Feeling Rejected Even Though I'm the One Who Broke Up

Today, I got a letter from the State Bar notifying me that they had accepted my resignation and my name has been stricken from the roll of attorneys.

Gulp.

You'd think they would have at least tried to talk me out of it or something.

Feels weird. VERY Weird.

It was a beautiful weekend. The leaves are falling a week or so early.






Here is a maple tree a couple of weeks ago:


And here it is, last weekend:



Here is a photo of the neighbor's back yard:


Here is a closer photo of the neighbor's yard:


And here is a closeup. Yes. It is a cactus:


Evelyn likes to sit out on the deck and enjoy the day.




She is less touchy feelie than Pearl (see below) but she will come in the house and stare at me until I follow her out and sit with her.


She likes the company.


She gazes out over her domain, contentedly.


I think this is her doggie version of a sewing room and I am her gazing buddy.

Both of them have beautiful coats, especially this time of year.






We got quite a bit accomplished, last weekend.

Early Saturday morning, a friend of ours dropped by with his Basset Hound, Jake, to pick up one of our extra computers. The girls were giddy at having company and watching Pearl and Jake chest bump was a hoot. He is shaped so differently from them that it was comical. But he was a really good natured boy whose jowls spewed spittle whenever he shook his head. Pearl was utterly enchanted. I could see little hearts floating over her head all day.

Later, I dragged out some things to the driveway and set up a garage sale sign. No real business and we weren't really monitoring it. I was sort of hoping someone would steal most of it. A new immigrant who looked like she was on a deprivation diet and only spoke broken English stopped by to browse. She spotted a hedge trimmer and wanted to know what it was for. We demonstrated it for her. She wanted to try it and liked to scared us both to death waving it around. She was a little wild.

I had a box of never been opened twin sized cotton purple sheet sets. I bought them on a closeout at Walmart to use to practice on the longarm. She kept telling me that her daughter liked red (red???) and asking if I had red twin sheet sets. I must have told her no a dozen times and since all the sheet sets were right there, I am not sure why she kept asking. Did she think I had the "good stuff" back behind the counter? And red?? I honestly think I'd have remembered that.

In addition, for reasons neither of us understand and are embarrassed to admit, we have two garden weasels. If you have ever used one, you know they are useless. The shopper showed great interest in them and tried to till up our yard. Husband was waving his arms around to try to stop her but she seemed oblivious. I understand the language difficulty in not recognizing the words he was using ("Stop! Don't do that!") However, I am not sure how she managed to completely ignore the arm waving and urgent tone of voice. Perhaps she thought he was having a medical problem. If she did, I don't know why she utterly failed to acknowledge that he was acting strangely. Maybe it was a cultural thing. Remind me that if I ever have a heart attack to try to do it in New Orleans or some southern state where they will give you sweet tea and cornbread and drive you to the hospital, themselves, if they think you are feeling poorly.

We told her truthfully, that the garden weasel didn't work very well. Thirty-five minutes later, she left $3.95 lighter with two plastic shoe racks, a small, never been used picture frame, a hedge trimmer and a purple twin sheet set. She declined to buy a set of garden frogs my mother gave me because I wanted a dollar for them and she was only willing to pay .75. As she was leaving, husband brought out both garden weasels and presented them to her, FOR FREE! She just beamed as she drove away with her treasures. Unloading those garden weasels practically made it all worthwhile.

After spending all that time, tumping the stuff in the dumpster makes much better financial sense, even taking into account the cost of renting a dumpster.

On Saturday night, Husband and I invited a man he works with to a nice dinner at our favorite restaurant. He and his wife came by the house for a drink, first. I'd never met them, before. The wife was elegant, funny and had flawless manners. She perched on the edge of the love seat with a full glass of red wine, lovely jewelry sparkling in the light, pretty scarf. I felt dowdy.

That is when Husband let the girls in.

Within an instant, Pearl raced in, leaped on the love seat with the wife, crawled up her back, locked her arms around her neck and proceeded to "kiss" her ear. Pearl was jubilant! (you'd think she'd caught a squirrel). The wife was frantically trying to balance the nearly full glass of red wine, valiantly trying to not spill it on the carpet and furniture. We have no tables to set it on because they all went on the last truck. That essentially left her unable to protect herself from this white monster hugging and kissing her with abandon. And since Pearl had a death grip with her paws around her throat, she couldn't even stand up. She was as effectively confined as if we'd used duct tape. I am just grateful Pearl did not proceed to hump her. Humping is not her way but that is about all she could have done to make it worse.

I felt pretty bad about it. I mean, the poor woman doesn't even know us and I am sure she didn't want to offend us because her husband and mine are work buddies. I peeled Pearl off her and Evelyn got so excited I had to tackle her to keep her from doing her own version of smooch the visiting varmint.

Ahem. My husband has raised savages.


Bless the wife, she was such a good sport. We went out to eat and had a grand time. Staff at the restaurant all came out to hug us since they learned we are moving. I promised we would come back at least one more time before we left. Since we won't have any pots/pans or perhaps even a microwave after a couple of weeks, we may go back more often than that!


Husband has been listing things on Craigslist and making a good dent in the items we don't want to take with us but still have value. He posted our gas grill online, this afternoon, and we had a buyer within thirty minutes. He came and picked it up within two.

We emptied out a pantry. I had numerous cake mixes that had an expiration date in 2006. I figure we bought them several years earlier.

Husband also loaded up thirty-two boxes of files for me to take to the shredder. Here is a picture of the sewing room with most of them gone.


I took them to the shredder, today, and they weighed 650 pounds.

I also went by the bank to close out my business bank accounts. As an attorney, I have to maintain a trust account and I normally just keep $100.00 in it (the minimum). Since I don't accept client funds, I didn't use it but to keep myself out of trouble with the bar, I've maintained it all these years. I never even look at the statement, truth be told. Ahem. I expected to get about $100.00. Instead, I had almost $3,000.00 in it! I think they must have accidently deposited a check in the wrong account and I didn't catch it. Now, how can you not catch a nearly $3,000.00 mistake? I really don't know. I am just glad it was in my favor (I expect I would have heard about it if it wasn't).

Two weeks until the last truck arrives. After that, I may be posting by flashlight since the lamps will be gone.