Tales from the Shark Tank

I’m a Celtic geek, ok? Just take that as a given. I’ve been fascinated with the region and the culture since grade school, read everything I can get my hands on. So it is that inconsistencies and popular misconceptions tend to jump out and bite my nose.

I can deal when one author claims Rhiannon is the Welsh goddess of the moon and of inspiration, reigning over song-birds, and another that she is the equivalent of Epona, the Irish goddess of horses. But when the same author, in the same sentence, talks about “Epona the horse goddess (Rhiannon of the Birds in Wales) and doesn’t see the basic inconsistency in that, it does make me pause.

Coretta Scott King has died. She is always spoken of in the news as “Widow of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”, as if that clause were a part of her name. It seems that before she can speak or be spoken of, the shadow of the man whose death threw her into the spotlight must be invoked. But this woman was a power and a presence in her own right, and deserves to be spoken of as such. She may, like so many women of that era, have remained quietly in her husband’s shadow while he was living, but she did not stay there. She stepped out into the public eye and made her own place, her own light. She did it in her husband’s name and memory, but in her own way and with her own agenda and priorities.

I have to wonder what would have become of the civil rights movement but for her. There were other leaders, others who spoke out against social and political injustices or who called on African-Americans to be proud of what they were, proud of their heritage. They are remembered, now, by historians. Their names are taught to grade school children, but they quickly blur into a general sense of that era, silent icons who are forgotten as individuals by most. Rev. King is remembered specifically, though. His speeches are still read; he has a national holiday of his own. The only other individuals so honored are Washington and Lincoln, both presidents. King was never president; that makes the mark he left all the more amazing. But it’s her victory that he is so remembered, that his influence is so vivid and vibrant. She kept his memory and his causes in the public eye. It was she who would not let those in power slip back into their old indifference unregarded. It’s been 38 years since he was murdered. Not that there isn’t still a deal to do; this is scarcely a race-unconscious society. But a tremendous amount has been done in his name over that time, and much of it has been encouraged, orchestrated, pushed by her. So the woman who has died was not only “the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” She deserves to be remembered in her own right. She was Coretta Scott King.

The chosen family strikes again. The older of my foster-daughters has been thinking about replacing her car, which is mechanically quite sound but cosmetically less than gorgeous. So when my younger foster-daughter turned out to need a car, the older one decided that now would be a good time to act. She has bought herself a new car, and is selling the old one to her near-sister for an amount she can afford on terms she can manage. The younger one will at last be in a safe car, and the older one in one that suits her life better. It’s a happy ending for all. I wish I could claim credit for any of it, but I can’t; it was all their own doing. I just get to sit back and say “wow”.

I love my chosen family. One and all, they are wonderful!

I’m very good at ignoring minor internal problems.  Sometimes, though, they get annoying enough that I can’t.  So it was today.  I’ve been coughing for a while, getting a bit worse with each passing day.  Today I took stock of the whole, and realized that I’m well on my way to this winter’s case of bronchitis.  So I am betaking myself to my doctor in the morning, and drinking enormous amounts of mint and ginger tea tonight.  I probably ought to put a few flares out, though.  As I told a friend via e-mail earlier, I get a mite touchy when I can’t breathe properly.

There is an attorney in Indianapolis who has rubbed me the wrong way for years. He’s not a bad person, he’s just very rigid, and that drives me crazy. We have had one case going on for far too long, exacerbated by bankruptcy and other mishegas. (”Insanity” for the Yiddish-impaired) Now, with the judge losing his temper entirely, we are set for trial this Friday morning.

So what’s the latest? Our clients have worked out an agreement without us. That’s good for my client and his, ok for me, and not so great for him, among other things because his fee is generally a percentage of the judgment, and no judgment can mean no fee. More, the agreement reached is one I suggested and this attorney advised his client not to take at least two years ago. But now he’s stuck with it, because what our clients do supercedes anything we do.

I must admit, I’m human enough to enjoy the irony.

Update:  The case is officially dismissed.  As my client said to me when I called to give him the news, “No more Mr. H. ever again.”

Four o’clock. It will still be dark by 5:30, but at least it’s no longer twilight already at this hour. The windstorm of last night has died down to stillness, but not before blowing away the clouds that have hovered for weeks. It’s cold but not frigid, so that my son can play outside with the cat. I never knew a cat that played chase games before, but this one does. She lets him chase her a time, then turns the tables on him, always with her claws carefully sheathed. The only time I see her claws is when I’m holding her on my lap and petting her. Then, like any cat, she kneads my arm as she purrs her contentment. I’d trim them to protect my human skin, unshielded as it is by fur, but she needs those sharp weapons if she’s to live outside. So I will get my sweaters snagged, and occasionally my arm. It’s a small enough price to pay.

There is a crystal quality to the light of a sunny winter’s day, a cold distance to its blue that differs from summer. Then the air is thick with moisture, so that the blue of the sky looks like a thing seen through water, clear but somehow deep and close. Not now. Now it’s dry and crisp as last fall’s leaves that blow and eddy around the tree-trunks. I’ll have to rake up those leaves come spring, or they’ll kill the grass here. But for now, they serve to mulch the perennials, or at least the ones I know about. I’m waiting to see what comes up in April before I plant anything new. I know where the day-lilies are, and the hostas, but if there are daffodils or tulips or crocus I wouldn’t have a clue. I hadn’t really thought about it, but you have to live a year in a house to know what grows by it, if it is of any age at all. I wonder what the new owners of our house down in Indy will think when the assorted varieties of mint and thyme and sage start coming up. I hope they don’t mind, because those things are easy to start but almost impossible to eradicate.

But now it’s time to look outside, and appreciate the pattern that bare branches make against empty field and blue sky. The patterns of summer are more complex, but they are not more beautiful than those of a clear winter day.

As my husband and I were talking, we heard the sound of legos being dumped out in our son’s bedroom.  His dad reminded him that it would be time to pick up toys soon.  Boychick asked how many minutes.  “Fifteen”, said his father.  Boychick’s response?

“I love fifteen minutes!”

I’ve survived the weekend, and even more amazing, so did the people around me. It was busy enough to wear out a hyperactive toddler, let alone a normal adult. I must say, though, insomnia was not a problem.

Friday evening found me helping the friends that were to be married on Saturday to decorate the hall they were using. The plainest and most utilitarian of spaces, when they were done it actually looked like a place to hold a wedding. We stayed up way too late, of course, but the project got done with much laughter to ease the way.

The wedding itself, on Saturday afternoon, went beautifully if I do say so myself. I was delighted; the bride is one of these people who does what suits her and tradition can fly a kite. So she did wear a formal gown (not a wedding dress, but those really aren’t designed for 50-somethings), but instead of some shade of white or pastel, it was amethyst purple. It’s a good thing I’m not the sort to be derailed or flustered by mis-steps and modifications on the fly, or I’d have been in trouble. But I’m told everyone could hear me, even the elderly lady with the hearing aids at the back of the room, and the couple themselves were very happy with it all, so it’s all good. I was a little stunned when a young woman present as the date of a friend of the groom came up to me with a truly odd expression on her face and asked my last name. When I gave it, she said “I’m Irma”. She’s a college friend of my husband’s who was at our wedding. And I’d known the groom’s daughter as well, when she was a kid. Her parents had already divorced by then, so I’d never met her dad, only her mom. The world is not merely small, it’s the approximate size of a peach pit.

After the guests had left, those of us involved in putting on the wedding went out together, which was very pleasant. Then I went for dessert with my household. Seven of us descended on Cold Stone Creamery for ice-cream and sociability to celebrate the sale of our house, or as one friend put it, to hold a “house-cooling party”. I think we confused the shop employees. Most people came in, had their treats, and left. We sat down and took over two tables and most of the chairs, talking and laughing for about two hours. It was fabulous! Not that all is perfect in everyone’s world. My foster-daughter was sold a car by a buy-here, pay-here lot that turned out to be in need of an entire brake system, master cylinder, brake lines, pads, rotors, the works. She’d had it less than a week, so I stepped in and stepped on the dealer, with very good results for her. (Sometimes I’m still glad I’m a lawyer.) She now needs a car again, though, so if anyone knows of a safe car that isn’t too expensive, and even better is willing to take payments from a hardworking reliable young woman, please let me know. I figure we can pick up anything in Indiana, Kentucky or northern Illinois without too much difficulty, though of course Indianapolis would be best.

By the time I got to Li’s house after all of that, though, she decided I was too tired to drive anywhere else, so I ended up staying there even though it had been planned otherwise. She was right, too, so I didn’t even try to argue with her much.

Sunday, as promised, I went to my folk’s house and staged another cleaning assault, this time on my mom’s room. This time the trash collection was smaller, but there were two goodwill bags to make up for it, so I’m still pleased. Mom asked me why, when I came and started working, things actually got done where when she did, nothing changed. My response? “Mom, you pick up two things, then say ‘look, a sparkly’ - and never get back to it.” And while I hope I didn’t hurt her feelings by it, truth is an absolute defense.

Once upon a time, something over fifteen years ago, I was asked to perform a wedding. The bride was a girl I’d mentored, and I agreed. Shortly thereafter, we were told that my sister-in-law would be getting married the same day, in my in-law’s back yard. So I called my friend back, told her what was going on, and basically gave her the choice of working around my schedule or finding someone else to perform the ceremony. She opted to schedule it when I could do it, and all was (I thought) well.

The designated day arrived, and my husband and I betook ourselves to the home of my friend’s parents at the designated time. My friend and her sister were sitting there in their robes playing video games. The groom wasn’t there. The parents of the bride weren’t there. Nothing and no one was ready. I sat down intending to be patient, but after a little reminded my friend that I had a wedding to attend as well as one to perform. So she wandered upstairs to get dressed, as did her sister. Long story short, the afternoon went along like that until I told her that I was leaving in half an hour whether she was married or not. And finally, finally, everyone gathered in the back yard and I got them married. We did not stay for the party after, (just as well, as I was beyond aggravated), but hightailed it back to my in-laws thinking we would be barely in time.

We got there to find everyone assembled in the back yard, but no judge.  He was late.  Moreover, he had not called.  Now, my mother-in-law is one of those people for whom promptness is something akin to a religion.  So it was a toss-up as to whether she or my sister in law the bride was more distressed.  They both kept getting more and more nervous, as three quarters of an hour went by.  And then my mother-in-law suddenly thought of a question.  She knew I’d gotten my judge-for-a-day appointment to perform a wedding.  Now she asked if I’d been required to specify the names of the bride and groom.  No, I told her, I had not - only the day and city.  She had her solution.  She proclaimed that she was giving the regular judge five more minutes, and that if he didn’t show up by then I would perform the wedding.  I would have, too; it didn’t even occur to me to demur.

Lucky for me, I did not have to wing a wedding.  The judge appeared, performed the ceremony as planned, and they were duly married.  And the couple involved never knew how close they came to being married by a rank amateur, making it all up as she went along.

I’ve spent much of my sitting-down time this past week or so writing a marriage ceremony for my friend, vows and all. She’s a very creative person, but her forte is in visual media, not in words. I’m the wordsmith. It took work because she wanted to include some things I’ve never done and seldom seen, like a unity candle, and because she is dear to me and I wanted it to reflect the woman I know, the one she allows very few people to see. I finally finished it yesterday, and fired it off to her so that she could put it and the things she’d found on the internet that she liked together.

So today I called her up and asked her what I needed to modify before I hit “print”. And there’s nothing. Not a word, not a line. She isn’t making any changes, nor putting in any of the things she found on the internet that she thought seemed pretty good. She says this is what she’d have written if she could write, exactly what she and her fiance want.

I’m stunned - and humbled - and very pleased. I’ve worked hard on this. My wedding gift to them is the ceremony itself, and I’m glad it’s turned out well.