Chicken

So when you force yourself to write a blog (because your sister who hasn't blogged in three months suddenly comes through and you feel like a slug if you don't have a new blog), you write about what is uppermost in your mind: chicken. I read in a book recently that one way to lose weight is to eat the same thing everyday for breakfast and lunch--keeping a routine that you don't alter helps make it a good habit. Without knowing that piece of advice, that's what I've been doing for over two years, mostly because I'm lazy and I don't want to think about what to eat. I have one slice of wheat bread with a thin layer of peanut butter for breakfast and chicken for lunch. For years I've been able to find thin sliced chicken at the grocery store. It's more expensive, but I don't care. It's just right.

When Mary died we found frozen chicken--a lot of frozen chicken in packs of four fat breasts. We used some at the memorial, but there was a lot left over. So I'm trying to use it up. Four pieces of chicken, that I now have figured out to cut into smaller pieces, but then there's too much for the week and then there's leftovers for more than a week and after a week--it tastes pretty bad. Really bad. But I hate to waste it. The first week I ate through to week two. The third week I threw some away. The fourth week, I tried to have chicken for dinner too. The fifth week I started having tuna instead. Then I went back to chicken and when there was some left over after a week, I went out for pizza--two times. It was really good. It's not like I don't have pizza for dinner sometimes, but going down hill on lunch is a slippery slope--like buying that bag of reeses peanut butter cups--of course you can't (translation I can't) eat just one.

I blame fat chicken. So do I throw the rest of the chicken away? Do I eat for a week and then throw away the left overs? Do I start a habit of eating pizza once a week--oh, on Friday--that's always a fun day, well except the reason it is fun is because we have chocolate chip cookies at work on Friday, so maybe Friday would be a bad day to also have pizza. I'll have popcorn on Friday (100 calories) and Pizza on Tuesday (except when I have a luncheon on Tuesday) and then... There's only four more packs of four fat chickens left--I'm going to try to power through. No pizza at lunch. Chicken only. Maybe it just needs more salt and pepper. Ice cream--that's the ticket. Got to go now, bye.

Old Friends

This week I took an evening away from my busy schedule to go to dinner with friends from Law School. My Law School class was only 100 people and we spent four grueling years together, so although I do not have any college friends from UCLA (I worked while going to school and pretty much commuted there), I should not have been surprised to realize just how many people I remembered from Law School. Nashwa sent an e-mail that she and Adrienne were taking Jeff to dinner and did I want to join them. Sure. Then Jeff sent an e-mail and invited Rob and Sharon. Then I called Phil.

Only Nashwa, Jeff and I could actually make the dinner, but as we compared notes on all the people from our class that we've kept in touch with, it was about half the class. Nashwa had a daughter after she graduated from Law School who is still at home, but her other children are grown. She was telling us about her 26 year old son and then she reminded us that he was only four when we started Law School. Jeff has two grown children, one finished with college, the other still in college and three step-children. When I spoke with Phil, his oldest is in college and his youngest is a Junior in High School. Phil said that his health has been a little weird lately--high blood pressure. I teased him to say that Ha, Ha, now he'll have to take pills everyday. He replied with colorful language that I don't want to be googled over. I told them all about Caitlyn. They remembered when Marisa was born. Marisa was born in our second year of Law School. There were a few days when I was deciding whether to quit Law School and move back to Michigan to help take care of Marisa. At the time Jeff warned me to go see the movie "Baby Boom" before I make any rash decisions. So silly.

We went to a Japanese place. I had asked Adam what I should eat, and he said that they would have steak. So I ordered plain steak. Wow, was it good. Jeff insisted that I try the tuna, so I tried a tini, tiny bite. The sause was amazing and soon I was dunking my steak in that sause. I think I tasted ginger, honey, butter and something very close to the best bottom of the steak pan I've ever had in my life. Who knew.

Nashwa was happy, but she looked tired and talked about the pro bono work that she does. She's an imigration attorney. Jeff looked great, but he was also tired. He told us that he gets up at 3:30 a.m. to start work, because his wife doesn't want him to work at night. I teased him that I would be thinking about him already three hours at work, when I wake up at 6:30 a.m.. Of course his come back was, three billable hours while you are still wasting time sleeping. I was very tired driving in traffic to get to the dinner. I actually closed my eyes at one point in traffic and rationalized that the cars weren't moving anyway. Then I realized that this is probably what everyone who falls asleep on the freeway says and I got my toothpicks out.

The great thing about going to Law School at night was that we were all professionals--working people--self supporting adults. The day class had the feel of college--kids who still do their laundry at home. The bad thing now is that 22 years later, we are old.

P.S. Nashwa is my Quincy. As I approached them from the parking lot to get there, she exclaimed, "Kathy, you always look so happy and great." I was thinking, I am so exhausted that it's going to show on my face how much I don't want to be here, but of course after that greeting, I was in the best spot on earth.

Mourning a Death

I was truly sorry to hear of Anna Nicole Smith's death. Never mind that she just lost her son which was horrible. Never mind that she just had a baby, unthinkable. Never mind the ridiculous circus that was her life and now plagues her after her death. No, I am saddened by her death because she was actually responsible for a very important (I think) Supreme Court decision.

As I understand the facts (and believe me I could be wrong, because I avoid tabloid journalism like the plague), Anna Nicole Smith married a very rich older guy. Very rich older guy had a grown son. Very rich older guy prepared a trust benefiting Anna Nicole and then died. Very rich older guy's son then went into state Probate court and had the trust set aside. The state Probate court proceeded to give everything to very rich guy's son.

Anna Nicole was destitute (well as destitute as any sex symbol celebrity can be anyway). She filed for bankruptcy in Federal court and was assigned a Bankruptcy Trustee to marshall her assets. The Bankruptcy Trustee attempting to claim assets on behalf of Anna's creditors (and whatever was left over for Anna Nicole outright) thought that what the state Probate court and Very Rich Guy's Son had done was wrong and filed a complaint in Bankruptcy Court to set aside the state Probate court judgment and re-instate the Trust. Long story short, the United States Supreme Court agreed that the Bankruptcy Court had proper jurisdiction to take this action, because a Trust is a contract and ultimately, Anna Nicole got all her money back.

Legally, this is very significant. Trusts are contracts. People make trusts to avoid Probate and to avoid court. Contracts are not supposed to be treated like a Will. A Will is entirely different. State courts have historically had sole jurisdiction over Wills and Probate, because those matters are family orientated and local jurisdiction is considered the fairest method to handle such matters. CONTRACTS are different. Trusts are CONTRACTS on purpose. People create trusts to avoid Probate and State Court. More and more, States are passing laws to make Trusts act just like Wills. That's not the purpose at all. More and more, courts are treating Trusts just like a Will. That is the opposite of what people intend for Trusts to be. When the Supreme Court upholds the Bankruptcy Court's jurisdiction over a contract (the Trust), they reinforced the underlying purpose that Trusts are different than Wills. Hopefully, State legislatures will get the hint and stop passing so many laws regulating Trusts, but that's just a pipe dream of mine.

Anyway, back to Anna Nicole. It's just sad that she is a victim of such important litigation. If she hadn't won back all the money, no one would have wanted to have a baby with her (because I've seen her--you can't honestly believe that it wasn't for the money) and whoever killed her and her son (even without reading or watching any of the tabloids, I have to believe someone helped them die) wouldn't have had any motive (except that she was just soooo annoying, but I digress). It is just too sad.