Random Friday Eve Thoughts

Ah, what a day. It started off with dropping my little cousins off at school and then on to a final divorce hearing. I finally closed the first case I was assigned when I started my job. Okay, not really "assigned," but dumped on me by a lawyer who is no longer employed at my agency who when I said, "Let me know if there's anything I can help you with," gave me all of her problem cases in my first week of work. Which to her was all her cases, as she couldn't be bothered with things like drafting documents and calling clients and helping people get divorces. It's not the first case I've closed, but certainly the longest-running case I've had, one that was unnecessarily prolonged due to her jackass husband. It ended with a whimper, over in five minutes, and my client was elated. She's finally out of a toxic marriage and can start fresh, with a new name.

I then set off on the drive home, which should have taken about 3 hours. But the rain was brutal and it took forever. Like five hours forever. I was completely spent. Last night I was swept up in the whirlwind of a home with 5 kids ages 10 months - 8 years and when they were finally all asleep, I stayed up talking with my cousin. Now I have so much more work to do, but I spent the rest of the afternoon and all evening in bed, snoozing and watching movies. Now it's on to writing a brief in 3 days. Woo. I'm so glad I put things off to the last minute like this. I obviously strive on the incredible pressure and stress.

One of the movies I watched this evening was Rachel Getting Married. It was pretty good, but MY GOD that wedding took forever to happen. Seriously, how many toasts and musical performances can one movie have? And the never-ending string quartet providing the soundtrack to the whole thing was unbearable. Day and night. Night and day with the violin. Dear god. When Anne Hathaway's character said, "Are they going to fucking play all weekend?!" I actually blurted out, "Thank you!"

After the movie, I sat on my porch and listened to the quiet sounds of life on a rural street in an urban jungle. I've been pretty melancholy this week, in between all the stress and absurd drama. Today I was reflecting upon friends and how grateful I am for the good ones I have. There are times when I feel really alone and lost, but I really am blessed. And I hope they all know how much I cherish them.

It's getting late and I need to get up early to get a jump on work. And pilates class. Ugg, I am so incredibly unhealthy right now. April has been From Hell. I have only managed to exercise a small handful of times and my diet has been abysmal. And let's not even talk about the smoking, okay? Because it's not good. Earlier today I snapped out of a catnap and rushed to check the PO Box for donations so I could send the final list of sponsors to the program designer. I was so out of it, my left arm felt numb and I was certain that I was having some sort of attack and would die while driving downtown. (I have a penchant for the drama, apparently.) At that moment I swore that I wasn't going to smoke anymore, for good, forever, but after the Rachel movie, I fucking needed a smoke. Anne Hathaway smokes ALOT in that movie.

In the meantime, I have plans for the weekend to eat an entire Dr. Pepper cake from the Czech Stop Bakery in West, Texas. If you haven't tasted this heavenly confection and you have the opportunity to pull off at exit 353 while heading south on I-35 from Dallas to Austin, you MUST do it. Although you won't find it. I saw the cake, but there was a big black marker line through "Dr Pepper" on the label. I took it to the cashier and asked if this was in fact a Dr. Pepper cake and she said, "It is, but it isn't. Some guy from Dr. Pepper came in and said that we had to stop using the name. Weird 'cuz you'd think they would want the good publicity. And we already had these labels printed up so we just marked through the Dr. Pepper on them. See? We even had to mark out Dr. Pepper in the list of ingredients." What the fuck, Dr. Pepper? That cake is fucking good and you should be proud that a can of your delicious soda beverage results in such a moist, delectable creation of chocolate perfection.

Also from the tales of East Texas, last night I took two of the brood up to the little convenience store up the road to get a snack and saw that they still sell candy cigarettes out there. Just the other day I was having a conversation with someone about how they don't have those anymore and then there they were, a throwback to the days when parents would send their kids down the street to buy a pack and you could smoke everywhere. East Texas is in a time warp that way.


I let my cousins pick out a candy and when I took the above photo, my little cousin Sage said, "Can I get those?" No, child, I am not going to buy you candy cigarettes. And then we went home and I smoked a real one outside while she watched me through the window. I'm so going to hell, assuming there is one.

But backwardness aside, I plan to go out there more, and not always for work. I just want to see those kids more often than the maybe once a year I've been seeing them up until recently. I'm a decade older than their mom and I was always close to her and her little brother, taking them places and being there for her as much as I could when she was a teenage runaway. Or is it technically running away when your crazy father kicks you out? And frankly, it's the closest I've got to being the cool aunt Heather who always shows up with gifts and plays with them and talks to them about sex and being tolerant of gay people and people of different races and stuff. If I have to drive 3 hours to do it, so be it.

And now it's back to fretting over all that I didn't get done today, which will surely result in insomnia. Two more weeks in this month and then it's off to San Francisco for a few days. The light is visible in the distance and I'm chugging along toward it.