New cars (or the glass is half full from the ground)

That's the view from my window at the office. There's a roof top parking lot across the street that is always empty and apparently one of the car dealers found out about it and yesterday started driving new cars up here two at a time (two guys). One time when we saw the roof covered with new cars, they were all the same kind of car--very spooky seeing about 40 of the same color and same make of car, but this time they are all different except there are only four colors, grey, black, white and one red car. I'm betting they're fords, but I'm not into cars enought to figure it out.

It wasn't 9 pounds. At the gym it was only one, but hey I LOST A POUND. It could be worse. That glass is half full if I have to get down on the ground and look up at it.

Last night was girl scouts and so was the night before. On Monday night I had to help intervene in a troop gone bad--law suits were threatened. Luckily both sides felt like I was on their side and an uneasy peace has been restored. (felt a little like old Ben Franklin) Last night was camping planning. I refuse to go camping, but I offered to share my experience to help plan the trip. The person in charge has so much more experience then me, but I still charged in and made her change what she was planning. She sighed a lot, but my arguments made sense to her and I think she is ok with them. She wanted to lump the 4th grade juniors in with the brownies--they'll hate that--it's a receipt for disaster. I have a sneaking and paranoid suspicion that they make these rediculous plans that they know I'll never stand for, so that I'll go camping and save the day. Ha, I see them coming a mile away. Poor girls having to go camping without me. Deibe says she likes camping a lot more now that she has a cot. No.No.No.

Tonight is PTA Tour of Homes. They haven't even lined up the houses--I'll have to have my guard up so that I'm not sucked into too much work. Tomorrow is Adam's back to school night. I checked his math last night and I had to laugh out loud at my meeting--he wrote 8 instead of 18 and instead of realizing his mistake, he took three extra steps to make 8 work. Then I checked his english--the sentences were awful. I was just about to dispair, when I made him circle the subject and put a square around the verbs in each sentence (some of which had no verb and some of which had four pairs of subjects and verbs). He had no trouble finding the subject and verbs and after some prodding, he cleaned it up. All cleaned up, he had some good thoughts down on paper.

And finally, I resisted an all guilt alert this morning--Marisa called to say that she forgot her name tag, could I run it right over to her before 8 a.m. I said I couldn't get there until 8:30, because I had to go to the gym and take Adam to school at 8:20. I could have skipped the gym and driven to Hows and made it back in time to take Adam to school and take Melody to work, but I only lost one pound. I drag so much when I go to the gym at night. So feeling so guilty I stuck to my 8:30 offer and Marisa figured out how to live without it. I felt guilty walking to the gym and I felt guilty working out on the first two machines. Then incredible fatigue took over and I needed to consentrate on not falling down. When I got home, I had time for my shower and only left two minutes late to take Adam to school. I wasted no gas, making Melody come with me to take Adam and then onto work from there. Today I meet with the attorney handling the malpractice case against me--I'm perfectly calm, I'm perfectly calm, the glass is half full (from the ground anyway).

Amazing

You know that scene in Parenthood where Steve Martin is really depressed--he quit his job, his wife just told him she's pregnant with their fourth child, they're having all kinds of problems with their oldest, his senile grandmother is staying with them and he has to go a coach little league in which the other kids torture his oldest son for always dropping the ball. That guy was really depressed and then his son caught the game winning ball and he's so happy everything is right with the world--no troubles at all. I stepped on the scale this morning with no expectations whatsoever and I'm down nine---count them nine pounds. It's only three weeks, ok we're in the fourth week--I'm still ahead of the curve. Woo Hoo. All is right with the world.

[Reality check. My scale doesn't really work and the base weight was from a different scale fully dressed with my clunkie gym shoes and the first week I only lost one pound and last week I hadn't lost any, but nine pounds. Woo Hoo.]

I'm Depressed

There are so many things making me depressed, but writing about them will be more depressing, so I've decided to share my response to depression with all of you as a cathartic experience for me. I'll take whatever cathartic experiences I can get. Usually when I am depressed, my natural inclination is to endlessly rehash the litany of factors making me depressed, carefully disecting each one to determine the worst light prospective. Knowing that this is destructive and prolongs the depression (after numerous and onerous clinical self studies), I try to avoid my natural inclination and seek higher ground. I occupy myself with plans--lots and lots of plans. I plan trips I want to take, projects around the house, things I want to buy, christmas lists, etc., etc. When my depression is rooted in money, i.e., the lack thereof, this endeavor becomes counterproductive and must be abandoned. This is where mindless books and television are so important. I have been blessed (or cursed since I am depressed and physiologically determined to look at things in the worst light) with an excellant memory. I can remember with great detail movies I've seen, tv shows, books, etc. and when my mind needs mindless activity, such as now, I can fall back on reliving something. This morning it is "Clubhouse" a new tv show that was on last night. It was semi-cute and I am reliving meeting this gung-ho youngster who they claim in the show is 16 and old enough to drive--how ridiculous and put him in a Ferrari. His sister is rebellous and talks back to the Mother with regularity and surprising clarity for a "teen"--she looks like she's in her 20's. The entire baseball team of seemingly hardened professional baseball players become mush when the Mother berates them for allowing a 16 year old behind the wheel of a Ferrari. Ok, it's a really good actress playing the Mother, but come on--it's too unbelievable and yet I was so mindlessly happy that she put them in their place and that they showed her the respect that we all secretly want parents who love their children to garner. Unfortunately this show is up against "American Dreams" which has been a mindless nostalgic favorite occupying many, many hours of rehash pleasure, but I'm going to take "Club House" because I like baseball more than the Vietnam war in a mindless sort of way.

SWAT and other stuff

Yesterday, we had three of the police officers from Glendale's SWAT team as our speakers for Kiwanis. My little heart went pitter pat, they were so hunkin' cute. Then I caught a glance of myself in the mirror and realized that I'm an old lady to these guys, not a young cute girl. How depressing. Then I had to play mediator for girl scouts--a troop leader and some of the parents in the troop are threatening each other with litigation--me being a lawyer had a whole lot of clout and I felt better. Then at ABWA last night I told the ladies that I was dressing up as anything Jackson did for our Halloween Fun Night--I said if Jackson dresses up as Superman, I'm getting a cape. [That sounded very attractive--Superman is a character I can really get into. Noble, good, strong as hell... Just a suggestion, Erika.] I took Melody to the doctor this morning and they scheduled an ultra sound right away--they said her stomack pulse is off--she'll know more soon. And finally, Dr. Phil's next key says that I need a nutritional overhaul--surprise, surprise--our paths begin to diverge.

It's a Tuesday

Ok, Dr. Phil says I'm not supposed to eat in front of the TV, but if I didn't eat in front of the TV or with a good book, I'd never eat... That might be the plan--I think the overall gist is that food causes fat. So I'm supposed to come up with new habits that are incompatable with food--like read in the Library where they won't let you bring food in. I guess I could get white carpeting and a white sofa, so that I wouldn't eat in front of the TV. That pretty much kills my dream of a tv in the Kitchen. (I'm always fixing dinner when Jeopardy comes on--I'm ready to eat just as they go to commercial and I miss all the good stuff.)

In other news, I am 1/3rd of the way started clearing out the hallway of girl scout junk. I already have my sights on the garage next. Adam said there was a black widow spider in the garage--I think it needs a bomb before I start going through the girl scout junk. I made up the flyers for our ABWA Bingo night in October--it's going to have a Halloween Theme, so I'm thinking I'll need todress up--what is Jackson going to be for Halloween? I could probably pull together Laker's fan--that might be fun. Jackson seems more the Hockey type, but they're locked out. Which reminds me, the Attorney General is investigating Ralphs who locked out their employees during the supermarket strike--apparently they "let" the union clerical staff keep working. The news said that Ralph's faces having to pay all of the locked out employees back pay for all the time they didn't allow them to work. Wouldn't that be a nice Christmas bonus. TTFN

In Other News

How about those Emmy's. I was glad that the Daily Show did so well, not surprising. I've never seen Sex in the City, the Soprano's or Angels in America, even though I have HBO and watch a lot of tv, so the show kind of seemed like the Tony's to me--a bunch of accolades for shows I've never seen. The good bye tributes were good and I was glad Niles won. His comment was that they say Television is changing--when it changes back, give me a call. Great. They cut off the guy from Soprano's at the end of the show, but the local news showed someone else saying that all he wanted to say was Hello to the troops in Iraq--come home soon. Stupid producers--that would have been a good last line.

One pound is better than nothing

So it's a week since I weighed myself and I've lost one pound. Of course I was wearing a sweatshirt this time, so maybe it's a tiny bit more. The glass is half full in my book. I just finished reading Dr. Phil's third key--cleanse your environment of temptation and I'm ready to get rid of my year old butterscotch candy and my two packages of my favorite cookies (as far as the kitchen and leaving them out for everyone to eat anyway), but I draw the line at throwing out chips and white bread--if I didn't eat white bread I wouldn't eat bread. I know it doesn't sound like a bad thing when I say it out loud, but in my soul it sounds awful. Chips are going to be phased out--I have a plan. Yes, my plans have failed before, but I have a pollyanna plan that involves steps from controling the amount, then to frozen fries in the deep fryer and finally to baking my own wonderful tasting chips without adding salt or oil. I have a dream. And I'm getting rid of my food drawer at work (yea, more room for files) and my food drawers in my sitting room (yea more room for stuff--I have so much stuff). I'm supposed to get rid of my fat clothes, but I don't have any--YET. One whole pound--now if I can just keep it off.

The Glass is Half Full and then Some

That's Dr. Phil's second key to weight loss--put on those rosy glasses and stop the negative talk in your brain. He said we don't have to be pollyanna, but I can tell, he does want me to. His sister-in-law was burned with acid over seventy percent of her body and lived to charish each day. With a guide post like that my piddley little problems are nothing. I read ahead a little bit--aparently I'm not supposed to use food as a reward. Damn. The next chapter is getting rid of bad food in your environment, so I have to wait a week or so to read it. Cookies were on sale, what can I say. Oh no, I just had a thought--Dr. Phil probably considers potatoe chips as bad food. We're getting into the deep end now. Oh no, I just had a worse thought--this is only the 3rd Key out of 7, so we're still in the shallow end--it's going to get so much worse. I still draw the line at seaweed.

Back to Comedy Central

I didn't watch the end of the Daily Show last night, but did he have Pat Buchanan on to tout his new book??? I think Kerry was on a few weeks ago, Clinton also, I'm not going to be a bit surprised to see Bush, although I don't think we'll ever see Dick Chaney. I heard a piece on NPR that the Daily Show is being aired in Eastern block European countries and the question was whether they would get the inside American jokes. The answer was, they're telling them more than we are, so they love it. They asked whether the tricks of language would translate and the answer was that most of the demographic that will watch it speak english. John Stewart was asked why he is successful at political comedy--why is he so popular. He said, Well I am jewish--we pretty much get to say whatever we want and everyone loves it. Steven Colbare (I have no idea how to spell his name) was asked about whether the show's irony would translate in European countries and he said not everyone gets it in this country and he tells about a piece that he did about all the minorities bickering at the democratic convention and the joke at the end was we won't have to deal with all these voices at the republican convention meaning that republicans are not diverse. A prominent republican was complimenting him on his work and mentioned that bit as the funniest he'd heard and Colbare said, I'm a democrate, I'm making fun of republican's intolerance for diversity and the guy said, Oh, that wasn't how I took it.

The First Key

Well, weight loss is dominating my psyche, so I thought I'd share the best thing I've read in Dr. Phil so far--there are no victims, only volunteers. So when I look at a bag of chips and remember how much everyone in my family loves chips, why should I fight heredity, I'm a victim of genetics--Ah Ha! I'm a volunteer to genetics. No, I'm pretty much a volunteer to chips just because they taste good. Where do I sign up. I love that pringles commercial which makes the bag of chips seem so lame next to the can of pringles--I know darn well that I like chips better than pringles, but anything to put those seductive heart attack candies in a poor light is a good idea.

Erika Wants to Know

All the news thats ... going on ... somewhere or other ... Well, I sent myself an invitation to join Amazon Readers, but never got the e-mail. I noticed that there are several pending invitations to me. So I wrote an e-mail question to Blogger and we'll see. I'm reluctantly reading Dr. Phil, 7 keys to weight loss. Gosh he's tough to take--he puts such self denigrating language in your mouth, but I'm up for the challenge. I've made a goal (he wants us to write it down and tell our friends--I don't have the type of friends who are all that interested in my weight loss goals, so you guys are it) Two pounds a week is the goal. Doesn't that sound innocuous. How hard is two pounds, but I still wouldn't eat any cookies and picked up the pace at the gym just in case. At this rate, I'll be at my target weight by April, just in time to go to Spring Conference in Hawaii. I'm thinking I'll use go to Hawaii as the carot in this game and if I'm not halfway in my goal but January, then I won't make the reservations. Jez, even half way would be cool. Of course I haven't finished the book yet--I'm still in the first chapter where he's talking about setting a realistic goal and telling your friends.... If he wants me to eat seaweed, all bets are off.

My friend Clara (who really has too many things going on with her to care a wit if I have a weight loss goal) bought a condo in North Carolina. The moving company wants $4,000 to move her stuff out there and more than her car is worth to transport her car, so her cousin is going to move her. Her health is just not good enough for her to try the trip herself. She's 65, but she has a lot of health problems. This move is such a trama to her, but it's now or never. Her son lives in North Carolina, so it's a good move and she has cousins who care about her there.

Taxes are due next Wednesday. I just started a draft of my taxes--this is the latest I've ever started. I just love playing with all the numbers, but this year I guess I just didn't want to know. Well that's it, that's all I've got in the way of what's happening, unless you count my conundrum about Council Woman of the Year. I don't have a placque or trophy or even a certificate, which means (a) they didn't do one, which is weak of them or (b) I left it at the hall and lost it, which is so inexcusable of me. Do I ask the question? I mean I need more trophies--there's an empty spot on the shelf.

The Supreme Rock Star of the Court

So me and about 600 (mostly gushing Reaganites) heard Justice Sandra Day O'Connor speak for about 45 minutes at a new auditorium at the Reagan Library. She had a canned speech about how the justice system works and checks and balances and how extraordinary it was for President Reagan to appoint her and how great he was at advancing women and how great he was anyway. (I guess everyone forgets that he singlehandedly killed the Equal Rights Amendment so now he's getting credit for doing all the stuff to prove that we didn't need an equal rights amendment.) Then she took some questions from the audience--quite a rude audience I thought (stupid republicans don't even realize that she's a staunch conservative republican. She votes her mind and won't overturn Roe v. Wade so they think she's a trader and they're mean to her)--wanted to know why Judges think that they're allowed to make laws and isn't it all political--didn't the Supreme court basically appoint President Bush. She handled the questions really cool. I mean I'm kind of in the camp that thinks the SC went out of its way to rule in Bush's favor, but she said very straightforwardly (and I believe that she believes it) that the Gore case was a distinct set of facts and law that the Supreme Court analyzed and found that different counties applied the same state law in a different way--deciding how and when to do a recount--that is a clear violation of due process. Gee when you put it that way. Then she gave a little civics lesson on what it means to be a common law system (that's us) and how when Judges interpret laws, their interpretion becomes part of the law and so they are supposed to make laws--that's their job. She was so cool. I was like a teeny bopper at a rock concert. She ended with an ironical joke. She said a good friend of her's was watching Reagan's funeral on tv with her five year old granddaughters and pointed out Sandra Day O'Connor on tv and said to the girls, we know her, she's a very famous person in government and the five year old said, who is she, George Washington's wife? She has the grey hair that looks like George Washington's wig, but that is just sad. Every girl should know her--she's pretty damn brave to be the fifth vote on so many cases. I shudder to think what might have happened if she hadn't been so independent. She really is a very conservative republican, but she's not a sheep.

Holiday from Labor

Well Saturday, I wasn't dead when I woke up, so I drove in with Marisa (she drove) to work. I felt pretty lousy when I got back and didn't move from the couch except to eat and get ice for the rest of the day. On Sunday I woke up feeling pretty good and hoped my cold was behind me. I drove with Marisa (she drove again, but the van this time to get practice) to the car wash and to work and I did a little grocery shopping. It was so pleasant in the store, I thought I might even bake a cake. I did remember that it is still summer and is probably too hot, but it was so pleasant in the store that I allowed myself to entertain the idea and salivate. IT WAS SO HOT outside and the van has no airconditioning. Ideas of baking quickly died. When I got home, I was beat and did not move from the couch except to eat and get ice. On Monday, I had learned my lesson and did not move from my chair, except to eat and get ice. Marisa asked for a ride, but I was taking no chances. I still have the terrible cough and everyone at the office wants to know if I want to go home. Of course I want to go home, silly co-workers.

But no rest for me--I'm going to a dinner tonight at the Reagan Library to hear Sandra Day O'Connor speak. A friend of mine from ABWA had an extra ticket and thought of me. I'm really looking forward to it. First woman on the Supreme Court. When she graduated from a top law school, third in her class, the only job offered to her in California was as a paralegal.

(cough, cough, cough, cough) BFN.

It's full blown now

What started as a tickle in my throat that I tried to eviscerate it with large doses of vitamin C (tastily disguised as Tang), is now a full blown cough with raging headache. Grandiose plans for the three day weekend of cleaning, laundry, a movie and visits to watch tennis may deteriorate into stay in bed except that I no longer have a tv in my room. Maybe I'll move my bed to the sitting room.

A gal in the office this morning said that she had to tell me what had happened to her yesterday--a really funny story that I would appreciate. She's telling a long story about the people she was meeting with who had a bunch of little kids and they were all engrossed in their meeting when the three year old fell off a balcony and landed on his face on concrete. She says there was blood everywhere and she thought she was going to have to call 911, but they got the child calmed down. I'm waiting for the punchline--something that makes this a funny story that I would appreciate. There was none--that was it the whole story. So I asked her why would I enjoy that story and she said something like, Well I know you like kids. Maybe that's what gave me the headache.

I finally called terminex to get rid of the crickets that have invaded our house--one jumped into my bed yesterday. They want $125 for the first visit and you have to sign a contract for four more visits at $83 each over the next year and after one year you are allowed to cancel the contract, otherwise it keeps going for $83 every three months. That contract doesn't cover termites, only the 63 crawling bugs outlined in the contract. Termites are a whole different contract. I think I heard that crickets are supposed to be good luck. Yeah, I'm thinking we really like crickets and would never harm the little fellows.

The big day

Happy Anniversary Erika and Lyle--20 years. Wow. But sorry, the reason today is the big day is because it is the Women in Business luncheon today--the culmination of months of meetings with the young and sometimes rude democrats. There will be about 500 women attending, so it will be a great opportunity for our ABWA to shine. So many of our members are retiring and moving away that we need many new members. Of course if we get a lot of new members that will mean a lot of work for me, so I'm trying to be careful what I wish for.

At work, I had a judge call a motion that I brought frivolous. That's a bad thing. I don't agree and I'm hoping experts will side with me, but it's damn depressing that even one person thought so. I'm just one cog in this machine and all the other cogs want me to be the fall guy. I'm happy to have the buck stop with me, but it's so unfair that one person's ill opinion should have such far reaching consequences. I also have a pretty important duty to zealously represent my client. Experts will agree with me. Oh well.

I have ten thousand pictures laid out all over my bedroom, sitting room and hallway that I probably should do something with. Since some of the old ones seem to be fading, I'm thinking that I better get busy and scan them. But first I have to put them in order. I think ten thousand is a conservative estimate. Lions and Tigers and Bears. Oh my.

I just spoke with Renee Hansen (Erika's co-leader for girl scouts back in the day)--she can't come to the luncheon, so that's one down and 499 to go. BFN