On Giving Low-Fives: My Most Embarrassing Moment

I have recently had occasion to relate my "most embarrassing moment" story and realized I have never posted about it on the blog.  We all have one (or should, shouldn't we?) and they get pulled out and dusted off to cheer us (or others) or to allow us to relive the embarrassment again in a safer moment and through the filtered lens of time.  I actually have two solidly mortifying experiences in my back pocket as my "most embarassing moments" but the winner is definitely the one that involved giving a senior law partner at a prestigious firm a low-five in close quarters, when he was not expecting one in the least because I completely misread a gesture (and apparently lost my mind for a second and thought that low-fives were a normal and reasonable thing to do in the legal practice or life in general for that matter.  I mean, of course, right?).

It was toward the end of my summer associateship at a big law firm in Palo Alto when I was invited by a litigation partner for whom I had done quite a bit of work to attend a large arbitration in San Francisco where there were something like 8 or 10 or so law firms representing various parties all with varying degrees of interest in the complex legal matter that was being handled.  Mine was a primarily observatory role with note-taking support for two partners from my firm and during the day the sets of legal counsel for the interested parties were shuffled between large and small conference rooms, first meeting in large groups and then 2 or 3 going off to discuss side matters.  I was honestly a little starstruck at the whole process and the views from the ump-teenth floor of one of the skyscrapers downtown where we were arbitrating and I had very little to do of substance besides just follow along and try to absorb as much as I could and keep up.  It felt sort of like a little gift to be invited along since I knew these partners didn't need me at all - like "take your daughter to work day", except, you know, I wasn't their daughter and I was getting paid.

So sometime after lunch I ended up in a small room with an older, kind of gruff partner from one of our main competing firms and his summer associate, and the partner from my firm.  We (okay, they) were discussing the merits of various arguments and points were being made by each side and (and this is where time slows down and a high pitched warning buzz fills my head) the senior partner from the competing firms makes a point while opening his palms at about waist level in a semi-"am-I-right-or-am-I-right?" kind of shrug which I (incorrectly) interpreted as an invitation for a low-five for no rational reason whatsoever.  Which I promptly accepted with an enthusiastic slap on his upturned palm (the instinct to connect the low-five before the hand was pulled away with a taunting "too slow!" apparently kicked in), thereby completing the low-five exchange and proving my social (and professional) ineptitude.  

The best part is that the poor old fellow didn't see it coming AT ALL and didn't seem to know what had just happened (neither did I).  I even had a time-slows-down-as-I-see-what-is-about-to-happen-and-can't-stop-it moment of alarm just before the slap.  The partner I worked for had missed the exchange while shuffling through some papers in a folder.  Or at least that is what I told myself afterwards, even though he kept giving me strange sideways glances for the rest of that breakout session.  The other summer associate looked scandalized (appropriately so).  But he also looked a little worried, like maybe it was normal for summer associates to act that way and why hadn't he been low-fiving partners all summer long?!!  I can't possibly be the only summer associate ever who overanalyzed these kinds of social exchanges this way.  So we all moved on like nothing had happened, while I sat there wishing I could shrink away to nothing.  

Even now I cringe just reliving that in order to type it up.  A week later I got an offer to come work full-time for the firm after graduation, so... all's well that ends well.

Most embarrassing moment Number 2 involves a boy and a crush and years of joking about it with my best friend who also had a crush on the same boy, until suddenly some guys who knew the object of our shared (and only partially joking) obsession who I did not know but who knew my roommate at the time were invited into my room and saw the boy's high school senior picture (which had been color-scanned out of the yearbook, enlarged and framed by the friend with the mutual crush on him as a gag 16th birthday present for me) sitting on my desk (as a joke!  A JOKE!).  And they were like, um, why do you have a picture of Greg* on your desk?!  Isn't he dating so-and-so...?  And I basically mumbled something about "oh, it's just a joke" and then ran out of the apartment in horror praying that it wouldn't get back to Greg (who never even knew I existed) and promising myself to get rid of the picture after the guys left.

So there you have it.  My two most embarrassing moments.  Now it's your turn to share.  

* Name has been changed because of the internets and me not wanting there to be a chance that somebody would do a google search that would lead back to this blog post.  Because that would lead to an unfortunate embarrassing moment of its own.

First Date Night of 2014

One of my New Year's Resolutions is for us to go on dates at least twice a month.  I tried to schedule a date night swap with our friends for this past Tuesday/Wednesday but it didn't work out because they had other obligations.  But I REALLY wanted a date night, so I guess I resorted to drastic measures.

As I was chopping cilantro for the chicken flautas that I was making for dinner, I accidentally sliced into my thumb.  It all happened so fast that I didn't register the pain at first.  I have knicked myself and even sliced a little bit here and there over the years, but this... well, I pretty much went about 3/4 of the way through my thumb a little less than an inch from the tip.  It was gruesome.

Clara was watching "The Little Mermaid" and I didn't scream or cry out or anything.  I just quickly doused it under cold water to rinse off the first welling of blood, then realized just the extent of what I had done and grabbed a clean white dish towel from the drawer and laid down on the kitchen floor trying to draw deep breaths and keep it together so I wouldn't pass out.  Because I have totally passed out from blood, needles, and pain in the past.  I don't swoon or anything - it isn't romantic by any stretch of the imagination.  I am more of the eyes-roll-back-in-the-head-and-I-topple variety of fainter.  It's kind of one of those embarrassing things about myself that I don't usually share.

Thank goodness for cell phones because I had mine on the kitchen floor there with me and I called Paul while I lay there feeling beads of sweat form and drip from my forehead and down my neck (part of the whole passing out thing for me) and clutching my cloth-covered hand like the little chunk of semi-detached thumb on the top was going to drop off, hoping he was already on his way home from work.  When he answered I sort of stammered out what I had done but must not have been very coherent because he asked me to elaborate at which point I lost my temper and sort of bellowed at him to stop asking me questions and just come home.  Then I called my friend Christine who lives around and the corner (and with whom we normally do our date night swap), praying she would answer.  She did and she rushed over with her two kids in tow and loaded Clara into her car then gathered my wallet, purse, and shoes for me since I pretty much just stayed put on the kitchen floor pretending I was somewhere else and that I hadn't just done what I had just done. 

Christine made me feel better by telling me on the drive to the hospital that she had gone to the emergency room just a month before because of a bad splinter.  This was my first trip to an ER, ever, and I was pretty anxious, but I told her to just drop me off at the entrance and then take the kids home because nobody had had dinner and Clara had a bad cold and besides, I didn't want anybody there with me anyway.  And I knew it wasn't the most convenient timing for her anyway since her husband had things going on that night with work and church responsibilities that had made it so date night was a no-go for the week. 

Sure enough, as soon as I walked up to the intake desk and had to remove my dishtowel from my thumb to show them what I had done, I lost it and started wailing.  It was SO embarrassing and I am so glad Clara didn't get to see it or she would have been traumatized for sure.  I don't know if it really looked terrible (I couldn't bring myself to look at it) or if I was just freaking out the other people in the waiting room because they took me right back and checked me in without having me sign anything.  Very impressive service with zero wait time.  Way to go Kaiser Permanente Hospital.  The guy who helped me (I don't know if he was a nurse or a doctor or what) tried to put the dishtowel back over my thumb for me and I snapped and sobbed at him "DON'T TOUCH IT!!!" like some sort of hideous swamp creature.  He actually laughed. 

I would like to point out that I am THE WORST patient in the entire world.

Anyway, after that I shut my eyes tight and didn't open them again until an hour later when everything was over.  They told me that they were going to have to clean out the wound and I went ballistic when they sprayed a tiny bit of saline solution in it.  So then somebody (not sure who was really involved at this point because eyes were closed - there was a girl and a guy and at least the girl was a doctor for sure, maybe the guy too) had the brilliant idea to go ahead and numb my thumb BEFORE cleaning it since they were going to have to numb it later anyway for stitches or whatever.  I don't know why numbing or knocking somebody out isn't the first thing on ER protocol because it only makes sense to me. 

I knew that numbing my thumb would require a painful shot and I was full-on hyperventilating and full-body shaking when they came in to do it.  Fortunately, the shot went into the fleshy mound of my palm at the base of my thumb rather than into the thumb pad itself (which I had been worrying about).  I was told it would take 15 minutes for my thumb to lose all sensation, which turned out to be pretty accurate because they went back to work on it around 7 1/2 minutes (they told me how long it had been) and I started sobbing uncontrollably all over again (versus the pathetic keening I had settled into) because I could still feel them lifting open the wound to squirt saline solution into it.  They decided it would be better to wait the full 15 minutes before working on it any more. 

Paul showed up after I had been there for about half an hour and came in and tried to stroke my hair.  I kept my eyes closed but barked at him not to touch me (seriously, I mentioned I am the worst patient ever, right?).  He chuckled and stood off to the side while everything was finished up and at one point I thought to mention that he should take some pictures on his camera.  Because of course I would need photos.  He laughed and said that he was already doing it and I just hadn't noticed because my eyes were screwed shut still. 

The doctor(s) decided that the wound could be closed with superglue stitches or whatever that stuff is so that they didn't have to use traditional stitches which I would have to go back for to have removed.  So once everything was irrigated they sealed it up and Paul and I had about 20 or 30 minutes to just sit there while the glue dried and chat.  Paul texted Christine to let her know the update and she said that Clara was eating dinner and Johannes didn't end up having to go to the meeting that had originally made date night impossible so we should take our time and stop and get ice cream on the way home or something.  So when everything was finished we stopped by In-N-Out for burgers and fries (I was craving salt like crazy - is that a symptom of shock or something?). 

All in all, we had dinner, conversation, time alone with each other, and sort of an activity/entertainment.  We laughed, we cried, we went home.  So I guess the first date night of 2014 was a success.

Lesson learned

I have been working with Clara on learning things like shapes (she knows heart, circle, star, oval, and diamond and is hit or miss on triangle, square and rectangle.  Trapezoid and hexagon are still beyond her), letters ("C" is her favorite - I wonder why? - but she will say all of them and is starting to try to identify some of them by sight - "h" and "m" seem to be the two she has the most success with), colors (yellow is still her favorite and go-to answer but she also correctly identifies pink most of the time and can also do blue, purple and sometimes green, black or white.  She continues to be stymied by orange, red and brown which always default to yellow) and numbers (she will count to 10 but only if I say every number first for her to repeat even though I am positive she could do it on her own if she wanted to.  I teach her using books, puzzles, toys, games, songs, an app on my phone that she likes to play with, and observations made while we are out and about (e.g., pointing out that the moon is a circle and wheels are circles and the sky is blue and that sort of stuff). 

But I didn't realize that her education was sorely lacking until this morning when Paul took matters into his own hands and taught Clara how to make a proper farting sound by blowing a raspberry on her own hand.  She perfected it in all of 30 seconds.  Awesome.