Winning the Window War

About a week and a half ago new people moved in next door. Our old neighbors were great, so these folks had a lot to live up to. Our old neighbors met all four of the criteria that Tony and I, based on our previous experience with apartment-style neighbors, have come look for in a good neighbor. First, they had cats for Milo and Sadie to talk to. Second, they (the humans, not the cats) kept quiet and never bothered us. Third, they did not have children who thought it was fun to throw a ball at our front door at SIX O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING ON SUNDAYS... (I mean I know they were these sad foster kids who had terrible childhoods and were abused by their drug-addled parents but my HEAVENS I was starting to see why). And finally, since our windows are about 10 feet apart, they kept all their blinds down; 24/7.

Well these newbies do not have a cat (minus 1), but they do have a large dog whose bark fascinates our cats (plus .5) So far, they had one large party (-1), but it wasn't loud (+ .5) and it was right after they moved in; possibly a house-warming party (permissible, +.5). We were not invited (-1). They don't know us (fine; they get +.5 back). As for the obnoxious children...it's too soon to tell really, but I'm thinking they don't have kids (it's still an unknown, but if they do have kids - they haven't bothered us; we'll give them +1).

So we're back at zero (I think, I'm a lawyer - math isn't my strong suit). Thus the ultimate determination of their neighborliness was left to the question of WINDOWS COVERINGS...

Minus 234987567238467823409823. They left them open. ALL THE TIME.

Obviously, they were not aware that WE had reserved the right to leave our blinds up at all times (such nice natural light here) and thus they needed to close their blinds. I mean we have to have some privacy here!

It's been a fierce struggle.

Who can eat breakfast in the least appealing attire? I think I won that battle: bathrobe & towel-turban beats khakis & an undershirt.

Who can wash dishes in the grubbiest pjs? They were victorious: raggedy boxers & a grayish-white tee-shirt beats the uber-stylish Victoria's secret heart pjs Tony bought me last Valentine's Day.

Who's television programming is most annoying? That was kind of a draw actually: Everybody Loves Raymond (them) does get old, but Family Guy (us) is not a show that any self-respecting adult wants to admit they still watch.

But today, my friends, the battling ended.


This morning as we awoke to prepare breakfast - Honeynut cheerios with skim milk, coffee, and, YES MOTHER, cantaloupe - we saw the white of their surrender flag/ closed blinds. Joyously, we sounded the trumpets (coffee maker) and called the troops home ("Sadie! Get OFF the table!").


What is there left to say except: Well folks, welcome to the neighborhood.

(Post Script:
Dear New Neighbors,

In the event we ever get to be friends, or even just meet you, I would like to apologize in advance for this post. It was most unfriendly of me. Perhaps we could work out some sort of blind-closing schedule? Maybe Mondays-Wednesdays-Fridays/ Tuesdays-Thursdays-Saturdays and then we split Sundays? Or, if that's a bit too much opening and closing, one of us gets one Wednesday a month, every other weekend, and holidays?

Until then though, keep 'em closed folks...nothing to see here.)

My (new) Unwieldy Moniker

Today is the day, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Blog, it became legally official:

I am a Maiolino.

Of the Anthony Maiolino Family specifically - a proud, new breed of Maiolino.

Will we be wise?
Will we be benevolent?
Will we persevere in the face of great hardship?
Will we ever agree on a center piece for the coffee table that Mrs. Maiolino finds attractive and doesn't get in the way of Mr. Maiolino's feet when he puts them up?
Of course, Mrs. Maiolino does not see why Mr. Maiolino needs to put his feet up on the coffee table, we are not cave-people, but that is a whole other post entirely.


There it is, in all its glory - my new name! (As recorded for tax purposes and to assess all governmental benefits, social security and otherwise, to which I or my heirs may be entitled.)

For clarification - and so that I don't end up living with the designation I have received at work: "You're married name is what? Lindsey Maaa.... Lindsey Mah... Lindsey Maa-ohh... Oh you know, I'm just going to call you 'Lindsey'!" - here is a brief pronunciation tutorial:

MAY - as in the month
UH - as in the sound you make when the Judge asks you which Rule of Evidence allows you to submit your proffered exhibit as authentic under the "document kept in the ordinary course of business" exception to the hearsay rule and that awful, snarky public defender is just gloating over in his seat and you know for a fact that you got a better grade than he did in your Law Governing the Rules of Evidence class (and so help me, if anyone tries to comment on this post and tell me it's Ind. Evid. R. 803(6) I will commit an offense violating Indiana Code 35-42-2-6 upon you)
LEAN - as in to incline in a particular direction; slant
O - as in the letter of the alphabet

Got that?

Good, now let's try it altogether: MAY-UH-LEAN-O.

Great! Now faster: MAY-UH-LEAN-O.

Fantastic! One last time: Maiolino!

Doing My Civic Duty

I really wasn't sure what to title this post. I vacillated between:

Doing My Civic Duty

and

Drinking, to Keep the Community Safe

Ever since my wedding, I have felt a strong compulsion to become a useful, productive member of the community. I want to contribute, to give back, to make things better. Well Tuesday night I got my first opportunity: I was asked to participate in "Drunk Night." Which is pretty much what it sounds like.



Just kidding.

Drunk Night is an event which seeks to train new police officers to assess varying blood-alcohol concentrations. Participants, usually selected from among the outstanding prosecutorial staff of the State of Indiana, are given alcoholic beverages in order to, er, produce the symptoms of inebriation. Each participant then takes a Breathalyzer test to establish his or her true BAC level. Teams of new trainees, who are not informed of the true BAC level, then administer a series of field sobriety tests to each "drunk" (do you like how I put that in quotes as though it was somehow an inaccurate description of the state we were in?) and assess the performance. Then a second Breath test is administered and we all (drunken prosecutors and police trainees) sit down to see how we did.

The purpose is truly to help new police recruits understand and identify intoxication for all alcohol-related crimes like driving under the influence, public intoxication, etc; since surely none of them have any outside experience they could bring to the table... But for me it was was the chance to participate in a little frivolity, hang out with some of my new co-workers outside of the courtroom, and get to take a Breathalyzer test without the risk of arrest (to say nothing of endangering innocent members of the public in the first place - don't worry Mom and Dad, a police officer drove me home afterward).

Here are the officer's helping me display symptoms of intoxication.

No, not really. This was from my spring break trip senior year of college. (I love you Tony!)

As it turns out I get easily intoxicated, but hide it well, and metabolize quickly. My initial "blow" was a whopping .125 (for reference: .08 is the legal limit in most states, including Indiana) and I can attest that I was in no condition to drive - I couldn't see straight. But, through my field sobriety tests, I was consistently assessed below .08. One team even guessed I was a .02! I think this primarily stems from my years as a dancer which resulted in a slightly elevated ability to maintain my balance; even with blurry vision. My second Breath test dropped down to a .08 exactly.

I thoroughly enjoyed this experience, both because I got to know some fun new colleagues better and because I gained a little insight as to what it means to make the decision to operate a motor vehicle while intoxicated. I can now say, with absolute confidence, that driving with a BAC of .08 or higher is a decision I would never, ever make. At the time of my second breath test - the .08 - I was still unfocused, detached, and far too mentally impaired to drive. As a driver, a prosecutor, and a woman I ask all of you blog readers to please, please always designate a sober driver if you decide to consume alcohol and need to go somewhere afterwards. You are all important and loved; there are so many who would be devastated if an accident, especially an avoidable accident, were to befall you. And if you won't make wise decisions for yourself, remember all the other drivers out there, and all the passengers in their cars, who are making good decisions and who do not deserve to be put in danger just so you can have a little fun.

The Bodies Exhibit

Last Saturday, Tony took me on a date to see "Bodies...the Exhibit." The exhibit is comprised of carefully preserved human remains displayed to showcase all the different bodily systems. There is a room for the nervous system, the circulatory system, the digestive system, etc. In each case the bodily fluids had been drained from the cadaver and its skin had been stripped away, leaving only bones, organs, and/or muscle, as called for by the system being demonstrated. There were also individual, diseased organs on display: a healthy lung next to a smoker's lung, various cancer-infected organs, and even some sort of rare, large tumor that grows on ovaries and can develop "human-like" features. This particular tumor had an eye and some hair. Gross.

Some of the cadavers appear upright, in posed positions; dribbling a basketball or conducting an orchestra. My favorite was a display featuring two figures, holding hands, and leaning away from each other. One figure was totally muscular and the other was a complete skeleton. They were from the same person! The bones and muscles had been separated and reconstructed to make it look like two separate people.

This is your face's circulatory system. Kissy, kissy.

There has been criticism about the decision to display actual human remains, especially since it is impossible to officially verify where the remains came from and there has been speculation that the bodies were obtained from non-consenting Chinese prisoners. A statement at the ticket booth admits that all the displayed remains are Chinese, but denies that they were obtained from anyone associated with a prison and claims that each cadaver was examined and determined to have died of natural causes (without any sign of trauma).

Conducting an orchastra. Forever...

The exhibit was really interesting - looking at how complicated we all are, and how compactly we fit all our strange pieces together seems like further proof that we're not just a product of some random evolutionary process. We're all like little puzzles fitting together perfectly; it would have taken a Higher Plan to orchestrate all that.

Tony loved the exhibit, spending whole minutes looking at some tiny tendon that had a really, really ridiculously long name. I'm not a fan of the little-size, long-name phenomenon that pops up all the time in biology. I think, if you can't fit the name of the muscle on an 8x11" diagram of the body it ought to be shortened. In criminal law we keep our terms short: rape, assault, murder. There's no Abductor Digiti Minimi Manus; which I think is a body part. Or a sports team. I'm not really sure, Tony mumbles a lot when I'm not paying attention.

Tony did try to educate me, explaining all the muscle groups and how they get injured and how to heal them. I mainly just squealed "Look! You can see his penis!" My husband reprimanded me several times with, "Lindsey! You have to be more respectful. These were real people." Well I know they were real people. Real people with penises. Penises I can now see. Hehehehe... Marriage has not matured me in the least.

Back to school

After three years off, Tony officially returned to full-time student status with the start of his Public Health Master's program. Classes actually started the week that we were on our honeymoon and poor Tony had to head to class bright and early Monday morning; just seven hours after our flight landed in Indianapolis. He's such a trooper. Following the long-standing tradition of wearing red on the first day of school each year, established by my mother (the school teacher), Tony was going to wear his red shirt. But it was dirty and it turns out I'm not such a trooper; I went back to sleep after taking this picture and didn't get to our honeymoon laundry until later that afternoon. In my efforts to be a supportive wife though I did wake up long enough to make Tony's lunch.

Sophia Elizabeth!

Congratulations to my good friend, Liz, and her husband, Ian, on the birth of their first child: Sophia Elizabeth! Baby Sophia made her grand debut this past Monday, September 8th, a full 10 days earlier than her projected due date. Of course Liz's child is prompt; don't get your hopes up for ours, Tony, with my genes our kids will all arrive several weeks late. I was sent a photo of Sophia and she is absolutely darling. I wish I could post it here for you all, but I wouldn't feel right about it without her mom and dad's permission. So instead, for your reference, I'm posting pictures of babies that Sophia is cuter than.

Sophia is cuter than this baby.

And this baby.

And this baby.

And these babies.

And this baby.

And these babies.

Sorry you can't see her, you'll just have to take my word for it that she is precious. She has deep, dark eyes, fine dark hair, and the cutest little button of a nose. Initially I thought she had Ian's mouth and Liz's eyes, but now I'm thinking she has Ian's eyes as well. Somehow though you can definitely see Liz in her too.

Welcome to the world, Sophia, you have two wonderful parents to serve as your guides. And I can't wait to meet you in person!

Our Honeymoon

We spent an incredible 7 days on the beautiful island of St. Lucia. St. Lucia was awarded the "World's Leading Honeymoon Destination" in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 AND 2007. Personally, I highly recommend it for the 2008 honor. The island is located in the Lesser Antilles, just northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique, and covers only 239 square miles. When asked the official language, the St. Lucians we spoke to responded "English... (dramatic eye roll)." While that is technically the official language, we learned that most of natives speak Creole.

We made it! And more impressively, all our bags made it.

I would write about all the incredibly exciting and dramatic things we did on our honeymoon, but there really weren't many. Our main focus was on relaxing and enjoying one another's company (something which, due to law school and Bar review, Tony may not have been able to do for quite some time). We did take a Rainforest Canopy Tour involving zip-lining through the trees. Tony did excellently. I, on the other hand, stopped short (twice) and had to pull myself the rest of the way in. Also, I think I'm developing a fear of heights. Or maybe it's just a fear of careening recklessly through the air, 50 feet off the ground, suspended from a single cable, straight towards a very large TREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE... Say what you will about my panic, Darwin established the truth behind his "survival of the fittest" theory of natural selection and my brain had a very strong, instinctive reaction to this experience, namely: do not do this. Here are a few shots of some less death-defying honeymooning.

The view from our room. I have not yet mastered the camera flash, somehow a lot of my pictures end up looking like I took them through gauze.

Except for the occasional break to eat, all we did for a full 7 days was lie horizontally (I know, I know, insert inappropriate joke here). But honestly, even the bars were swim-up pool bars so we would just paddle lamely over if we wanted a drink.

This was taken shortly after midnight on August 20th, just as the piano player finished playing (and the bar finished raucously singing) "Happy Birthday" to Tony, per my sneaky request.

A romantic candlelight dinner on the beach for our last night. I know don't about you, but I think sunburned and shiny is an excellent look on me.