I noticed today that one of my classmates had on a short denim skirt complimented by pink satin cowboy boots. Seriously. I love pink, and I'm all for a little bit of trendiness to add flair to an ensemble, but really, pink satin? This is a professional school training students for a professional career. Will any woman ever be taken seriously as a lawyer while wearing pink satin boots? I will admit that I bought my four-year olds pink suede boots for Christmas and the look perfectly adorable in them. But four-year adorability is not what one is looking for in a twenty-something professional.

Public Stonings Should be Reconsidered

Today was the true test of whether I am tough enough for criminal law. The D.A.'s office is preparing to go to trial next week for a capital murder of a four year old. Since I have two four year olds of my very own, I knew this would be a tough case for me. My first real exposure came today when I was asked to summarize the police reports to prepare for direct examinations. Reading the details of what this child's parents did to him was absolutely sickening.

Then I had to organize the autopsy photos into the order that they would be used for during the direct of the medical examiner.

It was bad. It was hard. But I did ok. I didn't cry until I was on my home this afternoon. I cried because there was nobody in the whole world that cared enough about this child to notice that he was literally being beaten to death. I cried because I never believed that anyone could be so cruel to another human being--especially an innocent child. I cried because what happened to this child was just as bad, and probably worse than what has happened in the high profile child killing cases that have been in the news, and yet this case has received no publicity that I have seen. And that makes me wonder if beating a child to death is so common that this horrendous, sickening case is not newsworthy.

So, I did cry, but not at work. I think that I have seen the worst (even the A.D.A. acknowledged that this is the worst case he has ever seen). I think that I can get past my emotions and help fight to get these SOB's in prison forever (since public stoning is not an option at this time). At least I know I did something good today. I did something for this little boy who no one cared about until he was dead. I can't imagine that helping a big corporation take over a little corporation would ever be as fulfilling--although I'm sure there would be fewer tears.

Never thought I'd feel bad for a drug dealer

Day 2 of my internship in the D.A.'s office. The assistant D.A. was entering a plea agreement against a guy charged w/ manufacture and possession. The guy came in with his wife, 7ish daughter and baby. The plea was for an 8 year deferred sentence w/ probation until he screwed up.But the judge upped the deferred sentence to 10 years, and added a mandatory 6 mo. jail sentence up front to begin immediately. The judge actually asked, "Sir, are you ready to go to jail today?" Seriously, who is ever going to answer "yes" to that question?

Now, right at that moment, I was thinking, "Way to go judge!" I mean being tough on the drug dealers isn't a bad thing. But a minute later I looked behind me and saw the guy holding his baby with tears in his eyes and his little girl was bawling. I didn't so much feel bad for him--he had committed the crime and was now paying for it--but I felt bad for his kids who also had to for their dad's crime. I guess I never really considered the impact on the criminal's family.

So, I'm trying to be a grown-up and its not working out very well

I am not a big drinker. If I drink anything at all, it is usually a girly mixed drink. And yet I realize that to be social--especially in field I am planning to enter--I must learn to drink something a little less fruity. At the prof's soiree last weekend I was offered wine. Knowing that I have never liked red wine, but I have been ok with very cheap and fruity white wines, I opted for the white. Although it was neither cheap nor especially fruity, it was ok. I noted that it was a pinot grigio (although I'm not sure of the winemaker), so that I would have something to spout off next time I had to order a drink. (I already suffered a rather embarrassing episode this summer when I went out for beers with fellow interns and the judge I was working for and I didn't have a clue what beer to order. )

So...today I was shopping in SuperTarget and happened down the wine aisle. Since I now had the name of a kind of wine I could stand, I thought I'd buy a bottle, so that hubby and I could experiment a little (with the wine, you sicko!) Now, even SuperTarger has about 10-15 varieties of pino grigios, so how else was I to decide but by the label? I picked one with a cute label, but noted that it had a screw-top, and even I know that good wine must be corked. But still, I don't even own a corkscrew and the label was cute--and it said it tasted just like biting into a fresh pear--so I decided to give it a try.

This stuff is terrible! Blech! I can barely stand to smell it, much less actually drink it. Maybe it was the screw top. Maybe I am still not a wine drinker. Maybe I should stick to bottled water at social events, because at 31 with a mortgage and three kids I am a grown-up whether or not I drink wine.

The Good, The Bad and The Beautiful

The Good
We did cross examinations in Trial Ad this week and my prof. (a federal judge) said that mine was the best of the class and that I was convincing as an experienced trial attorney.

The Bad
We got the rankings back on the negotiations that we did last week in Negotiations. I thought I did ok. I was wrong. I was 12 out of 16. I guess the good news is that if I can't settle my cases, I can take them to trial and make them wish they had settled instead of suffering my kick ass cross.

The Beautiful
Last evening, a professor invited the students from his class to a get together at his home. His house was amazing, the centerpiece the most grand private library I have ever seen. The library was two levels, with the upper looking down on the lower, and it had to be at least half the size of my entire 2700 sq. ft. home. Although the rest of the house was beautiful too, nothing could compare to the library.

The Curse Continues

Yesterday the car went kaput on DH when he was driving in to work. It's still under warranty, so the dealership towed it in, but they are not getting in any hurry diagnosing or fixing the problem. In the meantime, we are trying to manage on one car. This is not an easy task, since we live way out in the 'burbs and work/go to school in the city.

To make matters worse, the nanny called in sick today. That pretty much leaves me missing my morning classes and will take some rather inconvenient maneuvering so that I can take the car to my evening class tonight. DH will have to leave work early again. I'm sure that soon his boss is gong to decide that he is just making stuff up and there is no way that this many bad things could happen to one person. Also, if the nanny is still sick tomorrow, DH will have to deal with the kids because I have two classes that I absolutely can't miss.

I'm beginning to understand why law firms don't want to hire somebody with kids. I usually manage a pretty good balance of law school and home life, but for the past month all of the sickness (and now car troubles) are beating the crap out of us.

Onions and Pickles and Chicken, oh my

My PR class had a required make-up during the lunch hour today. Because its during lunch, we are free to bring lunch into the classroom. That's fine, I understand, ya gotta eat. But when you are in a room with 60 people, do you really need the smelliest stuff you can find?

The guy who sits next me had apparently just polished off what could only have been an onion sandwich, judging by the odious fumes still hanging in the air. To improve the situation, he next chowed down on an enormous dill pickle. Now we all got to enjoy onion + garlic. Just as this is all beginning to pass, the girl who sits in front of me bring in a chicken sandwich, and the room fills with the scent of chicken. For the record, chicken sandwiches only smell good to the person who are about to eat them.

For those of you (as if there are actually those (plural) who are reading this) who don't already know this, Don't Bring Smelly Food into Rooms Full Of People Who Are Not Also Eating Equally Smelly Food. A sandwich, piece of fruit, candy bar, even cookies (unless freshly banked and still aromatic) are all appropriate for a lunch time make-up. Smelly sandwiches, pickles, burnt popcorn (prior experience) are not.

Oh, and just to clear my conscience, DH and I once sneaked chicken nuggets and fries into a movie theater. 30 seconds later, we realized everyone around us could smell it and we felt really guilty and never did it again. It was very bad manners. (We won't even get into the legality/morals of sneaking food (or margaritas!) into theaters, lets just say that generally I don't have a big problem with it.)

I got an internship today

I have started to panic over my stinky grades and my prospects for a summer position, so last weekend I apend a good amount of time applying for both school year and summer jobs. By nine this morning, I got a call and had an interview scheduled for noon today. It is with the D.A.'s office, not where I live and not in the big city where my school is, but close to home.

Although, it's unpaid, this sounds like a really cool job. I will be working in the felony division, basically doing anything they can throw at me. They have encouraged me to try to get externship credit from my school and to try to get my 3d year bar card so that I can 2d chair--felony cases!! (They have already had students from other schools do this, I just have to get it approved through my school). I will actually have real responsibility and I'll get to be in court on a regular basis.

Also, all of the people there are really nice. They took me to lunch, and it wasn't so much an interview as just talking about what I was going to be doing. Very low key. And, having kids is no big deal--which has been my big problem to overcome lately.

The only cons are 1) not paid; and 2) it looks unlikely to turn into a full-time position because the office is small. But, I think the experience will definitely outweigh the cons, and I can find out if I really want to pursue a career in crim. law.

Apparently we forgot to leave a sacrifice to the God of Good Health

The pox continues. This morning oldest DD woke up at 5:30 crying because her ear hurt. A quick trip to the doc confirmed my suspicion of an ear infection.

Tonight, I was enjoying a bit of well-deserved down time watching My Date With Drew. Hubby pops in about halfway through, and after about five minutes he said "I think I'm getting another kidney stone." 30 seconds later he was writhing on the floow in pain. In about another minute, be was in the bathroom yakking his guts up because the pain was so severe. Having been through this before, I know there;s not much I can do. I brought him a pain pill and a glass of water, and he is now curled in the floor, a withered lump.

I have to honestly say that its hard to take this kidney stone thing seriously. I mean its just a teeny tiny little thing--I've seen them. I mean, for goodness' sake, I gave birth to three wriggly blobs that weighed up to eight pounds (two of them w/in two minutes of each other). DH points out that his parts don't dilate and efface. Still 8 lbs, v. 1/4 oz. It would be hard to take him seriously if he weren't so very obviously in pain. I have never seen anything knock my husband to his knees like this. Hopefully this passes soon, or this will be another very long night in a string of very long nights.

A lot of good my freakin ticket did me...

I got called on today in the class with the magic outline. One might think that this would be a good thing, having the golden ticket and all. But I got the one case in the whole freakin book that is not covered by the Outline. This book is a new edition, and apparently this particular case is not covered by the old editions.

Fortunately, I am a goody-goody and had read the case rather than depending on the Outline. Unfortunately, the prof is so accustomed to student magically spewing word for word what he wants to hear that he gets a little irritated when we don't. Here is how my day went...

"Ms. LC, can you tell us about Case?" I run down the facts, including that this is a habeas case, so P must have been in prison.

"Ms. LC, where is P" Umm, yeah--in prison 'cause this is a habeas case.

"Ms. LC, what did the Supremes do?" Dismissed, had no jurisdiction.

"Why no jurisdiction?" Congress can giveth and Congress can taketh away.

"Why can Congress take jurisdiction" Uhhhh, Article 3. At this point he looks at me like I am a complete moron.

"Where in Art. 3?" I dunno. He continues to stare at me like I am a moron, before finally getting the hint that I mean it when I say I don't know. Then he turns on the guy next to me (Mr H.). Mr. H also doesn't know, but manages to stall until he gets a helpful IM. Oh, duh. The Exceptions and Regulations clause. Why didn't I think of that? Prof goes on for a bit.

"Mr. H, where do we get statutes" Mr. H: I dunno.

"Ms. LC?" Uh, Congress passes them? I get the "well, duh, you're a moron look" again, and he moves to the guy on the other side of me who also cannot produce the exact answer prof wants, so prof rolls his eyes at all of us and gives some long nonsensical answer that I could not reproduce if my life depended on it.

Fortunately, the guy next to me asks a question that runs down the clock and gets us all off the hook.

I don't know what is up this semester. I have been called on in every class. Last semester I was called on once in all of my classes combined. Oh well, most of my profs are a bit more reasonable than this one. This felt like a reenactment of first year. ( Then again, this is a first year class, b/c I transferred the schedules between the two schools worked out so that I am taking a first year core class in the second semester of my second year. )

There is a pox upon my house

We had all just pretty much gotten over the stomach bug, when DD came down with the flu. All day Sunday, her temp kept going up, despoite all of my efforts to bring it down. When it hit 105.4, I gave in and took her to the ER. This is the second ER trip in two weeks! Fortunately, we went to the cmall local hospital and had a 1000 times better experience than we did at Big City Hospital a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, they did a flu test on her and put her on Tamiflu (which is ridiculously expensive, by the way).

So, Tuesday, as predicted, DD's twin starts showing the same symptoms. Knowing that I do not want to drag two sick kids out to the doctor's office, I asked them to call in a prescription for me. After all, her identical twin sister who exhibited identical symptoms had just been diagnosed, and we all know that the flu is highly contagious and has about a 2 day incubation period. The doc said no, they had to do a flu test on DD2. WTF? How big of a leap of logic does it take to figure out that she has the freakin flu?

On a happy note, DH sent me 2 dozen roses yesterday. They are lovely. Flowers are few and far between around her, so it was a nice surprise. He said it was a thank you for taking him to a hockey game last week. Maybe we should be going to more hockey games!

I have the golden ticket

A helpful 3L informed me of a "bible" for a particular class, and with a little help I managed to dig it up. Actually, it was publically available on a student organization's website the entire time. It is a 180 page outline of the entire class. Word. For. Word.

Apparently, the prof knows about this thing, hence no more open book exams. And yet, you can follow his lectures to the letter if you have the Bible. You'd think he would want to mix things up a bit, just to throw us off, but thus far there have been no curveballs. In fact, you can tell exactly who in the class has discovered this little treasure because their answers are always word for word what the outline says. You'd think Prof would get tired of exactly the same answer every year, but I guess he either doesn't know or doesn't care.

Although I feel somewhat guilty being in possession of someone else's outline, at this point I feel like I would be seriously disadvantaged if I didn't use it since most of the class knows about it by now. Still, its not very motivating to actually do the reading when you know all of the answers are right there in front of you.

Mothers

How do you break up with your mother?

I do not have a good relationship with either of my parents. I was unfortunate enough to be born to the two most self-centered people on the planet. Why two people so wrapped up in themselves ever chose to breed is beyond me. They called it quits when I was nine, only to subject my brother and I to and endless stream of equally self-centered, alcoholic and abusive spouses. Of course, it never crossed their minds to consider how this parade might be affecting their children. Now that I am an adult, I am not held hostage to my parents mistakes as I was as a child, and yet the need for parents who actually care is still there.

My mother has let me down in two huge ways over the last six months. As a child, I would have expected this, but now that I'm a mom myself, I simply can't fathom doing to my children what she has done to me. And so against my better judgment, and upon the advice of DH, I gave her those two chances, only to be devestatingly let down.

Since then I have been doing my best to avoid her. The 350 mile gap between us has made it easier, but I think she recently realized that I was pissed and has been calling. She finally managed to catch me today. I told her that I didn't want to speak with her, and she pushed for an explanation. When I finally gave one, she basically lied, claiming ignorance to one situation, and changing the facts of the other to fit her own perception. She is beyond taking responsibility for anything. She said to me, "you are under a huge amount of stress, with school and sick kids." No shit. All the more reason that I don't need to be dealing with her anymore. The problem is that she will continue to call and act as if nothing is wrong, and if I tell her that everything is still wrong, then she will make it my fault. And it's not. I'm beyond taking the blame. My parents can't screw up my life anymore. So, how do you break up with your self-centered, fault-shifting, pretend everything is hunky-dory mother?