I Can't Complain

Wild Kingdom, Public Library Style

Most Sunday afternoons the Bomber and I like to head to the library for a new infusion of books. Our public library has an awesome children's room - it takes up the entire basement of the building, and in addition to an enormous number of books, it also has comfy chairs, arts & crafts supplies, a Victorian dollhouse, and a huge collection of very large stuffed animals.  This afternoon, the Bomber was playing in the area with the big stuffed animals when a little girl about his age came along. 

Her name, she informed me in a very sweet voice, was Sally. She had a blue sparkly horse with a pink mane and three books about "horsies."  She was wearing a cute little striped dress with embroidered flowers, lacy socks, and a purple raincoat with pink polka-dots and ruffles.  Sally plopped right down next to the Bomber, introduced herself and announced that she and the Bomber would now be best friends. She was, in short, adorable.

The Bomber was playing with a big giraffe, pretending to eat leaves off the big "tree" (that'd be me). Sally looked thoughtfully around at the animals, and carefully selected a lion as big as she was, and a slightly smaller Corduroy bear, complete with green overalls. She sweetly petted the lion a few times, asked if it was hungry....

and then pretended the lion was eviscerating Corduroy. Complete with growly devouring sound effects from the lion and frightened howling from poor Corduroy.  She was like Marlin Perkins in a Hanna Andersson dress.  I think even the Bomber was a little disconcerted - he clutched the stuffed giraffe to his chest and backed slowly away from the still-snarling girl until he bumped into my legs.  "Mommy," he whispered, "can we go now?"  Good idea, kiddo. And maybe next week we'll go on Saturday...

 

What I'm Wearing Wednesday: March 23, 2011

Another Wednesday, another terrible picture of me in my bathroom, standing on the kiddo's toothbrushing stool, with the picturesque cat box as backdrop.  It's supposed to hit 86F today, so it's well and truly time to break out the spring clothes.  So here's what I'm wearing:

The pants are Ann Taylor signature style, the cardi is from Boden. The cami is actually off-white, but that picture makes it look sort of pink. The shoes are Fitzwells from Zappos and the jewelry I've had absolutely forever.  (In fact, those aren't pictures of my exact necklace and earrings, but they're so generic that I figured it's close enough.)

Here's how it looks on me:

I hope my  mother doesn't see this, because I'll get in trouble for slouching. (That was the only way to fit entirely in the mirror. I *really* need to find someplace better for doing this.)

ETA:  And for more great WIWW style, check out my very stylish friend, Stylishboots!

I'm So Blue

The week before I started law school, way back in *mumblty-mumble*, I dutifully went down to the bookstore and purchased the approximately $8,700 worth of books required for my first semester.  In addition to several impressive-looking tomes containing Very Important Stuff, I was also required to buy a small, unassuming Velo-bound book with a blue cover, called, somewhat eponymously, "The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation." At the time, I paid very little attention to it, since it paled in comparison to my much more expensive (and heavier) hard-bound law books, which had far more important-sounding subject.

Eventually I came to realize that most lawyers seldom get a chance to make a Constitutional law claim in their day-to-day practice, no one can remember how the Rule Against Perpetuities works, or why the Rule in Shelley's Case is even important, and while Palsgraf certainly does make for a fun discussion, everything you need to know about tort law can really be boiled down to ten words (Duty. Standard of Care. Breach of Duty. Proximate Cause. Damages.)

The Bluebook, though? That sucker is USEFUL. It outlines all the practical rules (something otherwise entirely absent from my law school education) for citing anything and everything you might ever want or need to cite, in any kind of legal document you might ever want or need to write. And let's face it, writing is pretty much what we lawyers get paid for. So we might as well do it right.

Anyway, that first one I got back in the dark ages was the 15th edition. I loved that book from the first time I opened it, and it was the first book I unpacked in my office at my first job.  As the junior-most associate in a litigation firm, I used it every day, not only for my documents, but also to cite-check the partner's stuff (since his recollection of the rules was hazy at best).  Toward the end of my tenure there, it started to get more than a little tattered-looking. The cover eventually fell off, and pages began to work their way free of the binding.  Finally, the plastic binding cracked, and good old 15 was reduced to nothing more than a pile of loose pages.

The 16th edition had come and gone by then, so I bought myself a shiny new 17th edition. Along the way, I purchased an 18th addition for one of the attorneys that worked for me, who eventually moved on to greener pastures, leaving her Bluebook behind (can you imagine?!).  I kept using the 17th, though, because I had all the important rules tabbed. Then one day about two months ago, I noticed that one of my attorneys had a fancy citation form for internet sources. I wondered where he got it, since the Bluebook rule on citing the internet I remembered from law school went something like "since information found on the World Wide Web is unreliable and it is unclear how long-lived the World Wide Web will be, such sources should not be used."  But lo & behold, the 18th ed has not just one rule, but an entire section on citation of internet sources. It was then I realized it might be time to let number 17 go. And so, last week, I finally tabbed up the 18th, and laid number 17 to rest.

Goodbye sweet 17th edition:

And hello, shiny-new, freshly-tabbed 18th ed:

 

(After I wrote this long blog waxing nostalgic about my Bluebooks, I discovered that the 18th isn't even the most recent edition. Whoops.)

Wordless Wednesday: Sign of Spring

What I'm Wearing Wednesday: Pushy Sister Edition

My oldest sister was harassing me yesterday about the lack of blogitude on this blog, so I figured I'd better get something up here before she tells Mom on me. I did point out Rules #3 and 6, noted that I'd posted some stuff about the Bomber recently, and then stuck my thumbs in my ears, waggled my fingers and stuck my tongue out at her. 

Since it's Wednesday, I thought I'd share another thrillingly awful picture of me in my bathroom, standing on the Bomber's tooth-brushing step stool, in front of the cat box, or as my friend Stylishboots likes to call it: What I'm Wearing Wednesday.

I kind of hate this time of year, because it starts out cold (by SC standards anyway) and works its way up to the 60s or higher pretty much every day.  These 30 degree swings are hard to dress for, especially since South Carolinians haul out their sandals and sundresses at the first glimmer of 60 degrees, and then stand around shivering and wondering why their toes are cold until actual spring.  I, on the other hand, having been conditioned by 30 years of living in the northeast, can sometimes be found wearing boots on a March day where it reaches 78.

Anyway, I think today I hit a nice combination of spring-y and weather-appropriate. Here's the individual pieces:

See? No frozen toes. (But my ankles are a little chilly.)

Here's what it looks like on me, in my yellow bathroom, scrunching down to fit in the mirror:

I really need to find a better place to take these pictures. Or possibly get the bathroom painted.