F.U. Part 2

The little fucker did it again. They finally sent back redlined settlement documents (changing shit they had already agreed to), but didn't copy all parties. So I forwarded their revisions to the rest of the parties along with the corrections I made to the Addendum.

He wrote back (again copying everybody) "We're fine with all of the corrections--as long as you corrected the misspelling in the footer and the misuse of he/she in paragraph 2."

Ok, did you not read the fucking document I just sent? I made the damn corrections. But thanks for pointing it out--AGAIN.

It took a great deal of professional composure not to dash off a snotty response.

The good news is that Big Boss did not say a word to me. Probably because all hell is breaking loose in one of our massive cases. I am completely buried right now--I have never been so busy or been so behind.

But because everyone else is also crazy busy, I am also getting to be more visible. Usually I am hidden in the background being bcc'd on everything. I've also had to take on a much more managerial role with my secretary and paralegal. Big Boss has been pushing me to be bossier all along--and at this point I just can't get it all done by myself. They are grumbling and probably like me less than they did a couple of weeks ago. But I just remind them to be glad they have to deal with me and not Big Boss.

F.U.

I have spent the better part of the last month preparing settlement documents in a big case for a substantial settlement. This was my first time to ever prepare settlement documents, and I was pretty much left to wing it.

But I pulled it off. There are 5 parties involved in this settlement, and we had everybody in agreement by the 5th revision--and most of the changes were pretty minor. So I was feeling pretty good about getting it right on my first go 'round. In total, the settlement documents exceed 60 pages. I did 95% of the drafting--incorporating changes by the other parties as requested.

Then, an ad litem was appointed at the last minute who wanted to make several changes, including adding an addendum. So I spent half a day incorporating all of his changes, and again, submitted the agreement to all parties for final approval. Big Boss told me to ask the other parties to please make any changes they wanted and circulate them among the parties. (They have, so far, been submitting revisions to us and I have been making all changes.)

Within a couple of hours, one of the parties approved the new changes. But I just got an email (cc'd to about 10 people) from another party saying, "We're still reviewing the settlement documents, but you spelled 'Addendum' wrong in the footer of that document, and in paragraph 13 of [65 paragraph document] [one party out of about 17] is referred to as a he rather than a she."

Thank you very much Big Law a-hole. Because you couldn't have included those two mistakes that were admittedly mine in the list of the other changes that needed to be made (although seriously, in a footer with an 8 point font can you even tell the difference between an "n" and an "m"?) God knows I fixed some of your mistakes without advertising it to the world. Or are you just PO'd that we asked you to make your own changes this time?

I am sure to be bitched out on Monday about this. Big Boss will not be happy that I sent out a document with a spelling error.

Sigh--what a way to ruin a perfectly good Sunday afternoon.

P.S. Yes, I get the irony. If you spend any time at all on my blog you will find it riddled with typos. I spend minimal time proofing here. But I swear, I combed those documents. All 60 pages, line by line with a ruler. Guess I missed the footer. And the red squiggly line that Word should have put under my misspelling.

Date night --woohoo!

DH and I rarely ever go out without the kids. Because we work long hours and don't spend a lot of time with the kids during the week, we make it a point to spend a lot of family time together in the evening. And we spend enough on childcare that there is not much that will provoke us to drop another $80 or so on a babysitter so we can go out. Usually when we go out, it's for a concert (I just bought Eagles tix!! Last time it was the Foo Fighters). And we usually catch a couple of hockey games each season.

But tonight we're going to the movies. I can't even tell you the last grown-up movie I saw at a theater. PS was invited to a sleepover party and the twins are going to a Halloween-themed Kid's Night Out at our local gymnastics place. $40 for the twins, but they will have a blast and it's half what we would spend on a sitter.

It'll be nice to have some kid-free time together. (I know DH gets little mention on the blog, but we really do like each other.) Especially because he's taking off for Boston next week, leaving me as a single-parent all week.

I have incestuous gay cats

So we kept two of the male kittens from the litter that we found in the flowerbeds. And they have always been very cozy. Soon after we gave their siblings away, we noticed that Voldy would pin Harley down to suckle his teats. This went on for a couple of weeks. And they groom each other and really like to cuddle.

But this morning, Voldy started, ummm grooming Harley's furry little naughty bits. Which Harley apparently enjoyed--a lot. DH and I were staring in shock when SS walked up and said, "Voldy must have hurt Harley because it looks like he's bleeding!" Yeah, cause Harley's tiny red pecker was out. I wasn't even going there at 7:30 in the morning when we were trying to get ready for our day so I just nodded and agreed, "umm, yeah, I guess he's hurt" and shooed the cats apart.

Is this normal cat behavior? I've never had a pair of cats before. We're pretty tolerant, but I could live without the kitty porn.

The lawyer you don't want to be...

The Chatty Cathy. This is the lawyer who is apparently completely unconcerned about her billables, because she will spend excessively long stretches of time yapping your ear off if given the slightest opportunity. This isn't a friendly co-worker stopping by to say "hi" or to give you the 10 minute run-down on her date last night.

No, the Chatty Cathy parks it in your office and traps you there as she hashes out ever detail of her day--no matter how mundane. Oh--and you never get the chance to get a word in edgewise--its all about her. And she is oblivious to your not-so-subtle hints that she needs to get back to work. Like returning to your reading or typing. You find yourself praying that the phone will ring so that she has to leave, and plotting whether you can reach your Blackberry and email your secretary to call you without her noticing.

Whenever anyone else walks by, you yell out your door, "Oh, hi--were you looking for me--what do you need?" Of course, this random person is clueless unless she, too, has been trapped by the Chatty Cathy. Then the look of pleading in your eyes is all too familiar.

So, my words of wisdom as an almost-second-year lawyer--don't be the Chatty Cathy. Keep the chit-chat short--or make plans for lunch or drinks after work. Even if you may like working until midnight, I prefer to get my billables in during normal working hours. And pay attention to what is going on around you--if I start typing, it means I really don't have time for this right now.

Boss's Day--WTF?

I grabbed a sandwich for lunch and decided to splurge on a cookie from the bakery in the basement of my building. As I approached the line I saw my secretary. I walked up behind her and tried to say something, but she was oblivious to my presence. Before I can catch her attention, she asks the bakery worker--"so what are you going to have available for Boss's day?" I hightail it out of there, before she notices me (I hope) in an effort to avoid an awkward situation.

SO, who the hell came up with this fake wannabe holiday? Is it just intended to create awkwardness? I don't want anything from my secretary and I'm sure not getting anything for my supervising attorneys. No one should be expected to buy gifts for the people they work for.

Life

So posting has been light lately. Partly because life has just gotten busy with PS's gymnastics on Monday nights and TT's football practice on Thursday nights and all those other things that get crammed into a week.

Partly because it's the time of year where allergies are kicking in and my eyes hurt so badly by the end of the day that I want to scratch them and the thought of looking at a computer screen for one more second is pure torture.

Partly because there is a lot of stuff going on that I just can't blog about. Like work. I really wish I could blog more about what lawyer life is like, but a lot of it could be construed as negatively portraying my firm and, well, I'd like to keep my job. I'm anonymous, but not that anonymous and I know that anyone who really wanted to find me could. But I do wish I could give a more accurate portrayal of life as a new lawyer.

One thing I can say is that Big Boss and Partner took me to a swanky restaurant earlier this week to thank me for all the effort I've been putting in lately. We've been getting tons of new cases and I have had to help out quite a bit when one of our attorneys who was pregnant had her baby early. She usually doesn't have any help on her cases, and she hadn't yet briefed anyone on her caseload, so it has been a challenge to get up to speed on cases that I know absolutely nothing about--while trying not to step on her toes or give the impression that I am trying to take over her cases. (She is very quiet, and we don't know each other well.)

But overall, it is going ok--with a little craziness mixed in.

Overheard

The twins just signed up for the chess club, so they dragged out our chess set and decided that they would start practicing.

I heard TT say, "I'll trade you my knight for your king."

"Ok, deal," SS responded.

I said, "I don't really think that's how you play chess."

To which TT replied, "We know, but Daddy won't get off his bottom and come help us because he's lazy."

Oops! It's really hard to lecture your children about being respectful to adults when you are laughing hysterically.

Sucky, sucky, sucky day

Today just sucked. It was one of those days where everything is just off-kilter all day long. It started this morning, when I had to go into the school to drop the girls off and speak to the cranky ladies in the office. Then traffic sucked. Then I got to work, and before I even make it to my office my secretary informs me that I am on the naughty list.

The naughty list is the list that the office accountant sends out to the entire office every week informing us who doesn't have their time in. I am on it about half the time, because my time has to be approved by Partner before it is sent to accounting, and he tends to let it sit on his desk. The end of the month is the most important, because that is when the bills go out.

Of course, Partner had not approved by time, so I was on the list. And Partner was out of town this morning. I called the accountant the second I got to my office to explain the situation. He was a complete and total jackass to me on the phone. He gets this way a lot. Our 60 year old accountant has mood swings like a 14 year old girl. He is known for his pissy moods-but it usually isn't directed at me.

I mean, I would have understood irritation. I get that we are on a tight schedule at the first of the month--but he was really an asshole. A few minutes later Big Boss came in and I asked him to approve my time. In the meantime, Accountant blasted off two more office-wide emails informing everybody that I was the lone holdout in submitting my time. By 9:15 this morning my time was in. I dashed off an email, biting my tongue the whole time, politely telling the accountant that my time had been submitted.

He writes back, "was it approved." And I responded, "No, your temper tantrum terrified me into throwing caution to the wind and submitting my time, to hell with whether it had been approved or not." Then I added, "Of course it has been approved."

30 seconds later the phone rang. Accountant, "I need to know if your time is approved."

"I told you it was approved."

"How was it approved--did you get an email." Ok, he has never ever asked how my time is approved --and it is always approved orally. So now he is basically accusing me of lying. However, Big Boss just happens to be standing outside my office and hears this exchange.

Big Boss says, "Tell him I said your time is approved, it's done, he needs to do the billing."

So I relay that information to Accountant, who huffs, "I don't understand why you are being so ugly to me." To which I respond, "Ditto."

A couple of minutes later he sends another email complaining about my attitude. I didn't respond.

Ok, I'll admit, it was not a shining morning of professionalism. I probably should have kept my mouth shut. The secretaries were glad to see me stand up to him. He treats everybody like crap--but they couldn't get away with standing up to him.

The rest of the day went down hill from there. Big Boss was in the office, and throwing new projects at me all day. One of our attorneys just had her baby a month early, and he is freaking out and handing me her stuff. I'm not sure how happy she is about all this. I don't want to step on her toes, but I can't exactly refuse a project Big Boss hands me, so I am doing my best to copy her on email to keep her in the loop.

Then I made a pretty minor error in a letter to the client. But, as Partner pointed out, sending stuff to this client (who is in-house counsel) is like getting your homework graded. He catches freaking everything. So Partner was mildly irritated with me.

And then one of my kids' teachers won't respond to my notes and emails. And my kids' doctor won't let me take all three kids at once for their checkups (I think this is going to mean a new doctor.) And I'm going to have to go lawyer to get my claim paid from when my car was broken into.

And my glasses broke right across the bridge for no apparent reason. The good news is that they are under a breakage warranty, so it is only $20 to replace them. But while I was at the eyeglass store, I asked about my lenses which have developed these strange spots, where it looks like the lens coating is coming up. They said that for another $10 I could have the lenses replaced. I said that I have no problem paying for the broken frames because they don't know what happened (although, really, they literally just broke apart in my hands while I was cleaning them), but that the problem with the lens coating was clearly a manufacturing defect and I should not have to pay a copay to have them repaired. The huffy sales girl said, "well, I can't make that call--you have to talk to a manager." And then they tried to tell me that the only warranty they offer is the breakage warranty with a co-pay.

Of course I wanted to see this actual "warranty" and they didn't have one in the store. They had to get another store to fax it over. And of course it is not a warranty but a replacement plan, and thus is not intended to cover a manufacturing defect.

The girl said, "Well, this is the only warranty we offer." And I replied (much snottier than necessary), "actually it's not. Under the law, there is an implied warranty offered on all goods unless you specifically disclaim it--which you did not." And of course, I get the "we can't make that call" line again.

So I paid the $20, got new frames, and still don't have the lenses fixed. Yeah, I should have paid the damn $10--and probably would have if I hadn't already been in a royally shitty mood. But I'll take it up with the manager and get the lenses fixed and probably spend $500 worth of lawyer time doing it to save $10. Yeah--I'm totally logical when I'm pissy.

The bright spot in my day--a pair of fabulous red suede heels were sitting with the mail when I got home. So I changed into shorts and a tank top and wore my fabulous heels (they make me feel like Dorothy) around the kitchen while I busted into one of DH's beers and pulled dinner together before DH and the girls got home from football practice.

Thank god tomorrow's Friday. Darn right.

The Talk

Last night we were finishing up dinner when I sent the twins out to get the mail. They were taking longer than I thought they should, so I went to check on them.

TT: "Hey mom, you got a movie."

SS: "We peeked at it."

TT: "It's 'Sex of the City.' That's a funny name for a movie."

SS: "TT, I think you said a bad word."

TT: "Sex isn't a bad word, it means . . ."

Me: "Hey, wait a minute. First, sex isn't a bad word. Second, TT, what do you think sex means?"

TT: "It means when grown-ups love each other."

Me: "Well, not exactly. Remember how we talked about when grown-ups love each other they give each other a special hug, and that's how babies get made? Well, that is called sex."

SS: "Yeah--but how does a hug make a baby?" Clearly they weren't going to let me off easy on this one.

Me: "Well, remember how we talked about girls and boys have different parts?"

TT: "Yeah--girls have a hole and boys have a wiener."

Me: "Umm, yeah. The girls part is called a vagina and the boys part is called a penis. So during the special hug the man puts his penis into the woman's vagina, and that's how a baby gets made."

SS: "Yeah, but how does the baby get in there?" Ok, these kids are really wanting the dots connected.

Me: "Well, the man has this juicy stuff inside his penis that has these little fishy things called sperm, and so the juicy stuff comes out inside the woman's vagina and meets with an egg and then they become a cell that grows and grows until it becomes a baby."

TT & SS: "Ewwwww."

TT: "So the cells just keep making more and more and more--like the germ video that we watched at school? It started with just one and then it kept making more and more and more?"

Me: "Yeah--kinda. The cells just keep multiplying just like with germs." I have now equated a baby with the flu.

TT: "But which part of the baby is made first--the stomach?"

Me: "Sort of. The baby starts out as a blob--so I guess it's kind of like the stomach. But as it keeps growing it starts to grow arms and legs and then fingers and toes. So, do y'all have any more questions."

TT: "What are the girl parts called again?"

I wasn't exactly planning to have this talk with the girls yet. I had had it with PS a while back, but the twins still seem so young. But the opportunity presented itself and they were curious. I would rather they get accurate (ok, semi-accurate) information from me than misinformation from other kids. And they were very open about this and not embarrassed to be talking about it--something I hope will continue as they get older.

DH and PS meanwhile were still lingering at the dinner table. Apparently once they caught wind of our conversation, PS went into the pantry and closed the door because she didn't want to hear it. DH, wasn't about to walk in on the middle of this conversation. He is just relieved that we have all girls and I am the one who gets to deal with this kind of thing.

Oh, and about the movie: I watched it last night and did not really like it. Spoiler alert--stop now if you haven't seen this movie and intend to.







I can't believe Carrie went back to Big after what he did. I mean, even if you aren't sure, you go through with the damn wedding that the whole worked knows about. Get divorced 2 weeks later. Or just don't ever sign the marriage certificate. By the end of the movie, she was blaming herself. Hello--he's an adult and could have put a stop to the big brou-ha-ha well ahead of time if that's not what he wanted. If he didn't care enough about her to not publicly humiliate her, then they had no business getting married in the first place.

Yes, I am insane

I have 9 girls spending the night, in addition to my own three. I am trying to just stay out of the way and let them do their own thing--but provide enough structured activities to keep them from fighting or acting like crazy people.

It is mostly going ok. But after they made sundaes they decided that everyone should try to eat face first (yeah--these are 10 - 11 year olds, I thought they were past this kind of thing) and one managed to get chocolate all over her shirt and now swears that her mom is going to kill her. So I have stain treated it and am washing it, but after the first run-through, it's not looking good.

The pillowcase decorating went much better. There was a lot of talk about boys. Apparently they don't understand why their dads don't like it when they talk about boys ("They were boys once, they should know that we think boys are cute.") And at least two of them have preceded a confession with , "This is a secret and my mom told me not to tell anybody..." So, FYI ladies, your kids will rat you out.

Speaking of... one of the dad's called at 3:30 this afternoon to ask if he could drop his daughter off at 4:00--2 hours before the party. He said he got called in to work and she wouldn't be able to come otherwise. It was no biggie, so I said that was fine. While his daughter was helping decorate I off-handedly said, "so your dad got called in to work, huh?" And she said, "no, not really. Some of his soccer friends just called and wanted him to go to the lake." Oops!

Overall, this group of girls is getting along very well. There are a few that I have not met before, so I was a little concerned. And one of the ones who is supposed to be here didn't show--which may be a good thing because I heard from a couple of sources that she and another girl don't get along. Oh, the drama of being a 10 year old girl.

My car is jinxed

First, it was broken into in my driveway (it is almost always in the garage--a total fluke that it was in the driveway) and DH's fancy HD radio was stolen. Then I got a crack in the windshield coming home from a work trip. Then the driver's side window spontaneously shattered while sitting in my garage overnight. And today, the passenger-side window was busted out and my GPS was stolen.

The Suburban was sitting in the parking garage at work. The one with gates that is supposedly patrolled by security personnel. It looks like someone just took a baseball bat and shoved took a swing at the window. For a freakin' $150 GPS. They didn't touch the fancy radio or the 20 or so CD's in the console. PS's Nintendo DS and our portable GPS that we use for geocaching were in the back, and they are still there, too. Really--how much does a basic GPS get on the black market?

And you would think with the previous break-in that I would have learned my lesson about leaving stuff in the car. I never leave the Suburban on the driveway anymore, and if I am out shopping, I hide the GPS and the radio faceplate in the console. But I guess I felt safe in my security-patrolled parking garage. Ugh!

Every Freakin' Year...

My kids' school, like many schools around the country, have subscribed to the AR reading system. Basically, they test at the beginning of the year to determine their AR reading level. Then they are required to read books on their assigned AR level and take 10 question quizzes which allegedly test their comprehension (I have my doubts). Books are assigned point levels based on their level of difficulty, and kids are encouraged to rack up as many points as possible.

My problem with the AR system is that it limits what the kids are allowed to read. The teachers repeatedly tell my kids that they can only read books on their assigned AR level--and the assigned AR level is always way below what they are actually reading.

I take my kids to the library or bookstore just about every weekend. I know what books they are reading--heck, I can barely keep them in books because they are all speedy readers performing well-above their grade level. (Which means they zip through the books with age-appropriate subject matter in record time.)

And, honestly, I have come to the conclusion that the AR leveling test is completely inaccurate. Because it always puts my kids below the level they are actually on--when all of their standardized testing puts they years above their grade level (although how many years I'll never know because my school won't test more than 2 years out and all of my kids always max out the tests--but that's another battle.)

So again this year, just like every other year since PS started school, I have to go to the teachers and request that my children be allowed to read anything they want. If the subject matter is questionable, I will read the book with them. But I refuse to have my children limited. Some of the teachers have been great on this issue--but with a couple of them, this has been a major battle, which I completely don't understand. I guess we'll see what happens this go 'round.

Parties and Projects

My Sunday is being spent helping the twins with a school project and prepping for PS's upcoming birthday party.

PS really wanted to go to a super-touristy spot that was going to cost a fortune to take even a couple of friends. I told her that if we did that she could only take 2 friends, and it would take all of the money that I budgeted to spend on her birthday, meaning no big presents. On the other hand, she could have a party at home we could come up with some fun stuff, she could invite as many friends as she wants, and there would still be money left over for me to buy her a present.

So we are doing the home party. The girls will be making pizzas and ice cream sundaes and I bought pillowcases and fabric markers to decorate them with. In the end, I'm not sure I've really saved that much over what the touristy place would have cost--but she'll get to have a lot more of her friends over.

I spent two hours creating invitations--vellum over shiny purple card stock, tied together with sparkly purple ribbon and dotted with star-shaped gemstones. For some reason, I am always compelled to make fantastic homemade invitations. I simply can't bring myself to buy them or print them on the computer. These were actually really simple put together--I've put in much more effort in years past--but they look really nice.

The twins' school project is driving me insane. I HATE school projects--because it always means work for me, although I have really tried to let go of my control-freakishness, and let the kids do the bulk of the work. Unfortunately, my kids are not especially driven and will not put forth their best effort if I am not hovering nearby. TT finally did a pretty good job on hers, after I helped just a bit, but SS's project is really half-assed.

Sigh--I just want her to get her stuff done so that I don't have to deal with it anymore.

The time has come to sink or swim.

We have depositions coming up in one of our not-so-big cases. There are 5 plaintiffs and we are doing them all in one day. Partner told me a couple of weeks ago that I would sit in on all of the depositions, watch him do the first few and then do the last couple myself. Woo-hoo! I have never done a deposition before, and it was a milestone I was hoping to pass before my first-year-as-a-lawyer has ended. (Yeah, I know that for all you experienced lawyers depositions suck, take forever and are boring.) This seemed like a really good way to get me started.

Today, Partner informed me that I would be doing all of the depositions on Wednesday and that he won't be there.

As I mentioned before, I have never done a deposition. I have never even sat in on a deposition (except for when I was deposed when I was 16 and got sued for a car wreck). My only experience comes from reading (way too many) deposition transcripts.

Now, it won't totally be all on me--we have a co-defendant with whom we are pretty much aligned and they will take the lead. Except the co-defendant has only been on this case for about 2 months, and definitely don't have the familiarity with it that I have. (I know this because they call me all the time to ask me stuff about it.)

I know I can handle it. I just hope I don't make myself look like an idiot. Or that opposing counsel doesn't pick up on my baby lawyerness and try to take advantage of it.

Feeling Crappy

I had my endometrial ablation today. Accounts on the internet had led me to believe that this would be an easy breezy procedure and that I would be feeling great by dinner-time.

Not so much.

I am much crampier than I anticipated. I had a D&C following a miscarriage a few years ago, and asked the doctor if recovery would be similar. He responded that cramping was generally worse following a miscarriage and D&C than after this procedure. But I don't really remember having any cramping after the D&C, and I do remember feeling really well morning after (it surprised me because I am always really, really sick when I am pregnant and I was shocked at how quickly the nausea went away once I was no longer pregnant.) This is early-labor type cramping--except that it is constant rather than appearing every 5 minutes or so.

I'm also quite nauseated--probably from taking morphine on an empty stomach. But that's kind of a catch-22.

Here's hoping this all sorts itself overnight, because TT has her first football game in the morning, and I really want to be there for Mommy support.

What the heck?

If you read my blog with any regularity you'll note that its pretty apolitical. I am generally apathetic about politics--mostly because I never like the choices. I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal, which means I don't fit neatly within either party. This year has been no different. Obama just doesn't sit quite right but McCain is becoming increasingly distasteful.

But I was so excited about the Palin pick. It is great to see a woman on the ticket--a working mom no less. I wasn't even bothered about her lack of experience. I'm pretty freakin' sick of old, rich, white men running our country (and law firms). They sure as hell haven't been dong a fabulous job. So maybe someone who hasn't been entrenched in our political system would be better than someone with 20 years' experience screwing it up. (But make no mistake, I would vote for no one based on their gender. There is no chance Hillary would have gotten my vote.)

But I'll admit that the pregnant teenager has given me pause. I mean--I get that stuff happens with teens. I have 3 daughters, my biggest fear is that one of my daughters will be a parent before she is ready. And I don't think that Palin's daughter's circumstances are a reflection on her mother. Teen pregnancy strikes across socio-economic borders and happens no matter how great the teen's parents are.

But I question Palin's judgment in agreeing to all this, knowing full well that it would throw her child's very personal life into the limelight. Yes, she has been presented with the opportunity of a lifetime--but is it worth handing her child to the wolves? (BTW, I think Obama has handled this very well.) And I question McCain's judgment in thinking this would be no big deal (especially if the news is released when a hurricane is going on, so hopefully no one will notice.) This feels like another Harriet Miers-style debacle.

And it just seems a little too right-wing conservative that the happy teenage couple are now planning to marry. Because if one of my daughters were to become a teenage mom, the last thing I would want her to do is compound her problems by marrying "because it's the right thing to do."

PSA - Watch out for your kiddos on your outdoor playsets

Much has been made on the news this summer about the heat that can gather in playground equipment. I had kept the girls indoors during the extreme heat, but yesterday morning, I wasn't even thinking about anything happening.

PS's BFF got about a 2" square burn on her lower back/butt when she was over here yesterday --from going down the slide in my backyard!! She was wearing thin pajama shorts and it went all the way her shorts. And it was still fairly early in the day--temps here usually peak around 3-5 p.m.

I asked if she was sure it wasn't a scrape, but she really thought it was a burn, and her mom, who is a nurse, also thinks it is a burn.

This is the slide that we have (not my kid, taken from the manufacturer's site.) It is a dark green plastic-type slide--this was not a metal slide that burned her!

Anyway, just wanted to post this because I know I have at least 2 readers who live semi-near me where temperatures are similar. (I think you know who you are!) Be sure to watch out for your kiddos. This happened to an almost 11-year-old girl. I would really hate to see it happen to a much younger child who might not be able to react as quickly.

Sometimes I feel like my life is a sitcom

Like yesterday. I was in the Dr.'s office, located in the hospital, when the fire alarms started going off. They said, "no big deal, this happens all the time," and I was sent downstairs for blood work. About the time I got done there, the alarms quit sounding. But apparently they closed all the doors in all of the hallways as some kind of safety measure while the alarms were sounding. So the whole area was now completely unfamiliar. I got totally turned around and could not find my way back to the underground parking lot. I ended up in the basement of a totally different wing of the hospital--down where all the control rooms are. Finally a helpful guy leads me back to an elevator, where another very helpful (and extremely tall) guy in scrubs leads me back upstairs, through a restricted area and back to the general area where I came in.

Except I still couldn't get out of the building. There was a vestibule to go through, but then there was a big metal curtain preventing you from actually exiting the building. (Which makes total sense with all the fire alarms going off.) I finally took another elevator back upstairs, found the ground level parking lot, and managed to find an outside staircase back down to the underground garage. I thought I'd never get out of there.

Then today...
The two kittens that we kept have developed a weird skin disease. They look like the have stigmata, with red gunk leaking from their eyes. We have been in the vet's office each of the last 3 weeks. They are negative for ringworm, but the vet said they have cat herpes. (Apparently this is a fairly common cat condition, and not transmitted to people.) We were given $50 worth of cat antibiotics which have done absolutely nothing. This week they are trying to grow cultures to see of its fungal or viral. Or it could be an allergy. Yes, it's true, there is no such thing as a free animal. Thank goodness this condition didn't show up when we had 7 cats. (And, fortunately, one of the cats we gave away was to a girl in the vets office, and she said her cat has no signs of this.)

But anyway, it was about 15 minutes before the vet appointment, and the cats disappeared. All five of us are searching the house, under beds, in closets. Yelling, hoping to wake them if they are sleeping somewhere. Carrying around a can of food hoping to lure them. Five minutes after our scheduled appointment, TT finally finds the kittens hiding under my dresser (we had already looked there, but must have missed them.) And they will not come out. Guess they heard they were going to the vet. DH finally has to pull the entire dresser out to get to the kitties and haul them to the vet.

I have never lost Bob in the house before, but this is the second time this week we have lost the cats.

I just have to say...

that I L-O-V-E that McCain picked a working mom of 5. I haven't read too much about her yet and know little about her politics, but I am still excited to see her on the ticket. (Ok, maybe partly because my redneck relatives will be forced to vote for a woman 'cause there's no way in heck they are voting for a black man with the middle name of--well, I think we all know by know. )

But she is going to have a lot of juggling to do. It is hard for me to balance 3 kids and a high-pressure job with long hours. I can't imagine balancing 5, including a special needs infant while on the campaign trail--or as VP. But I'm sure she can manage, and I look forward to reading more about how she does it all.

Go working moms!