Some Other Me

I visited my college's website the other day to look something up. I ended up looking through the course schedule and was surprised by the pang of loss that hit me. I wanted so much to erase the past few years and find myself back there again, 19 and happy and not nearly so stuck.

I wanted to feel the heat radiating off the ugly concrete architecture and the icy blast of the classrooms in the summer. I wanted to bubble in answers to multiple choice questions, answers that I knew because I studied and back then, you know, that was the point of tests, for you to be able to answer questions if you knew the material. I wanted to be the person who believed she would meet the love of her life any day. I wanted to be the person who could have become some other person.

Time goes by too fast. I was that person a breath ago, and then suddenly I wasn't.

Dang. I need a margarita!

Name Game

I don't know how much explanation the name of this blog really requires. I mean, I am a lawyer, and I like margaritas.

But I should give credit where it's due. Oh, I'm the only one to blame for this really stupid name I eventually chose, but I should mention that Ags had suggested that I call it "Two Dogs and a Lawyer." I thought that was cute, but I could also see that making me very sad when the day comes that I do not have two dogs (a valid concern, as at the time my poor Mr. Lou was so sick).

Still, I liked the "Three Men and a Baby" kind of ring it had. So I started thinking...what would I like to have three of? And the rest is history!

A Costly Cure

I used to have road rage, but I don't anymore.

Actually, I started my vehicular career as quite the granny driver. Speed limits were followed; courtesy was exercised.

Then I went to law school. I can't explain what it was about law school that made me so ANGRY (well, okay, maybe I can think of one or two things), but next thing I knew I was ripping down the roads leaving a trail of terrified travelers in my wake.

But a few weeks ago I saw something so horrible, it changed everything. I was close to being part of that something horrible, in fact, and I'm so grateful that somehow I wasn't.

It was kind of a normal morning...I was much later than usual, so the roads were clearer, enough that I and others were tooling along at top speeds and weaving around slower cars.

Then suddenly everything came to a screeching halt. The accident a few cars ahead of me was as awful as an accident can be when cars are going too fast and following too close and someone isn't wearing a seatbelt.

Suffice it to say that it was upsetting, the most shocking thing I've seen in real life (and funny, isn't it, that you can see so many horrible things on TV, and they say that it desensitizes you, but I found nothing even slightly comparable between faked tragedy and the real pain of a real person before my eyes).

Fortunately, incredibly, from all I have been able to gather, that person escaped serious injury.

And as for me? Well, it's like a red haze has been lifted from my eyes. I just don't feel that sense of frustration and competitiveness that I used to, and I'm happy going a slower speed – I'm actually grateful when a not-so-fast car gets in front of me because it gives me an excuse not to drive so fast myself. (Since I would never be the slowest car in the left lane, knowing so well as I do what that does to the angry drivers behind me.)

I wish I could have figured all this out without having seen what I saw, though.

Gotta Dance

I've been having what can kindly be described as a rough time lately. I don't feel much like writing when that's the case, which I guess means I don't have a future as an angsty 19th century French poet who spends her days in smoky cafes penning great works of literature. Alas.

So I thought I'd tell you about something that makes me happy. My little niece, now nearly 17 months old, has got rhythm. I mean, the girl can dance, and she knows it. Or maybe the point is that she doesn't know it, that it happens without her consciously realizing that she's dancing. She just can't help it. The moment she hears music, she starts stomping and swaying.

It's so frigging cute, I can't stand it.

Next Time I'll Try the Burlap Sack

There's just no point in my even trying to be fashionable. I was born to spend my life in sweats, and I might as well accept it.

I've been feeling like my work clothes aren't feminine enough, or maybe it's just that even the girliest suit never feels particularly sexy. I thought I'd try a nice dress instead.

It's okay to wear a dress, but of course it has to be a work-appropriate dress. I have, oh, 9,325 dresses in my closet, and none of them were work-appropriate. Too short, too long, too low-cut, too tight, too sloppy, too fancy, too lacy, too young, too old.

I'd need to buy one...easier said than done. I felt that it should cover my shoulders, not be too form-fitting, and not be too revealing. Every dress in the world is at least one of those things. I finally found a dress that met all of my qualifications: a little bit loose but not a sack, cut past the knee, and with flowing sleeves that ended at my elbows.

Unfortunately, I was so busy looking for those details that I failed to take in the entirety of the dress.

So I wore the dress today, and I was feeling pretty good about myself. Then I happened to glance at myself in the full-length mirror in the ladies' room. Oh, the horror! Somehow...and I don't know how it happened...I'd embraced '70s fabulosity. I have seen that dress, with its polyester stretchiness and bohemian breeziness and its godawful loud mod pattern. In my mom's closet. Next to the bell bottoms.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

On a sad note, I did want to thank everyone for the kind words about Louie. It's been very hard. I was so steeled for the possibility that he would die that the news didn't shock me in the least, yet I wasn't ready in the least for the reality of him being gone. I can't believe how much it hurts. Everywhere I look, I see a place where he was. Even as I sit here typing, all I can think about is how he used to delight in parking himself in front of the computer monitor so I couldn't see it, how he'd purr when I nudged him to the side and then move right back where he was, looking at me with his eyes full of light and love. How can he be so very gone, so very fast?

Louie, 1999-2007

My cat Louie died today. He was 7.


I got Louie on December 5. He was only 8 weeks old, a skinny little ball of crazy kitten.

My beloved Pomeranian had been killed that Thanksgiving. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of grief, and I decided that a kitten might ease some of my pain.

I went to the shelter with the goal in mind of getting a black female kitten. I was in love with my brother's glossy ebony cat, and I wanted one just like her. When I got to the shelter, they had apparently had a bumper crop of black kittens. There were something like eight to choose from.

Meanwhile, my brother, who came with me to help me choose, took Louie out of his cage. After playing with him for a while, he said I should look at him because he was such a nice cat. I wasn't all that interested – I wanted a solid-colored cat and was not fond of his black-and-white coloring. But I held him a bit. The other kittens were happy to be held for a little while, but then they wanted to get down. Louie snuggled in my arms and fell asleep. When I tried to put him back in his cage, he struggled and cried piteously and plaintively tapped at my hand with his paw through the bars.

I was hooked.

I cried all the way home with him that day. I was still so sad about my little dog, and yet so filled with a sense of meaning in all of this...that this cat coming home with me got to do so only because of the horrible thing that happened, and how wonderful this day was, with that kitten's whole life ahead of him. And I cried because I knew that one day I'd be saying goodbye to him too.


Louie was a darling kitten, the most affectionate I've ever seen. Almost every picture I have of him shows him curled up on someone's lap or shoulder or even their head. I had a hard time finding pictures of him alone to post here.


He grew up into a rough-and-tumble little tomcat. He still loved to sit in my lap and to mess with his kitty roommate. We went through a rough patch of occasional biting and scratching for a couple of years in the middle. Some people thought I should give him away, but what they didn't understand was that I loved him, even if he could be mean. He could also be very sweet, and he was my baby that I had raised from a tiny kitten, and whatever he was, I felt like I was responsible for it.

Over time he grew out of it, and the last few years the cat that I had seen in the kitten emerged. He loved to sit in my lap when I watched TV. If I had to get up, I could lift him in a blanket, place him down on the chair, and then pick him up and place him in my lap again when I came back, and he'd be perfectly content. He loved people and always ran to greet them. He loved to play in water, and he'd do anything to get some Fancy Feast. He loved to chase little foam balls and climb on the cat tree and drape himself over sofa arms. He loved me and would wail every time I stepped out of the house. He purred when I talked to him and had the brightest green eyes and the pinkest little nose and the perfect tuxedo coloring that I could finally see was so beautiful. He was always so full of life, and he always seemed so happy.

I loved him.

New Digs

This was the "real" first post on this blog....

Welcome to my new and improved blog! Same great taste, less filling.

I've blogged elsewhere, but it was time for a change. Let me know if you're interested in reading posts from the old blog.

Death by Donkey

We're at sea today, but yesterday we were in the Greek island of Santorini. The island is basically a big old mountain, and the towns are built at the very tippy-top.


And of course the boat leaves you at the very bitty-bottom. So how to get up there, you ask? You could ride up on the cable car. And you could walk it (I don't recommend it, for reasons to follow).

Or you could ride up on a donkey. Doesn't that sound like fun? Who doesn't love a donkey? Nobody, that's who, because everybody loves donkeys.

I love a donkey too, so naturally I chose the donkey. So I got up to the donkey-giving guy, paid, and then suddenly I was hoisted in the air and tossed onto a donkey. "You go!" the man yelled, and the donkey, well, he went.

And that's when it became clear that I'd been given the demon donkey. My brother went cantering by, waving cheerily and hooting, "Look how well he obeys me!" My sister-in-law wielded her camera in one hand and her bag in the other, snapping pictures as she glided up the mountain.

Me? I held on for dear life, screaming, "I don't wanna diiiiiiiie!"

On the donkey path
My donkey didn't care. He went where he wanted to go. He galloped at breakneck speed. He crashed repeatedly into the cliff face, crushing my leg in the process. He rammed other donkeys, and then tried to bulldoze them to the side (leaving my poor defenseless legs right in the line of fire of the other donkeys' hindquarters).

He had a particular yen for the other hapless tourists making their way down the mountain. He headed right for them at top speed. Oh, the poor souls, how they tried to avoid him, stepping this way and that, but my donkey was far more nimble than they. He'd draw nearer, hot breath like the flames of hell washing over them, and they'd press themselves desperately against the cliff wall. Their eyes would grow wide with horror.

And the screams, oh God the screams, they haunt me when I try to sleep. "Nein! Bitte nein!" or "Non! Mon Dieu, non!" or any of a handful of other languages that I do not speak, but the meaning was clear enough: terrified denial at that which could not be avoided.

---

Somehow, miraculously, I survived and so did the tourists. The cruelest thing would have to be the way that, with (what felt like) miles to go to the top, the donkeys stopped, and the donkey-handling dude came up behind me, grabbed me, and yanked me unceremoniously off the donkey. "Done!" he yelled. "You go now!"

Sheesh, I went. And just about died climbing up the rest of the mountain. I have grave, grave concerns regarding my ability to climb Mount Vesuvius tomorrow. If I do not return...remember me.

Opa!

After a day at sea on Saturday, we spent today in Athens.

We had a crazy Greek tour guide who was straight out of My Big Fat Greek Wedding -- or maybe she herself had seen that movie too many times. She was very much, "If you can speak English, you can speak Greek, because all English words come from Greek words!" And then she'd list all the words she could think of with Greek roots.

We started out at the Acropolis, which was every bit as fantastic as I'd imagined. I couldn't actually believe that I was there. I still don't, even as I look through the pictures to decide which one to post.

My brother (with the baby on his back) at the Acropolis
It's also a bit of a treacherous climb...the kind of climb you'd never see in lawsuit-happy-and-thank-God-for-my-sake-it's-so America. Lots of marble slabs that have been polished shiny-slick by millions of feet passing over them.

Then we drove for a couple of hours along the coast to Cape Sounion. Lovely sights. I was amazed once again at the European parameters for luxury. As in, the high-rent, beach-front district boasts dreary little condos with cheap plastic chairs on tiny, dingy balconies crowded by drying laundry. And those people have more money than I could ever dream of. I think they should all move to my town and buy villas with their millions. And bring their food with them. More saganaki, please!

My niece's first time on the beach, at the feet of the Temple of Poseidon in Sounion


In Cape Sounion we saw the Temple of Poseidon, which isn't as grand as the Parthenon but felt somehow more majestic. I think the difference is that the Acropolis is swarming with tourists and guards and scaffolding for renovation, whereas we were the only tour group at the Temple of Poseidon. It stands silently atop a rocky bluff overlooking the sea. I really felt a sense of reverence...I could imagine Ancient Greeks walking the same paths I did in a way it was hard to at the Acropolis.

(Um, and I could imagine Lord Byron there too. The Greeks love him, I guess. He carved his name into a column in the temple. That's supposed to be really cool now, but I say it's just graffiti. He's a goober.)

Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

View of Dubrovnik (and my niece) from the ship
We spent the day in Dubrovnik, Croatia. I didn't know what to expect. It's a popular beach resort, so I guess I pictured something like the Caribbean.

The reality is somewhat different...lots of rocky mountains with quaint little red-and-white homes built all the way to the top. The sea is gorgeous, glittering turquoise.

We walked around the old town for a bit. Then my brother said, "Hey! Let's climb the old city wall!" Then my sister-in-law said, "Yeah, let's!" I declined, but then I figured that climbing up those steep, narrow stairs would be a great workout.

So we climb up this looooong staircase and look around and take some pictures. I say, "That was nice!" and head for the staircase again. Oh no, I am informed. What we must do is walk all the way around the city wall (as in, all the way around the old city) and climb all the way to the very tip-top turret.

Five hours and 8,302 stairs later....


I say that counts as today's workout. Anyone got a problem with that?

I wish I could post a picture, but for some reason that's not working. I'll give it one last try today, and if it doesn't work I'll give it up until I'm back. Not that anyone is just dying to see my vacation pictures....