Community Supported Agriculture

Six months ago I paid about $200 to a farm about an hour outside of the city. On Wednesday, I walked into the Church of All Nations on 57th street and, without paying anything, I walked out with a pound of mixed greens, a head of bok choy, six scallions, six heads of green garlic, six radishes, and six turnips. I get to do this every Wednesday afternoon for the rest of the 22 week growing season.

It's like Christmas every week because I never really know what exactly I'm going to get. It all depends on what the farm produces that week. I also don't really know if by the end of the 22-week period I will have gotten more or less that $200 worth of food. But here's what I do know:

The vegetables were all less than one week out of the dirt
The food used a relatively small amount of fossil fuels to be transported to me
The vegetables were grown using organic methods wherever practical
The workers who grew the vegetables were all fairly paid for their labor in advance of the harvest
All of the excess food is donated to the local soup kitchen for the Church of All Nations

Is that not cool? After I can figure out how to cook turnips and bok choy, it will be even cooler.

Tony Time

I'm posting this really late at night (Jimmy Fallon is kind of working for me lately), so give me a break if it's a little more whimsical than usual. I just realized that it's been five days since the Tonies and I haven't posted about them.

Aren't awards shows so the best? I'm not a very decisive person. I don't much like to take a position on, you know, anything. But, like most indecisive people, I really like to hear decisive people pass judgment on stuff. I spend a great deal of time reading movie, book, and theater reviews (and legal cases, statutes, and opinion columns).

So I love, love, love awards shows, and here's the coolest thing for me about this year's Tonies: This year my husband and I had actually seen more of the shows in the Tonies than we had seen movies for the Oscars. I know, we're quite the theatah snobs. Actually we're not. We have a two-year-old, and if we have a babysitter, we're going to a full-on Broadway show. It only costs $3 more than going to a movie theater (well, not really, but close).

But even when I hadn't seen the shows, the Tonies delivered. All actors really want to be loved, but there's something about Broadway actors that is so puppy-like and desperate for attention and affection. They don't do movies because if they're in movies, it could take months before they hear someone tell them how talented they are. So watching these crazy people win really big awards in front of a big audience is like watching a puppy who has waited thirty years to be loved finally get wrapped into a Christmas present and opened by a little boy who has also waited thirty years to be loved. And then the dog and and boy get up and sing and dance in Radio City Music Hall. And everyone claps, and their moms cry . . .

Neil Patrick Harris was the host. At first I was like, cool it's Doogie Howser, and then I was like, what?, and then I was like, hmm, and then he sang the last song, and I was like, yeah!

Well, Carson Daly is on now. I'm going to bed. If you missed the Tonies, maybe you can watch some of the clips on Youtube or something. The dance number from Billy Elliot was pretty cool (and it was even bettah in puhson, dahling) and the song from the Guys and Dolls revival was zippy. Oh, and make sure you see the acceptance speech for the Best Actor in a Musical, which went to the three little boys who played Billy Elliot.

My Weekly Bread Routine

I am still baking my own bread. It's been a year now. There is no need to tell me how amazing I am because I know, I really do know. The nice thing about making bread is that everyone is impressed by your talent and sacrifice, even though the two hours that I spend making bread are probably the most satisfying of my week. This is my indulgent Monday afternoon routine (which I will move to Tuesdays now that I tutor on Monday afternoons):

1) Put Baby down for his nap. Don't fall asleep with him. Push play on your audiobook.

2) Dump the dishes on the counter into the sink and put the Bosch mixer on the counter. Install the mixing bowl and the dough hook. Get out the shoe box of bread ingredients.

3) Combine 3 cups of bath-temperature water, 3.5 c whole wheat flour, 1 c white flour, 1 Tbs yeast, and 1 Tbs gluten in the bowl. Mix it for one minute into a paste and cover it.

4) Put away the wheat flour, the yeast, and the gluten. Empty the dishwasher and put the dirty dishes that used to be in the sink into the dishwasher. Start the dishwasher. Get out three bread pans.

5) Pour 1/4 c canola oil or apple sauce into a liquid measuring cup. Pour 1/4 of honey on top of that so the honey won't stick to the bottom of the cup. Pour a glob (about 1 Tbs) of liquid lecithin on top of that without touching it. Liquid lecithin has the grossest texture in the world.

6) Pour the goop from the liquid measuring cup into the bubbly paste in the mixing bowl. Add 1 Tbs salt and maybe a few Tbs of flaxseed meal. Turn on the mixer.

7) Start adding more white flour by half cups until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and it starts to look smooth. Add about 2.5 cups in all. Add 1 Tbs dough enhancer. Let the dough knead about 10 more minutes while you put the ingredients away, grease your bread pans, and unroll a sheet of plastic wrap. If you're feeling home-maker-ish, wipe the counters. Mop the floor for all I care.

8) Twist the dough into three equal size loaves. If it won't pick up in one big ball or if it sticks to your fingers, put it back in the bowl and add more flour. Cover the loaves with plastic wrap and put them on top of the fridge. Wash the mixer bowl and put the mixer away.

9) Sweep the cars and trains off the couch and into the car and train tub. Turn off the audiobook and read New York Magazine from cover to cover.

10) Put the loaves of dough into a cold oven. Set the temperature for 350 degree and bake for about 28 minutes or until the dough looks like bread. Let it cool completely before cutting it.

11) Kiss Baby on his warm sleeping lips to wake him up.

Pink Star

I love knowing secrets. It makes me feel important, smart, and popular. There is no secret too small to delight me. When I worked as a secretary at BYU, I had the job to enter quiz scores into the computer. Before I uploaded the scores, I would savor the moment that I alone had access to all of these scores. The scores didn't do me any good, but I just loved having my little secret. After I took the bar exam, during the months that I waited for my scores, I would think, somewhere there exists a person who knows whether or not I passed the bar.

For another instance, I love that I know multiple items on Jamba Juice's secret menu. I found out about the Pink Star because I know someone who knew someone who worked at Jamba Juice and told her to go there and to order a Pink Star. Later, I actually went to Jamba Juice, took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and ordered a Pink Star. When the cashier gave me a half smile and put in my order, I was downright giddy. Hooray for me! I was part of the special secret Jamba Juice club.

With a little googling, you could find tons of secret flavors at Jamba Juice, but I bet it won't be as fun for you as it was for me. It's all about being in with the in-crowd.

Almost as good as knowing an honest-to-goodness secret is happening to know information that other people don't. Every Tuesday I get a set of trivia questions over e-mail. I can answer two or three of the questions off the top of my head, but I haven't the faintest idea for the other questions. This week, for example, I knew that the third place ribbon is traditionally white, and I think JWST stands for the telescope that is supposed to be better than the Hubble telescope (yep, it is, I checked). I could easily google the answers to the ones I don't know, but it wouldn't be as exciting.

It's like when you watch a movie, and an actor appears, and you know that you've seen them in a different movie, but you just can't figure out what movie it was. It's easy and fast to hop on imdb.com, but it's much more gratifying to keep watching the movie, go to bed, and wake up in the middle of the night, and clonk your husband in the face while you shout, "He was in Ghostbusters, by jingo!"

Now, I thank my lucky stars for imdb.com as often as the next competitive movie buff. After all, it's possible that, after having been clonked in the face, Husband will say, "it's not Ghostbusters, you lovable nut! It's Steel Magnolias." Out comes the laptop and imdb.com. Otherwise, how could we possibly go back to sleep?

But isn't there something kind of cool -- and nowadays, kind quaint -- about just knowing an actor? Or taking special notice during the county fair to make sure that the third place ribbon really is white? Or summoning up the courage to order a ridiculously-named smoothie that doesn't exist on the menu?

Relocating

We are probably moving to a different apartment when our lease is up. Rents have dropped twenty percent in New York City, but our rent has only dropped five percent. So it's back to the real estate section of the Times...

Would I rather live in the mansion house in Slum City or the shack in Moneybagsville? I feel like this is the decision I am faced with if I want to continue living around here. There's not much in between. Seriously, the difference between one of the most desirable sections of the Upper East Side and one of the scariest most crime ridden sections Spanish Harlem is one block and about $1500 per month in rent.

The answer is that it doesn't matter. Either way my neighbors want to shoot me.

But seriously, where would you live, given the choice?

Rainy Days and Mondays

I'm feeling sluggish and sentimental today. It's not an uncommon feeling for me on Mondays. I've never been much of a hit-the-ground-running type of person, and I tend to face Mondays dead-eyed and slack-jawed. I get better and better as the week goes on, and by Friday night, I'm rocking and rolling.

I lounged across the couch this morning, watching Baby push his cars across the rug while I listened to our bathroom faucet leaking water down the drain. A siren passed on Ninth Avenue. For about thirty seconds I thought sad thoughts about wasting water with leaky faucets and wasting childhoods with lazy mothers. My throat started to tighten, but the metaphor didn't get me anywhere so I discarded it. It was a useful metaphor in a way because it did motivate me to get up, get showered, and get on the phone to arrange a play date.

Here's the nice thing about the realization that Mondays just aren't my thing: Every single thing I manage to accomplish on a Monday is a big deal, worthy of an exclamation point. I washed Baby's hair! I emptied the dishwasher! I applied for another job! I called the super about the leaky faucet!

Husband Mine

Husband just walked into our room and said, "Do you want a cookie? Do you want me to go get a cookie and feed it to you while you read blogs in bed?"

And it's not my birthday or anything. And I'm not pregnant. Husband just rocks like that.

In an effort to keep things real, I should also add that today when we were feeding hotdog buns to the birds in Central Park, he pointed out that the birds ate his pieces of bread more often than they ate mine. He didn't have to point that out, ok? I had already totally noticed, ok? And I was secretly trying really hard to make my little pieces of bread more appetizing.

Celebrity Sighting

Baby and I were leaving Hecksher Playground (sp?) in Central Park after Baby pushed over his fourth one-year-old in a fifteen minute period. As we were walking out, we saw one of Baby's preschool co-op friends being strolled into the playground. And the person pushing the stroller was the most famous Mormon in the world. I had sort of forgotten that this famous person was Baby's friend's grandpa.

I probably should have used my preschool co-op mom status to my advantage at this point. Perhaps I could have casually mentioned that I was looking for a job and would he mind writing me a letter of recommendation.

I didn't. I just said, "Look, Baby, it's Friend's grandpa," and then I spun on my heel and hightailed it out of there before Baby tried to kick him in the shins. I think we were out of earshot by the time Baby swiped at the air and yelled, "No, Grandpa!" Baby's value as a networking device is complicated. He is often charming, and he provides endless opportunities to fill in conversation gaps, but he is just as likely to insult the networkee.

It was a beautiful day. In a few weeks I will have lived four complete seasons in New York City. I'm becoming just ethnocentric enough to believe that this is something every American should do. Spring is lovely, but fall is still my favorite (hay fever puts a damper on things). In the spring, thousands of migrating songbirds pass through Central Park, and birdwatchers visit from all over the United States. Celebrities also occassionally stop by.

Cars

Cars was probably my least favorite of Pixar's generous gifts to the world. Still, as I watch it for the umpteenth millionth time, I find things I missed the first time. You know that minivan that passes Mac on the interstate while saying "Mimimi?" It has a mattress strapped to it's roof. Well, yesterday I noticed that when it shows the minivan pulling into the truck stop in the next shot, it shows the mattress sliding forward over the windshield and onto the pavement. It calls the question: Why, in a world without a people, where cars have lives and feelings, would a minivan strap a mattress to it's roof.

I learned long ago not to think too hard about the humanless world of Cars, but I appreciate the kind souls at Pixar who added that little detail for me to notice, even now. So nice.

Want to hear a funny Cars story? Baby was walking out of our building the other day, and an old man held the door open for him in the lobby. As he walked out, he muttered one of his favorite lines from Cars: "Crazy old grandpa car." Luckily, he speech was so garbled that only someone who spends all of her time with Baby and half of her time watching Cars would have understood it. I don't think he knew what he was saying, but I'm fairly certain he understood the sentiment behind it.

We'll work on it when I stop thinking it's hilarious.

Loneliness

I lived alone for a week while Baby and Husband were out of town. I wasn't lonely, really. I got bored a few times, and I got sick of searching for a job, but I wouldn't describe what I felt as loneliness.

Now Husband and Baby are back. Husband had to stay late at work yesterday and today so he missed dinner twice. As I washed the dishes from his welcome home slash Cinco de Mayo dinner, which I ate by myself, I felt lonely. As I put Baby's trains away for the tenth time today, I felt lonely. Even when Baby was being mind-bendingly cute, patting my cheeks and singing me songs, I felt lonely. At least I think I felt lonely. Maybe I was just hungry: baby-hungry or job-hungry or my-tooth-hurts-and-I-cringe-before-I-eat-anything-hungry.

In any case, something needs to change.

Uh Oh

My tooth hurts, even though I just went to the dentist. Should I live with a toothache for the rest of my life or go back to the dentist for another couple of hours under the drill?

Hard decision.

My Brilliant Teaching Philosophy

I am applying for a few teaching jobs that require me to submit a statement of my teaching philosophy as part of my application. My one-on-one teaching experience is substantial, but my college classroom teaching experience is limited. So I'm writing a teaching philosophy based pretty much on the type of teacher I want to be and not necessarily on the type of teacher I already am.

According to my statement of my teaching philosophy, I am one heck of a teacher. Apparently, I satisfy my students' curiosity at the same time as I feed it with questions. I mentor my students unique needs and I encourage them to mentor one another. I invite my students to engage in original research. I use new technologies in ways that are enriching and appropriate. As it says on my measuring tape, I am practically perfect in every way.

This whole experience has helped me remember some of my favorite teachers. Maybe I'm more polish-the-apple, eager to please than your average brown noser, but I remember my favorite teachers with a great deal of tenderness.

I look back on my teachers who were uninformed or lazy with a great deal of disdain. Funny, because I typically have a pretty high tolerance for ignorance and laziness. I don't take it personally when people don't send thank you cards or when a secretary doesn't know how to use a fax machine. But I still feel pretty annoyed with some of my high school teachers who didn't care enough to learn their own subjects, much less teach them. I had a high school course in Eastern European studies in which my teacher couldn't find Kosovo on a map, and this was during 1998. On the last day of class, we ate borscht. That was the extent of my education in Eastern European studies. It boils my blood because I'll never have that time back: Days and days when I had the time and energy to learn something new.

I'm not going to be that kind of teacher.

Home Alone

Two days ago, Husband took Baby to California for the week. As I recall, when McCauley Culkin found himself home alone, he started by freaking out (Scared Phase), then ate a lot of junk food and watched really violent movies (Indulgent Phase), then started cleaning the house (Responsible Phase). At some point he beat up the Christmas bad guys. I cycle through these phases in quick succession.

I start my days by sleeping in for a half hour (Mildly Indulgent); then I spend a LONG time showering, dressing, applying make-up, and dancing to my own non-toddler music (Wildly Indulgent); then I excercise (Responsible, even though it feels Indulgent to me); then I get on the computer and job search for three or four hours (Responsible) while I watch Season Three of Alias (Indulgent); then I check the locks on the doors, making sure that there is no cloned double behind it waiting to shoot me and start living my life (Scared, but it makes sense after you watch Alias); then I eat salad and grilled chicken for lunch (Responsible); then I waste time on e-mail and blogs (Indulgent); then I look at our finances and job search some more (Scared); then, while congratulating myself on the grilled chicken and salad, I go to the drug store to buy a bag of chips, which I manage to polish off on the way home (Indulgent).

After I finish every season of Alias, I will be so ready to beat up some bad guys.

I miss Baby.

Thoughts on Pain

I think pain is bad. I think the human species has evolved to the point that we can use our minds to stay out of trouble instead of our pain reflex. I think that it's time to develop a drug, intended to be administered at birth, that would basically be a forever-long full-body epidural. Paper cut? Pshaw. Amputation? Easy-peasy. Cage fighting? To the death. Torture? Pointless.

Today I skipped off the dentist at 2:00. I slumped home with my right cheek dragging on the pavement at 4:30, my mouth housing more fillings than actual teeth. I think my dentist gave me a triple dose of Novacaine after seeing my eyes fill with tears at the very sight of his scrapey hook tool ("We'd better give this one the wuss treatment").

It is now 7:45 and the lower half of my head is just starting to tingle -- and hurt. I'm considering taking another trip to the dentist's office to ask for another shot of the good stuff that will last me three days or so. I can take my meals through a straw for three days. I wonder if my nifty Real Job insurance would cover it.

Are there people who refuse anesthesia for dental work? Probably, right? I bet they keep a very strict flossing regimen. I know I do, now that I've learned the intimate details of a root canal procedure. They probably floss with barbed wire. Or maybe they don't floss, and every night they grind Pixie Stix into their teeth while they yearn for their next dental appointment. I wonder what it would be like to be them.

The natural childbirth advocates make sense: Heck, I'm a complete ninny about pain, and I cowgirled though labor until I was dialated to an eight. When Baby Two comes along, maybe I'll make it to eight and a half, and by Baby Ten, I'll have such steely nerves that I'll just perform the delivery myself while I'm marching in the Natural Childbirth Parade.

I also wear very uncomfortable shoes. Sometimes.

Pain. Hmm.

Sunshine

The sun was out today. I left my 200 pounds of laundry sitting in my hallway to go to Central Park with Baby. The street musicians were out in full force; the trees were full of blossoms; the daffodils were blooming; we shared a strawberry smoothie and a turkey sandwich. Now, I'm as cynical as the next law graduate, but that's ninety-nine percent happiness. It only could have been better if Baby had coming running up to me to spontaneously give me a hug and a kiss and an "I yav you, Mama." Oh wait, he did. One hundred percent.

Lately I've been hearing a lot of people complain about boring mom blogs that are all sunshine and strawberry smoothies. I agree that these kind of blogs can get a little tedious, but I can relate to moms who only blog about happy-happy joy-joy. It's not that bad things don't happen to stay-home moms. One hour ago, Baby dumped his cup of soy milk into my hair.

But the good times are so freakishly good, it's hard not to turn into a simpering mess of love. Babies do their best to keep our feet on the ground by dumping soy milk, unrolling toilet paper, and socking other babies in the teeth. Let's see, what else happened today? Oh yes, he screamed and strained at his stroller straps for ten blocks straight. At the end of the day though, and on thousands of blogs across the globe, all we remember is the sunshine and the strawberry smoothie.

Chewing Gum in the Shower

Yesterday I was feeling a little broke, so I started to mentally list the things that I loved to do which were free or cheap. Chewing gum in the shower topped the list. I love to chew gum in the shower. Is that gross of me?

If you've never chewed gum in the shower, you should. (This thing is fun, and fun is good).

Eating junk food while watching late night television was also on the list. I can't remember what else was on the list. It wasn't that long of a list.

Babysitters Club day

I can still tell you every permanent member of the Babysitters Club. There's the originals: Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, and Stacey. Then there are the members who get added on in the later books: Dawn, Mallory, and Jessie. I think Mary Anne's boyfriend Logan becomes an honorary member at some point. I promise, I haven't picked up one of those books for at least seventeen years, and I haven't been reading those books to Baby. I don't think I was really obsessed with them either. I'd admit it if I had been, I really would.

Isn't it weird what you remember from the time you're a kid? Doesn't it sort of freak you out when you realize that you can still sing every word of every song from "The Little Mermaid," but you can't remember what happened on last week's episode of "The Office" (just kidding, I could NEVER forget what happened last week on "The Office")? But, you get my point, right?

Today reminded me of a Babysitters Club book. It was about Kristy's younger step-sister, Karen (why why WHY do I remember her name) who has a really bad day. She spends the whole day counting all the horrible things that happen to her, and in the end of the book, her mom takes her out for ice cream, which evens the scales slightly. Oh, sorry, I should have given a spoiler alert.

I had a really horrible day. I was depressed like only a stay-home mom can be depressed, and ain't nobody can be depressed like a stay-home mom. And then at about 7:30 or so, things started looking up. And now, here I am, happy as a clam.

It helped that I was able to watch "The Office." With a bowl of ice cream. And a biggish lump of cookie dough.

Fire Marshall

Husband is officially the fire safety coordinator of his floor at the law firm. I think this is hilarious. Sometimes when I'm having a bad day, I think about this and I start to giggle. Here is a list of things that are NOT true about being fire marshall but that I WISH were true about being fire marshall:

1) Everyone has to use the title "Fire Marshall" when they address him
2) He is going to stage a fake fire in the building that everyone thinks is a real fire and which will result in a mandatory CPR course for the people in his office where further highjinks will ensue
3) He has to wear a badge and a fire hat to work every day
4) He got this job because his real name is Nerdy Von Nerditron and he constantly talks about what a good hall monitor he was in elementary school

Poor Husband to have such a mean, mean wife. Maybe I'll make him feel better by giving him a greater position on prestige in our home. I know: I'll strip Baby of the title of Apartment Fire Marshall and give that to Husband instead.

Subtraction

I have a little friend whose favorite subject in school is subtraction. She is seven years old. As I was dying of boredom today, trying to model proper napping behavior to Baby, I started thinking about subtraction. When I compare subtraction to addition, division, and multiplication, I think it's my favorite.

Now, for the family of talkative math enthusiasts who read this blog, I respectfully request that you (temporarily) mentally block everything you feverishly studied from 4th grade on. Try to remember how you felt about "math" back in elementary school when your teacher would give you mimeographed worksheets of arithmatic for homework. There were no negative numbers, no imaginary numbers, not even any fractions or decimals. Just sturdy round numerals lined up in neat little stacks.

Addition was easy. Stack five blocks on six blocks and you get eleven blocks. Add three more and you get fourteen blocks. Subtraction was a little more interesting. Instead of stacking blocks, you were knocking them off, sending them to block heaven. It took a little more thinking than plain old addition. Let's face it: It still takes a little more thinking. All that borrowing from the tens column to subtract from the ones column. That's tricky stuff. But it's usually not too tricky to do in your head.

Multiplication was pretty cool for a while, but after you memorized your times tables, well, then it was just spitting out the memorized answer. And if it was something you didn't memorize, like double or triple digit multiplication, it was just plain hard to do. It wasn't something that you'd want to do in your head unless you were my dad, who could do anything in his head.

And division was a pain from the very beginning. You were supposed to use backwards multiplication for short division, which made you go cross-eyed. And for long division, you were supposed to employ a senseless torturous process that involved arrows and "remainders." Blech.

Yes, subtraction. Still my favorite.

Stroller Rage

New York City brings out a psychological phenomenon in otherwise mellow mothers. We call it stroller rage.

I've never had road rage. In fact, I don't understand road rage. People who suffer from road rage confuse me. When I drove, if I yelled and screamed while driving, it was because I accidentally turned onto a one-way road or something. I cause road rage, I don't suffer from road rage.

When I'm pushing Baby around the city, there are some areas of the city that I have learned to avoid. Times Square is one of them. When I'm walking Baby in Times Square, I turn into a mean, mean person who does mean, mean things. Let's say you're a young bachelor who is desperately in love with his lovely girlfriend. You decide to take her to take her on a super-date to New York City. While wandering around Times Square you realize that Times Square would be the perfect place to present your girlfriend with the engagement ring that you've been carrying around in your pocket for weeks. You stop. You take a long look into Girlfriend's eyes. You clutch both of her hands. You step away, and drop to one knee.

Suddenly your clutch on Girlfriend's hands is wrenched apart by a swinging diaper bag. Before you know it, a mom and baby come between the two of you. Your moment, the moment you had hoped to relate to your grandchildren, is ruined forever. As you stare at this heartless woman, disappearing through the crowded, you hear her yelling over her shoulder, "This is New York City, buddy. Six million of us actually use the sidewalks to MOVE."

That woman is me.

Making scents of it all

It's a teensy bit dorky to title an entry with a pun, but it makes me feel witty, and I'm the boss around here.

I don't wear perfumes very often. I love scents, and I remember and respond to aromas as much as the next human being, but I guess I just haven't found a perfume that smells the way I want to smell all the time.

Right now my apartment smells like coconut curry. We had Indian food for dinner. It is a lovely smell when it comes steaming out of a kitchen, but it is not lovely when it clings to clothes and people. One time in high school I gave my friend a hug and she smelled like curry. I remember thinking it was gross.

I had a boyfriend once who always smelled like the hand soap that BYU used in all of its dispensers. BYU's soap wasn't bad smelling, it was just generically soapy. I'm glad he was so meticulous about washing his hands, but he must have really piled that soap on because he always, always smelled like that. Looking back, I think there was something kind of unsexy about that smell. Maybe that's why BYU used it.

You know what smells kind of good? Sweaty babies. Not sweaty kids, they stink almost as bad as sweaty adults. But babies, when they're still little milk monsters who wear over-warm jammies with feet attached, mmm-mmm. Go find one who just woke up from a hot afternoon nap. Find one whose mom bathes him pretty often but who doesn't lather him up with scented lotions and powders. Just bury your nose into his armpit and breathe in deep.

I know someone who naturally smells like unbuttered, unsalted popcorn, but not too strongly. That's a pretty good way to smell, day in and day out. But if I smelled that in a perfume bottle, I think it would turn my stomach. Actually, if I found a perfume called "popcorn" I don't think I'd open it.

From the Grouch Couch

It's really hard to plan fun activities to toddlers or cub scouts when you are a cranky mess.

Someone needs a snack and a nap, and it's not Baby.

Ash Wednesday

I don't think I ever saw anyone recognize Ash Wednesday with a ash mark on their forehead while we lived in Provo. I had read about it, but I didn't know it was really ever practiced. Well, it is in New York. I've probably seen twenty people today with the ash marks on their foreheads, including a stilettoed and iPhoned twenty-something, a homeless woman, and an NYPD officer.

Even though my religion doesn't commemorate Ash Wednesday in any particular way, I find the practice quite wonderful. I love seeing people showing outward signs of inward religious beliefs.

Nowadays, I think it also shows courage for a person to do so. It probably doesn't take quite so much courage in New York City where there are so many people from different religions milling around. I rarely notice anymore when I ride the subway with Muslim women wearing headscarves or Hasidic Jews wearing beards and side curls. If I do notice I enjoy it very much.

What I Loved about the Oscars

There were more than a couple of things I hated about the Oscars this year, but right now I'm basking in a post-Oscar glow that is overwhelmingly positive. Here are the highlights of the 2008 Oscars for me:

The hot chocolate, doughnuts, and ice cream that I inhaled while the glitterati of Hollywood had to endure a six-hour fast in the Kodak theater

The list of movies coming out in 2009 (which I can look forward to Netflixing in 2010)

Hugh Jackman's joyfulness and Australian-ness

The shout-outs to the actors and movies that weren't nominated for anything (which made the nominees look pretty good, by comparison)

Tina Fey plus Steve Martin

Freida Pinto's blue dress

The Meryl Streep worship

The realization that Amanda Seyfried had three simultaneous fathers in Mama Mia! and three simultaneous mothers in Big Love

The accountants from PricewaterhouseCoopers taking a cute nerdy stroll down the red carpet

Home Decorating

Today I framed six little pictures to hang in the hallway of my apartment. It's 2:15 in the afternoon, I have a sink full of dirty dishes, I haven't prepared my cub scout den meeting, I haven't ironed Husband's pants, I haven't SHOWERED, but I am content. See, that's the nice thing about being completely inept, craft-wise. The small victories give an enormous sense of accomplishment.

I don't have much excuse for being such a home decorating idiot. As a rules-following Utah Mormon girl, I have probably received more training in this area than 95% of U.S. women. I have hot glued ruffles on things that should never have ruffles. Things like toilet seats. I have painted and written on wooden blocks of every conceivable shape and size: a pumpkin for "Happy fall, y'all," a rainbow for "Every day is a gift," a sled for "Whooshing you a Merry Christmas." Now that I think of it, that rainbow was pretty darn gay-rights/AIDS-awareness for an ultra-conservative Mormon youth group. Maybe it's still in my parent's basement somewhere.

My apartment, which should be cluttered with wooden wall hangings and potpourri sachets, is cluttered with toy cars and peas. The peas aren't always there: Baby got a little carried away with his lunch. I'll clean them up after I take a shower. The toy cars are always there.

Quote from my sister' phone call

"Oh look, there's money under my rug! But it's not American money. It's Swedish money, and the rug's from IKEA. Maybe the rug created it."

Preschool

You might call it a preschool or you might call it a loosely organized babysitting co-op. I call it a preschool because I dig it when the other kids call me "Teacher."

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Baby and I get up at the crack of dawn and hustle to the Upper West Side for preschool. Five moms trade off hosting a week's worth of preschool in exchange for a month's worth of toddler-less Tuesday and Thursday mornings. It's a good trade in theory, although it's complicated by snow storms, germs, and conflicting schedules. In our four weeks of preschool, there's really only been two days where I've been able to enjoy alone time.

With a little bit of advance planning, hosting preschool for two and three-year-olds can be a total kick. As long as they're well-rested and well-supplied with graham crackers, they'll be up for anything. When I started running out of ideas, I just made them spin around in circles until they fell down. While I was spinning I got another idea (jumping on a mini-trampoline with toy cars). Baby is a little behind the others in his ability to sit still and listen to a story or learn a lesson, but he's getting better.

The best preschool moment, I think, was the week that we made noodle necklaces. When the moms came to pick the kids up, one of the boys told his mom to kneel down and bow her head. Then he pulled the noodle necklace out from behind his back, placed it over her head, and said, "Mommy, this is a present for you. You look beautiful." Then he kissed her on the forehead. I should add that he did all of this according to the strict instructions that I gave him while we were stringing the uncooked rigatoni on the dental floss. We even practiced. Am I the best preschool teacher ever or what?

True Beauty

I'm kind of lacking ideas to blog about today. Maybe I've been watching too much reality TV (hello? can we say embarrassing guilty pleasure?). I was going to do one of those list-y blog-y things where in the end you tag 200 people who are supposed to do the list-y blog-y things on their respective blogs, but I don't even have an interest in that today. My blog will remain a list-y blog-y virgin for yet another day.



Yeah, it must by the reality TV. Has anyone seen that new "True Beauty" show? After I watched the first episode, I got off the couch and slipped on the pile of brains that fell out of my head during the hour that I had watched it. Did I watch it again the next week? Yes, yes I did. I could give my excuses (nothing else on TV, DVD player maddeningly broken), but that fact remains that I watched it.



The idea of the show is that the contestants think they are being judged on their outer beauty, but they are actually being judged their outer beauty plus on . . . something else. The hosts say it's actually their inner beauty, but I'm not sure that's what it is. Basically, the judges watch all of the hidden video of those two contestants looking for moments when they fail to throw away litter or they belch really loudly. The person who does the greatest number of bad things gets kicked off and the person who does the fewest number lives to belch another day.



So, you see, at the end of the show, we will know who of this group of reality TV wanna-be stars was either the person with the fewest awkward moments or was so fabulously gorgeous that their inner beauty was never called into question.



I happen to think that "True Beauty" is actually based on a concept with a lot of potential. I mean, inner beauty, that's a pretty interesting topic and arguably one that has been fascinating smart people (people like, ahem, myself) for ages and ages. College courses are taught on the subject (although they are typically given names like "Philosophy 301: Ethics"). If someone gives hugs and snuggles to a complete stranger who falls off his bike, what does that mean, really? If someone who hardly has any money donates some of it to a fake charity, what does that mean?



I would have failed a lot of the inner beauty tests that the show sets up. When grown man falls off a bike, I honestly think, "you know, the biggest injury that guy just took was the hit to his pride, so I'm just going to walk on by and pretend that he did that on purpose." When someone at a table in a public place asks me to donate to their charity, I occasionally donate, but I usually don't. There may be people who live in the middle of New York City who give money to everyone on the street who asks for it, but I'm not one of them.

When I tabulate the multiplicity of ugly points to my character, my failure to donate to table-charities actually falls pretty low on the list. In fact, my tendency to watch pathetic reality TV shows comes a lot higher on the list than my failure to donate. Do I have my priorities mixed up?

Naughty or Nice

Baby's recent behavior would probably fall into the naughty category. If Santa had the strength of will to actually stick to his rule, Baby would have gotten a fat lump of coal this year. But, Santa is, you know, a wimp, so Baby got hooked up in spite of the fact that Baby had to make multiple trips to the naughty chair between gifts.

Baby likes the naughty chair. In his world of changing diapers, changing clothes, and changing schedules, there is one thing that remains constant: when he throws something at Mom's head, he'll go to the naughty chair. When he is uncomfortable or he disagrees with something, he doesn't throw a tantrum, he just calmly picks up whatever object is handy, toddles over to Mom, and throws it at her head. Then he'll run over to the front door and wait for Mom to come storming over. When she arrives, he'll hold out his hand and wait to be lead to the naughty chair, which happens to be a step stool in the bathroom. Throughout this whole process, his face wears the calm, smiling expression of a child who knows exactly who is in charge.

Once he's established that the naughty chair rule is still in force and all is well with the world, he'll say, "Mommy, nice?" and Mom will lead him out of the bathroom. And he continues on his merry way.

I realize that there are two-year-olds who have worse problems, but, is there a way we can do this without me having to dodge flying objects a la President Bush?

Probably not. See, Baby often does things that are technically worthy of a trip to the naughty chair but not quite as bad as throwing things at my head. I'm just too lazy to stop whatever it is I'm doing to go into the whole naughty chair routine. I get annoyed when he pushes the buttons on the dishwasher for example, but it's easier to reset the buttons than it is to chase him down, march him to the naughty chair, etc. A Matchbox car imprint into my forehead will get me moving every time.

Old News

I watched the Godfather for the first time last week. I loved it.

Every once in a while I see a movie that I've always heard about and never seen, and I love it. I watch it ten times in a row. I watch the director's commentary ten times in a row. I send it back to Netflix and immediately put it back in my queue so I can be pleasantly surprised when my new favorite movie appears in the mail next year.

I think to myself, "This movie is so great. Why hasn't anyone told me about it before?" But then I slap myself in the forehead because everyone has told me about it before. I just ignored them. The question is, why did I ignore them?

Sometimes I put off watching, reading, or eating something that I know I'll love just because. I don't know why. Sometimes it's because I don't have the money or time for it. Sometimes it's because I don't have the energy to get hooked on something new. And sometimes I just don't. I know it's not human nature because Husband doesn't understand this at all. If he hears that a movie is good, he whips out his phone and immediately buys it. As you can imagine, my occasional reticence annoys him to no end. I also know that my mom and my sister do the same thing, so I'm not the only self-punishing weirdo around here.

Maybe it's because I'm saving it for Christmas . . .

Here is a short list of the things I know I will be glad I did that I haven't done yet:

Visiting England
Roasting a whole chicken
Watching "Firefly"
Using Mac makeup
www.pandora.com
Attending a J. Reuben Clark society meeting
Listening to This American Life
Seeing "Wicked"
Visiting a dermatologist

Here is a short list of things that I put off forever and couldn't believe I'd put off for so long once I finally tried it:

"The Godfather"
"Dr. Strangelove"
Audiobooks
Setting up my printer
Making my own bread
"The Office"
Cooking with fresh garlic

On the Bus from Boston

So, while I was getting on the bus from Boston (where we spent a wonderful Thanksgiving) to New York, I heard this man say something on his phone that I keep remembering. I love hearing other people's conversations. One of the many cool things about public transportation is the fact that it allows you to hear other people conversations. Nosey people like me can satisfy their nosiness without having to figure out the complicated procedure of wiretapping.

Anyway, so this man said, "I'm on my way to New York, and I'm going to turn my cell phone off because I just read an article about cell phones causing skin cancer, so I'll call you in about five hours." He's not the first person I've encountered who is concerned about their cell phone signals doing bad things to them. I just thought his response to this information was weird.

Let's say you discovered that cell phones caused skin cancer, no question about it. Would you immediately call your friend--on your cell phone--and tell him that you were going to turn your phone off for a few hours? No, because it wouldn't do any good. If your cell phone caused cancer in Boston, it will still cause cancer on the bus ride away from Boston. You can't reduce it's cancer-causing properties by turning it off for five hours as if you were preserving the battery. It would make more sense to find a pay phone, call your friend on a land line, and tell him that he can no longer reach you on your cell phone because you threw it in the Charles River.

Then, as I was pushing my stroller this morning, I thought, maybe this man didn't actually believe that his cell phone caused him cancer. Maybe, the article had made him a little nervous, and he needed some time away from his phone to forget about the article. It makes the man seem kind of overly sensitive to his own feelings, but it makes more sense than turning a phone off on the bus because you think that the phone will give you cancer during those four hours.

It would be like me calling Husband and saying "Hi, I'm taking a taxi home instead of a bus because I just watched 'Speed.'" Now, I don't actually think that the bus I ride home will have a hidden bomb inside it, but, you know, why worry about it? Why spend the bus ride picturing my broken body tumbling across the pavement amid burning seat cushions and twisted steel? Take the taxi and save the bus for a time when I'm not thinking about bus bombs.

Because I do not like to feel nervous, I choose to avoid horror movies where bad things happen to nice people like me. Because I do not like to feel nervous--and I would be lost, naked, lonely, and powerless without my cell phone--I choose not to look for any articles linking cell phones to skin cancer.

I Passed the New York Bar

I'm so happy.

Taxes

I don't think I've ever blogged about anything remotely political before such as taxes. I think my reticence stems from really wanting people to like me. I've decided to start voicing my opinions about politics more often. If it gets boring, I'll stop.

Husband got his first real paycheck a few days ago (oh, happy day!). A little more than one-third of that paycheck went to taxes, federal, state, and city. (Do any cities other than New York have a city tax? Just curious.) The amount we paid in taxes would have supported my family for three months while we were in school. Having that money slurped out of our paycheck like that made us do some fancy stepping to rearrange our budget. It also made me start thinking about taxes, especially in light of the coming election.

I started college directly after high school, attended law school directly after college, married during my first year, got pregnant during my third year, and stayed home to care for Baby for the two years after graduation. During that time, I was supported by the federal government in the form of Pell grants, loan subsidies, loan deferments, Medicaid, WIC coupons, and food stamps (not to mention the non-financial support of interstate highways, national security, consumer protection, national parks, etc.). So basically, when you hear the term "welfare mother," think of me. And think of about three hundred of my law school classmates who depended on all of these federal social programs and more. All of those former welfare recipients are now either working in excellent jobs or giving exceptional full-time care to their children.

Had I not been so supported, I am fairly certain that I would have taken a different path. I would have dropped out of law school and never gone back, chosen not to get pregnant for at least five more years, or chosen to put Baby in full-time child care precisely six weeks after he was born.

I am eternally grateful to a government that partially supported my decisions to get a terminal degree AND have a child in my twenties AND stay home to care for that child. My education is a gift that enriches my world. The last two years that I have had with my healthy baby cannot be measured or replaced. In me, the United States has an educated, patriotic, service-oriented citizen who will gratefully devote a significant portion of her life to the nurturing of American children and a significant portion of her family's income to taxes. Still, I'm humbled to realize that the government considers me to be an acceptable return on their investment.

There is always a lot of talk about certain groups of people having to pay more than "their share" of taxes. Over the course of our lives, Husband's and mine, I can only hope that we are able to pay much more than our share of taxes.

On the tail-end of a two hour nap

I'm starting to find my stride out here. Last week I was ready to plunge my head into my new gas-powered oven, I was so tired and unorganized. It's amazing what a couple of days of regular naps and regular night times can do for a mom. Funny that I feel like I'm finding my stride at six weeks exactly. That's precisely when I felt like I could handle the motherhood schedule after Baby was born. Something about getting through one full month cycle and half way into the next? I don't know. Maybe it's just because I bought a pair of nifty green shoes today. (I'll go ahead and give a little cyber wink even though the loose pun in the paragraph above was originally unintended).

;)

Or it could just be the season. Fall is pretty great, and fall in New York freakin' rocks. I will always miss my college hometown with its back to school exhuberance in the fall, but that doesn't mean I can't notice and love the about-to-get-started feeling that's fallen over this marvelous city. It makes every day a perfect day, and who cares that my internet is slow or my laundry isn't folded yet. The colors are changing in Central Park, and it looks to be just as beautiful as I had hoped. The political season has provided me another four years' worth of sheer spectacle, and I feel like we're on the cusp of exciting change. The posters and marquis are up for the new theater season. The rich old couples on the Upper West Side are starting to dress their tiny dogs in designer dog jackets. Husband just score some tickets to the Rangers game tonight at Madison Square Gardens.

Maybe in the coming weeks I'll put up some good posts about politics, law, or economics, but today I am full of joy that transcends any of these subjects.

Pioneers

When I was in elementary school, I think I read too many "Little House" books. It put me off pioneer/western media for a long time. I didn't hate pioneer stuff. I was just bored by it. Even after I married an enthusiastic amateur American Western historian, I still couldn't manage more than the briefest interest in the wagon ruts and sepia photographs that thrilled him.

Here in New York, I find myself fascinated with pioneers. Granted, I'm starting small: I haven't started a tourquoise collection, and I'm still not terribly interested in wagon ruts, but I did netflix "High Noon." And I'm looking for a good pioneer book to read (I have to be choosey because I don't want to pick the wrong one and never go back. After all those millions pageants, campfires, musicals, church talks, and how-to-make-butter-in-a-baby-food-jar lessons, it took a month in New York City to teach me how to relate to the pioneers of the American west.

I can understand what it feels like to see and seize an exciting and scary opportunity on the other side of the continent. I can relate to the desire to see my children grow up in a culture so different from mine, but one that I think will give them a good life. I can finally understand what it's like to be so lonely that I wonder if this whole endeavor was a bad idea.

I'm not saying that my little family's journey to New York has more than a fraction of the scope of the journeys of my pioneer ancestors. I'm just saying that I'm beginning to understand. And I'm proud.

Provo

I've been having "Our Town" moments all day today. For those of you who didn't attend their high school's production of this play, the most famous scene is one in which the main character, who happens to be dead, is able to see one of the days of her life. Appalled by how she was able to move through every day of her life without realizing how amazing it was, she can't stand to watch more than a few minutes.

I feel like my Provo self has sort of died, and, for the few days I have here before I move, I find myself wandering around glumly, wishing I had more time. This is the time of year that hundreds of Southern Californians in designer sunglasses descend upon Provo to attend BYU, UVU, and beauty school. They will spend the fall, winter, and spring loudly criticizing my city. Provonians are so totally lame. Provo is so totally ugly. The food is so totally gross. I don't think I ever really defended Provo to one of these people (we Provonians rarely do, prefering to let our fine city speak for itself at its own measured pace). Tonight, my last Sunday night as a Provonian, I would defend Provo with the ferocity of Monte Python's Black Knight: With blood spurting from the sockets where my appendages used to be, I would howl after my Southern Californian opponents, "Come on back and fight!"

For all its lack of political, ethnic, and religious diversity, Provo is bursting with gorgeously complicated people, and the more I work on figuring them out, the more I love them. They may be close-minded crazies, but they're my close-minded crazies. For all its dry brown summers and wet brown winters, the Provo landscape provides moments that make me gasp at their loveliness. Provo doesn't have any gourmet markets to speak of, but there are enough grocery stores for my mom to make some kick-booty lasagna and for Sweet's Island Eats to produce a menu on par with any similarly priced New York City restaurant.

I'm glad to move to my jewel of an apartment in New York City, I really am. If I didn't feel like it was a change for the better, I wouldn't be doing it. But I am Provo Portia, after all, and I am sad tonight to leave my home.

Never sick of words, words, words

Baby is getting some crazy language skillz. Every day he comes out with a word that I had no idea he knew. He loves learning new words, and he's constantly asking me, "whatsat?" Some concepts are a little tricky to translate into babe-ese. He really wanted to understand the blue and white "Y" I had painted on my cheek tonight for the Northern Iowa game. How to explain in terms he'll understand? "Face paint?" "Y?" "BYU?" "Yucky mess?" I tried them all. We'll see what sticks (besides the face paint, which ended up all over both of us after our bedtime cheek-smooshing ritual).

Sometimes it is heartbreakingly sweet to see the world through the language of a two-year-old. Today, before his nap, he announced, "I want to sleep." Well, now that I see it typed, it looks a teensy bit more enunciated than his version. His consonants are quite that developed, but his version was no more garbled than the PA system of New York's Metro Transit Authority. Anyway, I joyfully started carrying him to his crib for his nap, and then he said, "No. Spooky. I want to hold you sleep." Needless to say, I let the laundry do itself while I held him for forty-five minutes until he fell asleep.

See, I went so long, hopelessly in love with this little person, and so so so curious about what was going on in his little brain. Now that he can tell me, my satisfaction knows no bounds. I respond by doing, fetching, or feeding him what ever he asks.

And of course, there are funny language acquisition stories, which I have been looking forward to experiencing since forever. Example: While I was moving out of my kitchen, I handed Baby a picture I had on the wall of dried chipotle peppers. He squinted at it for a while, and then looked up at me and asked, "poop?" Now that word he pronounces as clear as a bell. Yes, dear. Mommy hangs pictures of poop on her kitchen walls. When we get to New York, maybe I'll replace that particular picture with one of arugula or something. Of maybe I'll stick with the chipotles. The image may be a handy reminder when I decide to tackle Potty Training.

The Apartment

For the last few days, the absence of bar studying has left a void in my stress-life. I have more than filled it by worrying about my New York apartment.

I have one, a New York apartment. My lease begins on September 2 and I will move in on September 3. This means that for one day, I will have legal possession of an apartment in a very nice location in Manhattan without actually living there. The proverbial ink is still wet on my bar exam, and I'm already living extravagently (for one day at least).

The apartment is adorable; the proximities to Husband's work, the Central Park, and the subways couldn't be better; the ward is fabulous; the landlord is a peach; the rent is (slightly) less than I expected; and we will have a dishwasher. But I still wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of night, convinced that I picked the wrong apartment.

When I whine to friends and family about my worries, they usually repond by saying, "so what if you picked the wrong apartment? There's nothing you can do about it now." Actually, there's one thing I can do about it now: I can stress about it. And when my monthly rent costs roughly the same amount of money as my wedding, I have a right. See, there were two really great apartments, and they were both good for different reasons. Now that I've committed to one of them, all I can think about are the reasons I liked the other one. I think this is called the paradox of choice, and I think I'd better get over it if I'm planning to live in New York City. If there's one thing New York has, it's options.

The Bar

The bar is over, and it is 99-percent out of my life. Little by little, I'm exorcising bar studying.

First to go were the posters. By the time we took the bar, we had about twelve posters and a smattering of Post-its decorating the walls of our apartment. Our family portrait was replaced by a summary of a corporate promoter's pre-incorporation liability. Our guests were greeted by a poster by the front door describing five different types of New York homicides. Baby and I memorized New York's defeasible fees while I served him his morning mush. After the bar, Baby and I spent a joyful afternoon coloring large pictures on the backs of the posters and turning them into "car slides." Then I threw them into recycling. May they meet a more fulfilling fate in their next incarnation.

Next I cleared all of the random study documents and programs from my computer desktop into an innocuous folder labeled "bar." I also removed all bar-related Web pages from my favorites list.

Once I mail back the study books (in exchange for a hefty deposit) and I get over the little post-traumatic stress flu I seem to have developed, this summer's bar study will be nothing but an ugly, fuzzy memory. Really, very much like pregnancy.

How did the bar exam go? Meh. Fine. I don't know. I don't really want to commit one way or the other until I know if I passed or not. I will say that the agony of the bar is not in the taking of it, but in the preparation for it.

The experience of taking the New York bar was fascinating to say the least. I think next year Baby and I may pack a lunch and lounge in front of the Javitz Center in New York City for the last couple of days in July, just to observe thousands and thousands of the most accomplished, privileged, and intelligent young people in New York muttering to themselves while clutching clear plastic bags of pens, pencils, feminine hygiene products, and "quiet snacks."

By the way, "quiet snack" clearly means something different for everyone. I saw one guy with about a dozen hard-boiled eggs in his clear plastic bag. While hard-boiled eggs aren't the noisiest snack in the world, I think it would be more than a little distracting to the people around me if, in the middle of the exam, I started chipping away at my tenth egg shell.

But that's just it, the bar brings out the weirdo in everyone. Some people wore law nerd tee-shirts ("I own Blackacre" or "This is my lucky bar exam shirt" or "Scalia is my hero"). Some people announced that they were wearing fresh-out-of-the-package underwear. One guy was running high-knee sprints across the back of the room during the multistate multiple choice section. Anything to give them that extra little boost. I don't think I did anything too weird. I guess I wouldn't really know though, if it seemed normal at the time.

And now it's done. There is a greater sense of closure for me now than there was when I graduated from law school. My feelings run along the lines of the typical graduation speech: When I can see past the nastiness of studying, I have a profound sense of satisfaction in doing a Very Hard Thing, followed almost immediately by an overwhelming gratitude for the scores of people who have taken care of Baby, Husband, and me over the last few months (years, really). Now I'm standing on the brink of an entirely different chapter for my little family. What I'm looking forward to more than anything, is the ability that my education, my degree, and my license will give me to toss back into the universe a little bit of Good.

Not Dead, but Barely Conscious

At this time in one week, I will be finished with the bar. The feeling is remarkably similar to the way I felt when I set my date with the hospital to induce labor two years ago. Even though I wasn't exactly relishing the idea of the birthing process, I could take comfort in the thought that I wouldn't be pregnant any more. I take enormous comfort in the thought of not doing practice bar exam questions and essays any more.

So, basically, this is just another reason why moms make great law students and lawyers: They have specially practice getting out of bed to face another wretchedly exhausting day, day after day after day.

A little over a week ago, I attended my last bar review lecture. It was, technically, the last formal lecture of my lifetime of formal education, which is quite a meaningful idea, really. That didn't stop me from spending half of the lecture scrolling through Manhattan apartment listings. And, really, if I had spent the entire lecture paying rapt attention to the lecturer, it would indicate that I might enjoy more formal education. And I would not.

Enough about bar study. Who wants to hear about bar study? No one. That's why I haven't had anything interesting to blog about for three months.

On the other hand, everyone is interested in hearing about the adventures of my fabulous baby. (That was a joke: I realize that not everyone is all that interested in my baby, but some people are, and talking about Baby makes me happy. And when I'm happy, everyone is happy).

Baby had his second birthday last week. His whiz-bang gift from his parents was a pair of red Converse high tops. Just picture that: A summer-buzzed, brown-eyed, scabby-kneed, two-year-old tearing around in red Converse high tops. Carrying a birthday cupcake. No need for a photo (although there will be one eventually on my other blog). I think you have the idea.

He is so cool. I'm a pretty cool mom, and husband holds his own on the cool department too, but we don't even hold a candle to Baby when it comes to cool.

I'm pretty sure a summer of non-parent caregivers has only made him cooler. Now, granted, two-year-olds are freakishly sponge-like when it comes to picking up words and social, but I think the fact that he has been exposed to a wide variety of people and experiences this summer has given him even more mental stimulation than he would have had with me. This makes me feel good. He's learning all kinds of nifty tricks through his babysitters' hard work. Yesterday, after an unwarranted attack on his cousin, he actually said "bah-weese," which (obviously) means, "sorry." He didn't learn that from me, (as if I ever say "sorry") but that doesn't mean I'm not ok with enjoying and taking credit for it.

I will not be updating this blog for at least a week. During that week, I am asking any and all who love me to direct some good karma in my direction, specifically in the form of prayers, but, you know, I'm good with whatever. There are bigger things in life than passing the New York bar, I know, but they are a little hard to imagine at this point.

Update on bar study and Baby-missing

Starting bar study was a lifestyle change for me, and I tend to deal with lifestyle change by developing new junk food addictions (Fritos, anyone?) and plunging myself into temporary mild depression. Depression lends itself to staying in bed while I wait for dishes to wash themselves and Baby to learn to refill his own sippy cup with soy milk. It doesn't lend itself to blogging, at least, not for me. I've learned that when I blog depressed, I get embarrassed, just as I get embarrassed when I blog while I'm delirious with happiness.

So if you haven't seen a blog post from me in a while, send me a box of cookies. It will always be appropriate.

I'm over the depression (I think). Now I'm just bored with this stuff. It's a special type of law boredom combined with the type of feeling you'd get if someone put you in the room with an elephant carcass and a fork and said, "go ahead: dig in." It's interesting, logical, illogical, maddening, and huge. And every two minutes or so, I miss my son.

How I miss my son. He now spends six+ hours a day, not with me, but with a few carefully chosen caregivers who nurture him with love, enthusiasm, and goldfish crackers. In the back of my mind, I know I should spend my few hours a day with him on "quality time," but when I do see him, I am too overcome with chest-thumping love to get out his educational flashcards. Instead, I just want to let him eat popcorn until his gums bleed and watch "Cars" until the saline fluid in his eyeballs dries up. I press my cheek into his sweet-smelling pokey summer haircut and stop myself from mentally reviewing riparian law.

This morning he looked up and me and said Pfutz? That means something, but I don't know what. He has an honest-to-goodness word, and I don't know what it is. Up till now, I've been the only one who knows his words.

Look, I'll prove it: Batz means "I want to watch 101 Dalmations." Poose means, "Please feed me soup or some other savory canned delight." Lala, depending on the context, either means "I need a drink of water" or "I'd just love to participate in the shower I can tell you're about to take." Mamoh mean, believe it or not, "let's get out the educational animal flashcards and throw them on the floor until we find the picture of the clown fish who looks just like our friend, Nemo." I can also tell you, with manic animation, the etymology and linguistic roots of all of those words, but I've learned from experience that my expertise in Baby-ese is only interesting to me, Husband, and, on occasion, a Grandparent. And now there's an entire word that I can't connect to anything in my Baby's universe.

What if it means, "Mom, I think it's time to thank you for sacrificing the heel of your sexy fire-engine red shoe by shoving it in a revolving door to prevent me getting knocked over while I paused to pick up a cigarette butt?" I swore I wouldn't miss it when he said that to me.

The point is that while I'm wrapping my head around the difference between notice recording statutes and race-notice recording statutes, I'm missing what I consider to be an enormously important stage in my baby's development. When people ask me if I plan to put Charlie in daycare while I get a full-time legal job in New York, I'm tempted to dip into my vast Baby vocabulary and say nononoNoNoNoNO!

Bar Study

Today is the first day of a the period of my life which I shall call "studying for the bar." Husband and I briefly reviewed all of the multistate subjects, just to get an overview.

Criminal law and torts are my old friends who still call me every few days, just to see what's going on.

Evidence sends me e-mails on my birthday.

Contracts is an acquaintance who looks familiar, but I could be remembering someone else.

Property law?

Stroller Selection

I'm on a quest for Baby's perfect New York stroller. Last summer, I borrowed a Maclaren Triumph from my generous sister-in-law. I used that stroller for most of Baby's waking hours. I used it as Baby's high chair, I carried my groceries in it, I rocked Baby to sleep in it, I took it to church, I rattled it across the cobblestones at Fulton Fishmarket, I bounced it down subway stairs, I plowed it across the Sheep Meadow at Central Park. The Triumph treated me well, but of course I found some minor problems. As a purely hypothetical example, it just might maybe tip over backwards if you hang a bag full of soup cans over the handles while you're grocery shopping.

As many New Yorkers have told me, shopping for a stroller is like shopping for a car (and nearly as expensive, I'm finding). In some ways it's even more difficult than shopping for a car.

First of all, for all of its excellent qualities, Provo is not a great place to buy high-quality strollers. There are lots of babies, yes, but people with money just drive their babies around in their SUVs and people without money can't afford to drop hundreds of dollars on a stroller for their hundreds of kids. You can find a not-too-bashed-up Graco at a consignment store for thirty bucks, it'll pretty much do yuh. So, if you're a Provonian in the market for a stroller that's very lightweight, very high quality, foldable with one hand, steerable with one hand, manageable over curbs, cobblestones, and subway stairs, your selection is limited.

Also, strollers are baby items, and the baby world goes through fads. For example, right now I am seeing a fad of dress-up fairy princess birthday parties among two through four-year-old girls. If little girls had these when I was little, they didn't invite me. Ruffly dresses with matching lacey panties are out. Monkeys and alligators in primary colors are in. Keeping this in mind. I have to wonder how much of the $900 on the price tag of the popular (well, popular in New York) Bugaboo Chameleon is due to the fact that it's trendy. Don't get me wrong: I'm pretty dang trendy, but not $900 worth of trendy.

On the Road

When I was in eighth grade I wrote a poem called "On the Road." I can't remember the whole thing now, but from what I do remember, it was pretty awful. I haven't written a poem in a long time. If "On the Road" is any indication, that's probably a good thing.

Anyway, today I really am on the road. Our family is in the fine city of Winnemucca, Nevada as we end the first leg of our road trip to California. By the way, "Winnemucca" is precisely the type of word Baby would say on his own, so I had high hopes of adding an extremely cool word to his vocabulary. Alas, even after multiple efforts to trick him into saying it, he failed to add it to his vocabulary before he fell asleep in his car seat.

Every time I go on a long car trip I promise myself that this time I won't read in the car (motion sickness, I know, nerd-alert) and I won't eat junk food (not a good combo with motion sickness). But what would a long car trip be without the combination of junk food flavored motion sickness? Not the kind of car trip I've ever had. So I spent my first hour in Winnemucca settling the Pringles and Nutty Bars in my churning stomach.

Baby is sleeping in the motel closet. He seems to like it. Hopefully he won't wake up with yet another hideous memory that will need to be repressed and then gradually drawn back into Baby's consciousness with the help of a kindly, parent-hating therapist.

Graduation

I know, I know, I've already graduated, but I was allowed to experience the full graduation experience again last week when Hubby graduated.

I think most people would agree that graduation day itself is kind of a mixed bag. With all of the emotions tied into it, wonderful, sad, and boring, it kind of comes out a wash. An emotion map of Hubby's graduation day:

1) I was stressed up to my ears, pulling all of the last-minute plans together for picture taking, video taping, calling everyone about parking, getting a babysitter, etc.

2) I was surprisingly moved with pride when the faculty and graduates marched in. I've been to dozens of graduations, but I still think the pomp and circumstance is really cool.

3) I was super nervous before Hubby's speech. I knew it was a good speech (I wrote about a third of it and edited all of it), and I knew that Husband would deliver it well, but I really, really wanted everyone to love my fabulous husband, and I knew law students are groomed to be a prideful, sneering lot.

4) I had a growing sense of elation as the speech was received with applause and laughter (the good kind).

5) After the glow wore off, boredome, boredom, boredom. The Provo Tabernacle is hot and the doctoral hooding ceremony takes a long time.

6) I had my usual crowds-make-me-nervous jitters during the reception afterwards, but luckily Hubby's talk and our upcoming move to New York City gave me and enviable two automatic topics of conversation with my hundreds of law school acquaintances. I was also sinfully proud of my husband.

7) The rest of the day is an exhausted blur. Dinner? Some kind of something at my in-law's house? So tired. Haven't truly slept in. Five. Years.

The next few days I watched my husband go through post-graduation depression. First it's "hooray, I have so much time on my hands, and everyone loves me!" Then it's "boo, I have so much time on my hands, my friends are all gone forever, and I'll never be popular again!" Now he's turning the corner to "hmm, I have so much time on my hands, maybe I'll engage in an interesting and world-improving non-law activity before I have to start studying for the bar." I have to hand it to him: It took me three months and a baby to get to that point.

For Reals, Sister

There are so many awesome blogs written by stay-at-home moms these days. It's one of those phenomena that makes the Internet worth all the porn. I don't have time to link to all of my favorite mom blogs (Baby's going to wake up any second), but read this one to understand (whispered, reverantly) naptime.

Lunch

I ate chicken for lunch, baked in a sauce made of mustard, orange juice, and brown sugar.

Baby ate Spaghetti O's, by himself, with a spoon.

We are both immensely satisfied.

No, no, NO

If I ever have a daughter, I will not let her be in a children's performing group that sings "Lady Marmelade." She can cry and scream and hate me all she wants, but I refuse to allow my nine-year-old to sing "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?" to a human audience of any kind. I'll buy her a pony instead. I'll feed her through a tube if she goes on a hunger strike.

Yes, I know, there I go again, promising myself parenting choices before I am able to see them in context, like that one time I told myself I wouldn't allow my son to watch cartoons first things in the morning (hah!). But this time is different. Cartoons are cartoons. Onstage sexual invitations are different.

I get annoyed when people write anonymous editorials saying "I'm shocked and appalled that . . ." I think that people (especially Provonians) are far to easily offended and judgmental about stuff that isn't any of their business. So when I found myself shocked and appalled by a production that our family recently saw at Thanksgiving Point (scantily-clad nine-year-olds singing and dancing to "Lady Marmelade"), I had to carefully consider my feelings.

Here are my feelings: Adults can decide to sing and dance to "Lady Marmelade" if they choose. I'll think they are pathetic, but I won't comment on their freedom to so perform. If they do it in a movie as flamboyant and sweet-natured as Moulin Rouge, I'll even choose to attend and enjoy it.

Kids shouldn't.

Healthy as a Pig and Stone-cold Sober

Last year, 90% of the students who studied for the bar using the PMBR prep course passed the multistate section of their respective bars. I just got an e-mail telling me so. This is good news, considering that I will be using the PMBR prep course to study for the multistate.

Of course, when I read that statistic, I immediately began trying to rationalize the pass rate even more in my favor, attempting to disassociate myself as much as possible from those unfortunate would-be lawyers who did not pass. Some of them had debilitating handicaps such as blindness or pregnancy which affected their exam performance. Some of them went on Norwegian cruises rather than attend the PMBR review courses. Some of them were phenomenally stupid. Some of them abused substances, other than Kozy Shack rice pudding, which negatively affected their mental processes.

Since none of these things apply to me, my chances of passing the multistate section are probably higher than 90%, don't you think? Even accounting for the facts that (1) I am sitting for the bar two years after having graduated from law school and (2) I have maternal responsibilities for someone who is at least as distracting as a comfortable addiction to marijuana (I assume). I find myself grasping at even more outlandish potential reasons for not passing the multistate that do not apply to me: surely at least one of these non-passing students developed a kidney condition during the exam which forced him to excuse himself for multiple time-consuming and concentration-wrecking bathroom breaks. This happens to other people all the time, but it won't happen to me.

I'm ashamed to say that I developed this chilling method of reasoning in law school. That's what happens when you take a bunch of hyper-competitive, achievement-driven, unfeeling freaks and grade them on a strict curve. During the weeks before exams, I would look around the classroom, sizing up the members of my class. I would hear the news from my classmates and translate it into the potential exam performance: Lulu got engaged this semester, so she probably hasn't read for this class; George's wife had triplets, but, on the other hand, I heard he has a photographic memory; At least I know I'll do better than Trixie, whose entire family contracted leprosy last month.

The One and Only . . .

Yesterday, Baby and I watched Disney's, The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band. I hadn't seen it since I was a little kid. Here are my thoughts:

This was actually two movies rolled into one: The first was a romantic musical comedy about a girl and a boy who fall in love, get in a fight, and fall in love again. It was charming, but it felt kind of anachronistic. It's not that no one was making musicals in 1969/70, but they weren't making sentimental, patriotic, western musicals. I think singing and dancing with my family band in a barn is just about the coolest thing ever, but there were moments when even I felt a little embarrassed for the actors. Baby had no complaints though.

The other movie was a political/historical movie about living in Dakota at the time it was being considered for statehood. This plot was fascinating to me in 2008, and I wish they could have shaken off the musical romance stuff and gone into more detail with the story. Did I just say that? Hang on, I need to go watch "The Music Man" to straighten myself out.

Anyway, the whole story hinges on an the presidential race in 1888, when Cleveland received more actual votes than Harrison, but Harrison won the electoral college and the election. In 1888, the country was hugely divided between Republicans and Democrats, and this movie tried to illustrate that tension. I don't know personally, but I've read that the current political situation is the most violently partisan the country has seen since the Civil War. What was supposed to look ridiculous in the movie (interrupting a political rally?!!! defacing a portrait of a presidential candidate?!!!) looked like pretty typical politics to me. In fact, the most unbelievable part of the movie was the ending when everyone becomes friends in spite of their political differences.

My favorite line: "Well how do you like that? The Democrats win an election, fair and square, and the Republicans steal it out from under their noses." If they had put this in a movie today, it would have been an unfunny effort to make the movie Important and Timely. Instead, it was just plain awesome, like an unintended pun.

Rules of Evidence

Lately I've been brushing up on the federal rules of evidence. Husband (who is working much harder on them because he has a final in three weeks) can't stand them. I kind of like them. Every piece of information you want to enter into evidence is like a little puzzle, and you have to navigate the rules of the puzzle to get it in there. Sometimes I wish I could use them to direct my daily life. Here are a few examples:

Someone is telling me a long, boring story. Objection: Witness is giving an unnecessary narrative.

Family member is sharing an embarrassing anecdote about my childhood. Objection: The probative value of this information is outweighed by its prejudicial effect. (If the damage of the anecdote has already come out, you can ask that it be stricken from the record).

Customer service representative is telling me that my feelings of aggravation have no bearing on the question of whether or not the telephone company needs to return my money. Response: The emotional distress suffered by the witness goes directly to the question of damages.

Pompous honors undergrad does not want me to question his expertise: Response: I need to conduct a voir dire concerning this witness's qualifications to give his opinion on the subject of Everything.

See? Kind of cool. Sort of replaces social rules with legal ones. At least these ones are written down.

Cars

Baby loves them. They have been his favorite toys his whole short life. One of his first words was "car." He spends hours pushing them around on the couch cushions or rolling them down ramps. He takes baths with his cars. He sleeps with a toy car clutched in each little fist.

I thought all of this was kind of cute until it moved beyond generic toy cars to specific toy cars. His favorite movie is (duh) "Cars." While he still loves all of his cars, lately he's begun to show preference to the "Cars" cars: Lightening McQueen, Doc Hudson, Ramone, etc. (Would you like me to name them all? I can. Would you like me to quote the entire movie? I can do that too.). A couple of weeks ago he realized that one of his sets of pajamas had pictures of Lightening McQueen all over them. He spent one blissful evening watching "Cars," holding his Doc Hudson car, wearing his Lightening McQueen jammies. Every so often he's look the picture of Lightening McQueen on his tummy and gently poke it, sighing blissfully. Yesterday, he found his car pajama pants on the floor of his bedroom, and he followed me around the house saying "uuh?" until I took off his pants and put him in his pajama pants.

I never thought I'd be a mom who supported this type of behavior. I pictured myself explaining to my child that, no, we did not need to buy the Batman action figure just because he was on TV. Then I would direct my child's attention to his educational flashcards. This whole cars things really snuck up on me.

In Case You Were Interested . . .

No matter how I place Baby in his crib for the night, he always manages to fall asleep in the same position: on his back with his feet on his pillow. He also snores like a lawn mower.

I am desperately in love with him.

Audiobooks

All law students are required to buy and use a laptop computer. After three years in a constant feed of information and entertainment, I found I had developed a sort of attention deficit disorder where I couldn't do just one thing at a time, especially if that one thing was kind of boring. I began making lists and writing letters during talks at church. My laundry stayed in the basket until I had a movie I could watch while I folded. Nursing my baby every two hours was particularly trying: I would find myself tapping my feet, mentally reviewing the elements of common law negligence or the difference between direct and derivative shareholder suits while I sat waiting for Baby to finish up or fall asleep.

Stay-home motherhood is definitely a hands-on, eyes-on job, and this makes it hard to do two things at once if they both require either your hands or your eyes. My beloved laptop friend of three years, alas, required both. My ears and my brain, however, were almost always available and bored. I quickly grew to understand how my mother developed her addiction to talk radio. I might have done the same, but my (also law school-compounded ADD) husband convinced me to take up audiobooks.

I'm hooked. I listen to audiobooks while I'm playing with Baby in the park, getting groceries, doing housework, driving in the car. I listen to newspapers, novels, radio programs, podcasts -- I'm even taking Spanish lessons when I'm feeling pious about continuing my education.

One of the tricky things about audiobooks is that they are, in many ways, far more engrossing than printed material. Since I already had a habit of getting distracted by novels, this can be a problem. For example, right now I am listening to "The Beautiful and Damned" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It is about a bunch of wealthy, lazy, selfish people who I intensely dislike. I don't know how it ends yet (so don't tell me), but I'm really looking forward to the part where they all get damned. I would actually like to see one of them repent and reform, but since good old F. Scott never reformed, I can only hope for a satisfying damnation.

Today, I had a lot of errands to run, so I had several hours of listening to the beautiful and damned Anthony Patch and Gloria Gilbert sneering, whining, and drinking highballs. I felt like I've been hanging out with them all day. I think I was kind of rude to the clerk at Target, just because I wanted to push Gloria into a lake. I need to take a break and listen to something with characters I actually like. Unfortunately, all I have right now is the Wall Street Journal or NPR's "Justice Talking." Decisions, decisions. I think "Justice Talking" is more likely to keep me motivated while I wash the dishes and less likely to contain beautiful and damned characters.

Munchies

It's starting. I really need a treat right now. Something fried. A donut maybe. Or a fast food empanada. Mmm...

I've been here before. If my munchy craving isn't satisfied in the next couple of hours, I may call a neighbor to come over and babysit while I make a frenzied run to Krispy Kreme. She understands. If she can't make it, I just might spend an entire hour in the kitchen in the middle of the night making cookies. It's that bad.

Or maybe I can convince Husband to interrupt his studies to make a munchy run for me. I think he secretly loves doing that kind of thing.

I knew this girl in high school who had cravings for popular music the way I have cravings for food. She'd seriously run home during lunch hour because she had a craving to listen to Counting Crows. I never really understood that. If I have a song in my head, I might think "hmm, I like this song a lot," and if I happened to be near my computer, I might pull it up and listen to it, but it's not a driving compulsion for me. I haven't kept in touch with that girl since high school (she was kind of weird), but I bet she's really happy in the iTunes age. Immediate satifaction for all her music addictions for a dollar a song (or for free if you're not bothered by those pesky copyright regulations).

I guess the Internet is getting close to satisfying my munchy cravings. If I were craving pizza, say, I could go to Papa John's website and order something to be delivered. But I'm never craving pizza, and if I were, I wouldn't want a whole pizza. I want a single donut. I want to open iTunes, click a button, charge my credit card 49 cents, and have a warm glazed donus appear on this napkin I have ready right by the computer.

Could you work on that Man O' Steel?

Student Loans

This summer I am going to take the New York bar. Don't let me change my mind. Everyone tells me that I should be afraid, very afraid, of the New York bar. I heard a rumor that they systematically fail the bottom ten-percent of the students who sit for it, although I'm pretty sure that's a myth. Just between us, that's the least of my worries. I'll pass. I always pass. I'll study, and I'll pass. If New York systematically fails the bottom ten-percent, well, there's going to be one student who fails because this stay-home mom rocked it.

No, the thing I'm stressed about, the thing I've always been stressed about, is money. My little family has been living on student loans for our entire marriage. We sleep in a student loan bed; we eat student loan Spaghetti Os, we dress Baby in student loan diapers. After five years of this, we have a pile of student loans. Last month, I was so happy to cash our last student loan check. We were in the bottom of the Grand Canyon: still a ways to go, but it was all upward from here.

My joy was premature. See, we have to stay alive for four more months after our student loans run out but before Husband's new job starts churning out a salary. During those four months, we will be earning less and spending more than we have during any school semester: full-time bar study, child care, and private short-term health insurance on top of our usual expenses, without the extra pennies we bring in with our part-time jobs. And then there's thousands of dollars of fees to fly to New York, sit for the actual exam, and pay our bar memberships. And then there's the obscene pile of cash we'll have to scrape together for our apartment deposit in New York City . . .

I feel ill. Bottom of the Grand Canyon, yes, but now we have to ditch the donkeys, build a raft, cross the Colorado River, and then start back up.

So, more loans. A lot more loans. You could buy a really nice car with this four-month hunk of loans. If you were single and childless, you could put your bad self through law school. We will be paying these loans until we die. Actually, even if I die, the loans survive. Uh huh.

Going to take the bar. Still taking that bar.

Years from now, when pre-law Jane meets my two-attorney New York family, will she imagine that I strongly considered working through hair school this summer instead of taking the New York bar? Probaby not. She will admire my cool legal library, my collection of letters from all of the deserving poor I have helped, and my hugely intelligent children. And she'll take out loans to go to law school and become a lawyer. I want her to become a lawyer. It will make her happy. Eventually.

President's Day

My President's Day was pretty cool, I guess. Husband took Baby for most of the day, so that was nice. A great day off for every one.

But here is what I really want to write about: Most of the stay-home moms I know (I don't know many stay-home dads, sorry) had a disappointing President's Day. Not that they had high-flying expectations for President's Day, but I mean, they had bad days.

On this day, everyone is home when they're usually gone, and a ton of stuff is closed when it's usually open. While this may be fun for students, bankers, postal workers, etc., it's kind of a pain in the neck for a stay-home mom.

Let me explain it this way for all you non-stay-homers:

Suppose I decided to take my child and descend upon your place of work for the day. Baby and I have given ourselves a holiday from our normal activities, and instead we're going to take a break from our usual Monday activities and spend the day with you.

At first, you might think it will be fun: you'll be able to shoot the breeze with me, you can observe Baby toddling around, and maybe I'll even be able to help you out with whatever it is you do at your job. It doesn't take long, however, before I take over your computer (and the only chair in your office) to do some facebooking, and Baby is fascinated with your paper shredder. Then we start tracking cracker crumbs through the conference room, complaining loudly about the lack of a diaper station in the bathroom, wiping our noses on your sweater, etc., etc., etc.

Around lunch (which, of course, you will have to provide for us), you realize that you're not accomplishing any of the things that you needed to get done today. You think we're really cool, but we're kind of cramping your style today. But you can't make us go back home on the one day that we don't have to be there, right? And you can't send us outside to play because the weather is nasty, as it always is this time of year. So you bite your tongue and cowboy through it, hour after hour, knowing that tomorrow you will have tons of catching up to do, but secretly really looking forward to tomorrow if only because you'll be back to your regularly scheduled programming.

And then finally we leave, saying "Wow, you hardly do anything around here. We should come more often."

Happy Bald Eagle Day

The Great Salt Lake has too much carp, and once a year they suffocate them all to balance out the ecosystem. The upside to all this carp carnage is that it coincides with a bald eagle migration through Utah. Today we left Baby with Grandma and took a trip to Farmington Bay with my high school zoology teacher to look at the bald eagles. Bald eagles are so cool.

We probably saw, I don't know, maybe 70 eagles. There were a few roosting in the trees, or flying low, but mostly they were hanging out on the ice, digesting their carp. It's kind of hard to descibe how awesome it is to see these birds. They're huge for one thing, and their heads and legs are so white, and their beaks are so yellow. And they have these eyes . . .

Know what a bald eagle call sounds like? It's not a scream. It's a high-pitched peep-peep-peep. The best word this mommy can think of to describe it is "cute."

If you think you might want to get into birding, it's a pretty good idea to start with bald eagles. They are pretty easy to identify. If you're smart enough to bring your high school zoology teacher with you (and he happens to own a high-tech spotting scope), you might also be able to identify tundra swans, northern harriers, American kestrels, red-winged blackbirds, rough-legged hawks, pintail ducks, golden eye ducks, mallards, Canada geese, and common ravens.

And if your husband loves you, he will buy you a pair of binoculars and a good birding book so you can relearn how to identify the Utah birds you love before you move away.

Ways I Keep in Touch with Legal Society

So, sometimes people ask me how I keep my law-trained mind active in the profession for which it is trained. Tonight, I decided to make a list of the stuff that I currently do as a full-time mom that also keeps me up-to-date with the legal community. I was actually kind of impressed with the length of my list. I didn't think that I did that much, but now that I really think about it, I don't think a day goes by where I don't do something related to my legal career. As legal careers go, mine is sort of resting right now while other aspects of my life take precedence, but it's definitely not dormant. Anyway, here's my list:

My part-time job as a legal research assistant

Library books on law or legal issues (currently reading Lawrence Lessig's fabulous "Code 2.0")

My even smaller part-time job as a bar review company representative

Small legal favors for friends and family (usually variations on the theme of "talk to a real lawyer," but sometimes they actually ask me to do things that I'm qualified to do)

E-mail from various members of my law school class

My law student and soon-to-be lawyer husband's homework and exams

My law student and soon-to-be lawyer husband's extra-curricular mock trial stuff

Networking cocktail parties and dinners with my law student and soon-to-be-lawyer husband

Mentally calculating arguments in my favor for hypothetical tort, property, family law, or contract claims against my landlord, my son's gymnastics company, Provo City, my divorced friends, my pediatrician, my insurance company, etc. (I know it sounds nasty, but after law school, you can't help it, ok?)

My J. Reuben Clark Society magazine

My "American Lawer" magazine

"Justice Talking" on NPR (and justicetalking.org)

Helping pre-law students with their admissions materials

My audio subscription to the Wall Street Journal

nytimes.com

discourse.org

abovethelaw.com

Worrying about taking/passing the New York bar this July