Oh Trenchie, I hardly knew you.

I spent all winter anticipating the day when I would don a beautiful new trench coat in the Spring. Since December, I have been scouting catalogue after catalogue, shopping-site after shopping-site, in hunt for the perfect trench.

From cheap to sleek, nice to nouveau, cotton to polyester, I've seen them all. And after months of searching, I can announce that I've finally found IT. The One. Perfect price point. Perfect construction. Perfect details.

Behold, the trench of my dreams:

Notice the tortoise shell buttons and buckles, the traditional double-breasted trench styling, the on-seam side slash pockets. Ah, at last, the holy grail, the stairway to heaven, nirvana, eureka!

But a funny thing happened on the way to perfection.

In the end, I could not bring myself to buy it.

Why? At first I could not explain it. Why? Why, after months of pouring time, money, and effort into finding this coveted object, would I just let it slip away?!! All the previous duds I had purchased and returned...was it all for nought?!

I can think of two minor reasons and one major one:
(1) It's a wee bit too pricey.
(2) Michael thinks it's too fancy-pants.
(3) What social psychologists call, the theory of reactance: When our sense of freedom is threatened, we attempt to restore it.

I can't bring myself to own a trench coat because after scouring the fashion retail world for months, I realized they are one of the top 10 trends for Spring. I hate following trends! I want to assert my individuality and autonomy! No marketing ploy is going to make me buy anything! No trench, no leggings, no cropped jackets, no jewel-colored tights, and no ballet flats! (Ok, maybe just one pair of ballet flats).

So in the end I returned it,
the trench of my dreams,
the shortest love affair that never was.

A Better Way

Anna Mae, born to Chinese parents, was adopted by an American family nearly 8 years ago. Very soon after the adoption (3 months I think) Anna Mae's biological parents said they wanted her back again. The Bakers said No.


Thus began a long custody battle (8 years!!!) that ended recently with the Tennessee Supreme Court ordering Anna Mae to be returned to her birth parents.

The Bakers are devastated and claim that Anna Mae is too. After living all her life in Tennessee, she may have to move all the way to China where she knows no one and does not even speak the language.

What was the cause of this tragic controversy?

Apparently it was some horrible miscommunication. Some unfortunate ambiguity. The birth parents thought they were placing their child in temporary foster care from which they could retrieve her soon thereafter. The Bakers thought it was permanent adoption.

Of course the real tragedy is: Why couldn't they have just settled this 8 years ago?!!!!! Now it's a lose-lose situation.

This kind of case really brings out the Mediator in me. After taking the Negotiation Clinic I feel the kind of crazy optimism that all negotiators feel: We can work this out. There is a better way.

The first step in negotiation is identifying a common ground. In this case, it's easy and powerful: Anna Mae's best interest.

No party wants her to be miserable in a foreign land or estranged from the deepest sources of her identity, her biological parents.

The next step is to brainstorm options. Lots of options. Creative options with no ownership and may be completely impractical but will get the juices of cooperation flowing. They say Clinton was very good at this. He would relentlessly spitball for hours until something stuck.

Could the birth parents stay in America and live close by? Could the birth parents share custody with the Bakers, like divorced spouses? Could a neutral-third-party child psychologist give the final say?

The beginning of the solution is when the parties realize that this is a JOINT problem. It's not YOU versus ME like good versus bad, as if there will be a winner versus a loser. It's not a zero sum game in which a pie is being split. The child needs BOTH sets of parents. As most divorces know, when a child is involved, either we all win, or we all lose.

More info on Wikipedia.

Mommy, what's a scrotum?

That is something I would never want to hear from my 10 year old child. So why did award winning children's author, Susan Patron, put that word in her newest book, The Higher Power of Lucky?

She says the word is, "delicious..."

Hmmm...I think that explanation actually makes everything worse.

Read more about this bizzaro controversy here.

Ice-capades

A recent ice storm has provided the perfect platform for Michael's own rendition of Happy Feet: (the disembodied chuckling voice is mine, obviously)

Love is in the air...

All this talk about love makes me think...

I haven't lived that long or experienced that much, but this I know. The sweetest love of all for a woman is: SisterLove.

Sure the love of a man is nice. But Men are from Mars. They don't and can't and frankly shouldn't be able to understand "everything." There are parts of our psyches that only fellow Venusians can ever really get. And who's going to be there for you when you and your man have issues?

And sure it's great to have a loving family. But they love you without any real choice in the matter. Heck, you share their genes, so it's like loving an extension of themselves. But girlfriends choose you. They really really like...YOU.

It's the purest love there is. It's not because of euphoric chemicals, hard-wired by evolution to help us procreate. It's not an addiction, a compulsion, a convenience, or a social convention.

It is the truest form of human compassion.

So why is it so hard to find SisterLove? We've all heard (and unfortunately experienced) that women are catty and jealous. They all compete to be the Queen Bee and fake being nice only to stab their "friends" behind their backs first chance they get. That's a pity. And that's why SisterLove is so precious.

To find sisters whom you trust completely,
who will tell you the Truth,
who *genuinely* care,
I have been blessed.


To three great loves who need serious work on their "sexy" poses
(I said sexy! Not bored, not lost, and not confused!):

Happy Valentine's Day.

Law and Disorder Updated

Ok, old habits die hard. I've done such a bad job keeping up my lawschool blog that I can't shake the need to announce I've updated it. So sue me, I lied. New entry:

Everything I Need to Know About Corps I Learned From Dr. Seuss.

"Black Don't Crack," said Oprah.

Can you guess how old this woman is? Bet you can't!

After watching a recent Oprah show on aging, I am convinced that 50 is the new 30. (To clarify: this woman is NOT 50.) The show was a virtual panoply of post-menopausal women looking fabulous and fit and feeling vibrant and energetic.

I used to think my life would basically start heading downhill by 35, but these women have given me a new lease on life. I used to think I have only 8 good years left in me (and resented the fact that 4 of those precious years would have to be taken up with pesky child-rearing). But since learning the stay-young secrets of these youthful grandmas, I've taken my one proverbial foot out of the grave.

What are their secrets?

Well, I think the common denominator is serious devotion to exercise. Oprah wanted to make it sound all "spiritual" and "deep" by saying that the common denominator was that they all "loved themselves" and felt "open to experiences." But that would be putting the cart before the horse. Exercising and being fit produces feelings of competence and confidance, which then leads you to positive experiences. Oh yeah, and another secret is A LOT of moisturizer.

So how old was that woman?

Seventy years old. I kid you not.

A Feat of Supernatural Strength

Sometimes you're up,

mostly I'm down.

I've been free falling,
and today I hope the brakes go on.


Do you know how hard it is
to stop the descent of a heavy heart,
accelerating as it gathers velocity?

Getting Paid Forward

2002 was a bad year for me as a driver.

(1) In early March I crashed into a man at the intersection because I was studying a map while driving.

(2) The very next week I bumped into another man because I failed to realize the light had turned red. He stopped his car to see if his baby was ok.

(3) The week after that I knocked a woman's driver-side mirror out when I was backing out of a parking space.

(4) A few months later I totalled my car on a busy L.A. freeway, fishtailing into three lanes and finally ended up facing oncoming traffic as my car slammed into the center divide.

(5) And last but not least I dented another guy's car a few months later as I pulled into my church's parking lot. He told me it was his wedding day that day.

The amazing thing about all of this is that each person whose car I damaged decided not to make me pay. I can't explain it, but my insurance record remained as pristine as a mountain lake that year...as pure as the fresh driven snow.

I feel like I owe the universe.

Perv-o-vision?

Did someone send me a beautiful jewelry box and forget to tell me about it?

Seriously. Last week I opened my front door to find a package waiting for me and inside was a beautiful wood jewelry box that plays music and everything. The package had my name and address on it but no note or return address. I think it was shipped straight from the manufacturer.

I unwrapped it and put it on my dresser but Michael made me put it back in the box and stuffed it in our junk closet. He was suspicious. "What if some perv sent it to you and installed a hidden camera in it?"

Normally I would just laugh off a comment like that but I had just finished watcing a Dr. Phil show on crazy stalkers.

The most likely identity of my mysterious donor is my father-in-law's wife. She's given me a couple jewelry boxes in the past (in person) and maybe just forgot the card.

The Age of Miracles is Over

Now that I'm back in the law-blog-updating groove I won't be announcing the times I update it anymore. You're on your own.

Features of this semester will include:

Administrative Law: boring but ubiquitous
Corporations: aka, business for lawyers
Mediation and Concensus Building: aka, why can't we all just get along and not go to court?