Back in court...again...

I was back in court this morning. (Actually technically it was yesterday morning as it's now 1am). I'm pretty sure I have enough courtroom hours at this point to have de facto passed the bar. I was expecting to be appointed to the bench today, but surprisingly it didn't happen.
After four years of this case dragging on, and on, etc, I made a giant breakthrough today.
I stopped channeling 'Rumpole of the Bailey' when talking in court! I was able to make my point (I hope) without saying things like "Let the record show, your honor, that this was clearly a ploy to besmirch my character!".
Can I just say; 'besmirching one's character', as a turn of phrase, has no place in a California court room. Anyway, I think everyone was relieved that I was speaking in an almost normal way today. When the lawyer of He Who Must Not Be Named called me out of the courtroom to go over their ridiculous proposals, I might have been a little too normal with him, perhaps. Satan's attorney was going over the issues he and his client disagreed with, such as the mediator's proposal that HWMNBN get therapy (because, oh I don't know, he's MENTAL?), and their latest idea; that HWMNBN and I take a coparenting class together and I had to jump in with "Absolutely not-but I know you're going to bring it up in court anyway so you go ahead and knock yourself out. In all the years you've been dragging this out you haven't gotten anything you've asked for yet; but you just keep on trucking."
We went back into court and I was mildly entertained when Satan's Attorney tried to clarify to the judge a point made by his client; namely that our issues were all a result of me being a communist and a socialist. I felt like President Obama trying to pass universal health care.

Exchange

Yesterday our French exchange student returned home. Although she was very sweet I breathed a sigh of relief when she left, because being on one's best behavior for two weeks is tiring, to say nothing of trying to pretend that you keep a clean house.
The first week she was here I'm pretty sure she was homesick. She was quiet and seemed unhappy, and the first weekend she was here she cried sad, silent tears as we went round the grocery store. When I asked her what was wrong she said the cupcake she had eaten didn't agree with her... I asked her friend what was wrong but the friend said she didn't know..I felt bad and I didn't know what to do.
The second week she seemed to cheer up quite a bit as she recovered from the jetlag, and appeared to enjoy herself more. By the time she and her classmates left, she gave the impression that she had had a fun trip.
Today she sent me a friend request on facebook, which I accepted immediately. I was at work and my two classroom staff wanted to see a picture of her, so we looked at some of her pictures. As we scrolled through photos of her in her pool, with her ten horses, in front of one of her parents' convertible mercedes, climbing up the giant wrought iron gates to the driveway of her giant house, my TA Jason said "If I had to come to your house from all that I'd be crying too, I'm not gonna lie..."