Monday, April 07, 2008

Reaching....

Hello Running Mommies: Great day to be alive. It is sunny and Monday. I had an interesting weekend. I belong to a homeschooling group (I always feel like a fraud since I only homeschool one and two are in school), but that is another story. Well the group put out a request for judges for a debate/speech contest. I smiled. I grinned. I thought finally something I can actually do!! I'm not crafty, I do not sew, knit, glue anything, I barely sew buttons on and most of these women are amazing at it. I flunk art and music on a regular basis. I casually fill out the judge form and the regional folks sign me up and seem thrilled that I'm a lawyer with some speech/debate background. I use the opportunity to take my 9 year old son with me and he has not seen me in a suit very often and never seen me as a lawyer. We show up and get taken to a neat hospitality room where he pigs out and I get coffee. I notice a middle-aged woman talking to some of the other judges and she's asking for background. They all eagerly chirp away and she happily takes notes. She gets to me last. I am not sure exactly what to tell her. She sees by my nametag that I'm a lawyer, but she wants to know more. I tell her I grew up in Boston, went to law school there. I blah blah blah on awards, trial advocacy, my time as a Law Professor, my time as a federal Prosecutor.... but she keeps looking and wanting more. I'm starting to ramble a bit and wonder if she needs to know that in 1989 the Dean of my law school nominated me as the Most Outstanding Female Law graduate. I'm feeling a bit sweaty here thinking what more?? I homeschool, I clean the house, I do all sorts of mundane things now. I'm just not that intersting, but heck I run. Sooo.. I dropped it on her. I said, "I run Marathons." Ok, so I've only run two marathons, but that is technically plural. She stopped looking at me like I was a fraud for being there. She was impressed. Running and debates?? No correlation. No connection. But, she was clearly not a physical person and running finally got me past her. Then after introducing the other judges to a packed auditorium-- she forgot her notes on me and just gave my name, which she mispronounced. It was pretty funny.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How did your son react to seeing Mommy in a suit, doing the lawyer thing?

Trice said...

He was totally unimpressed :)
I'm not sure if I'm answering you directly as I have a hard time navigating the comment form.

Crumbs said...

Sounds like she "lost" the notes on you to keep her perceived upper hand.

Trice said...

Gosh, that never occurred to me. But I think you're right. I wonder what her deal was?