Esquire Coffinberry's Great-Grand-Niece

The other day, on an expedition to the K-mart, a dvd of The Muppet's Christmas Carol landed in the cart and in due course came home. It has become my daughter's favorite Christmas video, and has played every day (and sometimes twice a day) since. She has two favorite tunes, the Scrooge opening number (mentioned above), and the "Marley and Marley" number. Though it is playing constantly, I know there are worse things out there (such as my childhood favorite "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", or worse yet I could be hearing the refrain "You'll shoot your eye out! You'll shoot your eye out!"). Tonight's movie, though, for after the supper and the story from Luke, will be the incomparable "It's a Wonderful Life."

200 years. Today marks 200 years since Joseph Smith, the prophet of the Restoration, was born. Mr. Coffinberry and I celebrated the day with a trip down to the temple in Littleton. It was a particularly special trip, because some close friends of ours were having a special ceremony to celebrate the adoption of their youngest son. It was an emotional occasion. For a second day in a row, I shed many tears. *** In other news, poor Shadowfax got a hot surprise when he decided to jump up onto the table this evening. Mr. Coffinberry had just set two pizzas hot from the oven on the table, and had turned to tell the kids to come for supper; I was fetching the pizza slicer from the kitchen drawer. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a black and white streak do a somersault in the air, land on the floor, and zip down the stairs. Looking over the counter, I see the reason for his sudden acrobatics - two footprints squashed through the cheese, hot tomatosauce oozing between toe marks. Poor baby. H...

I wept. It was good. Better than I hoped. I've read the entire series aloud to my children twice (once for the older set, once for the younger), and I was glad for the loving touch the filmmaker brought to the tale.

The dough for the cinnamon rolls is rising, Santa's sleigh is loaded, the children have all been shopping (using their own money, which made them very careful and thoughtful shoppers); let Christmas come. Mr. Coffinberry poked his head up the stairs this morning, announcing news from Slash-Dot, news that will probably make front page in tomorrow's Daily Times-Call, news that probably make for a nervous holiday for many of our friends. Seagate bought Maxtor. That makes for a lot of redundancy, and we all know what tech companies do when there's a redundancy, and they do it with a vengeance. This is not going to be good for the local economy. Ouch.

It is taking my body a little time to adjust to this downtime. I hadn't realized how adrenalized my life had been. So, since y'all heard from me last: - Survived Contracts, Property, Torts and CivPro. - The furnace got fixed. - I killed my lap top (never in a fit of pique slap your hand down on the quadrant where the hard-drive resides, the drive head doesn't like to make contact with the disk) - My laptop got fixed - Attended the Music Boosters meeting. Got jealous to learn that the Choir is going to Las Vegas this spring, and the Orchestra to Austria in 2007. - Enjoyed the Orchestra concert (though I had to bring the Property stuff to study, sorry to the middle school orchestra... ). - Attended the elementary school music program where I heard that the other reindeer left "poor Rudolph" out of their Monopoly Game. - And at the middle school choir concert, I heard that the reindeer spend their off time dancing their little behinds away - and the annual appearance...

I had to flake on my study partner this afternoon. I just gotta get some time to GROK Property & Torts, just by myself, before returning to the endless outline double-checking and running over the practice exams. There is just so much to grasp, darn it. And it's parent-teacher conferences tonight at LHS, and two concerts tomorrow night. So after school hours are just eaten up. Bleh. Why am I writing here then???

There is no more perfect marriage of music and word than John Rutter's "What Sweeter Music." Driving to or from school, I pop the "Cambridge Singers' Christmas Companion" in the cd-player, and it ends up being the song playing when I get where I'm going. I have to stop and wait and listen for it to finish. It is divine. What sweeter music can we bring Than a carol, for to sing The birth of this our heavenly King? Awake the voice! Awake the string! Dark and dull night, fly hence away, And give the honour to this day That sees December turned to May. Why does the chilling winter's morn Smile, like a field beset with corn? Or smell like a meadow newly shorn Thus on the sudden? Come and see The cause, why things thus fragrant be: 'Tis he is born. whose quickening birth Gives life and lustre, public mirth, To heaven and the under-earth. We see him come, and know him ours, Who, with his sunshine and his showers, Turns all the patient ground to flowers....

I realized last night two things. First, this is the last Thanksgiving with all the kids at home, as kids. One of our children becomes an adult before the next Thanksgiving, and will probably by away at school come November. And then we begin the phase with someone away on a mission or bringing home a girlfriend, and by the time the decade is out, grandbabies, maybe. But this is the last one with just our own babies. Which is what reminded me of the other thing. It was the night before Thanksgiving that Mr. Coffinberry proposed. Twenty years, now, I've worn this ring on my left hand. So glad he asked. So glad I said yes. *** An apple, a cherry, a pecan, and two pumpkin pies sit waiting in the refrigerator (we demolished one pumpkin pie and two lemon tarts last night with supper). Big bird is going into the oven as soon as I finish this. Then, while ol' Tom bakes, I shall try to boil down my contracts outline. Thirty-seven pages is way too long.

Today is Pie Day. Daughter has planned all the pies we shall make this afternoon: pumpkin, pecan, blueberry, cherry, maybe apple. We shall eat pie all weekend. *** Harry Potter IV was very enjoyable. Saw it last night, on a date with my beloved, after going out together to a delicious dinner at the Thai Kitchen, on north Main in Longmont. I highly recommend this surprising little restaurant. *** My Mom's Basic Pie Crust For every shell (a top or bottom crust counts as one shell) you need: 1 c. flour 1/3 t. salt 1/3 c. chilled shortening (I prefer butter Crisco) 3 T. COLD water (in Colorado, where everything is so DRY, I find it needs a somewhat more than this) You also need a rolling pin and a fine-weave cloth (I like flour-sack tea-towels from the farm-supply store). In bowl, combine flour & salt. Cut shortening into flour mixture using fork, pastry blender, or electric mixer, until it is grainy like cornmeal (don't mix together so that it gets doughy - if you do, you'...

"To Flush Out" - to rid, to purge, to eliminate. "To Flesh Out" - to elaborate, to give body and substance to, to complete the picture. I realize it's just a slight pronunciative nuance of schwa here, but please, use the right one! I am tired of hearing about people having to "flush out" the analysis of the Open Memo factors. I mean, really, doing that might clog up the toilets in Fleming, and that just would Not be a good thing coming into finals, now would it?

Today, I am glad for my personal policy of no-law-school stuff on Sundays. But, it creeps in anyway. I was helping out in the church nursery during Sunday School today, sitting on the floor and singing songs and reading stories to 1-1/2 and 2-year-olds. In the room was one of those light-weight pop-up play castles; another adult playing with the kids was picking the castle up and putting it over different children (essentially playing peek-a-boo). And what I found coming out of my mouth was, "See, a castle is a good under the Uniform Commercial Code..." You just can't get away from it. *** Daughter-one-and-only wants an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas. I remember wanting one when I was her age. (Oh the joy of retro-toys.) And getting one. And being sadly disappointed at how hard it was to use, and what it couldn't do. Waiting forever for a tiny cake with next-to-no-flavor; washing the pans (see them rust). And when you ran out of the tiny stale cake mix packages, not be...

Saturday afternoon. Son One, in kitchen eating a clementine, turns and suddenly says: "Oh, by the way, I heard about All-State." (long pause) "And...." say I. "I'm in. Mixed Choir. Bass." Hooray!

Offering your youth, Years you could have spent elsewhere. Thank you for serving. For Uncle Homer, who repaired airplanes, and Uncle Willie, who heard the call only to be struck down with a brain tumor and die in a military hospital, in WWII. Mr. C., who played in the Band. Aunt Jeannie, who nursed the wounded boys in Viet Nam, and died 25 years later from the virus she caught there. My husband, who spent years on a submarine watching over nukes, while I and my classmates debated the SALT II treaty and nuclear winter in our high-schools, in the waning days of the Cold War. Great-gran'ther John, 37 years old, who stepped up to preserve the Union, and marched 500 miles in the cold and wet on meager food and foul water, and died for the country he loved. Alexander, James, Nicholas, John and many others, who wouldn't let the British undo our freedom, in 1812. And Jonathan, Henry, John, Nicholas, Joseph, Jacob, David, Johannes, David, George, David, and a whole host of others whom I...

This time last Friday I was re-reading and re-tweaking my Open Memo, when I finally had to say "Enough! print it out already and be done with it!" Everyone had been so supportive and tolerant of my insanity going into those final hours, and I'm really grateful. It was so nice to have it finished, and dropped safely into the "box of doom" (as I called it when I gave my family a tour of the law building that weekend). That night, Son One had an audition for All-State Choir in Fort Collins (hurrah for being old enough to drive - and no, we don't know yet how he did), Son Two had a dress rehearsal for a symphony concert, and Son Three and Daughter-one-and-only had a Harvest Festival at the elementary school (Son Three was invited because he had been part of the fifth grade last year that did so well on the CSAP that the school was getting a special award that night). Had fun at the Festival... until Daughter, in the middle of doing the toy-walk (like a cake-walk...

A small town in eastern Tennessee discovered that by requiring commercial property owners to make their own arrangements for trash pick-up, the town would save $6,000 on landfill fees. The town signs a new contract with the trash-pickup guy. What a brilliant political move - conserving taxpayer's money! Three weeks later, the mayor comes blustering in to the council meeting: “He has not picked up city hall’s garbage for three weeks,” the mayor exclaims. “He says we are commercial which we are not and that if we want our garbage picked up we will have to get a dumpster or pay the dumping fee.” The town council members are perplexed. "You mean we are paying him all that money and he won’t even pick up our garbage?" says one. And another wonders how come the trash-pickup guy isn't honoring a past agreement to pick up government trash. A third council member has already checked this out with the town attorney (whom, it seems, nobody thought to consult before signing the...

Yesterday's tort's practice mid-term was interesting. In retrospect, I can see that I totally blew off the respondat superior analysis, treating the agency issue in a completely conclusory way (oops). I had the elements of battery, but was foggy on how to apply them to the facts (oops). Did well, I think, on the likely privilege of consent. It was amazing how much had to be addressed in just the one hour! The suggested Calabresi reading the appendix was helpful (Prof. Calhoun does want to see policy analysis on her exam responses), but I suspect that the Posner Law-and-Economics reading that was immediately before it might have been as much if not more helpful, considering that Posner (the same one? I am showing my ignorance) was the appellate judge for Mathias v. Accor Lodging(2003) , which appears to have been the real-world source for the fact pattern. I was gratified to see my analysis of the battery, however baby-steps, conclusory, and incomplete it may have been, was at...

I am sooooo not wanting to study for the CivPro midterm. And I am sooooo not wanting to look up Riske v. King Soopers, or look at any more IIMD stuff. Anyone got some motivation handy??? (roots around for chocolate)

Just got this email from one of our tutors... "If you do not get these emails, you are not on my [class name deleted] list. Please notify me immediately if this is the case. " Uh, right...

At last! A little bit of a vacation. Since my husband has to work, and the kidlets have school, it's just as well that I've got loads of outlining to do (along with a practice mid-term or two) and an open memo to research. But this afternoon, I just couldn't face studying. So I made two homemade beef pot pies and a pair of pumpkin pies. They're in the oven this very minute. Mmm-mmm! They smell delish! And the cinnamon crispies made from the leftover dough are yummy, too! **** Imaginary phone call with Sony: Sony Customer Service: Hello, how can we help you today? [see, you should be able to tell this imaginary right there!] Me: Do you have any cat-proof keyboards? SCS: What kind of keyboards? Me: Cat-proof. For my Vaio laptop. My cat keeps biting off the keypads, and I have to crawl around on the floor looking for the little pieces, and with with my old eyes, they're awful hard to put back together. I even broke a pin off one tiny piece yesterday. SCS: Our keyboards...

This morning's drive brought this to mind: WHEN the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock, And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock, And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens, And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence; O, it's then the time a feller is a-feelin' at his best, With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest, As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here— Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees; But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days Is a pictur' that no pa...