The Livin' is Easy

If I thought life would slow down after the wedding, I was wrong.  Correction--if I thought I would allow life to slow down after the wedding, I was seriously kidding myself.  The last few weeks have been full of activity, particularly of the social type.  

At the end of June, Cj and I made the trek up to Freeman, South Dakota to catch a few friends and family who were gathering in the area.  Our visit coincided with a rib festival, quilt show, and a reunion tour by Radar Ray and the Creekbusters.  After eating mostly vegetarian the past couple of months, sampling and judging a rib from each vendor left me with a seriously full and dangerously grumbly belly.  The only cure for what ailed me was sitting around a campfire, singing repetitive songs with homemade lyrics, drinking cheap beer, and catching up with old friends.  

The two following weeks I couldn't seem to stop myself from planning activities...  There are just so many important people, and so little time! Finally, Cj called me out on our excessive scheduling.  He helpfully pointed out that, at some point, we need to leave time for things like writing thank you notes, and playing music, and replanting all the pots on our deck whose plants perished in the Great Heat Wave of 2012.  And I remembered that I wanted to have time for those things too, and I knew it was time to back off. 

The frenzy of social activities originates from two hyperactive squirrels in the back of my brain: One is the squirrel that is frustrated by the unfairness of having all of my favorite people in the world in one place at the wedding, and not being able to spend quality time with any of them.  So of course I've been trying to spend quality time with everyone I know every free second ever since.  

The other squirrel is driven mad by a sense of foreboding about this fall's law school schedule.  I recently accepted a position on the staff of the Kansas Law Review.  This position will likely be the most expensive gold star on my law school resume, paid for with any free time I might have had remaining outside of my normal academic work.  I hope it's worth it, but it's not encouraging when law students a year ahead of me say "Congratulations" in the same tone of voice that they would say "I'm so sorry, I just ran over your puppy."

Ok so there are lots of reasons why it's great to be taking advantage of the summer by spending time with friends, but... yes, sometimes it's just too much.  So I'm trying to be more intentional about leaving free space in my schedule.  

Yesterday evening was quiet, and lovely.  Cj and I cooked a simple dinner together, using some of our new cooking devices, which are overflowing our kitchen and camping out forlornly in the music room while they wait for permanent homes.  Most of those kitchen gadgets are probably unneeded, but dang are they fun to experiment with.

We celebrated the sub-100-degree temperatures by eating on our back deck, and then biking the long KU hill to the Merc (our local organic granola bulk food grocery establishment), with empty mason jars in tow.  We coasted the whole way home with our jars full of rice and lentils.  The zero-effort roller coaster ride was totally worth hauling myself and my bike up that hill.  

Back at home we watched Back to the Future, which, incredibly, I had never seen before.  As with most classic movies that I should have seen as an 8 year old (other movies that have been on this list until recently: Edward Scissorhands, Labrynth, and Alice in Wonderland),  my impression of the subject matter was totally inaccurate... I think I thought Back to the Future was going to be some sort of intellectual science-fiction masterpiece.  As a result, I was in gleeful giggles most of the way through the movie.

I'm not done socializing or traveling for the summer yet.  This weekend is my birthday, and next weekend is the annual Larson-Friesen trip to the Lake of the Ozarks.  The following weekend Cj and I leave for our honeymoon in Colorado.  Well, summer is for life and friends and relaxing and projects.  Hopefully all in balance.  At least this week was one significant step back towards equilibrium.  

I have to admit, this semester is a lot harder than last semester.  Free time is rare and sacred.  My blog has fallen to the bottom of the priorities, and I'm definitely not hurting for opportunities to read, write, and edit.

But I got a new camera, and I've been taking a lot of pictures during my limited non-homework time.  Pictures don't require nearly as much time to perfect the message, so I'll share a few with you.

Baking in my spare time (this was early in the semester... I haven't baked in a while...):

Saturday Brunch

 Wine and Cheese Party in February:

 A Recent Visit to Mom and Dad's Farm:

Mardi Gras in Kansas comes to Free State Brewery:

 Law Prom (an excuse to wear my high school prom dress and buy a suit for CJ):

 Presidents' Day Party at the MVS House in Kansas City (Taft and Roosevelt made an appearance):

 Making Wedding Invitations with Abby (and Samson):

 Grilling and Lawn Games at CJ and Jacob's:

Well... that's it.  Now you know everything other than homework, internship, and job searching that I have done since January. It's really a pretty good life :)

Negligence; or "Trying Hard Enough Not To"

Today was my last day of classes of my first semester of law school? What? I feel like the fun has just started.  

Which is kind of true.  Now begins the great work of Outlining.  I skipped crew practice today to devote more of my time to synthesizing reams of notes into concise study guides and exam references.  Now, after staring at my computer screen for 7 hours, I am wired and can't sleep, because I missed my daily exercise and I can't stop thinking about negligence.

 You might not think the concept of negligence is inspiring at all, but, oh ho, you are wrong!  This riveting subject has finally shed light on a particularly frustrating and recurring puzzle from my childhood.

It all revolved around my dad's favorite accusation, which he reserved for those moments when one of my siblings or I had done something accidental yet totally exasperating.

For example, one day when I was about 5, I decided to open the fridge and see what I could see.  I don't remember what I was looking for.  I probably wasn't allowed to have it, but that's beside the point.  When I opened the door, a massive jug full of iced tea came crashing to the floor.  As best I could tell, it had been leaning up against the door.  I sure had made a mess, but I wasn't sure how to clean it up, so my only option was to let Dad in on the catastrophe.

As Dad stared at the mess in consternation, I could only come up with one defense, which I knew was absolutely true, and I always expected would excuse me from all blame and discipline: "I didn't try to..."

What followed became the oft-repeated and inevitable response: "You may not have tried to, but you didn't try hard enough not to!!"

What is a little kid to say to that anyway?  I knew that it offended my 5-year-old sense of fairness and justice (which was already quite robust at that age), but I had no idea why, and I certainly wouldn't have been able to verbalize it.

Well! Guess what: It turns out that "not trying hard enough not to" is called negligence, an awkward and complicated concept, which I just spent the last several weeks picking apart and sifting through.

There's a reason why our torts book covered intentional torts first before moving on to tackle negligence. It's much easier to blame someone when it's clear that 1) they knew what they were doing, 2) they knew that it was going to hurt someone, and 3) they did it anyway.  In my 5-year-old sense of the world, this was the only blame-worthy offense.  If you didn't try to, you couldn't be blamed.

Plus, If I didn't try hard enough not to (I fumed to myself) how was I ever supposed to know what it meant to "try hard enough?"

Well, theoretically, I should have been able to figure it out.  It turns out negligence is based upon the duty of care that each person has, based on what they actually knew (or should have known) about the situation. Their actions are then judged to be appropriate or negligent, based on their knowledge under the circumstances.

Sometimes the factor of "knew or should have known" is altered by the type of person you are dealing with.  For example, a 5-year-old.  What kind of knowledge can we assume that 5-year-old Miriam had?  Well first of all, probably no one could have known that the fridge was booby trapped, ready to dump iced tea on whoever happened to open the door next, whether they be 5 or 50 years old.

On the other hand, 5-year-old Miriam definitely knew she wasn't supposed to be rummaging for snacks all by herself, and probably even knew that such ventures tended to lead to spills and messes.   If we can impute that knowledge to my 5-year-old self, we might conclude that the age-appropriate duty of care required asking for help before embarking on solo snacking expeditions, and that I already knew what was required of me, pre-iced-tea-Niagra-Falls...

This is no doubt what Dad was thinking as he glared at the lake of iced tea on the kitchen floor, reflected in my pouty tear-filled eyes.

It might have helped if he had explained that to me... On the other hand, my inability to conceptualize duty of care was only half of my righteous indignation.  The other half stemmed from the inherent unfairness of the decision being solely Dad's.

In a negligence case, it's up to a judge and/or jury to decide the knowledge imputed, the foreseeability of the outcome of certain behavior, and the duty of care required.  For me, it was only up to Dad, and I wouldn't get the chance to argue that I, as "just a little kid," should be given a little break on trying hard to prevent accidents; or that no one could have foreseen the precarious pitcher; or that opaque fridge doors are an inherently risky design flaw.

I didn't know about juries or due process rights, but I knew something about the whole system just wasn't fair.

This drove me crazy, and, on at least one occasion, I lectured my parents on the inherent injustice of the parent-child power imbalance.  ...I'm not sure I got my point across; I'm pretty sure it mostly just amused them.  (Which further infuriated me, and eventually motivated me to go to law school, thanks Mom and Dad! just kidding...)

At least I now know how I will handle this situation if there's ever a next generation of little Miriams.  Will I use the "didn't try hard enough not to"?  Oh, yeah.  Most definitely.  It's perfect; just incomplete.
Knowing how frustrating this concept is to understand, I will make sure to sit down with them and explain:

"You see, honey, there's this thing called negligence..."
(Ahhhh, my kids are gonna LOVE me...)

<--the real culprit.

This one's not gonna get stuck in cyberspace

It's time for an update. I've neglected my blog for too long, and I miss it.  About once every couple of weeks I've started a new post, only to abandon partly done in the "drafts" section of my blog.  Worse yet, my best ideas usually get abandoned in the "drafts" section of my brain, which seems to function best on my 10-minute bus ride back from school, only to be overridden by thoughts like "Do I have time for a snack before crew practice?"

My downfall is my perfectionism.  I like to have a nicely wrapped up and edited train of thoughts to present.  Usually there's something more pressing or interesting to do than edit myself, and by the time I return to it weeks later, the train has left the station.  But tonight I am determined that when I go to bed there will be a blog post here, even if just a stream of consciousness.

I started today at a 6:30 crew practice.  Did you know I joined the KU crew team?  I can blame or thank one of my law school classmates (who also happens to be an assistant crew coach) for enticing me to join my first team sport since 7th grade volleyball.  In case you're wondering, it's going a lot better than 7th grade volleyball.  I sometimes need to attend the morning varsity practices, and I actually love the warmup jog in the dark, gliding out on the river while it is still black and murky, watching the sun rise just in time to row back to the dock and drive home for a well-earned shower and breakfast.

Monday's schedule is easiest, with only a two-hour afternoon property class waiting for me... After practice this morning I made myself french toast and set up my books and research materials on my bed.  With the number of books and binders and computer parts that I use to research and outline class materials, I usually need a bigger desk than what I have available, so my bed often substitutes.  The problem with my bed is... the obvious problem.  I powered through an hour of focused work before succumbing to the temptation to nap in the sunny spot that had appeared right where my computer was sitting.

Afternoon brought a 4-hour property class.  Our dear professor scheduled a supplementary 2-hour class session today to help us further illuminate the subject of Estates and Future Interests.  He gleefully referred to this session as the 32-Annual Property Fest.

To some extent, I think is it is an interesting mental exercise to identify whether a will violates the Rule Against Perpetuities, or whether someone holds land in a Fee Simple Absolute or a Fee Simple Subject to an Shifting Executory Interest... But that is a limited extent.  Four hours is a long time to discuss it, and how our professor has survived 32 years teaching it without his brain melting is beyond my comprehension.

Prof. DLT rewarded our patience by buying us pizza.  It turns out there is a lot of free pizza involved in law school.  Most days there are presentations and guest speakers over the lunch hour, often sponsored by various law school organizations, and the usual gimmick to boost attendance is to offer free food.  It's not that I'm complaining about free food, because I would probably attend these lectures anyway, and I'm both hungry and poor all the time these days.  But this afternoon I had to catch the bus home, so I grabbed a slice quick and headed out the door.

The bus is a good time of day for me.  It forces me to sit still and not do anything for a few minutes.  Plus, I like people watching, especially through campus.  There are some great fashions going on on college campuses in the Midwest.  I wish everyone didn't think it was a good idea to wear leggings as pants, because it's not a style that works for everyone.  Every once in a while I see one of my former students... which is weird.  I like talking to bus drivers, and interacting with my fellow bus patrons.  Like the little girl today who wanted to show me her halloween candy loot, and then kept up a running narration about honey badgers for the remainder of my ride on the bus.

Evenings are for homework and for spending time with CJ and my housemates.  Evenings are quiet, and nice.  So far, as long as I fit in an hour or two of work after dinner on weeknights, I can keep up in class, although I have suffered through a couple evenings of researching in one room while listening to my friends playing games in the next room.  I still would rather spend the evening at home than isolated in the library.  I like the homework (for the most part), and I like my friends, and I really like CJ so I'm usually pretty relaxed right about this time of night.   And sleepy.  And I think this a good place to end this post for today.  More organized thoughts soon to come, hopefully.  Happy Monday and Happy Halloween everyone!

Style v Function: Law School Day 7

After four days of gentle orientation classes, my classmates and I experienced our first "real" class on Tuesday.  That is, the kind of class where you are given a dense reading the day before, and may be called upon to recite some or all facts of the case in front of your professor or classmates.

According to traditional wisdom, and the warnings of all those who have come before us, this is a moment to be seriously afraid of, or at the very least, somewhat nervous.  

I have to admit, I was totally excited.  In fact, if these last seven days are any indication, I am going to love law school.  From everything I know so far, both preparing for and performing during class are going to be considerably less terrifying and more fun than preparing for and performing during a class of high school sophomores less than interested in learning US History.  

So, I may have intentionally worn a bright teal jacket on the day of our much-heralded first class, and I was, indeed, the second person in a room of 140 called upon to answer!  Somewhat to my disappointment, the professor let me say about three words before moving on to someone else.
(insert overdramatic sigh)

One thing I don't like about law school so far:  Schlepping heavy books and class-related paraphernalia to campus, from class to class, and back home again.

The first few days I started out with a large tote bag. Call it vanity, but I was really hoping to not have to "regress" to an ugly, sporty backpack.  I'm excited to be a student, but I'm not excited to look like one.

Well... it didn't take me long to realize that, if my trusty tote was mostly filled by my laptop, notebook, tiny orientation folder, and wallet, it wasn't going to take me very far during classes.  Besides, the off-balance ache at the end of the day told me that hauling a tote bag on one shoulder was something my back might regret in the future.

I resisted for a few days, adding extra bags and my lunchbox on to supplement the inadequate carrying capacity of my poor tote.  As I looked around the classrooms, I noticed I wasn't the only one trying to find the right combination of carrying containers to match the demand of law school.  On the last day of orientation, the assistant dean of students even delivered a small lecture on the necessity of making our peace with rolling backpacks.  "I don't think I could even find a rolling backpack big enough," I heard someone mutter on the way out of the room.  "Maybe if I get one for each hand."

I dreamed of a backpack that was rugged but stylish--a backpack that would be padded and sturdy and beautiful.  It had to accommodate about 30 pounds of books, laptop, sustenance, and clothing layers (to cope with the ridiculously over-airconditioned interior of Green Hall)... and yet accentuate my fabulously classy fashion sense.

After much research, I discovered this backpack doesn't exist, and unfortunately I don't have the skills or patience to create it.  

So I gave up on image and decided to try out the one bag left in my arsenal that might still work out: A small backpacking backpack, scavenged from my friend Jacob's closet-cleaning extravaganza.  At the time I inherited it, I had no particular use for it--it's too small for actually backpacking with, and too huge and heavy-duty for everyday use. Or so I thought....

It turns out it was made for law school.  The top pocket serves as my lunch box, the front compartment has lots of minipockets to protect and organize my cellphone, pens, bus schedule, chapstick, and ibuprofen.  The padded back protects my back from sharp textbook corners, and protects my laptop from getting smushed.   It may be red, gray, black, and covered in zippers and straps and plastic buckles, but it worked beautifully for me today.

So, law school hurdle number one surmounted.  Wonder what will be next? 

Playing with my food

After several weekends in a row of traveling, I'm finally home for a consecutive Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, which is leading to a sort of experimental cooking and preserving binge.  Or, as much of one as could be expected without proper equipment or expertise for most of the kinds of kitchen projects I'm trying to do.

There's more to this than a love for cooking (although that might turn out to be a by-product of the experimentation).  The farm where I work has recently had an overflow of seconds, especially partially bug-eaten corn and cucumbers this past week.

Yesterday as I was leaving work, I loaded up a few cucumbers and ears of corn in my backpack.  I turned my back for a second and my two-year-old coworker appeared behind me helpfully toting as many additional cucumbers as he could carry.

"I licked one of them," he announced as he added them to the others.  I didn't have the heart to turn him away, so I adopted them all, even the slimy one.

In addition to the Lawrence-produced bounty, I received a visit from my parents and brother this week, which meant I also received several more ears of corn, hot peppers, cherry and slicing tomatoes, onions, two gallons of milk, a quart of skimmed cream, and a skinned, whole chicken.

I was risking the wrath of my housemates by taking up far more than my share of the fridge.  Something had to be done.

Yesterday my coworkers Colby and Sally came over to help use up some of the produce bounty, but since they work at the farm too, they brought their own orphan cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and onions.  Colby set the agenda for the evening: gazpacho and mozzarella cheese.  We set up a dual kitchen with Colby and Sally on one side of the counter chopping and whuzzing up the produce, while I set up the mozzarella on the stove.

I made things more difficult for myself by suggesting that we do a side-by-side comparison of fresh milk and store-bought milk.  The gazpacho was a great success, and I'll blame the semi-failure of the mozzarella on the over-complication of trying to watch the temperature on two batches at once.

By semi-failure, I mean that what we ended up was some kind of cheese, but it definitely was not mozzarella.  After 20 minutes of waiting for curds to form, it was clear that something was wrong with the store-bought batch.  Colby did a quick google of the problem, and I realized that the aluminum (not stainless steel) pot was probably the issue.   While he was at it he found a recipe for making ricotta from the left-over whey (which I'll come back to later).

Meanwhile, Sally and I scooped the beautiful very-mozzarella-like curds out of the fresh-milk batch.  The curds looked and felt a little like gak, that neon-colored goo we played with in the mid-90s.   ...So this step is partly responsible for turning what should have been a 30-minute-mozzarella into a 90-minute-mozzarella.

The next steps of the recipe called for successive heatings and kneadings of the curds until they became stretchy and smooth.  It was only after the mozzarella failed to become stretchy and smooth that I read the following steps in the recipe, which listed all of the potential ways to screw up the heating and kneading.

We had managed to accomplish several of the pitfalls of curd-kneading: over-heating, over-working, and taking too much time in general.  The recipe didn't offer any suggestions of what to in the case that your cheese does become "hard and unworkable." We divided and snacked on the small chunk of not-mozzarella cheese, and called it a night.

Today I came back to the whey sitting on the back of the stove, and made a super-nice batch of whey ricotta. It went really quickly (aside from the part where I tried to substitute regular cotton fabric for cheesecloth... let's just say I'm going to be buying some cheesecloth if I do this again) and was a super easy recipe.



And then I turned my attention to the failed batch of store-bought-milk mozzarella.  By this point the cultures had done a little bit of work, and I had tiny flecks of curd, which looked a little like the whey ricotta did before I strained it.

So I strained the failed batch too, and voila, now I have two slightly different kinds of... what I'm just going to go ahead and call ricotta.  I also revisited the not-mozzarella ball, which had turned into a sliceable, dry, sharp-tasting, and delicious lump.  I don't have a name for it, but I like it.



My next two projects were the cucumber and corn.  Cucumber salad turned out pretty delicious with a partially improvised recipe based on this one (minus 1/2 c. mayo, plus 1/2 c. yogurt, plus lots of onions, if you must know), although I'm also intrigued by this recipe with chili powder, which I might try when I get more cucumbers next week.



I had planned to can the corn as my first solo canning experience.  I was proud of myself for improvising or hoarding all of the canning supplies I would need, but partially into the process, I realized I was missing one essential piece of equipment.  After searching all over the house for something that could substitute for a rack that keeps the jars off the bottom of the pot, I gave up and decided to just freeze this batch.  (It just occurred to me that I could probably have fashioned something out of wire clothes hangers... shoot, that would have made for a good story).  All's well that ends well: There are four containers of frozen corn, cucumber salad for dinner tonight, a good bit of ricotta-like cheese, and most importantly...

Space for more produce in the fridge!!!

P.S.  I have a confession to make. When I think about the food production and preservation talents that generations of people before me had to perfect, and what a lot of people in other parts of the world still do to feed themselves today, it is frankly embarrassing to me to be writing a blog post about my little forays into food production, like its some big impressive adventure. 
I'd like to get to the point where preserving food isn't something for me to write home about.  I'd like to see us get to the point where growing, processing, and cooking food just... something we all do.

Transportation, Continued.

I just got back from my second day riding my new bike to work! Last I wrote I had just fixed my car, and just gotten a flat tire on my bike.  But then I took a one-week intermission from working in order to drive said car to Minnesota, hitch a ride with CJ's parents to Ontario, and experience my first ever Fishing Trip.

Thanks to some quick-draw emailing and fancy footwork just before leaving on vacation, I am now in possession of what very well may be my dream bike.

I have to thank craigslist for introducing me to Bob, who not only sold me a great bike for $35, but also entertained CJ and me with stories of family trips to civil rights protests when he was a kid.  Bob also expressed some concerns that perhaps our generation is apathetic and, therefore, that our world is headed for disaster.  CJ and I did our best to reassure Bob that not everyone in our generation is (as he fears) obsessed with Paris Hilton, and that in spite of the lag in peace protests in comparison to the 60s, there are many of us who are socially active. ...Although Bob (a self-described "recovering attorney") only laughed when I described law school as part of my plan to make the world a better place.  Anyway, we finally said goodbye to Bob and drove away with my new bike:

Part of the low price was because of brittle tires that were beyond any hope of inflation, but a visit to my local bike shop supplied me with the tires and tubes to fix her up.  I even cleaned out the gears with q-tips and WD-40, and wiped the whole frame down.   2 hours later I took my first ride around the block, and if it hadn't been 102 degrees outside, I would have found an excuse to just keep going.

As you can see from the pictures, this bike satisfies pretty much all of last post's wish list, and more! I added a bell and lights to it (still no rearview mirror), it came with an awesome folding basket, and the hybrid tires are perfect for the not-so-well-maintained streets of East Lawrence.

Plus, it's such a lovely color of light blue!!


I shared with CJ my recently-discovered additional evidence that this bike and I are soul mates.  "Look, it's a Mirada!" He just stared at me.  "Get it? MIR-ada!"  I think maybe he raised an eyebrow... at any rate, he wasn't getting it or he wasn't impressed, so I thought I'd better up the cleverness a level.   "Plus, the word for bike in German is RAD! So it's like, MIR-RAD... Mir's bike, get it?"

....Sigh.... I need to pick a more appreciative audience for my incredible wit.

Speaking of which, last Wednesday I thought up a clever plan for saving myself a few blocks of riding:  First, I would ride to work, and then afterwards, continue the ride to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner.

Well, I spent a couple of hours that day pulling up onions in a waterlogged field that was full of weeds taller than I am, the top 8-10 inches of which were heavy-laden with pollen.  Afterwards my jeans and shoes were caked with mud up to my thighs, my arms were covered with itchy bumps and scratches, and I had yellow powdery polkadots glued to me with sweat from head to toe.

I don't know why I ever think that working six hours in 100 degree heat could be followed by anything other than a shower.

I wasn't sure it was kind of me to expose strangers to my general disgustingness, but I figured I might as well get all my sweating and exercise out at once, so I rode to the store as is.  I just tried to avoid aisles where there were other shoppers...

I got to the counter as soon as possible, only to catch a bit of disappointing conversation: On the occasion of my first bike ride to Dillons, the only grocery store in East Lawrence, I found out that the store will be officially closing at the beginning of August... two weeks from now.  

Theoretically, it's for a good reason: Dillons plans to rebuild its Mass Street store, in a more attractive, more energy-efficient, and more community-oriented style.  I guess that will be nice.  But until then, East Lawrence, and my current Personal Biking Radius, will be without a grocery store.  It's weird to me that in a place with so many establishments for eating and drinking, there's not a single place to buy just plain food.

The next closest grocery store is Checkers, another mile South.  I actually prefer Checkers, mostly because it sells meat and milk from local farms.  So maybe this is just the motivation I need to get working hard on expanding the bikeable radius.  Hey, if my little brother can run 6 miles before 8am, surely I can make it to Checkers on my bike.

...Which reminds me of some errands I need to run (exchanging Isaiah's birthday-present running shorts for a bigger size so they're not QUITE so short...), and if I want to get them done, I need to get out the door and on my sweet new ride.