there's a rainbow always after the rain

you know how it's like. the day you get home late is the day you hear water magnificently flowing in your bathroom. you open the door and it's almost cartoon-like as water comes out to meet you. as you resign yourself to the fact that it'll take the good part of an hour to get rid of the water, not to mention take care of the damaged stuff, you just pray that the leak started late in the day so your water bill doesn't encroach on the other items on your budget.

the following morning you decide to do a load of laundry before going to work and an innocent spark - caused by the rat in your house eating through the extension cords - kills off two outlets. you're thankful -- better the outlets than the washing machine and the refrigerator both dying on you.

it's been like that for me, and with a workload that's threatening to bowl me over, a fever that won't "come out" cause of the flu shot that's probably battling with the virus, and a fight with a friend, i'm this close to shutting down and doing something stupid like blow my extra income on shoes.

then i get to work, open my email, and receive amazing news: the po has been signed and delivery date for "hans" is april 30. that's 32 days away. or sooner.

i'm hoping it's sooner. because sooner not only means there's a rainbow, but there's a pot of gold thrown in for good measure!

retail therapy

"sometimes," i texted my boss, "the good thing with having an awful day is that you have an excuse to shop."

so i came home with this. love so many things about it:

1. it's cheap.

2. it's crazy soft.

3. it fits like a dream.

so i think i can now forget the horrible day i had, and i can forget my frustration with this person. i've new jeans. it's all good from here on.

*on a totally happier note, my dad volunteered to get me the kate spade blackberry pouch as a belated birthday gift! i had been planning on asking tita mayu to order it online for me (i still don't have a credit card) but before we could order it, he asked me for the link and ordered it. it's on its way to him and tita mayu will be bringing it home with her when she comes back from vacation. woohoo!

family

i remember posting something, either on facebook or on twitter, and a friend replied by saying, "aren't you supposed to be happy these days?"

you see, my mom is home for the first time in 8 years. she's been telling us that she'll visit one of these days -- supposedly when i graduated from law school, then when i was taking the bar -- but none of those trips panned out. my dad was here the year i took the lawyer's oath and signed the roll of attorneys, but unfortunately, he arrived weeks after the fact. sometime march or april of this year, my mom finally booked a ticket and told us that finally, she was on her way home for a two-week vacation.

the word excited didn't exactly capture how i felt when i heard the news. as i type this, i can see from the corner of my eye the hot pink post-it note pad where i first scrawled her flight details. my i-google home page counted the days until her arrival. and, for the first time in years, i planned a family vacation. once more, it was going to be me, my mom, and my brother, and we were going to have loads of fun.

reality, unfortunately, isn't always the same as fantasy.

after yet another particularly stressful evening, where i found myself in tears, i couldn't help but ask myself, why the heck did they give us families for if our hearts are meant to be broken every single time?

then i remembered a quote from sex and the city: the most important thing in life is your family. there are days you love them, and others you don't, but in the end, they're the people you always come home to. sometimes it's the family you're born into and sometimes its the one you make for yourself.

i've been horribly disappointed over and over again by my family, but i have to remember that in the last 8 years, i have built a wonderful "family" around myself. i have been blessed by people who loved, and continue to love, me in spite of myself. and so, i may be hurting right now, but i am buoyed by the knowledge that God knows my hurts, and he knows how to soothe my pains. and i know too that when the going gets too tough, i can always run to people who i know love and care for me as if i were part of their family too.

i am loved, and it shouldn't really matter anymore who's doing the loving.

update (at 1:55 p.m.) - had to ask clients to come to sign something and they came with something from mary grace. now, my language of love is gifts, so i felt the love loud and clear. thank you, client, and thank you Lord for making sure this happened today of all days.

a lawyer's quest to find make money

last tuesday, i was very sad.

you see, one of my favorite clients, one whose case i felt very passionate about, decided to terminate our services. we were too expensive, they explained. they further claimed that they couldn't afford us, that it was as if they'd actually lost the case even if we actually won it for them. they've decided to go with someone else.

backtrack: our firm does time billing. this means that regardless of the nature of the work, we will bill you depending on the amount of time spent performing that work. the nature of our charges are clearly outlined in the engagement letter sent to the clients but as i've learned from experience, very few clients actually read the letter before signing. i guess desperation does that to you.

going back to my story, our clients claimed that they misunderstood the terms of our engagement and therefore were quite surprised when they received our bill. apparently the reason why they felt so good (at that time) asking for a whole lot of meetings, discussions, and what not was the fact that they didn't know they were going to be billed for time spent on their case. in the end, it didn't matter that we had written a very convincing pleading, one that (i believe) would stand up even to the supreme court's scrutiny. it likewise didn't matter that we were available to them 24/7, or that we shared their passion in the case. what mattered was that they didn't believe we were worth the amount we had charged.

boo, client. boo you.

that event reminded me of something my previous boss mentioned to us over lunch -- doctors have a huge advantage over lawyers. it doesn't matter if the patient dies; in the end, they'd still thank the doctor (salamat doc at ginawa niyo ang lahat ng makakaya niyo) and pay his bills. on the other hand, it doesn't matter how well the lawyer performed; if you lose, good luck in getting paid. (in my case, even if we won, good luck in getting paid) truly, it's a thankless job.

still, we have to make money, right?

and so, i present: alternative billing methods.

more on this tomorrow (or when i've got the time)