Crunch Time Begins

"They finally got you, Hart, they sucked all that Midwestern charm right out of you. Look, he's got you scared to death. You're going to pass, because you're the kind the law school wants. You'll get your little diploma. Your piece of paper that's no different than this

[toilet paper roll]

and you can stick it in your silver box with all the other paper in your life. Your birth certificate, driver's license, marriage license, your stock certificates, and your will."

-The Paper Chase

Up at 5:15 this morning, and finished my last online International Tax lecture. My last Partnership Tax class begins in a couple hours. When I walk out of Estate Planning tomorrow night at 8:35, that'll be it, except for a review session later in the week.

So the week begins with stress and a tinge of sadness at the speed with which it all flew by.

Dean and Slane are somewhat less stressed.

I bought those lovely orange flowers to welcome Peg back here a couple weeks ago. The plant is called a Chin Chin, or so I was told by the nice little Hispanic flower salesman when I bought them off the sidewalk. They're poisonous. I caught Slane licking them a couple times last week. Slane's a little depressed.

This past weekend we made a rainy trip on the Staten Island Ferry to touch a toe in that borough, and ended up in a quaint little bar filled with old books. We ate baked, stuffed clams and duck wantons, and met a nice old couple who are taking care of their great-grandkids because the druggie mother has disappeared.

Yesterday we made it to church, then stopped for a pastry and an Irish coffee for me, cab for P, because we were suffering from the effects of our Staten Island adventure. We'd thought at one point about heading to Roosevelt Island, but instead came back to the condo to hang out and play old records before venturing out late afternoon for an amazing ramen meal at a little hole in the wall a block from here. Walking down the sidewalk on a clear, cool spring day, we passed a guy with a mustache in a flower-print dress. This is the Lower East Side, after all.

I need to get a little work done before class. The rising tide of law practice is still sloshing over the dike, although I've managed to avoid scheduling anything other than a couple phone conferences over the next two weeks.