Frequent Citations

Dog Training and Child Rearing

I think I've mentioned it before: if you can take care of a dog you can raise a kid. But I realized today that I should refine that statement. (Note: refinement does not equal flip-flop. I'm just clarifying and expanding.)

I was talking to someone about a mutual acquaintance who has owned dogs for a long time and may, at some point soon, have children. This is someone who does not want children. When I pointed out that he has had these dogs forever, I was informed that the dogs have always been wild, completely untrained and vicious biters.

Oh.

Not a good sign for parenting skills.

See, training a dog requires endless patience, love, and understanding of nonverbal communication. Taking care of a dog means being responsible for it 24 hours a day, every day. You can't skip meals, you have to stick to some kind of a schedule, this other creature is entirely dependent on you. An infant or toddler is very little different--you just scoop the poop up differently. Also, children are slightly more responsive to books.

But allowing a dog to be untrained and vicious, that's not love and it's not a good idea. Allowing a toddler to be untrained and vicious, also not a good plan.

Here's Dogness, alas only semi-trained (draw what conclusions you will):

The picture was taken by GirlChild for her photography class, so obviously is all copyrighted and stuff. I have permanent permission, as her mother, to use it. Note the rug--it's actually a camel saddlebag from Afghanistan. What you can't see in the black and white photo is the distinctive red forming the background, unique to rugs from that area.

Elbow, Meet Eye

I got a sharp elbow to the eye in the middle of the night last night. Normally not something TFL does, but man are those elbows of his pointy! I thought for sure I'd have a black eye, but I don't. So that's good.

It's one of those mornings where I'm trying to get a bunch of stuff done and not having overwhelming success. The good news of the day: I definitely won't be working on the transactional side of things. Also: sucks not to clerk, it turns out. At least in some ways.

Our neighbors (next door, not above us) are throwing furniture out of their third floor apartment. Does anyone else think that's odd? It's certainly distracting, and Dogness does not approve.

The Obligatory Whither Now? Post

Lots of law school bloggers find themselves wondering, whither now? Do we keep blogging when we can no longer complain about professors? Is there much point to blogging when we can't say one word about work, which will consume 110% of our waking hours?

I started this blog to keep my family apprised of my continued existence while buried in the non-stop fun and games that is law school. I don't see my life becoming less hectic, even if it becomes less share-able.

One of the main benefits of the blog for me has been the way it forced me to look up from my mound of work sometimes and find something else to say about life. Whether it was noticing that the trees were, in fact, blooming again, or ranting about some current event, I would occasionally break out of the law school mind set and that was good for me.

So for the moment I think I'll continue. I'll regale you with the thrills of my Bar preparation adventures, agonize over the unsold status of our flat, keep you up to speed on our progress to the new and improved location.

Bonus picture: GirlChild's wall pocket with a flower.

One JD Degree: Check.

Not until I held the card with my name and line number did I believe--truly believe--that I was getting my degree.

But I did!

There I am with my snazzy outfit and some friends. Pretty cool hood, huh?

We dug out TFL's hood for comparison. Mine is bigger. But yeah, his is very pretty.

But my hat is totally awesome, no?

Pomp, circumstance, a zillion pictures, and lots of friends and family -- and a hood, and a diploma. (PBB's diploma is much much prettier but I had the better hat.) So there we go. Three years, endless blood sweat and tears, and a lot of laughter later, and I'm a JD. Heh.

Ahoy, And Law Student Overboard

I got news through the grapevine that one of my nephews* has been accepted into the Coast Guard Academy. Congrats, Dan! That's now one nephew in the Army, one in the Coast Guard. Good for them, and may they have long and healthy careers.

And as for me, today was my last law school class ever. I have officially entered my last round of flat-out pre-exam panic (not counting the Bar).

Wow.

*I have about 10 dozen nephews. Uh, well, fewer than that, but a lot.

You Know You're Growing Up

I got a call from Boy yesterday. He was grocery shopping. He needed to know the ingredients for pasta sauce. There's something about getting a phone call like that that really drives home the reality of having grown children.

It's surreal.

I never felt unduly young when they were growing up, but now I think there's just no way I could be old enough to have not one but two adult children.

In other news: the first set of bar exam books arrived today. Egad.

Party In A Box

After years of suffering, growing up with older brothers whose main job was to torment me (and accuse me of exaggerating, which I never did), I eventually gained four sisters-in-law.

Today I got a party in a box from LAM. It's so fantastic, it must make up for at least two instances of near-death torture-by-tickling experiences my brothers inflicted on me.

Yes, it's that good.

In other news: still writing the opinion(s). Progress is too slow. Sentences are getting shorter. Must finish soon.

True To The End

TFL called the vet this morning, and he agreed to stay late to see us at the end of the day. Margot hadn't eaten since before yesterday. It was clear that she was not going to eat again. GirlChild stayed home this morning so she wasn't left alone. I returned early from school to find that the cat had managed to move herself from behind the toilet to a patch of sunlight on the kitchen floor.

She still appreciated that so-rare commodity, sunlight.

When it was time to go I gently picked her up, which she didn't like, and put her in a rag-lined box. She disapproved entirely, and promptly tried to exit the box. There was a time when it took ten strong men to get her into a carrier. I recall epic battles on the kitchen floor, all of us trying to shove her into her carrier and nursing our wounds afterwards, before chasing her down to try again. Today, all it took was a gentle hand on her head and she stayed put.

I picked up TFL from work, and he lifted her out of the box and held her curled up on his lap the rest of the way to the vet's. It was a long and quiet trip. Margot simply rested, feather-light and still alert. 

Thank goodness for our vet, who is a warm and wonderful man and has taken care of Margot for, unbelievably, 18 years. He said he never sees cats that old. Sixteen, maybe sixteen and a half--that's the longest they live.

But Margot, she was just too ornery to die. She had business to attend to, a dog to sneer at, people to cajole (by swearing and lying shamelessly) into feeding her. When she lost her voice about a year ago we sort of missed the endless loud and foul language, but she could pantomime it pretty well, and did to the end.

She was a part of our family for 18 years. She was opinionated, cranky, smart, devious, bossy, and beautiful. And yes, she had the vocabulary of a sailor--no, a pirate. Margot was a great cat with a fondness for ice cream. We all (except Dogness) will love her always.

Boy Meets Politics

Boy called tonight, which was a lovely surprise. He's down in Texas on his spring break, which is a roadtrip with the crew team, complete with nonstop practices.

But he's taking a couple of breaks in his schedule of row, eat, and sleep to see Bill Clinton tonight and Obama tomorrow. Unlike GirlChild, Boy inherited the political junkie gene, and has been closely following this election. He and I sometimes have very agreeable little chats in which we dissect the current political climate and goings-on in the sort of detail that makes normal people break out in hives.

So fun.

He's under strict orders to tell me all about the rallies, and his impressions of the speakers. He's a tough critic, so it ought to be interesting.

Part 5 of 7: A Preacher's Rhetoric Sings

As I told you before, I am a political junkie.

I am also a preacher's daughter. I grew up understanding the power of matching words to rhythm, of building an audience up and taking it away with you, of crafting incandescent images and searing sounds that bring the listener to his knees. That rhetoric is a skill and an art form and has not been seen in our politicians in many decades, although Ronald Reagan sometimes came close (he knew how to deliver lines).

But then it was 2004, at the Democratic National Convention, when some backwater politician still seemingly wet behind the ears got up on stage and showed them how it's done. It's not the flash-bang histrionics of certain public figures who get all fired up themselves but fail to move anyone else but the choir. The power of real rhetoric is harnessed and controlled, a measured force building and ebbing and irresistibly raising the hair on your arms and the tears in your eyes. It becomes a thunder, rolling with righteousness.

The rhythm, the cadence, the lilting delivery that becomes a booming drum roll--those are the hallmarks of true rhetoric. Martin Luther King, Jr. was undoubtedly a master of it. (Now he was a baptist minister I would have voted for in a heartbeat. Not for his experience or agenda, but for his character and courage.) And whether or not you're buying what he's selling, Obama does, on his best nights, show us how it's done.

Others agree: