Thursday, April 28, 2011

The Good Fight.

I think that most of you know what I do for a living but, for those who don't, I'm a lawyer and I keep sexually violent predators away from the community. And I LOVE my job.

Work has been so crazy busy lately that I've lost track of lots of other things - like blogging, for instance. I usually do that late at night when I can sit down and dedicate some time to it. But, lately, I've been working on one work project or another from early evening until the wee hours of the morning so I just haven't had much time for anything else. It's been very tiring. And, even though I love my job and am happy to sacrifice my time to fight the good fight, I've been SO ready to get back to my life!!

I had a trial against a pedophile this week and it went pretty quickly. I was planning to go home and celebrate my win - and the break in my busy schedule - by staring blankly at the walls, just because I could. But my sister Tammy needed me to watch her kiddos because she had forgotten that she and her husband had tickets to a play downtown. So I picked my nephew Ben up and took him with me to go pick my niece Emma up from her ballet class. While we were driving to get Emma, one of my friends from work called me to see how my trial had gone. Since I had Ben in the car, I didn't talk about any of the details of the case - he and my nieces know that I deal with "bad guys" but that's the extent of their knowledge about what I do and I intend to keep it that way.

But Ben wanted information. And as soon as I got off the phone, he was asking me questions:

Me: [to friend on phone] Okay - thanks for calling. See you tomorrow! [hang up]
Ben: What did the bad guy do, Catchy?
Me: [oh boy] He was just a really bad guy.
Ben: But what did he do?
Me: Well, he was just a REALLY bad guy.
Ben: Yeah, but what did he dooooooo?
Me: [wow, he's a persistent little . . .] Well . . . [how do I answer this??] . . . he was mean to kids.
Ben: [gasp] REALLY??
Me: Yeah. Can you BELIEVE that?
Ben: [shaking his head in disbelief] No . . .
Me: Me, either.
Ben: What did he do to the kids?
Me: [oh crap] Ummmmm . . . well, he was just really mean to them.
Ben: He WAS??
Me: Yep. Isn't that SO bad?
Ben: Yeah. But what did he do? Was he like [scrunches up his face into a mean face and using his meanest voice] "Hey, kids! Get back inside!"?
Me: Yes! Wasn't that AWFUL??
Ben: [jaw dropped, shocked that such depravity might exist in the world] Yeah. It is, Catchy.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand THAT'S why I do my job, right there - to protect that kind of innocence. And I wouldn't trade it for the world.

But, seriously - these pervs need to stop interfering with my dang blog . . .

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

I'm baaaaaaaack!!

You know, I'm not sure if it was because of the stress of the last few weeks of work or if it was exhaustion-induced delirium but I saw this the other day:


And ACTUALLY wondered how many years I'd get for hi-jacking it . . .

MISSED Y'ALL!!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Free and . . . fast??

I was at the Clinique counter at Dillard's the other day buying some powder and mascara. They often have a free gift that you can get when you purchase a certain dollar amount of product from them. It's usually just a cute make-up bag with some free make-up in it but it's a pretty big deal so they usually have signs up letting you know what the next free gift is and when they'll be giving it away. It never fails that I have to buy my make-up the week BEFORE or the week AFTER the free gift week - NEVER fails. And this week was no different. I was standing at the counter, waiting for the lady to ring me up, and I noticed a little note about reserving one of their upcoming free gifts:

I mean, I'm sure the gift is good and all. I'm just not sure it's worth going Mach 8 to get it . . .

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Close, Mom. VERY close.

This weekend my mom, God love her, brought up the topic of movies. This is always a risk for her because she just cannot remember the names of movies. But it's always entertaining for those of us who are talking to her:

Mom: We haven't been to see a movie in a long time.
Me: I know. And I think there are some good ones out right now that I want to see.
Mom: Yeah. Me, too.
Me: I think Hop is out and I kinda want to see that.
Mom: Yeah. And I REALLY want to see that Lincoln Log movie.
Me: The Lincoln Log movie?
Mom: Yeah. The one with Matt McConaughey or whatever his name is. I've heard it's REALLY good.
Me: You mean, Lincoln LAWYER?
Mom: [rolling eyes] Whateveeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

You know, SOME would argue that there's not a lot of difference between logs and lawyers . . .

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

I got nothin' . . .

Man - you would not BELIEVE how busy I've been lately with work!! It's been cuh-razy. It seems like every night lately I've had something that I've had to work on so I haven't been able to sit down and spend a little quality time with Y'ALL. But, finally, I can sit down and blog to my heart's content. So tonight I think I'll write about . . . ummmmm . . . well, I guess I could write about . . . hmmmmmm . . . I could always talk about . . . uuuuuuuh . . . well, crap.

Apparently, a busy work schedule zaps all the creativity out of my head. Which, incidentally, is not a good situation for a lawyer who likes to blog on the side. So I've been sitting here at my computer, staring at the screen and hoping that an idea will come to me. I also spent a significant amount of time pestering my roommate for ideas but she had about as many ideas I did. I was desperate for SOMETHING.

At around midnight I finally decided to search the internet for ideas of things to blog about. So I started my search in what I think was the most logical way - I googled "blog ideas." Lots of websites popped up purporting to have 100 great blog ideas or ideas to take your blog to the next level, etc. I clicked on a few, excited to see what great ideas they might have for me for my blog post tonight. But I have to say that they were decidedly unhelpful.

Here are some of my favorites:

"Write a series of posts." Okay - right away I see that you don't really understand my problem. How can I write a SERIES of posts if I don't even have an idea of just ONE post? Next suggestion, please . . .

"Write a funny post." Seriously? Are you mocking me?

"Make a post for advanced readers." Does blogging about Swiss Cake Rolls and my yard guy count as "advanced?"

"Browse through a thesaurus and see if any synonyms spark ideas for posts." Wow. This is a new low. I mean, I'm a word nerd but I'm not THAT much of a word nerd . . .

"Write a tutorial." This seemed like a promising idea to me at first. But then I realized that I have nothing to tutor anyone about - no skills to teach or information to impart. Well, other than how to stalk your yard guy or how to use a ponytail holder to expand your pants at Thanksgiving dinner or Mexican restaurants. Hey, don't judge - that extra inch comes in handy when you're dealing with pumpkin pie . . .

"Review someone's blog and critique it." Aaaaaaaaaaand then change my blog title to "How to be a big fat JERK . . . "?? That's the worst idea EVER.

"Write about something that is merely 'good' but not 'great.'" Okaaaaaaaay . . . way to shoot for the stars, guys.

But I think my favorite suggestion was this one, along with its explanation:

"Imagine you've written a great article : This might sound a little strange. I sometimes imagine I have written a fantastic article and it’s gone viral, I try and hone in, in my mind's eye, and see what the article was and what everyone is talking about. You’ll be surprised what comes up." No, no - don't be silly. It doesn't sound strange. And I'd love to do it, I really would. Because, honestly, it doesn't sound crazy at ALL. It's just that, you see, well . . . I . . . I . . . I need to read my thesaurus. Yeah - that's it. Soooooooooo . . . you go figure out what all the commotion is with that imaginary article in your mind's eye - don't let me stop you.

Oooooooor impede you . . . Or halt you . . . or obstruct you . . . or hinder you . . .

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Mr. Meanor

One of my friends from work sent me a picture of a sign at a courthouse in Dallas:


Now, I don't mean to insinuate that "misdemeanor" is SUCH an elementary word that everyone should know how to spell it. But don't you think that if it's gonna be spelled correctly ANYWHERE, it would be in a courthouse??

Stinkin' lawyers . . .

Monday, April 4, 2011

So it's not just me . . .

A few years ago, the guy who had been doing my yard just stopped coming. When I tried to call him, I found out that: 1) the number I had was for his business cell for his REAL job, 2) he had been fired from said REAL job, and 3) I had no way of contacting him. I asked around and a friend of mine gave me the number for HER yard people so I called them and asked if they'd come by and give me a quote for doing my yard. That guy told me he would come over to give me an estimate and then he called me 10 times asking for directions and then just never showed up. It was a bad day for me.

Until . . .

I called my sister Erin and asked her if she liked the guy who cut her grass and, if so, could I have his phone number. And that's when I called Gustavo and he came right over, gave me a quote, and started being my yard guy/"boyfriend" (what? He doesn't have to KNOW he's my boyfriend . . . GAH.). Little did I know that such a minor, mundane thing as switching yard guys would lead to to the birth of my inner stalker.

Who knew??

Erin, like me, thinks Gustavo is super sweet so she understands my little crush. However, UNlike me, she's married and doesn't spend her time calling him "Gusty" or staring out the window watching him trim a Crepe Myrtle.

How BORING is married life, right??

ANYWAY, she sent me a picture the other day that I thought was awesome. She has an in-house daycare and has lots of SUPER cute kiddos she watches. And the other day, when Gustavo was there mowing Erin's yard, one of the kids showed that he is a boy after my own heart:


Man. You have NO idea how jealous I am that he can get away with this. I bet no one would call HIM "strange" or "weird" or "psycho stalker." Dang double standard.

[sigh]

I wonder if he's old enough to handle a high-speed camera . . .