White Mule Society

The Great Man lowered the boom on me today; after the end of January, I need to have found something else for myself. While this is unsettling news, it was not unexpected. To commiserate, Happy Bachelor Lawyer and I met up with the White Mule Society tonight at the brewpub.

You can read about the legend of the White Mule here, on the brewpub's website.

This "White Mule Society" was really just a group of Happy Bachelor Lawyer's drinking buddies who are also attorneys. Trading war stories and the experiences of others who have been through career changes softened the blow somewhat. I still have anxiety about this new house we've bought, but I'm trying to approach the situation with confidence and perspective.

I should be able to land on my feet, at this point. Of course only time will tell. When I completely sober up again, I may start being anxious once more, but for now at least I should be able to get some sleep. After I drink a lot of water.

It was also a very good thing that The Wife came to join us. Otherwise, I'd still be down there trying to sober up. Anyway, it's time to go drink some water.

Are You Ready, Los Angeles?

Los Angeles is finally getting an NFL franchise. More than one, as it turns out. Sheesh; all I needed to do was move away.

Huge Class

My usual online classes are ten to twelve students. My class starting tonight? Twenty-one. I'm going to set it up a little differently than usualy, given the large number of students. If a lot don't drop out, I'm going to have to do a few things -- like my jury simulation -- a lot differently. There's no rule saying a jury has to have twelve people, but that's the most common number and also a manageable one.

Twenty-one students. Yikes. And the tech geeks at University of Phoenix haven't set up my classroom for me yet and I should be watching the Colts and the Steelers on Monday Night Football instead of worrying about my class. Gripe, gripe, gripe...

A Worse Record Than Arizona

On September 27, I pessimistically predicted that the Philadelphia Eagles would guarantee a losing season for the Green Bay Packers, and the Packers would finish the season 4-12. The first half of that prediction has now come true. Green Bay is currently 2-9, along with the Jets and the 49ers. The only team with a worse record is Houston.

Sheesh. Even the New Orleans San Antonio Los Angeles Baton Rouge Saints, the Arizona Cardinals, and the Flaming Thumbtacks of Nashville have managed to eke out three victories each. We lost to Philadelphia's second string. Next up: the amazingly unstoppable-looking Chicago Bears. We may have to wind up getting our remaining two victories from Detroit and Seattle.

Yes, Seattle. The last game of the season will be on New Year's Day. By then, it appears that Seattle will have already locked up home-field advantage before their final game. So, the Seahawks will have no particular incentive to play any of their starters for very long and they will mail in their last game in preparation for the playoffs. You heard it here (well, actually you read it here) first.

Preparing To Return To Work

It's not the most pleasant thought in my mind, to return to work after a long, pleasant weekend. A big meal, off of which The Wife and I ate for two days and of which there is still a little bit more to go; lazy days watching movies and goofing off on the computer; and today, visiting my relative and taking a good 2.1 mile walk on an unusually warm November day. A good weekend.

I'm not expecting a good week at work. The Great Man is supposed to be trying a case; whether this will actually happen or not is a very good question. In all of my previous jobs as an attorney, the end grew near when I felt a sense of foreboding and anxiety as I approached my workplace, and a sense of frustration and impotence when actually there, as though nothing I did mattered to anyone. For a long time, I didn't have that back at my own firm, but I've sure got it now at The Law Office Of The Great Man.

It is evident to me that my contributions to the firm are not so much wanted and appreciated as they are tolerated, at least until something or someone more suitable for The Great Man's purposes comes along. And that may not be the case for much longer anyway. I'm reasonably certain that, having decided to relocate his office to space he unwisely rented in West Knoxville a couple years ago, I will not be making that move. So maybe I have until January 31, 2006. Maybe less. In any event, I admit I've not tried very hard to conceal my attitude of doom and gloom at the office and I will probably not be able to do so even if I were to want to. You walk around with a noose around your neck long enough, it'll start to affect your attitude as well.

Well, on the plus side, my fantasy football team has done pretty well again this weekend; so that's a plus. The Flying Spaghetti Monsters have been in the lead for nine straight weeks now and there's five weeks left in the regular season. I have cause to be optimistic there. It may be sad to think that I've only got fantasy football to look forward to, and the fact is that I don't. The apparently inevitable job switch will inevitably result in me being more happy than I am, although I do not relish the thought of going through that very much. The new house will be good, too. I am looking forward to that. I've got The Wife and our critters around me, we've made some friends here in Tennessee, and if worse comes to worse there is an option in California to fall back on.

I need to remember that I do have options and I don't have to put up with mind f*cks. I need to remember that I am a good lawyer and I will be an asset to whatever firm or employer winds up realizing that; while The Great Man seems to have lost sight of that fact, others will not. And, of course, I need to remember that I've got a great support network of people around me. So when I tell myself that it's not so bad as I fear tomorrow, on my way in to the office, I should believe it and take the whole situation with a grain of salt and a sense of humor -- gallows humor, perhaps, but humor nonetheless.

The real test, of course, is not what I write tonight but what actually happens tomorrow.

Pajama Day

The Wife and I will sometimes have Pajama Day. This can only happen on the weekends and we do it when we're just too damn lazy to do anything all day long. We hang out and read and watch TV and goof off in our pajamas all day long. Today's Pajama Day will be punctuated by a pizza delivery. Yes, it's that pizza named after a board game with moveable pieces that isn't really very good, but that's the only place that will delivery out here to The Estate At Louisville and we've both had quite enough Thanksgiving leftovers for the time being, thank you very much. But the point of Pajama Day is to just relax, enjoy ourselves, and not have to stress for a while. I defeated that purpose by teaching today, and The Wife did some studying, but aside from that, we've been able to cool out pretty good. I played Civ IV, at least until the computer crashed; we watched Miller's Crossing on DVD, we played with the dogs and cats, and now we'll just eat pizza and relax. We'll have plenty of work to do in the upcoming weeks and months.

Grading Papers

Today, I spent most of the day teaching. The most tedious part of being an online instructor is grading papers. What makes this process so tedious is the very, very poor quality of the writing I see. Today's crop of papers was unusually awful. Misused apostrophes and commas were just the beginning. Incomplete sentences, homophones, and inchoate words strung together as if they meant something. Citations to authority were virtually absent and I found two instances of out-and-out plagiarism which I will have to report to Academic Affairs. Grading papers took me more than five hours and I felt more like a grammar instructor than a law teacher.

Props to the first commenter who can figure out why I posted this particular picture for this particular topic.

Ambitious Cooking

I've never cooked a full Thanksgiving meal before, and now that I've been the captain of such a ship, I realize that I never will. The project is simply too big for one person to undertake. In this case, The Wife helped out by making her carrot soufflé (not a true soufflé, because it doesn't have eggs, but don't tell her that) and a pumpkin pie; Pam and Andrew brought over Pam's Yams and spiced apple cider.

That left for me, the green bean casserole (with hand-fried onions), the mashed potatoes, an apple-cranberry pie with walnut topping, the stuffing, the cranberry-orange sauce, and... something else. Oh, yes. The bird (and his gravy). I'm pretty proud of myself; the only things not made from scratch were the pie shell, the stuffing, and the gravy base. As to the gravy, the bird was only a breast, so I knew he wasn't going to make enough drippings for meaningful gravy; I used such drippings as he gave to the gravy and made it super-tasty. What with the instant stuffing being so cheap, I didn't feel bad about that, and the same with the pie shell.

The bird is the biggest challenge of a Thanksgiving dinner. My bird got to sit in lemon-garlic brine for two and a half days while he thawed out from the freezer; he got dressed with garlic and herbs and cooked under a couple strips of bacon for fat and moisture and as a result, he came out really moist and juicy.

None of the individual dishes are very difficult, including the bird. What's complex and challenging is the extent of the prep work involved, and then timing everything to be ready at more or less the same time. The Wife and I got the sauce and the pies ready the night before, and everything else I sat down and mapped out on a spreadsheet schedule so I would know when everything needed to start and finish. The result was an on-time dinner, with everything hot and fresh and yummy. Pam, Andrew, the Wife, and I ate our fill of plentiful, delicious, all-American food, and when we were hungry again, we ate pie. And while Thanksgiving food is super-yummy, it is also kind of high-fat and you can't make a constant habit out of eating like that. Andrew got so much turkey and wine in him he had to take a nap. When I saw that, I pronounced the dinner a great success.

I particularly enjoyed our toasts to what we were thankful for and to me that was one of the high points of the night. It's nice to know that we are all grateful for the same things -- most of all for the people we love, and for the opportunities and the bounty we can enjoy in our lives, and for our freedom and our friends. To my former law partner and all his colleagues serving overseas, we took time to remember you -- and while we toasted you with wine and not water, you were in our thoughts.

Overall, it was great fun and I would gladly do it again. Just not tomorrow night; I need a rest. All-told, I probably spent nine to ten hours prepping, cooking and cleaning -- especially cleaning. We had to run our itty-bitty dishwasher four times that day and it felt like I spent more time cleaning dirty dishes and putting clean ones away than I spent handling food and making it ready. My feet and back were pretty sore by the end of the day and I must have slept for ten hours last night. But it was great and a reminder of why the Thanksgiving feast is such a great American tradition.

He's Back. And He's Bitter.

Michael Reynolds, the George Carlin of political bloggers, has apparently re-activated his highly amusing and often inspirational rant sheet. I guess Congressman John Murtha's recent declarations about the war, and the White House's response, really pissed him off.

A Vision Of My Future

I resigned my duties as manager of the firm yesterday night. I'm not entirely sure how The Great Man really feels about that; he was very sedate in a staff meeting to discuss it and he seemed to grievously misunderstand the reasons why I did it despite having made myself as clear as I possibly could.

I say "not entirely sure." But that doesn't mean I don't have an educated guess. With The Great Man's recent obsession with overhead, his avowed desire to "slow down" and have a smaller office, his past expressions of resentment of my insistence that I be paid for my work in the form of money, his previous disdain for the management decisions that I did make, his refusal to take my advice for how to change things, and the recent fireworks regarding the handling of a vendor and a personnel issue, I have a pretty clear vision of what my future at The Law Offices Of The Great Man looks like:

And just after agreeing to buy a house, too -- this comes right at a time when I need financial stability more than ever. But I don't think I had a choice to do anything but what I did, and even if I hadn't, something tells me the result would have been the same anyway. At least this way, I can hold my head high and feel like I did the right thing on the way down. That won't feed my family or pay my mortgage, but then again, that would have been the inevitable result anyway. So it's high time I update my C/V.

Krauthammer

Sometimes I agree with Charles Krauthammer, sometimes I do not. Friday in the Washington Post, he was as eminently sensible as I can ever remember him being.

And yes, this is an old saw for me. But it's important. Either we're going to teach our children science or we're going to teach them theology. It's high time that America walks through that ivory door and rejoins the twenty-first century.

Millennium

Congratulations, Loyal Readers. In less than a month, you've generated a thousand hits on this blog. In that time, I've complained about video games, mused about the weather, expounded about esoteric legal subjects, reivewed books you've never heard of and movies you've already seen, published pictures of my pets, and told you fairy tales. Yet you keep coming back.

Either I'm doing something right or you're all desparately hungry for gossip.

Through The Ivory Door

Today, The Wife and I learned of a fascinating play written in 1928 by A.A. Milne, the author of the famous Winnie-the-Pooh books. Milne wrote this play, The Ivory Door, for adults. It is told as a fairy tale. Near as I can tell, the name of the play comes from a chapter of a novel by Lewis Carroll. The story goes something like this:

The eight-year-old Prince Perival barges into the throne room where his father, the king, is doing some sort of kingly business. The king sets his work aside to speak to his father.

"Father, is it true that I will be king one day.”

“Yes,” the king says, “When I am dead, you will be king.”

“When will you die?”

“I don’t know; no one knows.”

The young price was now upset. “But they say that kings know everything!”

“They say that, my son, but a thing is not true just because many men say it.”

“They say that kings are the best swordsmen, the most clever artists, and the wisest leaders of all men, too.”

“Yes, son, they say this, but not all kings are good swordsmen, or good artists, or even wise, I am afraid. We are men, and we do the best we can. Surely you know that you are not the best swordsman in the court; Baram is.”

The young prince thinks for a second, unhappy about what his father has said. Then he remembers the first part of his talk with his father. “What will it be like when you are dead?”

“No one knows, son. The chaplain says that I will go to heaven. Others, I am sure, think that I may go to hell. The jester says that there is no heaven or hell. But no one knows for sure.”

“Father, what is behind the ivory door?”

At this, the king bristles. He interrogates his son, “Who told you about the ivory door?”

“Father, everyone in the kingdom speaks of the ivory door. It is supposed to be here, in your throne room, and they say that there are evil spirits who live behind it and use the door to come into and out of the world. But I’ve never seen one of these spirits here, and I don’t think you’d want evil spirits here in the throne room.”

“No, son, I don’t, but I don’t know what’s behind that door. The truth is, I’ve never opened it. It’s behind the great tapestry here, but no one has gone into it since your grandfather, King Stephen. He went into the door and was never heard from again. I do not dare enter.” The king pulled the tapestry aside, and showed his son the ivory door. “I do not know if there are evil spirits or not, son, but I dare not tempt them.”

“Father,” the young prince asked, “If it is not true that you are the best swordsman, or the wisest man, or the most clever artist, what else do they say about you that is not true?”

“Son, they say that when I met your mother, I snuck out of the castle, disguised as a peasant, and met her, also in disguise, and we fell in love the day before we were married. But no, as with the custom of the day, I did not meet your mother until the wedding ceremony. I have only come to love her after marrying her. No, our marriage was arranged by my father, for political reasons. This will be the way with you, too, when the time comes, for a king’s marriage is a matter too important to be otherwise.”

And many years later, it came to pass that young prince Perival, now twenty years old and king himself upon his father’s death, was to be married. His betrothed was Princess Lillia, the daughter of a king from a neighboring kingdom. Perival did not meet Lillia, but the tale was told exactly as had been told for his father. On the day before his wedding, Perival spoke to the Captain of the Royal Guard, Baram.

“Baram, today is my last day as a single man, accountable only to myself. I wish to learn what lies beyond that ivory door.”“No, Your Majesty!” Baram protested. “You, of all people, should know your responsibilities, and know what lies beyond that door. Evil spirits and death await you if you forsake your kingdom!”

“I’ve never believed any of that, Baram, and as you king, I command you to let me go.”

Baram bowed. “Very well, Majesty. But if you are gone too long without giving me some signal that you have returned, I shall sound the bell that you are dead. Will three hours be enough time for you?”

“Yes, Baram; surely I will be back in three hours’ time.”

And so King Perival opened the ivory door and went through. And not thirty minutes later, did he come out of a secret passage by the river, outside the town and castle. Covered with dirt and filth from the passageway, all his fine royal clothes had been torn and shredded, and many of his jewels had gone missing in the passage. But King Perival knew of where he was, for he could see his own castle and town in the distance, and he heard travelers moving along a path nearby. So he set out to return to his town and his castle.

Along the way, he met troupe of mummers. The mummers did not recognize him, and thought it a fine joke to hear that this dirty, penniless man dressed in torn clothing claimed to be the King. For the amusement of himself and his fellow travelers, one of the mummers tried to teach this itinerant how a King should act, which in turn amused Perival greatly. So greatly indeed, that Perival lost track of time and nearly the entire three hours had passed by the time the mummers’ party arrived at the gates of the town. At the town gates, the guards let the mummers in, but would not allow Perival to enter.

“But I am the King!” protested Perival.

“You are no King of mine,” said the guard. “Ho! We have an imposter here! You know that in this kingdom, impersonating royalty is punished with death, do you not, villain?”

“Aye, I do, but I do not impersonate your king – I am your King and I command you to stand aside!”

At this, the guards seized Perival and took him to the dungeon. But along the way, the bells tolled in alarm – the signal that the King was dead!

The jailer at the dungeon looked at Perival and cried, “O how much like the late King does this man look! Surely he is one of the evil spirits from behind yon ivory door who now impersonates the King! Yet he looks different; the spirits of evil are no match for the keen eye of the good and wise men of the realm, even bereaved of our beloved ruler as we!”

“Fool!” cried Perival. “Your king lives; he stands before you; he is I and I am he! I have gone through that ivory door and found nothing but a dark passage out to the river outside of the town gates. There are no evil spirits, only the roots of trees and sharp rocks, which tore my clothes on my way!”

The jailer’s face turned white. “Lies! Lies! Foul demon, be silent!” And with that, he threw Perival into the dungeon.

Meanwhile, in the throne room, Princess Lillia entered and spoke with Baram. “Why do you sound the bells so early, Captain? Surely the King is not dead!”

“For the King is gone three hours and that was the time he commanded me to wait before sounding the bells. The story is told that none who enter the ivory door live and none but evil spirits emerge from it.” At this point, the castle’s chaplain burst into the throne room, crying that the guards had captured an evil demon who was impersonating the late king.

“Surely,” Princess Lillia protested, “You do not want your King to be dead!”

“The people, my dear Princess, would rather the King be dead than their beliefs be false,” replied Baram. “Chaplain, waste no more time with the demon; I shall examine him soon enough. Go and find the King’s brother, who is next in line for the throne, and proclaim, ‘The King is dead, long live the King!’”

“Nonsense!” cried Princess Lillia. “I know nothing of evil spirits, and I shall show you all that this so-called demon is your right and true king, and my betrothed!” And she pulled open the ivory door and ran through it, before the chaplain and Baram could stop her.

Now, Lillia, too, became very dirty and her fine clothes were also also ruined by the time she emerged by the river, blinking in the bright sunlight. Yet she made her way back to town, and she, too, was arrested by the guards, who said that she was no princess and instead was a peasant impersonating a royal. She too was taken to the dungeon.

There, the jailer said to her, “If ye truly be the princess, then surely ye can see who among the prisoners here is the man you say is the King. For we all know that the Princess and the King met last night in the forest, both escaping your royal confinement, and fell in love while in disguise. Show me, then, your beloved!”

But Lillia had in truth not yet met her fiancé, as was the custom of the day, and of the prisoners in the dungeon, all looked the same – filthy, wretched knaves, every one. “I cannot, jailer, but I am the Princess all the same! Surely you know this story is told as a romance, so that all the people will believe that the marriage is for love and not for politics between your kingdom and my father’s. Yet all wise men know better; pray release me and let me marry my King, and perchance grow to live him as my mother grew to love my father over time.”

“Silence! You too are a foul demon, more dangerous than even he, and I will not hear you!”

Perival and Lillia then spoke for the first time. “My Lord,” Lillia asked, “How is it that we have come to be here?”

“I see now, Lillia, that you are a fine match for me and would that we had met last night. You see, when I emerged from that tunnel, I found that all the stories about the evil spirits were not true. Just like you, all I found was a secret path to the river. Yet none had the courage to see for themselves what was truly there. When I came out, and cried to the world that there was no abyss, there were no demons or spirits, and that the tunnel was harmless, what my people heard was me calling them fools and cowards. I was the fool, to expect that they would be grateful for this.”

Lillia spoke as would a princess, “You speak true, Perival; for I see now that your people would sooner sacrifice their King and Princess than admit their cowardice. We can only hope that there are other brave souls who will speak the truth and help us.”

Now, the King’s brother had not yet been found, and the chaplain, the jailer, and merchants from the town all were gathering in response to the rumors that the King had been found alive, and other rumors that a demon had come to impersonate the King and trick the entire realm. So it was that Perival and Lillia were thrown in to a crowded throne room, for the townspeople said, “Surely, if anyone shall know who the true King is, it will be his best friend and Captain of his Royal Guard, Baram, and he shall decide for us all.” And with that, Baram had Perival and Lillia summoned to the throne room.

The crowd gathered in a circle as Baram looked at the dirty couple. He leaned in close to them, and said, “You have but one chance to live. They will never believe me if I say you are the King and the Princess, and this you will never be again. You must go through the ivory door again, and leave the Kingdom and never return; else you will be executed. This I do because we were once friends.”

Perival whispered back, “But, Baram, we are royals! We are not wise in the ways of the world? What is to become of us? Am I to be a merchant? Is she to become a washer-woman? We know nothing of such things!”

“Do not take our stories from us!” whispered back Baram, and with that he stepped away from the two prisoners in the circle. “This,” he cried, “is not your King!" And Baram, to his dying day, believed he spoke true. Baram went on, "We shall send them back from whence they came!” And so the chaplain opened the ivory door and the jailer forced the two in.

For this, Baram was given the title of Savior of the Realm. Lillia and Perival were never heard from again.

The story ends, a hundred years later, with a new King on the throne being asked by his young son whether the legendary Baram was really a hero.

Winter

It seems like just last week I mused about how we've had a short, lackluster autumn.

I can stop complaining about that now. It feels like winter. Most of the trees are bare, the temperature couldn't possibly have topped forty degrees today, and the wind is blowing cold and bitter. Oh, and it's raining more frequently now, too. I hated the winter last year and this one isn't looking to be that much more fun. At least this winter I'll have a job (I hope) instead of sitting home trying to eke out a living teaching online classes and doing low-budget appeals.

Now that I think about it, doing the appellate work wasn't so bad. If only I could get a steady line of it, and get paid reliably for doing it, I would love to stay at home and write appeals all day long. That, however, is not to be -- any more than is a long, pleasant autumn.

Life's Too Short For Days Like Today

One of The Great Man's clients misbehaved pretty badly earlier this week, and The Great Man himself has had some travelling to do, which evidently takes a greater toll on him than he would like to admit. Why is this important? Well, when The Great Man is having a bad day, that means that everyone is going to have a bad day, now that I'm supposed to be "managing" the firm's day-to-day operations, that certainly includes me. I got very little done today thanks to having to put out a particularly troublesome fire.

In addition, I find that The Great Man is apparently second-guessing every significant decision I've been making for the past two weeks. He's expressed dissatisfaction recently with:

▪ How I've permitted the bookkeeper to pay our bills -- this after she was given ambiguous instructions by The Great Man himself and did her best to comply with them;
▪ The space I've been trying to lease to move the office into -- this after I was told to get into this exact space;
▪ How I've been handling negotiations with Happy Bachelor Lawyer regarding his relationship with the firm -- this after I asked for his priorities on that subject and embodied them in the latest round of that apparently interminable negotiation;
▪ Allocating tasks to specific personnel based on my assessment of their strengths and abilities -- this after I consulted him and got his specific approval on the decision in question, in response to a concern he raised himself;
▪ Desiring to discontinue a disadvantageous relationship with an oppressive creditor -- this after admitting that the relationship was disadvantageous;
▪ Accepting or rejecting particular cases based on my assessment of the merits and potential recovery -- this after being told by him what criteria we should use to make those assessments;
▪ Giving the staff Veteran's Day off work -- this after he specifically approved my request to do so.

Dealing with all these fires today not only took far too much time away from my real work, it caused me, and several of the others, unnecessarily high levels of stress. At several points, voices were raised high enough to be heard downstairs, and tears came close to being shed, and that's no way to treat people -- particularly when there is a problem that needs to be solved, the priority should be on solving the problem, not on yelling at people for it.

I wound up not eating anything at all today until about 3:00 p.m., when Son-Of-The-Great-Man's paralegal took mercy on me and gave me a pear she had been planning on eating. I must have been a sorry sight.

Look, I never exactly asked for these management responsibilities, but having been given them nonetheless, I intend to do as good a job with them as I can. I think that I can do a good job, given the opportunity to do so. We have all the tools we need to make it happen. There are plenty of good cases there, and people who can provide the support we lawyers need to turn those good cases into good resolutions. Why any of them stay after days like today is beyond me. Why I am staying is a good question, too -- mainly it's because I see all the potential and I want to realize at least a significant fraction of it.

But I don't have a lot of confidence right now in The Great Man's commitment to letting me make the changes that need to be made to realize that goal. It's like he doesn't want to do anything more remarkable than tread water, so he sabotages even his own great successes. I already don't want to do this "management," and if there proves to be much more in the future like today, then I don't know whether I can continue "management" of this chaotic mess.

Tonight's the night

Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!

Or so cry the wine enthusiasts. There are all sorts of traditions around the release of each year's new crop of Beaujolais. Bicycle and motorcycle races to get the first case of the stuff from the château to fashionable salons in Paris; chartered flights to take it to the U.S. and London. It's supposed to be a precursor of how that year's Burgundy will taste when it matures. That makes some sense; it's from the same part of France. But if it were made the same way it would be Burgundy, not Beaujolais, and that would mean that it would be too young to drink until at least after the end of the second Bush Administration.

I used to go to the French-American Chamber of Commerce mixer for the Beaujolais premiere, hoping to network and make business contacts. For my trouble driving from Redondo Beach to the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, during rush hour (a ninety-minute trek if I was lucky) I got to wander around a crowded hall with people who either wouldn't talk to me because I wasn't thin enough or were useless Hollywood fops looking for someone to read their screenplays. Well, what did I expect, going to a public party in Los Angeles? But on top of that, I discovered that Beaujolais, in addition to being the subject of a lot of silly wine-snob hype, turns out to be thin, weak-tasting semi-sweet grape juice with all the subtlety and complexity of a sheet of copy paper.

Now, you don't need much of an excuse to have a party and drink wine. And if that excuse happens to be that it's the stroke of midnight on the third Thursday of November, well, that's as good an excuse as I've heard anywhere else. But this is cheap, young wine. No need to get excited about it. So to Beaujolais Nouveau, I say "Merci, mais non." I'll stick with my Big Italians; my Chiantis and Dolcettos and Sangioveses and Valpolicellas and Montepulcianos.

When Things Go "Yowwrrrl" In The Night

Last night I was not in the best of moods. I'd spent all day being stressed out at work, because I've got that terrible sinking feeling again -- the one that comes when I fear that important deadlines and objectives are passing me by, and I'm now swamped with administrative tasks. So after all day of trying to ride through that maelstrom, then I got to run back home to take care of the critters and then get back downtown to meet The Wife after her class. My time ordering food at the drive-thru was the only time I had to myself the whole day -- and the food was terrible; I felt more than a little sick to my stomach afterwards. Once I got home, it was time to teach but I had to put that off because somehow, Ginger the cat had got outside and was hiding underneath the front porch, scared to death of the rainstorm that was going on. After The Wife and I located and rescued her, I could finally sit down and teach. My students were behaving badly (turning in tests late, not in the format that I require, and requiring a lot of hand-holding). So when I finally shut down and got ready for bed, I remembered that The Wife had asked me to rinse out a couple of wine glasses from the previous night that were still on her shelf.

So I started walking downstairs with the wine glasses to do that, when I felt something warm and hairy slithering under my foot. It took me about a quarter of a second to realize that it was Jordan, the Soccer Ball Kitty -- I had stepped on not only her tail but part of one of her rear legs. She let out a yelp, and so did I. I was really afraid that I'd hurt her. The cat scampered downstairs, The Wife woke up, and I felt terrible.

The cat is okay, and she later forgave me for my clumsiness. The Wife was eventually able to fall back asleep. So it all worked out, but all the same, it was not the best night on record.

It's Just A Phase

Upon arriving home and feeding the dogs tonight, I rushed back downstairs and turned out all the lights in the house. That was because driving home, I noticed a particularly bright Venus in the sky, and she was setting fast. I pulled out the telescope and pointed it right above the treeline, and found my target. To my delight, she was not only beautifully bright, reflecting a gorgeous blue-white color, but she was in a half phase, like a half moon. So often, things in the sky appear only like tiny dots, so when I can resolve in such detail, it's a real pleasure.

And literally just a few minutes ago, the Space Station flew overhead and I could track it with my naked eye. It just looked like a star, but it moved -- fast -- across the northwest sky. Not quite as bright as Venus, but well brighter than anything else.

Front Porch

In response to numerous requests from Loyal Readers, here is a picture of the future Casa TL-and-Wife.


There are a lot more pictures I've got, but they're of either an empty interior or the present owner's stuff, so that's not so interesting. But the front porch should give you some idea of what we're getting in to. The house is the second-to-last house on a cul-de-sac. It sits on a fairly small lot, less than a quarter acre. The current owner reports to us that it takes him between half an hour and forty-five minutes to mow the entire lawn with a push mower (which he is including in the purchase price since he is moving into an apartment and will not need it).

There is a fenced-in back yard (for the doggies) and some nice if ordinary landscaping out front. Inside, it's a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit. It has a wide-open kitchen design. In back there is a small screened-in porch and an extension of the concrete pad. There are horseshoe pits in back, too -- which I'm sure the dogs will enjoy digging in. We will probably use at least one of the bedrooms for an office, although with the laptop I am less dependent upon having a particular area to do my work than is The Wife -- who also has enjoyed using the laptop when we've gone mobile.

The Wife and I are talking pretty seriously about putting in a Pergo floor in place of the existing builder-standard carpeting. It looks nicer, is easier to maintain (especially when there are lots of critters shedding fur) and will add value to the house in substantially excess of the cost of materials. We have had lots of fantasies about extending the kitchen counter, either longer or in a penninsula. But for the time being, we're probably just going to paint and Pergo, and maybe update the light fixtures. That's enough to get us started and it will certainly elevate the appearance of the house above the "starter home" look.

Pride in Ownership

The more I think about it, the more awesome it seems that we're going to have our own house. I've wanted to own my own house for as long as I can remember understanding the concept of real property. Somehow in my bones I've always known that was what it meant to be a real person, to have real roots and a real stake in society -- and for society to have a real stake in you. This is why The Wife and I left a very enjoyable lifestyle in California to come out here. This is why we both work so hard at what we do. This is why we've put ourselves through everything we've been through, so that this could happen.

I know it'll be a lot of work. We already have some disagreements about how to improve the place, although those will work out without much trouble. I'm working my ass off at the office, and at home teaching, to make sure we have the money to keep this thing working. We'll have a lot of choices to make before we move in, which probably won't happen until January. And yes, I know that nothing is done until it's done and there's all sorts of things that can go wrong between now and the closing date. But the biggest hurdles have already been overcome with being approved for a loan, and having our offer accepted by the seller.

Now that I have a moment after teaching and grading classes to think about it, I realize that I'm going to have to come up with a clever name for our new house. It won't be as posh as The Estate At Louisville, but our new house in North Knox will be ours. That means something. It's something we most likely could never have done in California, no matter how hard I worked there, pretty much no matter how much money I made there.