For all two or three of you who have me in a feed reader and will therefore notice that I have posted again, I couldn’t decide whether to make this one ginormous post or several smaller ones, but in the end I decided those few who read me won’t mind me writing a novel.
The last post I made was some time ago and I was agonizing over whether to take a job that would require me to drop all of my cases and end my practice. (When last we heard from our hero…) Well, I didn’t take it. I had decided to give myself until the end of the year to make the decision as to whether it was financially time to move on to something else. In the meantime, during this crazy summer that has just ended, I got the proverbial offer I couldn’t refuse: a corporate job as general counsel with an impressive compensation package, the opportunity for lots of travel, working with a good friend, getting to build my own staff of lawyers and support staff, AND it’s fine if I finish all of my existing cases. So yeah, I took that. The Office Assistant says I sold out, and I will admit that the idea of never being a trial lawyer again is a little daunting, but I’m excited. This is a huge opportunity for me to build something from the ground up and also to build something financially for Max that I never expected.
In the meantime, classes have started again and I am now teaching four classes at two different institutions. With the new gig, that’s not going to be something I can keep doing for long. Right now I’m doing the new job, wrapping up my existing cases, and teaching and it adds up to an average of over 100 hours per week. I expect it to be down around 70 by the end of October but that’s still more than I can do for very long. So some of those classes will have to go. Of course I’ll be keeping mock trial if at all possible, which is good because nobody else is standing in line to take it on. In the seven years I’ve been coaching, four assistant coaches have come and gone. That’s not the best track record. It’s probably because the kids are such brats (just kidding… maybe).
Max has started first grade and he is a whole new kid. Every day is a good day and he is excelling. I think a lot of that has to do with his reading. He really kicked it into high gear on literacy over the summer, reading pretty much whatever he felt like reading. He picked up “Twilight” off my mom’s end table and started reading it one day. After a moment of consideration I decided that was maybe not a good idea. He told me that was okay because it was girly anyway. Ya think? Anyway, the remarkable thing is not that Max is reading well, it’s that his teacher has remarked that he is several grade levels ahead which means HE IS STAYING ON TASK AT SCHOOL ENOUGH FOR HER TO NOTICE!!! So yay. He’s also interacting more with other kids which is a really good thing and something he’s had trouble with. Of course now he wants to have sleepovers at the homes of children whose parents I don’t know, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Oh, by the way, my apologies to anyone who follows me on twitter and thus spent weeks getting nothing from me except my horoscope. When I signed up for that I had a plan, albeit a goofy one. The thought was to compare the things that I posted on twitter (tweeted?) to what my horoscope predicted and use that comparison as blog fodder when I couldn’t think of anything to write. Instead, I disappeared from both my twitter and my blog and poor Allen had to point out to me that I was accosting people daily with my horoscope and nothing else. So hey, sorry about that. I wish I could say that my solution would be to follow through on the original plan, but time is at a premium lately so I just unsubscribed to the horoscope thingy.
What else has happened since last I opined? Well, I attended the wedding of some friends. My ex was a groomsman. I do not reccomend to anybody EVER that divorced people attend weddings together. It can be awkward, it can cause anger, it can cause nostalgia and melancholy. Any of those things are possible. It CANNOT result in feelings of happiness, except at the end when you leave slightly buzzed thinking “better the bride and groom than me.”
Max got a dog over the summer. A mixed breed who-knows-what rescue who somewhat resembles an Australian Shepherd. Max named him Coyote, which frankly is a little grand, and insists that he is a Golden Retriever. Golden Retrievers everywhere are insulted by the comparison. While not an attractive dog, he is the perfect dog for Max in that he is extremely calm and accepting of whatever comes. Though he’s great with Max, he is timid with strangers, and I think he has been abused in the past and has developed a habit of fading into the background. This works great around here. Some kids need a dog that will run around and play with them. My kid needs a dog that will stand still and pretend to be Darth Vader while Max dances around “killing” him. He even wears the helmet for a little while.
Later this week (hopefully) I will write again and inspire consternation amongst my conservative friends when I explain my frustration with President Obama’s healthcare plan. At first, they’ll be all, “Woohoo Brandi has come to her senses and thinks the plan sucks.” But then they’ll read the rest and realize that my frustration is caused by his moderate stance on the issue. A real liberal would espouse an entirely different plan and the public option wouldn’t be negotiable. So there’s something to look forward to, no?
Maxism of the day (or season?):
Me: What game are you playing? (as Max is clearly on the Cartoon Network game site)
Max: I’m not playing one, I’m making one.
Me: What?
Max: The games on here are all too easy so I made a new one and sent it to them. Now I’m making another one.
And yeah, I checked, and yeah, he did. Scary.
Catching Up
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