If I Did It

so someone foolishly invited me to a facebook group demanding justice for caylee anthony and requesting my signature on a virtual petition (directed at who, i am not entirely certain) so that casey anthony cannot benefit financially from "her crimes." uh, i know almost nothing about casey anthony, except that my mother-in-law watched all 33 days of the trial on court tv and up until the day the verdict was announced, carol could "just see it in her eyes" that she was guilty. oh, and casey was acquitted of all but the most lame of the pending charges after barely a day of deliberation. i anticipate she was sentenced to time served since i did see the report in between sports highlights at vinny's that she was released from jail yesterday.

frankly, the media circus is a good reminder that you can be guilty and not go to jail and that it is the prosecutor's job to prove every single element of his case without the accused saying one single word. you can also be innocent and spend the rest of your life in jail, or at least have it ruined by false accusations. i would be a defendant's dream juror because frankly, i am surprised anyone is ever found guilty of any crime. the only way i would ever vote guilty is if the defendant confessed. and not an out-of-court confession induced by police presence or lack of sleep, coffee and potty breaks either. beyond a reasonable doubt is a tough standard to beat. unless you have a third eye like my mother-in-law. 99% sure just doesn't seem sure enough.

at any rate, i couldn't resist leaving my comments on the petition -- even if it meant that i was somehow implicitly signing it -- to remind the crazies that their fascination with the whole event, highlighted by an insistence on watching/following more than a month of a criminal trial ending on a sunday and the 4th of july holiday, plus nancy grace's daily analysis, is precisely why the possibility even exists that casey anthony will make money. if oprah thought no one was going to watch, she wouldn't pay casey for an appearance. oh and also to tell the crazies that they ought to go to jail for three years and see how that goes for them.

these people, with their "outrage" and "knowledge" of casey's guilt are the same people who, although they might not go right out and buy the OJ simpson book, are going to secretly check it out of the library and read it under the covers at night when they think no one is looking. because what if she did it? this is the consequence of tampering with evidence and going to trial on the theory that sluts are capable of murder. sorry america, i didn't make the rules. i am confident, however, that everything comes back around. if casey's really so bad, maybe she'll be caught in a few years taking a rare brand of duct tape at gunpoint.

i've gotten notifications of about 47 comments left on this post. i haven't read any of them, but i'm confident i swayed the hearts and minds of the crazies and they are simply writing to thank me for helping them see the light and start living their own actual lives. god bless the internet and its unique ability to start a firestorm.

back on the homefront: i spent my friday evening at "stamp camp" making homemade greeting cards. just picture a house full of grown adults with glue sticks and glitter. surprisingly, there is quite a lot of paraphernalia associated with stamp camp -- powders and hot air guns and punches and stencils and dies. although i spent a lot of time alternately complaining about how hard it was and devising shortcuts to avoid the most tedious tasks, and i was exhausted by the frantic pace of cutting and gluing and powdering, etc., i did it! and i had a good time and hope i get invited back. and also that i have the foresight to bring a bottle of wine. if anyone receives a homemade card from me in the near future, try not to pay attention to the blood, sweat and tears oozing therefrom. although, i am confident that with my new mommy it-can-wait attitude, no one will be getting any sort of greeting card from me for many, many years.

Power Up!

a little mushroom is going to drop out of the ceiling any minute and when i jump on it, i'm going to grow to 2x my normal size plus a mustache. all i need now is to stumble across a pretty desert orange flower so i can start spitting fireballs at all the obstacles in my path...

i think i experienced a time warp this morning. i have a big custody hearing at 9AM in flagstaff so i am already paranoid about getting enough sleep and simultaneously waking up early enough so that i can ingest enough coffee to be on my A+++ game and obliterate opposing counsel (who honestly and unfortunately really is the problem here, not the opposing party). so my alarm went off at 5:01 AM, as it does every day, and i did my customary one eleven-minute-snooze for days that i actually need to get something done. on the second try some awful hip hop song was coming at me and i actually appreciated that i had a reason to get up and stop the madness. side note: what is music coming to these days? one day i woke up to a song on the radio about skin tight jeans and wet dreams and literally got nauseous in my own bed. i made sure to kick aaron on the way out so he could hear me belt out some expletives about how "i'd rather be chained to a pole in my county stripes busting rocks with a sledgehammer than listen to this f*ing bullsh*t in the morning."

anyway, i got out of bed and started putting myself together again, peeking in at P on the baby monitor to make sure he is sleeping soundly. i really need him to sleep in today so i can get out of the house on time -- it is hard to say good-bye in the mornings when he's all bleary-eyed in his monkey pirate footie pjs. i sit down at my computer to type a few notes about my case and see on the computer that it is 4:58 AM. wait, i did everything except blow dry my hair AND already did some work all in minus-14 minutes? did i slide into a green pipe or blow a magic whistle sometime in the last hour?

although showering is usually the most productive five minutes of my work day, the mornings are often otherwise wasted until the coffee starts pouring in. i check my phone, my watch, the clock over the microwave. they all say less than 5 AM. i check my alarm. it's set for 5:01 AM. did i dream that my alarm went off? and dream that i pushed the snooze button? and dream that it went off again, playing the worst song my mind could conjur? unlikely. and if that were the case, it should go off any minute at the new 5:01 AM. then i see the time on my alarm clock says 6:08 AM. okay, that solves one mystery, but then i start panicking about what is the real time and who can i trust to give me the right answer!?

after another minute, i realize that the answer is NOT on the only clock in the house that i manually set 10 years ago, and more likely lies with the various other electronic devices that receive time signals from outerspace. i must've accidentally pushed the daylight savings button sometime and be operating on mountain daylight time, instead of mountain standard time. and got up at 4:12 AM without a complaint...

this is not the first time i've wondered if i operate in a parallel universe -- some segment of space and time where things seem to be perfectly rational and governed by laws of science and logic and reason. because in some other world i am surrounded by petty self-important nonsensical buffoons. back to reality ... at least i've got an extra hour to pick up an imported-french-chocolate mocha (available in cottonwood of all places) and leisurely wind my way up the canyon to flag.

in other news, aaron gave P an ice cube last night -- what fun. P thinks that if he just squeezes it tighter, he'll be able to get a good handle on it. false. he is easily assuaged though by splashing around in the growing puddle of water on his tray. silly baby.

Tax-Free Gift

in addition to working as an attorney, working as a part-time bike shop girl, taking care of panzer, taking care of aaron, taking care of aaron's parents, babysitting certain co-workers, etc. i also have a full-time job in plucking my eyebrows and playing phone tag. at least jobs #2 through 6 i get to do without contributing social security or any reporting to the IRS! unfortunately, the pay is less than adequate.

so, it's no wonder i am a little overwhelmed when other little pesky tasks crop up. things like laundry (sometimes it's all i can do not to cry while looking for something, anything that doesn't need to be ironed and isn't streaked with dried peas), dishes (surprisingly, it doesn't take long to drown in tiny plastic bowls), paying bills (you mean it costs money to live like this?!), etc. thankfully, P has now taken over the job of mopping the floor. he is crawling, although i use the term loosely. he uses both his arms and legs to scoot around, but he doesn't pick his tummy up off the ground. he moves with surprising speed toward any piece of trash in his line of sight. he is less motivated to "come to mommy." instead, he'll look up at me and wiggle his little arms and legs wildly like a beached whale until i come pick him up. unless i have an expensive electronic device in my hand, i.e. the camera. then he's all over it.

because P also drools constantly (waiting for a few more teeth -- we're up to 5!), the front of every shirt he owns is streaked with dirt that i can't even see. he drools on the floor, then scoots over it, sopping up the drool and microscopic pieces of dirt with his tummy as he shuffles by. as for things that are not microscopic and unobservable ... P finds those, makes his way to them in record time, and promptly puts them in his mouth. assuming the spot can be removed from its secure placement ground into the floor. this morning i thought about moving everything out of the living room and spending the day scrubbing the tile, but i think it is a better use of my time and money to buy stock in spray-n-wash and/or sit on the couch watching P wiggle on the floor while shopping online for more cute outfits. the kid grows like a weed anyway. plus, even if i were to eliminate the dirt on the floor, there would still be crushed up cherrios. and the entire apricot i gave him this morning that he smeared over his entire body and then let dry in the sun.

still, my goal this weekend was to baby-proof the house before P picks up much more speed. fail. i hope to at least hide some cords and move the dangerous chemicals up up up before the end of the day. more likely i will be relying on my intense vigilance to identify and remedy immediate threats as they come. oh and i need to scrub the tub before i put P's shiny hiney in there. he isn't necessarily too big for his baby tub anymore, but he's definitely too sneaky for it. he is days away from figuring out how to crawl out of it to get to the shower curtain (ew). luckily, he is tough. or he'd better be, on many levels, if he's going to survive 17 1/2 more years of aaron and i, live up to his namesake, and take the clemson tigers to a national championship.

hrm, and now that images of the heebie-jeebies taking over my home and my baby while i make an ill-fated attempt to sleep and function as an adult are running through my head, i must desert the internet to clean up its own messes...

Wi-zard in the Hiz-ouse

one of the things i got for my baby shower that i thought was way over the top but came to realllllllly love is the video monitor. it has a little 2 1/2" color screen that shows P's tiger mobile in the perfect shade of clemson orange. at night, you can see with night vision, which weirdly picks up on only some patterns so that P's striped jammies will appear solid colored but at the same time you can see every single little monkey, vine and banana on his bed sheet. it's nice to make sure he hasn't stopped screaming only because some terrible unforeseeable disaster has befallen him.

unfortunately, P discovered that if he pulls the bumper down and looks through the slats of his cage, he can see me. although he thinks seeing mommy behind bars is perhaps the most hilarious thing ever, it is much hilarious when i am not there. so mostly i like to use the video monitor to spy on him and secretly watch his little mind at work.

last night i was sitting in bed with a bowl of ice cream on my lap watching P on the little screen after i put him down. (sometimes this is a whole evening of entertainment for aaron and i -- even better than trying to convince him that I AM america's next top model...) anyway, he fussed half-heartedly and wiggled his little legs around for a few minutes. then he would stop and give his best miss america smile to the left, right and up, at all the little animals gazing at him from the mobile and bumper. then he would fuss again. he repeated this cycle 3 or 4 times before he made what appeared to be a very concious and informed decision that he was going to sleep. he turned his head to the side, closed his eyes, and was gone. he's such a funny little guy -- way too much like his daddy for me to sleep well at night.

for example, sometimes i peer into the crib to see this:

and hear aaron speaking in best wizard voice. good-bye panzer. do not tell anyone you have seen me.

wait, whaaaaaaaat?

aaron is not one for impulse buys. nor is he a buyer of mostly useless crap. yet somehow we left the celtic bar with a panzer-sized wizard puppet, complete with purple robes and long flowing beard. i promptly named him the wi-ZARD and such began the wi-ZARD's reign over the ruda household.

the wi-ZARD appears fairly frequently, usually to lecture P on the importance of sleeping through the night, and that his failure to do so makes daddy very mad and mommy very cranky. sometimes the wi-ZARD advises P that it would be in his best interest to learn how to change his own diaper and/or stop pooping his pants altogether. P of course listens very intently, giggles hysterically, and dreams of the day he can get the wi-ZARD's beard in his chompers. which will also likely make daddy very mad.

my life is a circus and it's unclear which of my boys is the ringleader.

Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made

this year i thought it would be very exciting and glamorous for aaron and i to take a whirlwind weekend trip to new york city for our third anniversary. we had a good time covering every street and alley of manhattan on bike and/or foot, mostly in the rain, sat in on freud's last session which fantastically satiated our collective good humor and intellect, toasted our fate over authentic italian, and wandered into serendipity, a stuffy glittery hole-in-the-wall fit only for the mad hatter's tea party. however, i clearly watch too much how i met your mother, listen to too much howard stern, and dance around to too much jay-z. new york city is awful. how do people live their lives going from one sardine can (their apartments) to the next (the street) to the next (the subway)? here is a small sampling of the reasons i will never return:

concrete, bricks, and other conglomerations. at any given moment in new york, you are surrounded in at least three directions by hard, solid rock. more if you take the tube. i am convinced that if you dare to wear a hat -- which incidentally no one does -- you will never see the sky at all. also, go ahead and write off ever feeling the grass between your toes, and also probably ever seeing your toes again. i did get one rare poetic shot though. . .

the smell. exhaust fumes. dead fish. horse's ass. pick your poison. side note: and speaking of dead horse, when we were passing through central park, we came across a group of protestors with very graphic signs depicting a dead horse on a sidewalk. the protestors did not communicate very effectively, because i thought the horse in question spooked, someone tased it, and it died. but aaron thought the horse was electrocuted from the tailpipe of the car in front of him and died. at any rate, his blood is apparently on our hands and we should be ashamed and outraged. i'm not sure how the people in the horse-drawn carriage riding by the carnage felt. . .

taxi cabs. although taxis provide a ubiquitous and much-needed source of color, they are good for little else. they're scary, rude and apparently have an elaborate system of honks that they pass along in a never ending game of telephone as they whoosh through the streets. and as aaron pointed out to me, rudeness is just a way of life for new yorkers. it's not like they walk around pissed off all the time, they just don't know any better. thanks mom and dad for raising me to believe that hospitality is the norm and you don't need a reason to smile.

the new york yankees. what a bunch of self-important jerks -- an issue obviously shared by new yorkers who, as previously noted, essentially live their lives in a series of sardine cans. it's a mystery. unfortunately, there is not a single piece of mets paraphernalia on the entire island of manhattan, but i cheered for them anyway. they impressed for all of one entire inning, thankfully saving me from the ass-kicking of my life from the large and rabid yankee fan sitting in front of me and giving me dirty looks. luckily i was distracted by a five gallon bucket of popcorn for the rest of the game while the yankees ran away with the lead via four home runs. best part of the subway series: the dude behind me in the beer line was a clemson grad, who confirmed to aaron that it is absolutely essential as a true fan to acquire a new clemson hat and clemson t-shirt every football season and fist-bumped him for his compliance. go tigers!

skinny jeans. what a disgusting trend. and you no longer need a fanny pack and camera around your neck to scream tourist! in new york city -- flare jeans, flip-flops and a smile are a dead give-away. it doesn't matter your shape, size or sexual orientation, toast point legs are IN and in nyc you have no choice but to own it. not this big booty judy though . . . i retain my right to be comfortable and unashamedly unfashionable.

the nypd. there are police lurking everywhere in the city. there are so many that they don't even acknowledge each other when they pass on the street. on a positive note, they don't appear to actually be doing anything. also, they are presumably worried about people who commit actual crimes, rather than, for example, setting off fireworks in the city limits after a rainstorm. still, who needs that oversight?

there are a few great things about new york. for example, there is a starbucks every 10 yards, full of happy, friendly, competent and efficient people who want you to drink coffee ASAMFP. street food and the ukrainian cafe serving borscht and blini at your command 24 hours a day. also, purple hydrangeas -- like the ones i had in my wedding bouquet -- were blooming in flower boxes in front of huge skyscrapers. robin quivers was presumably wandering around somewhere and i could have run into her at any moment.

anyway, it was a good experiment. i am glad to be home. here's to another fifty years of big sky and open space, aaron ruda -- i love you!

blue skies, setting sun. cherry pies, bubble gum. lullabyes, come undone. blue skies for everyone.
{bob schneider}