It’s been a busy week. I have been house and dog sitting for my sister in San Francisco, so spending my evenings there and then going to work in San Rafael pretty much every other day and then working from my sister’s place in between. We had second interviews for the permanent Executive Director position early in the week, then on Friday a BOD meeting to discuss and vote on the new ED, so that involved a lot of prep work for me. I hosted my first section webinar where I had to introduce everyone and thank the sponsors, that went well. I also spent time working on things for the Installation dinner – talking to the scholarship committee about the best way to encourage people to donate at the event, reaching out to speakers and potential sponsors.
Thursday night was the annual Holiday Party at a yacht club in San Rafael. It was a really fun night, easier than the CCCBA holiday party because we had a food truck do the catering and there was a bartender and bar at the yacht club, so we didn’t have to schlep much – mainly decorations and name tags. I got to meet lots of people in the local legal community. I was impressed that both the DA and PD came to the party as well as over half the bench. The bench is much smaller in Marin than in Contra Costa, but it was still great that so many people made the effort to attend – apparently that is pretty typical.
It’s been fun spending a bit of time in the city, the mornings are foggy and the nights chilly. Some houses are decorated for Christmas, though not as much as they were for Halloween. The foggy mornings reminded me of when Chrissy and I went to Sweden one year in late November/early December. Everyone had lights around their windows and doors, as well as stars and other shapes in their windows. Mainly white lights, unlike the colored lights and blowup displays common in the US. They also had lights strung across streets, it was such a cosy look (even though it was REALLY cold! So cold that my phone would automatically shut down if I had it outside my pocket for too long).
Javi is used to spending time with me (Aunt Treatsa as Chrissy refers to me), when I’m not working. We would usually go on long walks, spend time at the beach, etc. The two days that I was working from home he kept looking at me wondering when we were going to go somewhere. After a while, he would sigh and lay down, obviously unimpressed that I was acting just like his mom, staring at a computer all day. Having him to look after has helped me balance things more with work – I had to take him out for walks, had to leave the office early enough so he wasn’t home too long by himself. Luckily, he has a dog walker who takes him out to play with his buddies 3 days a week, so that helps. On Friday we headed to Baker Beach so he could run around on the sand, he was thrilled, and I wasn’t too unhappy myself.
