It’s been over two months since I posted here. The urge to tell the details in my life has been replaced with an intense foray into the law. Hopefully that need to write will come back, until then it’s farewell.
Thank you all for sharing your stories and comments with me and for being a part of something I truly loved to do.
Posted in Uncategorized
We have decided our office needs a margarita dispenser. Preferably a frozen margarita dispenser.
The best part of having your own firm is having the ability to approve such an expenditure.
So! To a long future of 4 o’clock marg’s with my partners.
Posted in Law
Is that all there is?
The problem with fairy tales is they only tell the story of the princess or the prince. They don’t tend tell the lives of the servants who endlessly slaved to support the fantastic castles, amazing kingdoms, and lovely lives of the main characters. Let’s face it, most of us are a heck of a lot closer to those servants than we are the princess with the glass slipper. I have a number of amazing and talented people in my life and as of yet not a single one of them has been handed a life of ease because they had a small and delicate foot.
I don’t want a life of ease, to be honest if I were to win the Lottery I would most likely keep doing what I am doing now. Of course, I would do some of it from a cruise ship in the Greek Isles, but I would still do it. I don’t have a problem with a life of dedication and effort. However, after a day of washing footprints off walls, poop off bottoms, food off dishes, dirt off clothes, etc. in addition to a day of work I feel lost beneath the requirements of my existence. String an endless number of those days together and I begin to forget that I ever was someone who learned to dance because it was fun or spent hours sitting by a window staring at the clouds and imaging my future in the brightest of pictures.
If that’s all there is my friends let’s keep on dancing.
I don’t think I stopped day dreaming because I grew up, I think I stopped because the hours began to run out in my days, and the days began to run out in my weeks, and my weekends became days to catch up on chores or focus on quality time with the family. Week after week began to run together, the passage of time whipping past me virtually unnoticed while I struggled with getting the lunches packed and research prepared and the clothes folded and put away. Which begs the question, is this all there is? Does one really daydream and work all their youth towards a life of work that leaves you too tired to dream?
Am I going to feel this way until my children have grown up and moved out of my house? ‘Cause that’s a damn long time to wait for the chance to daydream. Am I going to stop daydreaming all together? Will the ability to imagine myself doing all sorts of wonderful things fade as I get caught up, day after day, in the machinery of my life?
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball, if that’s all there is.
Posted in Uncategorized
Have you ever fought long and hard for something only to wake up one day and discover any effect you may have had on the problem is so small as to seem pointless?
Three years of law school, four years of practice, a handful of species advanced along the road to recovery.
One ginormous oil spill.
I can’t watch the effects anymore. I can’t stop myself from crying when I do. What the fuck is the point of trying to protect bio-diversity if entire eco-systems can be wiped out with a single mechanical failure?
Every now and then I feel as though fighting for bio-diversity is like running in place but now it feels like being pushed right off the damn treadmill.
Posted in environment, frustration
gasp
It has been a crazy month. It turns out owning two businesses is alot like being owned by two businesses. Owning two businesses while raising children… well let’s just say I have a new affinity for the phrase “hair on fire.”
Things are going well. Business is increasing, my children still remember who the hell I am, I occassionally manage to have sex with my husband, and none of my pets have died of starvation. I am so tired by the end of each day I start dreaming about going to bed around nine. Around ten I go about making it a reality. Sleep is a completely dreamless state of non-existence right now. I am too tired to dream anything interesting. My head hits the pillow and I am down until morning. If Otter wasn’t in my face shaking me and yelling “wake up mama!” at seven I would sleep until ten every damn day. I love sleep, I crave it, it haunts me during the day.
I am trying to find the time for excercise. Otter and I went to the park the other day and I tried barefoot running while he chased me and warned me that a wolf was coming. (He has not heard of the boy who cried wolf because he is the boy who cried wolf. He cries it all the time!) I really enjoyed the sense of my feet hitting the track and my body seemed to view the experience in a rejuvenating way. I still have to start developing the willpower to wake up early enough to run before I start my day, but baby steps.
Someday y’all will have to come see me at my new office. Someday I will hopefully have one. We keep looking for space we like, but there are several highly opinionated personalities involved so it’s hard to find something we all love and agree on. Until then I am crammed into my space under the stairs to my bedroom, daily shuffling the family and work detritus around so I can find a pen.
Well look at that. 9:23. That is close to ten…. I could go to sleep now without feeling like a complete lame-o.
Posted in Just me, Uncategorized
Mr. Otter turned three years old on April 9th.
I Otter, I fwee.
We held his party a few days later so we decided to celebrate the actual day with a dinner of his choice. He chose pancakes and bacon.
A birthday (pan)cake and bacon.
The best part was Otter’s help in making the dinner. He measured the mix, added the eggs and milk, stirred the mix, and then poured all the pancakes into the pan, except for the one shaped like a dog. Of course, he wasn’t nearly as delighted with the puppycake as he was with the ones he had made all by himself. He sat contentedly stealing strips of bacon off the pan while I washed everything up and set the table.
Before dinner we sang Happy Birthday to the young man and watched him blow out the candles on the pancake. After dinner we gave him a few small presents. Monkey scored again with a small metal wind up rocket.
Monkey hugs the Birthday Boy!
Then on Sunday we went to Jump Street and celebrated in style with a gluten free chocolate cake, pizza, homemade guacamole and chips, a few good friends, and two hours of running flat out.
A "nummy" cake
Otter and Miss L jump, run and play.
A bouncy game of chase.
Tired but unwilling to give up.
Monkey and Miss B pause in their jumping.
All in all it was a good day. Otter said it was the best birthday ever. He loved his cake, he loved his party, he loved his friends.
Happy Birthday my sweet love, you grow so fast.
Otter drives the truck while Miss L holds on for dear life!
Posted in Uncategorized
I am having a frustrated gluten-free week. There doesn’t seem to be any easy to grab food out in the world that I can eat, except fruit and most dairy, which doesn’t fill me up as well. I have to carry snack bars with me because there are no friggin fast food places that skip the gluten. Taco Bell even puts wheat flour in their meat, so even though many of their bread products, being corn shells, are safe for me to eat, the things they stuff then with aren’t. (Not that Taco Bell is the bastion of fine dining but Come On!! Wheat in the meat?)
I have been hungry this week. Starving. All the time. I eat an apple, and then half an hour later I am listening to my tummy grumble again. I am Grumpy and stressed out too. I am working a lot and I can’t seem to pack enough fruit and granola bars to make up for the lack of available fast food options.My grumpiest evening was the night I ordered Chinese. I had worked hard all week and I wanted to relax, pour a glass of wine, and feed the children and myself something cooked by others. I called the very helpful staff at the take out placce and learned that all I could get were the lettuce wraps because everything else contained soy sauce, which contains gluten. Resigned I sat at home eating rice, tofu, and chicken in lettuce leaves longing for a hot dog on a bun Chicago style, or a thick and steaming slice of pizza, just the perfect mix of gooey and crisp.
This morning I woke up to discover that the kids had polished off my gluten free waffles and that my favorite Easter treat ever is loaded with the evil gluten demon. (Cadbury how could you?)
So I am grumpy. And hungry. And longing for bread.
Posted in Gluten-Free
Entering my second month of the gluten free diet and I am feeling pretty good about it. There are exceptions, I miss Dim Sum and really good pizza but I am getting better at finding gluten free choices at various restaurants. The past month I discovered a few places where being gf is not going to limit you to a side salad with vinegar and oil;
Hard Rock Cafe in the Denver Pavillions is a good place to eat GF because the staff will find out your options and then walk you though their whole menu with you so you know what you can and can not eat. Sadly they make their creme brulee with a malt based chocolate sauce and none of their other fancy desserts are gluten free, but they have a delicious walnut pear salad and they are anxious to see you happily fed.
Three Sisters, on 17th and Stout, makes all their own soups and the owner personally pointed out all the GF choices. They were all creamy and delish and very satisfying. Further he told me he is going to research GF issues more so he can learn to make even more GF choices available. I wouldn’t eat there if you are a celiac yet because they aren’t following all the quarrantine rules but they do intend to do so in the future so keep your eye out!
Watercourse foods on 17th and Emerson has delicious and delightful gluten free muffin, cookie, and cake offerings and a handful of things on the menu besides salads. However, their salads rock, so even if you don’t want their other main course offerings you are well set with their wide ranges of leafy lunches.
My best find this week was Panzano located at 1717 Champa. This upscale restaurant actually carries a full gluten free menu printed on it’s own fancy paper and offered in it’s own leather cover. The chef makes all her own sauces and avoids using rues whenever possible allowing her to stretch the majority of the restaurants meal choices into gf options. When you arrive at Panzano and ask for gluten free options they present you with a full menu containing several appetizers, a large choice of entrees, and a big salad selection. They also keep a tasty sorbet on hand for a gf dessert. The best part of this treasure is what they bring you with the menu. Instead of handing your dinner date the bread basket and glancing at you apologetically Panzano servers bring you your own basket of flaky gluten-free focaccia bread. Hot and delicious this rich bread is made on site and is the best tasting thing I have eaten all month. I ate so much of the bread that I had to take most of my dinner home. (They do sell the gf focaccia if you want to have it at home with a thick slice of cheese. It’s well worth the cost, $7 for a half pan roughly the size of a frozen pizza.)
I have been told that Pizza Calore offers gluten-free versions of each of their pizzas and that there is a gf italian restaurant really nearby. I haven’t had a chance to check these options out yet but they are on my to do list.
Posted in Gluten-Free
Three years ago today one of my closest and dearest friends, the man I termed my life partner for purposes of the bar exam, drowned in his apartment swimming pool.
Today three of his friends, three people deeply affected by his death, joined forces to build a successful business.
I can’t honestly say that we three would have been seated around a table today negotiating the terms for the merger of our fledgling firm with their established one if he hadn’t died three years ago. I can’t say our law school connection would have grown into the bond we have now without that shared loss.
So today, amidst a few tears and the shadow of sorrow, I toasted the future and realized that a decade from now this day will be as synonymous with our success and the brightness of our future as it has been for our shared sorrow over the loss of a comerade in arms.
To the future… and its roots in the past.
It turns out there is an art to being a small business owner. Primarily the art of turning future earnings into bill paying money. I still haven’t found a creditor who likes to hear me say “I have several cases ready to settle and should be able to pay you in five months!!”
I have been working a contract job doing document review and while the work does occasionally cause me to think longingly of flights out of the twenty-two story window it also pays the bills. I have been tossing the business building in at night and on weekends. The problem with this set up is that I rarely see the kids and little Otter is a very sad boy when he doesn’t get to see his mama.
Which is how I ended up agreeing to work a hot dog cart for a weekend or two a month.
Yes, that’s right. This lawyer is going to be slinging hot dogs during bar rush to bring in the cash instead of slowly killing myself reviewing 300 documents a day. (My contract job makes the positions in Office Space seem like interesting career paths.) It turns out there is a fair amount of money to be had from the hot dog cart business if you happen to know a guy and I do. I can make more in a weekend night selling hot dogs than I can sitting in an office all day clicking buttons. My daughter can come along to keep me company and earn a little extra cash helping me out, well until bedtime comes around. Maybe she can earn that DSI she has been begging for.
The best part will be telling this story to incoming associates once the firm is established and profitable. “You all have it easy! Back in my day we worked hot dog carts to bring in extra cash while we built this place up from nothing!”
Posted in Law
