lawmummy

Do I seem more relaxed?  Can you feel the zen?  Did you get the sense that I did some yoga earlier?

Yeah, you wouldn’t.  Cause as relaxing as it seems when Shiva Rea is doing her "Fluid Power Vinyasa Flow Yoga" at the White Sands National Monument, that same flow doesn’t quite, well, flow in my family room interspersed with legos, piles of glitter and a 9 month old who believes that the Cobra position apparently involves my lifting him with my right arm.  And while Shiva exhorts me to be fluid and feel the energy, I was feeling little tugs on my left shoulder as my youngest daughter asks if I can get her some chocolate milk.

Relaxing it was not.

Of course, in the privacy of my own home, it also wasn’t as embarrassing as my last foray into the world of yoga…  In 1999, in my pre-children days, I was doing the Center City law firm thing as was my husband.  We were beyond stressed.  We decided that a little yoga might center us somewhat.  We lived about ten minutes walk from a yoga studio in a trendy section of Philly called Manayunk.  It also happened to be a popular restaurant district.  So we made plans to meet after work, yoga a little and then head to the brewery with a handful of friends.

The yoga itself wasn’t bad.  I giggled a lot.  It’s so hard for me to be serious when you’re supposed to be serious.  It’s just not in my nature.  At any rate, we made it through the class without being tossed out though I’m sure the instructor thought about it.

On the way out of the class, everyone seemed to glide towards their shoes and bags, all very hushed and relaxed.  I assumed that we had been yoga-ing for an hour.  We were supposed to meet our friends shortly thereafter.  For this story to make any sense, you have to know that despite my legal occupation induced obsession with time, I do not wear a watch.  So, I drifted towards my stuff as patiently as I could behind the crowd in front who, clearly, had nowhere to be.  I picked up my bag and saw the time displayed on my cell phone:  we were late for dinner!  I switched into overdrive, scooping up my cell phone in one hand and putting my shoes on with the other.  I was suddenly very aware of about twenty pairs of eyes staring glaring at me as I hopped on one foot while screaming into the cell phone:  "Oh my God!  I had NO IDEA!  We are SO LATE!  We’ll be there in a minute!"

I could hear the silent clucks.

I quickly grabbed my briefcase and scurried out. 

We never returned.

Did you read that Posh Spice is getting her own reality show on NBC?

For the love of God, what could possibly be interesting about such a show? I imagine it’s high brow along the lines of Fear Factor and NBC’s other reality shows (doh!). NBC is, for their part, promising hilarity. I can hear it now:

Hilarity at the stadium:

Ooh, Posh called it football. It’s soccer here! How funny!

Ooh, Posh called Becks a centerfielder instead of a midfielder. That silly girl!

Hilarity while shopping:

She asked for a jumper instead of a sweater at Saks. Wackiness ensued as the sales team started jumping up and down!

Posh just ordered chips instead of fries. Won’t she be surprised (insert canned laughter here)!

Or perhaps we’ll watch her not eat for a few weeks:

Watch Posh’s head grow bigger each week as her body seems to shrink away! It’s magic!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I happen to enjoy the Spice Girls. I like camp, I like kitsch. And with such deep lyrics as:

“I wanna really really really wanna zigazig ha”

How can you not like the Spice Girls? My girls are really into them as of late, thanks to the wonder of the iPod. I especially enjoy my daughters singing along to “Spice Up Your World.” So, I’m not anti-Spice Girls.

And with talent such as he has and all, how can you not like Becks? I mean, the man has…. talent. And amazing abs. But it’s the talent we’re focusing on here. I look forward to seeing what kind of draw he’ll be to American soccer (my brothers both played, very well, thank you very much) and American tabloid TV. But mostly American soccer. On account of they’re already agreeing to be on tabloid TV NBC.

It will be interesting to see whether the Beckhams decide to remain in the US for any length of time. It’s so different from the UK. And LA? My Lord, why not just move to the moon? LA is about as far away from London as you can get in terms of culture (and I use that term loosely).

I’d move to London in a heartbeat (or Cardiff) - but I always thought that the lifestyle could more easily be compared to the US East Coast, not the US West Coast.

But then who am I to judge? I still haven’t figured out what this means:

Yellow man in Timbuktu

Colour for both me and you

Kung fu fighting

Dancing queen

Travel spaceman

And all that’s in between

In the mood to win a children’s book?  This week is the last week of my Dr. Seuss contest on my children’s book blog at www.tinytreasury.com (I inherited the name, people.  High Google page rank, blah-blah-blah, don’t give me agita, I can’t take anymore!).

At any rate, if you’re so inclined to be a little Seussical, you can win a Dr. Seuss book for your kids, nieces and nephews or… yourself (hey, I enjoy the occasional Green Eggs and Ham…)

Today marks Day #2 without SuperNanny.  Sigh.

I’m always happy to see women receive accolades in professions that are not typically female professions…  That’s why it was especially gratifying to read about Frances E. Allen, 74, who was honored for her work at IBM "on
techniques for optimizing the performance of compilers, the programs
that translate one computer language into another."  Yeah, I don’t even know what that last part meant.

It is the first time that the $100,000 Turing Prize in computing was awarded to a woman.  Allen has a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan.  Wow, I can’t even imagine how few women were in that program…  It’s kind of like when my mother-in-law got her degree in chemistry back in the 1950s. 

Those are the women who I admire most in the world - not necessarily the flashy women who end up in the press.  But those women who took risks when nobody else thought it was cool, they are the real trailblazers.  I have such regard for the women who decided to do what they loved and wanted to do and eschewed society’s notion of what was feminine, sexy or appropriate.  And besides, we all know that smart women are way sexy and appropriateness is way overrated.

Congrats, Ms. Allen.  You’ve done us all proud.

It’s Green Thumb Sunday!

Chris pointed out that I didn’t properly credit him for my last GTS photo. Sorry, sweetie!

Actually a number of the photos of our garden and the park nearby are courtesy of my own Ansel Adams… including, of course, this one:

It’s moody and dark, not unlike our house these days (more on that later in another post). It’s also really beautiful. One of the nice things about winter is the lighting - the contrasts in black and white are really lovely and set a nice mood.

This is another park shot, just across the street from our house. Although time is increasingly at a premium these days, occasionally Chris gets to take a nice walk in the woods/park with some combination of Lyle and the kids (usually, just Lyle, but Katie thoroughly enjoys walking and it’s easy enough to throw Charlie in the backpack).

While I enjoy these moody landscape-y shots, I hope to be able to return to shots of the garden soon. My daffodils are peeking out of the ground and if the wacky temps (40s one day, 20s the next) would taper off, there’s a chance that (gasp) there will be more signs spring is actually on the way.

To get us in the mood for spring, we took a trip out to Longwood Gardens on yesterday. The Gardens were celebrating St. Davids Day which is a traditional Welsh holiday (yep, my background is, in fact, Welsh, which might further complicate my loathing for Catherine Zeta Jones - along those lines, you can watch other Welsh celebs learn Welsh soon on the BBC). At any rate, there were a number of events… We made a traditional Welsh hat for Amy and stick puppets of Welsh corgis and sheep. We also got to hear some great Welsh music! Well, until Katie had a small meltdown because she had not yet made a hat and the table was closing down…

We also took a quick tour of the conservatories. The outside gardens were mostly bare and somewhat covered with snow. But the inside conservatories were filled with orchids, roses, freesia, gerbera daisies… unbelievably beautiful. It gave me lots of ideas for the spring, including an arbor of coral pea (have you ever seen this stuff - it’s gorgeous!) and some sweet pea runners.

On the way out, we stopped at the gift shop where the girls picked out seeds to start indoors. Their personalities were evident in their final choices. Amy chose strawberries to give to Oma and Opa when they bloomed. Katie chose pretty flower seeds which she promptly examined (and lost) in the car. So, strawberries it will be!

Enjoy the day wherever you are. Spring is on the way - except for my friends in the Southern Hemisphere!

It’s the end of the month.  I’m trying to avoid working on my tax court case set to go for tomorrow (gulp) so I am doing my end of the month cull.

As before, my rule for updating was more or less within the last month.  I cut the blogs that were not updated and added ones that I have found and enjoy or that sent me an email asking me to add them, and I thought they were compatible with my site (once again, don’t waste my time sending me requests to link to your commercial site selling whatever, I just don’t do that here).  If you got culled and you’re planning to be back online soon, send me a note.  I just want to keep the site nice and neat in my OCD kind of way, and keep the content fresh for my readers!

Thanks for understanding (man, as a Libra, this is sooo hard to do).

I recently entered a writing contest.  I lost.  I didn’t care so much that I lost until I saw the winning entries.  The top entry was an insightful piece on homelessness.  The runner up was a little ditty about grit and urban life.

And it hit me:  I am not dark.  It’s true.  I’m kind of sunny.  I have always been fairly optimistic and reasonably happy.  I had some dark periods, some stretches where life was not good to me, but I held on and pulled through.  At the end of it all, I was older and smarter but still overall glad to be here.

I don’t brood, I don’t mope.  I don’t despair.  I don’t write about the hopelessness of life.  I write about good things - finding love and happiness and learning life lessons.  And this is what I hate about this, the idea that not being dark is not the same as not being deep or not having an interesting point of view.  I happen to think I have something interesting to say.  It’s not for everyone, but that doesn’t make it less important.  Not dwelling on the bad or the sad does not equal fluff.

I realize that no one stumbles over to my blog looking for great literature.  And my other writing?  Much like my blog.  I am who I am.  And apparently, that won’t win me any contests…  But I think I’m okay with that.

I’m back at home after a quick trip for business.

I am, quite frankly, exhausted. Here are random thoughts from my trip:

• Gosh, old couple leaving from Philly flying USAirways and connecting to a Southwest flight, all of us at Gate 31 really hope that you got your keys for the van from Scott who was supposed to leave them at the Southwest desk with directions as to where you parked. Yeah, that’s because we all heard it. And not just once: all three messages to Scotty - and your conversation with Kim. And your follow-up on the airplane. My God. Scotty is probably not answering the phone because (a) you call way too often and (b) you’re too damn loud. I’m sorry. But it was really, really annoying.
• I realize that air travel is stressful these days but, poor frumpy lady on my return flight, I don’t quite get how you can be drunk on an hour and fifteen minute flight when no alcohol is being served (drinking from your purse? drunk before you got on?). I know no alcohol was served not because I didn’t get any (I didn’t) but because the entire plane witnessed the flight attendant hovering over you when we landed and you wouldn’t get out of your seat while you kept asking whether alcohol was not served on the flight (it wasn’t, you don’t remember?) Get some help.
• The check-in kiosks for USAirways are cool - and so much more friendly than the agents!
• Um, yes, Chicago is the “Windy City” but that does not merit a cell phone call to find out whether that means that jeans and a sweater “to keep warm” qualify as business appropriate clothing; they do not.
• Martha Stewart is rich because people pay $3 more for her magazines than other magazines. And the guy who sold it to me agrees.
• Taking your shoes off and putting them in the same box that someone else just had their nasty shoes in cannot be hygienic.
• I don’t know how often you fly, over-bleached blonde haired woman, but you can’t “save seats” on a flight like you can on a bus - especially by putting your bag in someone else’s seat. That’s why you have a seat assignment.
• I’m glad I didn’t fly JetBlue.

How bizarre.

I had no sooner posted yesterday’s bit about the movie Thirteen, when I heard about Britney Spears, the fallen pop princess.  APL’s comment to my post and the craziness exhibited by Miss Spears got me to thinking.

I, like APL, was a good girl.  A really good girl.  I don’t say this in any self-congratulatory manner.  It is simply a fact.

I’m not sure how it happened.  I was a good student.  I liked school.  I was happy.  I was fairly popular.

I had angst-y moments and things that are best forgotten - or at the least - tucked away as experiences learned.  I did not live a worry-free existence.  We were poor.  My father worked a lot.  My brothers got into trouble.  I did not.

I was not perfect.  But my behavior was pretty benign.  I didn’t sleep around.  I didn’t do drugs.  I didn’t cut myself.  I didn’t steal.  I didn’t drink and drive.  And no more "I didn’ts".  The point is that, for whatever reason, I remained a good girl. 

When you’re in school, like the character in Thirteen, you hate being the good girl.  It feels so awful.  You’re convinced that everyone hates you because you’re not hanging out doing the wrong thing.  You have no idea that being the good girl is a really a blessing.

In junior high, while I was being good at my 13th birthday party (a cook-out and movies, thank you very much), my friend L who blew me off for another party, also blew off literally a boy in our class right before she passed out on the pier.  After that, she was nicknamed "Deep Throat" by a girl named Sissy (don’t forget, we were Southern) who didn’t like her anyway.  She was humiliated every gym class when Sissy would yell it as she went to serve in volleyball.

That same year, my friend M dated a high senior.  We thought she was cool - until she passed out in Bill’s car after having sex with him and puking.

And there was lots of drinking.

But perhaps most telling about all of this happened years later.  I traveled to Europe after my first year of law school, I returned to my hometown for a bit to hang out.  I wandered into a local seafood restaurant where I ran into S, who had been my best friend for a number of years in elementary school, but I probably hadn’t seen her for ten years.  She was waitressing, divorced, had only left town once - for the bad marriage.  We chatted.  I realized that I was really proud of what I had done with my life and sad for her, not because she was waitressing or divorced but because those weren’t her choices - she fell into them because of other bad choices.  She had been so smart and so pretty.  I had remembered thinking that someday, she would be famous.  Only now she was sitting in this restaurant, tired already of her life, when mine was just beginning.

We got to talking about another girl who was on the cheerleading team with her.  My friend revealed that most of the cheerleading squad had been hooked on meth crystal for most of high school.  This was surprising to me since I hung out with a number of those girls every day.  I never had a clue, which I remarked to my friend. 

"Why," I asked, "didn’t anyone ever tell me?"  And I wondered why no one had ever offered any to me, not that I’d take it, mind you.

The answer took me aback.  She said that none of the girls wanted to tell me because I was a good girl.  They didn’t want me to know not because I’d tell or something silly, but because they didn’t want me to think badly of them.

I think if I had known that as a kid, I would have been devastated.  I would have made it into something it wasn’t.  But as an adult, I was really flattered.  In that moment, I realized that it really is okay to be the good girl and surprisingly cooler than you ever think when you’re younger.

I’m not sure what happens to turn a good girl bad.  I certainly don’t know from my own history.  I hope I never have to learn.