On December 5, I can start my Christmas. The Rockefeller Center tree lighting always takes place the Thursday night right around December 5, and once that tree is lit, I can send out cards, play carols, and string up wreaths and lights and put up my tree.  Every few years, the big televised tree-lighting actually falls right on the 5th, which was (is) my father’s birthday. My father worked in 30 Rockefeller Center. You could see the tree from his office window (I think — could we really see the tree and the rink from his window or am I making up this memory because I wanted it to be so?) So all of these events happily coincided for me when I was a child: the tree-lighting, his birthday, the beginning of the holiday season.

The 30 Rock tree, December 4, 2009 (taken by my mother)

My father would be 64 today. Ten years ago on December 5, it was a mere five months, almost to the day, after he died at what now seems the absurdly young age of 53, and I was in Nepal.  Early that morning I climbed (wheezed, dragged myself) over the Thorung-La pass on the Annapurna circuit (17,796 ft.). Though I had been hiking and acclimatizing myself in the Annapurnas for three weeks, that last climb was agonizing, due to the bitter cold and most likely exhaustion and malnourishment (the only food available was what could be trekked two weeks in from the nearest town on the backs of Nepali porters:  garlic soup, ramen, lemon water, and Milky Ways — strangely ubiquitous in Nepal). It was all too easy for me to imagine my father’s ragged breathing the last weeks of his life. I remember thinking to myself, as I had to concentrate to just put one foot in front of the other, “This is nothing compared to what Dad suffered through.” Some nice Australian boys who had been part of my trekking crew (I didn’t go with a guided tour, but when you trek the Annapurnas you can only ascend so many feet per day, so you end up hiking the whole circuit with the people who happen to start the same day as you; you climb your certain number of vertical feet every day and you all stay at whatever tea huts are at that altitude) bounded back down from the pass, once they had reached it seemingly hours before me, to take my pack and encourage me on. I asked them how it was possible that the climb was so easy for them. “I think it’s the smoking,” one said. “It makes my lungs stronger.” Ironic, natch.

When I finally reached the pass, I was above the clouds, and could look out over them and the Mustang Valley below across to the mountains of Tibet. I want to say it was a spiritual experience — I was that much closer to heaven, to my dad, etc. — but, really, my knees felt like they were being hit with hammers and my nose was frost-bitten. There was a small hut at the top, where I stopped to thaw my frozen feet over a makeshift fire in a tin box that in my journal I noted seemed to be fed by plastic ramen noodle bags and alcohol. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to put my boots on again.

That trek was part of a 10-month, round-the-world journey I took in 1999-2000. I kept a very detailed journal, which I recently found when unpacking from our move. Here’s what I wrote that night:

Finally, I descended into the valley.  The views are stunning — Dhalighiri, a perfect pyramid-shaped peak, towering way above, coming into sight in and out of the clouds.  As I entered the village of Muktinath, women in Tibetan clothing were selling jewelry and scarves.  Muktinath has a big Buddhist temple, which is a major pilgrimage site. Finally, finally, I stumbled, hurting to the North Star Hotel, where the rest of the group was already sipping some beers around a table in a cheerful, warm dining room.  I took a fairly warm faucet shower to wash four days of sweat and grime off. It felt wonderful, although I deemed it not quite warm enough to wash my hair, which has basically been in braids since Manang. Then I came down to join the group — Sara and Swen, John, Gabe and Nick. They put a coal heater under the table and it is nice and toasty. I just ate dinner — delicious french fries and some fried rice. I’m feeling a little nauseous from the beer I also drank, I think. I didn’t hydrate enough.

I’m not as sad as I thought I would be about Dad. I felt happy thinking about him on such a physically exhausting, but probably rewarding, day. I’m a little sad, but in a way, I’m glad I could share his birthday with him in this way. He’d be 54 — so young! I wish I could tell you about this day — call you and tell you about it. I hope wherever you are, you know that I’m thinking about you.

Ten years later, as I put up my Christmas lights and look at my daughter who inherited your dimples, I still wish I could call and wish you a happy birthday.

Some of my loyal readers have accused me politely inquired: “Your job is safe and you stop blogging?” Apparently. The nervous anticipation of my review stirred up some sort of impassioned creativity, and probably not entirely unconsciously I was sharpening up my writing chops a bit. And then, it turned out I was not going to be fired, and I started focusing on work again. It’s a relief to be busy and to feel secure and happy in my job for these remaining few weeks before I go on maternity leave for six months.

Also, I have been contemplating my blog. It is a “real” blog? I don’t write anything too deep, profound, or inspiring. I don’t really comment on other blogs or link to them or analyze them or do guest posts. I’m not entrenched in the “blogging” community and, while it would be nice and I know people who have developed important, profound, and even intimate relationships via commenting on each other’s blogs, it seems like a full-time endeavor — as if you have to truly embrace the identity of “blogger” to do so. (Example: on some of the design blogs I read obsessively, they throw each other “virtual baby showers.” Instead of a real baby shower, each blogger writes a post and picks gifts they would give the honoree, such as an antique crib or amazing print or something like that.)

Instead, I’m just a lawyer and a former writer and a mom with a blog and apparently my friends (and maybe some others) like to read about what I’ve been up to. I’d like to take this a step further — to be more connected to some sort of external, parallel-blogging world. But I don’t have the time, yet. I don’t think. Also (and this clearly is just representative of my own insecurities): I find the whole blogging world — be it mommy blogs or legal blogs or inspirational blogs or design blogs — somewhat competitive. Who is commenting on whom? Linking to whom? Giving a shout-out on Twitter to whom? Obviously, if one is enmeshed in this world, it is fun and exciting and a way of meeting new people and communicating. But if you can’t post every day or be on Twitter every day or whatever, it’s hard to keep up. And I feel left out, out of the loop — an all-too familiar feeling that I’ve spent decades trying to conquer in various ways. For now, then, I’ll just write my simple little posts and if and when there’s is time, maybe I’ll try to jump back in again.

So, then:  It’s December. We had Thanksgiving at our new house — 20 people in all (5 little kids, 3 teenagers, 12 adults). I was more than happy to host, but graciously accepted my mother- and sisters-in-laws’ offers to do all the actual cooking. Fortunately, I married into a family who loves to cook (almost competitively so). I was responsible only for my favorite parts of a dinner party anyway: the decor (I love setting formal tables), the wine, and the cheese and crackers.

I never would have thought I’d seat 14 people at my dining room table (really, two tables pushed together).

Neither had I seen my silver or china in years and years!

The Murphy crowd. They love any and all board/card games.

Unfortunately, despite not cooking, hosting still proved a bit too much for my immune system (and Tim’s and Little Bug’s). I was on my feet all day, probably not hydrated enough, and I haven’t really felt entirely well since, and two days ago came down with an excruciating sore throat. Tim has been sick enough over the past week-and-a-half to not only finish one course of antibiotics but return to the doctor for more. Little Bug threw up on the car on Saturday and came down with a fever. She seemed well enough two days later, but yesterday I took her back to the doctor with a fever of 102.5. She’s now also on amoxicillin and suffering from her first ear infection (although, considering by the time I was her age I had had about 20 ear infections and would soon have tubes put in my ears, I consider this a feat of health! Maybe it was the breastfeeding?) Tim and I both “worked from home” today so as not to infect our co-workers (and also because generally we are coughing, wheezing disasters). Oh, I think I just need a good night’s sleep, but since Tylenol is the strongest drug I can really take right now, that might be a few more days. Fortunately, my friend Erin alerted me to the wonders of Benadryl (safe for pregnant women!), not so much for allergies but as a sleep aid. Last night I took one at 7:30 p.m. and again at 2 a.m. I hope it’s not addictive.

Still, I’m excited it’s December. Little Bug has taken a liking to Christmas carols (especially anything with “reindeer” in the song, e.g., Rudolph or my favorite, the Beach Boys’ “Little St. Nick,” which has the catchy, high-pitched refrain, “Run, run reindeer!”) We have cancelled all plans for the weekend and hopefully will all be on the mend soon.

Home Depot trip, Friday after Thanksgiving.  Want to guess whether we ended up buying this hat?

David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, spoke last night at the First Parish Church in Cambridge as part of his book tour for The Audacity to Win.  I was told that the church was not quite as packed as it had been for John McCain’s (pre-election) talk or even Harold Bloom’s, at which people were packed into the rafters, but there was a solid and obviously sympathetic crowd.  I finally put a face to the man who has sent me dozens and dozens of emails over the past two years. I also learned how to pronounce his name. Not “Ploof,” but “Pluff.”

See? There he is!

He spoke broadly of the several threads in the book.  First, he emphasized that throughout the election, the campaign refused to judge itself by the news coverage of the moment.  Instead of focusing on the split-second media, it tackled small, daily demographic goals — for example, how many undecided females in Terra Haute should be contacted and registered to vote.  Plouffe pointed out (helpfully!) that this is still Obama’s tactic.  Plouffe explained that the president knows that coming to the right decision on Afghanistan is more important than whatever beating he is taking in the press that day; he ignores the “winds of Washington” (as Plouffe put it) and focuses instead on what his goal was for that day. To talk to a certain general? Read a certain report? Likewise the beating he took just yesterday in the Times over his trip to China. Plouffe assured us that Obama does indeed have the big picture in mind.

Another thread Plouffe elaborated on was the power and the novelty of the grass roots campaign. I didn’t realize that before Obama made the decision to run, he had absolutely no infrastructure. No pollsters, no advance fundraisers. Plouffe pointed out that Obama had been to New Hampshire for a book signing, but otherwise, not to either Iowa or South Carolina (states in which potential candidates tend to find themselves often, for whatever reasons, in the months before declaring their candidacies). And the decision to go “grass roots” was entirely Obama’s. People thought the campaign was crazy to be holding rallies in, say, Michigan in the month before the South Carolina primary, when Michigan’s was months away. But as Plouffe explained, these rallies got people talking far ahead of time. People who would invite their friends to another rally, or to a call center, or to knock on doors in the coming months. Or, of course, to donate money. The Obama campaign had 4 million individual donors, giving an average of $85.

“Why are you giving away all your secrets?!” I kept wanting to jump up and ask him. But towards the end of the talk, the man who regularly sends me emails that begin “Dear K –” finally read my mind. This election obviously will be studied for years to come as a turning point in the use of technology, data, and strategy in a grass-roots setting. Still, by 2012, technology will have rendered many of the 2008 campaign’s tactics obsolete or slow — how many more people will have iPhones? Plouffe wanted to memorialize the election in his own words before others could spin it. Don’t worry, he assured the crowd, I didn’t give away all my tricks.

Once again, my dear friend Erin was my ambassador to culture.  Somehow, she knows when interesting authors are popping up on book tours (she has brought me to hear Ann Patchett read at the Athenaeum and has invited me to countless other readings).  I have long been fascinated by David Plouffe (and am of course now going to buy his book…) — probably lingering idealism from my lost dream of working on a campaign, something I never managed to do,  maybe because I always thought of myself more as a journalist than an real activist.

I love, too, these outings with Erin, often bookended by dinner and a glass of wine somewhere fun (last night: Upstairs at the Square. White Rioja for Erin, envy for me!) Our conversations range from contemporary fiction to comments such as “You know how Puplicious isn’t as good as Pinkalicious, and Goldilicious is even worse?” to our toddlers’ verbal skills to creative writing classes.  I got home late (for me), long after both Tim and Little Bug were asleep, but invigorated by a crisp cold night in Cambridge.  This city of intellectualism, liberalism, culture, and craziness was my first home in Boston — and for all these things I’ll always love it.

I was so sure I was going to be let go/laid off/fired (or whatever the current euphemism is for what is happening at BigLaw performance reviews these days) on Tuesday that I booked a painter to begin working on Thursday. Rumors were rampant at work about cuts to be made, not based on performance, but based on hours. Although due to no real fault of my own I’d like to think (I’m a tax lawyer, I don’t work on deals, I don’t do document review), my numbers were, by BigLaw standards, atrocious. So, by Tuesday morning I had done some cursory research of Massachusetts employment law as it relates to maternity leave (can your maternity leave be halted once you have begun it?) and also had consulted with former colleagues who had been downsized right before their maternity leaves to compare what sort of severance they had been given. I was prepared.

I walked into my review with a truly racing heart. My nerves were tingling in a way they had not since I opened up that letter from the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners. I also had convinced myself that being laid off right now would be great, actually. I would have three months at home with my Little Bug before the baby arrived. I could get the house decorated, prepare for Thanksgiving and Christmas, cook, watch Oprah. Tim could truly focus on his increasingly demanding job for awhile. I’d have the baby, and in the spring I’d think about what came next.

At the same time, I was thinking about how and with whom I’d network. I’d try to start freelancing for the Boston Bar Journal. I’d join some professional groups. I’d get my references lined up. And I had already started to do some soul-searching: why were my hours so low that I was laid off? What sort of message was I putting out – consciously or subconsciously – into the universe about my desire to work full-time at a big firm? What could I have done better? And, worse, I had started asking myself: was this really an hours-based layoff? Was I really a good lawyer?

In the end, I had a glowing performance review. I was truly stunned when, after the first few moments, it became clear that not only was I not going to get fired, but that people actually appreciated my work. “Come on, you didn’t really think they were going to let you go,” was the chorus from my family and friends. But I did – I truly did. See, I’m not sure I’m world’s greatest tax lawyer. This stuff is difficult, and not only do I not take to it as intuitively as others, I’m also quite sure I don’t work as hard. I get Starbucks with my colleagues. Most nights, I rush out of here to get home before 6, and I don’t work from home unless I really need to. I write on my blog, I read the news, I watch crappy TV. If they were going to have to let the lowest-producing lawyers go for economic reasons, why not me?

Oh, I am so lucky to have a job – any job – right now. I have stimulating, supportive colleagues. A caring nanny whom my child adores. A husband who rarely travels and will get home in lieu of me almost any night I ask (and when he can’t, family who can step in.) And, the bottom line is: I could stay home if I wished. I am acutely aware that I have this choice. But, historically, I’m also really bad with choices: I second-guess to the point of anxiety. (I’ve written about this before, of course.)  I am extremely satisfied and proud and grateful in the wake of this review that my choice to become a Big Law attorney seems to have been a good one, but it doesn’t make walking out the door each morning any easier. I am supporting my family and (hopefully) becoming a role model for my daughter, who can now say, “I want to be a lawyer!” But is that any better than being home with her, reading to her, making her lunch? I just don’t know. I can’t know. As irrational as it seems, maybe the choice should have been made for me.

All you Google searchers looking for the perfect place to live in Milton, you have found it. 

There isn’t a better location in the Boston area if you want easy access to the city while living a peaceful lifestyle in an historic suburb. This new-construction condo at 88 Wharf Street is literally steps from the red line into Boston. Floor-to-ceiling windows offer a view of the Neponset River and Milton Yacht Club. Walk around the corner to Milton Village and its bank, yoga studio, post office, coffee shops, antique shops, hardware store, hair salon. The restaurant 88 Wharf has opened up in the building to rave reviews.

The condo itself has a spacious layout with a breakfast bar opening on to a living/dining area, all with a spectacular view of the water.

Master suite with three closets (including a linen closet and walk-in closet), double-sink, glass-door shower, and whirlpool tub. Second bedroom has an enormous walk-in and a spectacular floor-to-ceiling panorama of the water view. 

The condo building boasts a cozy common room/library for social gatherings, as well as a gym and concierge. The condo has two deeded parking spots.

For more information, click here.

The owners are highly motivated to sell. To view, please contact
Kevin Keating at GKR residential
kevin”at”gkrresidential.com
617-698-3300

I found this venn diagram today, here.  How brilliant — because how true.  (In fact, see my prior post on why drinking wine while listening to Coldplay is maybe not a good idea…) Oh, how this sums up a good two-year period of my life! My sisters will confirm that they almost staged a Coldplay intervention, almost flung all CDs out of my home and car. But Chris Martin, you felt my pain. I know you did. I can laugh now at the cliché I must have been, driving around in my old green stick-shift Accord for hours, with Coldplay in the CD player, or huddled in my cold living room with a bottle of wine, the song “Amsterdam” on repeat.

I wish I could redo our entire house tomorrow, even though I know I’d want to change things in a few years — because then I could just redecorate all over again! As you might know, I am a bit obsessed with interior design. I hope we’ll be here for years — decades — however, so I’m forcing myself to take my time. Tim would like to hang all the pictures and just pick some chairs for the family room tomorrow, but I want to live here for a bit and slowly consider what will work for spaces, both color-wise and practically for a house that will have small children in it for awhile (the day my sister took a purple paint pen to my mother’s newly upholstered x-stools is seared into my memory). 

My sister is the artist in the family: she has an inherent sense of color and scope and scale (and degrees in studio art, art history, and graphic design…) But over the year or so I’ve been obsessed with my design blogs, I’ve learned a few things: what resonates with me (white and wood, orange and pink); design techniques (symmetry, piping), brands (Madeline Weinrib, Jonathan Adler, Ruby Green), and even “famous” designers. I know how I want our home to feel: a mix of casual and formal that is, most important, exquisitely inviting. When I come home I want to feel as I do when I go home to my mother’s — a sense of calmness and ease, but with delights to the eye and senses. 

I have inherited some beautiful pieces of furniture from my mother and aunt: a marble console for the living room, a needlepoint rug for the bedroom, a dining set, a perfectly proportioned couch. some gorgeous lamps (this is not an exhaustive list, Mom!). I also have purchased a few things I really love: my turquoise Robert Abbey lamps, my West Elm kitchen chairs, my Parsons desk. And now the fun part is putting them all together, slowly choosing the palette and filling in the gaps.

Here is my first big purchase for the house, being installed even as I post:  a runner for the front stairs.

The sample

The inspiration

When the previous owners added on to the house, they added a “back stairs,” which really are the main stairs in the house now. So my thinking is that when you do pass these less-traveled front stairs, or happen to actually use them, the print will be an unexpected, stylish surprise. I’m so thrilled about this — I’ll post some pictures of the installation tomorrow!

I’m also pondering:

• These chairs for the living room.

Note that the walls are not staying red!

The living room is very narrow, so the furniture has to be proportional. I have always loved slipper chairs. These are a bit more formal and substantial, in that the backs are higher than normal slipper chairs (see the white chairs with much lower backs flanking the fireplace in the inspiration photo, below?)

The fabric is a gorgeous pink mohair. Not sure if the fabric will work with the overall color scheme (not to mention, is pink mohair practical for a home with kids? I could have them recovered, but as is I can get them very very inexpensively — if I reupholster, it will sort of negate the economic argument buying them in the first place — they’re on loan for now). My idea is to arrange the room like the one above. 

• This wallpaper for my office.

The office is the smallest “bedroom” — there is no closet, so it really isn’t a true bedroom. My white Parsons desk will be in here, and I’m planning to get some white bookcases from Ikea. I want my office to be a place I want to be in, so that when I have to work from home, working in my office will make me happy (is that too idealistic?). I just fell in love with this print — the color, the scale. But is it too overwhelming for the room? Will it be inspiring or distracting? My gut says that it will be perfect. But this sample is going to sit on my wall for awhile. 

What do you think? Stay tuned for updates…

Two friends whose blogs I read regularly recently wondered what would happen if the oft-asked, “What do you do?” were turned on its head. (See here and here; they were musing on a question initially posted here.)  Instead of the cliche, what if your cocktail party introductions started with “What don’t you do?”

The universal premise, I suppose, is that asking someone “What do you do?” is an inadequate way to start a conversation. Certainly, it can make the person being asked feel inadequate when responding (indeed, I’ve been there  — see below).  Putting myself in the position of the asker, however, I actually don’t find the “What do you do?” question particularly loaded. If I ask people this, I do it with a journalist’s hard-wired and genuine curiosity. Oh, you’re a landscape architect? Commercial or residential? Oh, you’re a physician? What’s your specialty? My sister is in medical school and is loving her E.R. rotation. You’re a personal trainer? Who are your typical clients? How did you get into that field? Are you, like, super athletic? Oh, you stay at home with your kids? You know what? I’m kind of jealous. Let’s talk some more about our children and our choices and what your favorite part of the day is.

I see the question as a way to connect with people. Whatever we “do,” we do for 80% of our waking hours, and I’m truly interested in that which fills most of your days. If what you “do” is not representative of who you are or think you are or would like to be, I’m also interested that. Let’s talk about it. What are your avocations and the books you read and your dreams? Maybe I need to be more imaginative about how to get to that deeper level, but asking, “What do you do?” seems a direct and logical place to begin. I promise I will maintain a journalist’s objectivity and will not rush to judgment without asking a foll0w-up or two.

On the other hand, for most of my life, if you had invited me to your cocktail party and asked me “What do you do?” I likely would have (a) hightailed it to the bar; (b) started to cry; (c) left; or (d) all of the above, in that order.  Today, I’d take a hard-won delight in telling you that: I’m a lawyer and married and a mother (and I admit that at a cocktail party I’d probably answer in that order). And I’m a writer (or, used to be. Or, am still? Depends on the day). I might even get around to telling you that I’m a daughter and friend and niece (and oenophile and yogi and pop culture junkie).  Though my answer to your question may be cocktail-party minimalist, it is — however surface-skimming — true and clear, and this is a relief.  There’s more to me, to be sure (much more than you probably want to know) but having fought to the surface, I’m just happy to rest there for awhile.

Still, I’m surprisingly intrigued — to the extent I’ve spent the past few days actively thinking about it — by the “What don’t you do?” question because I find it more difficult to answer. Not because I’m particularly self-confident, but, rather, as a (hopefully reforming?) perfectionist, it’s disturbingly easy for me to turn this question around into “What should you be doing that you don’t do?”, and, thus, an opportunity for even more self-improvement. (Because if you don’t do something, that’s a character flaw that must be corrected, right?) For example, here is what immediately sprang to mind: I don’t lift weights; I don’t volunteer enough; I don’t thank people or actively connect with them as much as I’d like on the phone or email; I don’t think before I speak sometimes; etc; etc. The “enoughs” and the “as I’d likes” and the “sometimes” slip in much too quickly. It is difficult to own up to not doing something without trying to right it.

So I’ll try again: As an inherent part of my personality — attaching no judgments or negative connotations or resolutions to change — what are things I just don’t do, period?

I don’t:

• Go to the movies
• Deal with the car (oil changes, car wash)
• Open my mail until there is a significantly unavoidable pile on the hall table
• Put the toilet paper on the roll
• Count calories
• Throw out the plastic tab on the milk or orange juice cartons after I open a new one
• Assemble things
• Close the cabinet doors or dresser drawers
• Take constructive criticism very well
• Make photo albums or baby books
• Confront people
• Eat chicken in restaurants, or pork, duck, or game anywhere
• Buy my child toys (not out of principle; I just don’t have time/think to do it)
• Drink hard alcohol
• Do crafts

I actually don’t care about “righting” any of these things, to the extent they are things to be righted (e.g., closing the dresser drawers or opening my mail). As it turns out, this admission is liberating. For a time, my mother read a lot of self-help books. I remember one was called something like, I’m OK, You’re OK. What do you do? What don’t you do? I’m OK, you’re OK.

I passed the bar just over one year ago, and today was the first day I entered a courtroom on real, lawyerly business. I realize some lawyers never go before a judge. My father, an M&A lawyer, was one such attorney.  Everyone else in my family who is a lawyer, however (and most of them are*), has spent a a lot of time in court as a criminal or civil attorney. My aunt shepherded major women’s civil rights litigation through the appellate courts, my uncle has argued in front of the New Jersey Supreme Court, and my mother and stepdad were career prosecutors.

I was nervous and clueless. I wore my black maternity suit. I got to the courthouse way too early. My clients and I were the first ones in the courtroom at the appointed time of 9 a.m. I knew that I was supposed to check in with the judge’s clerk up at the bar, and I did that promptly. But then it was another 45 minutes until the judge even took the bench. Case after case was called. At 11 a.m. my clients were restless — they had to get back to work. I asked the clerk if my clients needed to be in the courtroom for the hearing of our petition. Not only did they not need to be there, but our case file was lost. “Don’t worry,” said the clerk. “It’s on someone’s desk somewhere. We’re recreating it.” (I later learned that this is not atypical…) My clients left. I stayed. The bailiff woke up a snorer in the back row (I’m not making this up) and shooed out people who were talking, standing, or trying to drink coffee in the courtroom. As I grimaced at every cough and sneeze (the H1N1 vaccine supposedly needs two weeks to become fully effective), I texted my assistant-district-attorney mother with my questions and observations. “So the judge just takes the bench whenever she feels like it?” “She is reading each file just before she hears the case?” “Why do all the attorneys know each other?” “Why do they keep coming and going out of the courtroom?” Was I supposed to be coming and going?

I spend my days so so isolated and sheltered up in my glimmering office building, surrounded by the tax code. Once again, the contrast between my relatively easy position (yes, we work long hours, but we’re not exposed daily to murders, drugs, and abuse, not to mention decaying courthouses…) and the “real” justice system inbues in me a deep admiration for my mother and for Henry, both of whom commuted daily from our tony suburb into an entirely different world at the county courthouse in Elizabeth, N.J. I felt kind of like a fraud sitting in that courtroom in my expensive maternity jacket and Kate Spade heels: I’m not really an attorney, I just go into work with over-educated, over-paid people and pretend to be.

Finally, my docket number was called. I had met my client through one of our firm’s pro bono initiatives.  She was seeking legal guardianship of her 18-year-old daughter, who is severely mentally disabled and unable to make decisions for herself. Not only are the guardianship rules new and tediously complicated, but the process of getting a petition filed in Probate Court is equally so. I explained the daughter’s condition to the judge. My guardianship petition was granted.

Maybe a small burden was lifted from the shoulders of a Dorchester family. But does my paltry 60 seconds in front of a judge legitimize my role as a lawyer? Perhaps in the context of my litigation-experienced family, but perhaps not so much in the grand scheme of things.

*Only one, however (I believe), has the distinction of having passed two state bar exams! Congrats to my aunt, namesake (no, wait, I am her namesake?), and godmother, who, after practicing law in New York state for 30+ years, moved to one of only four states into whose bar you cannot ever waive, and today received her victorious NJ bar results! Not that she was ever not going to  — but that great feeling of relief is still fresh in my memory. It just cannot be underestimated.

Saturday

First stop: haircut.
The before shot:

The after shot:

Haircut was followed by breakfast at our “old” Starbucks on Newbury St.:

Afterwards, we strolled a few blocks to visit our “old” playground:

Being at CSP made me a bit nostalgic. I logged a lot of hours at this playground.  As we walked down Commonwealth Ave. towards Clarendon, Little Bug got so excited when she realized where we were going. 

Sunday

Four families, six children for brunch. Kara, Lindsey, and I were close friends/roommates in college. Tennessee and Emily are married. Kara’s brother and Tennessee were roommates in college. I went to Columbia J-school with Tennessee. Lindsey and Emily met when they were 7-years-old and went to middle school together in Cambridge. Emily used to be a lawyer at my firm. Lots of connections.

This is exactly why we bought a house with a swingset in the suburbs. 

Riding the wave of my kitchen ambition, I made two casseroles to freeze, one for Thursday or Friday night and one for another week. Ingredients: sauteed onion, spinach, browned turkey, penne, Classico sauce, gruyere, parmesan and mozzarella cheeses. I just made this recipe up. Nothing fancy (and I feel almost embarrassed divulging it knowing sarabclever will be reading it…), but on a Friday night it is absolutely delicious. (For brunch, by the way, I made this strada and banana bread from a Martha Stewart recipe.)

Buggy’s little 9-year-old “friends” came over. There are a half dozen fourth- or fifth-grade girls in the neighborhood, and they absolutely adore her. I think they think of her like a pet. They knock on the door and give her big hugs and play with her for a bit but then clearly grow a bit bored of a barely literate 2-year-old and eventually send her on her way. Buggy, however, worships them. “There are my friends!” she cries happily whenever she sees them out on the sidewalk rollerblading or drawing with chalk.

Finally, we went to our condo to take some pictures for our upcoming all-out marketing blitz. Someday, if I’m completely devoid of inspiration, I’ll tell the long tale of the condo that we thought we sold and so therefore contracted to buy our new house, but the buyer backed out and now we have two mortgages (hello, mortgage interest deduction!) If you, or anyone you know, wants a new construction two-bedroom, two-bath next to the red line in Milton, MA, with a water view, let me know… I couldn’t be more serious.

See how nice the view is?