Antenuptial agreements

One of the fun ironies from my fascination with family law is that originally prenuptial agreements were called antenuptial agreements. Makes sense when you see it spelled, not so much when you say it aloud. So the Love Lawyer talked about the other kind of agreement -- the cohabitation agreement. Also advised for anyone not married that care to purchase property together :-)

Chicago -- Illinois' Largest College Town

No one should be surprised that there are more students in Chicago's Loop/South Loop than anywhere else in this state. After all, per the Chicago Sun-Times there are 25 different institutions of higher education right here. And I proudly work here in the Loop for the largest Catholic university in the country -- DePaul. But as a reminder, nothing I say in this blog in any way represents the viewpoints or positions of DePaul!

Censoring & the Kindle

This blog post made me sigh. It made me think about why I believe it is okay for parents to go through your room -- I don't want anyone legislating what I or my (imaginary) kids should read, watch, or say. However, that doesn't mean that everything is age appropriate so though I don't think Mom rifled through my room very often, I fully recognize that she was responsible for my well-being (BTW, thanks for that Mom). But this whole Kindle business makes me also consider all the ways our government and corporate America have promised one thing, and given us something completely different (ex: broken treaties, corruption, ignored privacy agreements). If only we'd all be better about keeping our promises. Don't worry, Michael, I promise I'm looking at the woman in the mirror first. And thank you sweet Jesus for my Chicago Public Library card.

Win a $600 shopping spree from Alice.com!

My worst shopping experience was one of those post-Thanksgiving rushes. I’d just moved to Chicago, but was home for the weekend in Nebraska with my family. I needed a new winter coat that I could run in so we headed to the great deal on Columbia jackets near my mother’s home. I realize that people take the post-Thanksgiving thing seriously (I’ve worked as an Assistant Store Manager at a big box retailer), but I couldn’t believe the woman in front of us that was SCREAMING at the clerk because the color and size she wanted were no longer there. This was especially appalling because it was already 11 a.m. — what did she expect? That’s really late for one of these mornings! I felt horrible for the clerk and ended up finding a security guard to help escort this raving lunatic out of the store. I’ve rarely been so ashamed of my fellow human beings before.

http://twitter.com/scarletncream/status/2207420542

Banned Books

Little in this world burns me up more than banned books. I know it is easy to cast stones when I don't have kids of my own that I'm trying to watch, but my parents made financial sacrifices to ensure that we were supervised. Let me tell you -- my mom definitely knew when I started to read Danielle Steele books and quickly put the kibosh on that. But guess what else she did? She explained to me why she thought those books weren't age appropriate for me. And when I did start reading them, she was hardly surprised that I thought most of them were stupid and boring. Though that still doesn't stop either of us from reading her stuff every few years when we need a beach read.