Occupation: Fooles

I've kept largely out of the discussion of the whole Occupy movement of the past few weeks, but there's nothing like personal experience with the enemy to bring it all home.

A client dropped off a notification from his bank, requesting the forwarding to them of some Very Important Information. This would be the same bank that spent countless hours of my time and thousands of the bank's money fighting with the clients in court so they could proceed to do, pretty much, absolutely nothing for the ensuing year. 

Ah, but now they've suddenly awakened and demanded that they FORWARD PROOF OF PAYMENT WITHIN FIFTEEN (15) DAYS OF THIS LETTER TO THE ADDRESS LISTED IN THE COUPON BELOW.

There is no coupon.  Nor is there, anywhere on the letter, any indication of their address.  And I know why: some genius lawyer advised them not to send statements, to allow any routine or regular means of payment, or even print such a coupon, because of some 30-year-old case from the Eastern District of Buttfuck which held that such things violated the automatic stay in a bankruptcy case (a stay which, in this bankruptcy case, said bank already has an order relieving it from).

But there is a phone number. A toll-free one. Never a good sign. So I called it. And, through a phone tree bigger than a California Redwood, heard every conceivable option that could apply to these clients' situation (in my choice of languages, of course), before finally landing on a low-hanging branch containing a reference to a PO Box in, where else?, Texas.

Must be a call center with all those Perry Miracle minimum wage jobs. Except, having never spoken to a human being in the entire process, I have serious doubts if there actually are any there. I'm thinking it's more along the lines of Mister Spock running an entire planet through a multi-sporked helmet surrounding his brain.

PS: if you didn't catch the reference in the header? It's to this:



It's one of the many George Carlin albums I virtually memorized when I was a kid, and perhaps the most famous for containing the actual riff on the "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" that got a New York radio station in trouble and produced the obscenity case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. 

And so, I present the new motto of the World's Local Bank, now that they've completely reductio'd themselves down to total absurdum:

http://www.clayloomis.com/Sounds/carlin10b.wav

Occasions.

A very dear friend- among the best I've never met- turns 50 today. Sharon took the picture of Dana Brand that graces- a word carefully chosen- the cover of our memoir of him. She wasn't able to make it to the tribute in July, but I keep in touch with her blogging, her posts in both of the main social media thingies, and her Amazin' efforts to raise funds and awareness for the Tug McGraw Foundation.

She's been leading up to this happy occasion in her life with photos and emotions and, ultimately, affirmations of how much better a place she's in now.  Here are her words seen just now:

Many years ago, when Gloria Steinem turned forty, reporters were amazed at how good she looked. Her offhand reply, in Gloria's inimitable fashion, was, "This is what forty looks like."

Forty wasn't as kind to me as it was to Gloria. I was heavier, I wasn't in great shape, and I didn't feel very good about myself.

The past decade has been a momentous one for me. Two of my children graduated from high school, and one from college; I earned my MLIS; I lost 38 pounds on Weight Watchers; I ran the New York City Marathon; and I recently re-entered the workforce. I'm in the best shape of my life, and I am feeling really good about myself.

I don't generally shoot selfies for this project, but I wanted to do one on the occasion of my 50th birthday. This is what Fifty looks like on me, and it's a helluva lot better than Forty looked :)



I started my fairly Routine Fifty Reply post to Sharon- about how memorable the occasion was for me two Novembers ago, and not just for the general societal stuff tied to the occasion. No, I started to say, I had a special attachment to 50 because it was the year I outlived my oldest sister, who we'd lost, years ago, at the age of 49, to a variety of evil demons, mosly contained within bottles.

As I typed, the reality finally settled in:

No, Ray, we didn't lose Sandy "years ago," although it's been 23 of them now.

We lost her 23 years ago today.

Maybe that's a subconscious piece of how I've been feeling today. I woke up way early, sore and chilled, had trouble getting back to sleep, and ultimately called off some out-of-town appointments today so I could take a physical and a little bit mental health day. I wonder if I knew- and yet I always know. Not a day goes by when the essence of our sister does not come into our lives, our words, our actions.

She'd have been a tough 72-year-old broad, that one- saddened by the losses of mother and husband that followed, yet thrilled to pieces by the niece and grandchildren who've become our family's wholly unexpected Next Generation.  Had she seen, and conquered, the demons in those bottles, and the others in her life- our lives- that led her to them, those lives, and all of our world, would be an even better place now than she made it through the 49 years she did give us.

I wasn't all that great at 50 compared to 40, but 51 was a helluva lot better. In recent years, I've shed a lot of weight, not all of it of the physical kind; there's been some backsliding in recent weeks (at least one person noticed it enough to say something to Eleanor, and neither scales nor energy levels lie to me, either), but I'm still in a far better place than I was when I attended the funeral of Sandy's husband, on my (and his) birthday four years ago. That was me at my heaviest weight, and close to my heaviest of heart.  I'm furthering my resolve to keep on the path I began on last year to make me a better place, and since I can think of no better place to do that than the gym, I shall stop these meanderings and go get my ass there apace.

But not before wishing the best of blessings to Sharon (and thanking her for the inspirations, both intentional and accidental), and telling my sister, and all who knew and love her, how important she still is to me.