My Torts Midterm: The Shortest 75 Minutes of My Life

Most of the time, stressful experiences tend to drag. Minutes pass like hours. Hours pass like days. It is a sensation of time slowing down that we all know. Well I have just discovered it's inverse: a law school midterm.

Let me start out by saying that I studied. A lot. I know the elements of battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and trespass well enough to recite in my sleep. I actually woke up doing that the morning of the exam.

But being able to spit out legal jargon is only half the fun. You have to know how to spot it.

OK so a law school exam goes something like this: You are given a fact pattern. You get 15 minutes to read it, spot and outline ALL of the issues on your scratch paper and then about 60 minutes to write your answer out. Sounds easy, right?

Law school instructors take a lot of time carefully crafting their fact patterns. They chose their words very carefully, because ONE WORD can add another issue to a fact pattern, and if you just read right over it, you will miss all of the points for that issue. For example, consider this: "Joe is riding one of Paul's horses. Paul intentionally startles the horse, causing it to kick and buck and eventually throw Joe off, where he falls and breaks his leg." Without any real legal training, most people might read that and think "battery" for the fall from the horse to the ground. They would spend 10 minutes crafting an answer for that sentence that talked about Paul intentionally and indirectly causing Joe a harmful contact with the ground and move on. And if the entire exam was just that sentence, they would have just gotten a 30% on it. Maybe less.

You see, Paul's battery on Joe from causing the fall off the horse is only 1 of 3 Torts in the fact pattern listed above. It is also the most obvious Tort in that fact pattern, and law school instructors would regard it as "low hanging fruit." You'll get points for talking about it, but not that many.

So what are the other 2 Torts? This is where the choice of words by the instructor comes into play.

The words "kick and buck and eventually throw" are where the other 2 Torts are hidden. Picture Joe on the horse. It is kicking and bucking. What happens to someone on a horse that is kicking and bucking? He is being jostled and bounced up and down on the saddle while trying to hold on. This alone could cause sprains to the neck or a dislocated arm, and at the very least a sore groin from having it slammed into a saddle multiple times. There's your 2nd battery: Joe being jostled and bounced around and slammed into the saddle on the horse.

What else happens in the mind of someone on a horse that is kicking and bucking? "Oh sh*t, I'm about to fall! I hope I don't fall!" The word "eventually" tells us that Joe was not thrown from the horse immediately, and since the fact pattern doesn't say that Joe lost consciousness before falling off the horse, we know Joe was aware of the fact that he was about to be thrown off a horse. Here is your 3rd Tort: Joe's awareness of an imminent harmful contact is an assault, and if you just glanced over the word "eventually," you will have missed that.

Those other 2 Torts are the "not-so-low-hanging-fruit" where you'll wrack up the most points. A fact pattern on a law school exam may be anywhere from a few paragraphs to 2 pages worth of sentences like the example I just used. An hour may seem like a long time to take an essay exam, but when that kind of analysis is involved, it is sometimes not enough to finish talking about everything you find in a fact pattern. Law school professors know this, and that is why there is "low hanging fruit" and "not-so-low-hanging-fruit": you want to spend the bulk of your time on the stuff that isn't so obvious. A bad answer is one that is consumed pointing out the obvious issues. The points are in the hard stuff, hidden in the details that your professor took the time to weave into the fact pattern, and they appreciate it when you don't overlook those hidden nuggets.

But the "obvious" is not always your friend. Part of what professors want in an exam answer involves what most people find to be obvious inferences. It is not enough to say that someone in a locked interior room meets the criteria for "physical boundaries" with "no reasonable means of escape" in order to prove up those elements for false imprisonment. What if the room has windows? What if there is no roof? What if it can be unlocked from the inside? You have to go a step further and point out that the interior room is a finite space secured on all sides by windowless walls, a ceiling, and a floor, and that the only means of egress from this room is the door, and that once the door is locked, the room is a secure space which creates a large box around whatever is inside. You would also need to point out that the room can't be unlocked from the inside or it is STILL not enough. You're reading this and you think "Well, DUH, obviously all of these things are true" but if you forget to point them out in your analysis, your professor will dock you heavily for it. It is not enough to make your point. You have to prove it, and you have to pretend you are proving it to a 3 year old. It makes sense if you think about it though. Say there's a baby in a locked car. This scenario takes on a whole new meaning if that car is a convertible, doesn't it? What the professor wants to know is WHY. You will kill a lot of your exam time answering "why."

So in my Torts exam, I had to read a 1 page fact pattern and a paragraph of instructions, spot all the issues (I found 10) and explain "why" for each of them. Some of those issues were low hanging fruit, and some weren't. I am confident that I spotted all of the issues. The only thing I am not 100% sure about is if I gave enough "why" for my instructor. I wrote the equivalent of about 8 or 9 pages. I finished just in time to go back and proof-read, but again, you can never really be sure until you get your exam back.

Law School (so far...)

So I've completed my first week of "law preschool" and 2 weeks of actual law school to date. I say "Law Preschool" because, as a 1L, I had to take a week's worth of my Intro to Legal Class (a requirement at my school) and then that class meets every Thursday the rest of the semester. It is meant to ease you into how law school classes are, what tests are like, writing styles, case reading, etc. and I found it to be quite helpful. By the end of that first week, I had made some new friends and formed a carpool, so that is helping.
Adjusting to a new sleep schedule has been difficult. I am now one of those people who starts yawning at 9pm and views 8am as "sleeping in." Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays I have class from 9am until 2:30pm, Wednesdays I have class from 9am until 4:15pm and Thursdays I have class from 1pm to 6pm. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, one of my classmates who LITERALLY lives a half a block away rides in with me, so on those days I can get to and from school much faster. I have a carpool that meets at Brea Mall every day so that we get the privilege of parking on campus, as all non-carpool participant 1L's have to fight for spots at Cal State Fullerton (which is right across the street from WSU.) Most days I eat lunch on campus, as they have a little cafeteria in the Student Lounge that makes all the food to order and is not expensive.
When I come home from school, I typically spend between 1 to 2 hours a night reading, briefing cases and occasionally drafting some ungraded but mandatory writing assignment. Though this isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things, that, along with my new daytime schedule, makes me a zombie the rest of the day. My workout routine during the week has tanked, so I try to catch up on weekends or nights when my homework is less. I spend a lot of time sitting and being sleepy, but I'm surviving. I'm not overwhelmed by the work, I'm just overwhelmed by the schedule. In truth, the work is not that difficult, there is just always work to do. It is just unending.
We will see if my opinion changes by the end of the month.

20 Pounds!

I've been "living a healthier lifestyle" for 83 days. Of those 83 days, I've been on Weight Watchers Online for the last 10 weeks. I've now lost 20 pounds :)
The real challenge, now that Summer is over and I'm a full time law school student, will be to continue to incorporate this lifestyle into my new routine. The next 5 days of school (now that law preschool is over and my regular schedule is starting) will be all about finding a balance: getting my reading and briefing done, going to class, getting enough sleep, eating right, working out and still finding a few minutes a day to enjoy the people and activities that are equally as important to me.
We will see how it goes. My long term goal is to lose 40 more pounds or 2 more dress sizes by the end of the year, with my ultimate goal being to lose 60 more pounds or be 3 dress sizes smaller by next Summer. It sounds like a lofty goal, but if I maintain my current pace, it is doable.

And then there was one...

A year ago today, my roommate Mike moved in. Yesterday, he moved out. With Lucky dead, and Mike now gone, I am once again by myself in this house.

I can't get into the details of why Mike left, though I can say that his next step from here is to get help for some issues he is dealing with in his life, and that I wish him the best.

Paying the bills next month by myself is gonna suck, but the month after that should see them reduced a bit. I'm already very conscious of turning things off when not in use, so I'm hoping to keep the bills manageable. They should reduce even more once I start school, so I'm optimistic.

I'm glad I live in a quiet, safe neighborhood where I don't have to worry about being by myself. I can sleep with the windows open even though I'm alone, and I'm sure my Mom would have something to say about that. "That's not safe!" I do still jump when I hear a noise outside my window, though once it was a car door and the other 2 times it was my "special friend" tapping on my window to wake me up. I will eventually not be so jumpy.

So now I have empty spots in the house to fill up. I may move my makeup out of my dresser drawer and into the newly emptied half of the bathroom vanity. I may move some stuff around in the linen closet. I may eventually put 2 twin beds in Mike's old room and turn it into a guest bedroom. For now though, I'm still hesitant to spread out.

As for future roommates, at this point I would say "no." I think the next time I share a home with someone, it would be in the context of a relationship, so that there would be a real desire to share that element of my life with someone. A sense of inclusion rather than a sense of intrusion into my life would probably make me happier. It's not that Mike intruded, but
there were times when I wish I had more privacy.

In the meantime, I am contemplating getting a pet (most likely another cat since I really don't have the space for a dog) so that I have something here when I come home. I say 'contemplating' because I haven't decided yet if getting a pet will fit into my life once I start law school. I don't want to run out and get one just so that I don't feel alone and then leave it sitting alone in my house all day. Some people have suggested that I get 2 pets so they can keep each other company. That's not a bad idea, but I still want to wait and see.

Progress...

Today was my weekly weigh in day, and I officially hit the 10 pound mark. Today is day 42 of exercising and day 22 of being on Weight Watchers, so I feel like I'm making good progress.

A New Weigh of Life

Thirty seven days ago, I weighed myself and was not at all pleased. So I started working out regularly, on average 6 days a week. I started out with an hour of cardio each time, but I quickly worked up to 90 minutes per workout. When I say "cardio" I mean just that: jogging or boxing. None of this sissy-la-la low impact crap for me. No, my situation is far too dire. What I need is some boot camp style butt kicking, so when I work out, I finish each workout dripping sweat from every pour, my clothing drenched in massive sweat stains.

Though I was eating mostly sensibly at first, I felt my diet needed a boost, or at least some direction. On the advice of my hair stylist and friend Jessica, I signed up for Weight Watchers Online. The best part about that is that my Mom agreed to foot the $18 a month membership costs.

So I suppose the big question you have now is "How much weight have you lost so far?" The answer to that is 7 pounds, or at least that is what I was at on my last weigh in on Sunday. (I only weigh myself once a week) For the first 2 weeks, my weight didn't change, but I am told by the folks at Weigh Watchers that that is also normal. My last weigh in also didn't show any change because Aunt Flo is due, and I'm carrying some water weight, which is to be expected. It may not seem like a lot, but I know I have put on some muscle, plus I am already back into clothes that had stopped fitting months ago. I have also noticed a HUGE reduction in the amount of cellulite on my thighs, which is awesome. Other places on my body that have typically been problem areas, such as my back, upper arms and belly, are also shrinking and toning.

My goal is for healthy weight loss, which is typically defined as 2 pounds per week. My long term goal is to get back into a size 12, or even a 10, (right now I'm an 18) and I am more concerned with that than I am with what the scale says. I know from past experience that I will put on muscle as I lose weight, and that my jeans will be able to tell me just as much, if not more, about my progress than the scale can. Still, seeing the numbers drop down has been nice.

Learning what foods I can and cannot eat has been interesting. You would be surprised at what I actually can eat, and what I really can't afford to. The good news is that the foods I can't eat have healthy alternatives. There is vegan cheese, diet soda, fat free milk, Greek yogurt, brown rice, Ezekiel bread, whole wheat buns, veggie burgers, turkey bacon, and all sorts of other foods that I already liked. For example, 3 cups of orange chicken is 27 points, but 10 pieces of salmon nigiri is only 7 points. Since the only Chinese food I can even eat without getting sick is from a restaurant that I only eat at once or twice a year, that is fine with me, plus salmon nigiri is one of my favorite foods of all time anyway. French fries are obviously off limits, but many restaurants will give you cottage cheese and tomato slices instead, which is much better, especially if they have fat-free cottage cheese.

I'm of course eating a lot of the Weight Watchers food, which they sell at most grocery stores anyway, and the cost per meal is pretty cheap. I won't lie, they have one or two that I think taste just awful, but the majority of their food is actually pretty good, at least for diet food. They also have all of my junk food staples: pizza (mini-pizzas), burgers (slider burgers), egg muffin breakfast sandwiches, quesadillas, even dark chocolate raspberry popsicles. And it's not like the portions are tiny. The popsicles are normal size, and y0u get 4 little mini pizzas per serving (which are supposed to be a snack but I think suffice as a meal) and you can eat 2 of the sliders (which are meant to be individual snacks) as a meal. I supplement their stuff with produce most of the time. I get anywhere from 3 to 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day with healthy condiments, such as hummus or a tablespoon of light peanut butter. Everything has point values assigned to them, which makes me accountable for every single thing I eat in a day, so when I say a tablespoon of light peanut butter, that's exactly what I'm eating.

I control my portions of things like peanut butter because I have to. This also helps because I can still "be bad" if I want to. I get a set number of points per day, so if I really have to have something bad, say Chicken McNuggets, I know how I need to eat during the rest of the day or how much more exercise I need to do to offset that. That being said, I really am not bad at all. I've been to McDonalds just the one time. I come well under my point allowance for the day on most days and, unless I'm PMSing, I'm not starving to death in the process.

I've been chronicling my journey on my Facebook page. Every day, I do a post of 1 or 2 sentences describing my habits and thoughts for the day. It helps because I get lots of encouragement and positive feedback from my friends, and I've even inspired my friend Amy to start doing the same, which is awesome. I feel like I am sharing my journey with them and some days I really need that.

It's tough sometimes getting up in the morning knowing that after I eat and let my food settle I will be busting my butt for 90 minutes in the heat. Some days I'm sore, some days I'm tired, but I keep plugging away. If I have something to do during the day, I work out at night, and vice versa, but I always make sure to do my 90 minutes. The only days I have missed have been a couple days when I had massively bad cramps and 4 other days where I either spent all afternoon doing yard work or house work, all day walking around Disneyland and then the last day I missed was because I gave myself the 4th of July off. I am otherwise very disciplined. All I need for encouragement is a good look at myself naked to know that I can't afford to slack off.

Speaking of that, funny story. The day I weighed myself and started my workout routine, I felt totally disgusted about my body. I worked out that morning and had just gotten out of the shower when my, um, "Special Friend" came over. Not wanting to do the chick thing and fish for compliments or whine in his ear about "I'm so fat!" I hadn't said anything to him about weighing myself or any of the negative body issues I was wallowing in. As I took off my bathrobe to get into bed, he looked at me, smiled, and said "Wow." I was elated. Not only was I stoked that after 9 months (at the time) of seeing me naked, he was still "wowed," but because I sooooo needed the unsolicited compliment that day. I smiled coyly and said "You still think I'm hot?" He looked at me like I was insane and said "Of course I do!"

But, at the end of the day, I am doing this for me, not just to feel better about myself, but because I don't want to end up one of those headless fat people you see walking around on the evening news while some reporter talks about the obesity epidemic in America. I've spent a third (total) of my life being overweight, and that is too long.

The end of one chapter and the start of another

Two very awesome things happened this month: 1. I graduated with my Bachelor of Science Degree and 2. I enrolled in Law School for the Fall.
The week leading up to graduation was, in a word, hell. Projects, portfolios, presentations, papers, exams, volunteer hours, appointments, cooking, cleaning...all in the 7 days before the
ceremony itself. To say I was tired would be an understatement. But when I walked out of class on the last night with Lynn, I was finally able to relax. We smoked and chatted about what we would miss and what we wouldn't miss about school, and looked forward to the Commencement Ceremony on Friday. When the big day came, we were laughing and cracking jokes during the whole ceremony, even during the walk to the stage. "I have a feeling we are not taking this occasion as seriously as we should..."
Before I forget, I have to mention the wonderful job my friend Jessica did on my hair. I've been going to her for my cuts and color since last Fall and for my graduation she curled my hair and pinned the hell out of my mortar board (the hat that comes with your regalia) and I felt not only very pretty, but confident that my mortar board would not budge. It was important to me that the mortar board was secure because of a special message I had painstakingly written to my Dad in rhinestones across the back of it. Jessica did both mine and Nicki's hair and we both looked very cute.
I also have to point out the my roommate and one of my ex's decorated the hell out of our house. Mike and Danny bought and made banners, signs, balloons and all kinds of decorations and really just went nuts. I was quite touched by the thought and effort.
In accordance with my wishes, my Dad got me 1 dozen orange and 1 dozen green roses for my graduation, to match my school colors. My Mom also got me a half dozen red roses. I got several cards from friends, as well as a Starbucks gift card and a really nice pen. Though not everyone could make the ceremony or the after party, I was very touched by the love and support I got, both in person and over the phone, from all the special people in my life. It was a really great day.


So now what? As of right now, until August 15th, I am on Summer Break. No school, no work, no cares. I am LOVING it. I can't remember the last time I had Summer off.
But when Summer is over, Law School starts. I decided on Western State University College of Law. It is geographically the closest good law school to me (located in Fullerton), and they specialize in cranking out litigators: district attorneys, public defenders, judges, etc. Their grads have a HUGE presence in public sector litigation in Orange County. Since I don't want to spend my career behind a desk all day long, and since the student loan repayment programs for people who take public sector positions will save me thousands of dollars in loan payments, WSU feels like a perfect fit.
The campus programs are well suited to my areas of interest. They have a ton of clinics and clubs to participate in. They have Moot Court, but no Mock Trial, yet. Their amenities are fabulous: HUGE law library, super fancy courtroom, technology friendly classrooms, and lots of spaces to lounge, eat and study, not to mention a full service cafeteria. I pretty much have everything I need right there.
Another benefit is that they have very accessible forms of financial assistance: book scholarships and, most notably, a very cool Merit Scholarship program. I am waiting to find out how much scholarship money I will get for my first year of tuition, but my chances are pretty good. If I maintain a 3.0 or higher GPA through my first year, my second year tuition will be paid, and the same goes for my third year if I maintain my grades through my second year. For the book scholarships, you have to apply every year with some kind of writing assignment, so I am waiting on details for this year's since it is not yet available. This makes it very nice because I have been approved for enough government issued student loans to cover my living expenses and fees, so if tuition and books are covered, I won't need any private loans or money from my Dad.
One added bonus that I wasn't expecting: real medical coverage. For less than what I was paying through COBRA to keep my Kaiser from my old job, I can get my Kaiser back through school, and it is valid the whole year, even during the semester breaks. It will be nice to have my old insurance back.
I get my "official" schedule in a few days, but my Admissions Advisor already told me what my classes were: Intro to Law, Civil Procedure, Legal Writing, Contracts, Criminal Law and Torts. The best part? I've already taken all of these classes, some of them over multiple semesters, as an undergrad, so my foundation in all of them is quite strong. That was, after all, the whole point in spending 4 years as an undergrad taking Legal Studies courses: to better prepare me for law school.
So that's it. The end of my life as an undergrad and the start of my life as a graduate student. After 4 years of work, I have a Bachelor's Degree and in 3 more years, I will have a Juris Doctorate. Some of my friends have already started making "Dr. Chandler" jokes. Though I never plan on calling myself that, I technically could once I finish Law School. Scary, isn't it? I could also throw "Esquire" on the end of my name, but I'm undecided on that. Just the fact that I will have not only a degree, but the right to change my title from "Ms." to "Dr." or "Esq." makes the whole process just seem to unreal. It would feel like waking up from a coma and having someone tell you that you're the President of the United States.
"I'm a WHAT?!"
Thankfully I have 3 more years as a "mortal" to get used to the idea. ;-)

Senioritis

It happens to every college student. During your last year of school, you get restless. You don't want to be in class. You don't want to do your homework. All you can think about are afternoons by the pool, reading books for pleasure and not for homework, leaving the house to go do fun stuff, not because you have to go to class, and all of a sudden you just become "blah." Yes, Senioritis is a serious disorder affecting college students around the World, and I am fully in its grasp. I caught it from my classmates.
I know they have it because every time our instructors pause in their lecture, one of them will say "Are we done? Can we go home now?" or try some other not so subtle device to get the teacher to dismiss us. Tonight the teacher LITERALLY had just walked in and one of my classmates said to her "You look tired. Maybe we should just go home."
My symptoms manifest more passively. Before class each night, I sit and attempt to rationalize ditching class to myself, especially now that there are only 6 weeks left. "You've only been absent once, you can afford to miss tonight, you get to miss 3 times per semester..."
When I go, which is still most of the time, I sit in class, disinterested, checking the time on my phone, texting, Facebooking, checking my email...I am physically present, but mentally, I have completely checked out. If this were a cartoon and you could see inside my head during these moments, you would see me resting in a hammock with Hawaiian music in the background and waves crashing in the distance.
I still manage to snap out of it for a few minutes at a time to feign participation in my classes. I pay just enough attention to be able to occasionally utter an answer aloud to a question.
"Spendthrift trust"
"McNaughten Rule"
"Binding primary authority"
"Unauthorized practice of law"
(If you were taking Wills, Trusts and Probate Law, Criminal Law, Legal Studies Senior Project or Legal Ethics, these phrases would make sense to you)
And, of course, to make things drag that much slower, there's always someone, also afflicted with Senioritis, who makes it a point to point out "Only this many more weeks til finals" which always prompts a collective groan from the rest of the afflicted. One of the symptoms of Senioritis is the sensation of weeks feeling like months.
Still, I press on, because the only way to recover from Senioritis is to graduate. Slacking off too much now may jeopardize my chances of this truly being my last semester of my undergraduate education. My reward will be a little over 2 months of uninterrupted "Holly Time" before starting law school in the Fall. During those 2 months, I have books I want to read, video games to play, movies I want to watch, friends to meet for lunch, a premium annual pass to Disneyland, a pool to swim in and, best of all (to borrow an episode title from one of my favorite old TV shows) "time enough at last" to enjoy them all.

"The waiting is the hardest part..."

A couple weeks ago, I got all 4 of my law school applications in (3 Tier 1 schools and a solid Tier 3 backup). The schools have another 6 to 8 weeks to get back to me. While I have the rest of my daily life to distract me, I hate waiting. Everyone who knows me knows that I am not the most patient person. I mean, I can be patient with people when they need it, but as far as actually waiting on something, I am horrid.
Having received my clearance to graduate a few weeks ago, I am excited knowing that all of the work I have put in over the last 4 years will pay off in May when I receive my Bachelor's degree, but my need to know the next step in my journey is all consuming. People keep asking me "So what law school are you going to?" and I have nothing to tell them, yet. I almost feel like an orphan with my graduation on the horizon and no school yet to transfer to. Though I would be happy to be accepted by any of them, I definitely have a preference among the schools I applied to, and if I get accepted there, I will probably lose my mind from elation. But if that school rejects me, I am prepared for that too, hence the other 3 applications. Depending on my mood on a given day, I either really want to go to my first choice school or I just really want to get accepted to at least one of the schools I applied to so that I don't feel like an orphan anymore.

Lucky's Last Days

A month has passed since the events that I am about to describe. It has taken me this long to be able to discuss them without going into hysterics. We will see if I can make it through typing this without crying.
As many of you know, my cat, Lucky the Monkey Cat, for whom this blog is named, has always been a bit of a problem child. Since he was a kitten, he was always a little different, namely unusually aggressive. But aside from this very odd and unexplainable trait, he was always my special little guy. At the end of the day, he would run up to me and implore me to pick him up when I walked in the house. I would hold him on my shoulder like a baby, and he would purr, drool, dig his claws into my back and chew my hair while I would pet him. At night when I would lay down to sleep, he would crawl onto my tummy and insist that I pet him before curling up in a little ball on the pillow I sleep with under my arm, his back resting against the curve created by my arm and my body while I slept on my side. When I would eventually begin to toss during the night, as I usually did, he would make his way down to the foot of the bed and curl up a safe distance from my feet. When I would first begin to stir in the morning, he would lay on his side and stretch, then wait for me to pet his tummy before getting up to eat his breakfast. Being a cat and largely independent, he kept to himself mostly, but when he wanted my attention, he would let me know. If I was reading, he would come sit on my book. If I was texting, he would perch on my leg and swipe at my phone. If I was on the computer, he would try to walk on the keys or pace around my chair meowing. If I was sitting on the couch with a blanket over me, he always had to come nest on or next to my legs. He would get offended when I would get up.
In recent months, Lucky's aggression had started to become a problem. His outburst went from mildly rude to inexplicably violent. His vet and I started him on a Prozac regimen after he flipped out one night and ripped up both of my legs like a wild animal because another cat had come up to the door. For a few months, the Prozac helped, until he had another identical incident early in January. After another trip to the vet, his vet and I decided to add Xanax to his Prozac and give it a few days to see how it took. The first night went off without incident. The second morning he refused to eat his Xanax-laced tuna, so the second night I was forced to give it to him the old fashioned way: throwing it into the back of his mouth, tipping his head back and massaging his throat until he swallowed. Its the sort of thing I had previously done several times when Lucky was on antibiotics for bladder infections. The act of giving him the pill went off without incident, and I started to get us both ready for bed.
The Xanax seemed to hit him all at once. He was having a hard time jumping onto the bed and he seemed a bit wobbly. I picked him up and put him on the bed after 2 failed attempts. He looked a little confused, but after I stood him up and had him walk across the bed and back he seemed ok. I knew he would probably just need help getting in and out of bed for a bit, but that he would eventually snuggle up and go to bed like always. He started to howl softly, which for him could mean a lot of things, usually frustration. I figured he just wanted off the bed so he could eat or use the litter box, so I got up, picked him up and gently set him on the floor. What happened next still haunts me to this day.
Lucky began to howl louder as I made my way to the other side of the bed, the side with a narrow walkway (the size of my nightstand) between the bed and the wall. I turned around and noticed he was behind me. Before I could say anything, Lucky simultaneously howled like a wild cat and leaped from the floor, latching onto my right arm with all four sets of claws and his fangs. I screamed in pain and flung him off, but to no avail. Trapped between the bed, the nightstand and the wall, with no clothes on, with Lucky between me and the door, Lucky charged again, and again, and again, for a total of at least 4 times. Each time, he went for my upper body, tearing up both arms in several places and both breasts with his fangs and his teeth. On one leap, he missed my neck by mere inches. I grabbed blankets and whatever I could to throw on him long enough for me to get to the door, which I eventually did. I had been screaming for help at the top of my lungs, but my roommate, normally a heavy sleeper who had been up sick all night the previous night, was out cold and couldn't hear me this time. I ran, cut, bleeding and naked, out of my room and shut the door behind me. I walked into the bathroom and got the first glimpse of my injuries in the light. I had only 2 or 3 deep cuts on my left arm, but my right arm had over 20, along with 5 or 6 puncture wounds on the inside of my upper arm just below my armpit. My left nipple had sustained about 6 deep scratches and puncture wounds, while my right breast had 2 sets of puncture wounds (2 from his upper and 2 from his lower jaws) and the space between the 2 sets of wounds had already begun to turn hard, red and warm from infection. I was sobbing and still in shock as a dabbed a wet towel at my wounds to clean up the blood seeping from all over my upper body. I cautiously opened the door to my room to get some clothes. During the attack, my hamper full of clean clothes had fallen over near the door, so I grabbed the first tank top and pair of yoga pants off the top, keeping a vigilant eye on Lucky, who was perched on my nightstand. He was now calm, his body still, his tail not swishing, staring at me with a confused look on his face. This was the look he would always give me when I was upset. It's the "Why are you crying, Mommy?" look. This broke my heart. Still sobbing, I looked over at him and said "How could you do this to me?" before hurriedly exiting the room to go get dressed.
(And here we go, here come the tears again.)
After gingerly putting clothes on over my now aching body, I went and woke up Mike so he could go get me some Bactine and liquid bandages. Still crying, I nudged Mike awake, apologized for waking him and asked him if he could go to the pharmacy for me. The look of horror on his face when he saw me was exactly why I couldn't bare to go to the pharmacy myself. "Oh my God...did he do that to you?" Mike felt like crap that he had slept right through the attack and jumped up and went to the pharmacy, leaving me huddled on our couch and Lucky locked in my room. When he got home, I was still crying. I put Bactine and liquid bandages on my cuts and bites (which I would later find out was the wrong thing to do) while Mike called his Mom. He had originally planned on spending the weekend with her, but now he didn't feel right leaving me in the house alone with Lucky. His Mom asked to speak to me, told me how sorry she was and said I need to think about doing something with Lucky. Having already been through too much for one night, I thanked her and said I would think about it. I slept on the couch that night, and for a few nights after.
We called Lucky's vet the next day to report the incident. Meanwhile, I tried to go about my life as best as I could, the weight of a large decision on my mind. After 24 hours, the bite on my right breast began to swell, darken and harden, so I went to urgent care. The bite had in fact, become infected, and putting the liquid bandages on the wound only sealed in the germs, despite a liberal application of Bactine. I was given a tetanus shot and placed on a regimen of pain killers and two kinds of antibiotics for Cellulitis, which is what they diagnosed me with. I think its just the medical term for infected tissue. A month has now passed and the bite is still a little red, though the swelling and hardness has subsided. I am told it may scar this way.
Lucky's vet took almost 2 days to get back to me. During those 2 days, I kept Lucky in his room, and Mike would go in and top off his food and water. We bought him a new litter box rather than having Mike clean the old one. I was not allowed near him, so Lucky was now off his meds. When the vet eventually got back to me, the news wasn't good. "In my opinion, Lucky is not longer a candidate for medication therapy alone. He will have to be completely declawed, and even then we will still have to medicate him because he will become a biter." I had heard of cat's being "defanged" so that was also an option, but it would have to be done with the full front and back declawing. I told Mike to tell the vet thank you and that I would call him back.
At first, the thought of doing whatever I had to to keep Lucky was the only option I considered. Sure, it would be expensive, but what choice do I have? Then I got to thinking about what I was actually c0ntemplating doing.
I need to stress at this point for those of you who don't know how spoiled Lucky was. Because of his history of not drinking enough water and getting bladder infections, he drank filtered ice water from a Rainforest Cafe souvenier glass on my nightstand that originally had been mine. He at food sold exclusively at vets' offices because of his weight and his propensity to bladder infections. He got canned tuna with his medication and turkey straight from the table on holidays. He took his daytime naps on a chenille blanket on my ottoman and had a faux fur blanket at the foot of my bed to sleep on at night. He had the biggest litter box I could find, which I cleaned daily, and a few treasured toys, one of them a toy fish, the rest of them things of mine he coveted, namely hair ties, garter straps, mylar gift wrap bows, stuff like that. He got to be rude to every other living breathing thing on this Earth with little more punishment than the words "That's not good manners, Lucky!" because he would snuggle with his Mommy at night. He was my baby. I had done everything in my power to give him a wonderful, lovely life.
Removing a cat's claws is tantamount to cutting off their fingers and toes. That is how the procedure is done. The recovery in a 9 year old, overweight cat would be especially hard, and he would spend the rest of his life, or at least during the long period of the surgery wounds closing, using shredded newspaper for cat litter. Defanging him would make him unable to eat anything thicker than baby food for the rest of his life. And even after taking all of these measures to mutilate him "for my safety" I would still have to make him into a vegetable with medication in order to even be around him. Loving him like a child and having spent almost a decade giving him a good life, I couldn't bare to do this to him. After a "mini-intervention" with Mike, Trina and Gregg that Sunday afternoon, I consented to allow Lucky to be put to sleep the following morning. My Dad would come and take him away and Trina and Gregg and Mike would be here to help me and clean up all the traces of Lucky in the condo. Nicki, Leigh, Marita, Jonie, Sherry, Lynn and many others were also at the ready in case I needed to call someone after Trina and Gregg left to go pick up the kids from school. Ending his life was the only humane thing I could think of. I gave him a can of tuna and tried multiple times throughout the night to spend time with him, but I could never manage more than a few minutes at a time before his tail would begin to switch back and forth, the first warning signs of an aggressive incident. I just wanted to be able to hold him, pet him, tell him how much I loved him and say goodbye, but he was just too messed up in his head to let me.
The last morning of his life, I woke up and gave him another can of tuna and tried to pet him for a bit. Mike got up and Trina and Gregg came over. My Dad arrived at the appointed time and I went into the room with Jeff's deluxe pet carrier to pick up Lucky for the last time. At first, he ran and I had to go and get him and quickly close him up. I had started to carry the enormous carrier, but my Dad came into the hallway and got it from me. The side with the door, where you could see into the carrier was facing me as he walked away. I screamed and in a rather undignified display, flung myself atop the carrier before he could reach the door. Lucky was putting his little paws through the bars on the carrier door and I clutched the bars and told him I loved him and that it was gonna be ok. As I crouched next to the carrier, Trina came up next to me and gently grabbed my hands so they could take him away. I had asked Mike to go with Dad, because it would make me feel better to have him there since I couldn't go. As they carried him out the door, I completely lost it. I buried my face in my couch and screamed into the cushion and sobbed shamelessly. It took me the entire time Mike and Dad were gone to lift my head up off the cushion. By now, everyone was upset. Gregg and Trina were on the verge of tears, Mike was trying unsuccessfully to not let me see him cry, and Dad let out a tear or two. Dad went home, Gregg and Mike started to clean up all traces of Lucky from the house and Trina suggested that she and I go out shopping. Since the attack had gotten blood all over my room, my white bed sheets needed to be replaced, so we went and looked at sheets while Gregg and Mike packed up Lucky's stuff, got rid of the cat pinata head and even the remaining cans of tuna in the pantry, and vacuumed up this house so that no wayward flecks of cat sand or strands of cat hair would remind me later of what I had lost. I am lucky to have such good friends.
The days that followed were filled with random bouts of uncontrollable sobbing. My emotional wounds heeled as slowly as my physical ones. With loving care, both the scars on my body and the ones in my heart have subsided to a less noticeable level, but I still occasionally have those moments, when I am out in public with short sleeves on, where some cashier will look at my arms and ask "Do you have a cat?" and all I can do is look down and say "I used to..."
I've made peace with my decision. I know that it was the best thing to do. Sometimes I can even recount the events without getting really upset, but sometimes, like right now, I have to cry. I continue to have the support of those closest to me, and that means a lot to me. You really find out who cares about you when something like this happens. I am truly blessed.

The Law School Application Process

So I got my LSAT score back: 151. Good, certainly better than average, but not great. So now with my 3.4 GPA and my 151 LSAT, the next step in my application process is to get really good letters of recommendation and write an awesome personal statement. I couldn't be happier with the choices I made in people to write the letters, so now my main concern is the personal statement. Certain schools have requirements for what they want you to write so it is good to do one for each school. Right now, I am working on the one for my first choice school. Once that is submitted, I can start working on #2 and #3. All of the schools I selected are Tier 1 Top 100 schools within 32 miles of my home. Though I am crossing my fingers for my first choice school, at this point if any of them take me I will be happy. I just want to go to a good law school. This whole process is fun, but exhausting at the same time. I will be glad when it is done.

The Second Most Important Exam I Will Ever Take

I am told that the Law School Admissions Test is one of the hardest exams in the country. I am told that it is in fact so intense that some people get up and walk out during the break midway through the test and don't come back. I am told that a good enough score will get me into any law school I want. I dream of getting that acceptance letter from a prestigious law school, and that corner office in a big name law firm, with floor to ceiling glass windows and a view of downtown, in a high rise building somewhere in Los Angeles. I remember going to work with my Mother as a small child, wandering the mahogany covered hallways, peering into libraries stacked with law books and conference rooms with long hand-carved wood tables and leather chairs, basking in the silent hum that permeates out of the offices and into the halls while people prep for court, and feeling a sense of great belonging and purpose, as if some unseen force was welcoming me home to a place I couldn't remember. I think of all the work I've done and all I have yet to accomplish and I tell myself that I cannot fail.
The exam itself is Saturday, but my ordeal started last Saturday. I began to familiarize myself with the different portions of the exam, starting with the Logic Games portion. Some of the questions are easy, but some of them are time consuming, which is a problem when you consider that the test is given in 25 question increments and that you only have 35 minutes to do each increment. There are 4 25 question portions and a timed writing exercise. On top of that, they give you an additional 25 question portion called the "experimental" portion, which doesn't even count towards your score. Of course, they don't tell you which portion is the experimental portion because they don't want you to exhale at all during the 4 hour exam.
I am not TOO worried, but the magnitude of this is not lost on me. My performance on this exam translates directly into which school accepts me. The school that I get accepted to translates directly into the caliber of law firm that will hire me. The caliber of law firm that will hire me translates into the kind of work I will be doing for the remainder of my career. There are people who get jobs and prestigious firms straight out of law school who spend the rest of their careers climbing the ladder within that same firm, helping to build up their own skills and reputation as well as enhancing the firm's. I know it's a lofty goal.
I close my eyes and see the Sun glinting off the glass window in my office. A large L-shaped desk sits facing the window, and I sit at it reviewing a deposition. In my lap sits a little girl, wearing the special dress and buckle shoes that she picked out for "Take Your Kids To Work Day," reading a Dr. Seues book with the same purpose and intensity as her mother, stopping only occasionally to study my face as I read and ask when it is time to go out to lunch.
"Soon my Little. I'm on the last page. Then we can go."

Monkey Prozac

So it's no secret my cat is something of a problem child. Many of my friends, especially those who have lived under the same roof as Lucky, have described him as "evil" and "the devil." I have always said "Animals are just like people: some of them are just jerks, but jerks deserve love too."
Three weeks ago, I was relaxing in the living room of our new condo. I had the front door open and the back door open with the screens shut. It was early evening and there was a nice breeze coming through. I was sitting on my "chair and a half" (that's what it said on the tag when I bought it - too big to be a chair, but a smidge too small to be a loveseat - but to everyone who comes over, it's their favorite chair) watching television and Lucky was sitting in front of the screen, looking out onto the street.
Out of nowhere, Lucky begins to howl, loud and very aggressively. Instinctively, I get up from my seat and turn towards the front door to see what all the noise is for. Apparently, another cat had come right up to the screen. When I got up to investigate, I spooked him and he ran away. That was when it all went horribly wrong.
Angry that I had frightened away the intruder without allowing him the chance to show how big and bad he was, Lucky flew into a state of pissed off that I rarely see him in. He turned, as if to attack the intruding cat, and attacked me instead.
Now, I've been scratched by Lucky more times in my life than I can count. My arms are covered in scars from him. I'm sure people who don't know the cat situation think I cut myself. Oh well. I say this only to stress the fact that him scratching me is not a rare and alarming occurrence, but on this particular occasion, he messed me up BADLY.
After I dislodged him from my legs, I counted 13 points between both legs were he had drawn blood. There were claw marks from at least 3 paws on both calves as well as teeth marks above my knee. I apparently screamed because my roommate Mike came running out of his room to investigate.
This has to stop. I have to always be on guard, not to mention that when people come over, most of the time he has to be locked up in my room so he won't try to eat them. There is a very short list of people that he tolerates, much less actually likes. And what happens when I have children someday?
I took Lucky the Monkey Cat to the vet a few days later. The vet wanted to have a look at him and see how he behaved in order to determine if he was a candidate for medication or not.
While in the waiting room to see the vet, Lucky was in his little cardboard PetCo carrier. A dog got too close to me and Lucky wigged. It looked and sounded like a firecracker had gone off in the box. The whole carrier jumped in a loud, sudden jolt and Lucky growled and hissed like a wild animal. I was so embarrassed, but Lucky was just getting started.
We get into the exam room. I have the box open, but Lucky is still inside. I am petting his head and talking to him while he looks in bewilderment at his strange new surroundings. The vet and a vet assistant enter and the vet asks me to let Lucky out to run around the exam room while we talk. I begrudgingly agree.
At first, Lucky does not want out of the box, but the vet gently tips it over and dumps Lucky on the floor. Lucky walks past the vet assistant, who says hello to Lucky and drops down to let Lucky sniff him. Lucky looks up at the vet assistant and hisses as if to say "F*** you." I kinda giggle and try to scold Lucky, but the vet says to leave him be.
As I am talking to the vet about our options, I am watching Lucky out of the corner of my eye. He sniffs his way around the room then settles near my feet. Then the vet tells me he wants to examine Lucky. He tells me he is going to get a towel to wrap around him so he can take a look at his paws and his head.
After some effort and much growling, the vet assistant scoops up Lucky, loosely wrapped in a towel. While the vet assistant leans over Lucky to hold him down, the vet attempts to look in Lucky's mouth and look at his front paws. Lucky is not having it, at all. When the vet attempts to look at Lucky's back legs, he begins to growl and howl and spray, covering the exam table with cat urine and shooting it almost across the room, nearly missing me. At this point, Lucky breaks free. And here is where it all goes wrong.
After calling for backup, it takes the vet and 2 vet assistants no less than 40 minutes to apprehend an agile and highly aggressive Lucky in a 6X8 exam room. My poor scared little Monkey Cat was finally subdued and placed in his carrier, which was then duct taped shut.
Once I got him home, it took me an hour of coaxing and 2 cans of tuna to get him to stop panting. He is so fat and so aggravated I was worried he was going to have some kind of cardiac event.
Two days later, Lucky's Vanilla Flavored Liquid Prozac arrived at the vet. Why it is Vanilla Flavored, instead of something a cat would eat, is beyond me. It being liquid means filling a plunger rig to .05 every night and holding him down and shooting it in his mouth. I have only recently perfected the right positioning and angle. For the first week and a half, every night was a crap shoot. Sometimes I needed another person's help, sometimes I could manage it by myself.
The other night a stray cat came to the door again and though Lucky yowled and postured, he didn't attack me. Nonetheless, he was still sent to his room and got a cup of cold water on his head.
The vet says it will be at least a month before I notice any real changes. I have 2 months worth of the Prozac, so we'll see where he is at before I refill it. I hope it helps.

A Fresh Start

Wednesday I'll be leaving the house that I share with Mike and Jeff and moving back to my hometown of La Verne after being gone for 12 years. I'm getting a 2 bedroom condo on Bixby and I'm really excited about it. For now at least it will just be me, but that will most likely change. The very next day after I move marks the start of the 30 day countdown to my birthday, known to the rest of you as the month of July (my birthday is the 31st).
To celebrate my newly found space and to help countdown to my 30th birthday, I've decided to do 2 things during the 30 days: eat only what I cook and exercise for an hour a day. Then we'll see where I'm at when my birthday comes. Oh yeah, did I mention that it's the "30 Days to 30" countdown? Yep, I'm officially becoming a "30 something" along with a lot of my other friends from school this year.
I've got a Wii Console (in black) and a Wii Fit Plus bundle of my own and money set aside for groceries, so now it's up to me. It will be nice to be able to work out and cook in my own house instead of always being at Trina and Gregg's. It will be nice to have THEM over to MY house for a change to eat and work out.
It's not just getting to cook and work out. I've been wanting to move back to La Verne for a long time. I have this idea in my head that moving back to the town I grew up in is going to somehow be significant for me. To be honest, when I was younger, I used to call La Verne "Mayberry" and complain that "nothing ever happens here" but then when I left at 17 to start living on my own I really missed "Mayberry" and the peace and quiet that comes from "nothing ever happening." Maybe I was just unable to appreciate it at the time.

I used to look like that?

I was at my Mom's work on Friday using the fax machine and visiting for a bit. I don't like to stay too long because a law office is typically a busy place, but being Friday things were a bit more relaxed than normal. I took a minute to look around my Mom's office to see what embarrassing photos of me she had hanging up. I used my cell phone camera to get shots of a few of them to share with you, though they are kinda blurry. Some of you knew me back when these photos were taken. The first shot is my Dad and I at the St. Lucy's Freshman Father Daughter dance, early Fall 1994. I was really into silver back then, and instead of wearing a traditional corsage, I opted instead for a wreath made of white baby roses, silver ribbon and baby's breath.
I'd also like to point out that even though I was not allowed to wear my silver Doc Martens with it because it would have been "inappropriate", I was permitted to leave the house in a thin, satin, spaghetti strapped dress without a size 36C strapless bra on. Since I had finally grown out my perm and my bangs and wanted to start fresh, I also had super short hair here. In fact, at the time, the back of my head was shaved underneath my over-gelled bob haircut, which, ironically enough, meant that I had to keep my hair this length for a while until the shaved part caught up enough for me to grow my hair out. It took about a year and a half for it to get to the length shown next.
The second shot is towards the end of my sophomore year at Bonita, so I'd say Spring of 1996.
By this time, I think I had learned to wear bras with formal dresses, only I didn't care if the straps showed. Much to my dismay, I was a D cup here, so going bra-less was not an option anymore. My hair covered the straps, so it was OK. I convinced my Mom to buy me this dress because I told her I would wear it to Prom, even though I was only a sophomore. I had no intention of going, I just wanted the dress, which was black velvet and went down to my feet and had a slit to just above my knee down one side. This showed off the fishnets and black Doc Martens I wore underneath it. By now my Mom had stopped fighting with me about my clothes and decided to let me wear them as I saw fit, since we had spent so much money on them anyway. This pose, shoulders rolled forward, arms folded over my chest and stomach, and a sullen, jaded stare, was typical of me most of the time back then, whether posing for a photo or just standing around. Body language experts would have all kinds of fun with that photo. Back then, between the mostly black clothes, the ankh necklace I never took off, and the "how come they don't make anything paler?" foundation I wore, I was in the early stages of goth. It got worse over the Summer before I started going to Citrus College. That's when I started buying pants and bikinis made of pleather and go-go boots and dresses made of shiny black vinyl and all sorts of other things that I would never let my 15 or 16 year old wear. When I started working at Hot Topic at 17, it got ridiculous.
These next 2 are from Hawaii, Summer 1996, during a day spent at one of my favorite places: The Kualoa Ranch, about 2 hours by private bus from Waikiki on the island of Oahu.
Yes, that is a cigarette next to the toy gun in my left hand. By then, my parents knew I smoked. I was a high school graduate, so I guess that was OK with them. I think I was trying to look like an outlaw here. The periwinkle shirt kills it though, doesn't it? I had on a black pleather bikini underneath it but my Mom refused to let me take my shirt off for the picture. Funny, considering she let me buy the bikini.
This horse was so old. The only way to get it to move was to keep a switch in it's peripheral vision. My posture in the saddle here is awful (slouched forward as always), but at least I'm holding my reigns correctly. The really sad part about this horse is when I went back to the ranch 8 years later while on my honeymoon, this horse was still there. Thankfully, I didn't get stuck with it that time.
You never realize you're getting older until you see pictures of you when you were younger. I was between 14 and 16 in these photos, and in July I'll be 30. Crazy.

Kratos: The Knargle of War

Trina told me the other day that they were offered the chance to adopt another cat. With Atreyu, Storm, Luna (aka The Knargle) and Harlequin, this would make Cat #5, which I reminded her officially qualifies them for Crazy Cat People status. Yvonn brought the kitten over today during Amber's birthday party (by the way HAPPY 7th BIRTHDAY RUNT!) and the minute Trina, Gregg and I saw him, we knew he'd be staying. He is the TINIEST thing, mostly white, with a half a dozen spots on him like Luna, only the spots are gray (Luna is a Calico with red and black spots). Trina remarked how he had gray Knargle spots, so they now had a boy Knargle. But what to name him?
Trina named Atreyu, Amber named Storm, Raven named Luna (though we all call her The Knargle, after the invisible creatures described by her namesake in the Harry Potter books) and Gregg named Harlequin, plus Raven and Gregg named the Bearded Dragons (Jasper and Alice) and the Mexican King Snake (Toothless). Normally my suggestions for names for the pets are considered, but never used, but this time I finally picked one that got used.
Raven's friend Melanie suggested Hercules. Though immediately dismissed, it reminded me, as I'm sure it did the rest of the family, of when Gregg beat Hercules in the last God of War video game. Trina, Raven, Amber and I would watch Gregg play God of War III on the PS3 for hours at a time, before he beat the game after about 5 days. As I sat there thinking of this, holding the kitten with the ashy gray Knargle spots, it hit me. I looked at Trina, Raven and Amber and, after struggling to remember the hero's name from the video game, I blurted out "Kratos! We can name him Kratos!"
Now if there is one thing my best friend Trina and I do with some regularity, it's disagree. Not argue or fight, just disagree. Though we enjoy a lot of the same things and share some of the same beliefs, when it comes to matters of personal taste, we couldn't be more different. Though we never get angry, it annoys the hell out of anyone within earshot. She likes blue, I like red. I think the cashier at Costco is cute, she thinks he is not. She thinks "Minority Report" is a good movie, I think it was awful. She likes NCIS, I like Law and Order. It's just the way we are. So when I made my suggestion, I was fully prepared for a veto from her, and the look on her face ALMOST looked like she was going to, but then she paused for a second and said "Yeah, we could do that." With Gregg's, Amber's and Raven's approval, the kitten was named "Kratos: The Knargle of War"

OCD in Action

This is truly pathetic but I really don't care.
Sometimes the people I know think I am strange because I associate certain songs, TV shows or movies with certain people, places or holidays. This is usually because I have memories that link them together.
If it is New Years Eve, I have to hear Prince's "1999" because one year on New Year's Eve I heard it while I was out dancing and thought it was really appropriate. If it is Halloween I have to hear 'Thriller" because they would always show that video on MTV around Halloween, and I would watch it while I was putting on my costume and getting ready to go out. The movie "An Officer and a Gentlemen" will forever remind me of Munich because when I was there Jodie and I watched it translated into German. "Es tut meir leid, nein kinder..."
In this case, if it is a 3 or 4 day weekend, I have to watch The Twilight Zone because when I was little, every time there was a 3 or 4 day weekend (Labor Day, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Memorial Day, New Years, etc.) either Channel 5 or Channel 11 would have a Twilight Zone marathon and my Dad and I would watch it together. Between the two of us, my Dad and I have probably seen every single Twilight Zone ever made, all 156 episodes. They never run all of them during the marathons, usually about 40 or 50 of the most popular ones. It's sad, even when I had plans on these particular holidays, I would check the program guide to see which ones were playing at what time so I could plan my day and not miss my favorites. It was not uncommon to hear me say "I have to be home by 9pm. The Hitch-Hiker is coming on" or "I didn't get to bed last night til 3am because they showed The Howling Man at 2:30am." If I'm not at my Dad's I've even called him up and said things like "Dad! Put it on Channel 5 in 10 minutes! They're gonna show It's A Good Life."
I told you, pathetic, right? Well, it gets better.
So I said they USED to show Twilight Zone marathons on all the holidays. Well, now they only show them on the 4th of July. What's a girl to do?
A couple of years ago I discovered that a lot of the episodes are on YouTube so if I wanted to hunt them down (usually an episode is uploaded into 3 parts) I could. Today I figured out how to make a playlist on YouTube, so no more hunting. I now have my very own Twilight Zone Marathon playlist, with 25 episodes (and growing), all queued up and ready to watch whenever I need a fix. That's over 12 hours, and I'm not done adding episodes yet.

"It's just a piece of paper..."

Last Friday I was over at Danny's house so that we could go to Party City and get one of those air horns for his CSUF Commencement Ceremony on Sunday along with some stuff to make a big, obnoxious sign for me to hold up. While I was there, he told me that while he was over at his friend's house, his friend's older brother and he were talking, during which Danny mentioned that he was graduating with his Bachelor's degree on Sunday, to which the guy replied "It's just a piece of paper..."
Knowing Danny as well as I do, and being a student in pursuit of a Bachelor's degree myself, I knew that this thoughtless statement was getting to him, despite the fact that the person who said it is a loser. I know if someone had said that to me, after all the work I've done over the last 3 and a half years, I'd be livid. As much as his Mom and I told him to consider the source and let it go, we could tell it was still bothering him.
Saturday while Danny was out running errands, I picked up his Mom to go shopping. We went to Macy's and got him 5 thoughtfully selected shirts as a graduation present, then we went to Party City and got some banners and balloons to hang up at the house to surprise Danny with. The plan was to sneak back to the house Sunday after the celebratory lunch and hang the balloons and banners while we had the other guests stall him at the restaurant. We picked up a "Congrats Grad" hanging banner, 6 assorted Mylar balloons, and a special customizable sign. Jan and I knew just what to put on that one.
The ceremony at CSUF started at 8:00am Sunday morning. I made sure to get there before Danny did so he didn't see the balloons or other stuff in my car. He loved the sign I made and I got a lot of pictures of him, just like he wanted. We even used the crappy air horn, but it didn't really work that well. After the ceremony we all headed back to West Covina to have lunch at Applebee's. After his Mom paid the check, we made a hurried exit, but insisted that everyone else stay and enjoy themselves a bit longer. I told Art and Chris to keep him at the restaurant for another 15 minutes. It worked out perfectly, as he rolled up seconds after I tied the last balloon to the front of the house. He got out of his car and looked at all the balloons and banners, and when he read the customized banner we made him, his face lit up and he laughed. There, in big letters for all the neighbors to see, were the words "Not Just A Piece Of Paper!" After standing outside for several minutes admiring mine and his Mom's efforts, we dragged him inside to open his gifts. He actually liked all the shirts we picked out, which is amazing because he usually ends up exchanging at least one thing when you buy him clothes. We spent the rest of the afternoon uploading photos and working on a submission for the school's website that he was asked to do and just catching up and visiting. After 12 hours I finally went home. I was very proud of my friend, and he was very grateful for all that his Mom and I had done to make his day special. Next year it will be my turn and I can't wait.

If you aren't really asleep, are you dreaming?

My General Education classes are piling on the homework lately. My law classes are building up to finals, so the workload isn't quite there, yet. I've been working out fairly consistently with Trina on the Wii Fit. The animals in my house are shedding and trying to hump the throw pillows, so the house gets dirtier faster. In short, I'm under a lot of stress (not all of it bad, but stress nonetheless). I'm tired most of the time, but I am not sleeping that well.
At some point during the middle of the day I find myself sleepy, but when I lay down to take a nap, I'm not completely asleep. I can still hear most things and I toss. Then, in the middle of the night, I will wake up suddenly and lay around like this for a few hours.
In this "not quite asleep, but not really awake" state, I have these dreams, or what I am starting to think are hallucinations with my eyes shut. I have the same ones over and over again. Or rather, the same one over and over again.
My mind will be off doing whatever, thinking, dreaming, then as I am laying there, I'll hear a little girl say my name. The first time it happened a few days ago it kinda freaked me out and I woke up. It was so real. Sometimes I can see the top of her head. She's either a large toddler or a small child because the top of her head came just over my Dad's super high pillowtop mattress. Her hair is somewhere between blond and red, like strawberry blond maybe, but light. The other day when I was taking a nap at my Dad's I swore I could see her standing there for a split second when I awoke. Sometimes she touches my arm, but she always says the same thing, never urgent, never more than sweet but persistent, in a little girl's voice: "Holly...Holly...Holly..."
Sometimes I grumble at her and wake myself up: "I'm sleeping." or "What?" Sometimes it cuts into some other dream that I am having and it will startle me awake just from the interruption. I have yet to yell at her, but I know at some point I will out of frustration. I only hope I don't embarrass myself by waking up my roommates or alerting my Dad and my Brother by yelling in my sleep.
That's why I think I may be hallucinating while I am half asleep, because who else gets woken up all the time by imaginary children?
I know its the endorphins from working out more and the serotonin from an over-active brain who has too much homework and is frustrated by a house in need of almost constant maintenance. A body that wants to keep moving and a brain that is always planning, pondering and processing must surely be the cause of this. Maybe in a few weeks when the semester is over, she'll let me sleep, or maybe she'll tell me what she wants so I can get her to stop waking me.

Well, there's always next year...

Well, this will be yet another year where I won't see a Triple Crown winner. Bob Baffert switched jockeys and ended up winning the Preakness with Lookin' At Lucky (the horse I had picked for the Derby). Oh well. Still had fun watching the race and I'm still looking forward to the Belmont.