lulu unleashed

. . .

awkward

A few weeks ago, HDL, SWT and I had a conversation in which we all agreed that it was unusual for us to form the sort of chatty intimacy with baristas that some others seem to find routine. Not long afterward, I told them about how I seemed to have accidentally fallen into a relationship of exactly that type with the barista at the coffee shop I frequent. Part of the chattiness derives from the barista (we have not gotten as far as names) guessing what I want. This isn't a particularly difficult feat--I always get a latte, and with temperature the only variation. When it's hot outside, I get it iced; when cold, hot.

This morning I went drove through the drive through right before work--usually I go later in the afternoon. I was surprised to see two baristas--one whom I think is the owner, and the chatty one. I suppose they're probably busier in the morning. Anyway, after the owner barista took my order (a regular latte) and went to make it, Chatty McChattersons came by to take my money, and blithely commented, "Soooo, getting it hot this morning?" I just stared at him and said, "Excuse me?!" He repeated himself: "You getting it hot this morning?" It will probably seem exceedingly evident to all readers that this comment referred to the coffee. It did not seem so to me, and the only meaning I could ascertain, after frantically searching my brain for any other possibilities, was very, very dirty. Thinking to myself that although I did pick out quite a fine outfit this morning, such comments were nevertheless inexplicable, surprising, rather unprofessional, and quite beyond the level of the chattiness we'd already established. So all I could say was "What?!?" and look very confused. At this point I think he figured out what I'd thought he meant, and he also got very surprised and said, of course, "The latte. You want it hot?" And then I understood and started laughing like crazy and he said my mind was in the gutter. I had to agree. Perhaps it's best that I just maintain my cool distance with baristas in the future.

. . .

BOGO

Mark Bent is sending one solar-charged flashlight to Ghana for every one bought through his website. (There are lots of other charities too.) The batteries have to be replaced only every two years. Here's the page for the one that's connected to Saboba's Hope in Northern Ghana. Props to G.S.T. for finding these.



. . .

high time

The countdown is a little late out of the starting gate this year. Only 14 shopping days left till my 29th birthday. Let's get busy, people.

. . .

naughty can be nice sometimes

That was my Dove chocolate fortune a couple days ago. Lulu is a little bit naughty. I probably (probably) wouldn't like her as much if she did what I told her all the time, so I suppose Dove chocolate is right. It also puts me in mind of Lulu's namesake, Lulu Frederici Cody, Buffalo Bill's wife. My brother named his dog after a park in Pittsburgh--I named mine (following my sister's suggestion) after the wife of North Platte's most famous citizen's wife. It sounds like she was rather naughty too--I guess there are rumors that she tried to poison ol' Bill. He probably deserved it. Seems she was also allegedly rather canny w/ the finances. You can read a little bit about her here.

. . .

just another puppy on life

What do a dentist, an optometrist, a legal aid lawyer, a john deere dealership owner, his wife, his son, and his wife all have in common? they all got to sit with me at the NP chamber of commerce banquet tonight. Oh yes. That's right. And I managed to be underdressed, quite a feat here in the West. I heard about the latest in dentistry (laser anesthesia, tv screens on the ceiling (I suggested video games), and the most famous architect...in dentist architecture (what? you haven't heard of him? I had to say no.)). I heard about the ebb and flow of machine-buying, and about how people are buying machines in Texas and renting them out here at the relevant time of year. Migrant combines. I heard about many, many boring awards (Business Person of the Year) and Thank You Margoes, and We Couldn't Have Done it Without Yous, and waited out as much of a boring speech as I could (he didn't get started till two hours in). Now I know--I am not Chamber of Commerce Material.

In other news, not to brag or anything, but it seems Madam Lulu, aka Lady Sniffer, is literally too cute for her own good. There's an effusive neighbor that Lulu and I are going to have to try to avoid now. She gets the wee pupsicle so riled up that she forgets all she's learned about How to Take a Walk with Her Attorney. Today, post-extravagant-lovin-by-excitable-neighbor, Lulu waited till I was distracted by the poop-grass-bag extraction process, gave a great tug, and found herself free to roam the world. It was surprising for us both, I think.

Now we're going to surprising ourselves right to bed.

. . .

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

I bought a microwave today for a dollar at a garage sale. (I also got a beautiful quilt rack for $5 at another garage sale, but that's not what this post is about. I included a picture just for kicks though.) Anyhow, I can't remember the last time I owned a microwave. It might be never. Here are the ever-so-fascinating reasons why I decided to rejoin the world of nukers:

• It's probably more cost-effective and environmentally friendly to reheat food in two minutes rather than the half hour it usually takes in my toaster oven; and
  
• My gratification is more instant; and
• It was $1 (although I confess I was pricing them in Walmart and actually carried one around in my cart for a while there earlier this week); and
• It has the crucial "minute plus" function I love so much.

So pained visitors be assuaged! people who hate the thought of we microwaveless (you know who you are) be pacified. For now I nuke.

And although it does beeeeeeeeeep unpleasantly, it lessens my need for the chicken timer (found! by the way--hiding out in the spare bedroom for reasons she doesn't care to share), which, to be fair, has herself something of an unpleasant timbre.

And here are some gratuitous pictures of Lulu. They prove she has eyes.





and one fine tail. I like how feathery it is, although this picture does not do it justice.

Happy Saturday, all.

. . .

dogbreath

Hi there. I haven't been blogging much lately mainly for doggy reasons. For several days I could not figure out how to merely be in my living room--either my dog friend was barking piteously at me from the kitchen or eating all the furniture and electrical cords in sight and peeing on the wood floors. Thanks to SWT, problem solved. The right kind of chewy combined with the removal of a Petmate Pet Porter from the bedroom to the living room were a dream come true. Happy, contained pup=happy, relaxed me. Also, Lulu is sweet and funny, but also naughty and exhausting, especially for poor-me-never-had-a-dog-before. She came from a farm to the "city", and I, from a completely human-centered world to dogland. We're both of us a little dazed, I think.

To be fair, she hasn't peed on the floor in three days--and I take about 95% of the responsibility for those incidents. We have a rhythm going now, though. And she can sit and heel and lie down on command when she feels like it, which is pretty amazing for a wee three-month-old, or so I in my ignorance believe.

One last doggy reason why I haven't posted much is because all I've been doing is work, dog-walking, and dog-shopping. I don't want this to become luludotdotdot, though I am sure she will have her proper place of honor. Work has been overwhelming--actually being a lawyer, giving people legal advice--is a complicated and intimidating business. Mostly my method is guess-and-check, as it always has been. Tra-la for the scientific method. So anyhow, the upshot is I've been quite tired every day, too tired to think up clever bits for my reading public. I'll try to get back on that horse. Now that I can actually sit in some measure of peace in my living room, there may be hope yet.

I got called a "shyster" for the first time a few days ago. Not that I minded in that instance, it wasn't meanly intended, but it is weird suddenly to be a member of a group that literally anyone feels comfortable denigrating, and directly to my face to boot. A shyster is, according to the merriam-webster online dictionary, "a person who is professionally unscrupulous especially in the practice of law or politics: PETTIFOGGER". A pettifogger is a "lawyer whose methods are petty, underhanded, or disreputable"; or "one given to quibbling over trifles." (same source.) Pretty harsh, especially considering I have barely had any time, as a newly minted lawyer, to be petty, underhanded, disreputable, unscrupulous, or quibbling. It's not all bad, though, I should say. I received a very kind "good for you!" from a random young woman I met in a coffee shop a few weeks ago, when I told her, rather embarrassedly, that I was an attorney. (I was embarrassed because I wasn't used to the title, not because such a thing is embarrassing.)

anyway, this might be boring and I'm tired (at 9:30). I'm out.
. . .

LULU

LULU is my new friend! She is a golden doodle, although as you can see, she is more swarthy than golden. She is a second-generation golden doodle, which means that one of her parents is a standard poodle (her dad, by the name of Big Kid Rock) and her mother is a golden doodle (Ruby Rose). She is very sweet and soft and she lives with me and we are friends! We met yesterday at a farm in Colorado. This farm was ever-so-much more the middle of nowhere than North Platte. It is a couple hours from the interstate, on County Road KK, which is paved with dirt. There were actual tumbleweed crossing the highway, desert-y Rocky foothills, and a snake that truly slivered across the road like live mercury. The past day has been very exhausting for Lulu--I don't think she'd ever been in a car before (and she had to start out w/ a three-hour tour--and she barfed, although maybe it was b/c of the allegedly stomach-calming medicine her breeder gave her). I think this is also her first time in the house of a person, and she is getting pretty good at going up and down stairs. She doesn't like being on the leash very much but she's getting used to it. She's awake now, time to go outside.
. . .

goals

If all goes as planned tomorrow, I will have a new friend. Maybe you will too. Keep yr eyes peeled.

Unrelatedly, I'm going to my first county bar association party tomorrow. I'm not the best at these see and be seen, greet and be greeted, schmooze and be schmoozed sorts of events. I hope to escape without being elected to anything.

I enjoy this photograph from the NYT. RIP Mr. Pavarotti, you juicy old man.


. . .

esquire

Word is I passed the bar today. So I don't lose my job and I'll don't ever have to take it again if I don't feel like it. hip! hip!
. . .

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.

. . .

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-
. . .

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:




. . .

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!
. . .

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.

. . .