Now I'm it.

Mrs. Priest (you may remember her as "The Bride") has started a game of tag, so in the spirit of "why the heck not," here goes:

Ten things for which I am grateful

1. The Captain.
2. My sister.
3. Parents who worked incredibly hard and who sacrificed so much to bring me up in a place drowning in books, music, art, and ideas.
4. Generous, compassionate friends who welcome me into their homes and feed me sumptuous food. (I just came back from the home of one such friend. I'm still thinking about the spread. Oy.)
5. Running.
6. My home church, which raised me as much as my parents did.
7. My imagination, and the capacity to use it.
8. My job. Because I have one, and it doesn't start until January.
9. The security that even though my job doesn't start until January, I'll be able to survive by my brains, my grit, and my ever-growing arsenal of tasty recipes.
10. The Sunday New York Times. It was a weekly ritual at my parents' kitchen table and I look forward to the day when my children can say the same thing.

Okay, now I tag Jenski. Because she LOVES this sort of thing and she's pledged to blog for 365 days in a row so she probably could use some help with ideas. And Lawyer Mom, too, if she wants, though I don't want her to regret having read my blog. (I'm new to this - the novelty hasn't yet worn off.)

Vocabulary

Today in Professional Responsibility, we learned a new word: shackmate. A shackmate is a person who is your intimate (i.e., more than a friend), but to whom you are not legally related (i.e., married).

As in, the California code of professional conduct warns against potential conflicts of interest with your spouse or your shackmate.

San Francisco

...has a sense of humor.

An Honor That Bush Is Unlikely to Embrace

By Jesse McKinley

From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

[See full story here.]

Into every life

Today, I got caught in the rain. Without an umbrella or a jacket. I tried to seek refuge underneath an overhang, but alas, the wind had another idea: horizontal precipitation. Only my belly remained dry - how, I do not know. But everything else was thoroughly wet. As I walked from the bus stop to my apartment, in the rain, I experienced the transformative power of attitude. At that particular moment I was soaked, but soon I would be dry, and soon I would be enjoying these cookies in my apartment.

Because you know as soon as I got home and showered, I made myself some treats. I deserved them.

Good idea?

Today I learned just how little can pass for competence on the California bar exam. Prof. Honigsberg, Superstar, led us through the first of our Performance Tests, where we're given a set of facts and made to write hypothetical memos responding to those facts. The professor began class by sharing some stories, all true, of people who had passed the exam, despite all their better efforts. Since I do not underestimate my incompetence, I still have my nose to the grindstone. (I mean, who wants to be dumber than what I'm about to tell you?) But get a load of this:

1) Several years ago, a woman called up Prof. H and told him about her plan to get a good night's sleep before the exam: she would take half a sleeping pill. When Prof. H expressed his concern she reassured him she often took half a pill without consequence. When she was still awake at midnight the night before, however, she decided to take the other half. At 1am, she was still staring at the clock, so she took another whole pill. No dice. By 3am, she was bouncing off the walls so she popped a third, entire pill - six times her usual dose. That did the trick. By 6am, when her alarm went off, she barely could get up. She took several cold showers, drank two pots of coffee, did jumping jacks, and slumped off to the test site. She later told the professor that she was just conscious enough during the exam to realize she had circled A, B, C, and D for one question. At lunch, she considered giving up altogether. Instead, she made more coffee, did more jumping jacks and finished out the day. The result? Pass.

2) A San Diego man, who already had failed four times, recently called up the professor to ask if he'd be able to provide some one-on-one help. The professor declined because of his demanding lecture schedule. But the next day, a local veterans' association called the professor again to tell him that the SD man was a special case: he was a combat veteran who had suffered brain damage when a grenade had exploded at his feet - couldn't the professor do something? So the professor and the veteran engaged in a sort of correspondence course, with the veteran mailing practice tests to the professor for grading. Because of his brain damage, the veteran read at an extremely slow pace, about eighty minutes to read only a portion of the extensive essay booklet. Prof. Honigsberg instructed him, sternly, to start writing at the end of eighty-five minutes, no matter how little he had read of the essay prompt. They went back and forth like this for several months, the veteran never making it through an entire essay prompt. When the results came out in November? Pass.

3) A couple years ago, a woman was taking a shower on the third day of the exam, slipped and fell, and got a concussion. She passed, too.

So, really, it doesn't take much. The trick, however, is making sure that I have even that little.

Reversion

And I'm back to guilty pleasure music: the Dixie Chicks.

I've had the same song on continuous loop for a half-hour. What is it about the continuous loop that is so comforting?

Make Barbecue, not BarBri

Today the Captain and I performed our civic duty by contributing to Boston's tourist industry. Rather than prepare for our afternoon BarBri class, we instead attended the Phantom Gourmet's BBQ Beach Party at Government Center. (And we took public transportation to get there, of course.) Cooks from as far as Australia came to ply their wares, and we enjoyed the fruits (the ribs?) of their labor.

Yum.


The Captain surveys his options.