind of behavior.” I laugh but I am still so blown away. First of all this woman hunted us down. Secondly she had the nerve to call a place I was staying and tell lies and disclose confidential information to a stranger. Thirdly, I was raised to be polite, not to make an ass out of myself at every turn, so I am appalled at the whole situation.
Cheryl was so kind about it I was amazed. We talked about the fact that her ex was on the bench and what to expect and so on. She was very supportive. On top of it all, she didn’t charge us to stay this time because we had paid for a cancelled trip for last month (Jen’s mom pulled a last minute stunt to have the court date pushed out.)
Once I hung up with Cheryl I marched upstairs to talk to my Man. He was more amused and less stunned than I am about the matter. He is so used to this woman’s fanatical behavior that he kind of shrugs it off most of the time. I am the other hand am all uppity about it. However, after calling my mom, my sister and my best-friend I feel better. They remind me that this woman is clearly not dealing with a full deck of cards and that MOST people in the world do not conduct their lives so abominably. I take a deep breath and ask my BF to dinner.
Now I have been to Mac before but D hasn’t so I take him to Third Street, a five block “down-town” area and we have a nice rooftop dinner at McMenamin’s. The food there was very nice, as was the Ruby Ale I had. After dinner we walked and talked for an hour before calling it a night in our HUGE bed.
In the morning we used one of the two gift certificates given to us from Cheryl to have a nice breakfast at the Wild Wood Café. Man the food was good there! Then we meandered down Third Street again and I went into Twist to have my hair done. The stylist was awesome and she did a very nice job of weaving colors into my hair. While I was having my hair done D showed up with a new pair of Vans for me, I had eyed them the night before so he bought them as a little surprise gift for his girl. Just love him.
After we returned to our inn we got dressed and ready to meet with our attorney prior to court. He is a very nice man with very good advice. Not to mention he presented himself beautifully and inspired knowledge and trust in both of us.
When we arrived at court, about 15 minutes before our scheduled hearing time, JH’s attorney was already there. Ours showed up a minute later and then the judge came in. The judge was a very sweet woman who was ready to make things happen. Our two attorneys’ and she decided to try to mediate on D’s and Jen’s behalf. The three of them talked and around 2:35 Jen and her mom (along with JH’s mom and her mom’s ex-husband) arrived. Jen was called in to speak alone with the judge. Then our attorneys’ went back in and shortly after that our attorney approached us with a wonderful and fair compromise to what we were asking for. We knew we wouldn’t get EVERYTHING, but we go almost everything and that was fine by us.
At one point D and I went out to talk to Jen while our attorneys’ were in with the judge. It was a little awkward at first but seeing the smile on Jen’s face was well worth every minute. Jen’s mom hissed Jen’s name and when we all turned to look at her, well let me tell you, if looks could kill I would have a serious skinned knee! I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the glare I was getting. It was so unnecessary and so not threatening. It was like being in high school all over again.
Once we all entered the court room things went pretty well. We documented all the time we were getting with Jen, made a few concessions (ones didn’t impact us) and filed the motion. I won’t go into all the ridiculous details of how JH acted but suffice to say that D and I had a bet that she would not properly address the court (i.e., yes your honor and so on) and I lost. I was SO sure she had enough sense to be polite to the judge, but alas, I was wrong. She muttered her “yes’ and no’s” and that was about it. Another $20 down the drain.
The last thing ordered before we left court was that we could take Jen to dinner that night from 7:30-9:00 pm. We were thrilled! She called her new BF and asked him to join us. We all met up at McMenamin’s (once again). Jen’s BF Alex is great. He is smart and cute and adores Jen. Moreover he was able to keep up with my conversation which is HUGE on my list since I can be overbearing at times.
We had a nine o’clock curfew so we headed back to Jen’s right after dinner. When we arrived outside of Jen’s house it was 9:03 according to POPCORN (i.e., the call in time service) and Jen informed us her mom had already called! She missed the ringer due to conversation. Within 2 minutes her phone rang again. It was her mom. She barked at Jen for being late (I could hear her) and then hung up on her. Meanwhile we are standing right OUTSIDE her front door… some people.
D and I decided to grab a coffee on the way back and took another walk to bask in the wonderful feeling of having time with Jen.
The next morning we packed up and decided to go to Jen’s school for lunch. Her high school is an open campus which means she can leave for food and such. We met her out front and she told us she wanted lunch at Sage so that’s where we took her. We ran into Jen’s best friend Megan with her BF Andrew so we bought the whole crew lunch.
We ended up running to Megan’s house to see where she lived (about 30 seconds from the restaurant) and got a nice short tour and some pictures before we left (I will post those soon). As the girls headed back to school for class D and I headed to the airport for home.
All in all it was a wonderful trip. Sadly Jen got grounded for having lunch with her dad and me but she seems ok. She said it was worth it. Can’t help but love that kid!
D and I left for OR on Tuesday afternoon and arrived at a decent hour. We rented an SUV (Jen’s favorite) and drove from Portland to McMinnville, OR. Once we got there we went to our B&B to settle in for the night. The proprietor had left me an envelope with the keys and a lovely note welcoming me to her establishment. The note also requested that I call her and let her know we had arrived.
After we checked out our “African” room I went downstairs to call the owners. Cheryl, a lovely woman who has been very kind to us welcomed me and asked if everything was to my liking (I am a picky traveler). Of course I was all good with our room. She then asked me if D.W. (she used his full name) was who I was there with. I said yes, ummm, why do you ask? And she says “his ex-wife called looking for him.” My first thought was “Why is Mary calling here?” a fraction of a second later I said out loud, “his WHAT?” She proceeds to tell me the following story:
“Well I got a phone call asking if a D.W had checked in, and of course I said no. Then the woman asked if a K.M. was staying with me and I said yes, thinking it might be the courts checking to see if you had arrived. You see, my ex-husband is a judge on the bench and so I know how these things work and I thought there no harm in saying you would be checking in later. So we hang up and shortly thereafter my phone rings again and the same woman asks if a S.C. would be staying with us (side note, S.C. is the step mom to D’s daughters brother and sister, if you can work that out). At this point I am confused so I ask her who she is and she says `My name is JH and I am D’s ex-wife (wtf?) and he is here taking me to court to get visitation of a daughter he hasn’t seen in FIFTEEN years (wtf again, we had her for a visit a few weeks ago) and to stop him from blah blah blah (personal information about Jen that I will not repeat here, nor would I tell the a PERFECT stranger). So I say to her, `whatever the case may be, my only advice to you is to make sure you abide by whatever the judge orders’ and then we hung up.”
Now picture me, sitting in an overstuffed chair in a gorgeous B&B with my jaw on the floor. I am embarrassed over this crazy behavior, I am shocked and I am pissed off. I start apologizing over and over again for the inappropriate behavior of someone else and Cheryl says “don’t apologize honey, I worked as a pysch ward nurse for 20 years, I am familiar with this kind of behavior.” I laugh but I am still so blown away. First of all this woman hunted us down. Secondly she had the nerve to call a place I was staying and tell lies and disclose confidential information to a stranger. Thirdly, I was raised to be polite, not to make an ass out of myself at every turn, so I am appalled at the whole situation.
Cheryl was so kind about it I was amazed. We talked about the fact that her ex was on the bench and what to expect and so on. She was very supportive. On top of it all, she didn’t charge us to stay this time because we had paid for a cancelled trip for last month (Jen’s mom pulled a last minute stunt to have the court date pushed out.)
Once I hung up with Cheryl I marched upstairs to talk to my Man. He was more amused and less stunned than I am about the matter. He is so used to this woman’s fanatical behavior that he kind of shrugs it off most of the time. I am the other hand am all uppity about it. However, after calling my mom, my sister and my best-friend I feel better. They remind me that this woman is clearly not dealing with a full deck of cards and that MOST people in the world do not conduct their lives so abominably. I take a deep breath and ask my BF to dinner.
Now I have been to Mac before but D hasn’t so I take him to Third Street, a five block “down-town” area and we have a nice rooftop dinner at McMenamin’s. The food there was very nice, as was the Ruby Ale I had. After dinner we walked and talked for an hour before calling it a night in our HUGE bed.
In the morning we used one of the two gift certificates given to us from Cheryl to have a nice breakfast at the Wild Wood Café. Man the food was good there! Then we meandered down Third Street again and I went into Twist to have my hair done. The stylist was awesome and she did a very nice job of weaving colors into my hair. While I was having my hair done D showed up with a new pair of Vans for me, I had eyed them the night before so he bought them as a little surprise gift for his girl. Just love him.
After we returned to our inn we got dressed and ready to meet with our attorney prior to court. He is a very nice man with very good advice. Not to mention he presented himself beautifully and inspired knowledge and trust in both of us.
When we arrived at court, about 15 minutes before our scheduled hearing time, JH’s attorney was already there. Ours showed up a minute later and then the judge came in. The judge was a very sweet woman who was ready to make things happen. Our two attorneys’ and she decided to try to mediate on D’s and Jen’s behalf. The three of them talked and around 2:35 Jen and her mom (along with JH’s mom and her mom’s ex-husband) arrived. Jen was called in to speak alone with the judge. Then our attorneys’ went back in and shortly after that our attorney approached us with a wonderful and fair compromise to what we were asking for. We knew we wouldn’t get EVERYTHING, but we go almost everything and that was fine by us.
At one point D and I went out to talk to Jen while our attorneys’ were in with the judge. It was a little awkward at first but seeing the smile on Jen’s face was well worth every minute. Jen’s mom hissed Jen’s name and when we all turned to look at her, well let me tell you, if looks could kill I would have a serious skinned knee! I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the glare I was getting. It was so unnecessary and so not threatening. It was like being in high school all over again.
Once we all entered the court room things went pretty well. We documented all the time we were getting with Jen, made a few concessions (ones didn’t impact us) and filed the motion. I won’t go into all the ridiculous details of how JH acted but suffice to say that D and I had a bet that she would not properly address the court (i.e., yes your honor and so on) and I lost. I was SO sure she had enough sense to be polite to the judge, but alas, I was wrong. She muttered her “yes’ and no’s” and that was about it. Another $20 down the drain.
The last thing ordered before we left court was that we could take Jen to dinner that night from 7:30-9:00 pm. We were thrilled! She called her new BF and asked him to join us. We all met up at McMenamin’s (once again). Jen’s BF Alex is great. He is smart and cute and adores Jen. Moreover he was able to keep up with my conversation which is HUGE on my list since I can be overbearing at times.
We had a nine o’clock curfew so we headed back to Jen’s right after dinner. When we arrived outside of Jen’s house it was 9:03 according to POPCORN (i.e., the call in time service) and Jen informed us her mom had already called! She missed the ringer due to conversation. Within 2 minutes her phone rang again. It was her mom. She barked at Jen for being late (I could hear her) and then hung up on her. Meanwhile we are standing right OUTSIDE her front door… some people.
D and I decided to grab a coffee on the way back and took another walk to bask in the wonderful feeling of having time with Jen.
The next morning we packed up and decided to go to Jen’s school for lunch. Her high school is an open campus which means she can leave for food and such. We met her out front and she told us she wanted lunch at Sage so that’s where we took her. We ran into Jen’s best friend Megan with her BF Andrew so we bought the whole crew lunch.
We ended up running to Megan’s house to see where she lived (about 30 seconds from the restaurant) and got a nice short tour and some pictures before we left (I will post those soon). As the girls headed back to school for class D and I headed to the airport for home.
All in all it was a wonderful trip. Sadly Jen got grounded for having lunch with her dad and me but she seems ok. She said it was worth it. Can’t help but love that kid!
