Important information

I could survive for 54 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

I'm ready for my close-up

Trust me. I'm a lawyer.

These are the full-length shots. I think I chose top row, second from right. I'm all bright hair and no facial features. Also, it is hard to see, but the jacket really is green.

Thing 3 wants to type something ... 2to grandma

Meet the New Boss...Same as the Old Boss

I survived my first full week at the new and improved The Firm, which included surviving my photo shoot and learning the mind-bogglingly large number of forms I will have to fill out just to requisition a paperclip. I can assign my secretary to fill those out, so I suppose it is worth the non-indictable managing partner. I did not get to strike a pose for my portrait and my only prop was my glasses, which gave my hands something to do other than hanging by my sides.

I hate my pictures, but because I am a masochist I will probably post them -- I scanned my proofs so you will all get to enjoy just how orange my hair looks even though I am sure it doesn't look THAT orange in real life. (The Hubbins begs to differ.) And I look HUGE. And my chin is shining. And I forgot to bring my make up to the photographer's, so I have a regular, every day thickness of war paint, rather than a photo studio lighting-ready layer of war paint (a wee bit washed out).

I have never been (or at least not for the last 20 years) one of those women who picks apart how she looks. Up until the last 20 pounds, I've always liked how I photograph. But now it is just a sad reminder of how big my ass has become.

Why not exercise and get my shit together, you ask? Because I bill 2300 hrs per year and have for the last 2 years. So, my choices are to give up sleep, give up knitting, give up TV, or give up exercise. Fortunately or otherwise, I tend to give them up in the reverse order. And it doesn't help that every time I start exercising again, I screw up my back or neck.

Last year, I started taking yoga and doing exercise videos. Then I spent 12 weeks in PT and found I had herniated 2 disks in my cervical spine (not from the exercising, from ancient whiplash injury). This year, I ran about 4 times in one week, then fell off a chair I was standing on to dust some high ledges in my office. I'm starting to feel human again. So, obviously, I'm becoming insanely busy at work. Again.

So....Liz: Is any of this funny? Are you ROTFLOL yet?

Famous quotes:
"This is the last time we are going to live today." Thing 1, 4/11/09
"In a way, we are all like a bunch of elevators." Thing 2, 4/11/09, in response to Thing 1.

"Our beach is closed on my birthday [July 3], so we have to go to '1-800-Beaches'." Thing 3, 4/10/09

When I grow up, I want to be a concrete operational thinker

As a coda to my last post, Thing 2 recently asked Thing 3 what she wants to be when she grow up. Thing 3 responded, "A teenager." Thing 2 then asked, "What do you want to be when you are 20." Said Thing 3, "A adult."

I'm not even going to try to explain my 3-months' absence from the blogosphere. It's been....not very fun and quite unrelenting. Even if I had the time to write about it, it would have only served to make the mishigos that much more palpable and the my ability to push through it much less, uh, able. Better to keep my head down and wait for the mortar attacks to stop.

So here I am, on the cusp of starting yet another job. Sort of. Same office, same bosses, same cases, new name on the door, new benevolent overlords in another office. These, at least, believe in transparency (at least among the partners) and division of powers and checks and balances, so the likelihood that we will all be in the same place in three years is unlikely. I head down to Philly tomorrow morning for a day and a half of orientation to the new firm, which will be capped by a photo session for my full length portrait and headshot for the website. Ugh. Double Ugh.

This firm purports to be woman-friendly (Sure, like which firm claims to be woman-hostile. . . Benefit of the doubt time -- Working Mother magazine gave them props so they at least have third party verification of their claims). Anyway, as I was saying -- they claim to be woman-friendly but then submit us all to full length photos - even those of us approaching 40, with 3 kids, who have sat on our butts billing 2300 hrs/yr+ for several years.

And I hear that I can't even mug for it. I have to do the "look of confidence with arms folded" pose, or "look of confidence with hand on hip or in pocket and jacket open" pose. Women also get the variable of "half-leaning on stool" to add to the above. I want to do "middle-manager/suck-up double guns" or "Buddy Christ single gun, thumbs up" or any of a number of poses from my dancing school portraits. Think any of these white boys will notice if I throw down some gang symbols???

And they want us to wear "colorful" suits or dresses. I'm sure I have that psychedelic caftan around here somewhere... Seriously, 90% of the time, I wear black separates and colorful tops. And I don't want to wear anything for a portrait that, six months from now, is out of style. I bought an appropriate "colorful" suit yesterday, which is a black skirt with a minty-fresh green jacket, but due to topstitching on the jacket the perfect color for a top is black. I'm taking a trip to the Mother Ship (Lord & Taylor, Stamford) today to see if they have anything better, but I'm not optimistic.

I've got to get on with motherhood, so that's all for now. I hear that I get to review the proofs and pick what goes on the web. I don't know if I'll provide a link, but if I get the proofs, I'll scan and post them.

When I grow up, I want to be a tattoo artist.

My life is in complete disarray, to the point where I have surrendered: job limbo, kids that don't listen, leaky dog, unmatched socks, smeary wax build up. You name it. Each day at least 2 of the girls claims to be "too sick" to go to school, each day there is a call/note/email from a teacher about some aberrant behavior or other. There is only so much Fran to go around.

So you can imagine how I felt when, yesterday afternoon, when the Hubbins and I were talking on the phone -- we don't actually see each other anymore with my work schedule -- and he told me that this week in school Thing 3 is the "Star of the Week" in preschool and I was supposed to put together a photo montage of the last 4.5 years of her life and fill out a questionnaire, and hand it all in Monday.

Oh. Of course. I have my 4 year old in full time day care because I have time to rake through the thousands on photos on the buggy 4 year old computer to find the shots that define Thing 3's life. (BTW: Many thanks, Mr. Dreier. If I had gotten that new laptop for Christmas I'd just waste it on World of Warcraft.) The computer and the printer were having one of their little spats and not talking to each other, so I had to save the pix to a thumb drive and print them directly from the printer. Which is a ridiculously slow way to do it.

All told, I killed a full hour last night putting this assignment together. In billable time, that's $400. (Work in a lawfirm long enough and you begin to look at everything in life this way. The real cost of my coffee this morning was $82.)

It wasn't without its fun, I'll admit. The really cool thing about having a 13 year old and a 4 year old is that the 13 year old now says the things I would love to say, but I'm not supposed to because I'm a 38 year old Mom. (Can't tell you how many times I've gotten the evil eye from the Hubbins for acting like a child with our children for a laugh.) And the 4 year old thinks it is cool to do whatever her teenage sister tells her to do.

When the girls aren't trying to kill each other, it is a lot of fun.

So, last night, I was filling out the questionnaire with Thing 3, when Thing 1 happened by. I asked, "Favorite color?" Thing 3 responded, "Yellow." (Which, by the way, she has never shown any affinity for. When I pushed her on this, she pointed out her favorite wrapper from a loaf of bread as proof.) Anyway, we get to "When I grow up, I want to be," and Thing 1 blurts out, "a tattoo artist." Thing 3 says, "That's right -- a tattoo artist. And a grown up. And a teenager."

I totally wrote that down as her answer.

Grievance Game is Boring

I've decided not to pick up the last post where I left off. At least not for now. It was depressing the hell out of me and, really, do you want to watch me whine and wallow in misery? Haven't many of you had enough of that, having known me through the 1980s?

Here's a fun thing from this morning:

Thing 1 was in a great mood this morning. As much as she loathes school, she was clearly excited about getting back to her social network and away from the house.

So she was busting my chops about something -- I can't remember what -- when I said, "You know, the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree."

She replied, "I know. But sometimes a little squirrel comes and picks up the acorn and carries it far away from the tree."

I wanted to snap back with something about the squirrel taking bites out of the acorn, leaving it a somewhat lesser acorn, but I was laughing too hard.

Traditional Airing of Grievances

I had hoped to post on 12/31, with a sort of wrapping up of 2008. Then I hoped to plan on 1/1, with thoughts for the new year. But here I am on January 4, bitching and complaining about how 2008 sucked about as bad as any year could and how I am not so sure 2009 is going to get any better.

First, my absence during November. Very busy at work through November and Facebook has, for better or worse, taken up my need to throw snarky one-liners out to the world so y'all know I still exist.

Then, came December, when the world stopped turning. On December 2, the Dungeon Master's boss, let's call him The Don, gets his dumb ass arrested in Canada for impersonating another lawyer. He is held for several days, during which rumors abound that the escrow accounts have been looted, there is not enough money in the operating account to make the December 15, and that the NY office is a ghost town with most of the lawyers packing up on December 4, never to be seen again.

On December 7, the Don is escorted to the airport in Toronto by the mounties, ushered onto a plane to NY, and met by law enforcement at LaGuardia, who arrest him for Securities Fraud in the amount of about $130MM. This number is rounded up to $380MM at his bail hearing on December 12. He is denied bail.

If you haven't heard any of this, it is because Bernie Madoff's multi-billion dollar fraud eclipsed it. Madoff, I will note, got bail.

Add to that, one of my clients is being sued and the plaintiff is seeking a $400,000 attachment, which is a big deal (although not fatal) for his business. The hearing was set for December 15, opposing counsel would not agree to a continuance because the mofos assumed I would not be ready for a hearing under the circumstances, the Court did not grant one for who knows what reason, and I did not have malpractice insurance because the Don did not pay the premium.

I was scrambling on Friday the 12th to see about quitclaiming my house, car and yarn stash to the Hubbins before the Dungeon Master confirmed that new firm, Dungeon Master/Grouchy Of Counsel (now partner) LLC, had malpractice insurance.

So my stress level was high. I did not know if I was going to be paid (did not happen), did not know if I was employed, had no idea how I was going to pay my bills in December, still waiting on about $1200 in unreimbursed expenses from the firm, which I needed to pay bills in December, and faced possibly looking for a new job in perhaps the worst job market EVAH, with firms laying off associates right and left.

OK. Thing 3 is looking for some breakfast and I'll pick this up later...