Frequent Citations

Fall Saturdays

We went for a ride Saturday, up the Palisades and around West Point.  The sky was clear, the air was crisp, the mountains were still green, football was happening, and there was no better place to be than on a motorcycle.

I love the fall.

In other news: I left work just after 9 pm tonight, people.  Crazy early!!! I got to knit while I watched the Giants beat the Rams, even. 

Sang Froid and Schadenfreude

TFL and I were discussing my favorite news story about the news this morning (so meta!) and it quickly turned into a discussion of meaning of schadenfreude, which I said was the reaction of many to Murdoch's current situation, and sang froid, which TFL pointed out could also encompass a certain cold-blooded rejoicing in the downfall of one's enemy.

He's got a point. But I still think the word we're looking for here is schadenfreude. Which, I must point out, my iPhone spells for me.

That's right--I'm posting from my phone as I walk to work. I knew I got this toy (I mean important communication device) for a reason.

When You Want Revenge

Think of Lord Byron, he who brought a bear to college because there was a rule against bringing dogs.

This article (warning: somewhat crude) has some pretty funny tales of revenge.  Note the captions under the pictures.  I had known about Arlington, of course, but most of the other stories were new to me.

Revenge: go big or go home.

(And no, I'm not feeling particularly vengeful, but I happened to see this story and it made me laugh.)

Time Off For Good Behavior

I've been set free! That is to say, I'm taking a few days off of work.

My big plans are to sleep, mail a couple of packages, do some light reading, watch a movie or five, and knit.

I am the most exciting person you know.

Sometimes You Go with the Flow

Sometimes everything flows over you.

I turned around and it was the end of October.  I have no idea how that happened except I have a vague impression of rarely leaving the office for months.  But I know somewhere in there my parents came to visit and we had a lovely time.

I'm sitting in my chair at home, now, with my feet on the ottoman, surrounded with papers for a brief I'm rewriting overnight.  I've gotten through an inch of case law and have another inch of papers to read and mess of a brief to correct, and a 10:30 meeting tomorrow morning (meaning sleeping in will not be an option).

Dogness is snoozing on the couch recovering from paw surgery.  She ripped a claw back while playing frisbee with TFL and the vet had to cut it off.  She got this cute rain cover for the bandaid--black, of course.

TFL got promoted to a position that entails a lot less fun, a lot more stress, and more hours.  Weirdly, he did not get a pay raise.  I am nagging him on a near-daily basis (those days I see him) to do something about that.  Feel free to join in the fun.  We have kids in college to pay for!  And, apparently, vet bills.

And with that, you're pretty much up to speed on my life.  But what's going on with your lives, dear readers?  Just because I don't write doesn't mean I don't care!  (Eww, triple negative.  I'll avoid that in the brief.)

Jumping Stages

I'm nearly done with my friend's baby project.  One thing about jury duty:  you get a fair amount of knitting time (as long as you ignore your blackberry).  I'm now on the border, for the third time.  See, I try something, rip it out, try something else, rip it out.  I think I'm almost there, but I'm a little worried about having enough yarn.

Another thing about jury duty:  you're at the mercy of Unknown Persons and their schedules.  Or maybe at the mercy of lawyers who can't get their acts together...  Sometimes you think the schedule is set, but it turns out to be totally different.  Sometimes not in a good way.  And there's not a thing you can do to get everything in the courtroom over with so you can find out what everyone else thinks and make some decisions. 

I'm sure I'm not nearly as impatient as the defendant, but still.

Life would be more efficient if I could jump over these stages of indecision and go right to the end game.  But I sense there's also something to the theory that it's about the process, not just the end result.

Jury Duty

At long last, I've been called for jury duty.  I went for my first day today, spent most of the day working, didn't get called, and did hear the story about the lawyer who got in Big Trouble for not telling the Court she had a time conflict. 

I'm a little annoyed with myself that I didn't get more knitting done, because I am way behind schedule.

April Dues

Oh yeah, it's tax day.  I think for the first time ever, we have to pay the Fed. And it hurts a lot, I'm not gonna lie.

But have I told you before about the first year we paid taxes?  It was for the year we got married, obviously.  That was the year I worked until our daughter was born, and TFL finished grad school, and between us we made, I don't know, $5?  But I dutifully filed our taxes and calculated that we would get back a modest refund, about which we were thrilled.

This being back in the stone age, we filled out our forms with a PEN and MAILED it in with a STAMP and everything.  Crazy, I know.  I kept an eagle eye on the mail and sure enough, a few weeks later we got an envelope from the IRS.  But when I opened it, I almost fell to the floor along with the check that fell out.

Instead, I think I re-read the letter three times before calling TFL at work to tell him -- we hadn't gotten the piddly little refund we thought we were getting.  No.  We got over one thousand DOLLARS!!!

I may have shrieked.  You can't imagine how much money that was to us.  Shoot, it's still nothing to sneeze at, is it?

It turned out that we had really not made enough money, even by the government's standards, so some tax credit I'd never heard of kicked in and the government sent us that massive check.  I'll never, ever forget it. 

In case you're wondering, it was the Earned Income Tax Credit, still the most effective tax law ever passed.

I'm once again using a pen and a stamp this year, although the return itself was filed online.  As I write one of the biggest checks of my life, and slip it into an envelope to get a few more days of float, I remind myself of that day when the IRS gave us so much more than we paid -- and did so unasked.  What goes around...

Moping

I'm trying not to mope around, but I think I am a little.  I think it's because I'm so tired I just can't refocus.

In other news, I went to a yarn shop briefly on Saturday (when I should have been working on the 25-page chart I finished today) and successfully limited myself to one skein of back-up yarn for this project:

and new straight needles for this project:

which is in a lovely shade of lavender.

Motivated: Not

For whatever reason (exhaustion, spring fever, dilettante tendencies) I feel unmotivated.  To do, pretty much anything.  Except admire the crocuses I saw blooming on my way to work. 

I feel that I should be wandering slowly through a park, perhaps sitting in a cafe reading a good book or knitting or just listening to the sound of TFL's voice over a salad and a glass of wine. 

I got half way home tonight, got a call from a partner, turned around and worked another 4 hours.  Then, when I got home, couldn't sleep.  Again. 

So I'm feeling scattered.  Unmotivated.  But the crocuses were lovely.