Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bastille Day - I'd say this goes out to all my French companions, but we're Amuricuhn here (the "we" would refer to the majority of my multiple personalities and the "here" would refer to that quagmire of anomie that is my head). And since to us Amuricuhns, the world is really just Eurodisney's Epcott Center, I think we know that all "Independence Days" and other national holidays are really just fabricated by God to give Amuricuhns a chance to dabble in funny accents, eat weird food and swill some alcohol vaguely related to the country theoretically celebrating itself.
So... hmmm, happy France Day classmates! Obviously time to break out the brie, pump up the Carla Bruni, and cadge some chartreuse (it was between chartreuse, Grey Goose, cognac, and champagne, but I haven't had any chartreuse in a while...honestly the only alcohol I have is a mini-bottle of Californian "champagne" leftover from the old dating anniversary, so it's probably really sparkling wine on this occasion).
Actually, on this magnificent 14th Jullet, I've been watching bikes. Bikes on the tv, and soon bikes at the park. It was the first day in the Alps for the Tour de France, and - ok, I won't bore all you non-bike people with too many details or add any spoilers for the DVR crowd, but basically every one climbed up something with a ... oh I don't know ... 200% grade for about forty grueling minutes at the end of six hours of riding really fast through several crowds of deranged French people in inexplicably conceived costumes.And it was exciting, because some of them rode up a lot faster and less within the realm of the humanly plausible. They also made several quite stellar facial expressions that I had ne'er conceived of as humanly possible. Oh and one of my favorite bike dancers, Mr. Crazy Green Jersey Sagan, popped a little wheelie and blew kisses at the crowd, which was ineffably charming. Needless to say, I'm utterly bushed, and my buns are burning just having watched this morning's festivit- er fetes. But it shall soon be followed up by a live action bike race of slightly shorter duration.
Yes, it is time for Andrew's first mountain bike race in a relatively long while. Mountain biking used to be his main discipline, but the race scene in Western Washington has shredded faster than today's peleton on Mont Ventoux. Thank goodness that Andrew found track and all its quirky points and peculiarities to be such a satisfying complement to his own skills and raving insanities. But cross-country mountain is still one of his deep loves, as may be evidence by how much of the mountain he brings home with him on a weekly basis (we may start contracting out our shower for logging rights, soon!)
For extra fun (for me), this race is basically just outside our door. I exaggerate a bit, but it is at Lake Padden (well the trails around Lake Padden, although if an aqua bike race scene ever emerges, rest assured Andrew will somehow be involved, if only as an excuse to buy himself yet another nifty new bike). As such, I can walk over there to watch the beginning, walk back at the end, and probably even sneak back home in the interim.
In addition to being convenient, this is also sort of a nostalgic locale and venue. When the boy and I were first dating - possibly before we were even past the what should I call you? ...um, well my name is Adella... or... what would you like to call me super-slick officiality stage of the relationship - my folks rather conveniently both left town and a few homes were even more conveniently open just over the weekend of the race.
We snuck up here on Saturday night, camped out at my Dad's house, and then spent part of Sunday afternoon recovering from the event together. Very romantic, and a nice way to ease a little real life into those strange early days of decontextualized dating. In subsequent years, my dad has played water bottle wrangler, I've had picnics with friends during the race, and I've driven out just near the end to watch the finish before fleeing home.
It's a nice break away from the impending OFFICE (not the sitcom, but the job), which continues to heat up both tangibly and allegorically as we continue with Trial Blitz of Summer '13 going into yet another week of warming weather. Happy Sunday, Joyeuz 14 Jullet, and ou est la salle de bain to all y'all out there. Save some eclairs for me (to hide in my purse and feed to the fella, of course... I am a hoarder of love)
And to my darling Mr. (W)right, Le Vroom Vroom, Bebe ;-)
That's a 0.3 in Legal Billing Terms - That's right, things just got shaken up faster than Little Bunny Foo-foo's cottontail ... by a whole fifteen minutes! After several weeks of languishing on the ride-share site, Andrew's inquiry about a potential carpool was finally snapped up by a Boeing Engineer with an androgynous name and a terse communication style. As of this morning, we basically only knew that they'd be meeting at a park and ride around 6:20 and they wouldn't share rides on Wednesday.
Some additional details are spilling in after the actual parking and riding portion was successfully completed this morning... for one, apparently this "Jessie" person was not some kind of deranged psychopath trying to abscond with my husband via rideshare stalking. Actually he is an acoustical engineer at Boeing. And he even has a usual departure time between 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., except that it's based on meetings, so not entirely certain. This is what I know at the time. Regardless, I'm happiest about the first point and how my husband remains alive etc.
In walk the logistics: "Jessie" purportedly has been leaving the house around 6:00 a.m. Andrew has been leaving at about 6:40. He proposed they split the difference and meet at 6:20. I, with all druthers intact, would be at the office at 5:30 a.m.. Needless to say, I smelled the blood of opportunity in the waters of - er - changing schedules. So today was our trial run of the new (W)right workday morning. Basically I still get up obscenely early, but spend slightly less time dallying about waiting to rouse Mr. (W)right; and even less time making breakfast very slowly while waiting for Mr. (W)right to emerge from the den of slumbers with his coffee half-imbibed and the blear slightly cleared from his eyes. And we eat just about 15 minutes earlier, meaning I get to leave about 15 minutes earlier.
So far, so good. I really do most of my productive work before noon, so every little tenth of an hour actually is a good deal for me. And Andrew will be able to possibly cut his travel costs in half, while making a probably very nerdy friend in the offing! Very promising for all involved.
As mentioned, yesterday I watched lots of crazy men on bikes, including my superlatively unhinged husband. I walked to Padden to see the start of the race. Sadly, I just missed it, but I have it on good report that it was actually and literally a "skipping start" (because Bellingham is quirky, and yes that means they had to skip to their bikes to start the race). I lingered a bit about the course, allowing my poor face to binge on far too many UV rays (it is still ruddy with hangover about this uncharacteristic exposure to that enormous fireball in the sky). And I watched him finish at the end, happy to find him generally intact and about as loopy as I can remember he usually is after such efforts. He did well. To me, that means not plummeting to his death over a canyon. To him, it mostly means that he placed higher than he ever has on the leader board and did roughly the same times as last race. I am very proud.
The moral apparently is that - despite several opportunities for such things to go awry - my husband is still quite alive and even possibly awake and functioning at his office. And I have a little bit more time to get things done before the afternoon doldrums ascend on my weary skittle-brain. Given that our office insanity is going to reach full pitch again this week, that is a very excellent turn of events.
You've got me in between ... the wind tunnel and the deep blue shoes - Today is the kick-off of crazy season at the office again. Yesterday was a tense prelude, but today was our first deadline for something truly foreboding - settlement conference documents for one of our more emphatically excursive cases. Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to ... practice family law?Many of our cases, really, are five parts unprettied Melrose Place, one part Judge Judy, three parts 80-hour-seminar on tabular-compliance-accounting-protocols, two parts Lifetime special, one party Mixed Martial Arts cage match, and about ten parts of pillow-punching drag out therapy.
I'm pretty sure that any other members of our family - and even our office manager - would be shocked at just how brutally brusque we are with each other when the swells of work pitch to a climax. I wouldn't say there's yelling, but there are some pointedly enunciated raised voices, and the occasional corneal somersault. Our office manager/paralegal gets a very panicked look about her and retreats to her office at these times... but, well, it gets things done and as yet no actual scarring has occurred.
It's an especially magical flurry, today, since the wind is feeling frisky in my mother's office. Everywhere else, we're surviving through another piquant peak in heat (I am officially blaming trial preparations for the increasing temperatures) that's just roughly short of a pre-heated oven. But in her office, freshness abounds, and boy is it throwing a bit of a temper-tantrum. Anyone who's ever scoffed at paperweights clearly does not work in our office. It's turning into a bit of a Chaplin film in there, what with all the documents already scattered and piled for various trial-prep purposes. I have been leaping and flailing all day. Lift one hand and papers fly; try to catch them and others take off in hot (literally, since it's still quite warm even with the breeze) pursuit!
Will we survive? Lord knows. I'm personally escaping to the gym in a little while, where I will likely marinate in a lovely brine of my own porous excretions. Some day, fall will come... some day!
Here Comes the Rain Again: Ballad of a Broiled Bog Creature - Today was looking Leviathon, but a series of fortunate events has turned things... not so bad. First, I had gotten it into my head that today is Thursday (incidentally, it is not). The thing about Thursday is that it's one day closer to Friday at noon, another impending deadline for our upcoming premier of Trial 2: The Reckoning. Basically everything that will likely determine the course of the trial must be together, tabulated and submitted by this deadline. Which means those things should probably also be drafted... something that I have, it being actually Wednesday, not fully completed yet.
Despite my steadily held conviction that it was Thursday, I had also grafted Wednesday's IRB meeting and office lunch/errand running onto my theoretical Thursday. By about 6:00 a.m. this morning, I was pretty convinced that I'd be in meetings all day and unable to do any work until either midnight "Friday morning" or some other godawful time not properly cataloged in the annals of normal physics and possibly required a Tardis to reach.
This conclusion, as it turns out, is an overstatement. First, God blessed me by making it remain Wednesday. This was an exceedingly propitious start. Next, the IRB meeting truncated itself out of existence beyond a fifteen minute phone conference review of stuff we'd dealt with last time. Since it wasn't that involved, I managed to work through the first fifty hours of my day (I do like to get into work fairly early) and make a significant amount of progress on my part of the TRIAL PREP. Meaning, there should be time to finish that off and convene in office conference to coordinate the final preparations.
As a cherry on the delectable Wednesday-Sundae: It rained!!! Our prodigal clouds have come home to stay, if only for a day or two. Granted, the sun is reemerging from behind their gauzy moues, but I will take any half-second abatement of radiation pouring into my soggy swamp of an office (yes, it is so humid in here, that I am working under a mosquito net to diminish any chances of malaria).
Yesterday evening, Mr. (W)right and I successfully executed another pass at date-night, heralded by the first onset of dour dusk. He continues not to be killed by his new carpool-mate - it is early yet, admittedly - although the new arrangement did lead to some momentary confusion about whether Andrew was in Everett or Bellingham (these things are good to know when planning a dinner destination). Once that trivial nicety was sorted out, we returned to Q.Q. Lin's, extraordinary strip-mall Chinese palace of bliss... and palace of plonking renditions of two phrases of Fur Elise. The owner was working the counter while helping her son practice on a portable keyboard. I'm happy to say that I can still understand enough of my Mandarin to gather smatterings of encouragement and admonishments to a small Chinese child. Most important to becoming successful: lianxi lianxi (practice). Darnit! I thought there were magical pills you could buy on the internet for that.
In addition to actually offering plainly perfect steamed tofu and veggies in abundance, this little Chinese place offers some of the tastiest fortune cookies in town. And a bit tongue in cheek at that: my "fortune" was "It tastes so sweet." Fewer truer words.
Happy Wednesdathursday every one! There's more time! There's more time! Just enough extra to get on my galoshes and see if I can provoke a little more respite from this nasty thing we call "summer" through a series of brilliant rain dances and invocations.
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