Just My Opinion

November 9, 2016

All morning I have had this horrible and hopeless feeling that I can’t seem to shake. I have accepted that Roe v. Wade will very soon be a memory and that an America full of women did this to themselves. And while it might not be the popular line of thinking, any lawyer worth their salt always looks to cause and effect. What has yesterday’s choice opened the door for in the future?

For example, do we females still need to vote? After all, we have daddies and husbands and brothers that could easily make those decisions for us. We sure don’t need careers right? I mean other then birthing babies and cooking dinner. Heck, we can finally get out of jury duty too you know that right didn’t come about until the 1960s. (My mom seated Talladega County’s first female juror.) And logically, since our bodies are no longer our own I guess we can go back to being classified as chattel and let our daddies trade us off for cows and goats.

Laugh if you want at my doom and gloom, or just consider them the ranting of a female attorney who as an advocate for women’s rights has now found her job on the endangered species list. I guess I’ll go home now and take a nap…after all I don’t have any work to do at this point. But before I drift off I’ll put a pot roast in the oven and I’ll say my prayers. I’ll pray to my God, whom I hope isn’t the one getting credit for the great state of our country today, the following:

That you don’t have a son old enough to be sent to war when your “Commander in Chief” gets his feeling hurt because some other country’s leader disagrees with him;

That you don’t have a daughter that is the victim of a rape and finds she is pregnant with a daily reminder of the trauma she suffered;

That you have a strong sense of self-worth that enables you to withstand the misogynistic treatment you have now not only condoned but have ratified as acceptable;

That you are rich enough to avoid feeling the squeeze that those of us in the middle class endure as the rich continue to get richer;

That you remember today, and for the next four years, that God might have spoken and you might be getting what you prayed for…but that’s not always a good thing.

God Bless America.

Thank God for Health Insurance!

Have you ever watched the movie Miss Congeniality? Sandra Bullock, plays a frumpy FBI agent who goes undercover posing as a beauty pageant contestant named Gracie-Lou Freebush. In one scene she has been made over by her fabulous pageant coach and emerges from an airplane hanger as all of her fellow agents stand and gawk. She’s in a tight little dress, hair blowing, flawless makeup…..and then she trips and stumbles forward. For those of you who might have missed the movie I have attached the clip.

https://youtu.be/tcItlVmksyM

            After watching that scene I called my friend and pageant coach Dohn and told him that I suspected we were being followed. A few minutes later Sandy B. charged onto stage at the fictitious Miss United States Pageant wearing a Statute of Liberty costume and fell again. 

                                                                                                      

            This time I called Dohn back and said I was positive we were being followed.

            Obviously the comedic genius of Miss Congeniality was that a clumsy, tomboy, FBI agent successfully infiltrated the world of tall, poised, accomplished and overall perfect beauty queens and realized in the process that it was really hard work! It hit close to home for me because in 2005, I was the Gracie-Lou Freebush of the Mrs. America Organization.  But that is another story for another day…..back to my clumsiness. I would like to share with you a few of my greatest hits…pun intended.

 I was back stage at the Mrs. World Pageant in Amby Valley, India, waiting for my cue to join the “Parade of Nations” on stage. My Statute of Liberty gown, chosen to represent the strength of the women of our country, was lovingly created, and hand beaded, by New York designer, and TV personality, Rob Younkers. That too is a story for another time.

So, I waited nervously backstage, teetering on my 4-inch lucite, Barbie Doll heels while the back stage attendants pinned my “Mrs. America” banner to the front of my gown. Suddenly, one of the contestants, who having made clear early on that she felt no love for me or my country, breezed past and gave me a good solid push at the small of my back. Like a giant redwood this 6’3 Statute of Liberty crashed face first onto the floor. The back stage attendants, both petite ladies, managed to grab an arm each and pull me back up to a standing position just in time to stagger out onto the stage. I wish that I could blame all of my falls on chain smoking, international, glamazon, haters. But the sad truth of the matter is that all of my clothing should be made of bubble wrap as I am quite possibly the most accident prone person on earth.

One night, while in college, I was at a friend’s house getting ready to go out when she asked me to position her full-length mirror between the two of us. As I did so it lightly grazed over the top of my right leg. I felt no pain but watched the area above my knee open up as if it had been unzipped. That night, I received five stitches and large scar compliments of Dr. Poesy at DCH hospital and no longer believed you had to break a mirror to get seven years of bad luck.  In Dr. Poesy's defense, my friend said that I was loopy (no doubt from the shot they gave me upon arrival) and kept telling him that he looked just like Richard Dreyfus and that we should get married. Apparently he stitched me up in record breaking time and fled the room.

But over the years gravity seems to have been the hardest on me. I could not tell you the number of times I have fallen over while simply walking. Once on the way to a football game I was walking and talking to a friend when suddenly I face-planted into the parking lot. I have fallen in bathrooms more times than I would care to remember; one spill left me with a black eye and another with a head contusion. I have fallen out of doors, out of cars, off of porches and stages. No surface is safe.

 In 2011, I was invited to co-host the Mrs. America Preliminary Competition. I strolled onto the stage and immediately slipped on nothing. Fortunately I did not fall but instead caught myself in what looked like a surfer’s squat with both arms extended from my sides to balance myself. It was not the most flattering of poses to strike in yet another beautiful, designer gown. I am however beginning to understand why I have never been chosen as a designer’s muse…wait and also why I have never been invited back to emcee at Mrs. America. Speaking of which, the last time I was at the pageant, this time in Las Vegas, I almost fell face first off the stage as I reached down to hug someone and realized too late that I had misjudged the heaviness of my beaded gown. Gravity…..

In 2012, on the first run of the first day of vacation in Big Sky, Montana I managed to fall uphill, a feat I still cannot explain. In the process I broke my fibula and sprained my meniscus. There were multiple falls that followed that week due in part to the leg brace/snow/ice combination as well as the White Russian’s I consumed while watching everyone else ski.

In February, while walking into the courthouse, I was attacked by what appeared to be an innocent file cart. It snapped shut on my leg like a bear trap and again I found myself making a face-first descent toward the sidewalk. I later requested a copy of the surveillance video in hopes of winning big on America’s Funniest Home Videos but was denied. Fortunately, I suppose, one knee bore the brunt of the fall and although it saved my face, my knee bled profusely throughout that day. Try to imagine the confidence my sweet client must have felt as her attorney sat and picked gravel out of her tights. (We won by the way.) Four months later I still have that bruise on my knee because apparently the mark of the clumsy fades on its own timeline.

This brings us to last night. I wish I could tell you that my injury was the result of a glamorous fall that took place as I stepped out of my late grandmother’s beautiful claw-footed bathtub and into a vintage, 1950’s pin-up style, kitten-heeled, fur-topped, boudoir slipper…… but I think you know better. I stepped out of the tub without incident and was merely drying myself off when the towel brushed past a mole (this mole being a recent arrival that I was convinced was, in addition to being sneaky, cancerous) on my right side and ripped the top half of it away from my body. I ran a graceless lap around the upstairs of my house, screaming bloody murder and slinging bathwater everywhere as my dislodged mole flapped in the wind and left its own little trail of blood.  Luckily, Shawn didn’t slip when he came upstairs to render first aid.

This morning I went to see Dr. Bobo who, over the years, has patiently tolerated many of my self-diagnosed medical emergencies. Most recently he assured me that the pain in my forearms was not because I had bone cancer but most likely carpal tunnel. And, the deep bruise that still remains on my knee from that fall in February is not a “clear indication” that I suffer from leukemia, regardless of what Prevention magazine says. And today I learned that a mole being sneaky does not- in and of itself- make it more likely to be cancerous.

Provided I don’t break something between now and then I shall see the good doctor again next Friday to have my stitches removed. The pathologist’s report should be back by then and we will see which one of us was correct regarding the sneaky mole theory. 

MY (BELATED) NEW YEAR'S NON-RESOLUTIONS

MY (BELATED) NEW YEAR’S NON- RESOLUTIONS

Journal Entry January 5, 2016:

What will I do with my new year? Will I fill the pages of the brand new journal I start every January 1 with a list of new resolutions only to later add it to the stack of old journals with unfulfilled resolutions from years past. NOT THIS YEAR! I will no longer participate in the tradition of preserving in writing a list of my year’s upcoming failures. But, because I am nostalgic I will share with you, my four faithful readers, a list of a few repeat offenders from new years past.

I resolve to work out more, eat less and return to my Mrs. America fighting weight.

NAH! I am old. In all honesty I never imagined I would live to be this old. I wrote my first Last Will and Testament at age nine. My parents thought my fixation on my own demise made me a tad morbid but I just thought myself prepared. I gave away my top bunk, my pet rabbit, my collection of Little People toys and my paper plate Santa Claus with the cotton beard.  Having far outlived my own perceived life expectancy I feel I have earned the right to be lazy, fat and well fed.

I resolve to find a job that I enjoy.

I have always said that if I ever paid of my student loan debt that I would be done with the practice of law. Be careful what you wish for! I recently paid off my student loan debt and true to my threat; I went in search of greener grass on which to work. I began to reflect on the things that made me happy hoping to parlay one of those interests into a new career.

I found that I like to watch marathon episodes of Swamp People on the History Channel. I approached Troy Landry at a fan event and discussed with him my idea of his newest cast member being a former pageant contestant in high heels. He was still laughing as I stomped out of the front door of the sporting goods store.

I also like to drink wine. It appears that there are jobs ordering wine, selling wine, pouring wine, writing about wine and even stocking wine; however, I can’t seem to find anyone who wants to give me a job drinking the wine.

And so, running out of ideas, I went to Barnes and Noble and bought one of those personality assessment tests that is guaranteed to guide your career choices. I answered page after page of questions based on my educational background, dominant personality traits and transferable skills. Then I scored my test and turned to the last page for results. I’m not sure what I expected the results to show but it appears that I am qualified for a career as an over-the-road truck driver, a toll booth operator or some other form of solitary employment that has minimal reliance on mathematical ability. A lawyer it is!

I resolve to take more time for myself.

           

I don’t even understand what the hell that actually means. Who else would I take time for if I was taking time for someone and what do I do with the time once I take it? So far all of the “me” time I have taken has amounted to nothing more than me soaking in a bath tub, drinking wine and taking a stupid personality test that told me I have ZERO marketable skills. If this is what people mean by self-reflection I think I’ll pass.

 I resolve to write in my journal every day.

Judging from this my first entry for the New Year which was not written until the 5^th of January I think I can safely say that that ship has sailed. Hey! Maybe this year I will resolve to blog more than…….