Tales from the Shark Tank

I had been a little put-out at my mom’s family lately. We have a pair of bat mitzvahs in my family this weekend. There are, of course, associated festivities, dinners, etc.. The biggest of these is tonight after services.

Wick, Joseph and I are not invited. I am the first cousin of a parent of each of the young ladies in question, and that isn’t close enough to warrant invitation in their book. I’m more used to this than not, as they’ve been excluding me for about 30 years now wherever they could. But it upsets my mother every time it happens, and that upsets me. I had been in a bad mood over the whole petty thing for a while.

But last night my son – the only great-grandchild my granddad got to know really well – climbed into my lap, asked me to tell him a story about how his great-grandpa played with him when he was a toddler, and then drifted off to sleep in my arms. It was wonderful. And it put everything into perspective. My aunt and uncle and their kids, my first cousins, can be as petty as they want to. It’s their loss. I have everything I need.

I have an incredibly busy job, which is only going to get busier. Someone has finally figured out that we end up as the butt of media bashing far less often when they ask the lawyers about what they’re planning to implement before they do it, rather than expect us to clean up the mess afterwards. Having added to the obligations of the department, they have also approved its expansion. We are hiring a third attorney and a new paralegal. The applications are in, and we are well into the interviewing process for the attorneys. (We get to paralegals next week.)

State employment does not pay anything close to what the private sector does, and generally the calibre of applications we receive reflects that fact. Not this time. The middle aged mother who wants to get back into the field I expected, but we have applicants with Law Journal credentials (i.e. the top ten in their class) applying. I surely did not expect them. We have individuals who have made a living in private practice for years, who now cannot make enough money, and are willing to take an entry level job to which they bring 20 years experience. We have applicants who bring writing samples so beautifully written and researched I would not have hesitated to send them to the Supreme Court. People who have excellent grades and good personalities and references, who should have been snapped up by one of the big firms, are now applying here because they’ve been looking for 8 months or a year and are desperate. We have applicants with law degrees who are already admitted to the bar who are currently working retail. We are having a dreadful time choosing which applicant we’ll offer the job to, because they are almost all stellar. Those form letters everyone sends out saying “it was a difficult decision” generally read as a sop to the pride of the candidate who’s getting dinged, but in this case it’s absolutely true.

It is also a graphic and appalling demonstration of how bad the job market really is. Dubya has a lot to answer for, I’d say.

I have been following an on-line role game with great interest. I have also been following the GM’s blog at intervals. No more. It raises my blood pressure too much. He seems to get his exercise by jumping to conclusions and then bashing other bloggers. He names and links to the blogger he’s bashing. I have intentionally not linked to nor named his game or his blog. Besides, this way I can say I think he’s an arrogant, judgmental jackass who can’t hear anything but his own braying.

What has me so irritated? Let’s see: his utterly disrespectful denigration of a conservative religious group that makes no attempt to try to turn others to their way of life. His assumption that anyone who is annoyed by a child should withdraw from the society of parents. His assumption that if discipline is not currently effective, it’s pointless. Equating a dislike of bad manners in children and adults with advocating 19th century child-rearing techniques (“spare the rod and spoil the child”) and/ or child abuse. The list goes on.

Children have to begin to learn that actions have consequences sometime, and sooner keeps them safe far better than later. His son is a toddler; driving adults crazy is in the kid’s current contract. So is being an adorable dynamo. I had a child of that age, not so long ago. If he was making the adults crazy because he was overtired at someone else’s home, we thanked our hosts and left. If it was our home, then one of us excused ourselves to take our son upstairs at bedtime. If he was climbing on someone, unless they actively encouraged him (picking him up into a lap, smiling and talking to him, or something similar) we didn’t lock him in his room, but we would quietly lift him away and try to interest him in a Barney video or a favorite toy.

That is all Dorothea wants or expects. I know; I asked her. Even those who have no child tolerance would deal with the video, because it kept kidling occupied. And no, of course he didn’t always listen to us then, but we made effort none the less. Now, at 5, he is a polite, mindful, mannerly little boy. He has not had his psyche stunted nor does he quail in fear of us; quite the contrary. If another child is in distress, he will pull his very own mommy over to help them (even if their mom is right there), because he is absolutely certain that no one, including that other mommy, can do it as well.

Dorothea, whose comments started all of this, has spent time with my son when he was rather smaller and does not have a major problem with him. And just because she doesn’t want children of her own doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand or make accomodation where appropriate. She does. And she thinks about it. And I notice she did not say anything to her hostess; she vented her ire at the combination of poor behavior and parental inaction in her blog, which this woman is unlikely ever to see. On the same principle, I’m unabashedly venting here, so that I can quit running over my response to this individual in my head.

A person who does not want children or enjoy their company is not automatically an asocial monster who advocates child abuse. It’s not an all-or-nothing proposition; very little is. And I really wish the person who started me on this tirade would try to perceive the shades between absolute black and absolute white.

My son is growing up by leaps and bounds. Last Sunday he lost his first tooth, which is already being replaced by its adult analogue. And today he started kindergarten. Last week, when we went to meet his teacher and let him acquaint himself with his classroom, he was nervous. He spent the first few minutes in my lap, and checked back to make sure I was still there consistently for the next 45 minutes. Today he was simply so excited he was ready to wiggle out of his little skin. He found his cubby, put away his backpack and lunchbox, gave me a hug and a kiss, and then waved and said “Bye, Mommy. I’ll see you tonight. Have a happy day!” That is an exact echo of what I’ve told him as I’ve gone to work each day. He never wants me to leave him, but this time he was leaving me, of his own free will. He was delighted, and so was I.

The last thing I saw, standing by the door, was my son putting his arm around a little girl who was crying and reassuring her. I’m so proud of him.

As I was driving in to work this morning, I saw a small black pickup truck. In its back window was a bumper sticker saying “Friends don’t let friends eat meat”.

It was towing a livestock trailer containing several pigs. We’re not talking about Vietnamese Potbellied pigs suitable for keeping as pets here, either. We’re talking about large, bristly denizens of Old McDonald’s Farm and other similar establishments.

This will constitute a minor growl, so if you’re not in the mood for that sort of thing, don’t read it.

I am thinking that there has to be a better way to check for a medical condition than testing to destruction. When my mom had a cardiac stress test, while the doc insisted she hadn’t had a heart attack, she was completely flattened – I mean in bed – for a month afterwards. When my allergist decided to make sure I really had asthma and sent me for a pulmonary function test, it turned out to consist of inducing an asthma attack in the hospital. (To be fair, the respiratory therapist promptly controlled it once she was done testing.) And today, I had such a test for a malfunctioning gall bladder. “Drink this!” says the radiology tech cheerfully, handing me a can of utter gunk and a straw. “If your gall bladder isn’t functioning properly, it will induce an attack in 30 minutes.” She lied about the 30 minutes. It took 15. I don’t see the point; gall stones show on ultrasound, so why not start there, with something relatively painless? As it is, I get to be fairly miserable for three or four days. Bleah. Phooey!

I know, I’m not a doctor. But there absolutely has to be a better way.

Last night Wick and I went to see the live show of Prairie Home Companion at the Indiana State Fair. It’s a non-broadcast tour, so the time constraints were not so tight. (It was also outdoors on a night where the temperature was above 80 and the humidity even higher. I told Wick you know you’re in trouble when you can see the air. Can you say “showers all around when we got home?”)

It was wonderful! It went on a solid three hours, because Garrison Keillor kept responding to the environment – humming in tune to the train’s whistle, for instance, and then saying/ chanting “what do we know in that key?” while holding the note, or shmoozing with the state fair princesses. We got home at midnight, but it was worth every minute of lost sleep. I hadn’t thought a radio show could be that visual, but it was. One example among many: watching the woman playing the actress in the “Guy Noir” sketch standing statue-still while the sound-effects guy made clicking-heels-running noises was such a contrast that it added to the humor.

I had gotten the tickets on impulse, and then found myself without a babysitter when my Mom cancelled on me. (She had good reason; I’m not annoyed.) Blessings be upon my houseguest, Sarah. She stepped into the breach. We brought her boyfriend over to the house, and the two of them watched Joseph and put him to bed. And as late as the show ran, I’m very glad we didn’t have to go pick our son up from his grandparents before we could go home and fall over ourselves.

It was a lovely evening, and a lovely date with my husband. And then I got back into the office to find that of the ten people with comment rights, not one had changed a single word of my draft of a federal report. Talk about a relief! I’d had visions of my commissioner saying that I had the slant all wrong, and making me start over. Didn’t happen. So this shark is in a really good mood right now.

The ABA has recently voted to permit attorneys to notify authorities if their clients are contemplating or have committed financial crimes that “harm innocent parties.” It’s a major change in the rules of client confidentiality, and I think will open a whole wonder-chest of new issues.

But what it made me think of was my law school ethics class, and my encounter with it in the real world. At the time I was in school, the rule was that it was permissible to breach a confidence only to save a life. I listened, and remember thinking that since I had no intention of ever dealing with criminal law, that would remain an abstraction for me. It was interesting, but not directly applicable.

I was wrong. I had a client who was a very messed up Viet Nam veteran, to understate fairly thoroughly. His wife was a high level officer of a national organization, which was having its national meeting in Indianapolis that year.

He told me that he was going to go to the conference, since he knew exactly where his wife would be at any given time, and shoot her. He explained his plans in detail. He had thought it through completely. He didn’t expect to survive the adventure, but that was all right with him. They would be together in death, since they could no longer be together in life.

I took him seriously. I found out who was charged with event security, called him, and told him what my client had said. That accomplished warning the police as well, since he was an active duty police officer. I wished I weren’t doing it, but I did not hesitate; I would rather be defending an ethics violation charge than have a preventable murder on my hands.

My client came in after the conference absolutely furious. The event had been surrounded by officers, and his wife escorted throughout by armed guards. He hadn’t been able to get near her. That told me two things; that he had actually tried, and that I had chosen correctly. He ranted on at length, but never accused me of telling his plan nor asked me if I had. I remain grateful for that.

The divorce became final. The man left this earth some years ago, giving me a message to deliver to his ex-wife about a week before he died. His wife still doesn’t know about that interlude. But I will never look at that dry provision in the attorney’s code of ethics with detachment again.

I’ve been following the California Recall spectacle with increasing bemusement. I can understand a state having a system for removing an elected official. That’s sometimes necessary. But this looks a whole lot like what a friend of mine referred to as an “anyone” election. He proposed that there should be an option on the ballot of “any registered voter”. If enough people decided they didn’t like any of the candidates and chose the “any registered voter” option, then a registered voter would be chosen at random to fill the office in question, without regard for party affiliation, voting record, level of education or anything else.

That’s darn near what California is doing. It’s a complete circus. We’ve even got trained performers.

There is to be a double bat mitzvah (cousins within weeks of the same age) in my family the end of this month. My mom has been freaking out over the concept of acquiring a dress or two to wear to the associated events. I managed in my usual fashion, found something that looked like her on line, and ordered it. Yesterday I took it over to her to try on.

It is not what she is accustomed to, so she was hedging and hesitating. First it was too elegant for a 70 year old white-haired dandelion to wear. I pointed out that while it might not be what she was used to, it was decidedly not too elegant. Then the neckline was too open. It’s a little wider than a standard t-shirt; it would take Superman’s vision to sight cleavage from that neckline. It’s too long. It’s this, it’s that.

Then my dad walked by on his way from one end of the house to the other. He saw Mom in front of the mirror in this dress and stopped. He looked. Then he said “Jeanie, you look beautiful! Is that the dress Alisa found for you? It’s lovely.”

Mom beamed, and not another word was said about any unsuitability of the dress.