Stick Horse Cowgirls

Here’s the scenario: He’s a fifty-something married judge looking for a new law clerk.  She’s a bright, beautiful 24-year-old graduating lawyer.  She comes to work for him.  He has a policy of a one-year-only term for law clerks.  He breaks policy for her, ostensibly because she is so very competent in her job…She stays on two years.  Only one to do it… She marries and begins her family. Flash forward five years to right now.  He’s in his late 50’s and has his eye on the state Supreme Court, the highest judicial office in the state.  She has been in private practice for three years with a big firm in town.  She has two children u nder four years of age with a handsome man her own age. She works on the Judge’s campaign. You’re already onto this story, I know.  It burst into our papers over the weekend: She and the Judge have been having an affair.  It has broken up her household.  Her husband has actually named the judge ...

There was nothing on the slate, particularly, today.  I knew I had to work a trip into the office sometime this weekend, and there is always plenty of work to do around here on the weekend, but no schedule. So, my phone rang at 8:30 this morning as I was still sipping coffee in my pajamas.  It was V.  She had been on the phone with M, one of our close friends, and was now calling to invite me out with them.  So, see, it is either M’s or V’s fault (I suspect V). “ Can you meet M  and me for breakfast at 9:30?” I was game…I wouldn’t even shower.  I had just enough time.  “ Sure!  Where do we meet up?” You won’t believe what she said…I could hardly believe it when I heard it: “ Krispy Kreme .” What!!  This after I just wrote a post on the dangers of fast food?  Isn’t Krispy Kreme fast food danger squared???  V explained:  “ Well, it’s cheap, and I’m craving a maple iced doughnut.” That was enough justification f...

You can tell when I get time to sit down and read my favorite magazines.  The last post was spawned from an article in Psychology Today .  This one comes from an article in a special issue of Discover Magazine , “The Brain,” Fall 2010 issue.  The article: The Internet Makes Deep Thought Difficult, if Not Impossible, by Nicolas Carr. Uh-Oh I love the internet.  I love blogging.  I love trivia and searching through the web for interesting things ranging from the scientific to gossip.  I love it as a research tool.  I now have my I-Pad to keep me well-connected wherever I go.  I mean, here I am sitting in front of the computer at this very moment.  I do it day in and day out.  My work requires it.  Thankfully, my computer work is largely “composing,” drafting documents about which I have to do a whole lotta thinking.  That may be the one saving grace I have, given what I am about to say. Mr. Carr has a lot to say about th...

The October 2010 issue of Psychology Today has an article by  Hara Marano  that has set me thinking.  Let me first say that I am an offender, here.  Let me get stressed, and I’ve been apt to send someone midday for a burger and fries, knowing full well that this is the wrong thing to do.  But this article, for some reason, has hit home to me.  I think that, if I haven’t yet turned the corner away from fast food, at least I am turning…it’s all a process. The article contains the usual bad nutritional  news about fast food.  We all know this: fast food just isn’t good for us.  The article points out that almost all fast food is laced with high-fructose corn syrup (even in fish patties and buns) and that it leads to obesity, clogged arteries, heart attack and high blood sugars.  So, if we know all this, why do we eat it?  Well, for one thing, becaus e it is “fast,” just as the name says.  We’ve stopped expecting to pack lunches...

 This is NOT me, but it could be!  I'm frustrated! One day recently I should have been at work, but had just found my glasses--I am so myopic I cannot go anywhere without my glasses! It's embarrassing to call in because you can't drive to work because you can't find your glasses! Apparently the cat knocked them off the vanity and they blended in with the wood floor. I had been been on my hands and knees all over the house searching for them! I used to wear contacts, but no more! Just one of the "benefits" of getting older! I suffer from dry eye syndrome and I cannot use Restasis drops--they make my eyes ache so bad they are not worth it! So no contacts for me--just the ugly glasses that make me look even more matronly! It's not fair I tell you! lol My hand is still recovering from surgery last month and I am in a hand brace. It hurts to type so I am REAL slow, mainly using my "good" hand. The custom made splint is better than the bulk...

I had to turn the heat on this morning for the first time this season.  This harbinger of winter has me thinking about doing all the winterizing chores that need doing around here.  I need to cover the outside water faucets and make sure the light bulbs in our two well houses are lit. Those tasks are easy enough to do, but there are larger ones, too, that I dread dealing with.  For one thing, the back refractory board in my fireplace is crumbling.  This means I need a new one.  This has not been as easy as I had hoped since I don’t know the manufacturer of my fireplace  insert.  Apparently, I will have to go “generic” and cut one to fit.  Just one more thing on my “learn-how” list.  In any event, it must be done before a fire is built.  And we simply must have our fires in the winter… The other thing is the generator.  I have one of those gasoline-powered jobs, and it won’t start.  I’ll have to find a way to get it to some...

Once again our blogging friend from Add Humor and Faith…Mix Well came through our town last Thursday.  V, MIL and I picked her up at the motel and spent the evening over dinner, laughing and sharing stories—just four bloggers out on the town. The restaurant we visited has a replica of something V and I both vi vidly remember from our childhood half a century ( egads! ) ago…Laughing Sally.   Sally was a mechanical doll (a bit larger than life-sized) who shook and laughed over and over and over.  She was displayed behind glass at the amusement park attached to our Zoo.  V and I shared the same childhood mixture of horror and attraction when it came to Sally.  Whenever we were fortunate enough to con our parents into going to “the rides,” (2 ride limits, for they were a quarter apiece), a visit to stand staring at Sally  in nervous fascination was required.  But, b ack to our dinner:  Sandra is exactly as V and I have grown to know her t...

No, it’s not a contest…it’s the other kind of “giveaway.” I have dear, dear friends in Wales.  They live in the outskirts of Cardiff.  We became friends because their middle (and, later, their younger) son came to the US to coach soccer—specifically, my son’s team.  He landed in our  guest bedroom, and he became party of our family. When he married a girl from here, his family came over for the wedding.  Their arrival added a dimension to my life for which I am eternally grateful.  They are true, wonderful friends, and we could go years without face-to-face contact and remain almost family. They have stayed with us perhaps half a dozen times.   Their sons had the unmitigated gall to move to the next state, so when they come to the US now, I do not see them.  I have yet to visit Wales, but have absolutely no doubt of my welcome should my ship come in and I be able to afford the trip and the time from home.  (I’m counting on the lott...

I find myself, more and more, living for the weekends.  Respite from the hectic.  I love my work but, frankly, it gets overwhelming.  Never do I get to a comfortable, busy hum; it seems to stay at fever pitch.  I know, I know, I whine here all the time about this, but it’s true. This Monday is Columbus Day—a federal holiday.  The Courthouse will be closed.  Traditionally (as in twenty-five years ago and earlier), law offices also closed when the courthouse did.  Not so anymore, we’ll be there just like a regular day…ah to be a Federal employee!  This weekend I have nothing on the slate (except, of course, that three-day trial looming next week).  But, at least, I don’t have to work my pre-trial preparations around others this weekend.  This is a luxury.  Usually there is at least some family obligation or social event I feel I must attend, but this weekend there is nothing.  What an inviting prospect! Oh, I’ll stay busy e...

Vee asked about my senior law partner, whom I mentioned in my last post on trivia.  For one thing, let me say that she is not “trivia,” by any means.  This post is a brief overview of “A’s” remarkable life.  The anecdotes would fill a book.  Why, we could do a whole separate blog simply on A’s life stories. A was born in 1921.  She came up through a time that was not only financially-challenging, but was no world in which a woman could reasonably expect to gain anything but a husband and family without a hard struggle.  A had the brains and the grit for the struggle… She had an older b rother who was in “business school” in their small town. At the age of 12, this little girl talked the owner of the school into letting her attend class to learn shorthand in return for chores around his house.  (Do you people remember Gregg Shorthand?  I do!  I still use mine, from my high school class).  She took to this like a duck to water and eve...

How did we live without the internet?  ( Oh, thank you, thank you, Al Gore ). Okay, the thanks are sarcastic and the question is rhetorical , but  for me the internet has become really important.  Always I have been an information hound.   There are only two people in my circle whom I fear in Trivial Pursuit games—I have so much useless knowledge stuffed into my head that I can usually more than hold my own in the trivia department. A function of that quest for knowledge is a HUGE library.  I’m telling you, I have all the classics, many bestsellers over the past thirty years and non-fiction books on almost any topic.  For example, my neig hbor’s child had a project on jet engines—I had two books in my library on them.  I can’t tell you beans about jet engines right now, but I sure have something in my library to help.  Recently my little  niece had a pirate project due—I had several books worthwhile, including one on women pirates calle...

The other night I had insomnia.  It's been a while since I really had insomnia. Well, I guess, not all that long in the broad scheme of things. At the beginning of my marital problems three years ago I would often go on three hours of sleep a night.   Let me tell you, that’s not good. That is highly uncharacteristic for me, I was always the kid who required the full eight hours. I was, throughout my life, early to bed and very early to rise.  (Unlike V, who was mostly the opposite—a night owl)   It is still common to find me in bed before 9 p.m and up before 5 a.m.  Falling asleep is easy—it’s the staying asleep that is sometimes difficult. My sleep patterns have become very odd over the past year or so.  Most nights I have a pretty good night’s sleep.  Chili usually wakes me to go out (wolf dog that he thinks he is) around 2 ish, but normally I cruise by the bathroom and go right back to sleep.  Some nights, well, I wake up inspire...

Our office is about three blocks from the courthouse.  Here’s a picture of where I do my “daily beat.”  You can see to the right the beginnings of the more modern addition, which more than doubles the size of this picturesque older part.  Hard to get a picture of the whole thing Because parking is at a premium in our downtown (and because we are lazy), when we lawyers have a court appearance, someone from the staff drops us off at the front door and picks us up when the trials are over.  I love saying, “ Just a sec…I’ll call for the car…” (See my previous post on my love of “staff.”) On pretty days I wait for my ride outside the courthouse on the sidewalk.   I enjoy standing there watching folks coming and going, shooting the breeze with my fellow lawyers as they pass by on their way to their own hearings.  Yesterday was such a day—gorgeous fall weather. I no longer do criminal-law work (having the luxury of that option!), so I have little cont...