It's Raining So Hard

It was pitch black and pouring down rain when I woke up this morning. Before yesterday, Durham only had 66 days of water supply left. This rain won't change that (although it may fool some people into thinking they don't need to conserve), but it is refreshing.
So, in honor of the rain, here's my favorite raining song.
Irma Thomas singing "It's Raining"

I Hear That Lonesome Whistle

Last night my bargaining paid off and I had absolutely no new work to complete for class today. I spent a few hours starting some review work (more bargaining) and spent the rest of the night relaxing.

After going out to dinner, Brandon and I came home and watched "Hustle and Flow." I hadn't seen the movie since it came out, and really enjoyed it the second time. From the reaction of one of my fellow students today (an amused laugh, on par with what you might expect if I had said I had watched "The Fast and the Furious") when I mentioned I had watched the movie last night, I assume that to the rest of the country it is a decent, entertaining genre film.

To someone from Memphis, love it or hate it, the film carries much more weight. I remember the fury in Wendi Thomas' response when it first came out, blasting it for how it represented Memphis to the rest of the world. And later, when she and Brewer met and talked, it was practically treated as a summit between diplomats, two of the major voices representing Memphis to the world.

I stand on the love-it side of the fence. I think the film peers hard and long into the despair that many people want to gloss over and finds a fairy tale of hope. I could delve into this more. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would spend plenty of time discussing or arguing this with me. (Oh, how I miss you Drinking Liberally of Memphis). But it isn't what I really wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about the train.

Of course, it was fun, watching the movie, to see Memphis in the background. It was fun to see Vance Grocery, the tiniest flash of Beale Street, quite a bit of Lamar and Brooks. It was fun to speculate whether or not the church was Calvary and to reminisce about the Poplar Lounge. But the movie didn't make me miss Memphis too much until I heard the train.

Early in the movie, during a transition, the sound of the train rolled across the scene and punched me in the gut.

When I moved to Dallas, I the landscape felt lonely to me in a way Chicago never had. I couldn't pin it down until I came home to visit in the spring. I missed the trees on the horizon. It felt lonely without them.

In Durham, there is no loneliness for lack of trees. The trees surround the city in a bear-hug of greens and (right now) ambers and reds. Durham has the normal sounds of small city, but it lacks the bass notes of Memphis, the trains, the airplanes, the low rumbling background. Memphis has wrapped itself around the train and laid itself under the FedEx flight path and incorporated it, often without even noticing, into every aspect of life. I miss the boxcar graffiti each morning taking Southern Ave to work, the way a long train in East Memphis equalizes everyone traveling the roads, the way my mind would listen to the sound distant in the background of my evening.

Trading Time

One of the tricky things about getting all of this work done is the inevitable failure of trying to trade ahead for time. No matter how well you plan, how certain you are that you have gotten just a few hours ahead, something unexpected always zooms in to fill the gap.

For example, last night I did all of my work for today and, since I knew that my Property class reading would carry through Thursday (leaving me one less class to work for tonight) I started organizing my Contracts notes. This should have left me with only two subjects to cover tonight and enough time to either continue my Contracts review, get ahead for one of Friday's classes or meet Brandon and friends out for dinner.

What actually happened was that my Property professor had mistakenly allotted two days to the assignment that he finished in only one. Even though the schedule said that the next assignment would be covered in Friday's class, he finished the previous topic today, apologized and asked that we complete the next assignment for tomorrow (Thursday) instead. Great . . . so much for that extra time I had planned for.

I won't bore you with the other two or three little incidents that popped up to eat up 30 min here and there, but I can assure you that every minute counts. Today I had a total of 3.5 hours of class. I know that it doesn't sound like much, but it is a full day. Each of my classes had an extra long assignment tonight, so all-in-all I did 7.5 hours of homework. That's an 11 hour day already. You should also factor in that I get up an hour early each morning to work out so I don't develop a law student physique and that I tutor for an hour on Wednesdays. So, before you even factor in time to eat, shower, drive to and from school, or possibly talk to my husband for more than 5 consecutive minutes, I have already had a 13 hour day.

I'm not complaining. I knew it would be like this and I signed up for it anyway. I'm absolutely loving it. I just wanted to give a little perspective on how I manage my time right now, minute by minute. Most days aren't quite so intense. Today was an extra full day. And even today, I traded some of my time for more time tomorrow. I could have left some of my classwork to finish tomorrow between classes, but I did it all tonight, bargaining for a little extra time tomorrow night when I might start some review, get ahead, or just have time to eat dinner with my husband.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I will only be a reckless twenty-something for six and a half more hours. Well, since I was born in Memphis, and I'm an hour ahead of the Central time zone, perhaps I will be a reckless twenty-something for seven and a half more hours.

Regardless, tomorrow is my birthday!


Hooray!

If you are reading this, then you probably know me well enough to know that I practically consider my birthday a national holiday.

And this . . . this is my thirtieth birthday, three decades on this earth.

Sometimes when I make a big deal out of being excited about my birthday people give me an uncomfortable, half-embarrassed, tolerant look, the kind of look you might give someone who is bragging a bit too much about something great they did. I understand where this is coming from for these people, but I think it is wrong. I guess they see celebrating your own birthday as akin to celebrating how great it is for the rest of the world that you were born. That would certainly be a little braggartly and uncomfortable. But that is not what I'm celebrating, and I feel sorry for these birthday-impoverished folks.

To me, my celebrating my birthday is celebrating how thrilled and grateful I am to have been born, to get a chance to live and grow and change. I try to remember to be grateful for life everyday, but it is really easy to get caught up in the daily dramas. So tomorrow, if you talk to me, and I sound like I am just bursting with happiness that it is my birthday, I am. I am proud to exist, and excited to interact with the world, and grateful for how lucky and joy-filled my life has been thus far. I am leaping into thirty and into my thirties with excitement and anticipation. That is quite a lot to celebrate.

Happy Birthday to me!

Doggie Trauma

I an really not interested in doing my Legal Writing homework right now. Instead, I'm going to tell you about the extra excitement we've had here this weekend.

Brandon's sister Chelsea was in town Thursday night for work, so she stayed the weekend to visit. On Friday, Brandon was working, so I picked her up and we ran to Chapel Hill so I could get my hair cut. The Aveda Institute is wonderful and very, very affordable. They even give you a mini facial when they do your shampoo. Next weekend I'm going back to get my hair colored. My appointment is going to be on my birthday, and when I told Clarissa, the stylist, she wrote it down so she could remember to bake something for me! I think it would be a little crazy if she actually did, but you all know how much I love my birthday, so I wouldn't turn it down. Anyway, Chelsea hung out while I got my hair cut; then we headed home to meet up with Brandon.

After giving the tour of the new house, we were all sitting around catching up and talking about where we'd go to dinner. Brandon was petting Maddie and happened to notice that she had been chewing at her tail. Maddie is a pretty rough and tumble pup. She gets little nicks and scrapes all the time. It is usually no big deal, but she wouldn't let us anywhere near this one. I had to hold her down while Brandon looked at it, and even then he could only tell that it was dark and looked bloody. She would walk two steps, stop, chew at her tail, walk two more steps and then stop again. It was only4:30, so we called the vet, and they said to bring her in just in case.

Maddie and I got the vet and waited a while. Maddie's a really friendly dog, and she loves everyone at the vet's. So, we talked to the receptionist, met a couple of other dogs coming in and out, and waited. When they took us into the exam room, they lifted her on the table. They held her still to look at the tail and said that it might be a spider bite. They sent me out front to wait and took her in the back to give her a shot for the pain and to shave her tail. I could hear her crying while I waited.

They came out and told me that it was probably a spider bite, possibly a brown recluse. It had probably only happened that morning or the night before, and she'd been chewing at it and making it worse. The center had a big section of necrotic skin, skin that had died from the venom. (I won't link you to pictures of brown recluse bites or necrotic skin because they are is pretty gruesome. Go look them up, if you're curious.) She said that, since the bites usually necrotise down into the body instead of out to the surrounding skin, and there isn't far down to go in the tail area, the wound had probably already hit nerve, which was why Maddie was in such sever pain. They brought her back out front, and she couldn't move her tail without crying. Even after the painkiller shot, just the movement of air on the wound was hurting her. They fit her with a cone collar and sent us home with two doggie pain prescriptions and a strong antibiotic. The cone is to keep her from chewing at it and making it worse. The vet told me that she had seen dogs who had chewed their tails completely off from something like this.

Maddie cried off and on most of the night on Friday as the pain medication kicked in and wore off. By yesterday, she was much better. She seemed more bothered by the cone than the wound. Today, she is even better, but the wound still looks terrible. I need to clean the it, but I have to wait for Brandon to get home; she still won't let me near it.

Here's a picture of Maddie being cute in her satellite cone. Below that I'll post a picture of the wound, so don't scroll past the first picture if you don't want to see it.









Pictures of the nectotizing spider bite wound below.



You've been warned.

Lacking Perspective

Lately, my eyes have been excruciatingly tired by the end of each day. Law school isn't a good time to not take care of your eyes, so yesterday I went to the eye doctor to have my glasses checked. The doctor first took my glasses to measure the lenses and determine the current prescription. He checked the left lens and said, "Huh, there is nothing in this one." No big deal. I know that I have one near-sighted eye and one far-sighted eye, and I didn't remember what my prescription had been in January. So, then he checked the right lens and said "Hmm, nothing in this one either." He checked the lenses on two different machines and had the lab tech check them too. Nothing in either lens but the anti-reflective coating.

That's right, for the last 9 months, I have been wearing FAKE GLASSES.

The old prescription wasn't that strong, so it isn't that unbelievable that I didn't realize it. I had gone without them for a week while they changed the lenses. I can't explain how horrified, angry and embarrassed I was. The poor optometrist was really nice about the whole thing. He said he'd seen glasses before that weren't the prescription that they were supposed to be, but they had never seen a pair that just didn't have anything.

Today, I went and picked up my old glasses with my new lenses. It was an incredible transformation. I have been living in a haze for nine months.

The woman who fit my glasses when I picked them up today laughed but said it wasn't the worst she'd seen. She once helped a woman who had been wearing glasses for a year with the bifocal lenses upside down .

Resumed Innocence

One of the public interest extracurriculars available to join at Duke is the Innocence Project, the organization of students, teachers and legal advisers that work to overturn wrongful convictions. When I mentioned this to Brandon he said something along the lines of, "Oh, that's great. So you're going to work on that, right?" Right. How could I not. It is right up my bleeding-heart alley. I do believe there are people in our prison system who have been wrongly convicted of crimes the didn't commit. I don't think there are enough people out there fighting for justice in their cases.

Today I went to the first informational meeting about working on the Innocence Project. They have been careful to tailor categories of work so that each student can offer as much or as little of a commitment as she feels she can handle. I'm definitely in. (Now, don't worry, this will build on and enhance my law school experience, not take time away from it.)

This morning, due to some very long term work of Duke Law students and some dedicated (Duke alumni) council Dwayne Allen Dail has been given back his freedom. Eighteen years ago he was falsely convicted of raping a twelve year old girl. Last week the evidence from the trial, which had been "lost" for eighteen years, showed up when an officer retired. One account in the news says that the box was mistakenly stashed away in a corner of his office. Another article says that a pair of officers found it while cleaning out a storage room. Completely unconfirmed accounts said something about a motorcycle shed at the officer's home. Regardless of why the evidence was missing for 18 years, it contained DNA evidence that conclusively cleared Dail.

Foodie Tendencies

I had all of these tiny pear-shaped yellow tomatoes that I bought last week at the farmers market. They were about to start getting a little mushy, so I thought I should have them for lunch today. I decided to chop them up in a bowl with some mozzarella and throw in some salmon I had left over from dinner last night. After chopping the tomatoes, adding the mozzarella and a little pesto, I remembered listening to The Splendid Table one day when Lynne Rossetto Kasper was talking about stale bread. She suggested chopping it up and throwing it in with some tomatoes and mozzarella for a yummy summer salad. I chopped up the heel end of some sun dried tomato basil bread and threw in. It's a dense bread, so it didn't get too soggy. It just soaked up all that tomato juice. It was so good that I left out the salmon.

Ok, back to Property reading. Today's property question: Who owns the moon? I tried Google to see what was out there and found out that this band thinks that America does. For now they are the soundtrack to my property reading.

Assigned Inspiration

My Civil Procedures professor has us reading Storming the Court: How a Band of Law Students Fought the President - and Won by Brandt Goldstein. The book is fairly light reading (especially in comparison with my Contracts casebook). She has us reading it because she is a bleeding-heart-liberal (her words, not mine), which, of course, I love, and because much of the book hinges on key moments of procedure. It helps you learn and appreciate their importance just as when reading Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air you learn and appreciate some of the pivotal elements of technical climbing. Now, don't worry Mom and Dad, she has us reading plenty of weighty papers and cases to make sure we understand it all in depth. This is just to charge us up and give it some inspiring context.

In addition to being a fascinating and inspiring read about some very determined law students and lawyers, it is incredibly relevant to many current and (if we continue down this foreign policy path) many future political situations. It particular it deals with the legal rights of non-citizens under US care on foreign soil that is fully under US Military control. In other words, it hinges on how the US can and cannot treat non-citizens being held, against their will, at Guantanamo and whether or not the US president has the right to make the decision to override established law. The non-citizens in this situation are Haitian refugees fleeing a political coup not Middle Eastern detainees, and the US president is Bush Sr. not Bush Jr.

I promise not to recommend that you read anything else I'm reading here this semester (unless you are suffering from insomnia), but you should pick this up. Make it your last summer read.

Hey. Just a quick check in before I run off to school. Today is the last day of the first week. Yesterday, Professor Fisk (CivPro) asked us how long it felt like we'd been in law school. There was a fairly unanimous answer of weeks.

It has been an intense week. The workload is everything that was promised by all of the law school lore. Fortunately, the lore-promised cut-throat atmosphere of competition does not exist here. Everyone is friendly, helpful and intelligent. Duke does grade on a curve, so we'll see how that helpfulness changes the closer we get to exam time. I don't think it will.

I have managed to get up at 6am every day this week and fit a workout in before class. I'm pretty tired, but I think I need to work on getting to bed earlier rather than sacrificing that workout time. I have a feeling it will help keep me going.

Well, I'm not making that much sense so far this morning. Doesn't bode well for CivPro. (kidding)

Stolen Study Moment Update

I am taking a short break from my work before I start working on my Legal Writing assignment. I have been working since 5:30 with only short breaks to get more water, heat up dinner, etc. It is 9:45 now and I am almost done. Luckily I worked a lot on Contracts this weekend or I would still have more of that to read.

Class today was interesting and exciting. I felt comfortable participating in the discussions, but not sure how I should be taking notes so that they will be useful later. I was surprised at first that taking notes on my laptop was so natural and comfortable. Then I realized how terrible my handwriting is and how much better I am at typing.

I was too awake to fall asleep when I should have gone to bed last night, so I ended up getting to bed later than I wanted. Falling asleep will not be a problem tonight. I am determined not to sacrifice my morning workouts to sleep. If I am too tired, I will just have to figure out a way to get my work done earlier.

I have a couple of hour-long blocks of time during the day tomorrow. I think I will sacrifice this time to getting some more Contracts reading done so that I can continue to stay on top of that without adding it to my nightly reading. We'll see how that works out.

First Week

Sorry I haven't posted anything all week. They have been keeping us really busy. We've had about a hundred different lectures on ethics, panels on leadership, lunch discussions about professionalism and field trips about community service. So far, we've taken the Professionalism Pledge, the Honor Code Pledge, the Pro Bono Pledge (happy to do that one) and the Legal Writing Pledge (seriously). They are a little pledge happy here.

Yesterday morning I attended the Pro Bono Panel. There are so many incredible opportunities. The master list of pro bono work opportunities available is 79 pages long! Luckily the Dean of the Public Interest and Pro Bono Programs will sit down with you one-on-one, interview you about your experience, goals and interests, and make suggestions about what work might be the most rewarding and instructive. I am itching to get involved with the Innocence Project, and I hope I can give some time to more than one thing.

After that panel, we had a presentation by Darryl Hunt and his attorney Mark Rabil. His story is amazing not only for the horror of the 20+ years he spent in prison but mostly for his incredible determination to move with his experience into the future to help other people and his refusal to dwell on the tragedy of what was done to him. If it sounds familiar, you may have seen the documentary The Trials of Darryl Hunt which should be released on DVD soon and back on HBO later this fall. I've only seen exerpts, so I'll be watching for it.

Today we had our first class, a legal writing class. We have another legal writing class tomorrow and then all of our classes start next week. I worked for a few hours tonight on my assignment for tomorrow's class. When I finally had it done really well, I couldn't get it to print. Brandon spent about half an hour looking at it for me and finally figured out that it was some sort of issue with the Duke network having reset my IP address. All is fixed now.

On a final note, tonight is the 2 year anniversary of Drinking Liberally of Memphis. I know they are celebrating in style. Happy Birthday, guys!

Antici . . . pation

Sorry about the goofy Rocky Horror reference.

Orientation week starts tomorrow. I am crazed with anticipation. I keep checking the online course announcement program, Blackboard, to see if any more of my classes have posted announcements or initial assignments. I keep rethinking the Jones-Clinton-Ferguson brief, but not actually settling down to work on it again. I have had the Lawyer Education And Development (LEAD) packet on Where Do you Draw the Line: Ethics and Professionalism Hypotheticals sitting in front of me for the last 30 min. It is full of these little moral and ethical quandaries the we are supposed to contemplate for discussion at the ethics panel tomorrow. I just can't bring myself to read the little morality lessons again.

Real class work doesn't start until next week. Well, except for our Legal Research and Writing class which starts on Thursday.

I have my daytime outfit (business casual is suggested) picked out for tomorrow's daytime events. I have tried on my suit and found the right shirt for the Student & Faculty Reception tomorrow night at the Nasher Museum of Art.

Yesterday we (Brandon) installed a new door in the bedroom so that we could put in a dog door. Now I won't feel worried and guilty about leaving them at home all day.

A few minutes ago Brandon suggested that we go see a movie this afternoon. I think it is an excellent idea. I'm sure I'll be a nut this evening.

Let the games begin.

A Whirlwind Time

Since Mom went home it has just been a whirlwind. On Tuesday after she left we drove 4 hours up to IKEA and bought ridiculously cheap Scandanavian furniture. We now actually have somewhere to sit and eat dinner.

Our friend Jaime, who lives only a few hours away now, came down to visit for the weekend. I don't have any pictures of that, but we had a great time.

This week I got my class schedule. It doesn't seem too bad. I'll start at 8:30 each morning, be done by 3:30 Mon-Thurs and by 12:00 on Friday.

I went on Wednesday and bought my books. I got a couple of decent used books, but most of them were only available new. My Contracts prof requires four large books, while the other sections are only buying one and two. Oh, and this may not mean anything to you, but there are no study-aids that follow my Civil Procedure text. CivPro is supposed to be realy hard. It just means I will have to work at it that much harder.

I also worked on our orientation assignment case brief this week. Paula Corbin Jones v. William Jefferson Clinton in an Arkansas US District Court. It was very entertaining. Here's an exerpt:

While the Court will certainly agree that plaintiff's allegations describe offensive conduct, the Court, as previously noted, has found that the Governor's alleged conduct does not constitute sexual assualt. Rather, the conduct as alleged by plaintiff describes a mere sexual proposition or encounter, albeit an odious one, that was relatively brief in duration, did not involve any coercion or threats of reprisal and was abandoned as soon as plaintiff made clear that the advance was not welcome.

The phrase "albeit and odious one" just cracked me up.

Arrrrghhh . . . Pirates

Well, so much has been going on, and so much is about to be going on that I don't think I'll ever get back to blog about Mom and my wonderful trip to Beaufort and New Bern. But here are some of the pictures we took.
This was the view out of our hotel window in Beaufort. The town is on more of an inlet than on the ocean, but it was beautiful.

This is the view off the main boardwalk in town. There were big beautiful boat all over the place. The strip of land you can see to the left in the photo is called Carrot Island. There is a small herd of wild horses that live over there. Just past Carrot Island is a larger island whose name I can't remember. On that island there is a large herd of wild Mustangs descended from the horses who were pushed off of the Spanish ships in a storm to lighten the load.
This is our tourguide on the Blackbeard tour of Beaufort. It was a blast. I think Mom and I were the only ones there without small children in tow.
This is a photograph of Blackbeard's house, the Hammock House. It was one of many houses he owned in port towns up and down the coast. At the time the water came much further into shore, and at high tide you could row a skiff right up to the front steps. If you have ever heard the story about Blackbeard's less than willing 13th wife, this is the house he left her in. The house is a private residence, so I couldn't get a good picture of the enormous tree in the back yard from which he hung the unfortunate girl.
On our way back, Mom and I stopped for a look at the crashing waves of the ocean at Atlantic Beach. It was hot outside, so we didn't stay too long, but I got this nice shot of the boardwalk.

Zombie Rights

I finally ordered my Memphis Zombie Massacre t-shirt. I plan on wearing to school whenever we cover the issue of Undead Rights.

Just because you rise from your grave to feast on human flesh doesn't mean you aren't an American citizen, you know.

Got Him

Bishop, our Boarder Collie mix, is incredibly difficult to photograph. His shiny black fur is like dark matter in the realm of photography. He usually comes out looking like a funny black shape with two really bright eyes. Yesterday, while Brandon was hanging the new wall cabinets in our dining room (more about that later) I got down really close and got this photo with my phone. It captures him perfectly.

Mom's Visit Part II

On Wednesday of last week, Mom and I went to check out the law school. So, here is a picture of me in front of my new, law school home at Duke.

After that we went over to the Sarah P. Duke Gardens. The Gardens are located on the Duke campus free and open to the public. The picture above is of the fountain at the entrance building.

The gardens cover 55 acres, so we certainly didn't see all of it. We spent most of our time in the Terrace Gardens with rows of terraced plants leading to a pond of water lilies.

I took all of these photos with my phone, so the resolution isn't very high, but they came out pretty well.

Many of the plants in the terraced gardens are flowers and plants you could find down at your local Home Depot, but the overall effect was amazing.

It was fun to walk along and see the funny tall shrubs that we have in front of our house and learn that they are a Japanese Holly with the common name "Sky Pencil."

We walked back through the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum which was serene and lovely. Mom is actually off to the right in this picture. She would probably fly back to NC and kill me if I put a picture of her up here, so I cropped it.

The truth of the visit is that we only went to the gardens was because I had read that there was a cafe and thought it would be a nice place to have lunch. Once we got there we discovered that the cafe (really more of a sandwich kiosk) was deep in the Terrace Garden, so we went. It was a lovely accident.

Mom's Visit Part I

Mom left for home this morning and should be safely home by now. It was a great visit. We did so much in just a few days that it might take me a few posts to cover it all.

She got here on Tuesday afternoon. We spent all afternoon showing off the house and all of the things we had been working on. It is funny having this blog, because she already had a context for so much.

For dinner we just made some pasta with the recently mentioned pesto and opened a bottle of wine. The best part of the day was just getting to spend some low key time doing a lot of nothing together. After dinner, Brandon went out to the garage for a while, and Mom and I just sat in the living room reading our Harry Potter books.

Bright Height

One of the things I love about our new house is how open and bright it is all the time. We have so much sunlight pouring in the windows and skylights in the living room that we hardly use any lights until it is fully dark outside.

The upstairs hallway is open to the living room which makes the living room feel enormously tall and the house feel very open. It also makes the dogs very confused when we throw a toy from down in the living room up to the upstairs hallway. The dogs have figured out to look up when we call them from upstairs, (dogs can look up) but they haven't quite figured out how to get where we are or where the toy goes when it disappears over the ledge.
















Here's a picture of our living room from above featuring Mme. Maddie posing for the camera. M. Bishop is, as usual, absent from the photo.

Yummy Saturday

I promise this won't become a foodie blog, but I went back to the farmer's market this morning. I know. I know. I've already mentioned it about a million times. Anyway, I bought some more of that wonderful locally made cheese, a huge tomato and a bunch of other things. The tomato was so juicy that it made an actual puddle on my cutting board when I sliced it. I stopped by one stand with the most amazing smelling basil to buy some to go with my tomato. I was literally drawn to the stand by my nose. It was $1.25 for a bag of basil. I was picturing one or two sprigs of basil in a bag. I was wrong. It was a lot of basil. So, when I got home, I decided to make pesto. I've never made it before, but I had olive oil, tons of basil, walnuts and fresh garlic. It was surprisingly easy to make it in my little chopper. I added some honey, so there is a little sweetness to the savory taste.

I only kept a couple of ounces of pesto to put in the fridge. For the rest, I lined an ice cube tray with saran wrap and spooned some pesto in to make little frozen pesto cubes. Once they are frozen, I'll dump them in a freezer bag. We can just defrost them whenever we want. They should last for months and months.

The first picture is of the lunch I just ate. Toasted sourdough, cheese, tomatoes and pesto. Mmmmm. The second photo is a tiny cell phone shot of the baker's rack we got for the kitchen. It's a little more loaded down now, but I love how sleek and shiny it looks. It really closes the U-shaped kitchen area in and makes it feel like more a room and less of a pass through.

Off to work on the closet!

It ended up that my sweet little Scion was "scared straight" by the prospect of being sent to the mechanics. They called around noon to say that they had finished the required state inspections but had not been able to find anything wrong with the window. It had been rolling up and down with no protest ever since I dropped it off. Ack! Well, at least it is working now.

When we dropped him off this morning we walked over and looked at the new Scion XB design. Ugh. It is hideous. What a dissapointment. They took a bold, efficient, inexpensive vehicle and made is less bold, less efficent (8 mpg increase), and more expensive. Well, it should make my little black one a classic if I can keep it in shape and remember to wash it every now and then.

After we picked up my car, we went to Linens and Things and bought towels and a shower curtain for the guest bathroom since my mom is coming next week (hi mom!). They look nice. I spent the rest of the day squeezing every last dish and appliance into our new kitchen. I'm almost done with it. Right now, from the couch, I can count 7 more empty boxes laying on the floor.

Today, a friend of mine (hi J) told me that I reminded her of the Vince Vaughn character from the movie Old School, the part when he says

"Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we're um, we're gonna go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed Bath And Beyond, I don't know. I Don't know if we'll have enough time."

She's absolutely right. We're a little ridiculous right now.

Yawn

Eight o'clock in the morning is not why I love coffee, but why I drink it so regularly.

Hopefully my car will be healthier in a few hours.

The Hills Are Alive With the Groans of Gear Shifts

I just got back from a bike ride. It is beautiful here, and the hills were kicking my out-of-shape butt. I lasted about half an hour, but I was pushing my self pretty hard and got a little over heated. The water bottle I was using was pretty crappy; I'm certain I wasn't drinking enough water. So, I just ordered two good water bottles from Nashbar.

Today, we go back to the DMV for my motorcycle test. But first we go register the vehicles and get NC tags. It won't be much fun, but we have to get it done.

Last night I made the fresh green beans that we bought at the farmer's market last week with some jasmine rice. It was so yummy and easy. Hmmm. I think the bike ride made me a little hungry. Haven't eaten yet today. I'm trying to pay better attention and wait until my stomach growls (hi mom) instead of just eating whenever it is a societally designated meal time. All part of trying to establish good habits before law school. I'm definitely going back to the farmer's market again on Saturday.

My scion has suddenly developed a paralysis in the rear passenger side window. Luckily he's still under warranty, so I'm trying to set up an appointment with the local Scion dealership. I keep getting put on hold to talk to the service advisor, but he/she just won't pick up. So, someone else answers my call; I explain the situation; they are very nice about it, and then they all say, "Let me transfer you to a service advisor." Ha! I finally got to talk to someone and the scion is going in for a check up tomorrow morning.

A Glimpse

This is my reading corner with my new extravagant futon pillow chair. I'll take more pictures eventually. Everything is still in stacks and piles and boxes. But I could see this from where I'm sitting at my desk, so I thought I'd share it.

Yesterday was pretty busy. I've been trying to get up and work out every morning for an hour so that my body gets accustomed to it before school starts. I'm going to have to make exercise an intentional part of my schedule once classes start. Law school is notoriously bad for the eyes and the hips. So that was the first part of my day. I feel like I'm cheating a bit, because it's so much easier to stick with it when I don't have a schedule.

While I was working out Brandon found a job listing posted on Artsearch with a company in Raleigh that would be great for him. So we spent the next hour working on a cover letter and sending that off. By last night, he had already gotten an email back from the guy saying that he had received Brandon's resume and that they would be accepting resumes through the end of the month. The job doesn't start until September, but it pays well and would probably be a great fit. Keep your fingers crossed on this one.

After that we decided to find the DMV and get our Driver's Licenses changed over. You can't register a car in NC without a NC license. We have to get Brandon's new truck registered this week. The DMV was pretty fast and painless. Brandon's CDL (Commercial Driver's License) added to the time and cost quite a bit, but it is worth it for him to keep it. They made us take the computerized driving exam and motorcycle exams since we were coming from out of state. It was bizarre. I did fine on the driving exam, but I got 6 on the motorcycle test and missed it by one question! The questions I missed were really silly. I was so pissed! Brandon said he missed 4 questions on the test, so that made me feel better. That means I have to go back and take it again before I can ride my motorcycle. We'll probably go back tomorrow.

Brandon and I just returned from our first home-owners association meeting. It wasn't the real association meeting but a new monthly security meeting, kind of a neighborhood watch in uetero. They were recruiting for Block Captains. It was a real mixed bag.

On the one hand we met a few of our neighbors. The guy running the meeting was really cool and lives just one street over. It would be nice to know a few people here. I think Brandon and I will probably go to the real home owners association meeting next month just to meet more of our neighbors.

On the other hand there was a situation that had just happened over the weekend in which a man's adult son had gotten into a confrontation with one of the neighbors. Apparently this boy's behavior had been an ongoing escalating problem. Several of their immediate neighbors had shown up to discuss the situation, as did the boy's father. Although the situation seemed very important to the residents of that street, it was kind of like accidentally walking in on someone's family intervention. Very, very uncomfortable.

There was also a lot of talk about the problems (the very few of them that have occurred in this very safe, quite neighborhood) mostly coming in from the outside, and wanting to keep that kind of element from coming in and messing with our quality of life. After living in Cooper-Young if felt very control-freakish. I wonder how they would have dealt with our neighbors on Cox.

For the most part, the control freaks were all very nice and friendly, but they mostly wanted to cluster together and compare notes on how the menace of this emotionally disturbed boy should be handled. Uncomfortable.

Other than that, we are starting to get to more nit-picky projects. I don't mean to imply that we have all of the boxes unpacked or any of the rooms completely set up, but the projects are starting to get less all encompassing. I find myself doing a little bit here, a little bit there. Then again, that may have just been my mood today.

A Whirlwind Week

We have been moving right from one thing to the next since we got back from Iowa.
I hardly know what day it is.

As I had been promising to do, I painted my study very, very green. We put together my World Market futon chair; it is incredibly comfortable. Bishop thinks so too, so there is a bit of black fur on the white cushions. We'll have to fix that with the Scraminal.

Last night I moved the bookcases and file cabinet into place and the room looks great! Now it is time to unpack all of those books. Someone (Brandon) is already teasing me about the inevitable alphabetization.

Brandon has been tearing apart the kitchen this week. Our house came with an absolutely wretched stainless sink that was only about 4" deep. It is amazing that I hadn't broken all of our wine glasses trying to wash them in it. We had already decided to replace the sink and I was trying to wash the wine glasses and big cook pot that were sitting on the counter to clear room for the project. After cleaning the big steamer pot and about halfway through the third wine glass, I heard the sound of water that wasn't coming from the faucet. It was the sound of water pouring out of the joint on the P-trap into the cabinet below. Brandon snaked the line and whatever had been sitting down there went the way of baby alligators.

We hadn't planned on replacing the garbage disposal. When Brandon removed the sink and disconnected it from the old disposal, we could suddenly see the toxic sludge that had been sitting for the last six months. It was as black as wet coffee grounds, but it smelled like rotting vegetables. It filled 2/3 of the disposal. We bought a new one.

So now, after two days of unexpected snags and revolting discoveries, we have a fantastic new deep sink and a brand new faucet.

Tomorrow, I plan on going to the Durham Farmers' Market. They have a great website with a produce calendar that tells you what produce is in season before you go. So, we'll go and buy local honey, cabbage, sweet potatoes and maybe green beans. I'm going to try to buy small quantities that we can easily eat in a week and go back next Saturday.

Buying things

Ever since Brandon got here, we have been buying things. Buying things at this pace tends to make me nervous. It isn't for any good reason that I am nervous since we are buying things that we need or didn't bring with us from Memphis. We are responsibly buying things that will make our lives here easier, things like closet organizational systems and washers and dryers. But, still, we are buying things.

Brandon reminded me yesterday that we did this when we first moved into our Memphis house; we bought a lot of things in a short period of time. It made me nervous then, but it all turned out just fine.

Some of the things that we are buying are just mundane, like bathmats. On Sunday, I took Brandon to Rose's Discount Superstore to look for a bathmat. Actually, it is just called Rose's Discount Store. I feel compelled to call it a superstore because it is just so spectacularly overwhelming.

You can buy just about anything at Rose's as long as you aren't too concerned about quality or dustiness. It is like a cross between Big Lots and Family Dollar dropped down a notch and double-sized. On this particular trip, we found a bathmat in the perfect shade of blue to match the towels.

Today we take a break from all of the buying, take the dogs to meet their new vet, and put together a closet.

Getting Here

Now that the furniture is here and half unpacked, this is starting to feel like home.
The cable and internet got connected today, so I'm finally connected to the world again.

Brandon will be here in about half an hour. He's going to be exhausted from driving, and I'll probably drive him crazy wanting to show him this and ask him that. Yay! I'm so glad he's almost here. It has seemed strange to be unpacking this house without him.

Bishop will be even more glad than I. With Brandon here, he will finally be able to completely relax and decide that this is home.

Tomorrow, maybe we'll shop for a washer and dryer, a tv, a couple of nightstands. Maybe we'll just lay around the house and unpack.
It is so strange to have all of this time to just get settled in.

I keep buying food and wine. The food I'm buying because it is necessary. We are starting from scratch. No condiments, no salad dressings, nothing. The wine I keep buying because it is just so readily available. It is going to take me a while to get used to being able to buy wine in the grocery store. I wander through the grocery crossing items off of my list and then suddenly I'm in the wine aisle. It is strange to be able to save $2 on a bottle of shiraz with my Kroger Plus card.