the ocean

Oh my God, I just found this on my hard drive and I could not resist. Keep in mind that this actually happened. My friend asked me to write a song parody for the continuing legal education program she was coordinating. She thought it would be a good way to "spice things up." She and I actually performed the following to the the tune of Gershwin's "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." In front of an audience of thirty very bored CLE participants and several federal judges who were panelists. And there was a creeping realization that perhaps this was a bad idea. Perhaps...

Lawyer One: Every time a new lawsuit’s filed
I feel such a perverse thrill:
All the clients I’ll be helping,
Not to mention the hours I’ll bill.

Lawyer Two: But as meet and confers mount up
And witnesses’ secrets spill
It starts to make a root canal look fun.
Something must be done:

Lawyer One: You claim harassment but I call it horseplay.
Lawyer Two: You breached a contract but still want some back pay.
Both: Motions, depos, clients’ rage grows --
Let’s call this lawsuit off.

Lawyer Two: You sold a product that blinded a kitten.
Lawyer One: You sold some junk bonds and fled to Great Britain.
Both: Priv logs, emails, epic court fails --
Let’s call this lawsuit off.

If we want to call this lawsuit off we must prepare.
If our clients aren’t on board then we don’t have a prayer.

Lawyer One: So you call your GC and set expectations.
Lawyer Two: I’ll check my schedule and watch Matlock reruns.
Both: For we know we’ll save our clients dough when
We go call this lawsuit off.
Let’s call this lawsuit off.

I am not one of those people who gets excited for sweater weather and pumpkin spiced lattes. I do not enjoy feeling a chill in the air and fall colors bore me. I want to lie in the sun, preferably drunk, and read old issues of Us Weekly. But given the pandemic, it's important to my sanity that I come up with some things to look forward to this fall. So, to that end:

-- Columbus Day. Although I have mixed feelings about the man and I'm not even sure if my firm takes the day off. So maybe not.

-- Thanksgiving. But relatives won't be able to come in due to the pandemic and we certainly won't be able to go out for our traditional buffet, so I guess that's also still a maybe.

-- Fall-themed Hallmark movies. I think they probably got those produced before the pandemic. Or maybe they shot them in Canada or some other country that actually knows what it's doing.

-- Halloween. I actually haven't even really enjoyed Halloween since I felt like I got too old to dress up a few years back, but I mean, it's a thing. Maybe there will be some good seasonal flavors of M&Ms or something.

-- The election. Depending on how it turns out, obviously. Kind of mixture of anticipation and dread there, actually.

And then there's, I don't know, lower utility bills? Obviously I could use some help here. Suggestions welcome.

My nephew started kindergarten last week. That didn't really have anything to do with me, other than that it made me super jealous. What I wouldn't give to be earning gold stars for simple arithmetic again! 

Of course, this was remote kindergarten, so there were no actual, physical gold stars. There's actually a very sophisticated online setup for it, far nicer than anything I use for meetings with my ginormous business clients. They can even write on the screen for everyone to see! They're not really supposed to do it without permission, though.

Because my sister and her husband are both really busy with work right now, my mom came to help out with the start of school. She seemed to love it, even though it involved being out in the suburbs by 7:30 each morning. She even packed a little lunch to take with her each day. And she and Jack developed little inside jokes, including something about pepperoni pizza and oatmeal that makes no sense to anyone else, but they seem to find truly hilarious. Oh, and today she and my sister were gossiping about how Madison is always volunteering but then doesn't even know what the question is.  Again, the jealously stirs within me.

But I guess I can take some comfort in the fact that I get paid for doing something for eight hours every day. That buys more than a few gold stars, as it turns out.

Not that they'll necessarily be entertaining.

Like many people in quarantine, we've become obsessed with getting every single aspect of our home exactly the way we want it to be. Because if we just find the right ottoman to go with our armchairs, we won't be desperate to leave the house any more. Except the ottoman failed to fill the void in our souls, as did the bar cart, the new painting in the living room, and the full reorganization of the kitchen. I've got high hopes for the under-sink organizer, though.

We've also been catching up TV we somehow failed to catch when it was current. We're on season 2 of Happy Endings, which we like, aside from the network's inexplicable decision to shuffle the order of the episodes so that things seem to happen and unhappen from week to week. I read online that they wanted to highlight more of a "hangout vibe" for the series; that phrase alone is disqualifying. We're also on Season 2 of Friday Night Lights. We loved season 1, but we were warned that season 2 went "off the rails" a bit. It was a good warning, but an understatement. I'd say it's probably never a good idea to involve two of your most lighthearted characters in a murder right off the bat, and making Julie Taylor suddenly a nightmare for unspecified reasons seems unwise. Connie Britton's hair still looks great, though.

And tomorrow is Labor Day. Like a three-day weekend really means anything at this point. Onward we go...