Wild Monkeys!

Our beloved Dalilah, aka Pokey-Paw, a Chartreux cat, is ill with a severe bladder infection, right on the heels of another one a few weeks back. She's fifteen and we've had many health scares over the last six years, so we're certainly sensitive to the possibility of saying goodbye to her this time. But subcutaneous fluids and antibiotics have restored her appetite, which had been scarily absent, so we'll see. This time we have the complexity of having a three-year-old who's lately been learning a lot about the natural world, including death, in the picture. On the other hand, it could be a really healthy, positive thing for her, handled correctly. Anyway, we're all just trying to keep Dalilah alive, or, failing that, comfortable.

Update: she is doing much better, thankfully.

Fish courtesy of my dad, who caught it in the Sandy River.

I'm off to Seattle tomorrow to see a variety of friends from old UU days, the Reed diaspora, and the Country Fair. This solo trip, pure playtime, is basically a birthday present, for which I thank D very much. D & WD will be in Yelm with the in-laws while I'm up there. Everyone, thanks in advance for your hospitality and I really look forward to seeing you.

Plus I just got a client out of jail while she awaits trial on a very beatable charge, so I'm pretty psyched in general.

Finally, if you feel like spending a significant amount of money in pursuit of a staggeringly good meal, I recommend new Portland restaurant Sel Gris without a shred of hesitancy.

Well, 2007 had plenty of good things in it but it was a harder year, overall, than 2006. I'm glad to wish it farewell and I am delighted by the prospects and possibilities of 2008. I hope this year brings much joy and love to all of you.

Thanks to Jacquie for an excellent party and to D for the brilliant idea of bringing a bed for ourselves.

Hey, all. I'm back from a relaxing trip spent exclusively with family and family friends in California. It was good.

Hey there. I've not been posting because I've been busy, both happily and stressfully. We're going camping with dear friends at Diamond Lake this weekend. Have a great time with whatever you do and I hope to catch up more soon. Love.

PS. Facebook people, play Scrabulous with me. It is my cocaine.

A fellow lawyer, leaving my lawfirm (as I learned today), told me she was burned out on public defense for now. She singled another lawyer and me out as people she saw being especially safe from burnout.

What do I do to avoid burning out? As I just told a good new friend, in my off hours I indulge in every form of rank sensuality.

And then, in the sultry night, to the sound of crickets, wearing only basketball shorts, barefoot in the grass among my exuberant vegetable beds, with my beloved daughter asleep upstairs in bed, and my sexy wife walking around in the house, having just spent time pickling cucumbers we grew, off the phone with the aforementioned friend, I poured myself another glass of wine.

Back in Portland from Waldo Lake. It really was a wonderful trip, except that poor D was kind of sick and couldn't tolerate even the fairly mild cold air of the mountain nights. WD, on the other hand, took to lake swimming as though born to it.

Now I am trying to sort out the chaos on my desk. Also, I am planning -- nay, scheming -- more adventures to come.

We'll be up at Waldo Lake this weekend. Enjoy yourselves!

This was at the second birthday party for a friend of WD's.

But I'm not going to abandon this medium or anything like that. For a while, instead, I've been spending my personal writing time doing lots of enjoyable emailing with a new friend, discussing various issues of mutual interest. My LJ time has been chiefly confined to reading. Plus my mom and grandma have been visiting, and I've been trying to work at work (there is some serious fucking shit coming down the pike in some of my clients' lives. Each day I get more committed to this work). Plus lots of fun time with the highly energetic WD. We were out to Ya Hala tonight. There is a toddler who seriously loves her tomatoes!

OCDLA this Thursday-Saturday. Andy and I are throwing our big party Thursday night. Friday I give my maiden conference talk. Saturday morning we're off again to skip over the mountains and savor two days onsite, which will be hugely rewarding.

I am a firm believer of sandwiching hard work in layers of relaxation and play, but today with the glad consipracy of the weather that really rose to a new level.

After a productive but unarduous morning, I took a long lunch to eat dim sum, read my British history survey (Rebecca Fraser, The Story of Britain, if anyone's interested), walk around inner Northwest, and cash in my REI dividend. Then I was able to do my afternoon work without going to the jail, so I could stay dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. Meanwhile it was getting sunnier and sunnier and warmer and warmer. Picking up the homicide case, together with simultaneously breaking developments in two other cases, required a relatively brief period of very intense concentration and businesslikeness, which went as smoothly as it could for this stage at my level of experience. Tomorrow there will be much more to do on that end, but today I set in motion all the processes I needed to in order for tomorrow to go as well as possible.

I was already planning on missing the Board meeting because of D's work schedule not meshing well with the travel it would require. Then D's intervening meeting cleared up, but it was really getting too late to change plans again easily. We had made plans for me to walk home (it's six miles, quite a walkable distance, but I usually take the MAX for the least exciting two miles and walk the four best ones) and for D to go to the gym afterward, and I was looking forward to that. Plus, it just isn't the highest-priority Board meeting of the year, and with all the stuff popping up at work it's probably not bad for me to be able to be in earlier with more rest than I would if I'd gone to Eugene.

So I started walking home, cheered already on the way out the door by unexpected electronic communication from a dear old friend. It was extraordinarily gorgeous. I had my fun newish prescription sunglasses on, the iPod cranked up, some good coffee from Stumptown, and I'd left my heavy bags in the van, which D was driving home. After hopping off the MAX, I walked up Mississippi to Amnesia Brewing and had an IPA and a spicy sausage in the shade while chatting amiably with strangers at their Stammtisch and petting Royal Duke, a big chocolate lab.

Then it was off again through the neighborhoods toward Alberta, talking with my little brother JJ about whether he and his boyfriend could join us at the Fair this year. After we got off the phone, I let the music drive me through the fragrant neighborhoods, ripening in the sun, my mind wandering and straying goatishly into innocent Summer lust. At New Seasons I ran into Brandon, one of my best friends from Reed, who said she'd just woken up from a nap. I said, "What if this is all a dream?"

Home from the store on the bus, D and WD were looking lovely. WD was in a good mood for such a tired toddler, just out of the bath. D put her diaper on and I put her in some red shorts and her red See Kai Runs. Then D lay down to read a book while WD clung to the gate of the chicken coop and I watered the garden. Halfway through I saw her starting to sway on her feet, so I brought her in and D read her books. After I harvested the rhubarb with a prayer of thanksgiving, I finished watering. Then I tucked WD in a blanket and rocked her to sleep, singing Grateful Dead songs to her while she drank a bottle of juice.

Now I'm going to do chores and make strawberry-rhubarb pie. I am overflowing with love and joy. May you be, too.

WD is sick today, and has been for several days -- nothing life-threatening, but to the point where D's taking her to the doctor this afternoon (while I'm in court for an intense case, but I digress). Anyway, WD is medicated and feeling chipper this morning despite being sick, and I'm taking most of the day off work to be with her, and I'm actually having a really nice father moment: it's warm and we've eaten a good breakfast and we've been dancing to They Might Be Giants's first album, which is one of the best kid albums of all time.

Holy crap, D and I have now watched every single Joss Whedon TV show. That's a feat.

In more important news, we just had a really amazing small intimate dinner party. So much love. This is what sustains me.

What an astonishingly lovely and loving birthday dinner!

I've just added some recent photos of WD taken by my mom on her visit this weekend -- that would be the first five photos on there -- to our photo site.

We went to the hospital today. WD fell off her changing table while I was at work this morning. D had her strapped in, of course, but she defeated the system and tumbled onto a hard floor from a few feet up. It didn't seem like anything was life-or-death wrong with her in the moment, so instead of going to the emergency room, D took her up to our regular pediatric clinic at Doernbecher. WD's pediatrician is out on maternity leave, but the residents are very good doctors. We had lunch before the appointment, and WD seemed fine, if a little subdued. Then I went to court, though it was hard to keep my mind on anything, and WD and D went to the hospital. The resident on call sent her out for an X-ray of her right arm, since she seemed to be favoring it a bit, and for a CT scan, since she had possibly hit her head (although no goose egg) and had thrown up a little of her lunch. I made it up to the hospital just after the CT scan, which had been a somewhat fraught experience, since they didn't want to sedate her with a possible head injury and they weren't used to doing unsedated juveniles in this adult-sized CT scanner. She seemed OK, but definitely exhausted and in some kind of pain. After a VERY long wait for the results of the scans to be interpreted, it turned out that she had not suffered any head injury, but that she had a partial fracture of her right radius. She's in a soft splint now, on Tylenol, and, while a little crankier than normal, seems to be bearing up fine. We have one tough kid! D was concerned, of course, though it wasn't her fault, and I am certainly shaken up myself. But all's well that ends well, I guess. She's had a fine evening, sleeping a lot but waking up to drink and play some (though solid food was unattractive for her). Given how resilient she's been so far, I predict *knocks on wood* a speedy recovery.

D made three! pies for her dad's family's gathering, to which
we're soon bound. Sour cream pumpkin, traditional pecan, and the
biggest apple pie you've ever seen. I'm so glad I'm not on my diet
today!

Guilty on two counts, not guilty on the third. Weird split verdicts on the value of the stolen property. We have lots of great issues for appeal. My client will be sentenced next week. I am going home to rest with the fam.

Well, we had a great time in California, then I returned to an immense load of work, very little of which I could actually address since I've been in a jury trial for the last day and a half. And D and WD are both sick with a really nasty GI bug that kept them up most of the night -- especially D, with her light sleep -- and me up just about as much caring for them. The timing couldn't have been worse, because we're going to have to miss the big OCF friends' group trip to Odell Lake to sled, eat, drink, and enjoy the company of our dear friends. Argh.

Well, at least if D and WD recover and I get some good sleep tonight, I can go to the Clumsy Lovers show tomorrow. But as fun as that would be, it doesn't quite compare.

I hope I win this theft trial. The jury has been out over an hour so far.