Mug & Emotion

I’ve been having a weird week. In a good way, though. And I’ve decided that I have overly strong emotions. Like I shouldn’t feel this extreme all the time (about everything). I don’t think it’s normal, and I don’t think that normal people feel this way. It causes me extreme amounts of anxiety. But it also causes me extreme amounts of joy. It’s like I can’t just be in the middle. And right now I just really want to be in the middle. I want to be content. I want to be calm. I’m pretty sure my overactive emotions are making me fat from stress and going to cause me to die early, again, from the stress.

Or maybe I’m just PMSing?

On the bright side, I get to have no boyz allowed dinner tonight with my law school favorites. They always listen to my crazy girl emotions. That’s good for me. It makes me feel more settled. And then maybe after that I will pick up a new French Press from someone who doesn’t use theirs anymore because they are rad and I am too cheap to buy a new one. Then I will probably just end up feeling more emotional all over again from the normal human interaction and the caffeine (stupid caffeine, I’m so addicted to you, and you get me so worked up). Standard.

I’m tired of being over stimulated. That’s not what she said, BTW.

On the bright side, though, this morning we had an early morning meeting for the law journal I’m (we’re) starting (the American Indian Law Journal – yep, that’s right). Well I guess that isn’t the bright side. The bright side, instead, was that Professor Eberhard (aka Eric) brought the 4 of us these mugs:

Now, most of you already now how I feel about all things Pendleton. But if you don’t know, I love Pendleton. Not so much the town, that town gives me anxiety after my internship, but the woolen mills and the things that come from there are rad. I digress…

Anyway, I was really excited about my new mug. It’s big and awesome. That is what she said! Ha.

And now I should stop this and go read for Intellectual Property like a good student. Right. Best student EVER right here!

The Second to Last Day

Guys, tomorrow is my last day of work for the summer. Tomorrow I say bye bye internship, bye bye Umatilla reservation and bye bye trailer park. How crazy/exciting/almost sad, right? Right.

Today my boss came to the reservation to execute wills and other estate planning documents with me. Well, actually he came into town last night and took me out to the Prodigal Son for a beer and dinner (thanks, boss).

We ended spending a ton of time today with the Tribal Court Judge. I actually did some estate planning work for him while I was here, and he apparently was really impressed. I think that means we’re BFF 4 Lyfe! We even took a picture together today – I’ll post it as soon as Doug FWDs it to me (and don’t worry about a confidentiality breach, Judge J told me that I could advertise that I did his will, and I could send people to him to ask about his experience, seriously BFF status).

We also executed a bunch of wills.

And two of the ladies from the office took me to lunch at a pizza buffet. It was really sweet of them, it made me feel even more welcome here. And to make things better I totally doused my meal in ranch like a fat kid – it was good. I think I probably burned it off tonight at the gym though, so I don’t feel too guilty.

Also here are a few things I’ve learned from working on the reservation (I’ll add more later):

• how to wear/rock heels, everyyy day, even in BFE Oregon
• I love Indians in Cowboy hats
• Everyone knows everyone else on the reservation. It’s crazy. And everyone will say hi to you, even if you don’t know them.
• Old me love me (ok maybe I already knew that, but it was totally re-affirmed)
• Working 8 hour days in a cubical is really tiring
• it’s the little things in life – like toilettes in front of your trailer – that make you the cool kid in the trailer park

Ok that’s all I can think of now. Time for dinz (gotta finish up this bag of safeway select frozen raviolis – the portobello mushroom ones – SO good!).

My Life = Trailer Fab + A Visitor!

 So, because a few people asked I thought I’d share a couple pictures of the inside of my trailer with you. Get ready for some classy times!!

For those of you who don’t know, I live in a two bedroom, single wide trailer, in the Lucky 7 Trailer park on the Umatilla Indian Reservation for the summer (while I do my internship). The tribe furnished it with a couch, chair, end table, lamps, bed, bedside table and a kitchen table with two chairs. That’s about all that I have in there because I’m still paying rent on my Seattle house and most of my stuff stays up there where it belongs!

My living room (from the front door) and kitchen. Do you like my classy “TV” aka old computer? Right? And my mini ironing station/recycling area (but I don’t think that they recycle here so I don’t really know what to do with it).

Below is my bedroom and master bathroom (they are open - nothing separates them which is kind of weird, but it works) There is a toilette/shower in the room on the left and not pictured is a bath tub on the right hand side of the bathroom.

Do you like my classy organization skills? Living out of a suitcase in my trailer = living the dream!

Here are some pictures of the extra bed room (with a broken closet and broken window) and the extra bathroom. I keep the doors to both of these shut because they smell like urine and it makes me want to vomit.
Both of these are located on the opposite side of the house from my bedroom/bathroom and kitchen. You get to them by taking a right when you walk in the front door instead of taking a left into the living room. They’re pretty easy to avoid/it’s easy to pretend like they don’t exist ;)

And to give you a better idea of my sad sad trailer life here is the inside of my fridge (juice, vermouth, curry sauce, salsa, salad, peaches in a cup, beer, krab (with a K), DDP and britta water = sad sad girl).


And yesterday after work the best thing happened: Dustin came to visit me in the trailer park! I was just so excited to see him!

He even came with gifts that he got from my friend Beth at the Gift House in Hood River! My very very favorite wine (from Phelps Creek which is a Hood River winery) and a delicious home made-ish dessert bar. NOM! Thanks, you!


Then naturally I made him take some trailer park pics as we were heading out to dinner! He even made friends with my stray cat (that ended up seriously loving him) and then some little kids yelled at him and told him not to touch the cat. We took that as our cue to head to dinz!
            

We decided not to go to one of the like 50 steak houses in Pendleton and instead Dustin wanted to go to the Prodigal Sun (or Son I don’t remember) Brewery which was alright with me. We both really like micro brews and breweries are kind of right up our alley, so I figured it would be a safe bet!
When we got there Dustin ordered us a Scotch Egg (because I had never had/heard of it) – it was an egg wrapped in sausage and fried. They served it with mustard. It was pretty good but reminded me of something I’d eat for breakfast, not a dinner appetizer.


We also ordered some beers (duh). For dinner I got the Portobello mushroom sandwich/burger thing with bleu cheese and fries and it was tasty (minus the fact that they totally put mayo on it even though I asked for it without – but honestly I think Dustin was more annoyed than I was, probably because he didn’t like watching me wipe it off at the table with a napkin haha). Dustin got some fish & chips that were also really good.


After dinner we walked along the downtown river walk for a little while but I didn’t like all the bugs in my face so then we went to Wal Mart and Dustin got me new windshield wipers and we tried to get a movie from the red box but there was nothing we wanted to see, so we came back to the trailer and watched mean girls on my computer/classy trailer TV and we had some more beers and I passed out on the couch because that’s what I always do.

It was a pretty successful day. I was so happy to have another visitor in the trailer park (and I was most excited that it wasn’t just any visitor – it was my favorite boy)!! Beth is coming to visit in like a week and a half and I’m really excited about that too! Only three more weeks in the trailer, guys (not that I’m counting or anything ;)! Now I’m going to go wake Dustin up so we can go get some coffee/breakfast because clearly there is nothing to eat in my fridge! Ha! I hope you all have a wonderful day!

I live in a trailer park

on an Indian Reservation (for 4 1/2 more weeks - yes, I'm counting down). But most of you already knew that. Here are some picture I took of my lovely home today during my lunch break (seriously guys, today has been soooo slowwww).

(I hope that if you're feeling sad you can look at these pictures and feel better because at least you don't live here - or maybe you do... and if so, we should totally be friends because I'm basically a huge, friendless loser on the rez). 

My trailer complete with the corolla, a toilet, and a stray trailer park kitty 

Mine is the second one down. So classy.

and because I'm the coolest - a classy self-timer pic of me and my trailer park home!

yesterday and things

This week has been sooo slow at work. Like so slow. I only have one client scheduled for this week and he's not coming until tomorrow (we had a meeting scheduled for yesterday morning but he totally stood me up - standard). Luckily I got invited to an information session tomorrow on the Cobell case/settlement which one of the women in the office is holding down at Yellowhawk (the tribal health center) to pass out some fliers and introduce myself to some people and hopefully get some clients and things.

Moral of the story: I'm desperately trying to find things to do at work today and it's proving to be a pretty unsuccessful effort. It's hard to write wills when you don't have any clients.

In the mean time, here is a picture of my classy trailer park (I snapped this baby yesterday when I was deliriously hungry and thinking I was hilarious after the gym. Dustin took a picture of the fancy hotel he is staying in for work this week and I told him that I was also staying somewhere fancy this week, so I wasn't at all jealous of his waterfront Marriot hotel - pshhh whatever). Enjoy:

I'm actually really surprised there is only one child and no bikes in this picture. There are usually 50 kids on 50 bikes. All. the. time. I'm kind of afraid I'm going to run one of them over one day.

And even though I've probably shared this before, I just really enjoy it so I'm sharing it [again]. This pictures was taken just about 1/2 mile from the trailer.

will executions

Ohhh today I am so tired, and I don't know why. But I don't want to tell you about today, I want to tell you about yesterday.

As you may or may not already know, I live in Seattle most of the time but for the summer I am a "legal intern" working for the Institute for Indian Estate Planning & Probate which placed me with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) in Mission, Oregon (which is about 5 minutes east of Pendleton, Oregon, which is in the middle of nowhere). So here I am, 4 1/2 hours from Seattle, away from all of my friends, in the middle of the desert in Oregon. And let me tell you, it was already hot at 7:30 this morning. And I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of excited about the weather (a nice change from Seattle gray-ness, but that is beside the point).

Anyway, the Institute for Indian Estate Planning & Probate is located in Seattle and is a part of the Center for Indian Law & Policy at Seattle University School of Law. Therefore, my adviser is an attorney who used to work here in Pendleton as an attorney for the CTUIR for years and years, and he is also the director of the Center for Indian law and policy, which means that he spends a majority of his time in Seattle. So, because I'm only a law student and not someone who is licensed to practice law, I end up e-mailing him 100 times a day with questions and draft documents for him to look over and whatnot.

Don't worry, I'm trying to get to my point... Yesterday, my supervisor, Doug, came down to Pendleton to do will executions with me! This was exciting since him coming down meant I had someone to hang out with for the day, which I usually don't because I am a huge loser here with like no friends here. So Doug came down here, spent the night with his daughter and grand kids and then met me here at work bright and early yesterday morning. We had an 8am meeting scheduled yesterday, but our first client was a no-show (lame). So we just sat in the conference room and chatted. For being my boss who is much much older than I am, he was surprisingly easy to talk to (that could be because older men love me for the most part haha), and he has SO many awesome stories, it's crazy cool. We then had a 10am client who showed up early and got his will all notarized and executed and whatnot. Success! After that we waited for another client who ended up being a no-show, had two clients cancel and then finally dragged one of the ladies from the office into the conference room to get her will revision executed. Two down. After that we waited for another client who never showed up and then Doug asked me if I wanted to go to lunch with him (duh I said yes!).

So he drove me into Pendleton to the Great Pacific Wine & Coffee Co.  Apparently Great Pacific used to be the place where all the cool kids hung out. He was telling me stories about how there was a group of his friends that were regulars at GPW&CC and they used to go there every day and chat and hang out in the same big table in the back and whatnot (which I'd assume would be pretty easy since his old law office was also located on that block, on the top, corner of the old hotel building) and he told me a story about how once him and his friends were jealous of the "rich" people in town going to catilian so they decided to throw a mock coat-tillian in the unused upstairs part of GPW&CC that ended up being like a grown-up prom (if you know how much I LOVE prom then you probably have a pretty good idea of how cool I think this is - I want to do something like that)! Anyway, he bought me lunch, a delicious sharp cheddar, apple & bacon sandwich on wheat bread (probs not the healthiest sandwich ever, but it was so so good) and he ended up running into one of his old friends from back in the day, who teaches at the charter Indian school here at Umatilla. So we talked to him and ate our lunch and it was good.

After lunch Doug drove me around Pendleton and showed me some good places to eat and we drove past the water park (WATER PARK, WHAT? WHO KNEW THERE WAS A WATER PARK IN PENDLETON!! I'm sooo going when Dustin comes to visit - duh)! Anyway, then we drove past the skate park and I saw these kids there and thought to myself "those kids look like my Hood River friends, I feel like I need to go there and be their friends." Random. But then later I totally saw a picture on Dave's FB page of him skating at the Pendleton skate park. It totally was my friends. A-holes. In Pendleton and didn't even call me - SO rude. We're in a fight (hah)!

As I was saying, Doug drove me back through Pendleton and told me stories about his days as a a pistol shooting champion of Oregon (or something), and as a sniper for this time when the president was in Pendleton (there is totally a picture of him and Jimmy Carter in an old Oregonian - cool) and about how his dad totally got sent to Penn. to Indain boarding school and all types of other cool, super badass things.

I really hope that when I'm as old as Doug I have that many super unique and entertaining stories. He has done so so many cool things in his life, and so many important Indian Law things too. I definitely hope that I make a difference for Indians when I'm a real grown up lawyer! Hopes & dreams!

Anyway, today after work I'm headed back to Seattle and I can't wait. The end of this week marks the 1/2 way point in my internship! Hooray! The summer is flying by already (even though we're technically only 1 day in). Happy summer everyone!