Tanner

I realized I have done much talking about dear, sweet Buddy and have neglected Tanner (our other dog). There is some truth to the fact that the squeaky wheel gets the grease... Tanner goes about his daily business without much fanfare. He protects the house, loves me and BH, and tries to help us keep an eye on his little disaster of a brother. So, in an effort to reward his constant good behavior and to maintain some level of equity, I wanted to introduce you to our beloved Tanner.

Football all the way

Are you a Colts lover or hater? I'm a fan. They aren't the Cowboys, but probably a second favorite for me. BH is big Patriots fan, and, therefore, is not exactly a Colts supporter. He believes Peyton calls too many audibles--or at least that is his stated reason. I think he dislikes him because he's good. Really good. Peyton is not just a good player (he is unquestionably that), but he's spectacular at selling himself. He's so likable. His commercials are funny, and he was so amusing on SNL. In the famous words of a favorite nephew of ours--I like it.

In today's sports world, it isn't always enough to be a good player. You need to be likable to get the big money from Gatorade, Nike, and the like. As a Cowboys fan, I am so glad Romo seems to have learned that lesson. All those smiles never hurt anybody. And that likability sure sells a lot of jerseys. So maybe it isn't football all the way--it's football 3/4 of the way and personality fills in the rest.

Buddy the Donut Eater

Dear sweet Buddy--our 3 year old lab--will eat anything. I don't mean he's not picky about his dog food. I mean he will eat anything that is slower than he is. I believe his personal property damage "tab" is somewhere around $4,000 at this point, including, but not limited to:

1. One very nice Tiffany's silver earring (ate it right out of my ear)--$60.

2. One set of high-end dentures (BH's mom's)--$3,500.

3. Various socks, shirts, underwear--$200.

4. Various shoes and slippers--$100.

5. Stolen food (including 9 donuts devoured yesterday morning)--$100.

But when all is said and done, having his smiling face around is priceless.

Long lost friends

I abandoned the blog for months (or has it been years?). I'm sure I've lost all three readers who were faithful to me years ago. So now this is really nothing more than an exercise in self-amusement.

I've recently had the urge to re-connect with old friends. I think I'm feeling older and wanting to remember the more carefree days. At this age, though, you seem to slowly lose the ability to contact all sorts of people you care about. Emails get deleted, phone numbers change, people move. So let this be an open call to old roommates, friends, etc. to say hello. Just because I've been a bad correspondent (maybe even bad friend), doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about you.

Holiday Happenings & Resolutions

I'm really not very good at keeping up with this blog thing, am I? While the gifts are unwrapped and the traveling done, I have yet to remove a single Christmas decoration from my apartment or unpack from my trips. This Christmas saw an outing to New Mexico, time with my family and BH's, and just a little time to relax. I am very fortunate to have been able to visit my grandparents, my father, my sister, and BH's family all within a few days.

The new year is just around the corner, and I suspect I should make some resolutions that will, undoubtedly, go forgotten in a matter of weeks...
1. I will decide, each morning, to be happy.
2. I will decide, at least 3 times a week, to exercise.
3. I will decide on healthy foods, rather than pizza and chocolate.
4. I will write more letters to tell my friends and family that I love them.
5. I will read more books for fun.
6. I will call my grandmother more often.
7. I will visit my sister in North Carolina.
8. I will plan a vacation with BH.
9. I will work harder to develop client relations at work.
10.I will keep a tidier home.

I wish each of you persistent souls who still check in on this thing and read it a very happy new year. Hopefully you'll get a letter in the mail this year telling you how much I love you! :)

Thankful

As cliche as it may be this time of year, I am thankful for...

• My family
• BH
• Friends that call when I fail to do so, remind me that I am thought of and loved, and who support me without question
• The ability to walk, hear, see, talk... you get the picture.
• Having lived to an age that has just now allowed me to have enough perspective to realize how very lucky I am
• Having a job that I enjoy and that supports me and my bad shoe habits
• On that topic... shoes!
• My newly acquired Fort Worth Public Library card
• bug spray
• hair spray
• toothpaste
• Martha Stewart's freedom (I don't know how I survived with her locked up)
• email
• cable television
• Sonic sodas
• as much as I complain about politics and bureaucracy, I am so thankful that I live in a country that allows me to do that complaining and that protects me even though I complain.

There are other things that I am thankful for, but this is a good sampling. I am particularly thankful that I have so much to be thankful for.

Occupation Anniversary

Sunday, November 6, will mark the 3 year anniversary of my admission to the State Bar of Texas. In other words, I've officially been an attorney for 3 years. I thought I would take this moment to reflect on what I have learned...

1. You are not meant to remember what you learned in law school. You only hope that having heard the information from someone intelligent at one point will make the information more understandable now.

2. No one likes an attorney... until they need one. And then we're your best friend.

3. Jokes about attorneys are often humorous and seldom true.

4. Movies and television shows about attorneys are even less true than the jokes about attorneys.

5. Most of what an attorney has to offer you is time. We sell a service that isn't quite tangible. This, unfortunately, makes people think they are getting ripped off.

6. Attorneys give more time and money to charity than any other group I have ever encountered. I still cannot figure out why everyone thinks attorneys are scum. Very few attorneys are scum.

7. People expect an attorney to know everything about all of the law. The fact that I went to law school should have prepared me to draft wills, sell property, defend you if you rob someone, get your divorce papers, and explain the McDonald's coffee case. Most attorneys can only do one, if any, of these things.

8. 99% of the time you will save money if you consult an attorney before you do something that you aren't "real sure" is the legal thing to do. We are much more efficient when we have the opportunity to prevent legal problems rather than fix them.

9. Most attorneys, unfortunately, talk to their clients like they are attorneys. This helps no one. Attorneys usually can't even understand each other, so a client definitely can't understand their attorney.

and finally...

10. I am very lucky to be in an occupation that allows me to help people. I have learned that being an attorney means helping people who are usually in a pretty bad place and need someone to take that burden for them. That is rather satisfying at the end of the day.

Buddy had a rough night.

Buddy, a 14 month old lab owned jointly by BH and me, had a rough night. BH takes an herbal supplement called melatonin to help him sleep. BH placed a single melatonin tablet on the coffee table as he went to the kitchen to get some water to take the pill with. Before he could return, Buddy managed to swallow the pill in one gulp. I panicked, thinking he would surely go to sleep and not wake up. After BH reasoned with me and convinced me that we hadn't just killed our dog, we took the dogs along for a ride to McDonald's to get an ice cream cone.

After we purchased our late night snack and in route to BH's house, we were rear-ended by a car at a red light. Buddy, bless his heart, bounced off the back of my seat and landed in a crumpled mess in the back seat, only to hop back up and stick his head out the window to check out the cause of the commotion. I asked BH to role up the windows to prevent the dogs from escaping. In this process, we managed to role poor Buddy's head up in the window. After much thrashing around and flailing, we managed to free him from the window and secure him safely in the back seat while BH dealt with the aforementioned rear-ender.

After taking a melatonin, surviving a car accident, and then having his head rolled up in a window, he slept rather soundly last night. Bless his little heart. If he made it through yesterday, he might be with us for the long haul.

Twice! Yes, two times!

Twice in the last two days (yes, two times) I have tripped on myself and fallen in the office. TWICE!

Yesterday my heel of my shoe got caught in the cuff of my pants and when I tried to march ahead, I found myself with my face in the fake ficus and the rest of my sprawled out across the carpet.

Today I got my shoe caught in my un-cuffed pants somehow and actually tripped and slid across the carpet in the hall. A nice carpet burn on my palm and shattered pride resulting.

Just evidence that I am so clumsy it physically hurts.

Previously mentioned nuptuals

It was such an honor to stand with my beautiful friend at her wedding! How incredible does she look?!

We had so much fun at the wedding, Brit.

Weddings, Fall TV, and What-Not

I have failed entirely to blog regularly, as I had promised. I blame it on the fact that my home computer is broken. My laptop has some sort of lose something-or-other inside that won't allow it to get a charge or charge the battery. In other words, I have the world's most expensive paperweight on my desk.

One of my dearest friends was married last month. It was a tremendous wedding and an even better reception. Kudos to Britta for a great, great time.

Another one of my best friends has managed to break the binds of the all-too-powerful billable hour and has decided to use her law degree to protect the public by prosecuting dirty-rotten scoundrels. I'm so proud of her!

My dear sister is still working away in North Carolina. Busy as a (little)bee, but keeping her head above water. Hopefully I'll make my way to her new digs over Thanksgiving.

As Fall television has started, it has been even more difficult to keep up with the blogging duties. I've been thinking about Lost for about 4 days now and still don't think I know what in the heck is going on. And what the heck is up with the guy locked in the basement on Desparate Housewives? I remember evening TV used to consist of Moonlighting and Facts of Life. Maybe a little Dukes of Hazard. With the exception of Twighlight Zone, everything was relatively, well, recognizable. When did our world get so weird that the public reflection of its self through art turned into a plane crash on an island with a quarantined capsule, a group of fishing pirates, and dead people who show up at the weirdest times? Maybe tv has turned from art and a reflection of society to nothing more than a diversion. Art for art's sake. There ain't nothing wrong with that if the result is Jack jumping down a capsule hatch to find Kate. Oh yeah, there ain't nothing wrong with that.

Laboring

I returned last night from a Labor Day trip to Austin. Boyfriend and I went to visit a friend of his from school and friends of mine from law school (hello Meredith!). It was a delightful trip and such a nice little 36 hour excursion. Part of our trip saw us eating at the Oasis perched above beautiful Lake Travis, which started me thinking... Labor Day has turned into a day for all to enjoy the last moments of summer with friends and family, usually on a lake. I see absolutely no harm in it, but I just don't see how it honors the "laborers" all that much. In fact, while watching the ski boats pass below, it occurred to me that I don't even know why we celebrate Labor Day or what the day is supposed to memorialize. So, being the curious gal that I am, I looked it up.

The reason I didn't know why we celebrate Labor Day is because there really isn't a reason we celebrate the day. Interesting... According to the Department of Labor:

"Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country," said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. "All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation." Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

So, for all of us who enjoy the day on the lake (or watching those on the lake), good for us! We are laborers and have earned one day to celebrate our contributions to the country! I hope this public service announcement has been as interesting for you as it has been for me.

Vacation... how could I have forgotten?!

I forgot to mention that the last 90 days also saw my sister and I in glorious blessed Mexico for a few days. (Pictoral proof included... Amy kicking water while reading. What a tough life we have.) Before she started her new life chapter in North Carolina, we decided to take a sibling vacation and just enjoy one another. It was a fabulous time.

Remember me?!

Long time, no blog. I suspect I have lost the tons (er, three) people that actually read this thing, but I am going to attempt to restart my occasional accounts of the clumsy life of me.

I'll give a short run down of the last three months:

Job - good. Better than old job. More interesting and bringing excitement and moments of joy.

Boyfriend - very good. Loving and wonderful. Couldn't be luckier.

Weight - suck-o. Couldn't be heavier or more disappointed in weight loss efforts. Surely will be subject of future entries.

Music - awesome. Since last entry had the honor of seeing Green Day live. Holy snot. It was freakin' awesome. The energy was fantastic and the music was exceptional.

Residence - changed to Fort Worth. Great new apartment that I am still trying to unpack. Enjoy being closer to job and boyfriend.

And that is the basic factoids of the past 90ish days. I'll try to be more vigilant in entertaining all of you with my stories of weight loss, clumsiness, music adventures, and the like. In the mean time, send some cash to the Red Cross to help out our cajun neighbors.

Mojito

Today was my last day at the Dallas law firm I have called work-home for the last two and a half years. I am going to miss the daily contact with some of the friends I have there, but I have no doubt that it was time to change.

In honor of my departure, a few of my work friends and I went to Cuba Libre and drank mojitos for a couple of hours. The mojito... quite possibly the best concoction created since chocolate chip cookies. A magical combination of rum and soda, sugar and mint, and that hint of lime that adds just the right contrast to the sweetness. Good gracious, it is a wonderful, wonderful thing. At Cuba, one of my long-time fav Dallas drinking locations, you can order these blessed potions by the pitcher. For a mere $25 you, too, can experience an entire pitcher of this delight.

I start my new job in Fort Worth on Monday... my search for Fort Worth's perfect drink will start shortly thereafter. Check back for reports on the quest.

Cow Town

Go west, young woman! On May 23, 2005, I will join the working masses in Fort Worth, Texas. I have decided to hang up my Big D hat, travel along I-30, and become a school law attorney in Cow Town. Yee-ha!

To be honest, leaving my first "real" job is not easy. I have made many friends, and I will miss the daily contact with all of them. My boss, for example, has been a tremendous mentor to me. He has taught me so much about the practice of law generally, and representing municipalities specifically. I feel so fortunate to have started my law school career under his guidance.

But onward and upward! I have decided to take an opportunity in Fort Worth that will allow me to fully focus my career on the representation of Texas public schools. Fortunate and blessed, indeed.

Long Time Comin'

If music is the fluid that moves a spirit, Bruce Springsteen is the flood that my soul needed.

Since my last post, I have aimed to submerge myself in music--all kinds of music--in an attempt to lift my spirits. I am listening to classic music at work. I have stopped listening to talk radio on my way home from work and have opted for CDs. And on Friday night, BH and I went to my very first (and BH's zillionth) Bruce Springsteen concert.

In all honesty, I never really "got" Springsteen. His CD's are ok, but nothing I was just bonkers over. I always enjoyed the poetic-ness of his songs, but never enough to really call myself a fan. And then, oh my goodness then, I saw him live. Springsteen is much like hockey in this one regard... it's a whole new monster in person.

Springsteen's passion is unparalleled. He feels his music so deeply that you cannot help but let yourself absorb into the moment. He played with a spontaneity I have never encountered. There was no set play list; he simply let the mood move him. The concert, Devils and Dust, features Springsteen, a harmonica, a piano, and a series of impressive guitars. The concert is truly just a man and his music. The talent that it takes to transfix 6,000 people for 3 hours with nothing but the air in your lungs and the strumming of a guitar is almost unfathomable.

Springsteen's most amazing gift, though, is his storytelling. He tells stories between songs and in his music. Very few of the songs have choruses; they are songs that force you to sit back, listen, think, and feel. This storytelling talent allows you to escape in his poetry and relate to him on what feels like an almost intrusively personal level. At the end of the concert, I felt like I knew him. I felt like I had been given the privilege of peering into his heart. He told me a story, and I listened. We all listened. And I am better for having heard what he had to say.

Green Day mood

I have been in a kind of funk lately. I think this less-than-good-mood was brought on by a number of factors, including job boredom, frustration with weight loss, desire for financial stability, etc. I have analyzed this mood and the possible reasons for it for the past month or so. Last night I realized that I had overlooked one very important possible component.

I was driving to BH's house with my moon-roof open and the newest Green Day album (American Idiot--awesome, by the way) blaring when I realized that I don't really listen to music anymore. I listen to a talk-radio station (or NPR) in the morning on my way to work; I listen to another talk-radio program on my home from work, and I listen to the television when I get home. Somehow, I have managed to obliterate music from all parts of my life. My closest encounter with a melody comes when I'm on hold and subjected to elevator tunes. Maybe this musical oversight has something to do with my lack of peppiness. Science has established that a lack of sunshine can cause depression... maybe a lack of music can do the same.

Some of my happiest teenage moments, the moments I felt most free, were driving aimlessly in deep-unpopulated-west Texas with (forgive me for this) Ace of Base or Concrete Blondes or Green Day's Kerplunk booming through my cheap 1992 Cavalier speakers. Something about the pounding of the chorus and the acceleration of the car came together to make all my worries slip away along with my hearing. How could I have forgotten that long-ago feeling of freedom? How could I have forgotten that I can get lost in guitar riffs and feel my pulse race when a drum solo shakes the car? For a moment last night, while listening to a Green Day album that brought me back to my years of high school, I remembered. And for that moment, I was happy. Truly, freely, teenage-kind of happy.

I'm going to strive to re-introduce music into my daily life. I have a feeling that I need it as much as I need the sunshine. And if by some miracle of the blogging world Green Day ever sees this... thanks.

What can Brown do for you?

I will begin this blog entry by admitting the fact that I did not witness the events that I am about to recount, but have heard about them through my boyfriend (whom I will refer to as BH to protect his identity ), a key player in this story.

UPS tried to deliver a package to BH just the other day. BH was not at home at the delivery time, so he decided to go to the UPS building to pick up his package. BH decided to take the kids with him. BH and I are the proud parents of a 3 year old German shepard (Tanner) and a 7 month old lab (Buddy). For more on Buddy, see entry "My Dog Has Good Taste."

When BH returned to the car after retrieving his package, he found Buddy in the front seat. BH opened the front door and told Buddy to get in the back seat, a command Tanner obeys without hesitation. True to form, Buddy did not get in the back seat, but instead jumped out of the car and raced around in circles, forcing BH to chase him.

After a brief race, BH captured the hellion and opened the back door to put Buddy in the car. Tanner, either trying to help or bending to Buddy's bad influence, jumped out of the car. Just about this time, Buddy managed to slip from his collar and began the race around the car again. Tanner, on the other hand, ran for building.

UPS has weight sensitive automatic sliding doors. Tanner weighs almost 100 pounds. Despite BH's intense prayers, the doors slid open and Tanner ran inside. BH had visions of Tanner being trapped inside, panicking, and scaring the holy crap out of the poor men in brown shorts. Thankfully, Tanner had the good fortune to run outside before the doors slid closed again.

About this time, BH caught Buddy, the initiator of the Malay, and got Tanner back in the car. All were safe and sound. If children are half as rambunctious a labs, I suspect we might want to re-think having a family... or at least taking the family to UPS.

Noble public servants

My boyfriend is considering going into law enforcement. Many people, upon learning of this plan, have asked me if I have a problem with my boyfriend exploring such a dangerous career. My response is always that I could not be more proud of a man who is willing to put himself into danger's way in order to protect the public. There is no more noble endeavor.

Just a couple of weeks ago, in Tyler, Texas, a man shot and killed law enforcement officers, his ex-wife, and an innocent by-stander on the front steps of the courthouse... a courthouse that I have entered a number of times in my short career as an attorney. It is so very strange to think that on any given day, I could have been on those steps.

And then, just yesterday, a man shot and killed a law enforcement officer, a judge, and a court reporter in a courthouse in Atlanta. Public servants, all three, lost their lives simply because of their career choice. They were murdered while going about their daily business.

My heart is filled with sadness every time someone loses their life, but the injustice of a public servant being slain is almost unbearable. I have unmeasurable respect for anyone who is willing to take a job in the public sector. A police officer's sole responsibility is to protect and serve the community. A judge's calling is to dispense justice and help find resolutions to conflicts in a peaceful manner. While most people go to work to earn a living, these public servants go to work to make the lives of those in the community better and safer.

My heart goes out to the family and friends of those public servants who have lost their lives while going about their noble business. And to my dear boyfriend, I will honestly say that I could not be more proud of your choice to serve the public.