lincoln, please, driver

I dunno if the little red honda can do it, but if she can, 2+ days of boston beans, pottery, parents, indian food, laundry, cornhuskers, sirrahharas, and houses of menagerloungerie and that-nobody-goes-to lie ahead. chug chugitty chug.

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project questions

SKP writes, enthusiastically: How did you make the lampshade??? just by covering the existing, ugly one?? I, too, need a cute lampshade!!!

I writes: I thought about covering the old lampshade but I didn't like how it changed the color of the light that came through (it was rather yellowy). So I xacto-knifed the shade off its metal pieces. There's one metal circle at the top with three arms that reach down to a small ring that is put on a post on the top of the lamp and is held on by another little metal bit that screws down on top of it. Then the bottom piece of the shade was just another metal ring. At first I tried to make wire struts between the two rings so that I would have a shape to stretch the fabric over, but that didn't work--it was too hard to make the things the same size and they wouldn't hang straight (I suspect the wire was not of a heavy enough gauge). So then I just decided to let the fabric hold its own shape. I looped the top of the fabric around the top ring and sewed it down, then looped the bottom of the fabric around the bottom ring and sewed it down. The bottom ring serves as a weight and pulls the shade into the right shape. It's kind of hard to explain, really--when I do the next one, I'll take more in-progress pictures, if you want. It was a pain because the bottom ring has a slightly larger diameter. Also, I think I might add some white interfacing to the inside because the fabric is too transparent--the lightbulb's too bright, and you can see all my seams. I didn't have enough fabric to do it all in one piece, hence the strip at the bottom that goes in another direction--that bottom strip is actually composed of three different pieces. It's hard to make the fabric exactly the right size, if you're making it out of pieces. It doesn't hang quite straight everywhere.

And Angela writes: what is that bag made of?

I writes: The bag of bags is made of bags, that's the beauty of it. I cut up brightly colored plastic bags into strips and then knit them into a ... bag!

-Over and out-
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presto chango

You may remember this ugly lamp:


It now looks like this:






I experimented with a few other fabrics for the lampshade, and I still have to do the second (identical lamp). If you have a preference, please let me know. Here are some of the others I tried out:










This one would be composed of several different pieces of cloth:




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law and fashion

The rumor is I'll find out the bar exam results sometime in the next week or so.

I haven't really thought much about law school since I left. I hauled out my old blue workhorse, my law-school computer, today because it's too hot here to do anything other than watch movies and netflix requires a microsoft operating system to "watch instantly" movies on their website. While it's out of its svelte red-and-green-airplaned sleeve and I'm thinking about knitting projects, I thought I'd poke around in its dusty corners to try to find out to which sibling I'm scheduled to give a big nice present this year (we have a chart). Anyhow, while Old Blue Bits was searching for me, it scrolled through all my old law school class notes: civil procedure, contracts, the horrible environmental values, income tax (amazingly unhorrible), immigration and con law, international law (my worst grade), mental disability law, professional responsibility for law in the public interest (a ridiculous mouthful), torts, property, crim, admin, lawyering, art of appellate decisionmaking (another mouthful, but a bounteous 4 credits), the law of democracy, problems of a free press, lawyering, a south african transition class (the easiest credit I ever earned), products liability, sexuality and the law, and my employment and housing discrimination clinic. I kind of almost miss it. Almost all of it was interesting, and for the most part well taught. I enjoy thinking about them all, anyway, even the horrible ones. While law school did serve to familiarize me with jargon and somewhat with legal writing and research, though, it seems like some faraway fancy world with little connection to my actual job. Which is not to say I don't like my job. It merely strikes me as a bittlest bit comical. Like accessorizing a wedding dress with hip waders.
. . .

Rule 406 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

Evidence of the habit of a person or of the routine practice of an organization, whether corroborated or not and regardless of the presence of eyewitnesses, is relevant to prove that the conduct of the person or organization on a particular occasion was in conformity with the habit or routine practice.

I am out of many habits. One of them I am out of, and therefore it could not be used to prove that my conduct on a particular occasion was in conformity with it, since it isn't, is posting to this b-log. Check.

I am back at work for real now, although I will become realer still when (crossed fingers and wood knocked) I find out I pass the bar. But even as a "paralegal" (and oh how that title is beginning to grate), I am able to do quite a bit, just not in court. Today I interviewed a client and wrote a Motion to Continue. I write letters to clients and other people. I read over my colleague's work to see how it's done and make suggestions. Tomorrow I will draft an Answer. A few weeks ago I represented someone in a social security disability hearing. So far it's a pretty good job, actually. These seem to be the necessary factors for keeping me happy at work:

• I keep busy
• with tasks that don't take many, many hours/days to complete
• that vary
• and require creativity
  
• and that are important to someone.
• I talk to lots of different kinds of people (lawyers for the opposition, my colleagues, clients [who themselves vary quite a bit], judges, social workers, et al.).
• I am learning new stuff everyday.
• The amount to learn is small enough to be manageable for each task (so far anyway), but large enough so that I will be learning for a long long time.
• I like my colleagues with whom I interact regularly.

So far this post is pretty boring. Hm. Some spicier content:


This is a beautiful batik, a gift from my parents. It depicts a West African woman wearing a baby on her back, pounding cassava or some other starch into goo. It is also the first thing that I have gotten around to hanging in my new house.

I have also gotten out of the habit of cooking, but that should change with the arrival of SWT & HDL tomorrow. Good times, good eats ahead.

I'm still planning on getting a puppy but my finances and allergies are too taxed at the moment to withstand one.

Oh yes, and I've been doing some knitting. The Bag of Bags is coming closer to completion:


Eventually I will have post some photos of other recent events, but my gallery is on the friznitz, so I guess it'll have to wait.

. . .

they plumb the depths I'm afraid to plumb

The plumbers, two grinning 19-year-olds, duly plumbed. And now my bathroom experience should be free of floating muck! yippee!

. . .

the great north platte chicken emergency

I left my apartment unlocked for the last two weeks whilst I was out of town for reasons not interesting enough to explain. I worried a little bit about it, but not too much--it's pretty safe here. And when I did get back, everything seemed pretty much as I'd left it. But when I made dinner, however, the absence of my friend the chicken timer became disastrously apparent (burnt burritos). I don't know how someone could be so cruel as to burgle my chicken. Alas. Let me know if you see her around. She looks like this:

come back, Kicky!
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believe it

I'm going to see this flamenco company perform in Holdrege, NE, on November 4th. You should too!


. . .

great: maine

For some reason, I seem unable ever to get my digicam to Maine, but Maine was the greatness Maine has always been. And there's a new toilet! Go ahead. Yank the Crank.

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