We begin this morning's exercise by giving a name to our new pastor. In his case, for reasons that will shortly become apparent, we will have to give him a first and last name.
As always, this is not the pastor's actual name. Nobody that appears in these essays is called by his or her actual name.
I do this to protect my own anonymity -- and, more importantly, my family's. In this particular case, the need for anonymity takes on a special relevance because my wife teaches in the parish grade school. Her job provides our health insurance benefits; there have been months where hers is the only income we've had. Too many months, lately. So -- while I'm not saying retaliation would be likely were I unmasked -- I live in fear. My last tenuous toehold on the middle class could be lost, at least for awhile, if I make my identity, or the new pastor's identity, too obvious.
In providing a name, I have searched the Internet, confirming (as best as I am able) that there is no person named Fr. Timothy X. Warnn. That said, I hereby dub the new pastor, Fr. Timothy X. Warnn. I apologize to anyone named Timothy X. Warnn, living or dead, and assure you that I'm not talking about you personally.
Heck, I even apologize to our new pastor. I know I'm not being nice. I much prefer to be nice. But I think I'm being fair. You, dear readers, will not be able to judge whether I am being fair, because you only know my side of the story. You can only decide if you like the stories.
And, so, without further ado, today's stories....
Attendance at Saturday's 8:30 a.m. Mass was larger than usual because the school football players were in attendance, along with at least some of their parents.
It is a tradition in our parish to have the junior varsity and varsity teams attend Mass on game days, when possible.
In the old days (when Oldest Son was playing) this was easy: All the games were on Sunday, and the teams attended 9:00 a.m. Mass, with all the boys in uniform, and the widgets (what we called the JVs then) in their jerseys and pads because their game was played first and they would go directly from church to pregame in the school gym or (if it was a road trip) possibly to the park where the game would be played. The kids all sat together in the front pews, on either side of the center aisle, the widgets on one side and the varsity on the other. Coach Gallagher and all the assistants would be in attendance, too.
Over time, this became complicated. Coach Gallagher had children of his own. As each new little one came along (Coach's oldest is a year older than Youngest Son), the logistics got harder and harder and, eventually, the 9:00 a.m. Sunday Game Day tradition had to be scrapped.
But it all worked out. Conference alignments changed and games were sometimes played on Saturdays instead of Sundays. One memorable weekend, when we had a Sunday game, we had a special anticipatory Mass on Saturday afternoon in the Monastery next door to the church. It was a very nice, intimate service... until one of the kids, who'd been battling a flu bug but didn't want to tell anyone lest he not be allowed to play, suddenly -- and dramatically -- lost the battle.
The real virtue of the kids coming to a regularly scheduled Mass, however, was that the parish could see the boys and feel a tie to the parish school (which the parishioners have so generously supported over the years). It never hurts to renew and reinforce those ties.
So it was on Saturday that the teams were in church for the regular 8:30 a.m. daily Mass, sitting down in front (just where, you'd think, the new pastor would want them) with their coaches. Yes, they were wearing their game jerseys.
Fr. Timothy X. Warnn, the new pastor, presided at this Mass and, to no one's surprise, he mentioned the boys sitting down front in his Homily.
What surprised, and angered, the kids' parents was how he mentioned them.
I never liked football, Fr. Warnn told the congregation. It's just one group of thugs beating on another group of thugs.
Oh, my.
There have been priests before in our parish who were not great football fans. They were easy enough to spot. But they had enough sense to offer a few words of encouragement for sportsmanlike behavior, cooperative teamwork, determined effort -- all the positives that football -- or any organized team sport -- can provide. At the very least they offered a prayer for the safety of the boys and for their opponents.
When we heard the story, we asked our informant about any qualifications (as above) that might have been offered by the new pastor. Nope, we were told, none whatsoever.
"How arrogant!" I fumed. "Well," said my wife, "maybe he's just a little tone-deaf." (Blessed are the peacemakers.)
But there was no making peace with the next person we ran across who mentioned Fr. Timothy X. Warnn.
She is, shall we say, a lady of a certain age. And she knows her own mind. Sometimes rather forcefully.
I think this is characteristic of many women of a certain age. Take my mother-in-law the other day. She was livid that someone had had the temerity to tell her what she should, or should not do (it was in regards to a social matter). "I will not be told what to do," she fulminated. "I'm 80 years old and I can do what I please."
And you'd better let her, that's all I can say.
Anyway, this other woman of a certain age said she'd come up to Fr. Timothy X. Warnn after Mass to ask him about something or other.
She addressed him as "Fr. Tim." In our parish we have traditionally addressed our priests as Fr. [First Name]. You've read here about our last pastor, Fr. Ed, for example. (Having a touch of the anti-clerical about me, I will often address a priest by his first name alone, dropping reference to his occupation. After all, I am not generally referred to as Lawyer Curmudgeon.)
But this lady of a certain age called the new pastor "Fr. Tim."
The Sun went behind the clouds. The temperature dropped 20 degrees. The pastor actually bristled. "You will call me 'Fr. Warnn,'" he said.
The lady of a certain age told us all this and asked if we knew yet of any petition drives to get rid of this new pastor. "I'll sign," she said.
Well.
Our new pastor may be un-American. He certainly is a control freak. And he may be either arrogant or tone-deaf -- but no one can deny that he is b-r-a-v-e.
Deliberately ticking off the ladies of a certain age? The core constituency of any parish ever? He must be brave.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
The new pastor preaches an un-American sermon
Despite my best intentions, I've developed a deep and abiding dislike of our new pastor.
When my mother-in-law declared that she couldn't stand the new man, I defended him. Well, that was only his first week on the job. First impressions are hard to undo... but you have to give someone more of a chance than that, especially when it isn't going to be easy to get rid of him.
Because I wanted to keep an open mind, and form my own opinions, I wanted to hear the new pastor himself. I wanted to hear him preach; I wanted to take his measure from his own words, not from disgruntled parking lot rumors.
This turned out to be more difficult that you might think: My wife and I go to the early Mass on Sunday; the new pastor has offered that Mass exactly twice since he started in July. (Gosh, I wonder if my 7:00 a.m. Mass might be on the chopping block? Eh?)
But when he was there, I was prepared to listen.
The first time was inoffensive. Indeed, although he didn't cite his source, the first Homily I heard the man preach drew heavily on Book VIII of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (on friendship). Ah, I thought to myself, here is an educated man, one who has had some exposure to -- and is influenced by -- the Classics. That, I thought, counted in his favor.
But then came last Sunday.
I suppose I should have taken notes, but I'm not in the habit of bringing a pen to Mass. And I had no idea, coming in, what I was in for.
Sunday's Gospel reading was from Luke, the Parable of the Dishonest Steward. And, again, the pastor started out innocently enough -- and with a take on the tale I'd not considered before: When the shifty steward called in his master's debtors and allowed them to write down their notes (in the hopes that he'd be welcomed in their houses after his pending dismissal), the pastor said, he was probably doing no more than writing off his own commission. Well, I thought, that would explain the master's almost bemused take on discovering his steward's actions on his way out the door ("the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently").
I won't pretend to remember exactly how we got from that to the statement that sent me through the roof. But, somehow, he got from this interpretation to this flat statement, "For a Catholic, there is no separation of Church and State."
What?!?
Of course there is -- that is a bedrock principle of the United States of America, one of the things -- and I'd argue it's the single most important thing -- that has kept us from importing the world's religious wars even as we've imported citizens from every corner of our sorry globe. It is one of the things that makes -- and keeps -- America an exceptional nation (sorry, Mr. Putin, but it is so).
Now, if you want to say that a person should operate in the public sphere according to the morals and values he has learned from his church, I will agree. A person who pretends to profess one set of values at church and who jettisons them on exiting the parking lot of said house of worship is, at best, a hypocrite. That has always been my problem with the "Born Again" crowd of some other Christian sects -- "accepting Jesus Christ" can't be a free pass to Heaven, especially if one proceeds, despite being "saved," to lie, cheat and steal thereafter.
In fact, as I have argued before, it is how we live our lives, not what we preach, and certainly not what our priests and bishops preach, that attracts converts.
I listened carefully to see if the pastor would walk that statement back -- as I have just tried to do -- but he did not.
A priest who doesn't understand that church and state are separate is an Osama bin Laden wannabe. The late, unlamented Osama and the various "Islamist" sects are also contemptuous of the concept of separation of church and state. Religion (according to their own twisted lights) is the ultimate authority. Persons are not free to act in the public sphere according to their consciences which have been formed by their religious beliefs, but, rather, must act according to the dictates of their religious leaders.
That may not be as dangerous as it sounds for most Muslims because Sunni Muslims, the largest sect of that faith, do not have a rigidly structured clerical hierarchy -- although adherents of any number of 'schools' can do (and have done) terrible things, allegedly in the name of their religion, spurred on by the leaders of those 'schools.' But Shiites have imams and ayatollahs that parallel, in many ways, bishops and cardinals in the Roman Church. Thus, with no separation of church and state, the person acting in the public sphere must be guided in all things, not by his conscience, but by the current whim of the Ayatollah -- or of the Cardinal. Or of the pastor?
Actually, Jesus Himself provided a basis for the separation of church and state when He wriggled out of a trap that the Pharisees had set for Him. Matthew and Luke both tell the story: The Pharisees and Herodians (in Matthew's account) asked Jesus if it was lawful to pay taxes to the Roman state. The Roman occupation was not popular (the Jews frequently rebelled, ultimately resulting in Rome's decision to destroy Jerusalem, and the Jewish Temple, in A.D. 70). If Jesus said that paying Caesar's tax was not lawful he was preaching rebellion against Rome -- and could be dealt with as a political enemy. On the other hand, the Pharisees and Herodians, who collaborated with the Romans, at least when it suited their purposes, calculated that Jesus's popular support would instantly vanish if he said that paying taxes was lawful. You remember how it all worked out: Jesus asked for a coin and, when one was provided asked whose image is on this coin? That is an image of Caesar, came the response. And Jesus said, well, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." (The Catholic Bible uses "repay to" instead of "render unto," but however faithful that translation may be to the original text, "render unto" just sounds so much better in English, at least to my ears.)
Anyway, careful listening to the new pastor's sermon merely drove up my blood pressure. And it occurred to me: The wholly wrongheaded idea that church and state are not separate, and all the picayune, entirely unnecessary changes he's imposing on the distribution of Communion, or at the Sign of Peace, and the meat cleaver he will shortly take to the Mass schedule (despite the pretense of publicly welcoming 'input') -- it all fits together. This man is an Authoritarian-on-Steroids, drunk on his own Authority.
He can either sober up -- or go away -- or watch his large parish become small overnight.
More tomorrow.
When my mother-in-law declared that she couldn't stand the new man, I defended him. Well, that was only his first week on the job. First impressions are hard to undo... but you have to give someone more of a chance than that, especially when it isn't going to be easy to get rid of him.
Because I wanted to keep an open mind, and form my own opinions, I wanted to hear the new pastor himself. I wanted to hear him preach; I wanted to take his measure from his own words, not from disgruntled parking lot rumors.
This turned out to be more difficult that you might think: My wife and I go to the early Mass on Sunday; the new pastor has offered that Mass exactly twice since he started in July. (Gosh, I wonder if my 7:00 a.m. Mass might be on the chopping block? Eh?)
But when he was there, I was prepared to listen.
The first time was inoffensive. Indeed, although he didn't cite his source, the first Homily I heard the man preach drew heavily on Book VIII of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (on friendship). Ah, I thought to myself, here is an educated man, one who has had some exposure to -- and is influenced by -- the Classics. That, I thought, counted in his favor.
But then came last Sunday.
I suppose I should have taken notes, but I'm not in the habit of bringing a pen to Mass. And I had no idea, coming in, what I was in for.
Sunday's Gospel reading was from Luke, the Parable of the Dishonest Steward. And, again, the pastor started out innocently enough -- and with a take on the tale I'd not considered before: When the shifty steward called in his master's debtors and allowed them to write down their notes (in the hopes that he'd be welcomed in their houses after his pending dismissal), the pastor said, he was probably doing no more than writing off his own commission. Well, I thought, that would explain the master's almost bemused take on discovering his steward's actions on his way out the door ("the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently").
I won't pretend to remember exactly how we got from that to the statement that sent me through the roof. But, somehow, he got from this interpretation to this flat statement, "For a Catholic, there is no separation of Church and State."
What?!?
Of course there is -- that is a bedrock principle of the United States of America, one of the things -- and I'd argue it's the single most important thing -- that has kept us from importing the world's religious wars even as we've imported citizens from every corner of our sorry globe. It is one of the things that makes -- and keeps -- America an exceptional nation (sorry, Mr. Putin, but it is so).
Now, if you want to say that a person should operate in the public sphere according to the morals and values he has learned from his church, I will agree. A person who pretends to profess one set of values at church and who jettisons them on exiting the parking lot of said house of worship is, at best, a hypocrite. That has always been my problem with the "Born Again" crowd of some other Christian sects -- "accepting Jesus Christ" can't be a free pass to Heaven, especially if one proceeds, despite being "saved," to lie, cheat and steal thereafter.
In fact, as I have argued before, it is how we live our lives, not what we preach, and certainly not what our priests and bishops preach, that attracts converts.
I listened carefully to see if the pastor would walk that statement back -- as I have just tried to do -- but he did not.
A priest who doesn't understand that church and state are separate is an Osama bin Laden wannabe. The late, unlamented Osama and the various "Islamist" sects are also contemptuous of the concept of separation of church and state. Religion (according to their own twisted lights) is the ultimate authority. Persons are not free to act in the public sphere according to their consciences which have been formed by their religious beliefs, but, rather, must act according to the dictates of their religious leaders.
That may not be as dangerous as it sounds for most Muslims because Sunni Muslims, the largest sect of that faith, do not have a rigidly structured clerical hierarchy -- although adherents of any number of 'schools' can do (and have done) terrible things, allegedly in the name of their religion, spurred on by the leaders of those 'schools.' But Shiites have imams and ayatollahs that parallel, in many ways, bishops and cardinals in the Roman Church. Thus, with no separation of church and state, the person acting in the public sphere must be guided in all things, not by his conscience, but by the current whim of the Ayatollah -- or of the Cardinal. Or of the pastor?
Actually, Jesus Himself provided a basis for the separation of church and state when He wriggled out of a trap that the Pharisees had set for Him. Matthew and Luke both tell the story: The Pharisees and Herodians (in Matthew's account) asked Jesus if it was lawful to pay taxes to the Roman state. The Roman occupation was not popular (the Jews frequently rebelled, ultimately resulting in Rome's decision to destroy Jerusalem, and the Jewish Temple, in A.D. 70). If Jesus said that paying Caesar's tax was not lawful he was preaching rebellion against Rome -- and could be dealt with as a political enemy. On the other hand, the Pharisees and Herodians, who collaborated with the Romans, at least when it suited their purposes, calculated that Jesus's popular support would instantly vanish if he said that paying taxes was lawful. You remember how it all worked out: Jesus asked for a coin and, when one was provided asked whose image is on this coin? That is an image of Caesar, came the response. And Jesus said, well, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." (The Catholic Bible uses "repay to" instead of "render unto," but however faithful that translation may be to the original text, "render unto" just sounds so much better in English, at least to my ears.)
Anyway, careful listening to the new pastor's sermon merely drove up my blood pressure. And it occurred to me: The wholly wrongheaded idea that church and state are not separate, and all the picayune, entirely unnecessary changes he's imposing on the distribution of Communion, or at the Sign of Peace, and the meat cleaver he will shortly take to the Mass schedule (despite the pretense of publicly welcoming 'input') -- it all fits together. This man is an Authoritarian-on-Steroids, drunk on his own Authority.
He can either sober up -- or go away -- or watch his large parish become small overnight.
More tomorrow.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Pope Francis gets it; new pastor doesn't
Back in March, when we were awaiting the election of a new Pope, I said that it was all rather exciting, but not particularly important.
Far more important, in my opinion, was the sort of new pastor we'd get at my home parish in Chicago. We've just become an Archdiocesan parish; the order of priests that served our parish for over a century has abandoned us because of the increasing age and infirmity of its dwindling membership.
Although I'm a Curmudgeon, I was not reflexively predisposed to dislike the new man; there would be changes, I knew, but I was ready to welcome the new priest. I wanted him to succeed. I was worried not just about him, but for him, too, when the rumor circulated that he would be the only priest assigned to our large parish, a parish that had been served by three priests until just a few years ago. Then we went to two priests. Last year, with the departure of the religious order imminent, we had our long-time pastor, Fr. Ed, and an octogenarian who volunteered to help out as much as he could. Even so, between them, we had our three weekday Masses almost all the time (four on Holy Days) and six weekend Masses, including an increasingly popular 6:00 p.m. Sunday Mass that brought people in from around the area.
Well, the rumor was that the new man would want to cut back on the Mass schedule. And, much as most of the parishioners thought that would be a shame, there was, I think, an understanding that one man alone could not keep up that schedule and do all the other things that the pastor of a modern Catholic parish must do.
Then came the good news! We'd get a curate -- a younger man, fresh out of Mundelein, newly ordained.
Things were looking up.
But the new pastor is still looking to cut back the Mass schedule, even though the cumulative age of the new man and his newer assistant probably don't add up to the age of the senior citizen priest who helped Fr. Ed maintain the supposedly 'grueling' schedule this past year.
The parish bulletin has been running some self-serving gibberish about why we need to cancel Masses. Some examples (rather freely translated):
We have a big church -- not too big on Christmas or Easter, of course, when the joint is filled to overflowing -- but, according to the new pastor's statistics, there is no normal weekend Mass that even comes close to meeting the 50% "requirement" he has repurposed for his own selfish ends.
He can cut the weekend Masses down to one or two -- and he still won't fill the church. Most of the parish (yes, the ones who come out on Christmas and Easter) won't notice anything until Christmas anyway. That's when they'll show up and find the doors locked. Then they won't come back at all.
The only thing our new pastor is going to accomplish by this wrong-headed scheme is to drive his regular parishioners away. My wife and I are already looking around.
But isn't that the exact opposite of what the Church says it wants to do?
Pope Francis, God bless him, has likened the Church to a field hospital, treating the spiritually wounded. He gets it; our new pastor doesn't. Do we close hospital ERs because the Chief Resident would like to get a couple hours more sleep on Saturday nights?
Fr. Robert Barron, now the Rector of the Archdiocesan seminary at Mundelein, is launching a new video series on evangelization this month. What would Fr. Barron say about our new pastor?
Evangelization involves filling empty seats, not cutting back on the opportunities to fill the seats. And how do we fill up the seats?
One thing we should do is welcome people -- and provide as many opportunities as we can for that purpose.
Frankly, the offering of the Mass, while it is something that only a priest can do, is among the less demanding tasks that a Catholic pastor is called upon to perform.
When the new guy sends up clear signals that he is hell-bent (and I use the term advisedly) on messing up the easy part, how can we expect anything but disaster from him on the tough stuff?
Our new pastor is a control freak that makes me -- a lawyer, and therefore a control freak myself, by definition -- look tame.
He's decided people reach too far with their Sign of Peace (a greeting ritual, usually a handshake, during the Liturgy of the Eucharist). The new pastor decrees that this should be only be given to the person immediately next to, or in front of, or behind. Don't wave at someone across the aisle, or nod across the church (you should be sitting next to each other anyway!) and, whatever you do, don't stretch across a pew to shake hands with someone. Oh, and those Eucharistic Ministers, the ones who help distribute Communion? Don't come up to the altar until the priest has concluded leading the prayer immediately before Communion ("Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof...) and, for God's sake, don't greet your fellow ministers! And no more Eucharistic Ministers may be dispatched to the back of the church (we have a central aisle which my church architect son-in-law may or may not consider a modern transept), even if Mass is crowded. (You don't want those people coming back anyway! We only want people who want to sit down in front.)
I could go on, but I think I've conveyed the gist: Rules, Rules and more Rules! Bing Crosby's fictional Fr. Charles O'Malley asked if we were going his way; our new pastor says 'Go My Way or Hit the Highway.' Compare this attitude to the one conveyed by Fr. Barron in the video below.
Which Church would you rather belong to?
And it's all the same Church!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Readers will have to indulge me for one more post about this new pastor, which I'll hopefully get out of my system tomorrow. I told you that I wanted to give this guy the benefit of the doubt -- so I really wanted to listen to his Homily last Sunday. What he said outraged me, as a Catholic, yes, but also as an American. But that's tomorrow, real world permitting.
Far more important, in my opinion, was the sort of new pastor we'd get at my home parish in Chicago. We've just become an Archdiocesan parish; the order of priests that served our parish for over a century has abandoned us because of the increasing age and infirmity of its dwindling membership.
Although I'm a Curmudgeon, I was not reflexively predisposed to dislike the new man; there would be changes, I knew, but I was ready to welcome the new priest. I wanted him to succeed. I was worried not just about him, but for him, too, when the rumor circulated that he would be the only priest assigned to our large parish, a parish that had been served by three priests until just a few years ago. Then we went to two priests. Last year, with the departure of the religious order imminent, we had our long-time pastor, Fr. Ed, and an octogenarian who volunteered to help out as much as he could. Even so, between them, we had our three weekday Masses almost all the time (four on Holy Days) and six weekend Masses, including an increasingly popular 6:00 p.m. Sunday Mass that brought people in from around the area.
Well, the rumor was that the new man would want to cut back on the Mass schedule. And, much as most of the parishioners thought that would be a shame, there was, I think, an understanding that one man alone could not keep up that schedule and do all the other things that the pastor of a modern Catholic parish must do.
Then came the good news! We'd get a curate -- a younger man, fresh out of Mundelein, newly ordained.
Things were looking up.
But the new pastor is still looking to cut back the Mass schedule, even though the cumulative age of the new man and his newer assistant probably don't add up to the age of the senior citizen priest who helped Fr. Ed maintain the supposedly 'grueling' schedule this past year.
The parish bulletin has been running some self-serving gibberish about why we need to cancel Masses. Some examples (rather freely translated):
- It's all the Cardinal's fault (the new guy manages to blame both Cardinal George and the late Cardinal Bernadin -- unless the church is 50% full, the Mass should be axed);
- Fewer Masses = better, even 'inspired' homilies (actually, if a priest would prepare a sermon just once it could be repeated two or three times that same day -- it's not as if the readings have changed);
- People sit too far apart -- they should gather 'round the altar (but have you ever seen how people 'fill in' seats on buses, trains, anywhere, really, where people gather? -- they leave as much space as possible) -- and, besides, wasn't it the Pharisees who crowded down front, beating their breasts, while the truly devout widow stayed in the shadows? God could see her, too.
- They should all sing (that sounds suspiciously Lutheran, but I'm willing to let that one slide since my wife likes to sing in church).
We have a big church -- not too big on Christmas or Easter, of course, when the joint is filled to overflowing -- but, according to the new pastor's statistics, there is no normal weekend Mass that even comes close to meeting the 50% "requirement" he has repurposed for his own selfish ends.
He can cut the weekend Masses down to one or two -- and he still won't fill the church. Most of the parish (yes, the ones who come out on Christmas and Easter) won't notice anything until Christmas anyway. That's when they'll show up and find the doors locked. Then they won't come back at all.
 |
| In the movies, Fr. O'Malley sang, "I hope you're going my way, too." In my parish, the new pastor has quite a different approach. |
But isn't that the exact opposite of what the Church says it wants to do?
Pope Francis, God bless him, has likened the Church to a field hospital, treating the spiritually wounded. He gets it; our new pastor doesn't. Do we close hospital ERs because the Chief Resident would like to get a couple hours more sleep on Saturday nights?
Fr. Robert Barron, now the Rector of the Archdiocesan seminary at Mundelein, is launching a new video series on evangelization this month. What would Fr. Barron say about our new pastor?
Evangelization involves filling empty seats, not cutting back on the opportunities to fill the seats. And how do we fill up the seats?
One thing we should do is welcome people -- and provide as many opportunities as we can for that purpose.
Frankly, the offering of the Mass, while it is something that only a priest can do, is among the less demanding tasks that a Catholic pastor is called upon to perform.
When the new guy sends up clear signals that he is hell-bent (and I use the term advisedly) on messing up the easy part, how can we expect anything but disaster from him on the tough stuff?
Our new pastor is a control freak that makes me -- a lawyer, and therefore a control freak myself, by definition -- look tame.
He's decided people reach too far with their Sign of Peace (a greeting ritual, usually a handshake, during the Liturgy of the Eucharist). The new pastor decrees that this should be only be given to the person immediately next to, or in front of, or behind. Don't wave at someone across the aisle, or nod across the church (you should be sitting next to each other anyway!) and, whatever you do, don't stretch across a pew to shake hands with someone. Oh, and those Eucharistic Ministers, the ones who help distribute Communion? Don't come up to the altar until the priest has concluded leading the prayer immediately before Communion ("Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof...) and, for God's sake, don't greet your fellow ministers! And no more Eucharistic Ministers may be dispatched to the back of the church (we have a central aisle which my church architect son-in-law may or may not consider a modern transept), even if Mass is crowded. (You don't want those people coming back anyway! We only want people who want to sit down in front.)
I could go on, but I think I've conveyed the gist: Rules, Rules and more Rules! Bing Crosby's fictional Fr. Charles O'Malley asked if we were going his way; our new pastor says 'Go My Way or Hit the Highway.' Compare this attitude to the one conveyed by Fr. Barron in the video below.
Which Church would you rather belong to?
And it's all the same Church!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Readers will have to indulge me for one more post about this new pastor, which I'll hopefully get out of my system tomorrow. I told you that I wanted to give this guy the benefit of the doubt -- so I really wanted to listen to his Homily last Sunday. What he said outraged me, as a Catholic, yes, but also as an American. But that's tomorrow, real world permitting.
Fr. Robert Barron on evangelization
This video has been out since February 2012 but it strikes me as particularly applicable to the situation in my home parish these days -- a parish in transition, as some readers may recall. I'm working on a post about it -- hopefully even general readers may find it amusing, even if it is quite serious to me.
But this nine minute (or so) video by Fr. Robert Barron stakes out the position I'd like to advance. Even as I try to be humorous.
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Does it make a difference to your opinion on Syria that President Obama is seeking authorization from Congress before acting?
It makes a difference to me.
I'm still far from enthusiastic about what I'm convinced will be another well-intentioned, ill-fated and ultimately-helpful-to-al-Qaeda misadventure in the Mideast.
If I were in Congress I'd be asking the brass hats and policy wonks how any proposed action won't help al-Qaeda as much or more than it hurts the Assad regime. I'd need to be persuaded. I don't know that I could be persuaded on this one.
But, for all that, I'm really encouraged that the President is asking.
I'm still far from enthusiastic about what I'm convinced will be another well-intentioned, ill-fated and ultimately-helpful-to-al-Qaeda misadventure in the Mideast.
If I were in Congress I'd be asking the brass hats and policy wonks how any proposed action won't help al-Qaeda as much or more than it hurts the Assad regime. I'd need to be persuaded. I don't know that I could be persuaded on this one.
But, for all that, I'm really encouraged that the President is asking.
Friday, August 30, 2013
As the United States stumbles into Syria...
We'll be at war any day now with Syria. The Assad regime has (again) crossed that 'bright line' that Mr. Obama warned about: gassing his own citizens.
Probably. Apparently.
I mean, Syrians were gassed -- murdered in carload lots -- and the government has been blamed. There are witnesses and everything.
Britain's Parliament voted yesterday not to join us in this new adventure. The Obama Administration has no plans to give Congress a chance to take a position one way or the other.
I have just one question: Who does our government think we'll be helping when we launch our missiles or unleash our bombers?
There are, in the uneasy coalition of forces arrayed against Assad, persons with whom we in the West could do business. Tolerant, reasonable, democratic people who are just naive enough to think that they may have a say in how Syria will be run after Assad goes.
They can be referred to as Dead Men Walking.
No, when we attack Assad, we will be helping out al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda sympathizers and even operatives have taken leading roles in the anti-Assad coalition. The professional jihadis intervened a long time ago, back when the United States and Europe were just starting to dither. They know an opportunity for expansion when they see it. For western media consumption, al-Qaeda will keep a low profile. But, locally, al-Qaeda will loudly condemn every bomb and every missile and exploit every civilian death, furiously fanning the flame of anti-Americanism among their Syrian allies -- and when Assad is driven from power, with the aid of the aforementioned bombs and missiles, they will rush in like a flood tide, kill their moderate allies and assume absolute control of poor, doomed Syria. The once-vibrant Christian community in Syria will be quickly and completely dispersed (or eliminated).
Frankly, I wouldn't put it past al-Qaeda to have provoked or even to have staged (via infiltration into Assad's own forces) the gas attack that now has forced President Obama to back up his unfortunate promises. I know how cynical that sounds.
But it's a cynical world, especially in the Middle East.
As Americans, we think of "good guys" and "bad guys." Westerns were the most popular entertainment when the good guys wore white hats and bad guys wore black hats and you could tell, at a glance, who should win the inevitable showdown. And, of course, the good guys always won. Westerns went out of fashion when shades of gray were introduced. Bad good guys. Good bad guys. Indians who just wanted to keep their lands as promised to them by solemn treaty.
Unfortunately, much as we wish it were otherwise, the real world is not black and white. Assad is a bad, bad guy. And while there are some arguably good guys who are fighting to see him gone, they have made common cause with guys who are arguably worse than Assad on his worst day. And it's a safe bet that some guys we think are good guys are really pretty bad guys who are just pretending, awaiting their chance.
What are we doing getting involved in this? Has America learned nothing in 20 years of involvement in the Middle East?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think sometimes The Onion must be on the verge of putting itself out of business. It's supposed to print humor -- sarcasm -- satire. This fake column by Bashar al-Assad, for instance. But if you follow the link and read it, you'll see: It's really not funny -- because it's absolutely right. When The Onion analyzes foreign affairs better than our elected geniuses in Washington, we have ourselves a real problem.
Probably. Apparently.
I mean, Syrians were gassed -- murdered in carload lots -- and the government has been blamed. There are witnesses and everything.
Britain's Parliament voted yesterday not to join us in this new adventure. The Obama Administration has no plans to give Congress a chance to take a position one way or the other.
I have just one question: Who does our government think we'll be helping when we launch our missiles or unleash our bombers?
There are, in the uneasy coalition of forces arrayed against Assad, persons with whom we in the West could do business. Tolerant, reasonable, democratic people who are just naive enough to think that they may have a say in how Syria will be run after Assad goes.
They can be referred to as Dead Men Walking.
No, when we attack Assad, we will be helping out al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda sympathizers and even operatives have taken leading roles in the anti-Assad coalition. The professional jihadis intervened a long time ago, back when the United States and Europe were just starting to dither. They know an opportunity for expansion when they see it. For western media consumption, al-Qaeda will keep a low profile. But, locally, al-Qaeda will loudly condemn every bomb and every missile and exploit every civilian death, furiously fanning the flame of anti-Americanism among their Syrian allies -- and when Assad is driven from power, with the aid of the aforementioned bombs and missiles, they will rush in like a flood tide, kill their moderate allies and assume absolute control of poor, doomed Syria. The once-vibrant Christian community in Syria will be quickly and completely dispersed (or eliminated).
Frankly, I wouldn't put it past al-Qaeda to have provoked or even to have staged (via infiltration into Assad's own forces) the gas attack that now has forced President Obama to back up his unfortunate promises. I know how cynical that sounds.
But it's a cynical world, especially in the Middle East.
As Americans, we think of "good guys" and "bad guys." Westerns were the most popular entertainment when the good guys wore white hats and bad guys wore black hats and you could tell, at a glance, who should win the inevitable showdown. And, of course, the good guys always won. Westerns went out of fashion when shades of gray were introduced. Bad good guys. Good bad guys. Indians who just wanted to keep their lands as promised to them by solemn treaty.
Unfortunately, much as we wish it were otherwise, the real world is not black and white. Assad is a bad, bad guy. And while there are some arguably good guys who are fighting to see him gone, they have made common cause with guys who are arguably worse than Assad on his worst day. And it's a safe bet that some guys we think are good guys are really pretty bad guys who are just pretending, awaiting their chance.
What are we doing getting involved in this? Has America learned nothing in 20 years of involvement in the Middle East?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think sometimes The Onion must be on the verge of putting itself out of business. It's supposed to print humor -- sarcasm -- satire. This fake column by Bashar al-Assad, for instance. But if you follow the link and read it, you'll see: It's really not funny -- because it's absolutely right. When The Onion analyzes foreign affairs better than our elected geniuses in Washington, we have ourselves a real problem.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
The nation remembers a "dream;" Curmudgeon watches a nightmare
Yesterday the nation remembered the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, the occasion on which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his memorable "I Have A Dream" speech.
Anniversaries provide opportunities to measure, to assess, to evaluate. How have we progressed, or failed to progress, in the area of civil rights?
Some answers are obvious: The legal barriers that barred African-American progress began falling within a couple of years of the 1963 march. We have an African-American President now.
But I went to a deposition yesterday afternoon and encountered a world so alien from my own, and so very different from the promise and the progress shown yesterday on the National Mall that I am compelled to write about it this morning.
I can't tell you details of the case, of course, but our deponent yesterday was a 19-year old African-American woman. Pretty. Soft-spoken.
She dropped out of her Chicago Public High School in the middle of her 10th grade year, three years ago. Since then, according to her testimony, she has held exactly one paying job, lasting for about three months, earlier this year.
Her "best friend" is now in jail on account of a fatal accident. Our witness yesterday and her BFF (also a young African-American woman) were with an older man -- he's in his mid 50s -- at the time. Both our witness and her BFF had a sexual relationship with the older man. The young woman yesterday insisted that she "was sexual" with this man only on the first day she met him. (She would have been 17 at the time, just like her BFF.) Her BFF had "intercourse" with him, but it was not a relationship. The older man installed our witness's friend in an apartment; our witness stayed over four or five times a week. The older man stayed over, too, two or three times a week.
No, our witness said, the older man did not pay her and her friend for things they did (allegedly, they sometimes helped clean the building where the BFF was staying and another one that the man appeared to own). But the older man would take them shopping, buy them clothes, take them out to eat.
The older man had a number of young girlfriends. Sometimes our witness would hang out ("just kickin' it") with her BFF and some of these other girls. Once, after the BFF got into trouble, our witness went to a wedding reception with the older man -- and two other young women. They all stayed together in the same hotel room.
He bought them marijuana. Our witness yesterday had a lot to say about getting "fried" and how a high progresses; she and her BFF often smoked marijuana with the older man.
She stated that she stayed friendly with this older man because he was so good to her and her family, "a big help."
I could go on, but I might stray too close to the relevant facts of the case or inadvertently supply potentially identifying information. Suffice to say, I was cringing, even queasy, when left the other attorney's office yesterday afternoon.
The thousands who marched on Washington in 1963 wanted to make freedom ring for all Americans. I saw yesterday how some Americans are using that freedom.
I might feel better if I could believe that I have only stumbled on an isolated instance, that there are very few people who are living life this way. But I don't think I can believe that.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Long Suffering Spouse heads back to school in "the Year of the Parent"
 |
| Duplex comic by Glenn McCoy, image obtained from Yahoo! Comics. |
The Chicago Public Schools are starting up today. Even if you're not in Chicago, you may have heard about this because of our school strike last year, the controversial closing of 50 schools this Spring, and the creation of alleged "Safe Passage" routes for CPS students to follow as they wend their way to new schools this morning. It's not surprising, perhaps, that policemen have been detailed to these routes, some of which traverse hotly contested street gang borders, but the City has also assigned firemen to these routes, and employees of Streets and Sanitation, and employees from other City departments, too. Oh, and there are 'paid volunteer' escorts -- an oxymoron on the level of military intelligence -- armed with government-issued phones. They can call for help if the gangs start shooting. Unless, of course, the gangbangers are shooting them.
And all of this -- somehow -- is supposedly saving taxpayer money.
Oh, to be a child again! Not that I'd be anxious to re-live my school days, mind you. Once was surely enough. But, if I were as innocent as a young child maybe I could believe such a ridiculous claim.
Meanwhile, some of the Catholic schools in these parts are also starting up this morning. Long Suffering Spouse's school opens for business today.
In the Catholic Archdiocese, this is Day One of "the Year of the Parent."
Now, you had better believe that parental interest and involvement is integral to the success of Catholic education. If all parents were as interested and involved as your typical Catholic school parents, there would be far less need for saturation of "Safe Passage" routes. There might not be any street gang borders to cross.
And parents of Catholic school children make a tremendous sacrifice to send their kids to Catholic schools. A determined parent can find less costly options for his or her child than a Catholic school. By many metrics, several Chicago Public High Schools (the 'college prep' schools -- North Side, Payton, Jones, Whitney Young etc.) are better than anything the Catholic high schools can offer. And there are some excellent 'magnet' schools for CPS students in grades K-8 as well. No, parents who choose Catholic education want a sound foundation in both intellect and character and they want their traditions passed along to their children.
So the Archdiocese had darn well better cater to the men and women who dig deep into their wallets to send their kids to the parish school.
But....
You knew there would be a 'but,' didn't you?
Perhaps you read my Priscilla Pigdahl post earlier this year. If you didn't, maybe you could read it now.
Some well-meaning parents value success for their children more than real learning.
It's a terrible, terrible mistake. But young parents don't always understand that a kid who flounders now can flourish later. It's better for a kid to fail in 5th grade than to fail in life. We learn from our mistakes more than we ever do from our successes. So let's get those mistakes made sooner rather than later.
But it's easy for teachers and administrators to become cynical. It can happen to anyone. I certainly am cynical. Look at the start of this essay: I couldn't be more jaded. I think something similar has happened to the principal at Long Suffering Spouse's school. I'm speculating now about what's may be in her head:
Enrollment is the lifeblood of the Catholic schools. If enrollment goes down, the school fails. It closes. If it goes up, the school succeeds. Test scores don't really matter -- tests can be taught -- high school performance doesn't really matter -- the struggles of our graduates are not necessarily going to be blamed on us. Really, grade school doesn't matter. Pass everyone through, make them feel good about themselves and hopefully they'll learn something in high school when they're more mature.Meanwhile, my wife teaches. She has standards. Some of her kids struggle. Some struggle mightily.
And then they go to high school.
The good ones, the successful ones, are placed in honors courses, a full year ahead of their peers. They wind up in AP classes.
Some of the kids who did just OK in my wife's Spanish classes breeze through their placement tests anyway and wind up in accelerated Spanish I or even Spanish II.
And the ones who struggled? Even the ones who struggled mightily? Those who start over in Spanish I find that it's easy; they were well prepared. They get A's and B's. My wife hears from them; they are grateful.
This should be the model in English, in Math, in Science, in History -- and it's not.
Because the principal gets complaints.
She hears complaints about Long Suffering Spouse from parents who have one child or whose oldest child is one of those struggling. If my wife gives a C to a student who gets (undeserved) A's in every other class... who looks like the outlier? My wife's principal doesn't hear complaints from the parents who have multiple children once their oldest begins succeeding in high school. But any complaint is one too many.
There has been friction.
No junior high kid is dreading the start of this school year more than my Long Suffering Spouse. The Year of the Parent? My wife feels she's in danger of losing her job because she's too good at it.
Some days, I just hate the world.
Friday, August 23, 2013
The more contact numbers one has, the harder one is to reach
 |
| Click to enlarge or follow link below to original cartoon. |
Naturally, I only understand half the references here, but I'm pretty sure I'm interpreting this correctly....
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Everything I need to know I get from the comics, part 4,796
From the comic Bliss, by Harry Bliss; image obtained from the Chicago Tribune Comics Kingdom.
OK, I'm on deadline on a project and I don't have time to blog. But I still have to read the comics. And this one made me laugh.
Sometimes dreams do come true....
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Curmudgeon gets a smart phone, proves how dumb he is
It's official. I now have an appliance that's smarter than me.
There is, of course, an argument to be made that most of my appliances, and some of the furniture besides, were already smarter than me. I try to ignore that sort of thing.
The first proof that smart phones are smarter than we are came in the way we were manipulated into getting them.
Youngest Son, it seems, was missing important text messages. Even on my old dumb phone, I could set up a message to be sent to multiple people. And when I pressed 'send' they all got the message. But a smart phone -- being smart, and also wanting to place its relatives -- sends messages to multiple recipients that can't be opened up on the dumb phone. Youngest Son would get notification that he had a message, but the contents thereof would remain tantalizingly beyond his reach.
What's that you say? He could have seen that Coach Smith sent a message, which he could not read, and responded by calling Coach Smith? "I can't see your message. What do you want?"
Yes, I suggested that, too.
Many, many times.
But apparently there were notifications from professors and deans and regional fraternity councils and such like where calling would not be an option. Youngest Son complained bitterly that he was missing job opportunities as well.
He knew that would get me.
Still, I was going to hold out. Lawyers laughed at me in the courthouse when I pulled out my dumb phone to make a call. They pulled out their oh-so-smartphones to schedule, to post on Facebook, to read vital emails that they could see in two minutes when they got back to their office. But I was resolute. I didn't need a phone with all this stuff on it when I had computers with large, easy-to-read screens. No one was going to swipe a newspaper from me, or a book, as I rode home on the subway -- could these peacocks say the same for their very smart phones? No, sir. Not at all.
In the end, of course, it was Long Suffering Spouse who crumbled. You will get him a phone before he goes back to school, she finally told me. Youngest Son did his best not to turn handstands with glee.
Perhaps she chafed more than I realized at the thought that her students, seeing her ancient phone, did not recognize it as such. "Is that a phone?" one would ask. "Really?"
And, of course, our old phones were useless for storing and displaying pictures of our grandbaby.
Well, we took Youngest Son back to school on Sunday. His tuition is not paid. My real estate taxes are not paid. I pointed out that adding new expenses was not a good plan at this time.
My defenses held until Saturday.
There we were, at Costco, buying phones. I had one hope. They had to run my credit. Surely my credit rating must have cracked under the enormous weight of over $50,000 in credit card debt!
But, no.
Now I have over $51,000 in credit card debt and a smart phone that sits here mocking me.
What? You think I'd buy him a fancy-schmancy phone and not get one for me and the missus, too?
There is, of course, an argument to be made that most of my appliances, and some of the furniture besides, were already smarter than me. I try to ignore that sort of thing.
The first proof that smart phones are smarter than we are came in the way we were manipulated into getting them.
Youngest Son, it seems, was missing important text messages. Even on my old dumb phone, I could set up a message to be sent to multiple people. And when I pressed 'send' they all got the message. But a smart phone -- being smart, and also wanting to place its relatives -- sends messages to multiple recipients that can't be opened up on the dumb phone. Youngest Son would get notification that he had a message, but the contents thereof would remain tantalizingly beyond his reach.
What's that you say? He could have seen that Coach Smith sent a message, which he could not read, and responded by calling Coach Smith? "I can't see your message. What do you want?"
Yes, I suggested that, too.
Many, many times.
But apparently there were notifications from professors and deans and regional fraternity councils and such like where calling would not be an option. Youngest Son complained bitterly that he was missing job opportunities as well.
He knew that would get me.
Still, I was going to hold out. Lawyers laughed at me in the courthouse when I pulled out my dumb phone to make a call. They pulled out their oh-so-smartphones to schedule, to post on Facebook, to read vital emails that they could see in two minutes when they got back to their office. But I was resolute. I didn't need a phone with all this stuff on it when I had computers with large, easy-to-read screens. No one was going to swipe a newspaper from me, or a book, as I rode home on the subway -- could these peacocks say the same for their very smart phones? No, sir. Not at all.
In the end, of course, it was Long Suffering Spouse who crumbled. You will get him a phone before he goes back to school, she finally told me. Youngest Son did his best not to turn handstands with glee.
Perhaps she chafed more than I realized at the thought that her students, seeing her ancient phone, did not recognize it as such. "Is that a phone?" one would ask. "Really?"
And, of course, our old phones were useless for storing and displaying pictures of our grandbaby.
Well, we took Youngest Son back to school on Sunday. His tuition is not paid. My real estate taxes are not paid. I pointed out that adding new expenses was not a good plan at this time.
My defenses held until Saturday.
There we were, at Costco, buying phones. I had one hope. They had to run my credit. Surely my credit rating must have cracked under the enormous weight of over $50,000 in credit card debt!
But, no.
Now I have over $51,000 in credit card debt and a smart phone that sits here mocking me.
What? You think I'd buy him a fancy-schmancy phone and not get one for me and the missus, too?
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
In the event, Dr. Doom did not show up
I didn't really think she would.
And, in the end, no blood was spilled at Abuela's 80th birthday party. She seemed happy enough -- she'd been poised over her phone all day long and was entirely in her glory when we arrived in the early evening, having heard from (apparently) everyone she knew with enough strength and presence of mind to lift a telephone receiver.
Aunt Josephine commented to her husband Ferdinand that I certainly seemed to be drinking a lot. The interesting things about that are (1) I really wasn't -- no, seriously, I was using a small glass and I was cutting my scotch with ice and soda -- and (2) a Cuban stage whisper is just about as quiet as an Irish one, meaning pretty much everyone heard her. I asked whether the black olive and mushroom and pineapple and bacon pizza came with a hazmat sticker. But, for the most part, everyone was on their good behavior -- and I stayed awake until we got home, too. I sat in my chair, turned on the late news, and immediately fell asleep -- but I did get home first.
On a Friday, that's no mean feat.
My wife continues to say that no one would believe our lives. I know different. I can't cover half of it, of course, and my wife might think my perspective hopelessly skewed, but those of you who have been with me for awhile probably could believe.
Things are, however, a tad hectic at the moment and I'm finding that real world matters are keeping me from blogging here (I'm barely keeping up with The Blog of Days and I set that up with the thought that it would be much less time-consuming). If these were profitable things that were keeping me away from here, I'd be happier. But, of course, they aren't.
More soon. But probably not until next week.
And, in the end, no blood was spilled at Abuela's 80th birthday party. She seemed happy enough -- she'd been poised over her phone all day long and was entirely in her glory when we arrived in the early evening, having heard from (apparently) everyone she knew with enough strength and presence of mind to lift a telephone receiver.
Aunt Josephine commented to her husband Ferdinand that I certainly seemed to be drinking a lot. The interesting things about that are (1) I really wasn't -- no, seriously, I was using a small glass and I was cutting my scotch with ice and soda -- and (2) a Cuban stage whisper is just about as quiet as an Irish one, meaning pretty much everyone heard her. I asked whether the black olive and mushroom and pineapple and bacon pizza came with a hazmat sticker. But, for the most part, everyone was on their good behavior -- and I stayed awake until we got home, too. I sat in my chair, turned on the late news, and immediately fell asleep -- but I did get home first.
On a Friday, that's no mean feat.
My wife continues to say that no one would believe our lives. I know different. I can't cover half of it, of course, and my wife might think my perspective hopelessly skewed, but those of you who have been with me for awhile probably could believe.
Things are, however, a tad hectic at the moment and I'm finding that real world matters are keeping me from blogging here (I'm barely keeping up with The Blog of Days and I set that up with the thought that it would be much less time-consuming). If these were profitable things that were keeping me away from here, I'd be happier. But, of course, they aren't.
More soon. But probably not until next week.
Friday, August 02, 2013
Abuela has an 80th birthday, sure to be a grand occasion
I seldom write about family functions before they happen. If I do talk about the planning the went into an event, I still generally wait until after the fact. I do this because (at least in my own mind), after the fact, I can tease out a more-or-less coherent narrative.
(I'm not putting that up for a vote.)
But today I want to write about the chaos preceding a family event while in the midst of the vortex.
Well... not exactly.
I'm safely at the Teeny Tiny Law Office for now. Today is Abuela's 80th birthday and tonight as much of the entire family as can be assembled will gather at her house for pizza. My job will be to carry the boxes inside. For these sorts of events, in-laws are reduced to beasts of burden. And that's just fine by me.
I browsed the Archives this morning before getting too far into this essay and I notice I hadn't mentioned this upcoming birthday before.
It has already spawned one family crisis.
You'll recall that Long Suffering Spouse has a younger sister, Josephine, and an older sister (of whom I hardly ever speak) that I call Dr. Doom. One reason why I call her Doctor Doom is that she is a medical doctor, a psychiatrist (she left a surgical residency when she had kids with her husband, Dr. Nick). The other reason... well, she may be one of the more negative persons I have had the privilege to know (and you, dear readers, who know from experience how negative I am can just barely imagine what she must be like).
When I had polyps in my 20s Dr. Doom told my wife and the rest of her family that I was going to die.
When my wife had chicken pox, years later (and was terribly sick -- don't get chicken pox as an adult), Dr. Doom told her mother that, not only was my wife going to die but that I was killing her.
Nor was this the first time, apparently, I tried to murder my wife, according to Dr. Doom. I've forgotten the details over the years, thankfully, but I have a recollection of Dr. Doom skulking on the back porch of the first apartment I shared with Long Suffering Spouse, peering in, because Long Suffering Spouse was ill and I was killing her.
Thankfully, Dr. Doom resides mostly on the other side of the world, in Cyprus (although she has places in Florida and Italy, too).
My wife hasn't spoken to Dr. Doom since their father died, 15 years ago. My wife, who was there pretty much every day during my father-in-law's last battle with congestive heart failure, wanted him to go out with the dignity with which he'd always carried himself. Her position hardened irrevocably after a badly botched attempt at kidney dialysis (his kidneys had shut down in the course of all this). My father-in-law was a retired doctor. Even at nearly 86, he knew the shunts or ports for the dialysis were improperly installed; it wasn't just that he was complaining about pain. The persons performing the procedure, however, told him to shut up and may have strapped him down. It must have hurt dreadfully, and my wife still talks about how black and swollen her father's arm became where his blood was taken and returned. Dialysis wasn't going to save him anyway; his heart was giving out. And he eventually sank into a coma, intermittently at first. Hospice arrangements were made (and he'd approved them when he was able).
And then Dr. Doom swept into town.
For all their money (Dr. Nick, her husband, had already retired as a plastic surgeon by this point), Dr. Doom and her husband never stayed at a hotel. Always at my mother-in-law's house. Her father was dying across the hall, but she came and expected lodgings.
Dr. Doom took one look at what was left of her father, saw his grossly distended belly, filling with fluid as his organs failed, and decided that he had been given inadequate care. She proposed to tap her father's belly, like a beer keg. It would hurt like hell, but it would keep him alive a while longer. A little while. Maybe. If it didn't kill him outright.
Long Suffering Spouse put her foot down. That was not going to happen (you can forgive, I hope, my poor mother-in-law for leaving it to my wife to be the assertive one -- my mother-in-law didn't want to lose her husband, but she knew he was going and she was badly torn).
I must have been home with the kids. I don't know exactly what happened. But words were exchanged. Loudly. There were threats, imprecations, probably damnations. In the end, Dr. Doom backed down. And she and Dr. Nick left town. I can't remember for sure, but they may not have even been at the funeral. And my wife and Dr. Doom have not spoken since.
Oh, I've spoken with Dr. Doom. It was on the occasion, a few years ago, of Josephine's marriage to Ferdinand. (Ferdinand and Dr. Nick have to be close to the same age; maybe Dr. Nick has a couple of years on him, but only a couple.)
Drs. Nick and Doom weren't at Josephine's wedding in person; they were in Cyprus. But I was walking through the church, tending to some assigned task (as in-laws do) when I heard a disembodied voice say, "Hello, Curmudgeon."
Well, hearing disembodied voices in church, especially disembodied voices that call you by name, is generally not a sign of vigorous mental health. But eventually, after some repetition of the greeting, I realized that the voice sounded familiar... instead of looking at the ceiling, I started looking at the pews... and saw a laptop, opened up. Dr. Doom would be attending the nuptials by Skype. We exchanged pleasantries on that occasion.
But, really, we don't hear much of Dr. Doom, and my wife doesn't care to.
Of course, my mother-in-law would like it much better if her three daughters all got along, at least for her sake. Every parent wants their kids to get along. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes... well....
But skip ahead now to earlier this year. Josephine decided that Abuela's 80th birthday should be a big occasion for celebration.
But she proposed to celebrate it in March or April, mainly because (we found out) that's when Dr. Doom would be in town.
Well, we couldn't gather more than a token group from our clan. Older Daughter would be unable to come up from Indianapolis. Hank, her husband, is an architect during the week, but a paid church soloist and choir member on the weekends. And Older Daughter was working every other weekend at the hospital (she's a nurse). Youngest Son was in the middle of his college baseball season. If I dropped dead, maybe he could come in for the funeral. Maybe.
Oh, and as far as Abuela was concerned, no party in April -- no matter how elaborate -- would count toward her August birthday. My parents eventually didn't worry too much about seeing the kids on Christmas Day; there were 12 Days of Christmas, after all. And if a birthday fell on Wednesday or Thursday, the celebration could easily be transferred to Saturday if that was more convenient. But my mother-in-law has always been a stickler for doing things on the day. You could wish her happy birthday the day before, even bring a cake, but if you didn't also call on the day she said you'd "forgotten" her birthday. And she'd be miffed.
And then there's the age wrinkle. Hmmmm, how can we put this sensitively? If you give someone an 80th birthday party four months ahead of schedule, aren't you really saying you don't expect the person to be around on the actual natal day? My mother-in-law would not have seen an April birthday party as a birthday party -- but as a death sentence.
It fell to me to try and convey this -- delicately -- to Josephine. Long Suffering Spouse assured me she could not possibly be civil if she tried. I did my best. I tried to explain why the kids could not all be rounded up in April. They were aware of their obligation in August, but they didn't anticipate this early party business. And I tried to express a general unease with the whole early party idea, saying that it stirred some sour notes in my deeply ingrained peasant Irish superstitious nature. As events would show, these efforts were apparently inadequate to mollify Josephine.
But there was no party in April.
As the big day has drawn closer, Abuela became the problem.
"I don't want to do anything," she'd say, repeatedly.
It all started when, for the second year in a row, Cook County got its 2nd installment real estate tax bills out on time. They were due yesterday. My mother-in-law's taxes were more than she expected. Like so many seniors, when interest rates crashed, she was no longer able to live off of income from CDs; she's had to spend down principal. My mother-in-law has a pension and Social Security (my father-in-law worked for the State but both of them worked in the private sector long enough to qualify for Social Security). However, taxes only go up and she can see a time when she'll be lucky to buy food and pay taxes both. There'll be no money for extras. QVC will probably go out of business (she has a direct line).
Anyway, the shadow of her forthcoming tax bill cast a pall on her birthday. "I won't be home," she finally said. "I will be gone all day and I won't tell anyone where I went."
"But Mom," my wife asked, "how will you get your phone calls?" Everyone Abuela knows calls her on her birthday (everyone she knows -- except her daughter Josephine, apparently, and perhaps Dr. Doom, knows that calls on any other day don't count).
"I don't care. I'm turning off my machine, too."
Here matters stood for a month. Long Suffering Spouse got increasingly anxious. She got so anxious she actually called Josephine to seek her counsel. She almost never voluntarily calls Josephine. Josephine did not call her back. I counseled patience.
This sounds, I suppose, like I'm trying to pretend to be wise. Nonsense. I'm an in-law -- so none of this bothers me except that it bothers my wife -- and I'm lazy. Saying don't worry, she'll change her mind may sound wise and soothing, but it was also a good way to do nothing.
And doing nothing is what I do best.
My wife, on the other hand, always is doing something.
A couple of weeks ago, she spent all day Sunday with Taxedo and Wordle, two 'word cloud' programs, trying to create a suitable design she could have printed on a sweatshirt for Abuela's birthday gift. The idea was to put the names of all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren (there are three, I'm a great-uncle twice) into some sort of a design. I spent a couple of hours on the computer myself, but to no avail. (Of course, eventually, last weekend, my wife found some tips online for keeping certain words together and eventually was able to come up with a print she liked. She got the sweatshirt printed yesterday.)
And then the next crisis arose.
While Abuela did finally soften on the idea of being at home on her birthday, she revealed that she would nevertheless be unable to be home all day. Josephine and Ferdinand were bringing Josephine's kids and taking Abuela to dinner downtown. Maybe, she said, maybe we could come over Saturday?
This is where Older Daughter lost it.
Remember, our kids were told to hold August 2 open on their calendars. Four out of five actually did (Youngest Son is at a fraternity leadership conference today somewhere in Indiana -- he says the dates got changed after he was committed to attend). For Older Daughter, though, Friday was the only possible day she could participate in birthday festivities. She was asked to stand up to a wedding of a friend she's known since high school this weekend. The wedding is Sunday. Wedding-related festivities, however, commence tomorrow morning. Early tomorrow morning.
Younger Daughter broke the news to her that a Friday celebration was looking doubtful -- and received a full blast of ear-splitting profanities for her trouble. These weren't directed at Younger Daughter, mind you; she was just the innocent bystander. But Older Daughter was ready to kill her Aunt Josephine.
So was Long Suffering Spouse. "That's why she wouldn't call me back," she fumed. I think she must have thought her sister had a skin rash, too, because she used a string of words that ended with what-sounded-like "itch."
My wife did what any sibling would do -- she tattled to her mother.
Abuela said she'd call Josephine right away.
Long Suffering Spouse grabbed Younger Daughter and the baby and they all took a walk, at turbo speeds no doubt, around the local park. She had to burn off some of her anger.
Thus, it was left to me to field the subsequent phone call from Abuela.
"Josephine is very busy," she told me. "I had to call all her numbers" -- have you ever noticed it's the people with the most phone numbers who are the hardest to reach? -- "before I got her to answer. She's still at work and she has five people in her office. She told me she couldn't talk. But she said she'd text your wife."
It was already dusk.
Long Suffering Spouse returned from her walk.
"Were the mosquitoes bad?" I asked, looking for a safe topic of conversation.
"No," said Long Suffering Spouse. (No mosquito would dare bite her in her present mood.) "Well?" she asked.
"Josephine is very busy," I told her. "Very, very busy. She had five people in her office and hung up on your mother. But she did tell your mother she'd text you."
"She did. She'll call me when she's driving home. She says."
I poured myself a stiff drink and watched the White Sox lose again.
The phone rang. My wife grabbed it and stalked off into the living room. I curled up in the fetal position, sucking my thumb.
The reason Josephine didn't call back? Well, she didn't know about the call. She never listens to the message on her home land line.
And why was she going to take Abuela out on Friday without involving anyone else? Well, she'd tried to put something together earlier, she reminded my wife, but there was "no interest" in our family to do anything for Abuela's 80th birthday.
But, oh yes, plans are changed. Now our family and Josephine's will show up at Abuela's this evening for pizza and drinks. (I've warned my kids that Ferdinand will be there and we've all agreed the best way to handle that is to drink heavily. I plan to.)
And then there were the subsequent phone calls.
Josephine's oldest wants pineapple on his pizza.
Josephine's two daughters won't eat pizza at all. So order plain pasta instead for them.
Josephine and Ferdinand will want black olives and some other disgusting thing on their pizza, too.
And last night, Older Daughter's husband Hank broke his foot at a softball game. She and Hank were at the hospital ER until 2:15 (their time) this morning. Hank had to work today on a project that must be finished by tomorrow. So he's allegedly refusing to take pain pills. And now he may not be coming at all, or he may be coming by bus tomorrow. On crutches. Maybe someone will watch their giant golden retriever, Cork, if he goes. Maybe Cork will be coming up with Older Daughter. (An hour ago my wife wasn't sure. I haven't heard anything since.) But Older Daughter will be bringing a 10-week old golden retriever puppy. She and Hank got the puppy as a playmate for Cork. We met the dog last weekend -- I've spared you that. So far. Anyway, Cork is jealous.
And Abuela says she doesn't want either dog at her house.
Oh, it's going to be a grand occasion.
Who knows? If we're really lucky, Dr. Doom will show up, too. After all, you don't turn 80 every day.
(I'm not putting that up for a vote.)
But today I want to write about the chaos preceding a family event while in the midst of the vortex.
Well... not exactly.
I'm safely at the Teeny Tiny Law Office for now. Today is Abuela's 80th birthday and tonight as much of the entire family as can be assembled will gather at her house for pizza. My job will be to carry the boxes inside. For these sorts of events, in-laws are reduced to beasts of burden. And that's just fine by me.
I browsed the Archives this morning before getting too far into this essay and I notice I hadn't mentioned this upcoming birthday before.
It has already spawned one family crisis.
You'll recall that Long Suffering Spouse has a younger sister, Josephine, and an older sister (of whom I hardly ever speak) that I call Dr. Doom. One reason why I call her Doctor Doom is that she is a medical doctor, a psychiatrist (she left a surgical residency when she had kids with her husband, Dr. Nick). The other reason... well, she may be one of the more negative persons I have had the privilege to know (and you, dear readers, who know from experience how negative I am can just barely imagine what she must be like).
When I had polyps in my 20s Dr. Doom told my wife and the rest of her family that I was going to die.
When my wife had chicken pox, years later (and was terribly sick -- don't get chicken pox as an adult), Dr. Doom told her mother that, not only was my wife going to die but that I was killing her.
Nor was this the first time, apparently, I tried to murder my wife, according to Dr. Doom. I've forgotten the details over the years, thankfully, but I have a recollection of Dr. Doom skulking on the back porch of the first apartment I shared with Long Suffering Spouse, peering in, because Long Suffering Spouse was ill and I was killing her.
Thankfully, Dr. Doom resides mostly on the other side of the world, in Cyprus (although she has places in Florida and Italy, too).
My wife hasn't spoken to Dr. Doom since their father died, 15 years ago. My wife, who was there pretty much every day during my father-in-law's last battle with congestive heart failure, wanted him to go out with the dignity with which he'd always carried himself. Her position hardened irrevocably after a badly botched attempt at kidney dialysis (his kidneys had shut down in the course of all this). My father-in-law was a retired doctor. Even at nearly 86, he knew the shunts or ports for the dialysis were improperly installed; it wasn't just that he was complaining about pain. The persons performing the procedure, however, told him to shut up and may have strapped him down. It must have hurt dreadfully, and my wife still talks about how black and swollen her father's arm became where his blood was taken and returned. Dialysis wasn't going to save him anyway; his heart was giving out. And he eventually sank into a coma, intermittently at first. Hospice arrangements were made (and he'd approved them when he was able).
And then Dr. Doom swept into town.
For all their money (Dr. Nick, her husband, had already retired as a plastic surgeon by this point), Dr. Doom and her husband never stayed at a hotel. Always at my mother-in-law's house. Her father was dying across the hall, but she came and expected lodgings.
Dr. Doom took one look at what was left of her father, saw his grossly distended belly, filling with fluid as his organs failed, and decided that he had been given inadequate care. She proposed to tap her father's belly, like a beer keg. It would hurt like hell, but it would keep him alive a while longer. A little while. Maybe. If it didn't kill him outright.
Long Suffering Spouse put her foot down. That was not going to happen (you can forgive, I hope, my poor mother-in-law for leaving it to my wife to be the assertive one -- my mother-in-law didn't want to lose her husband, but she knew he was going and she was badly torn).
I must have been home with the kids. I don't know exactly what happened. But words were exchanged. Loudly. There were threats, imprecations, probably damnations. In the end, Dr. Doom backed down. And she and Dr. Nick left town. I can't remember for sure, but they may not have even been at the funeral. And my wife and Dr. Doom have not spoken since.
Oh, I've spoken with Dr. Doom. It was on the occasion, a few years ago, of Josephine's marriage to Ferdinand. (Ferdinand and Dr. Nick have to be close to the same age; maybe Dr. Nick has a couple of years on him, but only a couple.)
Drs. Nick and Doom weren't at Josephine's wedding in person; they were in Cyprus. But I was walking through the church, tending to some assigned task (as in-laws do) when I heard a disembodied voice say, "Hello, Curmudgeon."
Well, hearing disembodied voices in church, especially disembodied voices that call you by name, is generally not a sign of vigorous mental health. But eventually, after some repetition of the greeting, I realized that the voice sounded familiar... instead of looking at the ceiling, I started looking at the pews... and saw a laptop, opened up. Dr. Doom would be attending the nuptials by Skype. We exchanged pleasantries on that occasion.
But, really, we don't hear much of Dr. Doom, and my wife doesn't care to.
Of course, my mother-in-law would like it much better if her three daughters all got along, at least for her sake. Every parent wants their kids to get along. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes... well....
But skip ahead now to earlier this year. Josephine decided that Abuela's 80th birthday should be a big occasion for celebration.
But she proposed to celebrate it in March or April, mainly because (we found out) that's when Dr. Doom would be in town.
Well, we couldn't gather more than a token group from our clan. Older Daughter would be unable to come up from Indianapolis. Hank, her husband, is an architect during the week, but a paid church soloist and choir member on the weekends. And Older Daughter was working every other weekend at the hospital (she's a nurse). Youngest Son was in the middle of his college baseball season. If I dropped dead, maybe he could come in for the funeral. Maybe.
Oh, and as far as Abuela was concerned, no party in April -- no matter how elaborate -- would count toward her August birthday. My parents eventually didn't worry too much about seeing the kids on Christmas Day; there were 12 Days of Christmas, after all. And if a birthday fell on Wednesday or Thursday, the celebration could easily be transferred to Saturday if that was more convenient. But my mother-in-law has always been a stickler for doing things on the day. You could wish her happy birthday the day before, even bring a cake, but if you didn't also call on the day she said you'd "forgotten" her birthday. And she'd be miffed.
And then there's the age wrinkle. Hmmmm, how can we put this sensitively? If you give someone an 80th birthday party four months ahead of schedule, aren't you really saying you don't expect the person to be around on the actual natal day? My mother-in-law would not have seen an April birthday party as a birthday party -- but as a death sentence.
It fell to me to try and convey this -- delicately -- to Josephine. Long Suffering Spouse assured me she could not possibly be civil if she tried. I did my best. I tried to explain why the kids could not all be rounded up in April. They were aware of their obligation in August, but they didn't anticipate this early party business. And I tried to express a general unease with the whole early party idea, saying that it stirred some sour notes in my deeply ingrained peasant Irish superstitious nature. As events would show, these efforts were apparently inadequate to mollify Josephine.
But there was no party in April.
As the big day has drawn closer, Abuela became the problem.
"I don't want to do anything," she'd say, repeatedly.
It all started when, for the second year in a row, Cook County got its 2nd installment real estate tax bills out on time. They were due yesterday. My mother-in-law's taxes were more than she expected. Like so many seniors, when interest rates crashed, she was no longer able to live off of income from CDs; she's had to spend down principal. My mother-in-law has a pension and Social Security (my father-in-law worked for the State but both of them worked in the private sector long enough to qualify for Social Security). However, taxes only go up and she can see a time when she'll be lucky to buy food and pay taxes both. There'll be no money for extras. QVC will probably go out of business (she has a direct line).
Anyway, the shadow of her forthcoming tax bill cast a pall on her birthday. "I won't be home," she finally said. "I will be gone all day and I won't tell anyone where I went."
"But Mom," my wife asked, "how will you get your phone calls?" Everyone Abuela knows calls her on her birthday (everyone she knows -- except her daughter Josephine, apparently, and perhaps Dr. Doom, knows that calls on any other day don't count).
"I don't care. I'm turning off my machine, too."
Here matters stood for a month. Long Suffering Spouse got increasingly anxious. She got so anxious she actually called Josephine to seek her counsel. She almost never voluntarily calls Josephine. Josephine did not call her back. I counseled patience.
This sounds, I suppose, like I'm trying to pretend to be wise. Nonsense. I'm an in-law -- so none of this bothers me except that it bothers my wife -- and I'm lazy. Saying don't worry, she'll change her mind may sound wise and soothing, but it was also a good way to do nothing.
And doing nothing is what I do best.
My wife, on the other hand, always is doing something.
A couple of weeks ago, she spent all day Sunday with Taxedo and Wordle, two 'word cloud' programs, trying to create a suitable design she could have printed on a sweatshirt for Abuela's birthday gift. The idea was to put the names of all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren (there are three, I'm a great-uncle twice) into some sort of a design. I spent a couple of hours on the computer myself, but to no avail. (Of course, eventually, last weekend, my wife found some tips online for keeping certain words together and eventually was able to come up with a print she liked. She got the sweatshirt printed yesterday.)
And then the next crisis arose.
While Abuela did finally soften on the idea of being at home on her birthday, she revealed that she would nevertheless be unable to be home all day. Josephine and Ferdinand were bringing Josephine's kids and taking Abuela to dinner downtown. Maybe, she said, maybe we could come over Saturday?
This is where Older Daughter lost it.
Remember, our kids were told to hold August 2 open on their calendars. Four out of five actually did (Youngest Son is at a fraternity leadership conference today somewhere in Indiana -- he says the dates got changed after he was committed to attend). For Older Daughter, though, Friday was the only possible day she could participate in birthday festivities. She was asked to stand up to a wedding of a friend she's known since high school this weekend. The wedding is Sunday. Wedding-related festivities, however, commence tomorrow morning. Early tomorrow morning.
Younger Daughter broke the news to her that a Friday celebration was looking doubtful -- and received a full blast of ear-splitting profanities for her trouble. These weren't directed at Younger Daughter, mind you; she was just the innocent bystander. But Older Daughter was ready to kill her Aunt Josephine.
So was Long Suffering Spouse. "That's why she wouldn't call me back," she fumed. I think she must have thought her sister had a skin rash, too, because she used a string of words that ended with what-sounded-like "itch."
My wife did what any sibling would do -- she tattled to her mother.
Abuela said she'd call Josephine right away.
Long Suffering Spouse grabbed Younger Daughter and the baby and they all took a walk, at turbo speeds no doubt, around the local park. She had to burn off some of her anger.
Thus, it was left to me to field the subsequent phone call from Abuela.
"Josephine is very busy," she told me. "I had to call all her numbers" -- have you ever noticed it's the people with the most phone numbers who are the hardest to reach? -- "before I got her to answer. She's still at work and she has five people in her office. She told me she couldn't talk. But she said she'd text your wife."
It was already dusk.
Long Suffering Spouse returned from her walk.
"Were the mosquitoes bad?" I asked, looking for a safe topic of conversation.
"No," said Long Suffering Spouse. (No mosquito would dare bite her in her present mood.) "Well?" she asked.
"Josephine is very busy," I told her. "Very, very busy. She had five people in her office and hung up on your mother. But she did tell your mother she'd text you."
"She did. She'll call me when she's driving home. She says."
I poured myself a stiff drink and watched the White Sox lose again.
The phone rang. My wife grabbed it and stalked off into the living room. I curled up in the fetal position, sucking my thumb.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The reason Josephine didn't call back? Well, she didn't know about the call. She never listens to the message on her home land line.
And why was she going to take Abuela out on Friday without involving anyone else? Well, she'd tried to put something together earlier, she reminded my wife, but there was "no interest" in our family to do anything for Abuela's 80th birthday.
But, oh yes, plans are changed. Now our family and Josephine's will show up at Abuela's this evening for pizza and drinks. (I've warned my kids that Ferdinand will be there and we've all agreed the best way to handle that is to drink heavily. I plan to.)
And then there were the subsequent phone calls.
Josephine's oldest wants pineapple on his pizza.
Josephine's two daughters won't eat pizza at all. So order plain pasta instead for them.
Josephine and Ferdinand will want black olives and some other disgusting thing on their pizza, too.
And last night, Older Daughter's husband Hank broke his foot at a softball game. She and Hank were at the hospital ER until 2:15 (their time) this morning. Hank had to work today on a project that must be finished by tomorrow. So he's allegedly refusing to take pain pills. And now he may not be coming at all, or he may be coming by bus tomorrow. On crutches. Maybe someone will watch their giant golden retriever, Cork, if he goes. Maybe Cork will be coming up with Older Daughter. (An hour ago my wife wasn't sure. I haven't heard anything since.) But Older Daughter will be bringing a 10-week old golden retriever puppy. She and Hank got the puppy as a playmate for Cork. We met the dog last weekend -- I've spared you that. So far. Anyway, Cork is jealous.
And Abuela says she doesn't want either dog at her house.
Oh, it's going to be a grand occasion.
Who knows? If we're really lucky, Dr. Doom will show up, too. After all, you don't turn 80 every day.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
A disappointing visit to the eye doctor
My glaucoma is essentially unchanged for more than a dozen years now.Every year or so, however, I have to prove this to the eye doctor by taking a visual field test (yes, I've written about this before -- and here's the follow up to that first 2009 post). Yesterday, it was time for me to go again.
After the visual field test, one of the eye doctor's assistants gives me drops to dilate my pupils so that the eye doctor can more easily shine a bright light in my eyes and better see (he says) my optical nerve. I think he's just punishing me for not needing surgery, but, then again, I'm paranoid.
Unlike on some past occasions, I did not fall asleep during the visual field test.
Because I know I will be dilated, I make these appointments for as late in the day as they'll let me. So I come in tired. And they have to turn the lights down in the examining room so I can see the little flashes of light I'm supposed to track with my clicker thing -- and without moving my eyeball. (They give the test one eye at a time; you get to wear a nifty patch over the other eye.) With my tired head resting on something in a dark, quiet room... is it really surprising that I sometimes doze off?
I didn't want to doze yesterday (it messes up the results and gets the eye doctor all excited about surgery for nothing) so I kept up a steady stream of patter during the exam.
Oh, good, the eye patch. D'yer want me to talk like a pirate now? Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhh.The young lady who administered the visual field test was the one who put the drops in to dilate my eyes. Then she pointed me to a back waiting room where I was to await the doctor. I was looking forward to looking at the New Yorker for awhile until my eyes could no longer focus -- but they had no back issues available yesterday.
I don't know why you need this test to see how bad my peripheral vision has gotten. Just ride in the car with me and my wife when I'm driving some time; she'll tell you all about it.
It was just as well. The doctor was ready for me sooner than I expected.
A young, pretty resident came out to fetch me in. "I'm Dr. Jones," she said, and I noted that her voice was as lovely as she was. And those were shapely legs in high heels sticking out from under her lab coat, too. I noticed.
The doctor obviously noticed, too.
He's ordinarily a rather brusque man (surgeons generally are). That doesn't bother me as much as it bothers some people, but I do pick up on it -- and I quickly picked up on the fact that, yesterday, he was far more charming and attentive than usual. He shined his bright light in my wide-open eyes, then let the resident take a look, too. He called up my history on the office computer terminal (this is a high tech practice) and showed the younger doctor pictures of my visual field tests going back more than a decade. "Zimmerman," he said, "had the definitive paper on low-tension glaucoma 30 years ago in the Journal of -- well, no, you don't have to look that up. Why don't you just do a review of the literature over the last five years on the subject and we can talk about it when we meet -- Thursday?"
"Oh, no, Doctor, I won't be in Thursday. I'll be in Aspen."
"Aspen? I love Aspen." (Doctors can say things like that; they actually have been to all these places. They can afford to go.) "Why are you going?"
"It's a conference. Women in Ophthalmology."
"Will you be there next week, too? I'm going out there next week." (See what I mean about doctors?)
"Not unless you'll let me be gone from here for two weeks."
"Well, no. Are you going to do any hiking while you're there?"
"Oh, yes," she said. "I signed up for a special woman's hike."
"A special women's hike? What's that?"
I know a set-up line when I hear it. Quickly, I tried to think of possible responses that might work:
[Sexist] It's just like a men's hike except you look at store windows instead of mountains, valleys and trees.Her actual answer was something about the pace of the hike, but she resisted any temptation she might have had to say something like "we go slower because we actually pay attention to our surroundings."
[I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar] It's just like a men's hike, same trails, same distance -- only we do it in heels. No man could hope to survive.
[Hear Me Roar, Part II] It's just like a men's hike only if we lose the trail we can ask for directions on how to get back.
Soon thereafter, the doctor realized I was still sitting patiently (get it?) in the examination room chair. He had to stop flirting long enough to dismiss me. (By the way, I hasten to add, there was nothing inappropriate or suspicious or creepy about the doctor's flirting. You'd probably not have noticed; I don't know whether the attractive young doctor even realized the doctor was flirting. I only did because I usually see him in brusque surgeon-mode.)
But I said that the visit was disappointing and I haven't explained why (except from the doctor's standpoint since I'm still not a candidate for additional surgery).
It was cloudy and gray in Chicago yesterday; it wanted to rain, but couldn't quite do so while I was out. The gloom suited me fine; it's actually painful to walk out in bright sunlight with dilated pupils. Still, as I walked down the street, mothers, seeing my eyes, pulled their children a little closer. You can't help but look a little crazy when your eyes are like that.
I got home, though, without incident, a little wobbly (being dilated and out of focus affects your balance) and my eyes hurt, but there was nothing seriously wrong. Long Suffering Spouse asked me how things went and I gave her the good news.
Younger Daughter was listening. "But did you ask?"
"Ask about what?" I was genuinely confused. What did she think I was supposed to ask about?
"The medical marijuana, silly."
How disappointing. I did forget to ask.
But Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn still hasn't signed HB1, the newly passed medical marijuana statute. Maybe by my next visit....
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Updated and corrected August 1, 2013: Gov. Quinn is expected to sign the bill today. Section 10(h)(1) of the act includes glaucoma among the 'debilitating medical conditions' for which medical marijuana may be prescribed. Well, whaddaya know about that?
Monday, July 29, 2013
How superstitious are you?
As a modern American, I deny being superstitious.
If I don't walk under ladders, well, who knows, there might be a bucket on top that might spill on me. I'll gladly walk under scaffolds, though, especially if it's raining, and isn't that pretty much the same thing?
No?
But there are times when even I -- a modern, rational, skeptical American -- must confess to some seemingly superstitious beliefs.
Case in point: Have you ever had kids win a "goldfish" at a school carnival? It happened to me many times. The kid could win the fish in the first five minutes (they always are put in flimsy baggies) and, yet, somehow, the poor things will survive being shaken, dropped, tossed.... Bring the fish home and put it in an unused vase and it will flourish. It may even grow if you feed it with fish food left over from the last school carnival.
Eventually, though, after the kid becomes attached to the fish -- and these are fish the pet stores keep on hand mostly to feed to turtles more valuable fish -- there will come that moment when you will weaken. You will buy a tank. You will buy a filter. You will buy more food. It doesn't matter what you buy. As soon as you open your wallet, that fish will die.
You may dismiss this as foolish superstition, and I envy you your certitude. But I say this is not superstitious at all, but my actual real-life experience.
Yours too, if you ever let a kid go to a school carnival.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
Another example: Some of you may remember I downsized my office when I moved from my Undisclosed Location early last year. The Teeny-Tiny Law Office is in the very same building, just 30 or 35 feet above my old stomping grounds.
In the course of trying to streamline my expenses, I also dropped the paid website that I'd bought for my firm from Martindale-Hubbell. I never got an actual lead from that site anyway (although once I heard from a high school classmate). Most of the stuff I got through that site was sent by people wearing tinfoil beanies. I can get cases equally as good as those proffered by Martindale-Hubbell by contacting the Nigerian generals' widows who still send me emails.
But my old suite number and the old M-H website were both on my business card. So I stopped carrying cards.
In the year and a half since I haven't had cards to give away... which isn't embarrassing, exactly, but some may think it a little... shabby.
I'm looking at my old business card now: Not only does it have the Martindale-Hubbell site on it, but it also has the West site I paid for for a little while -- and far too long. I can't remember when I dropped the West site; in my eagerness to believe, though, I think it must have been shortly after I got these cards printed.
In other words, just like the goldfish, I believe that, just as soon as I spend money on business cards, something will change.
Is that rational?
Perhaps not.
But I picked up new business cards today from the printer, fully realizing something may change tomorrow as a result.
Of course, I'm dumb enough to think that things will change for the better (my "logic" being... well, things can't get any worse, can they?)
Yes, we all know the answer to that one.
But I'm not listening!
If I don't walk under ladders, well, who knows, there might be a bucket on top that might spill on me. I'll gladly walk under scaffolds, though, especially if it's raining, and isn't that pretty much the same thing?
No?
But there are times when even I -- a modern, rational, skeptical American -- must confess to some seemingly superstitious beliefs.
Case in point: Have you ever had kids win a "goldfish" at a school carnival? It happened to me many times. The kid could win the fish in the first five minutes (they always are put in flimsy baggies) and, yet, somehow, the poor things will survive being shaken, dropped, tossed.... Bring the fish home and put it in an unused vase and it will flourish. It may even grow if you feed it with fish food left over from the last school carnival.
Eventually, though, after the kid becomes attached to the fish -- and these are fish the pet stores keep on hand mostly to feed to turtles more valuable fish -- there will come that moment when you will weaken. You will buy a tank. You will buy a filter. You will buy more food. It doesn't matter what you buy. As soon as you open your wallet, that fish will die.
You may dismiss this as foolish superstition, and I envy you your certitude. But I say this is not superstitious at all, but my actual real-life experience.
Yours too, if you ever let a kid go to a school carnival.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
Another example: Some of you may remember I downsized my office when I moved from my Undisclosed Location early last year. The Teeny-Tiny Law Office is in the very same building, just 30 or 35 feet above my old stomping grounds.
In the course of trying to streamline my expenses, I also dropped the paid website that I'd bought for my firm from Martindale-Hubbell. I never got an actual lead from that site anyway (although once I heard from a high school classmate). Most of the stuff I got through that site was sent by people wearing tinfoil beanies. I can get cases equally as good as those proffered by Martindale-Hubbell by contacting the Nigerian generals' widows who still send me emails.
But my old suite number and the old M-H website were both on my business card. So I stopped carrying cards.
In the year and a half since I haven't had cards to give away... which isn't embarrassing, exactly, but some may think it a little... shabby.
I'm looking at my old business card now: Not only does it have the Martindale-Hubbell site on it, but it also has the West site I paid for for a little while -- and far too long. I can't remember when I dropped the West site; in my eagerness to believe, though, I think it must have been shortly after I got these cards printed.
In other words, just like the goldfish, I believe that, just as soon as I spend money on business cards, something will change.
Is that rational?
Perhaps not.
But I picked up new business cards today from the printer, fully realizing something may change tomorrow as a result.
Of course, I'm dumb enough to think that things will change for the better (my "logic" being... well, things can't get any worse, can they?)
Yes, we all know the answer to that one.
But I'm not listening!
Thursday, July 25, 2013
New York gets a new scandal, Chicago gets a new alderman
The aptly named Anthony Weiner is so enamored of his male appendage that he continued to send pictures of his manhood to various women in various places (including, apparently, Chicago) even after he was forced to resign from Congress. Now running for Mayor of New York, Weiner wants to stop talking about his package and start talking about his plans for the city. The New York Times would like Weiner to go away, but he is intent on staying in the race, while his wife grimly continues to offer her support.
Who knows? Until these latest revelations, Weiner looked like a winner. His short-term poll numbers will surely take a hit -- even in New York -- but he may yet prevail.
But if he does win... well, hopefully someone will carefully police the 'Welcome to New York' signs that Mayor Weiner may wish to, um, erect. Children, avert your eyes!
Meanwhile, in Chicago, the 33rd Ward has a new alderman this morning as former Ald. Richard Mell has stepped aside after 38 years in office... only to be replaced by his daughter, Deb. (Deb is vacating her seat in the Illinois House to come home and become an alderman. In Chicago, that's been considered a promotion since before the time of Daley I.)
Wait, you say. Didn't Mayor Emanuel promise that outgoing aldermen would no longer be given the opportunity to hand-pick their successors? Didn't he say that screening committees would be set up to vet future appointments?
He did and there was -- and, if there were those who doubted the outcome of the committee's deliberations, they had to be from out of town.
Way out of town.
Indeed, there are those who are trying (with a straight face) to spin Deb Mell's appointment as progressive and an example of diversity. Deb, you see, is a lesbian. If she'd been Mell's son the good government types would be really all-atwitter over this appointment... instead of just mildly so. Of course, if Deb had been Mell's son, Rod Blagojevich would never have been governor.
Oh, wait. I suppose I have to back up here for the benefit of those who come here from out of town.
Deb has a sister, Patti. Patti married Rod Blagojevich -- and Patti's dad, the newly-retired alderman, helped make Rod a state representative, congressman, and (eventually) governor. (Indirectly, at least, Dick Mell is also responsible for Rod's downfall, breaking so publicly with his son-in-law over the closure of a landfill that he attracted the attention of the Feds.) Now do you remember?
Anyway, my friend Steve says that someday psychiatrists will identify a desire to become involved in politics as a symptom of mental illness -- and maybe as a disorder all its own. Exhibit A for Steve's hypothesis is Mr. Weiner.
But, in Chicago, it's not mental illness.
It's just business as usual.
Family business.
Who knows? Until these latest revelations, Weiner looked like a winner. His short-term poll numbers will surely take a hit -- even in New York -- but he may yet prevail.
But if he does win... well, hopefully someone will carefully police the 'Welcome to New York' signs that Mayor Weiner may wish to, um, erect. Children, avert your eyes!
 |
| New Ald. Deb Mell flanked by Mayor Emanuel and Mell's wife, Christin Baker. Photo obtained from the Sun-Times. |
Wait, you say. Didn't Mayor Emanuel promise that outgoing aldermen would no longer be given the opportunity to hand-pick their successors? Didn't he say that screening committees would be set up to vet future appointments?
He did and there was -- and, if there were those who doubted the outcome of the committee's deliberations, they had to be from out of town.
Way out of town.
Indeed, there are those who are trying (with a straight face) to spin Deb Mell's appointment as progressive and an example of diversity. Deb, you see, is a lesbian. If she'd been Mell's son the good government types would be really all-atwitter over this appointment... instead of just mildly so. Of course, if Deb had been Mell's son, Rod Blagojevich would never have been governor.
Oh, wait. I suppose I have to back up here for the benefit of those who come here from out of town.
Deb has a sister, Patti. Patti married Rod Blagojevich -- and Patti's dad, the newly-retired alderman, helped make Rod a state representative, congressman, and (eventually) governor. (Indirectly, at least, Dick Mell is also responsible for Rod's downfall, breaking so publicly with his son-in-law over the closure of a landfill that he attracted the attention of the Feds.) Now do you remember?
Anyway, my friend Steve says that someday psychiatrists will identify a desire to become involved in politics as a symptom of mental illness -- and maybe as a disorder all its own. Exhibit A for Steve's hypothesis is Mr. Weiner.
But, in Chicago, it's not mental illness.
It's just business as usual.
Family business.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Why all this excitement over a "Royal" Baby?
Balding Billy and Bonnie Kate left a London hospital Tuesday with their new Bundle of Joy, a kid who doesn't yet have a name but does have a title, HRH the Prince of Cambridge. If family luck holds, the kid may someday inherit the throne of Great Britain. All he has to do is live long enough. His "job," like his father's and grandfather's, principally involves waiting for other people to die -- and his list includes Dad and Gramps. Am I the only one creeped out by this?
Look, I suppose I'm happy for the young parents, and I can't get upset at the little brat -- it's not his fault he was born. But I just can't muster any enthusiasm for the wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling news coverage this blessed event has been given in America.
I mean, if the Brits think that having a Royal family is good for tourism or morale or something, that's their business, and more power to them all. But... seriously... didn't we have a revolution in this country a couple hundred years ago? I thought we'd rejected monarchy in this country -- but the attention lavished on this young couple, living off the British government, makes me wonder.
How about you?
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Evolution... or devolution? Of the teaching of evolution and the abandonment of space
Adapted from this post on The Blog of Days.
There are many who would call today Monkey Day because it was on July 21, 1925 that the Scopes trial ended -- with a finding that high school teacher John Scopes had violated Tennessee law by teaching the theory of evolution to his students. Fortunately, we've progressed quite a bit (evolved, you might say) since then: I don't think even Texas has again made it actually illegal to teach evolution in the schools. Of course, there are more than a few states where the teaching of evolution appears to be frowned upon. A 2012 Gallup poll revealed that 46% of Americans believe that God created mankind in our present form -- and somewhere in the last 10,000 years to boot. Maybe we've not evolved as much as some of us would like to think.
And yesterday, July 20, was Moon Day, commemorating mankind's first tentative steps on another world (our own Moon). As mentioned in Friday's post, we gave up on the Moon in 1972 -- haven't been back since. The American Space Shuttle program, which ferried astronauts to and from Low Earth Orbit, was itself abandoned two years ago today, on July 21, 2011, when the Shuttle Atlantis touched down in Florida at the end of STS-135.
Come to think of it, maybe we should reconsider this evolution thing. We seem to be going backwards....
 |
| Image of the final landing of Shuttle Atlantis obtained from NASA. |
And yesterday, July 20, was Moon Day, commemorating mankind's first tentative steps on another world (our own Moon). As mentioned in Friday's post, we gave up on the Moon in 1972 -- haven't been back since. The American Space Shuttle program, which ferried astronauts to and from Low Earth Orbit, was itself abandoned two years ago today, on July 21, 2011, when the Shuttle Atlantis touched down in Florida at the end of STS-135.
Come to think of it, maybe we should reconsider this evolution thing. We seem to be going backwards....
Friday, July 19, 2013
Another gloomy Moon Day
Cross-posted from The Blog of Days.
It was on July 20, 44 years ago, that a human being first left footprints on a heavenly body other than Earth. Thus, Saturday, July 20 is Moon Day.
It's a bittersweet occasion. Neil Armstrong has passed away since we observed Moon Day 2012 (he died last August 25) and Buzz Aldrin is 83. It is now 41 years and counting since anyone has been to the Moon. Here's the complete list (complete with links to Wikipedia entries on each astronaut and mission):
In all the years since, we've flown no higher than the International Space Station. Yes, it is a remarkable achievement to build even a small outpost that's technically in Outer Space -- but the ISS is in Low Earth Orbit -- it's just camping in Earth's backyard compared to the wonders that lie before us.
There are two Americans in the six-person crew currently on board the International Space Station (this crew is referred to as Expedition 36). One of these is Karen L. Nyberg, a PhD in mechanical engineering, currently serving as a flight engineer aboard the station. Dr. Nyberg is pictured at right. The other is CDR Christopher J. Cassidy, USN. An Italian and three Russians, including Expedition 36 Commander Pavel Vinogradov, round out the current crew.
Our astronauts get to and from the space station these days by hitching a ride with the Russians.
Saturday. Moon Day.
What went wrong?
It was on July 20, 44 years ago, that a human being first left footprints on a heavenly body other than Earth. Thus, Saturday, July 20 is Moon Day.It's a bittersweet occasion. Neil Armstrong has passed away since we observed Moon Day 2012 (he died last August 25) and Buzz Aldrin is 83. It is now 41 years and counting since anyone has been to the Moon. Here's the complete list (complete with links to Wikipedia entries on each astronaut and mission):
| Name | Mission | EVA dates | |
| 1 | Neil Armstrong | Apollo 11 | July 20, 1969 |
| 2 | Buzz Aldrin | ||
| 3 | Pete Conrad | Apollo 12 | November 19-20, 1969 |
| 4 | Alan Bean | ||
| 5 | Alan Shepard | Apollo 14 | February 5-6, 1971 |
| 6 | Edgar Mitchell | ||
| 7 | David Scott | Apollo 15 | July 31–August 2, 1971 |
| 8 | James Irwin | ||
| 9 | John W. Young | Apollo 16 | April 21-23, 1972 |
| 10 | Charles Duke | ||
| 11 | Eugene Cernan | Apollo 17 | December 11-14, 1972 |
| 12 | Harrison Schmitt |
There are two Americans in the six-person crew currently on board the International Space Station (this crew is referred to as Expedition 36). One of these is Karen L. Nyberg, a PhD in mechanical engineering, currently serving as a flight engineer aboard the station. Dr. Nyberg is pictured at right. The other is CDR Christopher J. Cassidy, USN. An Italian and three Russians, including Expedition 36 Commander Pavel Vinogradov, round out the current crew.
Our astronauts get to and from the space station these days by hitching a ride with the Russians.
Saturday. Moon Day.
What went wrong?
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
92 quadrillion reasons to get a PayPal account?
I don't have a PayPal account -- there's no PayPal button on this site, no "digital rice bowl" (as I've heard the PayPal button called) begging for reader support (I like the term "tip jar" better). I don't have a gift shop; there are no Curmudgeon action figures due out in time for Christmas. (In my case, they'd be more like inaction figures, anyway.)
But I may have to rethink this whole PayPal thing. Maybe what happened to Chris Reynolds, a Pennsylvanian who sells car parts online, might happen to me.
The linked article, by Eric Pfieffer of Yahoo! News, appears today on Yahoo's Sideshow blog.
According to Pfieffer, Mr. Reynolds checked his PayPal account recently and discovered a balance of $92,233,720,368,547,800 -- that's $92 quadrillion or, according to the linked article, more than the world's annual gross domestic product. Indeed, $92 quadrillion is such a big number, according to this post on Circa, that it is 1300 times greater than the world GDP (which it puts at a relatively paltry $70.2 trillion). Compared to $92 quadrillion, Circa says, Bill Gates' entire $72.7 billion fortune would be a rounding error.
How large is $92 quadrillion? It's more than 550,000 times more than the national debt, using the national debt figure posted on brillig.com as a reference ($16,742,208,376,232.88 as of July 17, 2013). According to Wikipedia, there are anywhere from one to ten quadrillion ants on Earth (their total mass equaling that of all humanity, even including that enormous, sweaty guy that always tries to squeeze into the seat next to you on the bus when the weather is hot).
The linked articles (and this related UPI account) suggest that Reynolds found out about his apparent great fortune when he opened up the PayPal statement that came in the mail. When he logged on to his account, however -- just to double check, of course -- I'm sure the thought of immediately transferring any or all of it to his bank account never crossed his mind -- he discovered that his account balance was back to... zero.
Still, Reynolds said, for a moment there, he felt like "a million bucks."
And then some.
So if I ever do put up a PayPal button... it's not that I'm trolling for donations... it's just that I'm checking my account balance every five seconds or so.
Just in case.
But I may have to rethink this whole PayPal thing. Maybe what happened to Chris Reynolds, a Pennsylvanian who sells car parts online, might happen to me.
The linked article, by Eric Pfieffer of Yahoo! News, appears today on Yahoo's Sideshow blog.
According to Pfieffer, Mr. Reynolds checked his PayPal account recently and discovered a balance of $92,233,720,368,547,800 -- that's $92 quadrillion or, according to the linked article, more than the world's annual gross domestic product. Indeed, $92 quadrillion is such a big number, according to this post on Circa, that it is 1300 times greater than the world GDP (which it puts at a relatively paltry $70.2 trillion). Compared to $92 quadrillion, Circa says, Bill Gates' entire $72.7 billion fortune would be a rounding error.
How large is $92 quadrillion? It's more than 550,000 times more than the national debt, using the national debt figure posted on brillig.com as a reference ($16,742,208,376,232.88 as of July 17, 2013). According to Wikipedia, there are anywhere from one to ten quadrillion ants on Earth (their total mass equaling that of all humanity, even including that enormous, sweaty guy that always tries to squeeze into the seat next to you on the bus when the weather is hot).
The linked articles (and this related UPI account) suggest that Reynolds found out about his apparent great fortune when he opened up the PayPal statement that came in the mail. When he logged on to his account, however -- just to double check, of course -- I'm sure the thought of immediately transferring any or all of it to his bank account never crossed his mind -- he discovered that his account balance was back to... zero.
Still, Reynolds said, for a moment there, he felt like "a million bucks."
And then some.
So if I ever do put up a PayPal button... it's not that I'm trolling for donations... it's just that I'm checking my account balance every five seconds or so.
Just in case.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Overlawyered: Big Law conducts a case at the Cook County Arbitration Center
This was a post I really wanted to put up under my own name -- arbitration hearings are, technically, open to the public, although observers are rarer than hen's teeth -- I'd be free to name names if I wanted to, but in the end, I couldn't and wouldn't. I want to lampoon the Big Law approach to the presentation of even the smallest case, but I don't wish to be personal about it. It's not the attorneys who are the problem; it's the Big Law/ Big Firm attitude.
As I've probably mentioned here before, I've sat as an arbitrator in Cook County since the mandatory court-annexed system was begun, probably 25 years ago or more. It is the most part-time of part-time jobs. I get called three, maybe four times a year. Assuming I hear three cases each time (that's the normal maximum), I'll rake in $900 or $1,200 in yearly income from this gig. One can not plan a retirement in the South of France on such princely earnings.
We hear cases as three-lawyer panels, one of the lawyers serving as chair. All three panelists get to decide the case at the end of the hearing, haggling over the award to be given, if any, to the extent that haggling is necessary. The chair fills in the award form when the deliberation is done and, during the hearing, rules on any objections the lawyers might make. It's more fun to be chair; I've always enjoyed it, anyway.
The arbitration hearings are not held in the courthouse, but in rented office space in a nearby building. My courthouse pass doesn't get me past security there; I have to wait in line for a building pass with everyone else.
Recently, on a morning when I'd been called to serve, I was in line behind a middle-aged man with a computer bag, a younger man lugging a box full of binders, and a younger woman carrying another bag and a projector screen. Oh, no, I thought... Big Firm Alert.
Like nuns in the days before Vatican II, Big Firm lawyers never travel alone. They look more like unpacked Russian Dolls when they venture out into the wider world -- the Partner carrying his enormous dignity -- the Senior Associate trailing behind, carrying everything else the Partner should be carrying -- the Junior Associate, trailing behind the Senior, carrying what the Senior Associate would have carried had she been allowed to carry her own stuff -- and so on. Depending on the Importance of the outing, there might be a Junior Partner and a several layers of Associates inserted into the procession, according to rules of strict seniority.
Well, I thought to myself, there are a lot of law offices in this building. They don't have to be going up to the Arb Center; maybe they're here for a deposition or something. But it was only 8:00 a.m. Depositions usually take place later in the day. I began to get an uneasy feeling, especially as it became apparent the next two people in line, obvious civilians, were witnesses associated with the Big Law party. The group got ahead of me and, when I didn't see them milling about when I got in line to check in at the Arb Center, I began to relax a little.
You should never relax.
The assistant administrator who was handling arbitrator check-in that day greeted me by name. I've been acquainted with her for years, since she worked in the Circuit Court Clerk's office, and we chatted a little about her health and the weather. She pulled out a folder, which meant that she was going to ask me to chair a panel this morning. "You know, Curmudgeon," she said, "Room X is my favorite room on the floor. Best view. Most natural light. Very spacious."
I was of course instantly suspicious.
"What are you sending me into?" I asked.
"Oh, nothing," she lied. She wouldn't look straight at me. She knew I knew she was up to no good. "Could you chair Room X for me this morning?" I took the folder without looking at the few papers inside.
The floor is level in the Arbitration Center, but I felt as though I were mounting the steps to the scaffold as I trudged in the direction of Room X. I was like the little kid drafted into playing softball with the big kids and stashed in right field where he could cause the least damage. The little kid, in that circumstance, prays ever more fervently, Please, God, don't let them hit it to me. Running through my mind was something similar: Please, God, not the Big Law case.
Someone always hits a fly ball to the little kid in right field (I was that little kid many times; I know) -- and the Big Law case was waiting for me when I walked in. The Senior Associate was trying to set up the computer to project on the screen; the Partner was directing. The young lady (she was a Summer Associate as it turned out) was trying to assist.
"There will be three panelists?" the Partner asked, with seeming innocence. Only there are no innocent questions in Big Law. I said yes and waited for the follow-up. "Three panelists, eh?" said the Partner. "That's just like the Seventh Circuit." There was a momentary pause. "You know," he continued, "I used to clerk for Judge Y. Wonderful man, Judge Y."
And there it was, I marveled, he was letting me know, as subtly as a brick, about his superior credentials. Of course I knew who Judge Y was; Judge Y had served on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals for many years. But then, Mr. Big Firm Partner inadvertently gave me an opening. "Do we know who the other panelists will be?" he asked.
"Well," I said, "since you're so familiar with the Seventh Circuit, you know that the lawyers there don't know who will hear a case until the panelists come out for the argument." I've got credentials, too, Mr. Big Firm Partner. "Same thing here. I guess in that way we resemble the Seventh Circuit." And only in that way!
Mandatory arbitration hearings here are streamlined by Illinois Supreme Court Rule 90(c). As long as one side (usually the plaintiff) serves the other side with copies of the documents by no later than 30 days before the hearing, all sorts of documents are presumptively admitted by the rule. In fact, one of the reasons why lawyers typically do better at arbitrations of this type than they do at trial has to do with the fact that they get in their medical records and bills without the expense of inconvenience of calling in (or obtaining the evidence deposition of) the treating doctor (or chiropractor). Also, it's really hard to cross-examine the doctor's written report -- the live doctor, however, is far more vulnerable.
Anyway, arbitration hearings begin by asking if the parties have any 90(c) packages for the panel to consider -- and then whether the other side has any objection to that party's 90(c) package. The attorneys will typically have one copy of their 90(c) package for each panelist. Plaintiffs, of course, almost always have a 90(c) package -- the medical records and bills. Defendants almost always don't.
But Big Law was involved in this case. Naturally Big Law had a 90(c) package for its defense client -- and, just as naturally, theirs had three times as many pages as the package submitted by the plaintiff. Now I knew what the box of binders was.
Mr. Big Firm Partner wanted to give me his 90(c) packages before the hearing began. He wanted to give them to me before his opponent even arrived. "No," I told him, "we have to wait until everyone's here."
Eventually, everyone was present and the 90(c)'s were exchanged. I was astounded at how thick the defendant's 90(c) package was -- even though just the "mini" copies of the deposition transcripts were submitted in the 90(c) package -- minis put four pages of the transcript on each single page -- and I began trying to calculate how much the Big Law firm had billed to get the case to this point. A hundred thousand dollars? $200,000? The maximum award that we arbitrators could make was $30,000.... As a once and sometime insurance defense attorney I am quite fond of the saying, "millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute" -- but there is a point where that noble sentiment degenerates into "penny wise and pound foolish." Wherever that point may be, we were far, far beyond it in this case.
And then came time for opening statements.
The case concerned a slip and fall in a store. The elderly plaintiff -- a very nice lady -- was rather rudely pushed by a snot-nosed 11 or 12-year old kid running out of the store as the old lady was trying to come in. The plaintiff lost her balance and toppled to the floor. She knocked down a bar held in place by breakaway guide wires along the way. The whole sorry incident had been captured on a store surveillance tape -- and if that had been all that Big Law wanted to show us at the hearing, I wouldn't be writing this post.
No, Big Law wanted us to see that tape, alright, in real time and in super slo-mo, but also to flash extensive excerpts from party and witness depositions on the screen in conjunction with particular frames of the video and to highlight a detailed exposition of the 'evolution of the plaintiff's pleadings.' The first Complaint, you see, hadn't mentioned the little kid -- clearly evidence of an evil conspiracy to defraud -- notwithstanding the fact that the kid's involvement is reflected in the descriptions of the accident contained in all the different medical records.
You will be pleased to know I did not put my hands on the top of my head and scream uncontrollably. I wanted to, of course, but, instead, I just sustained plaintiff's objection to the 'argumentative' nature of the opening statement. Just like they teach in law school -- even at Harvard, apparently -- in response to the objection that he was arguing the case in an opening statement, Mr. Big Firm Partner began disguising his arguments by saying "the evidence will show." And he went right back into his scholarly analysis of the origins of the pleadings. "Counsel," I asked, "is the current complaint certified? Were any prior complaints certified? No? Then" -- even at Harvard you should know this -- "there are no admissions to be drawn from the earlier pleadings. They're gone. Let's talk about the case that's on file now."
Somehow, we got through the openings. And through the testimony. I kept sustaining all the objections made by the plaintiff's attorney. ("So, Madame Plaintiff, when you filed your original Complaint, isn't it true that you hadn't yet seen the surveillance video?" So who cares?) Mr. Big Firm Partner and I were terribly respectful of each other. I would sustain the objections "with respect" and he would challenge me "with respect." His smile never wavered. But I understood that he meant "with respect" to mean "eat poison and die." But granting her lawyer's objections was the least I could do for the little old lady plaintiff -- no, actually, come to think of it -- it was the most I could do for her.
She had no case.
This was obvious from the surveillance video. The Summer Associate could have presented this case -- before starting law school -- and surely have done a better job than Mr. Big Firm Partner. (All she needed was to play the tape and shrug her shoulders. That would have been enough.) I don't suppose there is a case that you can't lose -- but this was about as close to an un-lose-able case as was ever filed. Still, Big Law seemed determined to try. When it came time for closing arguments, Mr. Big Firm Partner had one more Big Law trick up his sleeve. "Your Honor," he said -- OK, I liked that -- even though, as a mere arbitration panel chair, I have absolutely no right to such a title -- "we have a motion at this time."
"A motion?" I said. "We don't do motions here." (Motions connected with the arbitration are supposed to be resolved before the arbitration judge before the case gets to us.)
"I have a motion for directed verdict," the Partner said. The plaintiff's attorney started to object, but I cut him off. "We don't hear those motions at an arbitration hearing," I told him. "With respect," I added.
"With respect," he responded, "I really want you to hear this one." He fanned a sheaf of papers that he wanted to put before us.
"I assume your motion contains the law you consider applicable in this case, is that right?"
"Yes, Your Honor, it does."
"I tell you what. We can consider memorandums showing what you believe the applicable case law to be. We'll receive it on that basis." The plaintiff's attorney wanted to object again. "We're not hearing it as a motion," I said. "We will proceed now to hear closing arguments."
Sometimes a defendant in an arbitration will suggest an award that the defense can live with (either side can reject an award and proceed to trial in our system -- most of the time -- just by paying an additional fee). It's not a proper argument, but it might be helpful in some cases. And, in any event, the statement is made and counsel will move on quickly enough that no one would object even if they had a mind to. In the middle of his closing argument, however, Mr. Big Firm Partner launched into a chest-pounding spiel about his client's determination to take this case through to trial if need be. He then started in about Medicare liens and how these would make it impossible to settle the case if we made even a de minimus award and -- and eventually the plaintiff's attorney could not any long sit silent. I sustained the objection.
Big Law had finally left the room. Somehow they seemed to have more stuff going out than when they came in. And that was after they'd divested themselves of the mountain of material on our desk. I and my colleagues sat glumly for a couple of minutes with the door finally closed.
"We don't really have a choice," said one.
"But you know what this means?" asked the other. "We give them an award and they will think they did everything right --"
"-- When they did everything wrong."
I looked helplessly at my colleagues. They looked back, equally stricken. We did what the law required.
But not because of anything Big Law did, but, rather, despite everything Big Law did.
As I've probably mentioned here before, I've sat as an arbitrator in Cook County since the mandatory court-annexed system was begun, probably 25 years ago or more. It is the most part-time of part-time jobs. I get called three, maybe four times a year. Assuming I hear three cases each time (that's the normal maximum), I'll rake in $900 or $1,200 in yearly income from this gig. One can not plan a retirement in the South of France on such princely earnings.
We hear cases as three-lawyer panels, one of the lawyers serving as chair. All three panelists get to decide the case at the end of the hearing, haggling over the award to be given, if any, to the extent that haggling is necessary. The chair fills in the award form when the deliberation is done and, during the hearing, rules on any objections the lawyers might make. It's more fun to be chair; I've always enjoyed it, anyway.
The arbitration hearings are not held in the courthouse, but in rented office space in a nearby building. My courthouse pass doesn't get me past security there; I have to wait in line for a building pass with everyone else.
Recently, on a morning when I'd been called to serve, I was in line behind a middle-aged man with a computer bag, a younger man lugging a box full of binders, and a younger woman carrying another bag and a projector screen. Oh, no, I thought... Big Firm Alert.
Like nuns in the days before Vatican II, Big Firm lawyers never travel alone. They look more like unpacked Russian Dolls when they venture out into the wider world -- the Partner carrying his enormous dignity -- the Senior Associate trailing behind, carrying everything else the Partner should be carrying -- the Junior Associate, trailing behind the Senior, carrying what the Senior Associate would have carried had she been allowed to carry her own stuff -- and so on. Depending on the Importance of the outing, there might be a Junior Partner and a several layers of Associates inserted into the procession, according to rules of strict seniority.
Well, I thought to myself, there are a lot of law offices in this building. They don't have to be going up to the Arb Center; maybe they're here for a deposition or something. But it was only 8:00 a.m. Depositions usually take place later in the day. I began to get an uneasy feeling, especially as it became apparent the next two people in line, obvious civilians, were witnesses associated with the Big Law party. The group got ahead of me and, when I didn't see them milling about when I got in line to check in at the Arb Center, I began to relax a little.
You should never relax.
The assistant administrator who was handling arbitrator check-in that day greeted me by name. I've been acquainted with her for years, since she worked in the Circuit Court Clerk's office, and we chatted a little about her health and the weather. She pulled out a folder, which meant that she was going to ask me to chair a panel this morning. "You know, Curmudgeon," she said, "Room X is my favorite room on the floor. Best view. Most natural light. Very spacious."
I was of course instantly suspicious.
"What are you sending me into?" I asked.
"Oh, nothing," she lied. She wouldn't look straight at me. She knew I knew she was up to no good. "Could you chair Room X for me this morning?" I took the folder without looking at the few papers inside.
The floor is level in the Arbitration Center, but I felt as though I were mounting the steps to the scaffold as I trudged in the direction of Room X. I was like the little kid drafted into playing softball with the big kids and stashed in right field where he could cause the least damage. The little kid, in that circumstance, prays ever more fervently, Please, God, don't let them hit it to me. Running through my mind was something similar: Please, God, not the Big Law case.
Someone always hits a fly ball to the little kid in right field (I was that little kid many times; I know) -- and the Big Law case was waiting for me when I walked in. The Senior Associate was trying to set up the computer to project on the screen; the Partner was directing. The young lady (she was a Summer Associate as it turned out) was trying to assist.
"There will be three panelists?" the Partner asked, with seeming innocence. Only there are no innocent questions in Big Law. I said yes and waited for the follow-up. "Three panelists, eh?" said the Partner. "That's just like the Seventh Circuit." There was a momentary pause. "You know," he continued, "I used to clerk for Judge Y. Wonderful man, Judge Y."
And there it was, I marveled, he was letting me know, as subtly as a brick, about his superior credentials. Of course I knew who Judge Y was; Judge Y had served on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals for many years. But then, Mr. Big Firm Partner inadvertently gave me an opening. "Do we know who the other panelists will be?" he asked.
"Well," I said, "since you're so familiar with the Seventh Circuit, you know that the lawyers there don't know who will hear a case until the panelists come out for the argument." I've got credentials, too, Mr. Big Firm Partner. "Same thing here. I guess in that way we resemble the Seventh Circuit." And only in that way!
Mandatory arbitration hearings here are streamlined by Illinois Supreme Court Rule 90(c). As long as one side (usually the plaintiff) serves the other side with copies of the documents by no later than 30 days before the hearing, all sorts of documents are presumptively admitted by the rule. In fact, one of the reasons why lawyers typically do better at arbitrations of this type than they do at trial has to do with the fact that they get in their medical records and bills without the expense of inconvenience of calling in (or obtaining the evidence deposition of) the treating doctor (or chiropractor). Also, it's really hard to cross-examine the doctor's written report -- the live doctor, however, is far more vulnerable.
Anyway, arbitration hearings begin by asking if the parties have any 90(c) packages for the panel to consider -- and then whether the other side has any objection to that party's 90(c) package. The attorneys will typically have one copy of their 90(c) package for each panelist. Plaintiffs, of course, almost always have a 90(c) package -- the medical records and bills. Defendants almost always don't.
But Big Law was involved in this case. Naturally Big Law had a 90(c) package for its defense client -- and, just as naturally, theirs had three times as many pages as the package submitted by the plaintiff. Now I knew what the box of binders was.
Mr. Big Firm Partner wanted to give me his 90(c) packages before the hearing began. He wanted to give them to me before his opponent even arrived. "No," I told him, "we have to wait until everyone's here."
Eventually, everyone was present and the 90(c)'s were exchanged. I was astounded at how thick the defendant's 90(c) package was -- even though just the "mini" copies of the deposition transcripts were submitted in the 90(c) package -- minis put four pages of the transcript on each single page -- and I began trying to calculate how much the Big Law firm had billed to get the case to this point. A hundred thousand dollars? $200,000? The maximum award that we arbitrators could make was $30,000.... As a once and sometime insurance defense attorney I am quite fond of the saying, "millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute" -- but there is a point where that noble sentiment degenerates into "penny wise and pound foolish." Wherever that point may be, we were far, far beyond it in this case.
And then came time for opening statements.
The case concerned a slip and fall in a store. The elderly plaintiff -- a very nice lady -- was rather rudely pushed by a snot-nosed 11 or 12-year old kid running out of the store as the old lady was trying to come in. The plaintiff lost her balance and toppled to the floor. She knocked down a bar held in place by breakaway guide wires along the way. The whole sorry incident had been captured on a store surveillance tape -- and if that had been all that Big Law wanted to show us at the hearing, I wouldn't be writing this post.
No, Big Law wanted us to see that tape, alright, in real time and in super slo-mo, but also to flash extensive excerpts from party and witness depositions on the screen in conjunction with particular frames of the video and to highlight a detailed exposition of the 'evolution of the plaintiff's pleadings.' The first Complaint, you see, hadn't mentioned the little kid -- clearly evidence of an evil conspiracy to defraud -- notwithstanding the fact that the kid's involvement is reflected in the descriptions of the accident contained in all the different medical records.
You will be pleased to know I did not put my hands on the top of my head and scream uncontrollably. I wanted to, of course, but, instead, I just sustained plaintiff's objection to the 'argumentative' nature of the opening statement. Just like they teach in law school -- even at Harvard, apparently -- in response to the objection that he was arguing the case in an opening statement, Mr. Big Firm Partner began disguising his arguments by saying "the evidence will show." And he went right back into his scholarly analysis of the origins of the pleadings. "Counsel," I asked, "is the current complaint certified? Were any prior complaints certified? No? Then" -- even at Harvard you should know this -- "there are no admissions to be drawn from the earlier pleadings. They're gone. Let's talk about the case that's on file now."
Somehow, we got through the openings. And through the testimony. I kept sustaining all the objections made by the plaintiff's attorney. ("So, Madame Plaintiff, when you filed your original Complaint, isn't it true that you hadn't yet seen the surveillance video?" So who cares?) Mr. Big Firm Partner and I were terribly respectful of each other. I would sustain the objections "with respect" and he would challenge me "with respect." His smile never wavered. But I understood that he meant "with respect" to mean "eat poison and die." But granting her lawyer's objections was the least I could do for the little old lady plaintiff -- no, actually, come to think of it -- it was the most I could do for her.
She had no case.
This was obvious from the surveillance video. The Summer Associate could have presented this case -- before starting law school -- and surely have done a better job than Mr. Big Firm Partner. (All she needed was to play the tape and shrug her shoulders. That would have been enough.) I don't suppose there is a case that you can't lose -- but this was about as close to an un-lose-able case as was ever filed. Still, Big Law seemed determined to try. When it came time for closing arguments, Mr. Big Firm Partner had one more Big Law trick up his sleeve. "Your Honor," he said -- OK, I liked that -- even though, as a mere arbitration panel chair, I have absolutely no right to such a title -- "we have a motion at this time."
"A motion?" I said. "We don't do motions here." (Motions connected with the arbitration are supposed to be resolved before the arbitration judge before the case gets to us.)
"I have a motion for directed verdict," the Partner said. The plaintiff's attorney started to object, but I cut him off. "We don't hear those motions at an arbitration hearing," I told him. "With respect," I added.
"With respect," he responded, "I really want you to hear this one." He fanned a sheaf of papers that he wanted to put before us.
"I assume your motion contains the law you consider applicable in this case, is that right?"
"Yes, Your Honor, it does."
"I tell you what. We can consider memorandums showing what you believe the applicable case law to be. We'll receive it on that basis." The plaintiff's attorney wanted to object again. "We're not hearing it as a motion," I said. "We will proceed now to hear closing arguments."
Sometimes a defendant in an arbitration will suggest an award that the defense can live with (either side can reject an award and proceed to trial in our system -- most of the time -- just by paying an additional fee). It's not a proper argument, but it might be helpful in some cases. And, in any event, the statement is made and counsel will move on quickly enough that no one would object even if they had a mind to. In the middle of his closing argument, however, Mr. Big Firm Partner launched into a chest-pounding spiel about his client's determination to take this case through to trial if need be. He then started in about Medicare liens and how these would make it impossible to settle the case if we made even a de minimus award and -- and eventually the plaintiff's attorney could not any long sit silent. I sustained the objection.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Big Law had finally left the room. Somehow they seemed to have more stuff going out than when they came in. And that was after they'd divested themselves of the mountain of material on our desk. I and my colleagues sat glumly for a couple of minutes with the door finally closed.
"We don't really have a choice," said one.
"But you know what this means?" asked the other. "We give them an award and they will think they did everything right --"
"-- When they did everything wrong."
I looked helplessly at my colleagues. They looked back, equally stricken. We did what the law required.
But not because of anything Big Law did, but, rather, despite everything Big Law did.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)