I start reviewing my tax law notes out loud and Harley reacts like any non-law student:
Posts about Ingrid the Labradoodle and Gunter the Chiweenie.
I start reviewing my tax law notes out loud and Harley reacts like any non-law student:
NPR said that the snow storm would worsen Wednesday. They used the term “blinding snow” so I figured that I had to go into work yesterday afternoon to avoid the impending whiteout.
I rethought the wisdom of going to work while crossing the Mendota bridge. The snow clung to my windshield and a semi-truck tailgated me Jeepers Creepers-style. I was surely going to die there on that bridge. Who was going to walk Harley?
I made it to work alive and worked for 10 hours.
I considered leaving around 7pm because the building felt abandoned and the snow had picked up – I felt like the lone beachgoer who didn’t get the memo about the typhoon.
After a gchat consultation with a classmate, I decided to stick it out until midnight, and I am glad that I did.
I was shocked by how bright it was outside of the office. A team of caterpillar plow trucks had cleared a pathway to my car, and one of the drivers lit up my car as I defrosted and scraped the windows.
The roads in Eagan were semi-plowed, and the speeding drivers of the afternoon had vanished to the ER.
I made it home before 1am. The next task was walking the much-neglected dog. I put on my gear: snowboots, face mask, 2 pairs of long johns, gloves… and then took Harley outside looking like a Chechen sniper.
Unlike the bitching I got earlier this semester, the dog LOVED the deep snow! He was so excited that I had to take him off the leash because he kept dragging me through the snow as if he was on an audition to become Santa’s next reindeer.
I took Harley to the park this morning so he could continue his frolicking. Pictures are here.
So I was very surprised when we ran into a large, yippie dog during the morning walk.
We were by a busy street, but the other dog was off leash and the owner was wearing flipflops, in the snow.
The yippie dog and Harley did the obligatory sniff down.
Harley was over the dog after a few minutes and wanted to move on, but the dog kept bouncing around him. We couldn’t go because the dog blocked Harley’s path, wanting to play. The owner, in his flipflop-ness, was too cold to move from the side of the road, and yippie was not listening to him.
Suddenly Harley ROARED! It was the dog equivalent of an exasperated scream. The message was very clear: BACK UP OFF ME!
He has never done that before so I was shocked and terribly, terribly amused.
The other dog was freaked out, his owner was visibly worried, and I was choking with laughter.
My dog is awesome.
Harley’s face sums up his feelings about Conlaw:
I was exhausted after school today, so Harley and I took a nap after the afternoon walk.
I woke up to snoring around 7:30pm. I forgot that Harley was the one sleeping next to me, so when I turned to tell Joel that he was snoring too loudly, I was greeted by a smiling bullmastiff mug, which promptly blew snot all over my face. Bleh.
Harley and I walked around Lake of the Isles tonight.
Some of the mansions around the lake have gaudy holiday displays that have beautiful reflections on the lake. The walk was unusual because it was cloudless and oddly quiet due to the lack of screaming children and intense middle-aged runners. The lake surface was still except for when we were approached by a flock of shadowed geese that glided towards us like a little army of Loch ness monsters.
Harley saw the geese and did his imposing, big-dog “Imma eat all y’all” stance.
The geese said “nevermind” and floated back into the darkness.
After the walk, I sat down and finished the reading for tomorrow. I always do my tax law reading first. Tax is typically the longest and most difficult assignment I have – and it makes all of the other assignments read like James Patterson novels minus the dramatic cliffhangers.
Tomorrow’s lunch period needs to be ultra productive because I am going to try to make it to Trivia night in St. Paul. Our team is called “Beauty and the Beasts” and we came in second place last week despite only having three people:
We’ll see how we do tomorrow.
There is nothing unusual about my dog chasing a squirrel up a tree, but this squirrel didn’t see Harley until he was about 2 feet away and flipped-the-heck-out.
The squirrel darted up the tree and glared. Harley just stared up at it like, “is it that serious?”
The squirrel then began making this weird bird-like noise:
Probably squirrel expletives.
Harley listens better when he’s not leashed – I’ve called him off squirrels and cats.
The one big problem we have is geese. Everytime I walk Harley around Calhoun I have to pull the leash with both hands to keep him off the geese.
I think it’s because they are big, loud, and don’t go away – they just loom around like “I’m here! Try me! I taste like chicken!”
Harley was excited to see me after work today. I let him out of the kennel and his tail launched a candle from a coffee table. Glass shards rained over the living room, and I was unamused.
I re-kenneled the dog and cleaned up the mess. I then let Harley out and he followed me to kitchen, to throw away the shards.
Harley’s tail caused more chaos in the kitchen when he knocked over a bottle of bleach. I shoved the dog out the kitchen and tried to control the chlorox typhoon. I stripped my clothes1 and cleaned the mess wearing boxers and white flipflops.
I mopped the kitchen and then decided to clean the cabinet under the sink. I first removed the 40lb bag of dog food, not noticing the little hole nibbled in the corner, and then reached for a blue IKEA bag.2 I lifted the bag AND A MOUSE FLEW OUT OF IT!
I screamed, then roared. The mouse landed in the corner and somersaulted behind the stove.
I was livid. This mouse was going down and it was on like donkey kong!
What was followed was 30 minutes of me attempting to trap the mouse while not slipping on the bleach-soaked floor… all in boxers and flipflops. All that was missing was the Tom and Jerry sound effects.
I eventually gave up, but luckily, I bought poison mouse food blocks on tonight’s Wal-Mart trip. Anything remotely edible in my kitchen is now in a glass or plastic container. The poison is out. This mouse is going down. I just hope I don’t have to smell rotting mouse in the morning…
1 I have too many bleach spots on clothes not to do this.
2 The supposedly green bags… the only problem is I NEVER remember to bring the bag and end up buying a new one every trip…
This morning the dog woke me up shortly before 7am like “It’s poopy time! Take me out or suffer!”
We were walking down the street within three minutes because I still regret the last time I made him wait.
In my hurry to get him outside I didn’t do any hair or teeth brushing, so the dog peed on poles as I tried to light the poles on fire with my morning dragon breath. It was like a blow-torch of funk.
7am is the best time to walk the dog because all of the school children are at the bus tops. The Somali girls are afraid of the dog but the Mexican boys love him.
We got to the end of the block when two huge fire trucks swung onto the street and stopped right in front of us. I was suddenly floodlit and I couldn’t decide whether to bust out with “RING THE ALARM” or not.
The firemen stepped out of the truck like “welcome to the gunshow” in such an annoyed, unhurried way that I could tell this was a response some old lady who fell and called the fire department through her life alert. Apparently my dragon breath didn’t lite anything on fire after all…
One hour later I was in Tax law. This week’s topic is like-kind exchanges and I was so unspeakably confused that I didn’t even know how to articulate my confusion.
I spent the last 10 minutes of class hunched over, flustered, and staring hopelessly at the problems the professor was whizzing through on the board. What the…
I have never felt so confused in law school. I was so flustered that I skipped Employment law, went home, and walked the dog. I was too disoriented to pay attention in employment law, so it will have to wait until after the break.
After today’s second dog walk, I went to the Mall of America. I have not been to the mall in a long time and had forgotten how ridiculous the mall is: blaring music, bitchy sales clerks, and ridiculous ads. I felt like Zoolander would pop around the corner any second and strike a pose.
I was at the mall because I needed to go to LensCrafters for a contact fitting. I lost my glasses this weekend at the Saloon, so I figured prescription contacts are a safer (and cheaper) alternative. On the way out of the mall, I smelled a Hollister store from five stores away and remembered that I was out of cologne.
Hollister seemed full of bored teenage employees until I actually needed a cashier. Nevermind that I didn’t just walk out of the store and actually hunted down a cashier down to purchase a $40 bottle of cologne… He didn’t say a word to me and barely made eye contact, but I wasn’t going to lecture the 16 year old on good customer service because he obviously hated his job and not making commission.
So I was drenched in the Hollister cologne when I walked into work shortly thereafter. It was hard to get into the building today because the great wall of turkey blocked the building’s entryway.
My company gives out turkeys to its 7,000-odd employees. The frozen turkeys were in big white boxes that were trucked in and stacked on giant pallets. There was a solid 6 foot wall of turkey boxes which I had to walk around to get to work.
I picked up my turkey on the way home. It’s in the freezer now. I’ll figure THAT disaster later.
I was only home briefly to drop off the turkey before turning around and going to Innuendo for Trivia Night with Joel and Kurt. We came in second place to this overly intense group of regulars. The win of the night was coaxing Jake the Trivia Host to play the Halle Berry. Aye!
My only class tomorrow is Tax, and I hope it’s not as awful as today… unrealistic expectations?
I ran into The Graces this morning.
The Graces are my neighborhood’s shockingly inappropriate trio of women. The Graces are like Matryoshka dolls: one is obese, another is chubby, and one is normal-sized.
I walked by the Graces on this morning’s dog walk. It’s 10am and the Graces are sitting on a retention wall passing a bottle of liquor1 when Chubby Grace spots my dog:
Chubby Grace: “Dog!”
Normal Grace: “Yes. A dog.”
Chubby Grace: “That’s a big dog.”
Obese Grace: “Sure is! Tee hee hee!”
Chubby Grace: “And the dog has an asshole!”
Obese and Normal Grace are occupied with the bottle.
Chubby Grace is transfixed on my dog’s butt.
I am uncomfortable.
Me: “Hm. I don’t know how to respond to that….but …have a great day!”
Harley and I scamper off, leaving the Graces with their bottle.
What the hell neighborhood. What. The. Hell.
1 Yes, at 10am on a Sunday. And this is odd because the bottle was in a brown bag and the liquor stores are closed on Sundays.
I’m trying to teach Harley to smile for the camera. It is obviously not working.
I returned to the bedroom to find that I had been replaced, but decided not to interrupt the lovefest:
Harley is a little sick – he has an upset stomach – so I knew that I had a problem when I returned from my job to an apartment that smelled like dog-McFlurry.
I let Harley out of his kennel and he was caked in it. Gross.
He shakes himself off and scampers to the kitchen, leaving a trial of shit prints all over the floor! I shout for him to stop so of course he RUNS TO MY BEDROOM AND JUMPS ON MY BED!
Violence ensued. But now I have a fierce pair of bullmastiff gloves and a scarf for winter!
I’m kidding. I only considered killing him.
I tackled this 100lb dog, tied him up in the bathtub, mopped and disinfected the floors, and threw my sheets in the wash.
Then Mr. Shit-prints got a bath:
The good shots always end up with drool on the camera lense…
Harley constantly sends mulch and poo flying throughout the neighborhood, but I am pretty sure that most dogs do the sniff-sniff kick.
Here is the ritual:
And of course, Dooce is the originator of the doggy modesty patch.
“One more picture with flash and I’m shitting on the carpet.”
After finishing the tax midterm I turned around and began fixing my brief for moot court.
I have been parked in my living room going on 10 hours, and Harley is not quite sure why I am home so much. He keeps shooting me glares like, “Bitch, where’s my biscuit?”
The ridiculousness ends tomorrow (until finals that is), thank goodness.
I wanted to write that my love affair with law school finally wore off.
I also wanted to write about how bored and annoyed I have been these past two weeks.
Instead of writing a whiny, bitchy post, I went on my nightly run. I am training for a marathon, and running is an excellent way to procrastinate writing whiny posts and studying for tax midterms.
During my run, I realized that I am only irritable in my easy classes. The problem I have with easy classes is the curve. Easy classes mean arbitrary grading because everyone understands the material. The difference between an A and a C is usually something obscure or even the format of the answer (instead of the content.)
There’s nothing I can really do about this besides get over it. And yes, I’m totally singing “HEY! Get-get-get-get over it!”
That’s not a bad law school motto actually…
A lot happened in weeks 6 and 7. It snowed several times, but the snow didn’t stick around. I went to my first hockey game (videos here!), rediscovered the Mississippi River, set off a perfume bomb, had a mouse/pig problem, and ran into Mel again…
Here is a 1 minute video of the snow, Joel and Harley, and St. Anthony Falls:
I think I am going to give up studying for my tax midterm and go to bed. I’m to the point where I am just confusing myself. Capital gain? What? Who?
Weekly summaries from this semester:
By the way, I’ve gotten over the weather. A 40 degree mist isn’t that bad when you’re running up hills.
Joel is very patient and can pet Harley for hours at a time.
The only problem is that when Joel tries to get up Harley puts his paw on Joel’s chest like, “Wait, where do you think you’re going?!”
