Tales from the Shark Tank

Civil Rights complaint response completed with supporting documents and delivered – check.

Eight of ten newly available bills read and reviewed in writing – check.

Organize birthday gift for Mom – check. Those of you who know me, take my “Horton Hears a Who” kitchen and multiply it by a factor of ten. Square it. You might now have a hint as to what Mom’s kitchen looks like. The gift I have in mind is to bring the Brownies over and turn them loose on her! Her job will be playing with her grandson. I’ll be helping the Brownies.

Tell an irate citizen that he can sue us for charging excise taxes if he wants, and give him the correct address for service – check. And no, we are not going to pay him a half a million dollar usage fee to put his name on his registration.

Explain to a man whose elevator seems to be stuck in the basement that no, B. did not say he could get his license – check. No, she is not my supervisor; I am hers.

I know I’ve accomplished a lot today, objectively speaking. But somehow it feels more like sheer, unadulterated wheel spinning. I’m going back to finish the bills now. Tomorrow I shall be playing diligent lawyer, this time on my private cases. Monday is a holiday. Yaaaay!

It’s Monday. On one hand, the world has settled down a bit. The deputy commissioner wielded the desired clue-by-four, and we now have, if not happiness and joy, at least agreement not to be a roadblock.

On the other hand, Saturday was devoted to Wick’s family and Sunday to mine. Jospeh got to play with his Chicago cousins, and I got to take a turn at cuddling the newest cousin. Jackson is exactly one month old, and his attitude is that the only place to be is on a warm chest equipped with arms and a beating heart. That is the natural order of things, and I admit to being more than glad to oblige him. Of course, there were two grandparents and an uncle equally eager, so I did have to take turns. I was vastly amused when Joseph came over to advise me of this in all seriousness. He did have an ulterior motive, though. Once someone else took the baby, Joseph could then lay claim to Mommy’s lap. And so he did, with hands full of books to assure that we would be well occuppied for a good long time. If he’s got to push buttons, the book button is a really good one to choose.

Today is an exercise in tenacity. I’ve been reading proposed statutes and making recommendations on what to do with them. On some of them I have two versions of the analysis form. There’s the one that is suitable for consumption by the governor’s office, the media, and other possibly unsympathetic folk. Then there’s the one that says (to Anita only) what I really think. There’s one bill I’ve referred to as an attempt to establish Indiana’s own UnAmerican Activities Committee combined with the powers of a Special Prosecutor. Three guesses which agencies are targetted. Yup, that’s right – Motor Vehicles and Social Services. I mean, the welfare rolls have grown in spite of Welfare Reform. Surely there must be undetected corruption. Unemployment has nothing to do with it. Really! Just ask the Chairman of the Indiana Republican Committee. Never mind that Indiana has lost more jobs than any other state, according to the self-same IRC’s statistics.

I think I’ll go cuddle a certain small warm bundle of boyness tonight. That has a tendency to put everything into it’s proper perspective. I had a busybody at a bun-n-run ask me if I thought it was wise to continue to provide a lap on demand for a big boy of six. I’m afraid I gave her a sunny smile and told her that my only regret was that he no longer wanted it as often. I left her very confused. I consider that a good thing.

I don’t know how long this post will be. I am, at the moment, periodically checking traffic outside my office window. Not only is every road in sight packed solid and motionless for as far as the eye can see, but the government center garage is also packed solid. People can’t get out. Cars are lined up to the 4th floor. (There are only five floors.) It’s been like this for over an hour. I’ve called the babysitter, and now I’m just waiting until the Drano works. I’d much rather be warm and comfortable in my office than sitting in an unmoving car getting more and more impatient and frustrated.

I can only figure that there’s something or other clogging some major artery, and so everything else backs up. And if the street is solidly packed, then no one can get out of the garage onto it. Basic physics in action, here; two solid objects cannot occupy the same space, and should not try to do so. It gets very messy otherwise.

People are leaving this agency like lemmings. I haven’t figured out entirely who has jumped and who has been pushed. But I have to run a staff meeting in the morning to try to reassure my staff, when I don’t claim I understand it all myself. And in the midst of this, of course, there has to be one individual showing all the perspicacity of a block of wood. “This isn’t our fault” he whines, “this” being an impending crisis concerning cars towed from private property. “Why should we have to fix what the legislature broke?” He doesn’t seem able to get the concept that if a strict interpretation of statute puts a private citizen out of business because we “aren’t doing our job in a timely manner”, the reporters won’t come looking for the legislators. They’ll come looking for the agency, and it will look like one more occasion that we couldn’t find our way out of a wet paper bag. He asked Legal to find a solution. We did. And he won’t do it, because “it won’t work”. Yet at the same time, he is telling the increasing desperate business owner that he’ll be happy to do something “as soon as Legal tells him what’s ok.” Well, I told him in September, and he didn’t like it. We came up with something else, and he didn’t implement it. Now Anita’s told him, and he doesn’t like it. I’ve been working on this since August, and if I hear one more “yes but” from the director of special sales, I believe I will have those words emblazoned on a clue by four and put it where it might possibly get his undivided attention!

I’m supposed to be writing statutes and policies now. I want to be doing it. And until things like this get out of our hair and off our collective desks, I can’t.

I wonder if another state needs a director of abandoned vehicle sales. I would be happy to send them one. I’ll be happier if it’s someplace like the University of Hoople in Southern North Dakota.

Part I: Endings and Beginnings

I’ve started more entries than I can count, only to close my computer before I had enough to even be worth saving. Hopefully this time will go a little more smoothly.

I started thinking about 2003, and decided that I really didn’t want to evaluate the year. I’ve learned from it, but like many learning experiences, I have no desire whatsoever to relive it. It started with a disastrous visit to Ohio over New Year’s, and went on to my husband giving up law courtesy of clinical depression at the end of January. A promised promotion came through six months later than it was supposed to, and I got stiffed on the amount of raise that came with it. But for all that, I’ve started blogging and both made two new friends and found an old one courtesy of that endeavor. I’ve gotten to know Dorothea, who is kind enough to host this puppy, and spent a marvelous weekend visiting her and her husband in Madison. I came back from that with patience restored, so much more relaxed that my husband suggested I do it again sometime. I played in Li’s Grand Ellipse and had a wonderful time of it. All in all, the year has ended far better than it began, so I’d say the balance is positive.

I don’t tend to make my resolutions at New Year’s. There’s too much going on, and the end of the year is too unsettled. If I’m going to do the resolution thing, I’ll do it in early May. I did make one resolution recently, but it had nothing to do with the time of year. That is that I will never permit myself to say “because of his autism my son can’t do “x”", whatever “x” happens to be. His only limitation is what we’re willing to try, and I won’t be the thing that limits him. I’ve had practice. I’ve always taken someone telling me I wasn’t capable of doing something as if they’d thrown a gauntlet. First it makes me angry, and then I set out to prove them wrong. Now, I find, I’m ready to do the same for Joseph. No one has tested it yet in practical reality, but I find myself responding to generalities in things I read with “oh, yeah? We’ll see about that.”

All in all, I’m thinking 2004 is already looking better than 2003 did.

Part II: The Vacation

I really did spend most of it ill, but there was still some fun stuff in there. I went to a couple of really good holiday-type parties, one in Louisville and one here in town. The local one I ducked out of early, because Li had been kind enough to offer me her ticket to The Nutcracker at Ballet Internationale. I went with her mom. Joan is a hoot! I watch ballet with a very analytical eye, of course, courtesy of past training. This time I got to do that with someone better trained with teaching experience who was not the least shy about expressing her opinion. It was wonderful. Li, I’ll take your ticket any time you don’t want it!

The ballet itself was lovely, too. Aside from a charming adoloscent gawkiness on the part of the dancer playing Clara (Joan and I agreed that if I’d done that, I’d have been swatted), it was incredibly well done. I won’t say I’ve never seen better. But it was certainly the best I’ve seen aside from some of the New York companies. And the older dancers made Clara seem less like a slightly out of kilter dancer and more like the younger kid whom the older ones smile at indulgently and encourage.

And I finally, finally got to see Return of the King. Oh. My. G-d. I know there are things I missed, just because there was so much to see and absorb. I know I want/ need to see it again. The creation of that world is an amazing accomplishment. It didn’t feel like a fantasy. Middle Earth is a place that one should be able to get to, with all the reality and crazy-quilt depth and contradictions of the world outside my window. Usually I see the movie made of a book I love, and even as I enjoy it, I regret the substitution of the producer’s images of the places and characters for those my mind’s eye created. I have no such problems with Lord of the Rings. Instead, it is as if each time a character or a place is presented, I see something I have seen before, or heard described so clearly that I can recognize it. And I’m gonna have a good time figuring out how to make some of those costumes!

Part III: Picking Up The Threads

I’m back at work now. It’s scarcely recognizable. The previously threatened independent investigator is already here, and my collegues cleaned my office to within an inch of its life in his honor. The problem is that now I can’t find anything without considerable effort. Not that they didn’t try to organize me, but, well, I hadn’t fully found my desk in a couple of years. No one murders more trees than a lawyer.

Not surprisingly, you could cut the tension in this place with a cheap plastic spoon. The first “resignation” is already in, but not yet made public. For the moment, the individual in question is going on as if nothing were happening, because that’s what has been asked of her. I find that appalling above all else. How is she supposed to focus and function and act as if she cares about her job when she’s just been backstabbed by the guy she was trying to protect?

I had hoped to avoid it, but I’m thinking it may be time to start looking for another job. Happy New Year to me. Humbug!