I like it fast and hard. Not a lot of pauses. I like it when you're going so hard that your glasses fog up, when the sweat is dripping down your face. I like it when you have to stretch yourself into positions you never thought you could contort yourself into under the circumstances as you streeeetch. You have to do it with a partner, of course. That's what makes it fun. The sharing of the time and the striving against each other.

I'm talking about squash of course. I played this morning.

Boy have I missed playing squash. I just didn't realize. I took quite a break for several years as I let my elbow heal up. There's just somethinga about the game that is so seductive. The pace is fast, the angles are acute, the shots have to be just so and controlled, all while running around the court, and the reflexes have to be sharp. Oh, and you have to think and react. Damn, but it is fun.

There is another racquet game I would like to play. Ever hear of Court Tennis? Or Real Tennis? It is the game from which regular tennis evolved. There are not a lot of courts in this country. I can think of one in NYC, one in Philly, one in Rhode Island, and one in Tuxedo Park, off the top of my head.

Competition is good. I have been jazzed all day.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:40 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 "Squash" huh? Suddenly, I've a mind to call my husband and see if we can take the afternoon off.

Posted by: Margi at August 18, 2006 12:46 PM (xiAI4)

2 I've made some great friends playing squash. It is an intense game in an enclosed space and I get more out of a 45 minute match than when I'm working out by some other means. You can tell a lot about someone about how they - and the opponents I like best are like opposing counsel I like best - they play hard, play to win but don't argue lets if you call them. :-) PS: Haven't posted for ages but have continued to read your blog. Life seems great for you and yours - it has been fun watching and reading.

Posted by: Vanya at August 18, 2006 08:46 PM (xy2ZU)

3 I thought squash was only in Europe? You're the first American that I've heard talk about it .... is it hard on the knees and wrists?

Posted by: Hannah at August 20, 2006 02:08 AM (ImQx2)

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What follows is an email I received from my wife which I thought was so funny, I had to share it.

Epistles from Bridgeport

Out getting lunch today, I had the following experiences, which, to me, encapsulate Bridgeport fairly well.

*Overheard from late-20’s woman in jeans, t-shirt, and knit vest while she was chatting on her cell phone: “Well, I’m off to parole and then I’m going home.” Perhaps she was talking with her partner in crime?

*As I continued walking down the block, I saw 2 nubile blondes talking to a middle-aged hispanic man. They were asking, “on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you love the Lord?” He was looking confused.

*Farther down the block, a mid-50’s woman in a skirt and cardigan made eye contact with me. Sensing she may have some connection to the nubile blondes, I decided that really, I didn’t feel like engaging in conversation about my love of the Lord. So when she volunteers “My name is Claire”, I respond “How nice for you” as I cross to the other side of the street.

She cracks me up, my wife.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:20 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Snort out loud funny!

Posted by: Wicked H at August 16, 2006 07:44 AM (iqFar)

2 very funy indeed. I can easily see why the children are so mumerous! ;-)

Posted by: michele at August 16, 2006 11:12 PM (k5fMO)

3 Yep. That's my hometown. There are plenty of whackadoodles around, but they're generally really good people.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at August 17, 2006 12:34 AM (dzyCi)

4 "How nice for you," indeed! Lovely woman, your wife!

Posted by: Margi at August 18, 2006 01:07 PM (GMbAY)

5 Evangelicals, cringe...

Posted by: Andrew Cusack at August 18, 2006 11:50 PM (GfMLg)

6 I'm starting to consciously realize that the best way to get around in the city without being asked ... - For a cigarette/lighter - Money - If I want information about being a Christian - If I want to be a donator for - fill in charitable organisation here - ... is to simply avoid eye contact. But I don't like doing it. So am I rude that I'm avoid eye contact or are these people being rude? Or should I keep working on my fantasy of living somewhere in northern Canada?

Posted by: Hannah at August 20, 2006 02:11 AM (ImQx2)

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I think that since we've had a third child, my life has narrowed quite a bit. I am less concerned with the outside world since I am just trying to hold it all together, kind of on the fly, at home and at work. No matter how bad I have it, of course, my wife has it way worse. No question about it, she rocks.

But, back to me. Like I was saying, my focus has narrowed. I have less energy to devote to thinking about world affairs, about politics, about international relations, about international and even domestic economics. So, of course, I write less about it here. Instead, the home front, the kids, my wife, my health, working out, my weekends, all of these things take on much greater significance. I think, perhaps, just maybe, I am beginning to entertain the possibility that I am losing my perspective a bit.

Also, I have to say, that whenever I do focus on the news, I am disappointed. Lamont over Lieberman? Really? The idea that Israel should not have the right even to exist? Really? Can you blame me, at some level, for not pushing too hard to escape this narrowing of focus?

Either way, that's where I seem to be right now.

So, the weekend had a lot of highlights and almost no lowlights.

* Seeing old friends for dinner on Friday night and watching the moon rise, fat and orange, over Long Island as we sat out on a terrace on the water.

* Playing with the kids at the pool.

* Sitting outside on the deck with my family and my parents, drinking a bottle of rose prosecco, as we celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary.

* Taking a solitary dip in the ocean while my daughter waited for me, happily ensconced on a towel in the sand on Sunday.

* Taking my non-napping daughter to see some open houses. She insisted on seeing all the bathrooms and closets, objected to the lack of bookshelves in the library, and was concerned about how to fit a kitchen table and chairs in one house. Interesting to see what $3 million can buy, though. Theoretically, that is, since I don't have and don't expect to have that kind of cash to spend on a house.

* Making the baby laugh.

All of the above are high points. There were certainly more. But with the sleep deprivation comes the loss of memory. So, there.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:43 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I think that my brain is sending me a signal, a message, a sign. There can be no clearer indication that you want to replace your 1995 Subaru (with 97,000 miles on it) with a new BMW when you find yourself deeply immersed in a dream in which you are, and probably have been for quite some time in the dream, reading the owner's manual on a new BMW 525xi at 4:40 a.m. when your alarm wakes you. And you were jotting down points during your dream so you could follow up on them later.

I'm hoping by noting this here I will purge myself of this. Futile? Perhaps, but one must try.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:57 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Our trial settled today in the middle of the plaintiff's direct case. The settlement got put on the record, the parties were voir-dired, the case was closed, and we all went to lunch.

At Appleby's.

I approached the front door with some trepidation, having never been inside one of these places before. I am a bit of a snob when it comes to food. I like really fine restaurants or real dives or diners. I don't like places that try to re-create some odd fascimile of a dive bar. Either be a dive bar or don't. Also, I am sceptical of chains, of places where the food is created in some corporate development office, test marketed in Toledo (pace, Toledo, nothing meant by it), and then re-assembled in White Plains. Besides, I wonder how these places contribute to the growing obesity / pre-diabetes problem we're having.

Well, now that I've eaten there, I'd say my snobism is confirmed and I think these places contribute a lot to obesity.

One, the snob thing. I ordered for lunch the grilled salmon caesar salad, one of the healthiest choices I could locate. Fine. Overly dressed, but fine. I was not too surprised to learn that extra anchovies would not be made available to me. I was shocked to learn that the restaurant did not have a pepper mill so that a little fresh ground pepper could liven up the salad. So, they ain't really cooking for someone like me. And I could tell, based on the surprised look on our waitress's face, that people don't really ask for fresh pepper very often.

Two, the obesity thing. I drank diet coke with my repast. My companions, the same. As they finished the overly large drinks, the empties were immediately whisked away to be replaced by new overly large drinks. If my companions were drinking real coke or some other full sugar soda, they would have consumed enough empty calories to account for their entire day's quota. They also would have made the sugar companies wicked happy. If this is how middle America is drinking when they eat at this place, the obesity thing is just gonna keep getting worse and worse.

I think I could do without a return trip. And for the record, my soda was the only one at the table not in need of a refill. I could barely manage the giganto cup they served me the first time.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 07:12 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 That obesity thing is scary, and alongside it diabetes. I've seen ads on tv I see talking about how 1 in 5 people has or will have diabetes, and really, how do you get diabetes? Usually through incorrect diet, constant intake of high sugar and other nasty foods. The food chains are feeding the diabetes machine: bigger portions, bigger drinks, unending pop, etc. If the environment isn't gonna get us, we will get ourselves in the end. "I'm too tired to make supper/lunch/breakfest" is fine but when we're doing it 5 days a week? That's a problem.

Posted by: Oorgo at August 11, 2006 11:18 AM (2uqyw)

2 I'm gonna take umbrage at the "Middle America" business. We do have decent restaurants out here in the hinterlands, so we're not all reduced to eating at Appleby's or TGIFridays. That said, I agree with your portion size complaints. My theory on it is this: we've shifted from an agrarian/laborer society to one where people sit in chairs all day long, but nowhere along the way did people learn that they should eat less as a result. Your food habits are learned at an early age, and they're very hard to ditch. You should go and eat at my Mother in law's house. Oy. Despite loud protests from everyone in the family, she still thinks everyone needs to eat as if they've had a long day scything wheat behind them. There's so much food it's disgusting. She wouldn't know how to put a salad together if a head of lettuce came up and bit her on the bum. All the vegetables are canned (and it's ALWAYS corn)so there's not a lot of nutrition going on there. Then there's the main course, which is either chicken or hamburger based. Unless it's swiss steak night (shudder) and then flank steak (woo!) has been purchased. And there's the mashed potatoes. At every dinner there's homemade mashed potatoes. With a big puddle of melted margarine in the middle and a dash of paprika for color. And then, just for healthiness' sake, there's some sort of cut up fruit and cottage cheese. It's just WAY too much food, but you can't really blame her too much because that's how she and the father-in-law ate when they were growing up. It's how she was taught to cook. And when they had a farm, well, it made sense to eat like that because of the labor involved with keeping a five hundred acre property up. Ironically enough, it's turning out to be a big problem. My grandmother-in-law (the MIL's mother)has both Alzheimers and Parkinsons---the double whammy. Her daily state of well-being is very much dependent upon proper nutrition (as in it's the difference between her getting lost in her own hallway or not)and she fed Grandpa like this for years, hence this is what his palate prefers. Grandma, on the other hand, has never been fond of chicken fried steak and the like, but cooked it for him. Now that he's doing the cooking, this is what he makes---and she won't eat it. He's stubborn enough to insist that she not waste perfectly good food and he refuses to cook her anything else. It's sad, I know, but no amount of cajoling Grandpa into cooking something different for Grandma is going to work. He just recovered from his own bout with colon cancer and food finally tastes good to him again. Cross your fingers and hope that they get into assisted living sooner rather than later!

Posted by: Kathy at August 11, 2006 03:24 PM (HiYDm)

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Posted by: Nana at August 13, 2008 11:50 PM (/IUgG)

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I've been in and out of trial all week. The first day, sort of, was Monday. We showed up and the court had us hang out for a really long time before telling us he couldn't take us that day. We arranged to come back the next day and to continue on Thursday if need be. This was good. This left me with an entire afternoon all to myself as I had zero intention of driving back to CT from White Plains to then go into the City by train.

So, I met up with Robbo who was on his way to his secret Llama Vacation Destination ("LVD") at a barge/bar on the Saugatuck River. It was really lovely. The meeting, that is, not the bar, although the bar was just fine. We hung out for around 3 hours, drinking beer, eating fried shrimp and chicken wings, and sharing stories and confirming similar outlooks and viewpoints. I hope that we get a chance to hook up again on his way back from the LVD. It would be fun to get the families together and drink a little tequila. Or a lot. Whatever happens.

It was really grand, our afternoon together.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 06:57 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So, we're sitting around the dinner table tonight. The Viking Bride, The Girl Child, the Boy Child, the Nanny and me. The following is a snippet of conversation:

GC: So, do you know. . .

Me: Who knows what evil lurks in men's hearts!?!

Total silence, blank looks from everyone but the Viking Bride

Me: The Shadow knows!

Nanny: Is that from a movie?

Me: No, it was from a radio show a long time ago, many moons ago, before they had television.

GC: [tone: genuine puzzlement] Was that the 1980's?

And just like that, your youth is their history book.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 06:48 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 erm, it's "who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men." not that I'm picky or anything.

Posted by: Kathy at August 11, 2006 02:59 PM (HiYDm)

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I won't let you. I don't deserve it. I played hooky for lunch today and took a taxi down to the Village (Laguardia between Bleeker and West 3rd) where I met an old friend for lunch. We sat outside. We watched the fetching young women in their summer dresses parade back and forth in front of the restaurant. We drank a bottle of Gavi, a happy Italian summer wine. The breezes blew on us gently. The trees shaded our table. The anchovies were strong. The fish was fresh. The espresso was properly bitter. And two hours after arriving, it qualifies as almost the ideal summer hooky day. Tomorrow we are back in trial but today, today I am an escapee.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:30 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Silence continues here, more or less unabated. I am in trial in one of the surrounding counties. Off to catch a train in a few moments. Gotta love these intra-family disputes in these close corporations. Vicious.

I'll report back, probably tomorrow. I spent a lovely 2 1/2 hours with Robbo the Llama Butcher yesterday. No full report forthcoming as I fully intend to protect his privacy and secret identity, but perhaps a mini-report.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:21 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The title illustrates what a lawyer is reduced to when his phone system goes ker-pluff, as mine has. No calls in, no calls out. Kind of peaceful actually and conducive to a rambling post, the likes of which I have not done for a long time. So, if you are interested, here it is, a random walk through my brain:

* The way to beat the heat and humidity is not move too much and drink a lot of gin. I intend to put that into practice at a reception later tonight.

* Last summer the fashion among women was the peasant skirt, which I noted before. This summer, I am happier to report, it appears to be the baby-doll half dress thing. Way more fetching, way more likely to cause a fellow to walk into a lamp post. Not that that happened to me, mind you. I'm just saying it is a possibility. I could see it happening.

* I have hit on a brand new marketing idea for my firm's legal services. I spent the morning writing it up in a memo and have circulated it for comment. Could be a damn fine opportunity.

* Nothing sets a man up for the day more than an early game of squash (RP four games, opponent nil), followed by a breakfast meeting at which a smoked salmon omelet cooked in plenty of butter was consumed, and followed by a lunch meeting during which the main topic of conversation, over lobster bisque, was PG Wodehouse. Yes, indeed. Some days it do pay to arise from the bed.

* The Viking Bride, she of the steely gaze and strong constitution, has returned to the work place after 16 weeks maternity leave. As she told her boss, "I had to come back; I only had $31 left in my checking account". The kinder are taking it well, mostly. They passed a nice Monday together going bowling and then painting pottery before she went back to work on Tuesday. The baby is waking up once a night now, which is still a bit too much for the Viking Bride to fire on all cylinders. Just the same, her firing on 6 is still more than most on 12.

* I have ceased reading all newspapers and watching any news shows at this point. The coverage Israel receives simply depresses me. It is so terribly slanted, so one sided, so grotesque that I am forced to conclude that Israel, with the exception of the United States (the best friend any country can have, in my opinion), for the most part, stands alone. Israel must look to herself for her own defense, for her own protection, for her own success. The international community of nations will not now nor likely ever grant Israel full recognition or treat it fairly. So, if Israel must go it alone (but for the United States), then so it shall. I had a chat with a woman the other day who spent World War II first being hidden and then in a ghetto and then in a camp. She is worried, again. I think she is not wrong to worry. I share her concern even if I lack a similar personal framework of experiences against which I can measure today's events.

* I am seeing an enormous rise in cases involving employee dishonesty. I have two in litigation now and was consulted on two more yesterday. I am wondering if there is a sickness in society that brings these out now. Maybe people see all the fortunes being made so quickly (or they think quickly) and want it for themselves right now. Maybe it is just a translation of immediate gratification through creative embezzlement. Maybe people just suck. Beats me. Or maybe corporate governance has improved and more of these shit is getting flushed out of the system. Either way, I donÂ’t like these people.

* Petunias. Big hanging baskets of pink and purple ones. I have hung them from the pergola over my deck at home and they have made me very happy. I enjoy watering them in the evening, I enjoy gazing at them from the kitchen, I enjoy being out on the deck to look at them as the butterflies buzz all around us. Happiness is a petunia. I will post a picture over the weekend, I think.

* Rosé wines make summer happier, too. This cannot be disputed. I purchased, yesterday, an Italian rosé. It is cooling in my fridge now and awaiting the marinated, boneless leg of lamb I intend to grill for dinner on Friday. I look forward to Friday. I do indeed.

* I reached out today to an old friend, someone I have not spoken to in years. It was gratifying to hear the pleasure in the surprise in his voice. WeÂ’re having lunch in about two weeks. I thought about him because I had been looking into a certain signer of the Declaration of Independence and he is a descendant of that signatory. It is cooler that you have to know him for years and years before you learn that fact.

* I have been asked to hold another lawyerÂ’s hand at trial on Monday. I will read the papers and do what I can to be helpful. It is nice to be asked. I hope I can contribute something worthwhile. I do like trials. Trials are fun.

* I leave you with this thought. It is summer. I hope that you follow my lead and eat as many berries or stone fruits as you can. They all taste better with a tiny bit of heavy cream poured over them, by the way. Just saying.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 02:18 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Your petuninas will do better if you water them in the morning.

Posted by: George E. Lee at August 05, 2006 06:09 PM (Z4l6Y)

2 The fridge is stocked with plums, cherries, peaches, and nectarines. No heavy cream though...just half and half. Summer fruit and baby-doll half dress things...it doesn't get any better than this. Well, unless she's wearing the baby-doll half dress thing and handing me a piece of fruit. Hey, a man can dream, can't he?

Posted by: Howard at August 07, 2006 06:58 PM (GQCdR)

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It is sucking my will to live out through my pores. Totally enervating.

So, in the meantime, I will post an email exchange I had with my cousin's idiot girlfriend in London. It might further raise the temperature. It started with someone sending around pictures of soldiers in mostly Iraq having kind of touching interactions with the local populace. The idiot girlfriend objected.

First, her email:

I think it more honest to show soldiers killing people. That is, after all, what they are trained to do irrespective of country, politics, race, creed or colour. (or predilection to kittens).

Second, my response:

While I have done my best to stay out of this one, the following from Opinion Journal bears quite a lot on your comment below:

A cartoon that has been making the rounds shows the difference between Israel and its enemies. It shows an Israeli soldier and an Arab terrorist pointing rifles at each other. There is a baby stroller behind the Israeli soldier and another in front of the Arab terrorist.

Here's an anecdote from an Associated Press report that illustrates a similar point:

Sgt. Ron Yehushua, 21, of Jerusalem, said there were moments of beauty in war, too.

Despite the brutal carnage he witnessed, he said the image etched most deeply in his mind was that of the Lebanese family he encountered in the midst of battle. He said he shared some of the little food he had with them and handed a young girl a piece of candy.

"That's the bravest thing I did," he said. "I was afraid that in war people lose their humanity, that they become bad. I will carry that memory with me because it reminded me that I am human, and that I am fighting for peace."

Then her reply:

Fighting for peace? Please......do people really still say things like that?
Well in order to stop the I'm right your wrong thing - I believe it leads to people to kill each other in the end - Here's a thought from John Steinbeck which will I hope stimulate some more thought.

"Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live - for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And this you can know - fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe."

Comforting? Impossibly naïve? Think on.

Finally, my response to her reply:

Do people really say things like that? Yes. People who feel threatened, pushed to the wall, confronted by others who wish to push them into the sea. This isn't naïve at all. Instead, it shows, I think, a soldier trying to hang on to his own humanity while protecting those people who he is charged with protecting from showers of rockets. Rockets sent to kill civilians and only civilians. People who are fighting for their very survival do believe they are fighting for peace, fighting for the chance for their grandchildren to take buses free from fear, to play in schoolyards without looking for rockets or men with guns. If you fail to appreciate that, it means simply that you are very fortunate that you live in a place where such fear is not part of your daily existence. To call it naïve is wrong. In fact, I thought it showed a great deal of hope for the future.

Steinback has always been a bit of a hack, in my view.

Where, if anywhere, do you all come out on this?

UPDATE:

Here's the cartoon:

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:51 AM | Comments (37) | Add Comment
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1 I'm afraid that the country of Lebanon astounds me, the more I read the more confused I am. How can a country rely on a terrorist group to defend itself against a neighbour? And they are a political party? Fears of civil war have left a society scared of pissing off the terrorists in the case of starting another war. Terrorists are civilians, some civilians are terrorists, and their friends the Hezbollah use them as meat shields when fighting Israel. I don't really think I support either side, I hate terrorists and people who kill the innocent for a cause. I also don't like the approach Israel is going at this either, massive bombings of cities where civilians reside and then later dropping letter bombs warning them to leave.

Posted by: Oorgo at August 01, 2006 04:13 PM (2uqyw)

2 In brief, I think the cartoon you post pretty well sums up the situation in the Mideast. Andrew Sullivan posts a letter from a Lebanese Shiite who describes what happened when Hezbollah moved into town: Received as successful resistance fighters and armed to the teeth, they stored rockets in bunkers in our town as well. The social work of the Party of God consisted in building a school and a residence over these bunkers! A local sheikh explained to me laughing that the Jews would lose in any event because the rockets would either be fired at them or if they attacked the rockets depots, they would be condemned by world opinion on account of the dead civilians. These people do not care about the Lebanese population, they use them as shields, and, once dead, as propaganda. As long as they continue existing there, there will be no tranquility and peace. Indeed, photos have been published of Hezbollah militants in civilian clothes manning a rocket launcher in a residential neighborhood. The state of affairs seems, at least to me, pretty plain. It would seem to me that it should be plain to anyone. So why is it not plain to so many people -- including some in my family, not to mention the media, the UN Diplomatic Corps, and other shapers of world opinion? PJ O'Rourke was on the mark calling the Holy Land "God's Monkey House." But are the sides of Good and Evil really so difficult to discern here? Maybe I'm blinded by my own prejudices and preconceptions. And certainly people of good will can and do disagree. But I would ask those who hold Israel culpable, who hold Israel to blame: Do you believe Israel has a right to defend itself? Do you believe Israel even has a right to exist?

Posted by: MCNS at August 01, 2006 05:34 PM (+h70W)

3 Please realize that Lebanese are not Arabs. They are in fact Phoenicians and were among the very first Christians. Due to the Palestinian refugees and the Syrian invasion, Lebanese are now a minority in our own country. In due time they will cease to exist in the Middle East, and eventually, everywhere. They are a people who have been effectively annihilated. Hezbollah are NOT Lebanese, regardless of where they live or what passports they carry. Mind you, this is not Israel's fault and the current conflict will not make things better or worse for Lebanese. However, it does get tiresome when the press in the US does not make the distinction.

Posted by: Alice Maalouf at August 02, 2006 10:18 AM (nT9mI)

4 You owe it to your cousin to prevent him and his idiot girlfriend from making babies. Furthermore, you owe it to your kin to have him understand that however good the sex and cooking and companionship are, they are not good enough to overcome the sort of dangerously foolish concepts as his idiot girlfriend has expressed. If he continues along his pubic-blinded path toward destruction, you owe it to him to change his name and dis-own him. Do it now, before it's too late. Dan Patterson Arrogant Infidel

Posted by: Dan Patterson at August 04, 2006 03:52 PM (GWOjN)

5 "Where...do you come out on this" I think you know! I have idiot relatives as well!

Posted by: Mark at August 05, 2006 10:51 PM (aBKU2)

6 I submitted an article on tis site entitled "LIVE from Beirut" to Mary Mitchell from the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES please let me know if it is on your data base for publication. Regards, Gus Choueiri 5 Oct. 2006

Posted by: Gus Choueiri at October 04, 2006 11:06 PM (mfzfI)

7 Sir, I deleted your comment entirely. You simply re-posted an entire copy-righted article. I do not permit such actions on my comment boards. My blog, my rules.

Posted by: rp at October 05, 2006 04:12 PM (LlPKh)

8 Hello There, Referring to this entry which is accessible on google, Posted by: Gus Choueiri at October 4, 2006 11:06 PM. Sir, I deleted your comment entirely. You simply re-posted an entire copy-righted article. ... Could you please remove this entry from your web site, as this is not what actually happened then as I was the Author of that article so I think you misunderstood the situation at the time. I hope to see it removed soon. Thanking you in advance. Gus Choueiri

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Ok, bearing in mind that my daughter is only 5 1/2 years old, I would like to point out that the following concept may not have been grasped even by adults.

We are driving back from the lovely Westport pool today and I had the following interchange with the Boy Child and the Girl Child.

BC: Pappa, are lifeguards nice?

Me: All the lifeguards I've met have been nice so I'd say that they are nice.

GC: But, Pappa, that doesn't mean anything. [I knew immediately what she was getting at here and I was blown away]

Me: Why not?

GC: Just because you've met some nice lifeguards doesn't mean that all the lifeguards in the whole world are nice.

I was really stunned. She's just 5 1/2 and here, it was clear, she was objecting to my generalizing about lifeguards as a class based on my limited personal experience. And she was certainly right to do so, I think.

I'm so proud of her.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:01 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 159 words, total size 1 kb.

Yesterday, the Boy Child was flush, rich, comfortably well-off. He got some coins out of my uncle's pockets. He clutched the coins in his hot little hand, looked at the Viking Bride and said:

I are the money man! But the money man has to pee. Can you hold my money?

Nice to see that money hasn't altered his sense of trust.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 06:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Easy.

Have a senior partner call you and say: "Excuse me but I was reviewing this draft complaint and I noticed that these transactions go back to August of 1999. Do we have a statute of limitations problem?"

GULP. "Um, boss, er, uh. [pause to think for a second] What case are you talking about?"

"Oh, sorry. Rang the wrong guy"

Right. Thanks. Put heart back in chest.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:44 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 76 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Ouch. At least it was the wrong guy. You'll recover, sure it'll take several adult beverages, but you'll recover. The other guy, possibly not so much.

Posted by: phin at July 27, 2006 03:55 PM (X42kM)

2 Good to see that your stress level is staying at a nice, even keel...

Posted by: TeaFizz at July 27, 2006 06:26 PM (n8Etn)

3 hope you're fully recovered!

Posted by: michele at July 29, 2006 08:10 AM (oeZuZ)

4 Anything to make a lawyer's heart stop is a good thing. The less, the better.

Posted by: Shawn at July 29, 2006 02:28 PM (1nHnP)

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So, we get there for our inquest. Legal bags full of important legally looking documents with captions and pretty backers, folders full of urgently yellowed research with cryptic notes at the tops of pages [note to self: in about a month, try to remember that the notation "punis" refers to punitive damages and is not a word coined to describe a judge as being a small penis (wonder what kind of google searches this one is going to pick up!)]. All dressed up, polished up for the inquest.

The judge's courtroom deputy looks at us and says, "uh, you guys have witnesses to put on? Live testimony?" And we say, "well, yeah". "Oh", says he, and "I'm going to have to reschedule you until September". "Oh", says we. And then "shit".

The good news is that nice pre-judgment interest keeps acruing at 9%.

And the defendant, in the hallway, acted like such a jerk that when I got back to the office I wrote to the Court to request an emergency conference to discuss how to guarantee my and my client's personal safety.

Yup, a real interesting day.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:39 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I sit here finishing up my opening statement to the Court for an inquest on damages. An inquest is simply a trial where liability has already been proven and the Court is going to determine how much money it is going to cost the defendant. I am happy to be representing the plaintiff on this one. This inquest, this mini-trial, has been all me. I have had zero help from day one on this case, from the initial interview with the client through right now as I ready myself for the conclusion. No doubt, I will be opposing the appeal, too. I am feeling a little like how a sole practioner must feel. The only scary thing about it is that I worry that I am missing something big. Hence my taking a moment to write about it so as to either purge the feeling or prefigure the result.

Hopefully, I will return from this with a nice big judgment for my client. If not, well, it won't be because I didn't try hard enough.

This case, by the way, is responsible for the paucity of posting of late.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 05:54 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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You can, you know. It turns out that it is easy to improve your stress level.

I woke up this morning at 3:30 and got out of bed in order to send myself an email detailing all the things I need to do. There are many of them. The list was daunting. Just the same, I took care of at least trying to organize my thoughts for the week and break everything down into a manageable list of tasks. I tell you this not to exalt my own stress levels, since we are all stressed, to one extent or another, but because I wanted to give you a glimpse of my mindset going forward.

I toddled off to the gym at the appointed hour and lifted weights. I did not have it in me to do the cardio work out. Got to the office early, ready to tackle my list, when my cell phone went off. It was our alarm company. The glass break alarm in the kitchen went off at 8:29. The police had been dispatched.

I sat down and opened my coffee. It was now around 8:35 or so. I waited to hear something. I called my wife and I called the nanny to let them know something was going on. I waited some more.

I called the alarm company back to see if they had received any reports back from the police. They had. All was well. It was just the painters, you see.

Fine. The painters. Ok. But, small detail, we werenÂ’t having any painting done.

Stress level shoots waaaaay up and I begin to perspire.

I call the police back. We have a pleasant chat and they confirm that they spoke to the painters who were there to re-do the upstairs wall paper. ThatÂ’s nice. Our upstairs doesnÂ’t even have any wall paper to re-do. The responding officer and I chat some more and it turns out that he had visited the house next door, not my house.

They re-dispatch officers to my house. By this time, about 50 minutes had elapsed since the alarm company first registered the alarm. Plenty of time to clean the place out. I sit here, drumming my fingers, hoping that if someone broke into the house, they did not take my grandmotherÂ’s ring, which I had just given to my wife and which I need to have appraised so I can schedule it on my insurance. Current status of ring, in other words, not scheduled, not insured.

A little while later, the Viking Bride calls to tell me that the police were there when she got home from some thing she had to attend at camp today. All is well, false alarm.

And that, in a nutshell, is how you improve your stress level. Mine went way up in a really very short time.

HowÂ’s your stress?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:45 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Very gently, tenderly, with some small confusion in her voice, the Girl Child tries to help me confront some of the inevitable facts of life.

I took the Girl Child and the Boy Child out for a drive on Sunday. We drove some of the back roads in Fairfield, CT, the next town over. Fairfield is lovely. Lots of old houses.

The Girl Child starts kindergarten come the autumn. She has been singing, “I’m going to kindergarten, kindergarten here I come. They’ve got a lot of higher education there and I’m gonna get me some”. Great excitement, you see. She knows that she is going to have homework. We were so informed and in turn we warned her. We told her that she would not need a desk yet because she would be doing her homework at the kitchen table where we could keep an eye on her. Really, what kind of homework do they give a kindergartner anyway?

So, back to Sunday and our ride. I spot a for sale sign on an old Federal style house along with a hot pink tag sale sign (link to real estate site, if you want to see what the house looked like). I should have a bumper sticker: “Warning, I brake for this kind of crap and I pull over and park on the side of the road as safely as I can but you should still be careful.” Long, but safety is job one, you know. Anyway, we pull through the gates and wander about. There it is. An old school room desk and chair. The chair has the initials bored school children carved on the seat with their pocket knives when you could still bring knives to school. The desk has a hole for the old ink well. It was perfectly sized for a small child. It was also only $25. I didn’t even try to negotiate. I just asked them to mark it sold while I dashed home to obtain a check. They were happy to hold it.

While driving back to the house, the kids and I had the following conversation:

Boy Child: Girl Child, IÂ’m gonna be sad when you go to king-a-garden. You not gonna be there with me at home anymore.

Me: And IÂ’m going to be sad, too.

GC: Why, pappa? YouÂ’re at work anyway.

Me: Because IÂ’m not ready yet for you to grow up and it seems like you going to school is the first step in your growing up.

GC: [tone: puzzled, tentative, and gentle] Pappa, you know that time has to change, right? I mean, I have to go to school and grow up, right?

And there you have it. Even my daughter realizes this. Its just me who wants to hang on to the past. She was very sweet about it, though.

And she loves her new desk. It has a dark varnish on it that she notes will go well with her skin tone when she has a tan. We got it up to her room and she immediately put some paper in it.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:44 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I used to think it was just that she was 5 going on 13. I was way too conservative in my estimate. She's past her teenage years already. Tonight, while having dinner with my parents who came up to help us do a couple of things around the house (I bribed them with beer, burgers, and unrestricted access to the kids), my mother asked which of the ice creams we were serving was sugar free. And the Girl Child spoke:

Girl Child: Grandpa? Nana is allergic to sugar. . .

Grandpa: I know.

GC: Which is unfortunate.

Silence reigned for a moment as we all processed that remark. The Girl Child quietly continued with her ice cream.

Then, later tonight, I threw her pj's to her. It was not a good throw but she caught them just fine.

Me: Good catch! It was not a good throw.

GC: Pappa, it wasn't about the throw; it was all about the catch. [pause] It really wasn't a very good throw but it was an excellent catch.

Like I said. 25, at least.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 07:12 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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This is an interesting concept and one I probably don't have to define, right? I was really first made aware of the concept of seasonality and its impact on financial statements by my father. I was in high school. My dad and I had formed the habit of going out to dinner, just the two of us, every week or every other week. We would often spend the conversation discussing a philosophical problem that he would pose. One time, he began to teach me how to read financial statements. First, he gave me a book and then we discussed it. So, what, you saying your parents were normal? Anyway, one example he gave me, while trying to teach me what kinds of questions you should ask while reading an income statement, was what impact seasonality might have on a business. For instance, his example, if you looked at a Christmas Tree business's income statement during the month of December, you would see huge income being generated and if you took that as your beginning point and made assumptions about their regular monthly sales based on that single monthÂ’s results, you'd be way off because you didn't take into account that it was a seasonal business. I really enjoyed these dinners with my dad.

Now, just to demonstrate now how a child can be warped by strong parental influence, I was walking down the street today to go to my tailor. As is my wont, I was observing all that was around me and I began to ponder the age old question of seasonality and the impact on income statements. What I was wondering was, quite simply, are sales of bras significantly down in the summer? Because it sure looked like no women were wearing them today.

I bet I was the only sicko on the streets of NY today staring at woman's breasts and wondering what the impact of their bra-less state was on the income statements of lingerie manufacturers and further wondering whether there was any play in the stock market because of that fact.

I think this is probably a cry for help, by the way.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:52 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 I think extensive research should be conducted in this area. Perhaps assisting in the fitting of women's bras at the local Victoria's Secret or Fredrick's of Hollywood. Of course we'd need to subdivide the territories and demographics. I'll take the Southeast US and hot 18 - 30 year olds. I smell a government grant coming!!!

Posted by: phin at July 14, 2006 12:04 PM (6lSxB)

2 Two words: shelf bra. And, no, they don't work as well as a regular bra. Now, provided Pamela Anderson wasn't in the vicinity, you should have nothing to worry about re: eyes being poked out, etc.

Posted by: Kathy at July 14, 2006 04:33 PM (3HDjN)

3 You have a tailor!!?? The best I can do is find a dry cleaner that will hem my pants. I need some serious culture improvement. I had lost touch with Kathy of the Cake Eater Chronicles and that's been my loss. With her knowledge of the shelf bra, she is back on my Favorites list. Maybe I don't need so much culture improvement after all. Keep up the good work. Dan Patterson Arrogant Infidel

Posted by: Dan Patterson at July 15, 2006 09:52 PM (GWOjN)

4 For more well-endowed women, shelf bras are a joke. A shelf bra will cause the girls to giggle and appear unsupported no matter how firm they actually are. But, RP, back to your closing thoughts. I doubt you were the only man on the streets noticing the giggling affirmations of womanhood, but you well may have been the only man who was considering the financial implications of them. Enjoy the moment!

Posted by: femmedespoir at July 16, 2006 01:19 AM (C2A/u)

5 I was going to say, no fair that all those women can go without bras! But what about lingerie for nightwear/playtime? Isn't that just as popular in the summer? And then you've got all the teenagers who suddenly need bras, as summer is time for shopping... But interesting idea, definitely.

Posted by: Hannah at July 17, 2006 01:02 AM (ImQx2)

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