pyewacketsworld

Part 9:

Okay I guess it’s time to further tell about all the happenings of my “winner” year in 2006. I had stopped allowing Animal Care & Control come to take anymore cats since I was so dismayed about what happened to one cat, Porthos, and also, I had other things to think about and that was the court appearance that was looming up on Monday, May 8th, 2006—only the Friday before, the director of JASA-Legal Services For The Elderly had sent my mother and myself via DSL a letter of postponement to hand to the judge, so put off any further court proceedings until a lawyer was officially assigned to us.

Now one doesn’t have to have panic disorder to have major anxiety about any court appearance as it’s anxiety producing to begin with, and don’t forget, I had agoraphobia as well to boot, even though I was no longer housebound, still the distance to the court from our home was fairly far away. Thankfully, since we were being legally represented by JASA and they dealt with “elderly” people all the time, one of the services they provided was car service. What a blessing that was! I didn’t have to worry about trying to travel by subway, which I hadn’t done in about fifteen years, and also there was no cost to us. The total cab fare had we paid out of our own pocket would have been about $40.00 total.

On the night before going to court, I made sure I went to bed earlier than I normally did (being the night owl that I was and still am). Our appointment wasn’t until around 2:00 p.m. but I wanted to get up as early as possible to allow myself ample time for the two of us, that is my mother and myself to get ready. The car service came on time thank goodness, and off my mother and I were to go to court. Now most people when they are nervous, anxious, stressed out might begin talking a living blue streak, I guess to get that nervousness out of them. Me” I’m the opposite, I clam up. Well obviously my mother was the talker type, and honest to God wouldn’t shut up the cab ride over and all I wanted was quiet! At one point, I said directly to her to shut up as I wanted quiet….boy what a nasty look she gave me. I just wanted quiet as I was psyching myself up for the court appearance and I just didn’t want anything to possibly trigger off an anxiety attack, including talking.

Well when we got there at court, we did have a wait outside the particular court room, but finally when our names were called I handed the clerk the postponement letter, she took it, and was going to go back inside the court room to give the judge the letter, so more waiting. Sometime passed, and finally the clerk came back out to us and gave us a new court date of when to appear: Thursday, May 25, 2006—at 9:30 a.m. Yikes! That early?? It seems the court rule is one HAS to be there at that time, no matter when your case is actually called. By default one can get there no later than 10:30 a.m. but ONE HAS TO BE THERE, NO MATTER WHAT, otherwise by default, the opposing side would automatically win. Uh, no thanks, don’t think we wanted that, after all we were talking about an eviction issue and no way did I want the landlord to win. I was proud of myself though, that I managed to “handle” going to court and didn’t feel the least bit panicky. Little did I know however, the court case would drag on until October, and in the meantime a lot of things were to happened during that time, of which I’ll continue this “adventure” in my next entry.

©~Melanie Neer aka pyewacket

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