Friday Cat Blogging

Sometimes the cats just like to sit by the front door, as if they're expecting someone.

So far, no one's ever rang the doorbell for them.

But whenever anyone rings the doorbell, Misha growls. Yes, growls. No barking yet.

My answer: Unemployed

Last week's Question of the Week at the ABA Journal was "If Not a Lawyer, What Would You Be?"

The comments were very interesting. Most of the people wanted to be chefs, musicians, or arts/crafts kind of stuff. Most of my students got degrees in history or political science, but I wonder how common it is for very artistic/creative people to go into law. I mean, I went to school on a music scholarship and ended up with an English degree. At the time, I had never thought of going to law school, so it's not like I was planning ahead.

What did you graduate with? Did you have law school in mind when you went to college? Did that affect your choice of major?

Another reason not to have kids

"Jailed for a week after his 18-year-old daughter failed to complete her high school equivalency degree, an Ohio man has gotten another chance."

That makes me wonder what happened to this guy.

Book'em

Via TSC Girl. These are the top 106 books tagged "unread" at LibraryThing (which I haven't previously heard of).

Bold the ones you’ve read, underline the ones you read for school, and italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Crime and Punishment
Wuthering Heights
Catch-22
The Silmarillion
Don Quixote
The Odyssey
The Brothers Karamazov
Ulysses
War and Peace
Madame Bovary
A Tale of Two Cities
Jane Eyre
The Name of the Rose
Moby Dick
Emma
The Iliad
Vanity Fair
Love in the Time of Cholera
The Blind Assassin
Pride and Prejudice
The Historian: A Novel
The Canterbury Tales
The Kite Runner
Great Expectations
Life of Pi
The Time Traveler's Wife
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Atlas Shrugged
Foucault's Pendulum
Dracula
The Grapes of Wrath
Frankenstein
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Mrs. Dalloway
Sense and Sensibility
Middlemarch
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Sound and The Fury
Memoirs of a Geisha
Brave New World
Quicksilver
American Gods
Middlesex - I really enjoyed
The Poisonwood Bible
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Dune
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Satanic Verses
Mansfield Park
Gulliver's Travels
The Three Musketeers
The Inferno
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Fountainhead
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
To the Lighthouse
A Clockwork Orange
Robinson Crusoe
Persuasion
The Scarlet Letter
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The Once and Future King
Anansi Boys
Atonement
The God of Small Things
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Cryptonomicon
Dubliners
Oryx and Crake
Angela's Ashes
Beloved
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
In Cold Blood
Lady Chatterley's Lover
A Confederacy of Dunces
Les Misérables
The Amber Spyglass
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Watership Down
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation Well, I'm not sure which translation, but I did read it like 10 years ago.
The Aeneid
A Farewell to Arms
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
Sons and Lovers
Possession
The Book Thief
The history of Tom Jones
The Road
Tender is the Night - one of my favorite books
The War of the Worlds

Gee, I bet you couldn't tell I majored in English given all the books I read for school.

This list seems a bit more manageable than 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.

Don't tickle me, Elmo

The second place that I worked at where I had to keep time used a tickler program. First of all, I hate keeping track of my time. I think it's counter-productive. Second, I just hate the whole "tickler" thing. It sounds...ominous. Like tickle torture. I hadn't thought about ticklers lately until I saw this bit at the Legal Profession Blog: "Here, the court found that the attorney had handled an appeal in a "deplorable" manner and had "used the clerk's office as [the attorney's] private tickler system."

I think a taser system would work a lot better than a tickler system. Don't tase me, bro!

Vacated!

Your Travel Personality Is: The Adventurer

For you, travel is how you learn about the world. And you like to learn the stuff that's not in guidebooks. You truly have wanderlust. When you're not traveling, you're dreaming about where you'll go next. And your travels are truly legendary - they leave you with stories you'll be telling for the rest of your life!

What's Your Travel Personality?

I'm not so sure about this result, but it is timely: I'll be out for the rest of this week.

Thanks janiejane

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck

It must be a public defender.

If you have pink hair, dreadlocks or tattoos and want to be a lawyer, then working for a Public Defender's office might be the job for you. As legal jobs go, defending the public seems to be one of the least exacting when it comes to appearance. The reason for this is practical. As one of my friends commented, public defenders investigate their own cases and meet with clients, and it is hard to do either of these things effectively in a suit.

Although, if you're not wearing a bra and it's Friday, you might be an assistant district attorney.

What's the deal lately with the way women lawyers dress, anyway?

The sad part about the first link is that I don't think it's supposed to be a joke. Personally, I think it's kind of offensive that public defenders are per se "unprofessional"-looking. And the thing about the relaxed dress code being practical is totally b.s. "Public defenders investigate their own cases and meet with clients and it is hard to either of these things effectively in a suit." WTF?! Actually, I find it harder to meet with clients when I'm not in a suit because for some reason, they want me to look like an attorney.

All that aside, I would probably be more receptive to skirt suits if the skirts had pockets.

Friday Cat Blogging

The moral of the oral argument

The best way to distract yourself from the nervousness of oral argument?  Try pouring a glass of water right before you stand up, but be sure that the pitcher is very, very full (and opaque so the pourer can't see how very, very full it is) and - the most important part - use the smallest styrofoam cup you've ever seen.  I've seen bigger bathroom Dixie cups!  Trust me, the large puddle of water you've created on the table is very distracting! 

In other advocacy news:  "use words that would make people look at you funny if you were to use them at a cocktail party." Argh - why didn't someone tell me this earlier?!  Also, what does that mean?  Use offensive words?  Multi-syllabic words?  Smart words?  Funny-sounding words?

The hive mind

Argh - I'm all itchy!  Sometimes I get hives when I don't take my allergy medicine and sometimes I get them for what seems to be no reason.  I think I have them now because I'm stressed.

My armpit started itching last night.  That's very uncomfortable. First, you look like you have fleas if you're constantly scratching your armpit, even if you're trying to be discreet about it.  Second, it's your armpit!  It's like tickle torture!

My other major skin complaint is my nose.  The skin on the sides of my nose has been flaking off in large patches for, oh, about a month or so.  I moisturize like crazy but it keeps flaking.  The rest of my skin is not flaky.  That's not really hives, but it's something.  And everyone can see my nose, as compared to my armpit.

And now my thigh is itchy.  Resistance is futile.

All I can say is, I'm very glad that there are no cameras in the courtroom.

Look ma, no arms!

I firmly believe that the pince-nez should come back into use. Why? I can't lay down on my side with my glasses on without being uncomfortable or bending the arms. I could wear my contacts but when I'm laying down and watching tv, it's usually night or the weekend, and I'm not wearing my contacts. But I realized that if I could just get a pince-nez, I could watch tv on my side all the time!

I suppose a lorgnette would do just as well, although I'd have to prop up the arm and not move. Or maybe if I just got a much bigger tv....

Rats

The Stars imploded. It was embarrassing! At least I don't have to go anywhere and show my face tomorrow. Tomorrow is the Big Day Eve, so I'll be hunkered down in the war room (aka my office, aka the office sauna because I keep it so hot in there).

Also, the Wings' goaltenders are like, a combined 70+ years old. Will Hasek retire now? Like, for real, this time? He's like the Michael Jordan of hockey.

Friday Cat Blogging

Watch out

I love wearing a watch. I feel naked without a watch. I can't wrap my head around people who don't wear watches. A lot of them explain that they just look at their cell phone. To me, that's too much work. For one, I don't keep mine in a pocket or on my waist. So I would have to dig it out of my purse, then take it out of its little case (because it gets all scratched up in the purse).

Plus, I like that my watch is only good for telling time, and depending on which watch I wear, the date (provided I remember to forward the date in February).

What these other people need is the Dick Tracy watch. I mean, it was the cellphone watch way before its time.

Rats - someone else has already had this idea! Maybe I could invent the wrist watch phone-calculator-USB drive. What else could we put on it? Swiss army knife implements? Credit card microchips? Compartments for lip gloss? Isn't there a point of diminishing returns? Eventually we'll end up with cell phones as big as the ones from the 80s because they have so much junk on them. And then everyone will just start wearing watches again.

Stars win! Stars win!

...just enough to stretch out the series some more. Thanks for wrapping it up in three periods, guys. I've had a long day, so that was convenient.

Meetings make me cranky.

Meetings out of town with bad weather in both towns make me cranky.

Meetings that go way past the time and well into (and past) lunch make me really super cranky.

"50 state bar presidents call for increase in legal aid funding."

Why isn't "Every state bar president" good enough? Or "State bar presidents"? I can see if it was only 47 state bar presidents, but saying 50 implies (to me) that there's a good reason why they chose to specify 50. Did we add another state?

The link requires registration and a subscription, but I have neither, and you probably don't either. So I don't see any point in linking to something even I can't access. Thanks, The National Law Journal. Yeah, thanks for nothing.

Desperately seeking Susan (or someone who looks like her)

Where do the police get all those photos (or live bodies in actual lineups) for witness identifications? Photos seem like they would be easier to round up, although what if you're out in some rural place? What if everyone there already knows everyone and the witness subconsciously decides against identifying someone because in his mind, he knows there's just no way that Mr. Smith, his loyal postman of 20 years, could have done it? Do the police have access to vast networks of faces? Can they just scan in an ad for a magazine? What did they do pre-internet?

For live line-ups, how long does it take to assemble one? Do the police put out a "casting call"? Do stand-ins get reimbursed? Do the police furnish the outfit? Do stand-ins wear fake beards or wigs or anything?

What if the assailant is described very particularly but his looks are so bizarre and unique that you can't get anyone who remotely resembles this person? I mean, what if the person looked like Sloth from The Goonies?

A lot of questions, I know. Perhaps I should make friends with some police people. Anyone out there know?

Letter B

Maybe it's just me but it seems like bees are all the rage lately.

Bees take advantage of the subprime mess
Haagen-Dazs vanilla honey bee ice cream
Bees on the highway

But this post isn't about bees per se. Well, it is, but it's about beeswax. I used to like Burt's Bees lip balm until I felt that it actually dried out my lips and made them painfully chapped. So I switched to Aveeno, but sometimes it's hard to find. The other day I was at an Aveeno-free store and my only choices were Chapstick, more Chapstick, Carmex, and other assorted balms in pots (gross) and little-kid flavored stuff. Um, no thanks.

I ended up buying a package of Aquafina lip balms with one free "lip oil" thrown in. Yes, Aquafina makes "beauty" products. Weird. They should have stopped with making water. Actually, I would be ok if Pepsi just gave up altogether. The lip balms are beeswax, so I'm afraid of the inevitable mega-chap, which will lead me to hording sticks of Aveeno.

Both the lip oil and balm are highly menthol-y. Which is great if you want your lips to feel like you've been smoking Kools. Which leads me to something else...

Every time I see a Marble Slab Creamery I think to myself, Gee, it would be super-cool if they had a Marlboro Slab Creamery. Not only could you get Snickers bars mixed into your ice cream, you could get cigarette parts too! It'd be sort of like bubble gum ice cream. At first I thought that would be a good alternative to smoking because your ice cream eating is probably less likely to aggravate people surrounding you. Plus, everyone loves ice cream. And nicotine ice cream sounds like more fun than nicotine gum. I bet you can't even blow bubbles with that stuff.

But then I realized that if smokers trying to quit smoking instead started eating cigarette ice cream, they would probably gain more weight than they were worried about gaining from just quitting anyway. Maybe Haagen-Dazs can do something with this idea.

A good reason to fear the repo man

This is kind of sad - people who want to adopt but the agencies went broke or were pretty shady to begin with, and the people can't get any of their money back.

I hope my parents have paid off my note. Surely, even with a thirty-year mortgage I'm more than paid for, right?

Friday Cat Blogging: Fashion edition

Finally, fashion for someone with short, stubby legs.  Hello Dior!

Eye'm a dumbass

I went for the one-week checkup on my new contacts. Apparently the reason wearing contacts was getting harder and harder was because I have dry eyes. These new contacts are much, much better, and I use drops on occasion. Anyway, he had me read off the eye chart and I couldn't see the bottom line out of either eye. He looked at my prescription, then looked at me. "I think you're wearing the wrong lens on the wrong eye."

D'oh!

God bless Texas

Crazy, crazy, crazy.

The mayor of Carrollton claims she's been a backup singer for Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne. Oh, and she was engaged to Don Henley. And her brother was a songwriter for the Eagles. But her other brother - the one her dad says doesn't exist - died in Vietnam. Stuff like this makes the totally implausible client stories seem a lot more believable.

It's one thing to show up at a DWI hearing drunk. That's so old hat. It's another to be a potential juror caught smoking pot. You guessed it - the case was for possession of marijuana.

Sweet

I got my first package of free textbooks.  And these even came with a teacher's manual!  I thumbed through it and it's actually not very helpful.  But at least now I don't have to fake knowing the answer, right?  One of the books looks pretty good.  It covers an area that I touched on lightly in class but got a lot of "feedback" on that I didn't do enough of it.  Even though they were all supposed to already have taken a separate class just on that topic.  Ahem.

So.  Thanks, publishers!  Now, I wonder if I can get review copies of like, crossword puzzle books. Or coloring books.

Picking at my pockets

I have to confess:  for the longest time, I was scared to rip the seams that hold pockets together like in suits.  I was always afraid that this would be the one time that it wasn't really meant to be a pocket and then I would have a big hole in my pants.

Why do they seal them up?

Good news/bad news

Good news: Stars win!
Bad news: In 4 overtimes

Bad news: I slept through the third OT on accident
Good news: Nothing happened, so it's like I didn't sleep through it

Good news: No more Pacific time games (not that last night was one, but generally, hooray)
Bad news: I'm pretty sleepy and I don't know if "4 OTs" is a good reason to put down on a leave form. But it should be.

There's no crying in baseball!

I went to a new dentist the other day. The whole office was very hi-tech: computer self check-in, digital picture of you in the file, digital pictures of your teeth, and tvs in every room. They're not quite rooms - more like stalls, I guess. Anyway, when I first walked in, the reception room TV was on TruTV (formerly CourtTV). It was the middle of the day, so there wasn't anything good on. My choices were Dr. Phil or baseball. Not surprisingly, I chose baseball.

I was there for a few minutes before the dental hygienist came in. "Did they give you the remote?" "Um, yeah." "Oh. " I guess she thought I was sitting there suffering through baseball. When they were working on my teeth, I heard another tv tune into Star Trek: Voyager and wished I had found it earlier.

I looked in my "goody" bag and there was the usual floss and toothpaste and toothbrush - except the toothbrush wasn't in a wrapper! It was just out there, floating around in the bag. Eww. I mean, I'm sure it's fine, but it's kind of weird. I guess if I want to use it, I'll just have to pretend I didn't notice it wasn't wrapped. It's like when you pick a straw out of a straw dispenser and all the straws are already unwrapped.

Also disturbing was the fact that they offered free cookies. It seemed tricky because I couldn't very well eat a cookie if they were about to look at my teeth because I had already brushed, and they put fluoride on my teeth before I left and said not to eat or drink anything for 30 minutes. So when am I supposed to have time to eat that cookie?! Maybe I'll just drop in one day and pick one up. Hey, I'm a patient!

Friday Cat Blogging: quite a stretch