Law

Diving down the rabbit hole…

July 26, 2009 Savvy Spoonie Leave a comment

Today I went to work at my favorite community center/coffee house. After the great loss of the laptop yesterday I spent frenzied minutes trying to come up with a quick money making scheme only to realize that working my ass off on the plans already under way is a more likely way to get Lee a laptop sooner, rather than later.

So this morning, infused with a new sense of purpose, off into the land of legal research I went.

One of the things I love about research is the sense of archaelogy I get when I am stuck in the middle of it. I often feel as though I am digging into the vastness of the earth, dusting off bits of information one moldy bit at a time and trying to piece together bits of information into a picture that turns into a cognizant legal claim. Today was a total Indiana Jones day. At one point in time I was buried under my laptop, fifteen tabs open in firefox, shifting back and forth between scientific publications about various types of insects and looking for references to the de-watering of the Ogallala Aquifer. I briefly wondered if my clients would be better served by an entomologist turned lawyer while I tried to understand the classification language I was sorting through.

Finally, glinting out from within the internet dust, there was an article I could use as a starting point to my claim! Success!! I delicately removed it from the pile of detritus surrounding it and emailed it to myself, feeling triumphant and happy that my diligence had been rewarded.

Of course tomorrow I have to look up the articles behind that article, so I will have to break out my virtual dust brush and leather brim hat once again.

Stress

Life’s not fair…

July 26, 2009 Savvy Spoonie 5 Comments

Struggle. We are in the midst of a fair amount of struggle. Between creating a business and paying for our existence on one salary, Lee and I have been clinging to edge for years now. We are hopeful, we remain cheerful most of the time, and we work really hard to try and improve our lives. However, each time we crawl up over the edge, each time we end a month in the black instead of the red, each time I get another client or another case, each time we get more money, something happens to smack us down.

It could be a medical crises for a dog, a broken pair of $600 glasses, a broken root canal requiring fixing, or any other myriad of things. Something always happens to wipe out our pathetic savings account and leave us teetering once again on the edge.

Yesterday it was the complete and utter destruction of Lee’s laptop and backup hard drive. His pricey system (understandable for one in his industry) was crushed into non-existence by the critical failure of the shelving system we put in place above his desk, placed there to manage the very tiny space we both work in. The shelves failed and came crashing down onto his desk and laptop sending all of his important things to the floor at breakneck speed.

Everything is wrecked. Destroyed. Kaput.

We came home from a lovely barbecue with friends to an office floor covered in all of his most important things, broken and scattered about.

All I could think was, “We know life’s not fair, we have figured that particular lesson out, why another example?”

My poor husband, the man who tirelessly works to take care of this family, has nothing left of his most important personal things. Worst of all, we can’t afford to replace them. We have teetered on the edge for too long. It will be months before we can get him a system that will allow him to do everything he likes and needs to do with it. He will have to make do with the old workhorse I used in law school, my six year old laptop we gave to Marlena when I got my new business computer. It’s old and slow, it will process word documents and connect to the internet. That’s about it.

We are defeated. It’s a small thing compared to a death in the family or a very sick child, but it’s our personal albatross. We suffer from an unending line of high priced emergencies, wiping us out time and time again. We can never seem to reach the point where these emergencies are simply something to handle and move on from. We are trapped in a cycle of scrambling and desperation.

And all we can do is keep on scrambling.

Monkey, Motherhood

Pirate plunder…

July 20, 2009 Savvy Spoonie 6 Comments

Margot and I pose by the ship that love built.

Monkey had her pirate party yesterday so Saturday morning found Margot, one of my closest friends, and I knee deep in cardboard and duct tape building a pirate ship for the party. We began the plan for the ship with a fair amount of trepidation, certain that we were as likely to create a giant mess as we were to create a ship. However, we bought poster paint, we bought a used sheet at the Salvation Army, we got empty moving boxes out of the basement and we got our creativity on. Surprisingly we managed to create a rather respectable ship, for a pair of landlubbers.

This was the result:

It was a hit with the kids, just enough of a ship to provide them with fuel for their imaginations. There were bits of ocean lying about, bits of shark and alligator, whale and fish. During the party they ran on and off the ship, which served as a great center piece for the party. The ship only took an hour to put together and paint. We even managed the sail with a rake, an old mop handle, some tape, and the sheet. We laughed and schemed, worked and plotted, talked and taped. We drank water and worked in the sun, painted bits of ocean or bits of plank, and throughly enjoyed ourselves.

I had more fun building the ship with Margot and decorating for the party than I did at the party. It was like being kids again ourselves, putting that silly ship together. I felt relaxed and energized in a way I haven’t for a long, long time. It didn’t feel like work, it felt like play, actual play, kid style play. Best of all, when we were done with our play, the kids got to have theirs:

The party was a huge success for all attendees, parents and children alike. The generous flow of beer and margarita allowed the parents to relax and chill while the large expanse of backyard ocean allowed the children to play and scream to their hearts content. We provided each child with a pirate hat, eye-patch, ear-ring, and weapon of their choice and encouraged parents and children to dress in costume. Everyone arrived in colorful attire and shared hot dogs and hamburgers, chips and fruit, and sea serpent brownie cake with good cheer.

By chosing to make our decorations, Margot and I got to spend some really special time together. I think it is easy to forget how much joy can be derived from problem solving and how much simple fun can be had in creating something new out of something old. Birthdays have become such a huge money sink in our culture, and so much of the time parents are relegated to the role of money lender, grill master, and kitchen slave, while their children run around on someone else’s creation. We got to skip the money sink this year and join in the play, just by taking the time to make our kids party decorations, something I hope to remember for the years to come.