Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Today’s surprise
Both Mollie Dog and I were caught unawares as I slid open the glass door to take her out this morning. Having a great grasp of the obvious I noticed that the patio is snow covered. There’s maybe an inch out there, but it was enough for her to do half her normal business and then insist on coming back inside. And, it’s cold out there!
This was totally unexpected, something typical of St. Louis weather. It is a television market where the weather forecasters get paid for being wrong much of the time. I must say that the snow covered ground is pretty. I’ll find out about the streets later on my way to work.
It’s Friday. It never fails that in the course of my morning at work I will come across a situation that I can’t figure out by myself. My boss and I have a phrase for this – “It’s Friday’s trick question time!” One of the reasons that she is such an awesome boss is that she can usually set me straight as to the answer. Immigration law is a complex and clunky affair and she is its encyclopedia. Her mind must be organized in file folders and she knows right where to find the right file for the occasion. I admire this talent of hers.
Yesterday we were chatting about how we chose our careers. I told her that I literally fell into being a nurse when I was working as a nurse’s aide in college. The Director of Nursing at the hospital was taking a senior seminar with me. One day she asked what I would do after graduation. My response was a very underwhelming, “I don’t know!”. She said I was a good aide and I should become a registered nurse and, by the way, apply at her alma mater. That institution was Deaconess Hospital in St. Louis. That sounded good to me so that’s exactly what I did.
My boss always wanted to be a veterinarian while growing up. She has a fascination with horses and as a child she rode a couple of times and was determined to study ways to care for animals. That is, until she got to Anatomy and Physiology in college and was given a piglet to dissect. That did it. No more veterinary science. Instead she switched her major to Spanish. Upon graduation she wandered into law school and the rest is herstory.
I remember when my son, Ted, announced in high school that he had signed up for a Japanese language class. His motive for taking on such a complicated language was that he would be a video game designer and eventually work for Nintendo. That career goal lasted for one semester. In college he chose to immerse himself in the field of philosophy. The young man about whom I worried that he might not get out of high school is about to get his PhD in a field that is just as complicated as the study of Japanese language.
Today I will be working on a case that is surprising in its complexity. A man called with a request for help. He is a US citizen, recently married to a woman fleeing persecution in Cuba. She left Cuba, migrated to Mexico, paid to be brought over our border. She was transported in a truck that was abandoned. They were locked in the truck and people around her died before they were discovered. She has applied for asylum, but it sounds like she paid someone in Florida claiming to be an immigration attorney. This person has since changed her number and does not answer calls. It’s unclear whether or not any papers were filed regarding her asylum request. There is another option – her husband can petition for her but because she is here illegally it will be a very long and complicated process.
I’m pretty sure as I get into this today there will be more than one trick question to answer. I might as well go and sit in my boss’s office!