but then again, there are some cool people, too

the whole dog thing has got me thinking about a similar incident last summer.

we live on one of the main streets of our neighborhood. the side streets kind of branch off of our street. it seems like every stray dog figures this out at some point and winds its way past our house during its own little Incredible Journey. most of the time they won't come to me, but when they will, i do my best to get them home.

one evening last summer i came home from work around dusk. i got out of the car and glanced across the street and saw a white dog lying up against my neighbor's privacy fence, near the curb, panting hard. i didn't have to get very close to see that the dog was old and exhausted. he was not wearing a collar, and he couldn't even stand up to make it across the street to my back yard.

i took him some water and then called the local police department to see if anyone had reported a lost dog. i figured that--worst case scenario--he'd be better off spending a few nights in the animal shelter than fending for himself.

the dispatcher asked me to describe the dog and she said that someone had reported a dog missing that matched the exact description. she took down my address and told me that she would notify the owners.

i hovered around the front door keeping an eye on the fellow, and within five minutes a woman pulled up in a volvo station wagon with a couple of kids around 10 or 12 years old. they bounded out of the car and gently loaded the dog up in the back. they were elated to see him. i stepped out onto the driveway long enough to wave to them and tell them that i was happy he was going home.

i went back into the house and about thirty minutes later i was on the phone with J--who was out of town for business--when the doorbell rang. this is completely unusual.

i opened the door and the two kids were there with a package of fresh cookies from the local grocery story and a bouquet of flowers. they thanked me for saving their dog, and the older one gushed about how she'd had the dog her whole life and they had been so worried about him and then she hugged me. i was flattered by the unnecessary gesture, but i know it made the kids feel good to do something reciprocal. not to mention that their parents must be raising them right.

the whole situation made my heart swell a little, and it's those intangible rewards that make the effort worth it even when it seems so unworthwhile, like today.

and i'm not even a dog person.

my "humans suck" post of the week

this morning as i was leaving for work, a gigantic chocolate lab came bounding toward me. he was a friendly dog who clearly had a home, so i reached out for his collar to read it. he ducked when i reached to pet his head like he was afraid i was going to hit him. i hate it when dogs do that. makes me want to beat their owners.

his tag said "Miles." had a phone number.

i put Miles in our back yard and called the phone number. a man picks up the phone (sounded like a cell). i said, "hi. i have your dog." the man, clearly irritated, responds, "where do you live?" i gave him the major cross streets and he responded, "okay, i will have my wife come and get him." he doesn't ask my name, my phone number, my address - nothing. i told him to call me back on my cell phone number, and he hung up on me.

jerk. as if i get paid to rescue dogs for a living. i have a job to get to, too. and i know exactly where MY dog is (at that moment, i'm sure she had crawled into the still-warm-yet-forbidden bed and was actively shedding all over my pillow).

J was in the house sleeping after working last night and i felt genuinely bad for him because i knew that the min-ute that valkyrie (our 20lb miniature pinscher) discovered that there was another Dog in her backyard she would go nuts. which she did, all morning long, according to J, who called me groggy around lunch.

unfortunately, J also told me that Miles dug out of our back yard at the gate and was gone.

this sucks for a handful of reasons, including that we just paid a pretty penny to have that fence put up and we're going to have to fill that hole in so that valkyrie doesn't get out. also, i was kind of hoping that the guy didn't call me back and we could keep the dog. it was such a nice dog, and based upon my 30-second conversation with his owner i'd convinced myself that these people didn't deserve the dog, anyway.

so i called the number back and no one picked up. i left a snippy voicemail indicating that this was the person who had their dog calling again, and no one ever called me back about him, and now the dog has dug out of the fence and we no longer have him, but call me if you have questions.

i hope Miles comes back, or i hope he finds someone who loves him, or at the very least finds his way home without meeting disaster. if valkyrie got out and someone called us to let us know that they had her, i certainly wouldn't let 3 or 4 hours pass with no contact--i'd be right over there. before she yipped them to death.

people are such jerks. i hope the dog is safe.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep, 

And miles to go before I sleep.

in the fridge...

...we have all kinds of leftovers, including a tupperware bowl full of old-fashioned, homemade, skin-on garlic mashed potatoes with plenty of butter and cream. they were amazing the first time around. potato perfection. i had to restrain myself from eating them all.

but what did i have for dinner? a bowl full of instant mashed potatoes because that was what i decided i absolutely had to have--nothing else would do--yet the thought of the ones in the fridge made me absolutely weak with nausea. had to be instant.

this is insane.

in other news, J and i go for the first ultrasound on thursday afternoon. keep your fingers crossed that a) the doctor is IN this time and not called out to deliver a baby, and b) that everything goes perfectly.

grocery shopping

the cupboards in the house are bare. usually i'm the one in the household who does the grocery shopping and cooking. i try to reassure myself that J and i don't buy into gender-based roles, but the fact is that it really doesn't matter either way because i genuinely enjoy cooking. almost as much as i genuinely enjoy eating.

usually.

lately the thought of walking into a giant crowded building full of food and the great unwashed masses is enough to inspire a panic attack, what with my near-constant low-grade nausea and perpetual need for a bathroom.

so last night i told J that i'm officially handing over the grocery-shopping duties until i feel better. of course, he's fine with this - he doesn't mind doing the grocery shopping, either, but i usually put the kibosh on that because when he goes he buys the really good food like those little debbie strawberry cakes and the best kind of jalapeno kettle chips and the next thing you know i'm standing in the kitchen gorging myself on things that i would never buy myself because if i did i would stand in the kitchen and gorge myself.

so today i sent him an email with my wish list of grocery items that i'd like for him to get me, and the rest of the grocery shopping is totally up to him and he can buy whatever he thinks he is necessary for he and autumn to subsist until i'm feeling better.

the wish list wasn't things i'd normally buy for myself, but honestly i just named off random things that sound good to me right-now-this-very-minute that i might be able to eat in the foreseeable future and that don't require cooking. it read like a cross between the shopping lists of a 5-year-old and a french sous chef:

fresh cherries

frozen orange juice

cornichons

kool-aid

grapefruit

campbell's chicken and stars

granola

organic unfiltered apple juice

oranges/nectarines/tangelos

a jar of manzanilla olives

spaghetti-o's

canned artichoke hearts

raspberry sorbet or sherbet

milk

canned tuna, the good albacore kind not the cheap chunk light kind

easy mac

i'm waiting for him to get home now and i'm sure that as soon as the bags hit the counter i will descend upon them like a ravenous hyena and then suddenly it will all sound completely disgusting and i'll attempt to appropriate whatever thing J bought for himself for dinner and he'll have to stand there, slapping my hand away and looking panicked like, "oh my god are you seriously going to be like this for the next seven months??"

immigrant children are contagious

or so this city councilwoman seems to think.

Dallas Suburb bans rentals by illegal immigrants

it's hard for me to even discuss this topic because i think what we're doing to illegal immigrants is just so blatantly outrageous from a moral, ethical, and human rights standpoint.

but this city councilwoman from escondido, california goes on the record as saying, "We have to deal with the overcrowding in our neighborhoods. We have to deal with the overcrowding of our schools and the diseases that our children are exposed to. Our police department has to fight the gangs."

well, first of all, if you have a problem with overcrowding in your neighborhoods and schools, perhaps you should start with your american-born neighbors who have six children and then vote against tax bonds to support the school systems and infrastructure that support their massive family because they can't afford to pay more taxes and feed their six children. overcrowding is not an immigrant problem, it is an american problem, and we are all responsible for it. it results from our own failure to update our societal infrastructure to support the demands of our own increasing population, and our short-sighted eagerness to have litters of children in the face of evidence that by doing so we are dooming the human race. armageddon is racing at us at breakneck speed, and the beast is us.

but back to the point: immigrants make up a fraction of the overcrowding problem in the public schools. sure, there are statistics on how many more immigrant children attend public schools than ten years ago. but where are the studies on the increase in american-born children? immigrant children are just easier to point the finger at. i mean, c'mon, who wants to blame the soccer mom in her tax-sheltered Lexus SUV full of adorable little boys for overcrowding in the public schools? i mean, i do, but no one else really does. they like to blame the illegals. 

and as far as police departments fighting gangs, well, i am pretty sure that there are a lot of fine red-blooded american gang members who are alive and well and threatening our collective well-being as i write this. i don't think this is an immigration problem, either. i think it's a law enforcement problem. law enforcement who don't have the funding to deal with these problems, no matter what the race of the offenders.

but the worst part - the WORST part - is her reference to "the diseases our children are exposed to."

i'm sorry. WHAT?

do you seriously think that illegal immigrant children somehow pose more of a danger to the health of your six children than legal immigrant children? or that vaccinated immigrant children, by virtue of being illegal, are more of a health threat than the thousands - even tens of thousands - of american children who go unvaccinated every year? do you think if your child is exposed to an illegal immigrant child in the playground that her chances of contracting polio, or t.b., or scurvy--or whatever it is you're afraid of--suddenly increase because this child lacks the requisite paperwork? even though it's possible that the soccer mom's six kids have gone unvaccinated by choice because of the major health risks associated with vaccinating children?

and when did "the immigration debate" become politically correct code for "the mexican problem?" somehow i doubt this woman is referring to canadian illegal immigrants. in fact, i didn't say "mexican" one time in this entire blog until now, but i bet you $100 that you were thinking about mexican children the entire time you read this.

what a racist, hate-filled, intolerant society we've become, so quick to shatter the dreams of others when they begin to too-closely resemble our own.

UNICEF

"you get to eat anything you feel like eating, and feeling like eating is a great feeling, considering."

-Audrey

okay, it's time go public with it, i guess. i mean, it's really not time yet, but it's getting harder to not blog about it, and my close friends and family already know.

J and i are very excited to be expecting a baby in september.

i'm still in my first trimester, so anything can happen. we are not in that "safe" zone past twelve weeks yet when the risk of miscarriage drops. but it's hard to not talk about it when it's relevant to what's going on in my life.

anyway, i'm feeling good. i don't have any real morning sickness, but i feel kind of tired and vaguely nauseated all day long, and i am super opposed to any food smells at all. so we're eating out a ton, which i hate. but what can you do? i made a pot roast a couple of weeks ago - one of my favorite things - and now i'm firmly convinced that i'll never be able to eat pot roast again after having to smell it cooking for an entire day. as a result, i'm afraid to cook any of my favorite foods lest they be ruined for me forever.

the only two things i want in life are to stop feeling nauseated, and cheeseburgers. cheeseburgers are like manna from heaven. and before this, i hadn't ordered a cheeseburger in years - one of the last vestiges of my two-year stint in vegetarianism. the mere thought of a cheeseburger used to make me shudder, and now it's all i want, all the time.

what a cruel twist of fate.  'specially for all those cows.

marine cpl. cesear lauterbach

alright, i'm going to talk about this dead-pregnant-Marine case a little bit. i don't know how much you guys have been following it, but the guy is accused of murdering 8-months-pregnant marine lance cpl. maria laurean to death and then burying her body in his back yard. laurean had previously accused him of rape. lauterbach has a wife and an 18-month-old daughter and they now think that he fled to mexico, leaving them behind.

today the press is reporting that according to police affidavits, the day before he left he and his wife met with a lawyer who told him he could face the death penalty.

perhaps it's the defense attorney in me, but poor dude. i'm not saying he's innocent. but i am saying that everyone is like oh this evil man is on the run lock your doors when really, no one knows what happened the night she died, particularly since she was reportedly crazy as a loon anyway. after telling everyone this guy raped her, she turned around and said "well actually nevermind." even her parents said she was a mentally unstable pathological liar with a history of problems, but they've been conveniently dropping that part from the news reports ever since her body was found, as if it magically stopped being relevant. or true.

maybe she was threatening to blackmail him, maybe she was pregnant with his child, maybe she was threatening to ruin his life, maybe she came after him first. they're saying that he allegedly "beat her to death" but they're also saying she died of "blunt force trauma" and there are a helluva lot of ways to die of blunt force trauma and not all of them involve someone beating you to death. maybe the situation got out of hand and she hit her head on something, and he panicked because he has a wife and a small child. who knows? but I'm sick of all this "Marine beats pregnant rape victim to death" crap.

apparently being murdered while you're pregnant qualifies you for sainthood, and all your past transgressions are wiped away. at least in the eyes of the American public. or the press. or certainly a jury. maybe he did the right thing by fleeing to mexico, where they won't extradite him if he's facing capital charges. that's one thing that country's got right, for sure.

i know, i know...

...i've been neglecting this blog lately, a fact which has been called to my attention by more than one person. sorry, guys.

honestly, nothing blogworthy has really been going on lately. work, home, work, home, work, home. it's tiring and monotonous, but it's my life and i love it.

something exciting or funny is bound to happen to me in the next few days and i promise, ya'll will be the first to know. oh, wait - i might get to be on the news to talk about the TCBA mardi gras party. that's sort of interesting. not really as interesting as i thought it'd be when i was a kid. back then it was like, "ohmygod you were on the news you're famous everyone saw you my mom recorded it!!!" now it's all, "well, crap, am i gonna have to wear a suit that day?"

J's working nights this week, including tonight. it's supposed to get a little icy and i'm beginning to hear it coming down, clicking on the patio door. time to go to bed, rather than stay up and worry. i'm getting better about it (i used to wake up in the middle of the night and call him to make sure he was okay for no reason at all), but of course i'd prefer that he be home. luckily it's not often.

oh, i got attacked by amazon.com today, as is wont to happen approximately two times a month, usually near the first part and again around the middle part, which is in no way to be construed as being related to payday. this time the monster tricked me into buying these old gems from my high school days that are missing from my collection and in need of replacement. and all because i heard "fake plastic trees" on the radio. maybe i need to work on my impulse control.

Her green plastic watering can / For her fake chinese rubber plant / In fake plastic earth...

i think that's probably on my top twenty.

last night i was just dozing off to sleep when J came into the bedroom, asking if i wanted to see Gatsby doing something funny.

apparently he'd decided that the pottery barn sack full of Princess's old clothes slated for goodwill was a nice-looking place to settle down for a long winter's nap. 

gato loco.

don't judge me

but i'm going to that dark place where people with bad taste in music go when they die.

i just bought these on amazon.com for about $.50 each:



i used to have them when i was a kid. in a fit of nostalgia, i couldn't resist.

i guess the question is, if i just willingly purchased two Yanni cds, what kind of music will i have to listen to in music hell? good music? will they play tupelo honey in my hell?

kara would say that you have to listen to RENT in music hell, and that i should be ashamed of myself for knowing all the words to the soundtrack. but i do, and i have tickets to it in march.

but you know what? i have tickets to see wilco in march, too, so they cancel each other out in terms of cool-points. and i have all of the nirvana albums and most of pearl jam except my vitalogy got lost in college, and i know the lyrics to dark side of the moon the entire way through from memory and i think jackson browne's late for the sky is one of the best albums ever along with led zeppelin II and i think beautiful loser is the best song bob seger ever recorded.

so no one can ever tell me i have bad taste in music. pffft. my dad brought me up right.

blogging is fun.

good night.

bar association event

that is the most boring title in the history of titles. anyhoo.

every year the tulsa county bar association young lawyers' division (or TCBA YLD for short, we heart acronyms in lawyerland) throws its annual mardi gras party on fat tuesday. this year, as in past years, we are hosting this fundraising event at the mayo hotel in downtown tulsa. it will begin at 6:30 p.m. on february 2 and will benefit Parkside Psychiatric Hospital’s Food Pantry Program.

if it sounds like i'm reading from a press release, that would be because i am. and i wrote it, because i have the dubious distinction of being this year's chairperson for the event.

Here's the rest of the press release:

***

Five-star Creole and Cajun Chef Lanney Aund’re, formerly of Lake Charles, Louisiana, will be serving a buffet of traditional fare. There will also be a full cash bar with New Orleans-style drinks and live music. Tickets will be $18.00 per person, and table sponsorships are available. A $250 Green Level sponsorship comes with five tickets and recognition of your sponsorship in the Tulsa Business Journal and Bar Journal. A $500 Purple Level sponsorship comes with 10 tickets, recognition of your sponsorship, and a table reserved in your firm or organization’s name. A $1,000 Gold Level sponsorship comes with 20 tickets, recognition of your sponsorship, and two tables reserved in your firm or organization’s name.

Partygoers who bring a canned good with them to donate to Parkside’s Food Pantry will earn an entry into the drawing for door prizes.

***

you don't have to be a lawyer to come. in fact, coming to see me should be sufficient motivation to buy an $18 ticket.

i have a nice shiny flier, too, but it's in .PDF format and i can't figure out how to upload non-.jpgs to blogger. i mean, i could, but i'm not going to. so there. if you want to see it, email me and maybe i'll send it to you.

so yeah, buy a ticket. if you know any lawyers or legal-ish people or people who like to talk about legal things when they're drunk, tell them to buy a ticket, too.

that is all.

speaking of oriental food...

.... which i was, like, two weeks ago, if you haven't been to thai siam over at 31st and sheridan, then you haven't lived. it's in that strip mall where the scary dollar movies used to be. ash and i used to go there on rent day. order the shrimp-tomato-pineapple fried rice. omg omg omg i have to go there right now bye.

friday night in the hiz-ouse

i just said "hiz-ouse" and horrified myself a little bit. i apologize for that.

seriously, though, it is friday night at 9:22 p.m. and i'm already in my pajamas, having taken down the christmas decorations after a dinner of *gasp* take-out chicken. now i'm eating the leftover cold fried okra and drinking - no, not bourbon and diet dr. pepper as in days of yore - but perrier. we're waiting for Princess to finish picking up the dominoes out of her floor so we can get her to bed and start the grown-up movie.

i don't know when my life got so dull, but i like it. there was a time when i would've just been waking up from a long winter's nap and calling my best friend Brooke to see what the plan for the night was as i jumped in the shower. but a friday night spent listening to old pearl jam albums while J teaches Princess how to play chess shockingly gives the bar scene a run for its money. tonight's choice is "Julien Donkey-Boy," the sixth film of the Dogme 95 Manifesto. who needs a club when you've got harmony korine? 

nothing's more bizarre.

phoenix

we are back from phoenix. we got back on wednesday evening and it's been crazy since then. the house was a mess and we had tons of laundry to do, we came home to no food in the house and the christmas decorations yet to be taken down.

it's good to be back at work, though. i'm glad it's a new year and totally ready to get back in the routine. the holidays are so chaotic that they drive me crazy.

while we were in arizona we took some time to drive up to the mountains and do a little hiking. we took these pictures at the white tank national monument

state park outside of phoenix.

the weather was a little chilly - but nowhere near as cold as it's been in our midwestern town, and it was wonderfully dry and sunny. it made me crave the springtime - which reminds me, i wonder if it's too late to plant tulip bulbs?

the last few summers i've really meant to get outside and start a garden but i haven't gotten around to it, either due to lack of yard space or abundance of other projects. this year, having recently put up our nice, tall cedar privacy fence and freshly painted the house, hopefully i will be less distracted by projects and able to put up a proper garden with lots of tomatoes and peppers and herbs. mmmmm, salssssaaaaaaa.