November 18, 2004

A Ramble: Evil Times

Are you a chatter? Do you tend to chat with strangers? Invite, from time to time, conversation with people you don't otherwise know but with whom you are sharing some common experience, be it waiting for a late train or stuck on line at the bank? I am mostly that kind of person. My wife is not, probably. I think she is little bit shy while I am not. This may explain why I have a blog and she does not. I think that this is a trait shared by most bloggers.

Yesterday, I had a chat with another lawyer. He wanted an extension of time, his second, so that he could move to dismiss my complaint against his client. I was basically agreeable to extending his time but insisted, to his great surprise, that he take a longer time than he had asked for. I explained that his date would inevitably involve him working over Thanksgiving weekend and that this particular fight, just being about money, is not worth it. I insisted he take a later date. After that, we got to chatting and I learned that both of his parents had been at Aushwitz. Both. Parents. His mother and his father were concentration camp survivors.

I was floored. I have met camp survivors before, but not many of them. I have been on a tour of a concentration camp before, a topic, if anyone is interested, for another post. You see these people, these survivors and you know you are in the presense of something extraordinary. These people did not survive some stupid television show. They survived evil.

Parenthetical: Evil is a concept that has fallen out of favor since, for the multiculturalists and relativists, it requires taking a firm comparative stand and making a value judgment. I am comfortable doing that and saying that certain cultural practices are not just different, they are flat out evil or wrong. Clipping off a baby girl's clitoris is just flat out wrong. Exterminating the Jews of Europe or engaging in genocide in Rawanda is evil. Stalin? Evil. These are not hard judgement calls to make. Don't shirk from making them just because others say you cannot sit in judgment on other people and their specific cultural practices. You are a human being and thus, you can. Endof Paranthetical.

These survivors looked evil in the face and, by luck or grace of God or pure strengh of will, or a combination of all of the foregoing, walked away. This attorney's parents walked away, found love, and made a family. They left the camps and made two sons, one a lawyer and one a diplomat. They made a success in this country. I am awed by people like this. I don't know, and hope never, ever, to have to find out, if I have the inner fortitude that these people had to survive.

His parents bear tattoos of their death camp numbers on their arms. They can never forget. So long as they live, we can never forget.

Evil still walks the earth. It paused in Beslan, a name I do not have to look up to check the spelling on. It lingers in Israel with the death of every Jewish child shot while hiding under the beds by brave Islamic terrorists who regard each death as a brave act, worthy of great celebration in the streets of Palestine. Can you doubt, really, that this is evil? I cannot. And I despair. I despair as the world press lionizes the life of Arafat, the world's oldest terrorist, without taking note of his crimes against humanity. I worry that it has become safe to hate Jews. Again. This is an ever present thought in my mind. It lingers in the background. It comes to the fore sometimes when I look at my children and wonder, did I do them any favors by converting them to Judaism? Have I just painted targets on their backs? This is an intensely and deeply held fear. I don't have an answer to this question and I hope I never do.

This was a major ramble today and I would never have gone down this path if I had not stopped to chat with this other attorney. I would never have learned about his parents if I was not a chatter and I would have missed the opportunity to reflect on it. I'm glad I took a moment to chat with him. You never know what comes out of a random chat.

Disclaimer: As with all of my rambles, this is stream of consciousness and I have not and will not re-read to edit. You take it as it comes with these. Also, this does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities. Finally, smoking is probably bad for you.

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November 15, 2004

The Empty Suit

I walked away from buying a new suit today. It was a lovely suit, dark blue with pin stripes, double vented in the back and it fit me splendidly. It was a Cerruti suit, reduced from $1,600 to $495. Quite a reduction but the store lost its lease and is closing. I was all set to buy it and it was going to be the first new suit I have bought in several years. I've lost quite a bit of weight lately and was thinking it might be time to make an addition to the wardrobe. I was very excited about it. Then I noticed that the suit was made of 92% wool and 8% polyester. $495 for a suit that was not pure wool? Are they serious? I flatly refused to buy it at that point. They tried to explain that these suits sold very well and that the 8% was used to keep the suit from wrinkling. So what? Polyester does not breathe that well and even 8% was too much for me. Am I too fussy? Maybe. I am certainly particular and I made the mistake once before not paying close enough attention to the fabric of a jacket. That was a good mistake since I now pay better attention.

This was just the suit that got away.

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November 12, 2004

What College means . . .

As some you may know, I am the Interview Chair for the Alumni Admissions group of my north-eastern liberal arts university. As such, I supervise the assignment of interviews, conduct some myself, and basically make sure that the several hundred or more applicants from NYC get interviews if they want them. In this capacity, I am forced to reflect on the position that College has in the American iconographic landscape. I am not going to post about that here. No, instead, I refer you to John's essays about Dartmouth. Fabulous stuff, as you'd expect from John. An example from an off hand remark about admission:

[N]ot to mention the cost of the adolescence spent in gamesmanship, artful maneuver, and self-denial that led to admission in the first place.

Isn't that just brilliant?

Also, I learned a new word from his post: synecdoche. Defined as follows at Dictionary.com:

syn·ec·do·che: n. A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (as hand for sailor), the whole for a part (as the law for police officer), the specific for the general (as cutthroat for assassin), the general for the specific (as thief for pickpocket), or the material for the thing made from it (as steel for sword).

[Middle English synodoches, from Medieval Latin synodoche, alteration of Latin synecdoch, from Greek sunekdokh, from sunekdekhesthai, to take on a share of : sun-, syn- + ekdekhesthai, to understand (ek-, out of; see eghs in Indo-European Roots + dekhesthai, to take; see dek- in Indo-European Roots).]

I love learning new words. Thanks, John!

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November 11, 2004

The Anti-Rant

I've seen a lot of rants recently. A lot of people are seriously pissed off and are venting on their blogs. Fair enough. Vent away. If it is entertaining and well written, I will read it. However, it can be tiresome. Anger is fatiguing, after all. And so I give you the anti-rant. A random list of things for which I am grateful if not downright happy.

My Anti-Rant:

I am grateful that the recent presidential election, despite the bitterness with which it was conducted, did not descend into a pit of acrimonious litigation which might have torn the Republic apart.

I am thankful that my family is healthy.

I am grateful, enormously, for every little kiss and I love you my daughter gives to me.

I am also equally grateful every time my 20 month old son calls, "Ba Ba" and holds his arms up to me.

I am grateful for the smell of Johnson's baby shampoo on the hair of children.

I am thankful we have enough money to not worry about putting food on the table or clothing the children. The rest is details.

I am happy that my wife, my childhood sweetheart, loves me and trusts me and, I think, would pack up the family and move with me almost anywhere I wanted to go.

I am grateful that my grandfather just celebrated his 90th birthday and is in excellent health.

I am grateful for the sacrifices made by men and women in uniform.

I am thankful that I live in the United States of America and that my ancestors sought it out as a beacon of hope and the land of opportunity and better things for their children.

I am happy that winter is almost upon us. It is glorious to walk to the train in the morning as the cold cuts through you and makes you feel clean and alive.

I have a lot to be grateful for, thankful for, and happy about. This list is woefully incomplete, but it is a start.

I hope you all can write a similar list, too.

Here endeth the anti-rant.

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November 10, 2004

Stupid Celebrity Quote of the Day

From the NY Post today:

Ethan Hawke satirized New York's over- demanding parents Monday when he out lined his plans for Maya, 6, his daughter with Uma Thurman. "I've already started compiling her reading list," the sometime novelist told the audience at the Glamour Women of the Year awards at the Ameri can Museum of Natural History. "It starts with the Hans Christian Andersen in the original Dutch (emphasis added), because that's important. Then there's Homer and she'll go straight into the complete collected works of Judy Blume, because as any man knows, there's no better guide to the teen woman than 'Deenie.' "

Dutch, you nincompoop? Dutch? Try Danish. Hans Christian Andersen wrote in Danish. You know, Ethan, Danish is not just something you eat with your coffee.

On that note, I leave you with the statue of the Little Mermaid from Copenhagen (you know, in Denmark?):

littlemermaid.jpg

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The Babe's Bat: First Homerun

This was truly cool. Last night, I saw the bat used by Babe Ruth to hit the first home run in the new Yankee Stadium on April 18, 1923.

babebat.jpg

For baseball fans, this doesn't get much cooler. For Yankees fans, it is nice to know that he hit that home run against the Red Sox.

The bat is being auctioned off at Sotheby's. Here's a press release about the sale.

I also got to see the first Mickey Mantel major league home run ball and a very cool Ty Cobb bat. I was a little surprised that the Ty Cobb bat did not have any blood or human hair on it, considering what I've read of Mr. Cobb's temper over the years.

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November 08, 2004

Roots

I had the weekend off for the first time in some weeks now. It was glorious. My wife asked me last night what my favorite moment was and I really didn't have one. I told her that it was made up of many small pleasures and that while none of them may have stood out as particularly worthy of an extended memory, in totality, they gave me a lot of pleasure. I did run some errands this weekend: hardware store; supermarket; back again to the hardware store; and the gas station. And I cooked. A lot. I made gallons of soup, a vat of chili, and I roasted a turkey breast. Kosher turkey breast, while more expensive, is cleary the way to go. My wife deemed it the only acceptable turkey breast she had ever eaten. I also did some neglected house things, like throwing out rotted pumpkins, etc.

I did steal a little time for myself, about 10 minutes. I went and sat by the ocean. There was no one else around and it was very windy. I tried to sit there and let the salt breeze blow some of my cobwebs out. I was sad because I realized that while I had been at work, I missed the peak of the leaf change. The glorious reds and yellows and oranges that make the trees look like they are ablaze. I got a little too cold, inappropriately dressed, and went home to play with the kids.

One errand I ran this weekend got me to thinking about the concept of roots. We are a peripatetic society, or so it seems from my perch. I've lived in a couple of different states and cities and even countries. Americans, as a group, cherish their freedom to relocate as they chase the next big opportunity from state to state, region to region. And as they do, the concept of roots becomes harder to define.

For some of us, roots can be about big things. For my wife, it means that in her ancestral city, there are a couple of streets named for her family. For others, it means that significant cultural institutions are named for their family, college buildings or libraries. Others have Mayflower roots or have joined various heraldic-type societies like the Daughters of the American Revolution. There are few people who have roots like that, I think.

No, for the majority of us, roots may mean that our families have lived in a place for many generations. And as we move, roots become the place where our children went to school and grew up. As we become more mobile, it seems to me that it roots become more and more shallow and easier to put down. They become a collections of firsts. This was the first town our child was born in, the first town I was promoted to vice president in, the first town I got involved in a political campaign. So that roots become easier to pull up when you move and easier to recreate when you stop moving. And I think it is no accident that I use children in so many of my examples. Children give us roots and a place in a community that we not feel when we were younger and had less of a permanent place in it.

It may be that as you associate roots with the first time kind of experience, or even roots that simply reflect your attachment to place that it becomes harder to accept change in the physical place. As things in the physical get torn down and rebuilt or as stores go out of business, we find it harder to accept that change. What do you mean that diner closed? It's been there forever! I dislike that kind of change, even though I understand it. For instance, the cider mill in Armonk is gone. It was part of my childhood and I looked forward to sharing that with my children.

I navigate my way around Westchester, to my wife's amusement, by disappeared landmarks. I navigate a landscape inhabited sometimes only by my memory. I superimpose my map over the real topography and who is to say which one is real? Especially when my reference points are shared by someone on the other end of the telephone and we agree on a set of directions by reference to long gone places. We share the same map. We share each other's roots, a common touchstone of experience and place. Even if that place is gone.

Maybe that's what they mean when they say you can never go home again. Maybe home has changed because your roots are gone or because the roots you take with you exist only in your mind. Beats me. I just know that I agree.

Roots are not just about places, though. They are also about people. For instance, I consciously sought them out this weekend. I demanded continuity. It was my daughter's first dentist appointment. She was such a champ. After the hygienist finished, she asked me if I wanted the dentist or his associate to perform the examination and I told her that I wanted the dentist because, with this examination, he would be treating four generations of the same family. My grandfather, my mother, me, and my daughter. She was surprised to hear that. I guess it is pretty uncommon but I liked it. It gave me a feeling of connectedness, of continuity.

Roots are also about connections, about the seamless way that people interact and cross groups. About board memberships and friendships. I guess what I'm trying to say is that roots are about networks. About knowing people who can and will help you, whether from church or temple or school or professional association or clubs. These relationships are about roots. And they are not moveable. They are place specific. They may assist you with an introduction in a new place, but they won't really do more than that.

Anyway, let me leave my extended meditation with the interaction between the Girl Child and the Dentist on Saturday.

D: How old are you?

GC: I'm 3 and three quarters.

D: [Visably amused] Is that older than three and a half?

GC: Yes.

D: And when do you turn four?

GC: On my birthday. In January. January 12.

D: [Looks at me, smiles, looks back down at her] You are so cute I could just eat you right up.

GC: Oh, no, I don't taste very good.

D: That's not what your grandmother says!

GC: [Very earnestly] Oh, she's just kidding!

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November 04, 2004

They pull you back in

Hi, all,

If silence is golden, this blog is bling.

Trial starts today at 2:00 in New York State Supreme Court, New York County. I have been billing 12-14 hours a day. My kids know me only as a voice on the telephone at this point.

In the midst of all this craziness, I have been invited for a job interview doing something really cool. I can't say much about it at this point other than that it is prosecutorial in nature and would involve lots of trial time. I interview just before Thanksgiving.

So, Bush, huh? I expected it. I voted for him. I did not expect my vote for Bush in NY to matter and of course it did not. As I said all along, I needed a good reason to switch Presidents in the middle of a war and John Kerry never gave me that reason. Simple as that.

Anyway, wish me luck on the trial. We've actually managed to construct a defense and, if we're right, we defeat a claim for $30 million. That. Would. Be. Sweet. Besides, I would also like to stick it to the other side who, in a short time, I've come to dislike (but that's almost always the case in litigation).

Thanks to everyone who left me happy birthday wishes. I appreciated and enjoyed all of my virtual birthday cards, I just have not had time to reply individually and I'm veyr sorry about that.

Pax tibi.

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November 01, 2004

My Master Card, non-birthday phone call

I have a friend. He is my oldest friend. We have been friends since we were 2 years old. He lives in Europe now and has for some years. He just, out of the blue, called to chat. He did not remember that it was my birthday. Again. This is the third time, at least, that I can recall him doing this. Once, he called to quiz me on 80's movie trivia because he was in Germany and no one he knew there could answer any of his questions. This year, he called just to chat and catch up.

Cost of the phone call: $10?
Time spent chatting before reminding him that its my birthday: 20 minutes
Reminding him that its my birthday during the call: Priceless.

I love these calls. I'm still smiling as I write this.

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October 29, 2004

An Update / a Ramble

Herewith a rambling, stream of consciousness, not totally filtered catching up post.

I have not written much this past week or so. I hate that. I have come to enjoy the act of writing non-legal things. I love the comments I get, pro or con, and the dialogues that result. But really, I miss the writing. Sometimes when I write, I want a cigarette. Well, not really want so much as remember times past when I would write late into the night with coffee cooling next to me and an ashtray with a burning cigarette in it on the desk. I miss that part of smoking, the part that I associate with those nights and that kind of creativity. I quit smoking some ten and a half years ago, in the days after I sat for the NY Bar Exam. I figured that would be the most stressful moment and once I got past it, I could and should quit. And so I did. Now, of course, I hate smoking. I hate being behind people on the street when they smoke and I hate bars or restaurants filled with smoke. But it is a special kind of hate because I know that I miss it, like I miss that 21 year old kid smoking "Peter Rouge" in Paris in 1988-89. Paris memories involve smoking. Damn I miss that.

I had no intention of writing about smoking, by the way, so I suppose my lead in that this would be stream of consciousness was correct. I will stop here on the smoking and the callow youth I once was. Although, I suppose it is natural to reflect back on what seemed to be simpler times and the person I once was since I am staring my birthday right in the face. Monday, in fact. Another year passed in which I once again managed to dodge the sabre toothed tiger (that's how I cheerfully think of it). But that's not quite what I intended to write about either.

No, I was going to write about: thinking. I have enough time these days to write, but not enough time to think and to organize my thoughts enough to draft a coherent paragraph with a natural and orderly progression of point to point to conclusion. That's why my posts have been so short of late. More in the nature of random observations or remarks than anything I am particularly proud of. No, the problem is I am too busy to think. This is the luxury I crave. Time to step back from the rushed and harried existence. Time to reflect on my observations, to organize them, to see if I can learn anything from them. Time to record these observations as engraved images on my brain, like a print maker makes an impression. Otherwise, the observations are fleeting and they leave with a sort of, "gosh, I have to remember this so I can write about it later" sigh, but they do leave. Like yesterday, I have a half formed impression from seeing two young woman facing each other on the subway, one playing a game boy, the other clutching a text book on international financial management. I had thoughts about the value of education and the soul destroying nature of video games, but they have not fully crystalized and may never.

I also took some time away from the office yesterday to go renew my driver licence which is set to expire on Monday. I walked guided only by a need to go South and West and a desire to keep moving, so I went where the traffic lights sent me and I ended up wandering through the West 30's, a part of town not greatly frequented by tourists. It is the heart, still, of what we in NY call the shmatta trade. The rag trade. The fashion business. Full of wholesale only clothing and all the fabric stores. It is kind of seedy and dingy and full of men pushing expensive clothing through the streets on rolling racks. Clothing you might expect to see next season in the department stores. I think that's fun. It made me want to buy a small, pocket sized digital camera for my birthday to be able to carry with me and take pictures of interesting things on the street so I can post them here. There was one old fashioned barber shop that I would have liked to take a picture of, for sure. Otherwise, renewing my licence was painless and quick. I was, to quote an English friend, gobsmacked at how easy it was. Something has changed drastically at the DMV. I distrust it but I like it.

I am going to be working all weekend, again. I suspect that this might just be the case through Thanksgiving. This is the part of my job I sometimes hate, but not really. I mean, yes, I hate that I will not be seeing my kids or my wife very much but I enjoy working hard. I think that there is a reward unto itself when you stretch your capacity and work hard. Especially if the work is interesting. That's one nice thing about practicing law, the work is usually interesting and requires me to become a quick expert on whatever my client's business is. Right now, its high stakes real estate development and the financing and construction aspects specifically.

That said, I think I grow a little weary of this professional life, weary of the conflict, weary of trying to separate the truth from the untruth. You know what? Truth is inherently malleable. It really is a matter of perception when trying to establish the truth between two competing versions of events. I used to think that truth was TRUTH -- simple and inviolate. It isn't really. There are concepts that cannot be distinguished away and their may be scientific, unarguable truths, but to say that one person swears one thing is true and the other swears the other is true and therefore one is lying is not necessarily the case. They may both be convinced they are each telling the truth. And then the fact finder, judge or jury, decides which version is more credible and thus which is the truth. This is tiring. Especially when you begin to think that your own client may have a more casual relationship with the truth than you are comfortable with. Enough said, I think. Except, perhaps, a word of caution: don't lie to your own lawyer. I hope I don't need to explain why this is a bad idea, do I? One other thing, even if I may be experiencing enough burn out with my current profession to be looking up MBA programs on the web, I am old enough to know that I should not be making any long term decisions under the over worked / under rested circumstances. I'm just thinking about other options without allowing myself to take a position I may have problems retreating from. I think that counts as wisdom and not timidity. But I may just be inclined to self-generosity here.

In the midst of all of this, I had a win yesterday. A motion I filed back in February and which was submitted to the Court in May was finally decided in October. The Court favored my clients with a 10 page decision, which is unusually long for State Court. I moved to dismiss 8 counts of a complaint and I won on 6 of them, have a good argument to renew my motion on the seventh after we serve an answer to the complaint, and know for a fact that the plaintiff cannot prove the eighth count. We'll spend a little time in discovery, which is expensive, but the big threats have been removed. My clients are thrilled. Now they just have to pay their outstanding bills which I think and hope they'll be able to do.

Well, back to work now. Here endeth the ramble. I hope you enjoyed it. And if not, that's ok, too. I am not re-reading it or editing it before posting, by the way. It is truly unfiltered.

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October 28, 2004

Happy news update: Yay, Jim!

Jim is now joining the ranks of the previously unemployed.

HE GOT A NEW JOB!!!

Yay, Jim!

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October 22, 2004

Red Sox Win, Boston Loses

All over the blog-o-sphere yesterday, you could find Red Sox fans gloating. Most of them, at the least the two I like the most (Irish Elk and SCSU Scholars), were doing so tastefully and amusingly and I suggest you go check out their take on the internet victory dance.

But here's the thing, the Red Sox won, and I take my hat off to them for a fantastic performance (and it really was stunningly fabulous), but Boston lost. Why? They set cars on fire and rioted. It reminds me of some old football coach who said when one of his players danced in the end zone, "try to act like you've been there before" (Bear Bryant, maybe?).

Why is it that you never see NY set on fire by sports fans?

UPDATE:

According to the NY Post, a young woman was shot in the head and killed during a clash with Boston cops. According to the article:

Moments after the Red Sox' 10-3 ALCS win early Thursday, some 80,000 delirious Boston faithful poured out from bars and clubs. Fans went out of control, burning a car, hurling bottles and clashing with riot cops, resulting in 16 injuries and eight arrests.

One cop's nose was broken by a flying bottle and officials are considering banning alcohol sales during the World Series games.

The chaos reached its fiery climax on Boylston Street, a block from Fenway, when a few hundred drunken hooligans attacked a parked Nissan Xterra that bore New York plates.

The crowd smashed its windows and set it on fire.

My condolences to her family. What a waste.

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October 19, 2004

Spiced Ham Email

I got the following email from someone who's name looked vaguely familiar and so I opened it. The subject line was simply "hey". It had a link to a website which I shall not reproduce here and above the link, the following suggestion:

"drop the hammer on the next bitch you lay it to. . ."

I have no idea what it really means, and I'm too chicken to click on the link, but it sounds so tough. Maybe the author is overcompensating for latent homosexual feelings?

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Back at work today

Well, I was back yesterday, too, just not for more than the morning. Then I left, fell deeply asleep on the train home, woke up two stops before mine (its a gift), and went home to pick my nap back up from where I left it on the train. I was feeling so sick and so drained and tired yesterday. Today marks a marginal improvement. I am cautiously optimistic, but not much more. Which is rough, considering that I lack the motivation or power to deal with some fairly complex issues today. I know that they are complex because I read the words in the cases and I don't understand them at all. That's ok. There's no real rush. Except that I have a crucial oral argument on Thursday morning and I really have to prepare for it. Tons of reading, synthesizing and outlining to do. Oh, joy.

I see three possible outcomes on Thursday. One, she denies the motion and I work all weekend to run to the Appellate Division on Monday to humbly beg for a stay of the case pending disposition of the appeal. Two, she grants my motion and then I work all weekend to get the benefits of her decision. Three, she grants my motion and she adjourns the upcoming proceedings and I don't have to work all weekend. I, of course, am holding out hope for #3.

Many thanks to everyone who sent their kind wishes for a speedy recovery. They were a very pleasant surprise and I was touched.

I did spend much of Sunday making home made chicken soup. My wife has remarked that she likes it when I get sick because then I cook a lot. Chicken soup is really an all day thing, especially if you start from scratch. But it makes the house smell soooo good.

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October 15, 2004

Goodbye week (and good riddance!)

I have tried not to whine too much this week about the nasty week this has been -- work; long car trip; business trip to Philly; other deadlines, etc. I have probably failed in that. Oh, well. It's my party and I'll whine if I want to, whine if I want to, whine if I want to; you would whine to if it happened to you, du du du du, du.

Seriously, I greeted the day with sharp pains in my ears at 4:00. Not good. Suspecting ear infections, I called the doctor at 4:15 and left a message begging to be seen this morning because of the pain. Also, every time I swallowed, it felt like I was trying to take down a tennis ball. So, I had tea and read Wednesday's NY Times which was still hanging around the house and which arrived after I had already left on Wednesday. That was an interesting news day. Did you know that Frank Ghery and Snohetta are going to be designing buildings at Ground Zero? I didn't. There was also a great article on a subject I've long had an interest in: economic and political inequality and disparity in China where, once again, the peasants are getting the shaft.

My wife kindly drove me over to the Doctor to be there at 8:30. On the way, I tried to reach them again by cell phone, only to be told by the officious receptionist that the Doctor couldn't possibly see me before 11:00. Not acceptable. I was kind of steamed. So, my wife pulled in, parked, and we went in to the office to suggest that maybe the Doctor could find a moment to see me now. The receptionist repeated that there was nothing she could do. I said to her, "I called you at 4:15 this morning because of the pain, it is now four hours past that and you are seriously suggesting that I patiently wait for another two and half hours?" She looked at me and said she'd go check with the Doctor. Which she did and said that the Doctor would squeeze me in. I think it is a lot easier to say no to people on the phone than in person. A lesson there for us all.

So, here I am at work, surrounded by mounds of shite I have no interest in getting through, dreaming instead of the golden hued chicken soup I intend to make this weekend, and whining on my blog.

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October 14, 2004

Comments Replies!

Hi, all, thanks so much for all the great comments over the last week and I'm sorry if I was not as responsive as I'd like to have been. So, let me address some of the comments here, in a post:

First, thanks to all sending me good wishes on feeling better. It hasn't worked at all, of course, but I appreciate it. I think putting in a 15 hour day yesterday was not conducive to feeling better. I actually feel a lot worse. The Boy Child was not helpful in getting up crying at 2:45 this morning. I jumped out of bed to get him so as to leave my wife undisturbed since she has a job interview this morning. He just wanted to be picked up for, tops, 30 seconds. Then I put him back in his crib, at his insistence, rubbed his back for another couple of seconds, and he was back asleep. It took me a lot longer. Good thing for him that he's so cute.

Second, as for soup. Rachel Anne, you could make it with any good vegetable broth and then you don't have to skimp on the all important dairy. Phillipe, when I have a sore throat or am congested, I want as much spice as I can stand. It makes my throat feel better, oddly, and it helps me breathe. Simon, other than poaching chicken breasts, it is really hard to make a good quality home made chicken soup during the week. I'd have needed to have been home for hours for that. See, I take kosher chicken legs and simmer them with celery, carrots, onions, leeks, parsley, etc. for a long time. I remove the chicken and strain the broth, throwing out the useless vegetables. Then, I add to the broth, more aromatics (carrots, etc.) and cook them while I shred the meat from the legs. I add the meat back in at the end, et voila, chicken soup. But it ain't a weekday kind of thing to make. And I usually make a whacking big vat of it so I can freeze some.

Third, as for D.C. Next time I'm down there, I will certainly give Ivan and Wicked some advance notice and perhaps they can show me a more hospitable bar. Margi, I'm glad you liked the toast. Mick, thanks for your good wishes. Mark, thanks for the recommendation about Clyde's!

Finally, Jim, thanks for the gentle nudge. I have actually been working on another "behind the curtain" post but have not had enough time to finish it up. Maybe soon, I promise!

By the way, if your comment went unaddressed above (Amber, Helen, etc.), please know that I am not ignoring you. The commnents part of the blog is really the best part and I appreciate all of them.

Thanks again, y'all!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:26 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 478 words, total size 3 kb.

Change the Rhetoric, Please

This has been bugging me for a long time and I thought I'd drop a little line about it. I am tired of the use of combat rhetoric by sports writers, athletes, and owners. So, I request here, as follows:

*Stop using the word "war" to describe a sporting event, unless the sporting event is figure skating 'cause they actually come the closest, what with the use of hit men and all;

*Stop describing men who travel with their own chefs and massage therapists as "warriors", they are not. They are paid obscene amounts of money to whack balls or put on pads and hit each other. They are NOT warriors. The closest thing to a warrior, other than a service man or woman, is (usually) the woman left at home who holds a family together under stresses you and I cannot conceive of. These woman deserve our respect. Athletes are not warriors.

*Stop using the word "battle" or "battle tested" to describe a football player. Sports Illustrated described some LSU grad as "battle tested" because he played for the Tigers. The closest he has come to battle was the co-ed who probably successfully (this is Louisiana, after all) fought him off. He may have developed great athletic ability and tremendous powers of focus and concentration, but he is not a battle tested anything. He is the most coddled of creatures, a big time college football player.

There are other examples, I'm certain, but these are the ones which come to mind and piss me off the most of late.

Here endeth this morning's rant.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:11 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 273 words, total size 2 kb.

October 13, 2004

Forecast: No Blogging Today

I'm off in a couple of minutes to catch the 7:30 train to Philly where I will spend the day reviewing 30 boxes of documents. I anticipate no access to computers.

I'd rather be blogging!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 06:40 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 43 words, total size 1 kb.

October 12, 2004

Soup is Good Food

I am bad at being sick. Some people are good at it. My wife, for example, is a great sick person. She doesn't let it slow her down at all. I, on the other hand, generally will wallow in my sickitude. I am miserable. I moan. I like to be both left alone and taken care of. Mostly, I want soup. I also mostly prefer my own cooking. I am sick, right now. It is inconvenient to be sick now. I have to be in Philadelphia tomorrow and in Court later in the week. Happily, I had soup I made last week. I am going to reproduce the little recipe here both because I think others might like it and because I don't want to forget how to make it.

It was simple. I took a bag of broccoli flowerets (the pre cut up stuff you normally cook by throwing the bag in the microwave), one red pepper (I cut up), 1 hot, green chili pepper (they said it was serrano but I thought it may have been jalapeno and mis-labeled), and one really big can of low fat and low sodium chicken broth and brought it all to a boil. I added some cumin, maybe a teaspoon, some sea salt and some fresh ground pepper. I let it cook away for at least 10 minutes, which was enough time to cook the vegetables. I took it off the heat and stuck the puree wand in and zapped it. Then back on the heat for the flavors to come together. Then back off the heat for some heavy cream.

It was very yummy and the chili pepper gave it a great kick. This was a perfect weekday soup to make since, start to finish, it was a half an hour.

There are some things I might do differently, next time or if I had more time. I might have sauteed some onions and all of the vegetables first. I also might have thrown in some fresh ginger and a smashed garlic clove or two. I also might have used sour cream or yogurt instead of the heavy cream. Or even maybe buttermilk.

If I have time tonight, there will be more soup. Because we all know, soup is good food.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:49 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 388 words, total size 2 kb.

The weekend report

We drove to D.C., about 250 miles, with two kids under the age of four, one nanny, and six cd's. It took about 5 hours. The kids were great, no complaints and no naps.

Friday was uneventful and passed quickly, other than my discussion with the bartender, as set forth in the post before this one.

However, one amusing thing did happen. I fell into conversation with a fellow wearing a Norwegian flag on his shirt. I held a real, grown up conversation in Norwegian with someone not related to me. That was very cool. He even asked if I was Norwegian, but maybe he was just being kind. In the, “it’s a small world” category, we had mutual acquaintances. Odd.

The rest is below, in the extended entry: more...

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:51 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 1408 words, total size 8 kb.

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