Family Mug Shot

When I was little, I loved to gaze up at our family photos on the wall. I loved one in particular with me and my mom in complimentary outfits (NOT MATCHING) where I am folding my arms in protest, although the photographer managed to sneak a smile out of me. I would love to see how young my mom was and how little I used to be. I would reach back into the farthest part of my mind and try to pull out memories of that day. The older I got, the harder this task became.

As I would shift my gaze across the wall, I'd see our family grow in numbers and in age. These snapshots of our family throughout the years still mean so much to me. They used to just remind me of happy memories and serve as evidence of how young we all once were. But now those pictures also remind me how fast everything goes by. Even so, when I got married, I couldn't wait to have my own family portraits. And the experience was just as I remember- the only difference is the reversal of my role.


The morning of, I tweaked our outfits- trying to make sure we wouldn't clash. We rushed to get clean and purdy and just spent time together getting ready under the bright lights of our bathroom. We sauntered into JCPenneys, smiled for the camera and then went out to eat in our nice clothes. The day was nothing extraordinary, in fact, it was a little hectic and crazy, but it was time spent together and it was wonderful. It felt great making our own family memories and traditions, just like the ones I remember from MY childhood. Isn't that the best part about having kids- reliving childhood from the other side of the fence?

The pictures didn't turn out too shabby either.

Oh Yeah, I Go To Lawschool Too Sometimes

For my final semester of law school, I am taking:

Insurance law
Healthcare Law
Professional Responsibility
Trusts & Estates
Pre-Trial Advocacy (we handle a pretend case through complain, answer, deposition, witness and client interviews, and summary judgment motions)

Today I was amazed by a few things. First of all, for the first time of my law school life, I am not terrorized by my law school professors. For the first time EVER I thought, "Eh, so what if Prof calls on me for a case I have not read. i'll just say "pass" and move on with my life." Usually, I am thinking more along the lines of "Holy Sh*t! What if he calls on me? I'll just DIE and people will realize I'm not smart and then the law school will tell me they want me to drop out and no one will ever be my friend and the Prof will think I'm a slacker loser and I will have to join a circus in order to achieve gainful employment!"

Also, for the first time EVER, I was distracted and not paying attention to a class lecture (GET THIS) in order to read for the another class. For once, it wasn't Facebook or Google or Blogger or CreateFarts or DirtySounding.com that was to blame. In Professional Responsibility, I had my Trusts & Estates book cracked open on the desk and I was pouring wildly over the proper execution of a will while the class was discussing what to do when your client insists on giving false testimony. HULLO- if he was my client, I would either (a) kick him in the balls and tell him to stop being a twerp or (b) drop his ass and make him find another attorney to commit all kinds of ethical horrors for him. Class dismissed. What is there to discuss? (Am I going to fail that class?).

This is also kinda crazy, but I actually have enough real world litigation experience to actually understand the context of what I am learning in my classes. This is expecially trye for my insurance law class. I did insurance defense for two summers in a row and will continue to do this when I start my job in March. The professor asked a question today, the answer to which could not be found in our reading, and I ANSWERED the question! I knew the answer solely from my litigation experience! Yes, I have officially become the annoying person who knows everything from personal life experience.

Famous Last Words

"Just one more cookie..." (there goes the whole box).

"I think I can make it one more hour without changing Jacob's diaper." (major wipeout ensues).

"I'm not going to brief for this class, the Prof never calls on us anyway" (you can guess this one).

"The recipe says this dish only takes 30 minutes to make." (dinner is 1.5 hours later).

"Oops, forgot deoderant. It will be ok, I'll just try not to sweat." (P.U.)

"This stairmaster is so easy! I'll increase intensity" (Why don't they make underwear with ice pack pockets?)

****
Oh and tonight my husband turned down a session of lovemaking. Yes, that's right, he turned down my seductive advances (i.e. "wanna do me?!") so that he could do something else. But I think we will take a poll and I'll let YOU guess what that something else might be.

My husband turned out an evening of awesome love making with me to:
(a) finish a manly action film co-starring a half naked chick
(b) take a dump (when you gotta go, you gotta go!)
(c) eat a box of pepperoni pizza and guzzle a keg of beer with his guy friends
(d) iron clothes.

If you guess a, b, or c, you assumed my husband was a normal human male. If you guessed d, then you know that is just simply NOT the case.

It went a little like this:
My husband walks into our bedroom where I am reading in bed. I look at him seductively and ask, "Want to join me in bed? Wink, wink."My husband rolls his eyes, gives an exasperated sigh and stated, "I JUST turned on the iron!" He then grabs a stack of clothes and marches out of the room. Like seriously, WHAT WAS I THINKING? He needs a freshly pressed wardrobe for the week and I'm over here being a sabateur by trying to force bodily pleasure onto him! Come ON!

Please tell me, the romance gets hotter with each year of marriage, right?

Carousels, Lies And Cotton Candy

We took Jacob to a local fair last weekend. You know the kind: 4H animals, gut-wrenching rides, cotton candy, mullets that put Billy Ray Cyrus to shame, over priced food, games you can never win, and fat old men that make you cry.

Oh, I have to clarify that last one? Ok.

We got to the fair and Jacob immediately started squealing over the carousel ride. He walked right up to the little gate surrounding it, pointed at the horsies moving up and down, and screeched wildly. I was excited too- I really wanted to take him for a carousel ride. So, with my husband reluctantly in tow behind me, we marched all over the fair looking for a ticket booth. When we found one, I purchased four tickets- the amont required to ride the carousel. It's such a racket. Four tickets doesn't sound expensive right? Well it came out to nearly four bucks! Oh well, my precious Jacob is worth every penny (this is the sentence that frequently follows all massive expenditures that I have to justify to my husband).

Then the lady who sold us our tickets might as well have flung poop in my face. She looked at me and solemnly declared, "Only children 2 years and older can ride the kiddie rides." This was synonymous to telling any child that Santa had just been killed by a stampede of wild buffalo. I was shocked.

"Not even the CAROUSEL?" I asked.

"Not even the carousel."

"But the carousel has benches that are nailed to the floor. He can sit in my lap!"

"Sorry." was her response. That bitch. She didn't sound the least bit sorry.

I walked over to my husband and explained the horrible news. As I was doing this, a sneaky thought crossed my mind. Why don't I just SAY that Jacob is 2 years old? I mean most people don't have a clue how old babies are. Plus, babies grow at different rates. I can just say he has some sort of "problem" or that he's small for his age... And besides- are they going to ask for his PHOTO IDENTIFICATION? My plan seemed solid. The sadness started to drain from my body. My husband looked at me like I was Momzilla (Bride-zilla's more crazy older sister).

I grabbed Jacob and marched him right over to that carousel. The man handling tickets was old and chubby. He looked so vulnerable. Little did he know he was about to be victim to my cunning prowess. I had him for sure! He looked at Jacob as we approached over the rim of his glasses and asked, "how old is he?" This was the moment of truth, or to be more exact, the moment of non-truth.

I looked at him bodly and opened my mouth. But as the words, "he just turned two" were forming in my mind, my conscious got the better of me and before I knew it, my resolve was crumbling under the weight of my principles and fear of authority. "He's almost two," is the best I could do.

"Sorry," sad the man. "He has to be two years or older."

My eyes welled up with tears as I turned around in the ride line and had to march Jacob away from the shiny, moving ponies he loved so much. This, people, felt like ripping a bottle right out of his hungry mouth. It hurt SO MUCH. Recounting the memory is making me tear up all over again. I walked toward my husband and started to BAWL. Tears streamed down my face, my nose immediatelty stuffed up and I explained in-between wails, "They won't let Jacob ride the PONIES!" I was almost hysterical and full of sorrow.

It must have been quite a site for passerbys. To see this hysterical momzilla bawling her eyes out in front of the carousel because, the world is ending, and her baby can't ride the PONIES. I'm sure my husband thought I was a total whack-job. But he quietly rubbed my shoulder, said "it's ok, we'll bring him back next year" and bought me some cotton candy.

Later, my husband did make the astute observation that I have a problem with lying to a carnival employeee but have no similar quams with lying to him...hmm, well, you can't CHOSE your conscious can you?

Adventures At A Law Firm Cocktail Party

My first official act as a future employee of the Firm was to drink a beer in the office hallway. Ok, technically, I attended a two hour long all attorney meeting FIRST. Then I attended the all attorney cocktail party immediately following. Silly details.

As I sat in the all attorney meeting, several things occured to me:

1) Out of the 22 attorneys working at the firm, only 3, including me, are female. One of the female attorneys works at our office in another state. So in our Seattle office, I will be working with about 15 male attorneys and only one other female attorney. I know this shouldn't shock me considering all I know about practicing law and gender roles in society but it still DOES shock me. Maybe it's particularly bad because it's a litigation firm- which equals extra stress and less flexibility for family.

2) Real attorneys are people just like me. I was super nervous about attending this event. I've worked as a summer associate for two years at this firm and never really had a chance to attend a work social event. I was so worried I would have no one to talk to and nothing to say. But the second the cocktail party started, I was determined to start chatting with everyone. By some miracle, it wasn't even awkward. In fact, I discovered that I wan't nervous at all, I was having FUN.

3) When I start work I won't be the newbie. In fact, I think I already went through my new associate hazing. I already had to embarrassingly confess my childhood nickname to all the partners at an attorney meeting and I already had to take BS from that annoying associate. Remember the guy who introduced himself to me as "Jim" on my first day this summer when his name was, in fact, not "Jim." And I only discovered this after I made a fool of myself in front of a partner? Well, this time that attorney approached one of the other new associates and told them his name was "Jim." I was like- YES! I'm not the butt of the joke anymore!

4) Holy Shit. I'm going to be responsible for actual cases. People 's money and the revenues of big companies will depend on me? I had one of these moments during the attorney meeting when the partners talked about proper case management. I seriously started to freak out. It reminded me of the time I was pregnant and had to watch the birth video. "I HAVE TO DO THAT?!" "WHAT IF I FAIL- OR DIE?!" "WHAT IF I GIVE BIRTH TO A TURTLE?!"

The best part of the cocktail party was when an office assistant went around taking candid pictures of people socializing. There are at least five pictures of me in the background trying to take a bite out of other attorneys' cakes as they are in deep conversation with someone. I also tried really hard to hold a different kind of glass or bottle in each picture so it looked like I was pounding down the alcohol. Ahhh, I'm such a responsible and contributing member of society.

Piss(y) & Vinegar

Ok, this post is more pissy than vinegar.

Multiple run ins with school bookstore employees today have led me to this conclusion: You know you've been in lawschool too long when people frequently ask you if you are "staff." I should just say yes so I can get my bookstore discount, but then they probably will want proof or something- lame!

In an unrelated note: on the way to school today I got pulled over and had my @$$ delivered to me by a cop. Not just ANY cop- but the fake motorcycle cops. It's like they aren't trusted enough with a real vehicle so they have to ride these dinky motorcycles and "wave" down traffic violators with their bare hands instead of fancy flashing lights- how unauthoritative can you be waving frantically at speeding vehicles that pass you by? And what is with those ridiculous boots they wear? They remind me of a cross between women knee-high boots and children's plastic rain boots.

So this cop gives me a freaking speeding ticket (my first one ever- I ALWAYS get a warning- where is my fifth warning not to speed on a public highway, so not fair! My due process rights have totally been violated!) but first he looks all solemn and says "You were going 15 mph over the limit but I only wrote you up for 5mph over the limit- I gave you the lowest possible fine." Then he hands me this naseatingly green paper all gracious-like, as if he is returning my lost puppy or something and leans into my car, just waiting... waiting for what? Does this dude want me to THANK HIM? I dodge eye contact and take the paper carefully as if I just watched the cop drop his pants and wipe his ass on it. WHAT? The fine is $115!! That's the LOWEST possible? I never want to see another cop as long as I live! Even if I was the bound and gagged and nominated pinata at a gang party. You can bet I'm going to contest the heck out of this thing- even if I AM guilty! Take that!

[Insert witty segue here]


Oops, not THAT kind of segue... anyway...

It is a TOTAL power trip to reject friend requests on Facebook! I rarely do this. In fact, I only reject people who I obviously don't know or who are scamming something. But, nonetheless, clicking that dainty little "ignore" button totally makes me want to clench my fists in ruthless power and raise them into the air while lightning strikes in the background. It totally does something to my ego and makes me feel like the coolest kid in school. I wish I had the guts to suddenly pretend to click an imaginary "ignore" button in real life when someone I can't stand starts talking to me... maybe someday that will be an option?

Never Drink & Booty Call

Last night my husband gifted me with a drunk phone call from a bar (he and his buddies were out celebrating after the Seahawks game). My husband is basically a lovey drunk. Get five or six beers in him (he sincerely claimed he had 14?- can that BE?). And he is the happiest, mushiest man on the planet.

However, he could use a lesson in flowery language or at least learn how to channel his affection into more romantic words.

Ladies and Gentlemen, my eloquent husband:

"You are the hottest piece of ass ever! SERIOUSLY. These girls at the bar have nothing on you."

"Seriously! I'm serious! I want to lick your legs off."

"Right now, all I'm thinking about is you. I promise. Well, ok. I'm thinking about two things: 1) I'm thinking about you, 2) I'm thinking about eating McDonald's $1.99 ten piece chicken nuggets."

Seriously, I'm so flattered.