License to Chill

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and Indianapolis Colts President Bill Polian unveiled the new Colts license plate yesterday. $20 of the $35 cost of the specialty plate will go toward the cost of building the new Indiana Stadium. From the linked article above, construction work on the 63,000 seat retractable roof stadium is already underway with completion scheduled by the start of the 2008 season. The license plate is expected to generate half a million dollars yearly for the Indiana Stadium and Convention Building Authority. The Colts will also hold a live auction for 400 plates of 29 current and former Colts stars, such as Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison and Edgerrin James. The Colts will also hold a free drawing for ten special numbers, including 18, 32 and 88, on the team's web site.

I have always been supportive of the new stadium and convention center expansion, although it has generated quite a bit of controversy around here. Whether you think the Indianapolis Colts need a new stadium or not, Indianapolis desperately needed an expansion to the convention center, which brings in millions in out-of-town dollars. And I'm all for positive economic development.

I recently renewed my vehicle registration, and I debated on paying extra for a specialty plate that supports a good cause. While I absolutely appreciate the Arts Council and Riley Hospital and IU and Breast Cancer Awareness, I was disappointed that there was no such plate for the Humane Society, so I sent them an e-mail asking how we might go about getting one. In the meantime, I think I'll enter the free drawing for Manning's #18.

Hey! Hay! Hey!

Someone brought in white chocolate fudge with dried cranberries and walnuts to the office this morning. I passed by it twice before giving in and having a small piece, knowing that I am allergic to walnuts. My mouth broke out in horrible hives. Luckily, they are dissipating now.

The weather is wretched. It's rainy, gray, and windy. My office is on the 14th floor of 25 in this office building, which is not that high up. However, when the wind blows like today, the structure makes this absolutely awful creaking noise, like the building is swaying back and forth. creak... creak... creak... It keeps a creepy rhythm, like being on a boat, and it makes me kinda woozy.

And on my positive notes for the day, I spilled garden vegetable soup on my beige sweater at lunch, but someone came to the rescue with a Shout Wipe. And I received a refreshingly helpful phone call today from opposing counsel on a case this morning. Hooray for Shout Wipes and cooperative counsel!!

And the horse has nothing to do with anything in this post, but I finally got my laptop back and my photo software loaded and old pics from my digital camera organized. I thought you might enjoy this little Appaloosa baby born last spring along with my Monday musings.

must love dogs

Saturday Soup

I am currently sitting in my office, avoiding the very thing I came here to do: work, work, and more work.

I have enough work to do right now that I probably could bill hours close to the national debt by the end of the year and not be remotely close to being caught up. I've been told that never again being "caught up" is what I have to look forward to for the rest of my legal career. At any rate, being in the office on Saturdays seems to make my week more manageable and make up for the lost hours I spent doing something other than work during the week. And really, I don't have much of a life right now so it isn't like I am missing out on a whole lot of fun somewhere else. If I weren't here, what else would I be doing? Wow. How pathetic is that?!
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My Thanksgiving day was lovely and small, including my parents, sister, a friend of hers, my grandmother, and three dogs. My grandfather is in the hospital, and the rest of the family is either out of town or anti-social. And for the second year in a row, I didn't have to deal with the challenge of going to two family dinners or the inevitable snippy comments of my ex-mother-in-law. My mom is a fantastic cook, no one fought over the turkey legs, and nothing caught on fire. We watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the National Dog Show and some football. I was grateful for a peaceful, drama-free day.
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And speaking of the Macy's Parade, I saw the family of the two sisters that got hit by the falling lamppost light from the M&M balloon on the Today Show this morning. Nice family, and everyone appears to be doing just fine. Interestingly, they are not planning to sue Macy's or anyone else for their injuries. The father said it was clearly just an accident, and no one was severely injured. I thought their attitude was refreshing in light of our litigious society. Even though I'm primarily a plaintiff's attorney, it is encouraging to see that not everyone turns to lawsuits to right whatever wrongs they think have been done to them. For this family, it was enough that Macy's offered them prime box seats for next year's parade.
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Yesterday morning, Milo got stung by a bee on his paw. Apparently, this bee has been living somewhere in the house since the fall because it was sluggish and crawling across the kitchen floor. And of course, Milo couldn't help but take advantage of batting around a bug that couldn't get away from him. This dog loves to eat bugs. Anyhow, the bee fought back, and the dog got stung. He played it up for all it was worth, limping around holding up his paw and looking at me as though he were in horrible pain. But alas, as soon as he heard another dog barking outside, he hopped off my lap and forgot all about the sting. He's favoring his paw a little today, but I'm pretty sure he's gonna survive. _____________________________________________________

I'm sure y'all heard about the breakup of Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. No big surprise there, but I was a bit disappointed nonetheless. I'll admit it - I watched "The Newlyweds" and their stupid holiday variety show last year. I kinda liked them together. I did, however, think it was interesting that for all the denials and statements to the contrary, they picked a freakin' holiday to make the big announcement that they've split. You'd think they could have denied it at least until after the weekend.

Words to remember on Turkey Lurkey Day

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

HOPE EVERYONE HAS A HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Friendship is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.*

My grandma's best girlfriend of fifty years died yesterday.

I simply cannot imagine.

* Muhammed Ali

Forgive me, Lord, for I have been bitching...

Well, everybody knows that the bird is the word!

This recipe, seen on FoodNetwork, is either an obnoxious example of carnivorous gluttony or a very cool culinary experience.

Either way, one of these days I'm going to attempt the Turducken just because they say it can be done.

Nobody puts Baby in a corner

I met a very attractive, successful man a couple of weeks ago. We totally hit it off, and at his request, I gave him my business card with my cell phone number on the back. Although he seemed genuinely interested in going out, and he spoke highly about me to the people I was with, I did not hear from him.

Until this morning, that is. I got an e-mail from him in my work inbox apologizing for not calling, assuring me that he really would like to see me again, excusing himself for being busy, etc.

And then, the kicker at the end of the e-mail: Mr. Wonderful requested advice on how to proceed with his divorce. Smooth move, jackass. I replied that my advice was to find another date and another attorney because I don't date lying cheating bastards and I don't do divorces.

Oh, and next Friday... is Hawaiian shirt day... so, you know, if you want to you can go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.

Ever notice how the long, narrow hallways in many offices can lead to some uncomfortable hallway moments? Say you are at one end, and I'm at the other, and we're walking toward each other. Depending on an office layout, it can be a very long walk. You have nothing to look at but each other (or your shoes), and you are too far away to say anything until you close the gap. When you finally get close enough to pass, one person has to move over to one side. Generally, there is a bit of a "dance" involved in the passing process, along with a mumbled version of "hey, how's it goin'" as you pass by. Sometimes, the hallway stare-down is an incredibly awkward event. There are, after all, no social rules governing the proper procedure for passing one another in a very tight hallway space. So, here are my suggestions for how to handle these funny hallway moments:

1. As you approach the other person, keep stealing glances at them. When they make eye contact with you, look quickly away and giggle. Don't say anything when they pass.

2. Walk stiffly and straight down the middle of the hallway. DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT. Shoulder check the other person as you pass.

3. When you see a person at the other end of the hall that you have seen already five times that day, just sigh heavily and proclaim "let's just get this over with," and sprint toward them at top speed.

4. As the other person passes you, slap him/her on the ass and say, "Great job today!"

5. If it is a man coming towards you, keep your eyes trained straight on his crotch the whole way down the hallway. As he passes, tell him the receptionist said that he has a "large package up front."

6. Walk like an Egyptian all the way down the hall. Or do the Moonwalk backwards.

Nick ain't got no neck

Hey men: If you wear a maroon mock turtleneck sweater underneath your brown tweed sportcoat, you are going to look like Larry, the pervy neighbor from "Three's Company." If you don't mind looking like Larry the pervy neighbor, then carry on. But don't come into my office and expect me not to laugh.

Updates before I go home to the absence of a working computer:

* My firm's techie said to bring in the laptop tomorrow, and he'll see what he can do with it. I'm really hoping he has some crazy computer tricks up his sleeve because I might cry if he doesn't.

* The virgin, not to be confused with the three-toed sloth referenced a few posts below, has told my girlfriend that his "emotions are all out of whack" and he doesn't want to put her through whatever it is he's going through, whatever all that means. I told her to run like hell.

* I actually did make puff pastry appetizers yesterday. I had some company in the afternoon. They were impressed, even though I rolled out the pastry a bit thin. I was distracted by the Colts kicking the shiznit out of those poor Texans.

* My ex-husband has apparently flown the coop and gone off to Mexico with no intention of coming back to reality, leaving most of his bigger possessions behind in our old condo. Although somewhat entertaining and also quite disturbing, I'd rather not get into the details of this story here. But I am wondering if it would be tacky and/or rude to try to get the oxblood leather chair and ottoman I was so fond of but gave up in the divorce. Probably so, huh. I really loved that chair, though.

Words cannot express...

My laptop must be cursed. Earlier this summer, it crashed - my system would start to boot up, and then freeze at the Windows XP blue screen. I took the computer back to where I bought it, BestBuy (I'm naming them because their "Geek Squad" is on my shit list), for some kind of "diagnostic" testing. Luckily, the testing was covered under my warranty since the laptop is less than two years old. Unfortunately, fixing the problem was not covered, but the Geek said he could take care of the problem so long as I still had my original disks from Compaq. No problem. Mind you, the Geek did not mention word one about backing up my documents - he did not offer the service, did not ask me if I had done so, and definitely did not warn me that what he was about to do would obliterate every single thing on my beloved laptop. I had no clue what his "fix" actually entailed.

After three weeks at BestBuy, I finally got my laptop back. And when I started it up, I realized it had been completely wiped clean. I mean, there was nothing on it. In addition to losing all of my programs, including Microsoft Office, my anti-virus software, all my MSN programs, all of my downloads, etc., I lost every single document and picture ever stored on both my previous laptop and this one. This includes three years of law school notes, outlines, papers, resumes, references - ALL of my documents had been cleaned off. I had saved some of my docs to the law school's system - mostly outlines rather than notes, and nothing personal - and I was able to retrieve some from there, but what I had backed up to the school hardly covered all of the personal and professional documents I had stored in my laptop, and there were many documents there that I did not want to lose. And please, no "You should've backed up to a disk" comments here. I've heard it already.

Obviously, I was furious. I called Best Buy and then went back to the store. I was told, "Our Geek should have told you - are you sure he didn't warn you? We could have backed up everything for $80.00, and he should have offered you that service." Um, no, jackass, your Geek clearly did not offer me the backup service because I'm standing here about to rip off your head! Yeah, we had words. But in the end, there was nothing they could do, or so they said. And I could not get them to refund any of my money, either. They suck.

The only consolation was that I had, in fact, graduated and was not in dire need for all my law school documents. Additionally, I was studying for the bar exam and not spending much time using my computer. Had I been in the middle of a semester or approaching final exams, I definitely would have had a complete meltdown. This is the only silver lining to the BestBuy cloud of computer doom.

So, with some help from my firm's techie (who has far superior computer skills than the Geek), I was able to get new software downloaded and my laptop was close to being back in service. I recently got internet service running into my new place, and this past weekend, I moved my laptop from the living room floor to a bona fide work space and began getting back in the swing of having constant access from home. I was a happy, happy girl.

And then, as my laptop tried to re-boot after updating my virus software late last night, the damn thing froze up at the blue Microsoft XP screen.

Funny how that happens

When I don't go out shaking my bon-bon and partying with my friends on the weekends, it is truly amazing how productive I can be on Saturday and Sunday mornings. I surprise myself. For example, two Sundays ago, I rolled around on my couch with a puffy blanket and a bottle of water, watching "Sixteen Candles" until noon. I had been out the night before dancing at Lulu's with Kelly. Last Sunday, I slept all morning and spent the rest of the day swearing I'd never drink martinis again. I had been out the night before dancing at the Grille with AJ.

This morning, I have already taken Milo on a mile walk around the lake across the street, read the paper, made my bed, brushed my teeth, checked e-mail and blogs, worked through a stack of medical bills from a client's file, and now I'm off to the grocery store and Walmart. It's not 8am yet, but I've got plans to make something with puff pastry today.

Charitable endeavors

A partner at my firm has been pressing all the alumni from my alma mater law school to contribute to the law school's annual fundraising campaign. Apparently, the firm gets some recognition if 100% of the alumni working here contribute to the campaign.

Mind you, I just graduated from said law school six months ago. I paid them a great deal of money for my education - money I will be reimbursing to the government for a very long time, thank you very much SallieMae. I asked this partner what the contributions would be used for - he said, "Scholarships and such." I personally was not an Indiana University scholarship recipient - I was not in the top 10% of my undergraduate or law school class, I did not have any judicial connections, and apparently scholarships are not awarded based on stunning personalities.

My point is this: While I am sure that the contributions to the law school will be used for something worthwhile, I can think of many other charities that are in dire need of funding for basic, essential services which do not include law school educations. I prefer to give my money to those organizations, including the Humane Society and ASPCA, the Wheeler Mission across the street from my office, the local Mozel Sanders Thanksgiving dinner, or causes that are personal to my family and friends. And I am certainly supportive of my profession through professional fees for organizations, the occasional raffle or donations for the bar association or other groups, and pro bono work. And I also understand that law school educations often lead, both directly and indirectly, to charitable and public service work for those in need. But that's not my point here.

So the partner just hit me up again for my contribution to the law school. I'll make the donation, albeit a minimal amount, because I've been asked to. Sometimes you have to do things that are asked of you, even if you feel that your money would be better utilized elsewhere.

I am not opposed to contributing to the law school, and if I had more money for charity, I probably would not be fussing about making the donation. I believe strongly in giving what you can to any cause you believe in, whatever that may be. I simply would rather spend my charitable contributions on endeavors that directly assist people and animals in need. And I don't consider a law school education a "need."

A few of my favorite things...

I start feelin' the Christmas spirit when Starbucks puts out the peppermint lattes, gingerbread loaves, and holiday red cups. It only happens once a year...

For future reference

If you feed your Yorkie dog Frosted Mini Wheats from your cereal bowl three days in a row, expect the poor baby to suffer the typical consequences of the high fiber diet.

Back from extinction

One of my childhood girlfriends met a guy last weekend. He asked her out, and she was thrilled. She's single, he's single. She's an incredibly attractive young woman, he's an unquestionably good-looking young man. She's professional, he's professional. She's a nice girl, he's a nice guy. She's barely 30, he's in his mid-20s. You get the picture. But here's the kicker - she's had sex before. Lots. And he, well... he's still a virgin, apparently due to his strong Catholic values.

When she told me this yesterday morning, I told her, "Girlfriend, finding a good-looking, sweet-hearted, great guy who happens to still be a virgin in his mid-twenties is like finding the elusive South American three-toed sloth in your backyard. I would have sworn that neither one existed in this part of the world."

At this point in my life, I'd know what to do with a three-toed sloth about as much as I'd know what to do with a virgin.

Legal humor

Heard last week at a two-day seminar for trial lawyers:

"Have you heard about the terrorist who hijacked a plane full of lawyers? He said if his demands were not met, he would let one go every hour."

"What do you call a smiling, sober, courteous person at a bar association convention? The caterer. "

"How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? Fifty four. Eight to argue, one to get a continuance, one to object, one to demur, two to research precedents, one to dictate a letter, one to stipulate, five to turn in their time cards, one to depose, one to write interrogatories, two to settle, one to order a secretary to change the bulb, and twenty-eight to bill for professional services."

Sometimes I get irritated at defending the profession, but I still get a kick out of the jokes.

My 8 and 0 Indianapolis Colts = Sweet Dreams

I fell asleep last night just inside the 2nd quarter, wearing a Colts sweatshirt and my lucky Curious George pajama bottoms. I had the little monster dog on one side, and a Touchdown Monkey on the other. I was pretty confident in the outcome of the game.