TThe whole Baby D experience jump started my maternal side. After many long and heated discussions and soul searching, Kevin and I agreed it was time to add to our little family. And, so, it is with much excitement that I can announce a new addition to the McLaughlin clan.
Please put your hands together to welcome Charlie.

Charlie is a young Siamese fighting fish. He weighs, well, not much, is approximately two inches long and cost a whopping $3.75. I think he has Kevin’s stunning profile but that could just be the proud mom in me. Charlie is adjusting to his new life very nicely. He swims around and puffs up real big when you walk by his tank. Dang, is this fish cute or what? We are currently working on dinner time. Right now, he hides under his plant when your hand makes a shadow over the bowl while feeding. However, I understand this is perfectly normal for a fish at his age and that over time he’ll learn that the hand = food.

If you’d like to send cards or gift to Charlie, he really likes bloodworms. I’m thinking by the end of the week he should be up for visitors so long as you don’t have a cold or any sort of contagious fish killing virus. *JOSH*

Actually, I highly recommend a beta. They don’t need a heated tank or circulated water because they are air breathing fish. Yup, that’s right. A beta has gills but they aren’t real efficient. Instead, a beta will pop to the top of his water and gulp air. It’s really rather neat. This means, however, that you must have a tank that is exposed to the air. If not, your beta with suffocate and die. I know, this is rather strange, but that’s what I’m told.

Beta’s are particularly nice at work. If you can, bring one in a small bowl, plop it on your desk, and you’ll find yourself relaxing and gazing at him while he swims away. It is the best stress release around. It will also cause frequent visitors to “check on the fish” which is an added bonus too. I’d love to bring Charlie to work but I doubt he’d survive the MAX ride. But if you can, do it. You won’t regret it.

Oh yes, the latest craze is to make these living vases. If you have the time/energy I suppose it’d be pretty cool. You can find some basic instructions here. Just make sure you leave some breathing room between the roots and the water for your little fishy to gulp air!

My instincts have been appeased and there is a certain balance in our house. Fish, cat, dog, person. Sort of flows together like some strange nursery rhyme. I like it!

What If

He gave her butterflies.

She wasn’t sure why but there was something about the way he smiled at her that made her heart go wild. Of course, she smiled back and did her best to cover up the pounding in her chest but she didn’t know what came next. She thought she gave all the right signs. She laughed at his jokes, made sure they ended up sitting near each other during class assembly, and spent most of study hall sneaking notes to her girlfriends with doodled hearts and swirly initials hoping her secret would make its way to his ears. Still, he did nothing.

Emboldened by her friends, she grabbed his hand at lunch and drew a happy face on it, elaborating on the basic design, adding eyebrows, ears and dimples to prolong the thrill of holding his hand. Embarrassed at the intimacy of her act, even if the pretense was innocent, she was too flustered to notice his reaction. This action was brandied about by her group for the next class period, each girl weighing in with her opinion. The general consensus was it was a very daring move and if he didn’t respond then he definitely wasn’t interested.

Lunch came and she made a point of sitting by herself near his locker but he didn’t notice her. During P.E., she saw him talking to Julie and watched in horror as they walked off the field together laughing. Mortified and unable to face her friends who had witnessed this atrocity, she fled to her locker and grabbed her books. In her haste, she never noticed the note that was wedged through the door crack.

Ending #1
It fell to the floor to be swept up by the night janitor and she never knew.

He spent the next day waiting for a reply and was puzzled when she didn’t laugh at his jokes. When assembly was called, he headed toward her only to notice that her girlfriends had filled all the seats around her, forming a wall of protection.

After the assembly, he headed for the bathroom to wash off the happy face he had so carefully preserved on his hand. And he never knew.

Ending #2
She didn’t find the note until she opened her binder to start her math homework and it fell into her lap. It was filled with jokes and rambling which said nothing but meant everything. She spent the rest of the night calling friends and practicing her dream name over and over again in her best handwriting. Mrs. Mary Lawerance

At assembly, the butterflies returned and made her chest shake when he sat next to her. When he reached to hold her hand, all she could focus on was that silly face so carefully preserved on the back of his. Part of her heard her friends begin to whisper but the rest of her was smiling so hard it hurt.

I’ve become a horrible cynic.

Alright, I’ve never been much of an optimism. I like to think of myself as a firmly grounded realist. Some misguided souls have even accused me wandering into the territory of pessimism but I don’t pay them much mind. But last night, I realized that I’ve been in the Real World too long. I’ve lost the idealism of youth and taken on the jaded tinge of a working woman.

You see, last night I went back to the law school to conduct mock interviews. The first year students are ready to be plucked from the classroom and trundled off to the law firms for their first summer employment. For many, this is will be their first contact with the real world of the law so our Career Services department hosts mock interviews. The students are taped and alumni come and give them a taste of what to expect. We pitch out the usual hard balls, what are your grades, what is your ranking, why are you so low in your class, why should I hire you, you don’t seem to have much experience, etc, etc, etc. After a 20 minute interview, you then discuss what they did right or wrong, how to improve their pitch, what to play up and what to brush over. I remember doing this same thing myself eons ago but this time, I was the one asking the questions instead of the one trying to explain away the C+ I received in Torts.

There is nothing so sweet as a First Year Law Student. They are so….. unprepared.

“So why did you decided to go to law school?” the jaded employer asks.

“I really want to help people. I want to advocate and held someone through their problem. You know? I get really involved and determined and I want to feel like I’m helping people.”

“So what do you like about the law so far?” the jaded employer asks.

“I really like being challenged intellectually. Taking about the issues and discussing why a Supreme Court justice ruled that way is just really interesting. I want a job that will continue to challenge and stimulate me intellectually.”

“And what type of experience are you hoping to gain as a law clerk?” the jaded employer asks.

“I really want to work in an office where we can discuss the issues of a case and do brainstorming and look over the big picture. I want to, you know, be in the conversations and discussions about strategy and stuff. I think I’d really like the mental challenge of planning a case.”

All I could do was sit there and try to look professional. How do I tell them the sad reality of being a law clerk? You don’t get to pick your client. The partners pick then and you have to fight for them even when you don’t like what they’ve done or what they are trying to do. Heck, as a law clerk, your lucky if you ever even see the client. And intellectual challenge? Um, right. How does spending 40 hours holed up in the library or on the computer researching some obscure area of law about whether or not your client’s mother can bring her dog to a hotel because her therapist says it helps her anxiety. Does that qualify as a disability or not? Yeah, those are real big personal rights issues you’ll be playing with. I’m sure the semester your spent discussing Justice O’Conner’s take on the 7th Amendment will play right in there. And discussing a case? Maybe in some big swanky firm there are tons of clerks running around. Anywhere else, you’re lucky to even know the clerk’s name. Brainstorming with someone with one year of book learning on a real case? Not gonna happen.

The really sad part is, I used those exact same answers back in the day. And then reality hits you full on and you get knocked flat on your back and you either stagger to your feet and look for a way to carry on without getting slammed again or you just lie there and moan until the student loan people come looking for you.