For a variety of reasons relating to a new thing that might be happening in my life*, I might be shutting down the Chaliceblog fairly soon. If I shut down the Chaliceblog, I'm going to disappear from the blogosphere for awhile because I think that's the only way I can deal and I don't want to hang around your blogs like the retired coworker whom nobody wants to eat lunch with. I will still be available over facebook and e-mail and would love to hear from you because like any retired coworker I know I will be lonely. I will probably go back to commenting when I've gotten some distance.
I tested my resolve on this tonight by deleting 20 posts (some that I very much liked and a couple that had taken hours to write) at the request of someone else because that person convinced me it was the right thing to do. It hurt like hell, but I did it. I now know I can do it again.
In reality, the Chaliceblog's days were numbered the day I got into law school.
Mary-who-dances, after having been fired by a prebyterian church because she is a lesbian, once said to me "Not every change is a fabulous new opportunity, some of them just suck"
This change would be both. It would have wonderful aspects, but I would certainly mourn this blog. And it may not work out and a few weeks from now, I may pull a Nirvana and say "Nevermind" and delete this and go on, but I really care about you guys and didn't want to just disappear with no warning. That said, if I decide to do this, I'm going to move quickly.
So there you go.
CC
who is going to take the opportunity to tell the UUA Washington Office that one of your number told somebody that the Chaliceblog drives y'all crazy and told that person not to tell me because it would give me too much satisfaction.
That person did tell me, and it was indeed immensely gratifying. Thinking about that makes a very sad person very happy.
* No, I'm not knocked up, and yes, theCSO and I are still very much married.
Showing posts with label LiveJournal-Esque. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LiveJournal-Esque. Show all posts
Monday, February 09, 2009
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Reason number eleven to get your ass to church
A followup of sorts.
As emails about my twitter feed keep coming in and I keep responding, an increasing number of you know that my husband was in a bike accident on Sunday night and has been in the hospital ever since.
He was wearing a helmet, thank goodness, because the significant injuries are to his face and head. He's alive, mentally OK and unparalyzed, but not entirely undamaged.
We're talking to plastic surgeons and researching exactly what a small subdural hemmorhage means. (What a big subdural hemmhorage means is well-known and extremely scary, and that subdural hemmhorages can be so tiny as to be insignificant is also true. We're in the middle, leaning toward the tiny but not completely there.)
We know he's off his bike for the season. What else it means is something we're still working on. The hours between midnight and noon today will represent the first twelve-hour period that I haven't spent hours by his side, but a girl has to bill a few hours occaisionally.
Suffice to say, our lives have been significantly upended.
And just about everyone who has heard has reached out. I have friends in a lot of different areas of my life that group easily by where I met them. I have work friends, law school friends, college friends and ex-coworker friends. I have blog friends, too, of course, but their scattered nature has meant that offers of prayers and someone to talk to have been about all they can do. Which is totally fine and to be expected, it's not like I could fly to Utah or Massachusetts or Georgia to make them cupcakes either and besides, theCSO has really enjoyed it when I've read him emails from people.
But my church friends have been like no other group in their speed, commitment and teamwork. I don't know what it is about church friends, maybe it's just that we're used to finding out that something needs to be done and working together to do it, but invitations to dinner, visits and roasted chickens have been marching my way with an organized precision that I would not necessarily have thought our somewhat disorganized faith was capable of.
I got the call from a minister, of course, and as theCSO doesn't know either of the ministers at my church well, we begged off on the visit. I'm sure the pastoral care committee assigned to do this stuff would be happy to join in with the chicken-cooking and the cheerleading. But has really amazed and impressed me as how smoothly and quickly my regular church friends have jumped up to help, the people I gossip with on Sundays and maybe eat dinner with a few times a year. My impression is that many facebook messages have been exchanged about what I might need and who might do what. We really haven't even needed the official resources of the church because the regular congregants have been so awesome.
One could assume that a whole bunch of people who happen to be especially useful in a crisis all happen to go to church with me and happen to be the people at church I've gotten to know well, but I think that's a few too many assumptions. And I don't discount the importance of committee work when it comes to building relationships where people work together to get things done. But then, other groups of my friends have worked together to achieve goals, too.
I think a big part of it is that my friends who have done the really superior job stepping up and working together are the ones who come together with me every week to focus on that which is greater than themselves, and that the spiritual aspect of our coming together makes it a natural thing for them to anticipate my needs and meet them while I'm still focused on theCSO.
At the same time, I probably am a project in some sense, but I don't feel like one. My family was an occiasional project for the Presby church I went to when I was a kid, and thinking of those times always brings to mind snarky C.S. Lewis quotes like ""She's the sort of woman who lives for others—you can always tell the others by their hunted expression."
That could have been a personality-of-the-congregation thing, but I have my doubts.
So anyway, I need to get back to work as I head back toward theCSO at 1:00. I'm always happy to be a UU and I'm always happy to be a member of my church. But I'm feeling both of those doubly today.
And I'm doubly committed to being there for the next friend who has a crisis.
CC
Clarification:
The night of the accident, I updated my twitter feed repeatedly with tweets expressing my fear and frustration. Twitter, as it always does, put those tweets in the box at the top right of my blog. The morning after, I pulled most of the scared-sounding tweets down as they felt like I was oversharing, though I kept them up on Facebook where people I've friended could see them.
In the twelve hours or so that they were up, lots of Chalicesseurs saw those tweets and emailed me, which was very welcome. Due to the fact that they were up from late Sunday night to sometime Monday morning, lots of Chalicesseurs also didn't see those tweets, which is also fine. I know they would have reached out had they seen them.
It might well have been that I wanted to be able to look at my blog without seeing them myself.
As emails about my twitter feed keep coming in and I keep responding, an increasing number of you know that my husband was in a bike accident on Sunday night and has been in the hospital ever since.
He was wearing a helmet, thank goodness, because the significant injuries are to his face and head. He's alive, mentally OK and unparalyzed, but not entirely undamaged.
We're talking to plastic surgeons and researching exactly what a small subdural hemmorhage means. (What a big subdural hemmhorage means is well-known and extremely scary, and that subdural hemmhorages can be so tiny as to be insignificant is also true. We're in the middle, leaning toward the tiny but not completely there.)
We know he's off his bike for the season. What else it means is something we're still working on. The hours between midnight and noon today will represent the first twelve-hour period that I haven't spent hours by his side, but a girl has to bill a few hours occaisionally.
Suffice to say, our lives have been significantly upended.
And just about everyone who has heard has reached out. I have friends in a lot of different areas of my life that group easily by where I met them. I have work friends, law school friends, college friends and ex-coworker friends. I have blog friends, too, of course, but their scattered nature has meant that offers of prayers and someone to talk to have been about all they can do. Which is totally fine and to be expected, it's not like I could fly to Utah or Massachusetts or Georgia to make them cupcakes either and besides, theCSO has really enjoyed it when I've read him emails from people.
But my church friends have been like no other group in their speed, commitment and teamwork. I don't know what it is about church friends, maybe it's just that we're used to finding out that something needs to be done and working together to do it, but invitations to dinner, visits and roasted chickens have been marching my way with an organized precision that I would not necessarily have thought our somewhat disorganized faith was capable of.
I got the call from a minister, of course, and as theCSO doesn't know either of the ministers at my church well, we begged off on the visit. I'm sure the pastoral care committee assigned to do this stuff would be happy to join in with the chicken-cooking and the cheerleading. But has really amazed and impressed me as how smoothly and quickly my regular church friends have jumped up to help, the people I gossip with on Sundays and maybe eat dinner with a few times a year. My impression is that many facebook messages have been exchanged about what I might need and who might do what. We really haven't even needed the official resources of the church because the regular congregants have been so awesome.
One could assume that a whole bunch of people who happen to be especially useful in a crisis all happen to go to church with me and happen to be the people at church I've gotten to know well, but I think that's a few too many assumptions. And I don't discount the importance of committee work when it comes to building relationships where people work together to get things done. But then, other groups of my friends have worked together to achieve goals, too.
I think a big part of it is that my friends who have done the really superior job stepping up and working together are the ones who come together with me every week to focus on that which is greater than themselves, and that the spiritual aspect of our coming together makes it a natural thing for them to anticipate my needs and meet them while I'm still focused on theCSO.
At the same time, I probably am a project in some sense, but I don't feel like one. My family was an occiasional project for the Presby church I went to when I was a kid, and thinking of those times always brings to mind snarky C.S. Lewis quotes like ""She's the sort of woman who lives for others—you can always tell the others by their hunted expression."
That could have been a personality-of-the-congregation thing, but I have my doubts.
So anyway, I need to get back to work as I head back toward theCSO at 1:00. I'm always happy to be a UU and I'm always happy to be a member of my church. But I'm feeling both of those doubly today.
And I'm doubly committed to being there for the next friend who has a crisis.
CC
Clarification:
The night of the accident, I updated my twitter feed repeatedly with tweets expressing my fear and frustration. Twitter, as it always does, put those tweets in the box at the top right of my blog. The morning after, I pulled most of the scared-sounding tweets down as they felt like I was oversharing, though I kept them up on Facebook where people I've friended could see them.
In the twelve hours or so that they were up, lots of Chalicesseurs saw those tweets and emailed me, which was very welcome. Due to the fact that they were up from late Sunday night to sometime Monday morning, lots of Chalicesseurs also didn't see those tweets, which is also fine. I know they would have reached out had they seen them.
It might well have been that I wanted to be able to look at my blog without seeing them myself.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Life is good.
I've been really caught up in the politics stuff I've been writing recently and haven't written anything about life in general. So here goes.
I'm in one of those periods of contentment that always makes me worry that the other shoe is about to drop. Little things could be improved about my life. I need to get more billable hours, spend more time in front of the WiiFit, go visit Linguistfriend and get a little more one-on-one time with my husband, but on the whole, things are good.
I'm a total nerd for this but I love tax law. It's just so delightfully straightforward. All the laws can be conveniently examined. The cases make sense. It's great! I sometimes have trouble remembering that most people don't love tax law, and y'all were only barely spared a post on Sarah Palin's commuting in light of the Flowers case.
I don't love corporations. But I feel like I should understand them, so I'm taking the class.
ZombieKid was joining the school band this year and was thinking about playing the clarinet or flute. As far as I can tell a skinny boy carrying a clarinet or flute around junior high might as well be wearing a sign that says "Please kick my ass," so I was delighted when he ended up going with the saxaphone.
Due to the questionable influence of Jana-who-creates and Joe-the-Math-guy, I started reading comic books this summer. I'm mostly through Preacher's trade paperbacks now, though the last few are on order and am about to start Fables. I read V for Vendetta but failed to see what the fuss was all about. I had read Sandman in college and much preferred it. I've got Watchmen sitting on my shelf awaiting my attention. Edie-who-sells-books also sells comic books and has been delighted by this turn of events because she knows how fast I read.
Also, at the suggestion of Katy-the-Wise, this summer I started reading Harry Kemelman's detective series about Rabbi David Small. I really like it and look forward to finishing it. I've had some nice conversations with Katy-the-Wise recently. I am constantly amazed at the number of smart and awesome friends I have.
Jana-who-Creates is in charge of making sure I don't turn evil. (I know, I know, she's behind.) and ZombieKid is in charge of making sure I remain fun. It disturbed Jana that she went on two retreats with me in two weeks and I only brought homework to read. So I'm trying to keep things in balance.
YRUU starts again tomorrow. We have a ton of new yutes and I look forward to getting to know them, though I seriously miss some of the ones who went to college this year. I'm writing the script for the Murder Mystery Dinner again.
Oh, and I'M GOING TO SEE SANDRA BERNHARD tonight with Jana-who-Creates!
So that's me.
What's up with you?
CC
I'm in one of those periods of contentment that always makes me worry that the other shoe is about to drop. Little things could be improved about my life. I need to get more billable hours, spend more time in front of the WiiFit, go visit Linguistfriend and get a little more one-on-one time with my husband, but on the whole, things are good.
I'm a total nerd for this but I love tax law. It's just so delightfully straightforward. All the laws can be conveniently examined. The cases make sense. It's great! I sometimes have trouble remembering that most people don't love tax law, and y'all were only barely spared a post on Sarah Palin's commuting in light of the Flowers case.
I don't love corporations. But I feel like I should understand them, so I'm taking the class.
ZombieKid was joining the school band this year and was thinking about playing the clarinet or flute. As far as I can tell a skinny boy carrying a clarinet or flute around junior high might as well be wearing a sign that says "Please kick my ass," so I was delighted when he ended up going with the saxaphone.
Due to the questionable influence of Jana-who-creates and Joe-the-Math-guy, I started reading comic books this summer. I'm mostly through Preacher's trade paperbacks now, though the last few are on order and am about to start Fables. I read V for Vendetta but failed to see what the fuss was all about. I had read Sandman in college and much preferred it. I've got Watchmen sitting on my shelf awaiting my attention. Edie-who-sells-books also sells comic books and has been delighted by this turn of events because she knows how fast I read.
Also, at the suggestion of Katy-the-Wise, this summer I started reading Harry Kemelman's detective series about Rabbi David Small. I really like it and look forward to finishing it. I've had some nice conversations with Katy-the-Wise recently. I am constantly amazed at the number of smart and awesome friends I have.
Jana-who-Creates is in charge of making sure I don't turn evil. (I know, I know, she's behind.) and ZombieKid is in charge of making sure I remain fun. It disturbed Jana that she went on two retreats with me in two weeks and I only brought homework to read. So I'm trying to keep things in balance.
YRUU starts again tomorrow. We have a ton of new yutes and I look forward to getting to know them, though I seriously miss some of the ones who went to college this year. I'm writing the script for the Murder Mystery Dinner again.
Oh, and I'M GOING TO SEE SANDRA BERNHARD tonight with Jana-who-Creates!
So that's me.
What's up with you?
CC
Monday, August 18, 2008
May nothing Evil cross our doors
There's a church in Fairfax County that doesn't lock its doors.
It never has, as far as I know.
I was introduced to it about fifteen years ago. I was a teenager, questioning my faith and very depressed, and a boy took me there in the middle of the night to sing hymns. (This probably sounds a little precious to you, but I can assure you that to a teenage girl, it was great stuff and it helped me out a lot. I hope I made out with him in a serious way after we left the church. I'm sure I did.)
I've never forgotten that this church is unlocked. It's not a UU church, but it's a church just the same and I've been there a couple more times in the middle of the night in what felt like desperate circumstances and I've always found peace there, not so much for praying as for thinking in an environment conducive to looking beyond one's own problems and taking the long view.
Every time I've ever been, I've written an anonymous thank-you in the guestbook indicating that I was there in the middle of the night and that I was grateful that the church had been unlocked when I needed it.
By contrast, I've heard a lot about security measures at UU churches recently. People want to lock the doors during the service, to check packages, to let nothing evil cross our doors. A Chalicesseur actually attended a service yesterday where the church was locked from inside during the service.
I get the temptation.
But please, please don't.
I probably should have written this a couple of weeks ago as I did see this coming*.
But I was hoping that the "random whackjob wanting to hurt his ex-wife" explanation would be the commonly accepted one rather than the "holy war against liberalism" explanation.
Either way, locks and security won't keep evil from our doors if evil really wants to get in, but they will eat away at our feeling of safety with each other, our feeling that the church is a place we can come to that will be available for us.
I get that all churches can't be like my beloved church in Fairfax County. Indeed, with the world we live in, the "always unlocked" policy must be terribly controversial within the church itself. I am fairly confident that I will need that church again some awful night, and not at all confident that I won't find the doors soundly locked.
But we can't be locking people out on Sunday mornings.
If we start, those shootings will have damaged us in a much more widespread and serious way than merely killing two of our number.
And Evil will have won.
CC
*Us Washingtonians know a bit about threats and the way people react to them.
It never has, as far as I know.
I was introduced to it about fifteen years ago. I was a teenager, questioning my faith and very depressed, and a boy took me there in the middle of the night to sing hymns. (This probably sounds a little precious to you, but I can assure you that to a teenage girl, it was great stuff and it helped me out a lot. I hope I made out with him in a serious way after we left the church. I'm sure I did.)
I've never forgotten that this church is unlocked. It's not a UU church, but it's a church just the same and I've been there a couple more times in the middle of the night in what felt like desperate circumstances and I've always found peace there, not so much for praying as for thinking in an environment conducive to looking beyond one's own problems and taking the long view.
Every time I've ever been, I've written an anonymous thank-you in the guestbook indicating that I was there in the middle of the night and that I was grateful that the church had been unlocked when I needed it.
By contrast, I've heard a lot about security measures at UU churches recently. People want to lock the doors during the service, to check packages, to let nothing evil cross our doors. A Chalicesseur actually attended a service yesterday where the church was locked from inside during the service.
I get the temptation.
But please, please don't.
I probably should have written this a couple of weeks ago as I did see this coming*.
But I was hoping that the "random whackjob wanting to hurt his ex-wife" explanation would be the commonly accepted one rather than the "holy war against liberalism" explanation.
Either way, locks and security won't keep evil from our doors if evil really wants to get in, but they will eat away at our feeling of safety with each other, our feeling that the church is a place we can come to that will be available for us.
I get that all churches can't be like my beloved church in Fairfax County. Indeed, with the world we live in, the "always unlocked" policy must be terribly controversial within the church itself. I am fairly confident that I will need that church again some awful night, and not at all confident that I won't find the doors soundly locked.
But we can't be locking people out on Sunday mornings.
If we start, those shootings will have damaged us in a much more widespread and serious way than merely killing two of our number.
And Evil will have won.
CC
*Us Washingtonians know a bit about threats and the way people react to them.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Can't help lovin' that man of mine
TheCSO and I were having dinner in a trendy local restaurant* when the following conversation occured:
CC: We totally need to find him a girlfriend. I just feel bad for him.
TheCSO: Yeah?
CC: Yeah, as far as I can tell, he wakes up, eats, works, goes for a run, has dinner talks on the phone for awhile, then sleeps.
TheCSO: We could liven up his life significantly even without a girlfriend.
CC: Really?
TheCSO: Oh yeah, at the end of the day he could be like "Dear Diary, today I woke up, went to work, chased rabid squirrels out of my office, worked, went for a run, talked on the phone, got my utilities reconnected, then went to sleep." That would be a much more exciting day.
CC: You're an asshole.
TheCSO: Nah, if I were an asshole, he'd also have to convince the DMV that he wasn't dead.
CC: I think this is why people don't come to you with their personal problems very often.
CC
*This is a total lie. We were at Red Lobster.
CC: We totally need to find him a girlfriend. I just feel bad for him.
TheCSO: Yeah?
CC: Yeah, as far as I can tell, he wakes up, eats, works, goes for a run, has dinner talks on the phone for awhile, then sleeps.
TheCSO: We could liven up his life significantly even without a girlfriend.
CC: Really?
TheCSO: Oh yeah, at the end of the day he could be like "Dear Diary, today I woke up, went to work, chased rabid squirrels out of my office, worked, went for a run, talked on the phone, got my utilities reconnected, then went to sleep." That would be a much more exciting day.
CC: You're an asshole.
TheCSO: Nah, if I were an asshole, he'd also have to convince the DMV that he wasn't dead.
CC: I think this is why people don't come to you with their personal problems very often.
CC
*This is a total lie. We were at Red Lobster.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Today in church, we did something really great.
We prayed for the guy who shot up the congregation in Tennessee.
I don’t pray often, to be honest. My conception of God is that God is a force not at all unlike gravity, pulling at us all the time and changing the way things behave in ways that are so seamless with our reality that we can be forgiven for missing God’s presence. (Yes, you can argue this one out with me if you wish, but that’s not really the point of this post.)
So when I do pray, I’m pretty aware that I’m talking mostly to myself.
I’m also aware of Robertson Davies’ comment “Prayer is petition, intercession, adoration, and contemplation; great saints and mystics have agreed on this definition. To stop short at petition is to pray only in a crippled fashion. Further, such prayer encourages one of the faults which is most reprehended by spiritual instructors -- turning to God without turning from Self”
But I think I can be aware that I’m talking mostly to myself while at the same time trying to remove myself from selfish concerns. But am I motivated to try to remove my thoughts from selfish concerns by Pride or by wanting to feel good about myself for having done so? Eh… Dunno. Either way it seems like a good practice. And besides, we can’t ever completely leave ourselves out. We can look beyond ourselves to some degree, but we’re kind of stuck in the perspective we’re in. A dog who loves one still expresses his affection as dogs express affection.
Still, even among people who do pray as a regular thing, I don’t think praying for those who attack us is very common, even though the bible pretty much straight up says we should pray for everyone. (Ok, that’s the way I read I Timothy 2: 1-4*, given what jerks most of the biblical kings were.) It has given me great pride in Unitarian Universalism to hear about how forgiving we have been and how we have been reaching out in all directions spiritually, not just the easy ones.
Even though I’m a humanist who doesn’t pray much, I see it as crucial for our own dealing with this tragedy to look to the shooter with compassion in any way we can, prayer included**. When we reach out, to heaven and to one another, and call out to those whose personal concerns are well beyond our own, by the very nature of the act we are increasing our own awareness and growing spiritually. Will compassionate thoughts lead to compassionate action, leading to compassionate acts and feelings on the parts of others, setting off a chain of events that makes the world suck less?
Maybe not, but, hell, let’s give it a shot.
CC
*1I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
2For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
3For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
4Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
**Ok, if prayer straight up doesn't work for you spiritually, you don't have to pray. Note again that I stretching the concept of prayer somewhat. But the ideas are still worth contemplating on and considering.
I don’t pray often, to be honest. My conception of God is that God is a force not at all unlike gravity, pulling at us all the time and changing the way things behave in ways that are so seamless with our reality that we can be forgiven for missing God’s presence. (Yes, you can argue this one out with me if you wish, but that’s not really the point of this post.)
So when I do pray, I’m pretty aware that I’m talking mostly to myself.
I’m also aware of Robertson Davies’ comment “Prayer is petition, intercession, adoration, and contemplation; great saints and mystics have agreed on this definition. To stop short at petition is to pray only in a crippled fashion. Further, such prayer encourages one of the faults which is most reprehended by spiritual instructors -- turning to God without turning from Self”
But I think I can be aware that I’m talking mostly to myself while at the same time trying to remove myself from selfish concerns. But am I motivated to try to remove my thoughts from selfish concerns by Pride or by wanting to feel good about myself for having done so? Eh… Dunno. Either way it seems like a good practice. And besides, we can’t ever completely leave ourselves out. We can look beyond ourselves to some degree, but we’re kind of stuck in the perspective we’re in. A dog who loves one still expresses his affection as dogs express affection.
Still, even among people who do pray as a regular thing, I don’t think praying for those who attack us is very common, even though the bible pretty much straight up says we should pray for everyone. (Ok, that’s the way I read I Timothy 2: 1-4*, given what jerks most of the biblical kings were.) It has given me great pride in Unitarian Universalism to hear about how forgiving we have been and how we have been reaching out in all directions spiritually, not just the easy ones.
Even though I’m a humanist who doesn’t pray much, I see it as crucial for our own dealing with this tragedy to look to the shooter with compassion in any way we can, prayer included**. When we reach out, to heaven and to one another, and call out to those whose personal concerns are well beyond our own, by the very nature of the act we are increasing our own awareness and growing spiritually. Will compassionate thoughts lead to compassionate action, leading to compassionate acts and feelings on the parts of others, setting off a chain of events that makes the world suck less?
Maybe not, but, hell, let’s give it a shot.
CC
*1I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
2For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
3For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
4Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
**Ok, if prayer straight up doesn't work for you spiritually, you don't have to pray. Note again that I stretching the concept of prayer somewhat. But the ideas are still worth contemplating on and considering.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Can I show you something awesome?
So ZombieKid made me a clay robot at Camp. Actually, theGnome made me some stuff too, remind me to take this post down before he's old enough to surf the internet unspervised as I would hate for him to run across my blatant favoritism for his brother's gift.
But ZombieKid's robot rocked my world. I freakin' love this robot and I've had it on my desk since the Monday morning after he gave it to me. I look at it all the time and smile.
Today, my boss goes sweeping through the office, carrying her lunch.
"Can I run something by you?" one of the secretaries asked her.
"Is it gory or disgusting or anything?" My boss asked in response. This is an extremely logical question in Workers' Comp.
"Kind of,"
"After lunch!" She said, gliding into her office.
I grabbed the robot and followed her.
"How about awesome?" I asked. "Is awesome OK?"
"I guess you can show me something awesome," she said, taking a bite of salad.
"Check out this cool robot my best friend's nine-year-old made me."
"WOW!" She said "That is AWESOME. What a GREAT ROBOT!"
She's mom, so her standards are correspondingly odd, but I don't think she was humoring me. I'm a lucky girl to have such a robot.
CC
Monday, July 28, 2008
Courage in Knoxville
This, indeed, is probably one of the Enemy's motives for
creating a dangerous world—a world in which moral issues
really come to the point. He sees as well as you do that
courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of
every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point
of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which
yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on
conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky.
-C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
(which are written from the perspective of a devil, therefore "the enemy" referred to is God)
I join the rest of my blogosphere in thinking about the shooting at the UU church in Knoxville yesterday, but I find my thoughts centered on Greg McKendry, who died shielding the congregation's children with his body. Like Screwtape, I think about courage a lot. I wish I had more of it, and I wish I were certain that I would do the right thing in desperate circumstances.
One UU did, and I hope we don't forget him for a long time.
CC
who can't go to the service the UU church of Rockville is having because of school, but will be there in spirit.
Ps. Here's another insightful column about the tragedy.
creating a dangerous world—a world in which moral issues
really come to the point. He sees as well as you do that
courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of
every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point
of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which
yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on
conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky.
-C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
(which are written from the perspective of a devil, therefore "the enemy" referred to is God)
I join the rest of my blogosphere in thinking about the shooting at the UU church in Knoxville yesterday, but I find my thoughts centered on Greg McKendry, who died shielding the congregation's children with his body. Like Screwtape, I think about courage a lot. I wish I had more of it, and I wish I were certain that I would do the right thing in desperate circumstances.
One UU did, and I hope we don't forget him for a long time.
CC
who can't go to the service the UU church of Rockville is having because of school, but will be there in spirit.
Ps. Here's another insightful column about the tragedy.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Corporate America reassures Chalicechick
"Good afternoon," I said to the bank teller, "I forgot my wallet, but I'm in here all the time. Can I just withdraw a hundred dollars?"
"I do recognize you" My bank teller Inga said, peering into her computer. "Do you know your account number?"
I didn't, of course. So I gave her my social and she looked it up. Inga filled out the withdrawal form and handed it back to me.
"I'm sorry, I don't have a pen." I said. "I'm just useless this afternoon."
Inga handed me a pen. "No," she gravely said. "We disagree. We are your bank, and we do not think you are useless at all."
"Thanks," I said, signing the paper.
She handed me my money and I left the bank.
What a strange little interaction.
And now, in honor of the fact that CC has not had a normal evening at home followed by a normal night of sleep in at least ten days, we will practice the traditional Chaliceblog Self-Care exercise: Watching that "Alan Rickman-I'm too Sexy" youtube video.
Please enjoy, and know that we at the Chaliceblog do not think you're a bit useless. Not at all.
"I do recognize you" My bank teller Inga said, peering into her computer. "Do you know your account number?"
I didn't, of course. So I gave her my social and she looked it up. Inga filled out the withdrawal form and handed it back to me.
"I'm sorry, I don't have a pen." I said. "I'm just useless this afternoon."
Inga handed me a pen. "No," she gravely said. "We disagree. We are your bank, and we do not think you are useless at all."
"Thanks," I said, signing the paper.
She handed me my money and I left the bank.
What a strange little interaction.
And now, in honor of the fact that CC has not had a normal evening at home followed by a normal night of sleep in at least ten days, we will practice the traditional Chaliceblog Self-Care exercise: Watching that "Alan Rickman-I'm too Sexy" youtube video.
Please enjoy, and know that we at the Chaliceblog do not think you're a bit useless. Not at all.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
- Post 3 things you've done in your lifetime that you don't think anybody else on your friends list has done.
- See if anybody else responds with "I've done that." If they have, you need to add another! (2.b., 2.c., etc...)
- Have your friends cut & paste this into their journal to see what unique things they've done in their life.
1. Spent the night a South Carolina jail cell*
2. Participated in a "truth or dare" game that got so wild that two housemates moved out almost immediately afterwards.
3. Taken a walking tour of Jack the Ripper's hunting ground with a criminologist.
CC
*I wasn't under arrest, though. They were opening a new prison and needed volunteers for the guards to practice marching around and handling.
- See if anybody else responds with "I've done that." If they have, you need to add another! (2.b., 2.c., etc...)
- Have your friends cut & paste this into their journal to see what unique things they've done in their life.
1. Spent the night a South Carolina jail cell*
2. Participated in a "truth or dare" game that got so wild that two housemates moved out almost immediately afterwards.
3. Taken a walking tour of Jack the Ripper's hunting ground with a criminologist.
CC
*I wasn't under arrest, though. They were opening a new prison and needed volunteers for the guards to practice marching around and handling.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
CC the rural churchgoer.
Robin says I'm out of touch because I live in an area with thousands of UUs in a couple of dozen churches (Thank you, A. Powell Davies), so I can't understand what more rural UUs go through.
And as much as I feel like the "I go to a 50-member UU church in the middle of nowhere and I find the people I go to church with intolerant of my views" people are overrepresented on the internet, for the record, I did used to be one to some degree.
I've lived in a place where there were only one or two UU churches within a reasonable distance (by which I mean "within 60 miles") and where I didn't particularly agree with a lot of the opinions that were voiced, from the pulpit and at coffee hour.
What did I do about it?
1. I picked the church that was older, smaller and needed me more. I did this mostly because they hugged less and made less of a fuss about greeting me. Pretty much one guy greeted at the smaller church. I loved that. Extroversion scares me off on Sunday morning. When I want to talk to you, I will. But let me test the water first. Anyway, they did, but when I joined, they were pleased to have me, even if I did believe weird things.
2. I participated with great enthusiasm in a discussion group where lots of people disagreed with me on lots of things, but where I learned about their beliefs as well as broadcasting my own.
3. I joined the worship committee where I worked with other people to design services better suited to people who believed what I did.*
4. When something was going on that I didn't believe in, I sat at the toasting table and watched the crowning of the queen of the may as the kids skipped around the maypole, and I tried to learn something from the experience.
5. I redoubled my efforts to explore my own spiritual beliefs through reading authors who saw the world similarly and through writing about what I believed.
6. I met some people online that I agreed with.
7. And yes, I found some people who agreed with me and went out to lunch with them and bitched about the service on occasion. Or tried to. But frankly, we liked some folks who disagreed with us so much that we always ended up inviting them along and our bitch session ended up more like a conversation. Also, my favorite pagan had an amazing voice and the blues trio at the restaurant we liked always wanted her to sing and when I was listening to her theological differences didn't seem terribly important.
8. I reached out to the people I went to church with. I got involved in charitable projects, I worked on lots of stuff for the church and I made lots of friends.
9. I tried to see if things I disagreed with could be interpreted as useful metaphor. This had been my parents' suggestion when I was a kid non-believer** and they were informing me that I was a Presbyterian until I turned 18***.
I learned more about who I was spiritually and what I believed at that church than I have at any of the churches where I've been more comfortable. And I developed a more sophisticated spiritual relationship with faiths different from my own and learned about things other faiths had to teach me, as well as more thoughtful reasons about why some things don't work for me spiritually.
CC
who again, stuck it out as a Presby for 18 years, let's remember. Once your Great Aunt has calmly told you over a game of chess that this particular game of chess was in God's plan and the outcome of the game would be whatever God's hand and God's purpose predestined to occur, ain't nothing a UU can say that's going to bother you all that much.
*Again, I worked WITH people. I didn't make dire threats about what would happen to membership if I didn't get my way, and I didn't try to impose my way 100 percent and take over. I was in the minority and I respected that and picked my battles and got a lot of what I wanted.
**As I've mentioned before, it was Abraham and Isaac that did it for me. The idea that God was a colossal jerk who didn't actually give a shit about us made a lot of things in my life make sense, especially once I got to Junior High. The God I believe in now is indeed different from the one I didn't believe in then, as we theistic UUs like to put it.
***Before I turned 18 and a half, the Presbyterian church had fired their minister because she was a lesbian and I had quit. The minister and I are still friends. My parents, brothers and theChaliceRelative still go to the church. Much of life is battle-picking, kids.
And as much as I feel like the "I go to a 50-member UU church in the middle of nowhere and I find the people I go to church with intolerant of my views" people are overrepresented on the internet, for the record, I did used to be one to some degree.
I've lived in a place where there were only one or two UU churches within a reasonable distance (by which I mean "within 60 miles") and where I didn't particularly agree with a lot of the opinions that were voiced, from the pulpit and at coffee hour.
What did I do about it?
1. I picked the church that was older, smaller and needed me more. I did this mostly because they hugged less and made less of a fuss about greeting me. Pretty much one guy greeted at the smaller church. I loved that. Extroversion scares me off on Sunday morning. When I want to talk to you, I will. But let me test the water first. Anyway, they did, but when I joined, they were pleased to have me, even if I did believe weird things.
2. I participated with great enthusiasm in a discussion group where lots of people disagreed with me on lots of things, but where I learned about their beliefs as well as broadcasting my own.
3. I joined the worship committee where I worked with other people to design services better suited to people who believed what I did.*
4. When something was going on that I didn't believe in, I sat at the toasting table and watched the crowning of the queen of the may as the kids skipped around the maypole, and I tried to learn something from the experience.
5. I redoubled my efforts to explore my own spiritual beliefs through reading authors who saw the world similarly and through writing about what I believed.
6. I met some people online that I agreed with.
7. And yes, I found some people who agreed with me and went out to lunch with them and bitched about the service on occasion. Or tried to. But frankly, we liked some folks who disagreed with us so much that we always ended up inviting them along and our bitch session ended up more like a conversation. Also, my favorite pagan had an amazing voice and the blues trio at the restaurant we liked always wanted her to sing and when I was listening to her theological differences didn't seem terribly important.
8. I reached out to the people I went to church with. I got involved in charitable projects, I worked on lots of stuff for the church and I made lots of friends.
9. I tried to see if things I disagreed with could be interpreted as useful metaphor. This had been my parents' suggestion when I was a kid non-believer** and they were informing me that I was a Presbyterian until I turned 18***.
I learned more about who I was spiritually and what I believed at that church than I have at any of the churches where I've been more comfortable. And I developed a more sophisticated spiritual relationship with faiths different from my own and learned about things other faiths had to teach me, as well as more thoughtful reasons about why some things don't work for me spiritually.
CC
who again, stuck it out as a Presby for 18 years, let's remember. Once your Great Aunt has calmly told you over a game of chess that this particular game of chess was in God's plan and the outcome of the game would be whatever God's hand and God's purpose predestined to occur, ain't nothing a UU can say that's going to bother you all that much.
*Again, I worked WITH people. I didn't make dire threats about what would happen to membership if I didn't get my way, and I didn't try to impose my way 100 percent and take over. I was in the minority and I respected that and picked my battles and got a lot of what I wanted.
**As I've mentioned before, it was Abraham and Isaac that did it for me. The idea that God was a colossal jerk who didn't actually give a shit about us made a lot of things in my life make sense, especially once I got to Junior High. The God I believe in now is indeed different from the one I didn't believe in then, as we theistic UUs like to put it.
***Before I turned 18 and a half, the Presbyterian church had fired their minister because she was a lesbian and I had quit. The minister and I are still friends. My parents, brothers and theChaliceRelative still go to the church. Much of life is battle-picking, kids.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
I have always had a low opinion
of people who say "Now how would you feel if someone did that to you?"
I've written on this topic before because I've had several friends in the past who liked to recite my minor sins back to me, always ending with that dumbass question. I've heard it applied to, among other sins, "kissing your ex at a party," "needing to work on the college newspaper when you have yet another boyfriend drama" and "poorly disgusing that I didn't like the romantic surprise you painstakingly prepared for me because you didn't know me very well and assumed I would love something I actually found mildly traumatic.*"
I always feel like responding "I would feel like a melodramatic, self-important idiot if I made a fuss about it." (Ok, I genuinely felt really bad about the romantic surprise at the time, though in retrospect, I don't have a lot of sympathy for planning romantic surprises for people one doesn't know very well.)
Anwyay, I'm sure with "how would YOU feel if..." the idea is that I will have a sudden, shocking revelation:
"Oh my gosh! If I had plans with a friend and they had to cancel a few days before because of a work crisis, I would feel...bad! How horribly I must have wounded you!"
(Cue dramatic, un-CC-like sobbing, wailing, moaning and begging of forgiveness,)
I think I've written before that my total disgust for anybody who uses this phrase dates back to a clingy, in retrospect completely mental college friend who used it constantly. Since, then, I've regarded it as a red flag that the person I'm dealing with might be a self-important pain-in-the-ass.
I'm fairly certain that for most of us, considering the "how would *I* feel" point is pretty much a reflex when we're about to do something that someone else will likely find unpleasant. For me it is always factored in to the cost benefit analysis I go through when making a choice about whether to, say, report someone who is giving me bad customer service, to say nothing of when I'm about to do something than might annoy a friend. So to me, there's something inherently quite insulting about asking someone to consider how they would feel in the same situation.
Anway, I've written all that before, though it has been a couple of years. Yet I find myself revisiting the idea today, because I've several times recently encoutered people who can't deal with having their own logic applied to themselves and actually haven't considered this point, and are in some cases in total denial. (Well, yeah, when you do the same thing I did, it's much worse, because of these minor distinctions that don't make much sense...)
And I am totally flummoxed by the mere existance of these people.
I've discussed this and similar issues with an admittedly snotty close friend who says that if you're going to argue with stupid people, you need to prepare yourself with the sort of logic that appeals to stupid people. This logic includes several variations on Pascal's wager, any political logic that fits on a bumper sticker, and yes, my least favorite question. But that's for winning an argument.
Usually I don't even bother to try to show stupid people they've wronged me and get an apology. It's always more work than it is worth.
So that's what I'm thinking about today. Suggestions?
CC
*This was not theCSO. TheCSO would never ask me that question. He's way too smart and way to aware that he and I think differently.
I've written on this topic before because I've had several friends in the past who liked to recite my minor sins back to me, always ending with that dumbass question. I've heard it applied to, among other sins, "kissing your ex at a party," "needing to work on the college newspaper when you have yet another boyfriend drama" and "poorly disgusing that I didn't like the romantic surprise you painstakingly prepared for me because you didn't know me very well and assumed I would love something I actually found mildly traumatic.*"
I always feel like responding "I would feel like a melodramatic, self-important idiot if I made a fuss about it." (Ok, I genuinely felt really bad about the romantic surprise at the time, though in retrospect, I don't have a lot of sympathy for planning romantic surprises for people one doesn't know very well.)
Anwyay, I'm sure with "how would YOU feel if..." the idea is that I will have a sudden, shocking revelation:
"Oh my gosh! If I had plans with a friend and they had to cancel a few days before because of a work crisis, I would feel...bad! How horribly I must have wounded you!"
(Cue dramatic, un-CC-like sobbing, wailing, moaning and begging of forgiveness,)
I think I've written before that my total disgust for anybody who uses this phrase dates back to a clingy, in retrospect completely mental college friend who used it constantly. Since, then, I've regarded it as a red flag that the person I'm dealing with might be a self-important pain-in-the-ass.
I'm fairly certain that for most of us, considering the "how would *I* feel" point is pretty much a reflex when we're about to do something that someone else will likely find unpleasant. For me it is always factored in to the cost benefit analysis I go through when making a choice about whether to, say, report someone who is giving me bad customer service, to say nothing of when I'm about to do something than might annoy a friend. So to me, there's something inherently quite insulting about asking someone to consider how they would feel in the same situation.
Anway, I've written all that before, though it has been a couple of years. Yet I find myself revisiting the idea today, because I've several times recently encoutered people who can't deal with having their own logic applied to themselves and actually haven't considered this point, and are in some cases in total denial. (Well, yeah, when you do the same thing I did, it's much worse, because of these minor distinctions that don't make much sense...)
And I am totally flummoxed by the mere existance of these people.
I've discussed this and similar issues with an admittedly snotty close friend who says that if you're going to argue with stupid people, you need to prepare yourself with the sort of logic that appeals to stupid people. This logic includes several variations on Pascal's wager, any political logic that fits on a bumper sticker, and yes, my least favorite question. But that's for winning an argument.
Usually I don't even bother to try to show stupid people they've wronged me and get an apology. It's always more work than it is worth.
So that's what I'm thinking about today. Suggestions?
CC
*This was not theCSO. TheCSO would never ask me that question. He's way too smart and way to aware that he and I think differently.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Snakes
...Or CC loves Laura Lippman and identifies with this article.
At the ripe old age of 19, I bummed around India for a month and a half with a bunch of folks from college, including a guy who was known to the whole campus as "Gay Chuck,*" a nickname he relished. GC was half white and half African American, and wherever we went in India, people seemed to take GC as being from India, just from a different part of India than they were.
So GC and I hatched this plan. For most of the trip, we went around together. He was the clever Indian husband, careful with the family's money, and I was the flightly American wife who simply had to have some little trinket. We played "Good Cop, Bad Cop" on the salespeople in the marketplaces and got just about everything for cheaper prices than everyone else on our trip. (Flighty American wife that I was, I sometimes would pay the original asking price with a wink while Chuck was pretending to look away. Saving money was only a side objective, we really wanted to get better deals than our friends were getting.)
In retrospect, I am sort of amazed that this worked, and I have long wondered whether the dealers gave us low prices because we were so darn entertaining, not because our little vaudeville routine fooled anybody.
Anyway, we did this huge walk around Mysore, and about halfway through, there was a dealer selling these hideous, life-sized wooden cobras. GC and I stood there, looking at them and whispering snarky things to one another about them for a full five minutes, then moved on.
But I kept thinking about the snake.
We were most of the way back, less than a mile from the hotel, when I turned to GC,
"I'm sorry, darlin', but I think I need one of those snakes."
Clearly I was playing the flighty American wife to the hilt.
Good sport that he was, Chuck walked with me all the way back. By the time we got back to the hotel, almost all of our friends were back. We set the snake down on the dining room table in the common room and it elicited a very satisfying scream of terror from one of our traveling companions when she walked into the room to find it staring at her.
I brought a lot of stuff back from India. Most of it, I gave away. Some of it is packed away in the attic. One tablecloth I bought in Mumbai is still in regular rotation when I give parties.
And there's the snake, always the snake.
Right now, the snake sits on a knicknack shelf built into my dining room wall, posed, as ever, to strike. That snake has been prominently displayed in five different dorm rooms, houses and apartments in four different states, though one summer when we lived with my mother-in-law my husband and I thought it would be prudent to keep it packed away.
A few weeks ago, ZombieKid's teacher gave him an assignment where he had to pick ten, and only ten, objects from his house to take with him when he moved and write an essay about the one of them he would pick if he could only take one. I rarely develop emotional attachments to objects. When Jana-who-creates told me about this assignment, I certainly could imagine it causing crying jags from every kid in the class, but I had trouble coming up with even ten things that couldn't be replaced.
My wedding album was the only object to spring immediately to mind.
I'd forgotten the snake. But now that I've remembered it, I have trouble imagining living anywhere without being under its watchful eye.
Funny how some things grab ahold of you and won't let go.
CC
*There were no other guys on campus named Chuck at this time.
At the ripe old age of 19, I bummed around India for a month and a half with a bunch of folks from college, including a guy who was known to the whole campus as "Gay Chuck,*" a nickname he relished. GC was half white and half African American, and wherever we went in India, people seemed to take GC as being from India, just from a different part of India than they were.
So GC and I hatched this plan. For most of the trip, we went around together. He was the clever Indian husband, careful with the family's money, and I was the flightly American wife who simply had to have some little trinket. We played "Good Cop, Bad Cop" on the salespeople in the marketplaces and got just about everything for cheaper prices than everyone else on our trip. (Flighty American wife that I was, I sometimes would pay the original asking price with a wink while Chuck was pretending to look away. Saving money was only a side objective, we really wanted to get better deals than our friends were getting.)
In retrospect, I am sort of amazed that this worked, and I have long wondered whether the dealers gave us low prices because we were so darn entertaining, not because our little vaudeville routine fooled anybody.
Anyway, we did this huge walk around Mysore, and about halfway through, there was a dealer selling these hideous, life-sized wooden cobras. GC and I stood there, looking at them and whispering snarky things to one another about them for a full five minutes, then moved on.
But I kept thinking about the snake.
We were most of the way back, less than a mile from the hotel, when I turned to GC,
"I'm sorry, darlin', but I think I need one of those snakes."
Clearly I was playing the flighty American wife to the hilt.
Good sport that he was, Chuck walked with me all the way back. By the time we got back to the hotel, almost all of our friends were back. We set the snake down on the dining room table in the common room and it elicited a very satisfying scream of terror from one of our traveling companions when she walked into the room to find it staring at her.
I brought a lot of stuff back from India. Most of it, I gave away. Some of it is packed away in the attic. One tablecloth I bought in Mumbai is still in regular rotation when I give parties.
And there's the snake, always the snake.
Right now, the snake sits on a knicknack shelf built into my dining room wall, posed, as ever, to strike. That snake has been prominently displayed in five different dorm rooms, houses and apartments in four different states, though one summer when we lived with my mother-in-law my husband and I thought it would be prudent to keep it packed away.
A few weeks ago, ZombieKid's teacher gave him an assignment where he had to pick ten, and only ten, objects from his house to take with him when he moved and write an essay about the one of them he would pick if he could only take one. I rarely develop emotional attachments to objects. When Jana-who-creates told me about this assignment, I certainly could imagine it causing crying jags from every kid in the class, but I had trouble coming up with even ten things that couldn't be replaced.
My wedding album was the only object to spring immediately to mind.
I'd forgotten the snake. But now that I've remembered it, I have trouble imagining living anywhere without being under its watchful eye.
Funny how some things grab ahold of you and won't let go.
CC
*There were no other guys on campus named Chuck at this time.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
So, wanna hear about my fucked up nightmares?
Sure you do.
I had this weird series of little nightmares on Sunday night, and I haven't been myself since. I haven't slept well in days.
Maybe it's the nightmares. For lack of something to do as it's two-a-freaking-clock-in-the-morning, I will describe the nightmares I can remember. They were a series, leading in to one another with a sort of narrative flow. I have the impression that I actually dreamed about ten of them, but here's what I remember:
-I screwed something up at work. It wasn't something that was going to cost my firm or a client any money, but it was personally aggravating to my boss, who had to spend (unbillable) hours fixing the situation.
-Sometime later, I was on a field trip or something with ZombieKid* There was a bicycle coming toward us on the road, straight for ZombieKid, I pushed him out of the way, which made him fall into a mud puddle in front of all his friends, who laughed at him. The bicycle swerved in plenty of time and wouldn't have hit him.
-I took him home to get him cleaned up. I drew a bath for him while he played the computer, then told him to take a bath. As he was getting out, my best friend came home and I told her about the mud puddle.
"You didn't give him a bath, did you?"
"Well, yeah, he was muddy"
"Did you put some of the chemical in the blue bottle in the water?"
"No...?"
"Oh God. His skin is really sensitive. You can't give him a bath without his chemical! Now he's going to get a horrible rash!"
-Some time after that, I realize that theCSO's coworkers were't coming over for dinner any more. I asked him about it and he gently explained that his coworkers thought I was boring and that they liked our house, but didn't want to be around me.
I don't remember the others, but as far as I can recall, it was me hurting and embarassing people I care about all night long.
It was like my subconcious was sending me a message encoded in dreams, and that message was "You suck."
It was a rough night, y'all.
CC
*ZK is my best friend's nine year old. He's geeky in many of the ways TheCSO and I remember being as children and we are very protective of him. TheGnome is younger, but a little more savvy about the world. Anyway, I am not related to these children, but they are the children in my life in a fundamental way.
I had this weird series of little nightmares on Sunday night, and I haven't been myself since. I haven't slept well in days.
Maybe it's the nightmares. For lack of something to do as it's two-a-freaking-clock-in-the-morning, I will describe the nightmares I can remember. They were a series, leading in to one another with a sort of narrative flow. I have the impression that I actually dreamed about ten of them, but here's what I remember:
-I screwed something up at work. It wasn't something that was going to cost my firm or a client any money, but it was personally aggravating to my boss, who had to spend (unbillable) hours fixing the situation.
-Sometime later, I was on a field trip or something with ZombieKid* There was a bicycle coming toward us on the road, straight for ZombieKid, I pushed him out of the way, which made him fall into a mud puddle in front of all his friends, who laughed at him. The bicycle swerved in plenty of time and wouldn't have hit him.
-I took him home to get him cleaned up. I drew a bath for him while he played the computer, then told him to take a bath. As he was getting out, my best friend came home and I told her about the mud puddle.
"You didn't give him a bath, did you?"
"Well, yeah, he was muddy"
"Did you put some of the chemical in the blue bottle in the water?"
"No...?"
"Oh God. His skin is really sensitive. You can't give him a bath without his chemical! Now he's going to get a horrible rash!"
-Some time after that, I realize that theCSO's coworkers were't coming over for dinner any more. I asked him about it and he gently explained that his coworkers thought I was boring and that they liked our house, but didn't want to be around me.
I don't remember the others, but as far as I can recall, it was me hurting and embarassing people I care about all night long.
It was like my subconcious was sending me a message encoded in dreams, and that message was "You suck."
It was a rough night, y'all.
CC
*ZK is my best friend's nine year old. He's geeky in many of the ways TheCSO and I remember being as children and we are very protective of him. TheGnome is younger, but a little more savvy about the world. Anyway, I am not related to these children, but they are the children in my life in a fundamental way.
Monday, June 02, 2008
On quitting one's church
I've thought about quitting my church. I won't say that I think about it a lot. I have good friends, and the youth group and lots of people I care about at my church and I wouldn't leave it lightly. God and I are OK on our own, but these connections to other people help keep me in a community and a tradition where a bunch of us working together do a lot more than me working alone.
But the thoughts of quitting do flit through.
Like, oh, yesterday, when a sermon that could have been just as good without the clear assumption that everyone in the room was a political liberal had to throw in those assumptions anyway. They were in the context of a general message of being tolerant to others, even those ghastly conservatives, but the assumption is still annoying.
The thoughts flit through. Yet I don't seriously ever plan to leave my church unless I move, and I don't frankly plan to do that ever.
But then, no minister has ever given me the trouble that Obama's ministers are giving him.
I am a big fan of the Parsonage Life Blog and its writer. But his story on Obama leaving his church mystifies me.
No, I don't think the issue for conservatives or the media was Black Liberation theology in the sense of preaching about taking care of the poor. I've never seen a church that didn't talk that talk, though some of them walk the walk better than others. (And admittedly, Trinity walks that walk beautifully.)
Honestly, I'm amazed that the Obamas lasted as long as they did at a church that seemed to be doing its damnedest to sink their political ambitions.
I'm sorry, Pfleger preaching IN A SERMON that Hillary's disappointment comes from anger that a "black man" could be beating her is JUST PLAIN WRONG, to say nothing of the fact that it is the sort of sexist* sentiment that has me leaping to Hillary's defense. It starts a little voice going in my head saying "Yeah, Hillary is acting defensive and irrational. But people are PRINTING UP T-SHIRTS WITH THE C-WORD ON THEM. Don't YOU get a little defensive and irrational when you think about that? Of course, you want a president more level headed than you, but still..."
As RevRose has noted, it's possible I should do something about these voices.
But anyway, between Rev. Wright's assurances to the National Press Club that Obama is a mere politician answering to the polls but Wright himself answers to God and Rev. Pfleger's little Hillary imitation (that he is shocked, SHOCKED ended up on YouTube) the church has been a tremendous political liability for Obama and I can't imagine that the folks in the pulpit didn't know what they are doing. Everybody, Adam included, is quick to blame the press, but nobody forced Rev. Wright to go in front of the press club and they certainly didn't ask Rev. Pfleger to preach on Hillary keeping a black man down.
Say what you will about squeezing the story 'til it went dry. To my memory, the story of Obama's faith has gone dry twice, right before Rev. Wright did his little talk show speaking tour and right before Pfleger's sunday morning Clinton comedy routine.
To my eyes, it's not the press and not even Obama's opponents who are keeping this story alive. His church is doing it and I don't know why they would do this to him. He really seems like a good candidate and I will happily vote for him no matter what these crazy people say in his name.
But this is NOT about his sainted ministers being criticized for standing up for the poor, not at all.
CC
*Because we all know that women aren't sufficiently ambitious to want the presidency for themselves. All they care about is that it DOESN'T go to a black guy. It's all about reacting to a man, you see. Obama's experience is enough to earn him the right to run for president. Hillary's just means that she thinks she's entitled to the presidency. Because she's a bitch that way. And have I shown you my new t-shirt?
But the thoughts of quitting do flit through.
Like, oh, yesterday, when a sermon that could have been just as good without the clear assumption that everyone in the room was a political liberal had to throw in those assumptions anyway. They were in the context of a general message of being tolerant to others, even those ghastly conservatives, but the assumption is still annoying.
The thoughts flit through. Yet I don't seriously ever plan to leave my church unless I move, and I don't frankly plan to do that ever.
But then, no minister has ever given me the trouble that Obama's ministers are giving him.
I am a big fan of the Parsonage Life Blog and its writer. But his story on Obama leaving his church mystifies me.
No, I don't think the issue for conservatives or the media was Black Liberation theology in the sense of preaching about taking care of the poor. I've never seen a church that didn't talk that talk, though some of them walk the walk better than others. (And admittedly, Trinity walks that walk beautifully.)
Honestly, I'm amazed that the Obamas lasted as long as they did at a church that seemed to be doing its damnedest to sink their political ambitions.
I'm sorry, Pfleger preaching IN A SERMON that Hillary's disappointment comes from anger that a "black man" could be beating her is JUST PLAIN WRONG, to say nothing of the fact that it is the sort of sexist* sentiment that has me leaping to Hillary's defense. It starts a little voice going in my head saying "Yeah, Hillary is acting defensive and irrational. But people are PRINTING UP T-SHIRTS WITH THE C-WORD ON THEM. Don't YOU get a little defensive and irrational when you think about that? Of course, you want a president more level headed than you, but still..."
As RevRose has noted, it's possible I should do something about these voices.
But anyway, between Rev. Wright's assurances to the National Press Club that Obama is a mere politician answering to the polls but Wright himself answers to God and Rev. Pfleger's little Hillary imitation (that he is shocked, SHOCKED ended up on YouTube) the church has been a tremendous political liability for Obama and I can't imagine that the folks in the pulpit didn't know what they are doing. Everybody, Adam included, is quick to blame the press, but nobody forced Rev. Wright to go in front of the press club and they certainly didn't ask Rev. Pfleger to preach on Hillary keeping a black man down.
Say what you will about squeezing the story 'til it went dry. To my memory, the story of Obama's faith has gone dry twice, right before Rev. Wright did his little talk show speaking tour and right before Pfleger's sunday morning Clinton comedy routine.
To my eyes, it's not the press and not even Obama's opponents who are keeping this story alive. His church is doing it and I don't know why they would do this to him. He really seems like a good candidate and I will happily vote for him no matter what these crazy people say in his name.
But this is NOT about his sainted ministers being criticized for standing up for the poor, not at all.
CC
*Because we all know that women aren't sufficiently ambitious to want the presidency for themselves. All they care about is that it DOESN'T go to a black guy. It's all about reacting to a man, you see. Obama's experience is enough to earn him the right to run for president. Hillary's just means that she thinks she's entitled to the presidency. Because she's a bitch that way. And have I shown you my new t-shirt?
Thursday, May 29, 2008
So what DID CC end up doing with her weekend?
Will asked me a couple of days ago in the comments of my post on vacation sites for a girls' weekend.
Smiley Dave, ZombieKid and The Gnome were going to hang out with some friends of Smiley Dave's near Hershey Park, so Saturday we all drove up to Hershey Park and had an exhausting but very fun day where she learned that amusement parks are way more fun when one does not attend them with the ChaliceMom and ChaliceDad.
(E.g. When I was a kid, my mother would HARASS me until I went on the log flume with her. I HATED the log flume. I was SCARED of the log flume. I would dread her starting in with the "Oh, it's not that high and we should all go if one of us goes..." routine. As an adult, if you don't want to ride the log flume, you say "Hey, I don't want to ride the long flume. I'm going to wander while you people ride the log flume, call me on my cell phone when you're done" and nobody gives you crap about it. It's awesome.)
The Chaliceparents also maintained that nobody ever wins the carnival games at Amusement parks so we were never allowed to play them ever. I won a medium-sized stuffed monkey for theCSO on my third try at a two dollar game. (Yes, it was a monkey probably worth less than six bucks, but shut up.) Smiley Dave came away with a stuffed monkey AND this giant daisy.
Then Smiley Dave took the kids and headed to go hang out with his friends and Jana and I went up to Corning, NY. We were in the convertible and we could not have asked for better weather. We listened to Meg Barnhouse and Hairspray and the Indigo Girls and this goofy mix cd of songs I liked in college. Twas awesome.
We had the ultimate bed and breakfast experience in Corning here. Y'all, it's a Greek revival mansion that is full of beautiful antiques and run my two charming men whose moved to Corning from Seattle was primarily motivated by their love of Steuben glass. In fact, a discussion of Steuben glass with one of the guys enthused CC so much that she ALMOST dropped $250 on this small sculpture at the Corning Glass Museum's gift shop the following day before realizing that Steuben glass Victorian hand cooler collectors were really Hummel figurine collectors with more expensive educations. OK, I still kind of want the elephant, but again, shut up.
So we had this incredibly blissful time in Corning, so much so that she and I are already booked for next year at the Bed and Breakfast of the awesome, where they proudly display a signed photo of Eartha Kitt wishing the two guys luck on their business venture.
At the Corning glass museum, we went to these beginner glass classes and got totally enthused about bringing Smiley Dave, Zombie Kid and theGnome back next year, though the kids would need to stay someplace with less fragile surroundings.
CC
Monday, May 05, 2008
Futher adventures of the last holdouts to gentrification.
It sort of defies explanation how I ended up at my mother’s house on Saturday morning in my pajamas, knowing that the police were on their way.
Well, no, it doesn’t. She'd brought my brother Oliver over to my house that morning and theCSO and I had rolled out of bed, pulled on jeans and met them at the door. My brother and my husband had business to discuss. After fifteen minutes of negotiations about how much extra Oliver was going to charge theCSO and me when he mowed around all the construction stuff in our yard, my mother needed to get back to her house.
I’d told Oliver I would drive him to his first job of the morning so he and theCSO could finish their negotiation. As he was getting out of the car, Oliver casually mentioned that I should probably call and check on my mother. She’d had to leave because she was kicking a big mean guy out of her house.
(The ChaliceMom and ChaliceDad for reasons CC can’t fathom allow Jason and Oliver to run a flophouse for their degenerate little friends in the basement. Sometimes, those friends need to get kicked out.)
Sigh.
I drove over to my mother’s house.
This was one UGLY big mean guy. He stomped around halfassedly packing his car, but mostly yelling threats and in general making a spectacle of himself. My parents’ neighbors paused at their flowerbeds and looked up to watch. They have to be used to this by now, but I was still dying a bit inside.
Big mean guy hadn’t been paying any rent, but he had been there over 30 days, which grants him some rights in our county. When it was pointed out that he couldn’t PROVE he’d been there over 30 days, he decided to call the cops and ask them to work it out.
Fair enough.
It was about then that I realized that I may be a Smith by birth and thus capable of anything as far as law enforcement is concerned, but I usually like to be wearing a bra when I talk to the police.
“Things here seem pretty good,” I said. “I think I’ll head on home.”
My mother reached out and grabbed my wrist, "Please?" she said. I held her hand.
Big mean guy slammed a large box down in the driveway. “My car is legal,” he said mock philosophically, “I don’t know about Oliver’s car.”
The Chalicemom and I looked at each other and shrugged. So what if it’s not? You can have a non-street legal car in your driveway. The cops can only ticket if it’s a junker that has been there for 90 days or so or if they see you driving it. Every Smith knows that.
“And what if they search your house? I bet Oliver has some nasty stuff on his computer.”
My mother and I looked at each other. This might be a problem. If Oliver had any particularly weird porn or had contracted with any hookers and left evidence on his computer, he could go back to jail. And the police have an excellent record of finding probable cause to search the houses where my brothers live.
I will freely admit my brother is a terrible person, but he is a terrible person who is giving making an honest living a shot and on some level I respect that.
My mother looked at me. “Can you get rid of anything weird on Oliver’s computer?” she asked.
“Dunno. Don’t think so. But I can keep the police from looking in it. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
I took the computer and stuck it in the back of my car. I drove home, trying really hard not to think about those lines from Animal Farm, “Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
I dropped the laptop off and put on some lawyer clothes. One of my more casual suits, some pearls, some nice shoes. Look at me, respectable member of society.
I was back at my parents’ house in time to talk to the police. I talked to them about our unruly houseguest. Big ugly guy stalked off. The police left. I talked to my mom about going to the magistrate to get a stay-away order.
“So,” my mother said. “I’m going to head over to the county courthouse, but the Flower Mart at the National Cathedral is today and your father and I were thinking about going later this afternoon. Would you like to come along?”
I declined. The day was starting to heat up, and my suit was starting to get uncomfortable.
CC
Whose brother insists there was nothing weird on the computer, but who didn’t look herself.
Well, no, it doesn’t. She'd brought my brother Oliver over to my house that morning and theCSO and I had rolled out of bed, pulled on jeans and met them at the door. My brother and my husband had business to discuss. After fifteen minutes of negotiations about how much extra Oliver was going to charge theCSO and me when he mowed around all the construction stuff in our yard, my mother needed to get back to her house.
I’d told Oliver I would drive him to his first job of the morning so he and theCSO could finish their negotiation. As he was getting out of the car, Oliver casually mentioned that I should probably call and check on my mother. She’d had to leave because she was kicking a big mean guy out of her house.
(The ChaliceMom and ChaliceDad for reasons CC can’t fathom allow Jason and Oliver to run a flophouse for their degenerate little friends in the basement. Sometimes, those friends need to get kicked out.)
Sigh.
I drove over to my mother’s house.
This was one UGLY big mean guy. He stomped around halfassedly packing his car, but mostly yelling threats and in general making a spectacle of himself. My parents’ neighbors paused at their flowerbeds and looked up to watch. They have to be used to this by now, but I was still dying a bit inside.
Big mean guy hadn’t been paying any rent, but he had been there over 30 days, which grants him some rights in our county. When it was pointed out that he couldn’t PROVE he’d been there over 30 days, he decided to call the cops and ask them to work it out.
Fair enough.
It was about then that I realized that I may be a Smith by birth and thus capable of anything as far as law enforcement is concerned, but I usually like to be wearing a bra when I talk to the police.
“Things here seem pretty good,” I said. “I think I’ll head on home.”
My mother reached out and grabbed my wrist, "Please?" she said. I held her hand.
Big mean guy slammed a large box down in the driveway. “My car is legal,” he said mock philosophically, “I don’t know about Oliver’s car.”
The Chalicemom and I looked at each other and shrugged. So what if it’s not? You can have a non-street legal car in your driveway. The cops can only ticket if it’s a junker that has been there for 90 days or so or if they see you driving it. Every Smith knows that.
“And what if they search your house? I bet Oliver has some nasty stuff on his computer.”
My mother and I looked at each other. This might be a problem. If Oliver had any particularly weird porn or had contracted with any hookers and left evidence on his computer, he could go back to jail. And the police have an excellent record of finding probable cause to search the houses where my brothers live.
I will freely admit my brother is a terrible person, but he is a terrible person who is giving making an honest living a shot and on some level I respect that.
My mother looked at me. “Can you get rid of anything weird on Oliver’s computer?” she asked.
“Dunno. Don’t think so. But I can keep the police from looking in it. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
I took the computer and stuck it in the back of my car. I drove home, trying really hard not to think about those lines from Animal Farm, “Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
I dropped the laptop off and put on some lawyer clothes. One of my more casual suits, some pearls, some nice shoes. Look at me, respectable member of society.
I was back at my parents’ house in time to talk to the police. I talked to them about our unruly houseguest. Big ugly guy stalked off. The police left. I talked to my mom about going to the magistrate to get a stay-away order.
“So,” my mother said. “I’m going to head over to the county courthouse, but the Flower Mart at the National Cathedral is today and your father and I were thinking about going later this afternoon. Would you like to come along?”
I declined. The day was starting to heat up, and my suit was starting to get uncomfortable.
CC
Whose brother insists there was nothing weird on the computer, but who didn’t look herself.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
He may look scary, but he's a nice guy.
members of Congress.
$323,000 plus raised for Washington Legal Clinic for the homeless. I
heart my school.
As of this writing the Hoya Lawyas are leading the Hills Angels 22-21,
but whatever happens, we won.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
If my name were "E. Barrett Prettyman," I would change it before somebody went and named a courthouse after me.
and other thoughts I had while observing courtrooms in DC for a morning.
(When class assignments aren't graded, I see no reason why I can't write them like blog posts.)
Landlord-tenant court seemed to be all about everyone wanting to go home as soon as possible. Judge Fern Leibowitz presided over a courtroom that looked like an office. The clerks in the front of the room had pictures and little toys on their desks. The environment was informal and the hearings went very fast. The bailiff ignored ringing cell phones and people were in and out of the room constantly. Almost everyone wanted a continuance.
One case, Argyle Properties vs. Ethan Gomez, was representative. The renter’s legal aid attorney announced that the claimant had fallen behind on his bills because he had gotten sick. The landlord said he’d never heard that before the hearing. The renter’s attorney wanted to set up a supervised payment plan for an amount less than the rent because he said a recent increase had been illegal. Again, the landlord’s attorney said it was news to him. Judge Leibowitz told Gomez’s attorney to bring some sort of proof of the sickness and everyone agreed to discuss the matter again in two weeks. It amazed me how routine it all seemed. Lots of tenants represented themselves, some with knowledge of the system that suggested they were experienced lease-breakers.
I had not caught Judge Leibowitz’s name and was waiting in line at the clerk’s office to ask when Mr. Arniss, the attorney for Argyle, got in line behind me. When I introduced myself and told him why I was there, he was happy to give me his opinions on the proceedings. He called Washington DC the most “tenant-friendly” district in America and outlined several of Argyle Properties’ recent cases, asking me with each description if I thought the outcome was fair. He didn’t take “Well, I haven’t heard both sides” for an answer.
The Courtrooms at the DC District Court were more reminiscent of church. They were quiet and respectful. Probably the most interesting hearing I attended all day was a detention hearing in front of a Magistrate. The US. vs. Mendoza involved a convicted drug dealer who ran from the police for what my suburban self would say was no apparent reason. Officer Sidney Catlett of the DC police testified that he had seen the defendant running away, holding something at his waistband. Catlett had predicted where the defendant was running and taken a shortcut while two other officers followed the Defendant. Before Officer Catlett caught up with him, the defendant had stopped. When the officer came up to the defendant, there was a gun lying on the ground and the two other police officers on the scene said the defendant had thrown the gun down. But the only officer at the hearing was Officer Catlett. The defense attorney, whose name I didn’t catch, did a very impressive job of muddying the issue and making it clear that the witness had not actually seen the defendant throw down the gun.
I did think it was strange that there were a few points that went unaddressed:
1. Both prosecution and defense spent a lot of time asking the officer questions about exactly where he ran. It was admittedly confusing at the time as the streets were irregular, but in writing this paper I looked the defendant’s two block run to the address in question up in Google maps, which showed the odd layout of streets and made it very clear what had happened. I wondered why nobody bothered to bring a map, preferably one blown up to poster size.
2. There was a lot of time spent on what the officer saw, but neither the prosecution nor defense asked him if he had HEARD a metal gun being thrown onto a concrete sidewalk on an empty street in the middle of the night. Whether the answer was “yes” or “no,” one would think it would have helped somebody.
3. Nobody brought up the issue of fingerprints on the gun one way or another.
4. Nobody even speculated why the officer who’d seen the least was the one sent to testify. Given where the defense was going with how little he saw, I would think they would have at least mentioned that he was a strange choice of witnesses given that his testimony was mostly hearsay.
After some negative testimony from the defendant’s parole officer about the defendant’s harassment of an ex-girlfriend, the magistrate ruled that the defendant should remain in jail until his next court date, saying sardonically that the defendant’s supervised release had been “eventful.” The magistrate was quite sarcastic to both sides. I wondered if he was showing off for the law students in the back.
After the verdict, a depressed-looking woman in blue jeans waved goodbye to the defendant. I wondered if she was the old girlfriend or a new one. Either way, she was very understanding, all things considered. As we filed out of the room, I caught Officer Catlett and asked him why he was the witness if the other officers were closer. He said he didn’t know.
The detention hearing had taken under an hour, so I watched the first argument in In Re Fannie Mae Securities litigation, about whether Fannie Mae should be forced to turn over 4,000 documents to a plaintiff that was, I believe, the state of Ohio. They had turned the documents over to a regulatory agency voluntarily and the argument was over whether this voluntary submission of the documents to the agency meant that the documents were not privileged. At least, that’s how I understood it. This argument had been going on since well before the first motion to compel was sent in April 2007.
As I did my observation right before this paper was due, several of my fellow students were working on it the same day. Half a dozen had attended the detention hearing and come upstairs to the securities case. After about 45 minutes of listening to Attorney Melanie Corbin argue for the plaintiff about discovery rules, I figured I had seen enough. I had to get back to work, and the securities hearing looked like it would go on for hours. When Ms. Corbin sat down and one of her co-counselors stood up, I slipped out of the room.
One of my classmates left the same time I did. As we waited for the elevator, I said “Didn’t it blow your mind how the detention hearing only had one prosecutor and one defense attorney and this one motion has a dozen people in expensive suits on each side?”
“Why not?” My classmate asked, totally without irony, “The motion in the securities case is important.”
(When class assignments aren't graded, I see no reason why I can't write them like blog posts.)
Landlord-tenant court seemed to be all about everyone wanting to go home as soon as possible. Judge Fern Leibowitz presided over a courtroom that looked like an office. The clerks in the front of the room had pictures and little toys on their desks. The environment was informal and the hearings went very fast. The bailiff ignored ringing cell phones and people were in and out of the room constantly. Almost everyone wanted a continuance.
One case, Argyle Properties vs. Ethan Gomez, was representative. The renter’s legal aid attorney announced that the claimant had fallen behind on his bills because he had gotten sick. The landlord said he’d never heard that before the hearing. The renter’s attorney wanted to set up a supervised payment plan for an amount less than the rent because he said a recent increase had been illegal. Again, the landlord’s attorney said it was news to him. Judge Leibowitz told Gomez’s attorney to bring some sort of proof of the sickness and everyone agreed to discuss the matter again in two weeks. It amazed me how routine it all seemed. Lots of tenants represented themselves, some with knowledge of the system that suggested they were experienced lease-breakers.
I had not caught Judge Leibowitz’s name and was waiting in line at the clerk’s office to ask when Mr. Arniss, the attorney for Argyle, got in line behind me. When I introduced myself and told him why I was there, he was happy to give me his opinions on the proceedings. He called Washington DC the most “tenant-friendly” district in America and outlined several of Argyle Properties’ recent cases, asking me with each description if I thought the outcome was fair. He didn’t take “Well, I haven’t heard both sides” for an answer.
The Courtrooms at the DC District Court were more reminiscent of church. They were quiet and respectful. Probably the most interesting hearing I attended all day was a detention hearing in front of a Magistrate. The US. vs. Mendoza involved a convicted drug dealer who ran from the police for what my suburban self would say was no apparent reason. Officer Sidney Catlett of the DC police testified that he had seen the defendant running away, holding something at his waistband. Catlett had predicted where the defendant was running and taken a shortcut while two other officers followed the Defendant. Before Officer Catlett caught up with him, the defendant had stopped. When the officer came up to the defendant, there was a gun lying on the ground and the two other police officers on the scene said the defendant had thrown the gun down. But the only officer at the hearing was Officer Catlett. The defense attorney, whose name I didn’t catch, did a very impressive job of muddying the issue and making it clear that the witness had not actually seen the defendant throw down the gun.
I did think it was strange that there were a few points that went unaddressed:
1. Both prosecution and defense spent a lot of time asking the officer questions about exactly where he ran. It was admittedly confusing at the time as the streets were irregular, but in writing this paper I looked the defendant’s two block run to the address in question up in Google maps, which showed the odd layout of streets and made it very clear what had happened. I wondered why nobody bothered to bring a map, preferably one blown up to poster size.
2. There was a lot of time spent on what the officer saw, but neither the prosecution nor defense asked him if he had HEARD a metal gun being thrown onto a concrete sidewalk on an empty street in the middle of the night. Whether the answer was “yes” or “no,” one would think it would have helped somebody.
3. Nobody brought up the issue of fingerprints on the gun one way or another.
4. Nobody even speculated why the officer who’d seen the least was the one sent to testify. Given where the defense was going with how little he saw, I would think they would have at least mentioned that he was a strange choice of witnesses given that his testimony was mostly hearsay.
After some negative testimony from the defendant’s parole officer about the defendant’s harassment of an ex-girlfriend, the magistrate ruled that the defendant should remain in jail until his next court date, saying sardonically that the defendant’s supervised release had been “eventful.” The magistrate was quite sarcastic to both sides. I wondered if he was showing off for the law students in the back.
After the verdict, a depressed-looking woman in blue jeans waved goodbye to the defendant. I wondered if she was the old girlfriend or a new one. Either way, she was very understanding, all things considered. As we filed out of the room, I caught Officer Catlett and asked him why he was the witness if the other officers were closer. He said he didn’t know.
The detention hearing had taken under an hour, so I watched the first argument in In Re Fannie Mae Securities litigation, about whether Fannie Mae should be forced to turn over 4,000 documents to a plaintiff that was, I believe, the state of Ohio. They had turned the documents over to a regulatory agency voluntarily and the argument was over whether this voluntary submission of the documents to the agency meant that the documents were not privileged. At least, that’s how I understood it. This argument had been going on since well before the first motion to compel was sent in April 2007.
As I did my observation right before this paper was due, several of my fellow students were working on it the same day. Half a dozen had attended the detention hearing and come upstairs to the securities case. After about 45 minutes of listening to Attorney Melanie Corbin argue for the plaintiff about discovery rules, I figured I had seen enough. I had to get back to work, and the securities hearing looked like it would go on for hours. When Ms. Corbin sat down and one of her co-counselors stood up, I slipped out of the room.
One of my classmates left the same time I did. As we waited for the elevator, I said “Didn’t it blow your mind how the detention hearing only had one prosecutor and one defense attorney and this one motion has a dozen people in expensive suits on each side?”
“Why not?” My classmate asked, totally without irony, “The motion in the securities case is important.”
Sunday, March 30, 2008
I have a lot of very smart friends. Indeed, for all practical purposes, I have a panel of advisers.
When I have a psychology question, I call my smart friend Pam, who is a psychologist. Katy-the-Wise gets lots of my personal problems and religion questions, though other people have been known to handle the overflow as I have lots of both. Smiley-Dave the structural engineer told us how to fix a sagging wall in our garage and told us where to put our bookcases.
Obviously, LinguistFriend gets the language questions.
TheCSO and I kind of share a brain on a lot of things.
My question is: Do other people not do this? If not, why the hell not?
I went over to my parents' house this evening to help them jumpstart my mother's truck. When she and my father and brother went off to drive it around to get it charged up, I sat on the couch brushing the dog. Eventually, I started looking through the papers on the coffee table for a magazine.
I found notes in my mother's handwriting. Suspicious notes.
When my family got back, I held the paper aloft.
"Um, Ma? Is this a get rich quick scheme?"
"Well..." My mother said.
"She lost a lot of money. I wasn't supposed to tell you." My brother Jason filled in cheerfully.
"It was my fault. I didn't spend enough time on it," My mother said.
"Oh, come on, Mom. That's what they always tell you."
"It is?"
"Yes," I said, exasperated. "They convince you it's your fault for not working hard enough. It keeps you from suing and to make you easier to convince next time. Amway has been doing that forever."
This went on for awhile. I never did find out exactly what sort of scam it was, though I'm gathering it had something to do with real estate. They lost more money than I would want to lose, but not so much as to create a serious problem.
But still...
I really tried not to be a sanctimonious pain-in-the-ass about it. At the same time, I was shocked. I thought about the Psychiatrist in California who lost 1.3 million to the Nigerian scam and what his kids must have gone through.
And I thought about how naturally I ask people for advice and rely on the knowledge of others. If I were going into the real estate business and I had a daughter who was a law student, a son-in-law who was good with finances and did my taxes, I might ask the daughter to research the company and/or the son-in-law to look over the paperwork.
WtF?
My mom isn't what you would call book smart, but she's no fool either. I almost think on some level she knew it was a scam. Maybe she wanted the dream of easy money more than she wanted the money she spent getting into it.
If that's the case, I hope she just buys a lottery ticket next time.
CC
exasperated.
When I have a psychology question, I call my smart friend Pam, who is a psychologist. Katy-the-Wise gets lots of my personal problems and religion questions, though other people have been known to handle the overflow as I have lots of both. Smiley-Dave the structural engineer told us how to fix a sagging wall in our garage and told us where to put our bookcases.
Obviously, LinguistFriend gets the language questions.
TheCSO and I kind of share a brain on a lot of things.
My question is: Do other people not do this? If not, why the hell not?
I went over to my parents' house this evening to help them jumpstart my mother's truck. When she and my father and brother went off to drive it around to get it charged up, I sat on the couch brushing the dog. Eventually, I started looking through the papers on the coffee table for a magazine.
I found notes in my mother's handwriting. Suspicious notes.
When my family got back, I held the paper aloft.
"Um, Ma? Is this a get rich quick scheme?"
"Well..." My mother said.
"She lost a lot of money. I wasn't supposed to tell you." My brother Jason filled in cheerfully.
"It was my fault. I didn't spend enough time on it," My mother said.
"Oh, come on, Mom. That's what they always tell you."
"It is?"
"Yes," I said, exasperated. "They convince you it's your fault for not working hard enough. It keeps you from suing and to make you easier to convince next time. Amway has been doing that forever."
This went on for awhile. I never did find out exactly what sort of scam it was, though I'm gathering it had something to do with real estate. They lost more money than I would want to lose, but not so much as to create a serious problem.
But still...
I really tried not to be a sanctimonious pain-in-the-ass about it. At the same time, I was shocked. I thought about the Psychiatrist in California who lost 1.3 million to the Nigerian scam and what his kids must have gone through.
And I thought about how naturally I ask people for advice and rely on the knowledge of others. If I were going into the real estate business and I had a daughter who was a law student, a son-in-law who was good with finances and did my taxes, I might ask the daughter to research the company and/or the son-in-law to look over the paperwork.
WtF?
My mom isn't what you would call book smart, but she's no fool either. I almost think on some level she knew it was a scam. Maybe she wanted the dream of easy money more than she wanted the money she spent getting into it.
If that's the case, I hope she just buys a lottery ticket next time.
CC
exasperated.
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