Divorce update

Rough day yesterday. Highlights, tactfully expressed:

• Trial has been reset for early October, meaning this drags on for at least a couple more months unless we agree to a settlement.
  
• The results of mediation made it clear that not in ten million years will we agree on the issues surrounding the children, and therefore I will take it for granted going forward that a trial is unavoidable.
  
• Plus, since Dessie got fired and has no income, I now have to pay her lawyer as well as mine; and since that debt's already up to three grand, that was a dance-of-joy item and a half. Hey, buddy, great news: your wife has hired somebody to do everything in her power to see to it that your children are taken away from you -- and she's sending you the bill. Woo-hoo!
  

All of which is bad news.

On the other hand, once it became obvious that there is going to be a custody battle in court and that the court was going to appoint an amicus for the children anyway (that is, a lawyer who represents the children's interests, as opposed to the parents' respective lawyers who are obliged to represent the parents' respective interests), our two lawyers were able to agree on a particular lawyer to serve as the amicus. This lawyer is known to and respected by both my lawyer and Dessie's, and even more importantly our judge is known to have a high regard for this lawyer's opinion. So we'll be able to get that moving now, rather than waiting until October 6th only to have the judge say, "Well, we obviously need an amicus; so I'm going to appoint an amicus and then reset your trial for, say, January of 2014."

And since I've been trying to get Dessie to agree to the appointment of an amicus for some time now, the fact that we walked out of there yesterday with the amicus question settled certainly counts as good news.

Brutal day. I certainly do appreciate all the prayers. Please do keep 'em comin'. In particular, finances are going to be a major issue for me over the next few months with this increased burden of legal costs; so if you could for a while amend your personal Lord's Prayer to say, "...give us, especially Kenny, our daily bread..." I'd be very grateful.

[chuckling] Maybe I should start a Pierce Children's Legal Fund to cover the cost of the amicus, which is also going to come out of my pocket (it never ends, I'm tellin' ya)...I'll hold a bake sale or something. [shuddering at the thought of what the baked goods would taste like considering that I'd be one baking them]