January 25, 2006

Putting the Frazz in Frazzled

I have been a denizen of appellate briefing hell over this whole month. But it will soon pass. The brief (50+ pages so it ain't too brief) is due next Wednesday at the Appellate Division. But I have been running and running and running with this and trying to keep up with other responsibilities. So, a very short post as a kind of snapshot.

*A dinner in a wood paneled library. Black tie. Silver candlesticks with huge candles. A long table. A convivial group of some 50 people. It was mighty nice.

*A ton of work on a pre-marriage agreement for a lovely client. By a ton of work, I'm sure I have billed over $30,000 on it. Well, I believe that push has come to shove today and the client and his intended cannot come to an agreement. I am both happy (that he isn't getting stuck with this woman) and sad (that they couldn't make it work). I know it wasn't my fault. But, just the same. . .

*The English really do make beautiful shirts and I may have a problem here. Like, I may need an intervention. Hilditch and Key. At least they're on sale. My wife is gonna, well, not kill me, since she still needs me to do stuff around the house, but, she may be less happy than she has been in the past. Still, a great deal and who is it who does not love a great deal? Not I!

*I think that the combination of too much work stress and not enough sleep makes you feel like a pencil that has been sharpened too many times. Just a pathetic little nub, not good for much of anything.

*The Viking Bride and I are taking a romantic weekend away next week. Hoping to feel rejuvenated. We probably haven't done that since December 2004, I bet. And boy, that is waaaay too long between times away.

*I hope all my buddies are doing fine over on their blogs as I have lacked quality time to visit.

Pax tibi.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 05:10 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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January 20, 2006

It all makes sense now

I am a student of history. An amateur, to be sure, but a committed student with wide ranging tastes and interests. So many interests over so many periods in so many different locations that I would be hard pressed to pick just one to say, yes, thatÂ’s my favorite. But, if pressed, I confess to certain themes, certain issues, that I like to read about. Violent or revolutionary change is one theme, across cultures and in different places. Sometimes, when you read or when you observe, you are able to suddenly come up with an insight that escaped the professional historian. Maybe its because you are more widely read and have a less concentrated focus. But, either way, you have suddenly made a connection across cultures or periods and this connection allows you to evaluate or think about something in a new and different way. It is a serendipitous moment when it arrives.

IÂ’ve just had one. For years and years and years, historians and anthropologists and archeologists have wracked their brains, trying to come up with a believable or at least plausible reason why the Mayans simply abandoned their cities in Mexico and Guatemala. Why did they just walk away from these gorgeous places they built over many years?

Well, I think IÂ’ve come to know. Thanks to Connecticut Light and Power, IÂ’ve been granted a stunning insight that has totally escaped the professionals.

Here’s what happened. The Mayans lost power and they moved back home with their parents. While they waited for Quetzal Luz & Electricidad to hook ‘em back up, the pipes in the pyramids burst and, rather than clean it all up, they just stayed at their parents’ house. And thus, the great cities were abandoned. Of course, QL&E still got a huge rate increase but the cities never came back.

CanÂ’t you totally see it?

We actually didnÂ’t have a burst pipe. And we did get our power back last night, thus allowing us to move home to discover that now that we had power, we had to call the oil company because we didnÂ’t have heat. They were very nice and came over within the hour to bring our house back from the high 40's to a happier temperature.

Still, as we pulled away from my parents’ house last night, my daughter called to her grandfather: “Bye, Grandpa! See you at the next storm!”

ThatÂ’s probably going to be this weekend.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:59 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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January 16, 2006

Refugees, with cake, from the storm

A huge storm hit our area on Saturday, and no, I’m not talking about my wife’s reaction to my having to stay at work until 9:30 on Friday night and then spend the whole day – through dinner – at the office on Saturday. The storm took down trees and power lines. It took our house off the power grid at 1:00 on Sunday morning. The temperature, in the meantime, plummeted. When we were up on Sunday morning, the day of the Girl Child’s birthday party, it was 55 degrees in the house. In case you were wondering, no power with a forced air heating system means no heat in the house. It was around 25 degrees outside. It did not look good for our heros. Snow, ice everywhere, and a very hopeful Girl Child.

Happily, for her, the party went off without a hitch. Almost all of her guests came and she had a lovely time. We had the party out of the house at a local gymnastics place. The Girl Child was the center of attention, surrounded by her friends, all of whom seemed to like her and were happy to be with her. It was sweet to see. The kids were all run ragged and the real shocker was the Boy Child. My son is without fear and with exceptional coordination. He declined any and all help on the balance beam, walking all by himself from end to end, many times, and then happily threw himself into the pads to dismount. HeÂ’d climb on other things as high as he could and throw himself into matts. He bounced, he rolled, he insisted on doing everything the older kids were doing. The staff, unsolicited, volunteered that they had never seen anything like him. I think weÂ’re going to sign him up for gymnastics. IÂ’m not sure we have a choice. The remainder of the Carvel ice cream cake came with us.

After the party, we went back to the house. Temp? 49 and falling. Decision? Evacuation to my parents back in Westchester. Run all the taps in the house, pack the bags, set the alarm (on extensive battery backup) and hope for the best. As evacuations go, it wasnÂ’t horrible. We were taken out for a lovely dinner and the Viking Bride and I slept on the floor of my childhood room while the kids had a sleep over in my sisterÂ’s old room. Just the same, we slept terribly and the kids were up hours and hours before they should have been.

Power, according to CT L&P, was not going to be restored until midnight tonight. However, according to my alarm company (I heart these guys), power came back on at around 7:30 this morning. I immediately called the house and was thrilled to hear my wifeÂ’s voice on the answering machine, meaning that power really was back.

The kids are spending the rest of the day with my mother and my wife, who headed back up to the house, just called in to report that the power is back, the heat is back, all the water is still running, and, mirabile dictu, none of the Champagne froze and exploded!

Not exactly how my wife had hoped to start her birthday, but, there you go.

Happy birthday, my child bride!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:35 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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January 11, 2006

De-lurk!

I gather that here on MuNu, it is de-lurking week. This means that if you come by and visit but don't generally leave comments, this is the week to leave a comment, to step out of the shadows, to just say hello or to slag me off because you think the site is shite. Seriously, if only to satisfy my own curiousity, should you choose to de-lurk, would you mind telling me how you came to this blog? Thanks!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:28 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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January 09, 2006

Brief shower of existential angst, followed by doubt

In helping to clean out my grandfatherÂ’s things, I took for myself a large number of old photographs, many of them of me when I was a child.

I gaze upon this child, with his hazel eyes holding an intense gaze and his skin kissed gold by the sun, and I donÂ’t recognize him at all. I feel no kinship, no sense of immediacy, no relationship at all. It is as if I have never met the boy. I recognize the bookcase he is posed in front of, remember the color it was painted, even some of the books. I actually recall the t-shirt, it was a favorite. But of the boy, of the person, nothing. It is as if I have no connection to the past. When did that happen, I wonder?

I know I was not created fully formed, as if sprung up from the earth, a man with hair going gray at the temples and wearing a suit and a tie, a man with a mortgage and responsibilities, with children and a job. IÂ’m not sure what happened to the child, the boy. My memories of him are evanescent.

Alienated from the past, is it any wonder that sometimes one feels adrift in the present? And thus, unsure, uncertain, unable to visualize the future?

Or is it all just a crock of shit?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:35 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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January 08, 2006

Amy's back!

Amy is back on the web! YAY!

Links joyfully updated! All systems go!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:57 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Observe the forms

There are certain forms, certain of what used to be commonly accepted ways to initiate interaction and social discourse. These are, probably, thought of as old fashioned by some and as taboos to be transgressed by iconoclasts and other self-consciously hip trend setters, both young (who ought to be rebelling against something) and old (who really ought to know better, but so be it). But they are neither. These forms, this kind of politeness, is neither old fashioned nor unnecessary. They include words like: please; thank you; excuse me; pardon me; may I trouble you; or, do you mind. These words provide a sort of social lubrication so that the parts in the great social machine (meaning, you and me) do not rub up against each other and snag or create friction which leads to heat. They allow our wheels to move more smoothly when we have to mesh together, even if only for a brief moment. I insist on them, both for myself and my children. My wife and I, if you can believe it, actually say please and thank you to each other, both as a matter of habit and course and because our kids might as well see manners in action -- do as I say and as I do.

So, background over.

This morning, as I awaited the 7:34 train to come and whisk me away to the bib bad city and to my desk where multiple tasks were provided by my kind and munificent employers to both delight and entertain me, I gazed out over the quiet, and mostly empty, parking lot. It was peaceful and I was sort of pleasantly lost in thought as my mind kind of drifted this way and that, sort of just bobbing along with the flow of my relaxed little stream of consciousness. The snow was falling, rapidly but not heavily, kind of drifting down etherally and lightly but quickly. It was kind of nice.

Then, an interruption.

"Do you know when the train comes", I was asked.

No, excuse me or pardon me or sorry for interrupting but . . . I dislike that quite a bit, as if you didn't know by now. If it were me asking, I would make some sort of prefatory apology first because I certainly don't think that just because you are standing there, just because you exist, you owe me any information or indeed any form of social discourse at all beyond the social implied contract that you will leave me alone and not trouble me and, hopefully, not impinge on the quiet exercise of my own liberties. That's certainly what you can expect, I believe. So, I acknowledge that and then ask for assistance or information or whatever.

Now, having examined what was missing from her question, let's look at what was there and reflect, if you are still reading, on why it was a bad question on at least a couple of levels.

First, I could have simply answered it, yes. Yes, I know when the next train is coming. Although, actually, even though the question is structured to permit such an answer, I would have to have a claim to some kind of omniscience that I do not really possess to know when the train is coming. So, I suppose I could have simply answered it, no, I do not know when the train is coming.

How could I know when the train is coming? I cannot see it, I have no GPS relationship with it. No, the most I could know is when the train is supposed to arrive at my station, when it is scheduled to arrive. That I could know and that I could tell her.

But you see, all she asked is whether I knew, not for the information I actually had to convey, although I believe she really meant to know the information and was not really inquiring whether I was generally informed and possessed of the information. Although, I suppose she could have been. Maybe she was seized of a compulsion to generally inquire of her fellow citizens to gauge their level of information concerning train arrivals and departures. Perhaps an over or under medication issue and not simply the evidence of a sloppy thinking process.

All that said, I doubt she walked away from our encounter thinking much more of me than I of her. I answered her thusly:

"Do I know when the train is coming? No. However, it is scheduled to arrive here at 7:34."

She walked away, her braided pig tails, so incongruous in a woman over ten, bobbing in her wake, seemingly so content with the information I provided that she, in the bliss of her contentment, neglected to thank me.

And so the wheels of social interaction grind together and stop. A little lubrication probably would have helped. I think you know what I mean. And since you do, let me not neglect to thank you for actually reading to the end of this rant.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:19 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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January 01, 2006

Breaking in the new year right

The new year began with snow for us here in coastal Connecticut. Lots of thick, wet snow everywhere.

So, our new year officially began with snow suits for the children and a shovel for me. They tried out their new sleds (Hanukkah gift from my parents) with great shrieks, dastardly spills, and dizzy revolutions. I would pause in my occupations of shoveling driveway and sidewalk to watch and listen to the shouts of laughter. Indeed, watching the 22 week pregnant Viking Bride slide down the slope was excellent, too.

After an hour spent in the snow, we rang in the new year properly. The kids had oatmeal with dried fruits and I. . . I had some hard earned contentment. I sat at the kitchen table amid the happy bustle of my family with the NY Times spread before me and a large mug of fresh brewed coffee into which I liberally added milk and Cognac. A cafe corretto, in Italian, or a kaffe avec, in Norwegian. Still, whatever you call it, it is a lovely reward for an hour of hard work on a cold morning.

Nothing to make a habit of, but it gives a nice glow to the new year, to a new beginning.

Not a bad thing at all, really. I wish you all a happy new year, filled with shrieks of fun and a little bit of Cognac for when it gets cold.

I have written and deleted a sentence about three or four times now, however, concerning a matter of grave concern to me. I am trying not to rush to judgment about something until I have all the facts, but just the same, I feel a great sense of unease. An uncle may have committed a breach of trust in our family concern, a concern of which I am a board member. I wish I did not have to start the new year wondering if my uncle is a goniff. And trying to figure out what to do about it. Either way, even if it is totally innocent, and the amount of money involved makes it hard to think that way, any faith or trust I may have in his judgment is impaired. So, in truth, it is a rather mixed way to start the new year and not, I hope, a harbinger of things to come.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 02:33 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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