Friday, December 22, 2006

Haiku Friday


Christmas is for some
But not all, for Steve can't find
Festivus sweaters

Attention: OCD Law Student Here

Here's a fun fact about me: I'm cripplingly OCD yet incredibly lazy. It's like Types A and B's love child.

I had been hoping to bring my outlines totally up-to-date by five o'clock today since tomorrow we leave for my grandparents' house. [FN1] Ha! No.

However, my administration of estates outline is 510 pages long. [FN2]

I need professional help.

[FN1] And may the good Lord help us all not to kill each other.
[FN2] For the uninitiated, outlines are the preferred method of studying for law students. Your very longest one ought to be no more than around 120 pages. EVER.

Baby Snatching


When you get to a certain age, you start coveting....Especially when they're this cute!

Anyone Need a Pair of Mittens?

I love sleep. In fact, I would say it is about my favorite-est thing in the world. Yes, I love it enough to violate English grammar like a naughty cabana boy in order to get that point across. I love it even more than Little Man (though not by much). However, lately my blissful sleep has been interrupted by something I love a lot less--my cat.

The cat and I have always had a troubled relationship--more like potluck roommates than like a a pet and its person. [FN1] First of all, from day one, she was not...the most...personable pet one could desire, and poor little Ursa has always been somewhat terrified that the cat was going to eat her. Second, though, was the fact that the cat was troublesome at night. In fact, other than the first week that I had her, she spent the entire first year of her life spending her nights in the bathroom locked up with her food and her litter box. After that, though, she seemed to level out.

Alas, it appears that my nocturnal luck has run out.

She has started pouncing on things that make, in her view, satisfying noises every couple of hours throughout the night. It's like having a baby. I haven't slept through the night in weeks. Around 4 a.m., I typically have had enough and decide to put her back in the bathroom, at which point I have to get out of bed and catch the beast.

Someone's little, furry butt is about to be demoted.





[FN1] This statement is even more accurate than it seems: The cat was a gift. NEVER give people animals as gifts. There is a lot of negative potential there about 95% of which the cat and I are realizing at the moment.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

More Sad News

What Do You Give the Little Man Who Has Everything? Part 2


O, Little Man. So handsome.

What Do You Give the Little Man Who Has Everything?

Your heart. And some spiffy Santa gear with jingle bells to bring joy to all.

[FN1] I cut out Little Man's handsome and terribly intelligent father because I figured he probably wouldn't want his face on the likes of this blog.
[FN2] That is one fine dog.

The Christmas Song

Grand fun and family friendly.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Goodbye


I've had my last gutpak. If you haven't had yours, hurry, because he closes this week.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Straight Man

I don't recommend books very often for the simple reason that time that I would be spending reading fun ones is usually spent keeping up with the federal tax code and other such head-turning legal literature.

However, Ursa gave me a copy of Straight Man, and I've made the time to read it and not been sorry--even though it's taken me a month to finish it. There are very few books that can cause me to laugh out loud, but this one did the trick. It's a delightful fictional account of one man's tenure as an interim head of an English department at a small university in western Pennsylvania. The main character is absolutely the life and heart of this book, as he lives solely to wreck havoc on the well-ordered world of academe around him for his own perverse entertainment in the middle of his midlife crisis.

The synopsis on booksamillion.com sums it up pretty well:

Friday, December 15, 2006

Uncle Bob on the Rate of Inflation

Personally I would kind of like a $42+some change electric bill.

> 1.I have a warm electric heater now. It did have a
> loose connection, but I fixed that.
> 2.Electric bill latest between $42 & $43!!!!!. That
> should tell you right there, that inflation is
> faster
> than interest-payments on CD-s. Best are
> hard-asset-type equities, like ETF-s (Exchange
> Traded
> Funds) mining shares, basic materials shares,
> precious
> metals shares, natural resources shares. Also those
> kinds of Mutual Funds, like T.Rowe Price, Wasatch,
> Etc., (No-Load kinds of Mutual funds). Best also
> are
> global & international, but those also best if of
> above categories.
> -- R.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Skwubs

Got this from Fiance today, who is nuts over Scrubs--it's reasonably cute.

Sorry the previous post looks funny. Blogger gave me a lot of trouble getting all that in on copy and paste. I don't really know why. There's also a picture of a homeless man that you can click on and maybe see. It's pretty much what Bob looks like.

I Think Everyone's Got a Crazy Uncle Bob


One of the most interesting aspects of my grandmother's newest foray into near-death-guilt-tripping is that she decided we were all going to visit her brother Bob for Thanksgiving.


I generally start stories about Bob with the words, "I have this crazy Uncle Bob," but people always interrupt and tell me that they think everyone's got one. The story usually ends up proving however, that no one's got one like mine.

First, I need to explain a little bit about him. He is cheap. He is 83 and only just got running water and electricity (the one of his sisters that allowed him to use her yard hose to bathe died a couple of years ago). The thing is, though, it's not that he can't afford things like heat and sewage, it's that he doesn't want to pay for them. He also hordes everything. We had to enter his house one person at a time because the only way to get through is to go through the paths made between his stacks of stuff. I'm not talking about paths through stuff on the floor--I'm talking about paths through the house. There's stuff piled from floor to ceiling like a hedge maze. Bob also visits the local library every day and sends e-mails like it's his job. Every e-mail he sends is cc'd to every person in his address book, no matter how personal, he has about thirty e-mail addresses (all marked "John Doe"), and he sends about three times that many e-mails a day.

So, after our Thanksgiving visit, I received a copy from my Dad of the e-mail excerpted below. Note especially numbers 5 and 8. I actually didn't delete anything there; he really just skipped from 5 to 8.

1.good visit yesterday. Thanks.

> 2.I misquoted, i.e. said wrong author for

> quatrain-verse that I e-mailed yesterday. It is by

> Joseph someone. Author I said wrote other poems on

> those same pages of that same book I was quoting

> from.

….

> 5.As to Oso, -- in Law School -- . I suppose

> pastors' children get a special deal at

> (Baptist-owned

> & operated) law school. Preacher-career is

> probably a good career. Helpful there if also a

> musician, maybe. But there is politics there too, &

> I

> think that Politics corrupts Religion, & that

> Religion

> corrupts Politics. I think Israel & the entire

> Mid-East is a prime example of that. I suspect that

> Louisiana Dry-Creek encampments = another example of

> it.

> But beware if into high-level politics, -- because

> there the CIA may assissinate her. I think a LOT of

> such killings go on in White-house & Camp David

> environs, -- & has done so for a long time.

> Maybe being a Divorce-Lawyer would also be good,

> --

> because marriage seems to be such an unnatural state

> of affairs, a legal quagmire, etc.

> Or maybe a Patent & Copyright Atty.

> 8.Most lawyers give me the creeps. I think that

> Lawyers, Beauticians, Car-Mechanics, Repair-persons

> for Cars or for Houses, & Barbers tend to have

> irresponsible & dishonest aspirations & natures...


I forwarded a copy to Ursa, who had this remark: "Uncle Bob is very kind to worry about your possible assasination. Also, I love how he compared Louisiana and the Middle East. He has an excellent grasp on reality that seems to be tightening by the minute."

Friday, December 01, 2006

Friday Haiku/Bear



I hear a loud thud
Slick floors make it hard to stop
Sometimes kittens slide