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Saturday, November 29, 2003 - 6:15 PM

It's been a typical Thanksgiving weekend. I feel really fat and Shawn is asleep on the couch. We went to Shawn's grandparents' for the turkey day, which was nice to see my brother and sister in law and my niece and nephews. They're calling me Aunt Keri now! It's kind of freaky. Mama Honea is doing well post-surgery. She had a hip replacement about a month ago. She needs her other hip replaced, but I'm not sure if she's actually going to do it since she's lost a lot of her independence from this surgery. I know how she feels. Been there, done that. Shawn and I went to see Elf on Wednesday, a much needed excuse to get out of the house. It's not Oscar material by any means, but it's pretty funny. My sister and her boyfriend Joe came up to stay on Friday. They had Thanksgiving with Joe's family in Weatherford. Once again, we ate way too much, but we drank too much on top of that. Drinking games are evil.

Nothing really huge on the job front. I have a few more leads, and I'm excited about both of them. An attorney in Duane's building is looking for a part-time legal assistant. Louellen, Duane's wife and a friend from grad school, is looking for help with her technical writing business. If I could work for both part-time, it would be perfect! They're both in the same building, so it really wouldn't be that big of a deal! Louellen said she probably couldn't do anything until January, but I hope I hear from that attorney or from the unemployment office before then. Bills don't care if you have a job or not, they just want to get paid.

Oh yeah, and I got my first acceptance letter to law school on Friday. St. Mary's in San Antonio has come calling. It's not my first choice, but it's such a stress relief to know that I'll be going to law school somewhere. And if I end up going there, I'll probably spend my entire summer toobing the Komal.

I ordered a ton of anime DVDs about a month ago, and I hope they get here this next week. I'm getting really, really bored. Besides just watching them, I can practice my Japanese a little since they're all in Japanese with subtitles. I'm thinking about buying all my anime this way...I bought 60 episodes of one series for $12!

posted by Keri
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Saturday, November 22, 2003 - 9:12 AM

It still doesn't feel real to me. And it probably won't until Monday morning when I don't have to get up and go to work. As of 3 p.m. Friday afternoon, I was laid off from the firm. Nothing in writing, no severance package, nothing. I can't express everything that was going through my head. When the partner left Kevin's office, I turned on Kevin. Yeah, he knew, but he didn't have a hand in the decision. He said he didn't want me to go, but then again he did want me to get out of that place and find something better. I agree. I just wish it was on my terms when I had another job lined up. Oh yeah, and Happy Thanksgiving. At least I wasn't alone. Two other paralegals were laid off at the same time. After our "meetings", when we got to our cubes to pack up our stuff, our computers were turned off, we were logged off the network, and boxes were placed nicely in our chairs. I am so glad I had already removed a bunch of my stuff and I borrowed Shawn's USB hard drive to get all of my personal stuff off the server. Kevin helped me log in and remove all of my e-mails and everything I had on the network. Now they have nothing about me. Lola and I immediately went to On the Border for happy hour. Kevin gave me $20 to go drink, so I might as well use it. But now I'm freaking out about my bills. My credit card bill will come out on Monday, and it has all of my Christmas shopping on it. I was counting on my paycheck at the end of the month to cover it. Now I may have to call my parents for help. Hopefully I'll get my unemployment checks quickly (hell yeah I applied as soon as I got home) and I hope these other jobs I've heard about will pan out. Kevin has promised to help me find a job. My friend Nancy already told Patrick, a former employee at the firm, about what happened and he called his brother to tell him he needed to hire me. Shawn said that JAG at Carswell is looking for a paralegal. It's so wonderful to have people looking out for you. At the same time, I know I won't relax until a steady paycheck comes in, whether it's from the unemployment office or not. I know it really was a good thing that I'm free from that place, and I know that there is a silver lining somewhere but it's hard to see it from the bottom of a hole. Please send good thoughts my way.

Well that's enough depressing news for one day, so look at the dancing bananas!

posted by Keri
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Wednesday, November 19, 2003 - 8:07 AM

Now I remember why puppies aren't all so cute. I got out of the shower this morning to find that Tanooki ate through my hair dryer cord, thus depriving me of my only method of drying my hair. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

posted by Keri
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Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 9:05 PM

Greetings and salutations! This past month has been a hell of a rollercoaster ride and I think my car is picking up speed. But let me get to the uphill stuff first. On Friday I went to my first Stars game for Shawn's birthday. I don't think I've ever had so much fun at a live sporting event (except when I was playing in one) and that beats the time that Baylor beat TU and when Baylor beat North Carolina State. I wish I made more money so we could go to more games. I was practically hoarse the next day with all of the screaming. The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful, which was pretty good since the last couple of weekends have been so packed. Shawn had to be at the base all day on Saturday, so I cleaned the house (I mean really cleaned) and did all the laundry. The most eventful thing that happened was when I touched a spiderweb in the garage and a black widow came running towards my fingers. Did I scream hysterically and run out? Yes, yes I did.

Then there's Tanooki. He got three baths over the weekend. Three. Count 'em: three. He likes to step in his waterbowl and then go dig holes, which creates mud, and then he likes to roll in the mud. As my mom said, he's like a pig. He looks so funny when he's wet. He loses half of his body mass. I took a few more pictures of him over the weekend to document and preserve his puppyhood. They grow up so fast! So with him and my insane hobbies, I'm keeping rather occupied.

Which keeps my mind off of work. Here's where the rollercoaster streams downhill at lightspeed. Those who have talked to me as of late have had the unfortunate experience of hearing me complain about my job. Basically, it's bad and it's only going to get worse. A lot of changes are taking place all at once, and the partner that is going to take over the firm is implementing a Big Brother environment. How Big Brother? He's monitoring our phone calls and telling the attorneys not to socialize with the assistants outside of work. That's only a tiny piece of the overlaying picture. I'm looking for other jobs, but with law school coming up, it's hard to be serious about looking. I've even thought of doing two part time jobs in the meantime. I'm getting to the point that if Baylor accepts me for the spring quarter, I'll move down to Waco. The good thing about this whole mess (I'm trying to find the positive) is that I've made some pretty good friends as we're banding against Big Brother and his minions. I already know that I'll still talk to them after I leave the firm, and you don't find friends like that at work too often.

I hear Tanooki crying like Bond took away his toy, so I'd better go break that up. See, I don't need human children, I already have two kids in dog coats.

posted by Keri
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Friday, November 14, 2003 - 12:23 PM

Do you remember some of the cartoon greats of childhood? Ghostbusters, He-Man, She-Ra? I found a site that sells the animation cels from these series. Go check it out, reminisce, and see why I don't collect any American animation cels.

Need more reasons? Okay.
Reason 1
Reason 2

posted by Keri
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Wednesday, November 12, 2003 - 4:06 PM

KERI MAD! KERI SMASH!

posted by Keri
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Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - 2:42 PM

This was so funny, I had to share. My cubicle-mate and her lawyer discovered today that the reason why I don't turn up my radio for others to hear is because I listen to the Eagle, and those who live in Dallas know that the Eagle is not characteristic or even appropriate office music. They were absolutely shocked that I would listen to such music, and they went on about how I have the appearance and demeanor of innocence. Isabel even called me a "half-nun". Oh dear God, these people have no idea.

Everyone should go check out Christi's design face-lift on her site. I realized while looking at it that she hit something that I've needed to do on my own site. The darkness of my site has always bothered me. I'm not going to change my background graphic by any means, but the rest of the overall impending doom has never sat that well with me. I think when I get home I'm going to play around with the colors to try to brighten it up a bit. Then I'm going to play with photoshop and finally finish my banner. I've been working on a banner since a fellow cel-collecting freak created a banner for my online cel gallery. I wish I could come up with something half as cool as that banner, but without the cel images. Maybe I'll just ask him for another favor. Of course then he may expect me to buy one of his gengas. Which I guess I could just turn around and sell...

posted by Keri
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Monday, November 10, 2003 - 3:51 PM

I don't care what is going on in Waco, I'm not going there for Homecoming again. At least, I won't stay longer than a day. Madness. Utter madness. I knew it was going to be crazy as soon as we got to George's (my favorite Waco restaurant) and had to wait over an hour to be seated. The place was so packed you couldn't manuever in the eating area or the bar area. On top of that, Christi and I got to experience Lipton beer when the dumb Baylor blond waitress poured Shiner into our iced teas. Take it from us kids, don't try that one at home. Same waitress decided that my order wasn't worth remembering (or serving). Thank God a good friend of Shawn's is now manager over there. He took care of us right away. That experience kind of foreshadowed the rest of the weekend: packed places and lines everywhere. It wasn't all bad. I had a great time at the Rugby Alumni game and the football game was a lot of fun. I wish Baylor played the entire game like they had the first quarter. They probably still would have lost, but at least it would have made it more interesting. I also got to see Skivvy and Lee, two wonderful friends I don't get to see nearly as much as I would like.

I also walked around campus for the first time since Jen graduated. Baylor is adding so many buildings on campus, and they're making all of the buildings carry the same theme that Old Main and Burleson started. It is going to be so beautiful when it is finished. Along with my little tour I finally got to see the new Baylor Law School. That building is also a beautiful piece of architecture. I wouldn't mind going to school there. I'd better do it soon before it falls into the Brazos River. Apparently Shawn took a pant-load of pictures during this trip, so after I peruse them and weed them out I'll post them. I hope he got a picture of the scoreboard when Baylor was ahead.

Oh yeah, I've been talking about the new puppy's name for a few posts now...better update that. After taking a vote, no thanks to those who suggested a bunch of names other than the names up for vote, and receiving a request to NOT name it JD, Shawn and I left the naming up to the almighty gods of the coin toss. Our new baby is named Tanooki (not pronounced like nookie). If you have no clue where the name comes from, smack yourself for not playing the best Super Mario Bros. game on the original NES.

posted by Keri
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Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 12:17 PM

Oh dear God noooooooooooooooooooo! Not P-chan!

In other news, Shawn and I are having the hardest time coming up with a name for our puppy. I've officially tossed Loki out, since I remembered that a friend of mine in college named her rabbit Loki. Everytime I called the puppy "Loki" I thought of that evil rabbit. I've tossed around a couple of other names, but neither hits me home. I watched Episode II over the weekend and the puppy went crazy over the lightsaber fights, so I thought of the name Jedi. I could see my puppy going over to the dark side of the force. He doesn't take "no" very well as it is. The other name I've thought of is Lord Rahl. A lot of dogs are named Duke and Duchess, so why not a lordly name? But Lord sounds funny by itself, so I had to give a surname. At this point I'm thinking of calling him JD for John Doe. Going to have to finalize something soon. He's getting so big and he's starting to hold up his ears (well, just one, but it's a start).

posted by Keri
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Monday, November 03, 2003 - 7:06 PM

Wow...no idea what that is all about. Christi, I really hope you get P-chan back. If I were you, I'd pay the ransom. This guy sounds crazy!

Halloween was a blast! I don't think I can describe it very well, so you'll have to go check out the pictures to view our Halloween fun. Christi and I actually got up enough nerve (alcohol) to join the costume contest! Of course we didn't win, but we had a lot of fun getting up in front of all those people.

Saturday was the day of rest (and hang over). On Sunday I went over to Kerri's for her birthday party, watched everyone drink wine and then it was back to my place to watch the Packers stomp all over the Vikings. Go Pack! Jen came over to watch it with me, and then she ended up spending the night because the game ended so late. I kind of wish I had this next weekend to relax, but it will be much more action packed than this past one. We're going to Waco for Baylor's Homecoming and to watch the Baylor/Tech game. I pretty much know what the outcome is going to be, but sic 'em bears!

posted by Keri
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