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Two out of three moments ain't bad
Dec. 14th, 2017 08:43 pmI was hoping to get caught up here tonight, but the Zs are winning. Not surprising; after three trips to Rochester in four days between last Friday and Monday, plenty of busy the two following days and a half-day in Niagara Falls this morning, I'm definitely running on empty here. There were three things I wanted to be sure to write about. You'll get two of them. The third, which I'm still noodling around, will be called "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Moore"- about the night a red state regained its mind and my party regained its mojo.
Later. For now, have some cute cats.
That was our entourage at the vet last night- both due for shots and checkups, and Zoey (on the towel) needing some scratchies and scabbies checked out. (Diagnosis: probably fleas, which she's now on an extended medication for.) Making that picture so much better is the roundup and ride leading up to it. When I bring the carriers up to take them, they run and need to be cornered and wrangled to get them out of the house. Then, Michelle (in the scale, evil) yowls like a banshee the whole way in the car. They resist coming out, but even before the staff begins to handle them and ply them with treats, this is what they turn into: perfect lil angels.
Yeah, right.
So Zo is fine but on the flea med. Michelle checks out remarkably well for being close to 16 (I thought she was turning the same 15 as the dog, but she actually has a year on her). Lil varmint will probably outlive all of us. Then, home and more yowling in the car.
It's what we do.
----
The Falls ultimately took in four different commitments: finally delivering the Traffic Fine From Hell to the appointed court clerk, attending a state court conference in a case where the other parties appeared by phone (and I would've, too, if I hadn't been in town and down the block), and meeting a former bankruptcy client on a non-BK matter.
In between was bankruptcy court itself- a routine hearing with a routine client before a better-than-routine trustee who I get along well with. My case was fine; it's the one before his that brought the story.
They call these hearings the "meeting of creditors," but it's rare for creditors to show up. They're invited but not required to attend. The one ahead of me, someone did. It turned out to be the debtor's ex-wife's divorce attorney. He had apparently already turned in a list of issues with the guy's filing which the trustee was assigned to ask him about. Most of these were about things he left off his papers- the debt for support to the ex-wife, the listings of the divorce and support cases, possibly some side jobs he had- but then we got to the fun part. A credit union was listed in his papers as holding three different (and fairly large) judgments against both him and the ex-wife. The amounts were something like $4,000, $9,000 and $13,000. His bankruptcy would not prevent the credit union from collecting against the ex, and she, in turn, could collect against him for anything she paid. And so, the trustee asked, what were these loans originally for? Let's start with the $13,000. Whereupon, he uttered two words I have never heard in that court in over 30 years in any of thousands of proceedings:
"Boob job."
Yup, he took out a loan so the ex-wife could make some improvements. Then it got even weirder. He didn't actually pay for the boob job with the money borrowed for that purpose, but spent it on paying off credit cards and what we refer to around here, Mafia style, as udda thingza.
This opens all kinds of possibilities besides the boring one of the credit union coming after the ex for the money. Do they have a constructive security interest in the collateral? Does the cosmetic surgeon, who was never paid for the work, have a right of reclamation against the property? Is the ex responsible for unreasonable wear and tear after they are returned?
I puzzled over these briefly, and then my case was called- and ended quickly and without any excess assets being reported. Before going in, I had predicted that things would go smoothly and that, "unless something weird" happened, he could expect to receive a discharge of his bills in a little over two months. So my final words to him (he was there for the previous guy's whole exchange) were these:
Remember what I said about geting your discharge in about two months if nothing weird happened? Well, for you, that's true. For that guy ahead of you, not so much.
I'll probably check the guy's docket around the same time. The ending of a story like that is something you want to keep abreast of.
Later. For now, have some cute cats.
That was our entourage at the vet last night- both due for shots and checkups, and Zoey (on the towel) needing some scratchies and scabbies checked out. (Diagnosis: probably fleas, which she's now on an extended medication for.) Making that picture so much better is the roundup and ride leading up to it. When I bring the carriers up to take them, they run and need to be cornered and wrangled to get them out of the house. Then, Michelle (in the scale, evil) yowls like a banshee the whole way in the car. They resist coming out, but even before the staff begins to handle them and ply them with treats, this is what they turn into: perfect lil angels.
Yeah, right.
So Zo is fine but on the flea med. Michelle checks out remarkably well for being close to 16 (I thought she was turning the same 15 as the dog, but she actually has a year on her). Lil varmint will probably outlive all of us. Then, home and more yowling in the car.
It's what we do.
----
The Falls ultimately took in four different commitments: finally delivering the Traffic Fine From Hell to the appointed court clerk, attending a state court conference in a case where the other parties appeared by phone (and I would've, too, if I hadn't been in town and down the block), and meeting a former bankruptcy client on a non-BK matter.
In between was bankruptcy court itself- a routine hearing with a routine client before a better-than-routine trustee who I get along well with. My case was fine; it's the one before his that brought the story.
They call these hearings the "meeting of creditors," but it's rare for creditors to show up. They're invited but not required to attend. The one ahead of me, someone did. It turned out to be the debtor's ex-wife's divorce attorney. He had apparently already turned in a list of issues with the guy's filing which the trustee was assigned to ask him about. Most of these were about things he left off his papers- the debt for support to the ex-wife, the listings of the divorce and support cases, possibly some side jobs he had- but then we got to the fun part. A credit union was listed in his papers as holding three different (and fairly large) judgments against both him and the ex-wife. The amounts were something like $4,000, $9,000 and $13,000. His bankruptcy would not prevent the credit union from collecting against the ex, and she, in turn, could collect against him for anything she paid. And so, the trustee asked, what were these loans originally for? Let's start with the $13,000. Whereupon, he uttered two words I have never heard in that court in over 30 years in any of thousands of proceedings:
"Boob job."
Yup, he took out a loan so the ex-wife could make some improvements. Then it got even weirder. He didn't actually pay for the boob job with the money borrowed for that purpose, but spent it on paying off credit cards and what we refer to around here, Mafia style, as udda thingza.
This opens all kinds of possibilities besides the boring one of the credit union coming after the ex for the money. Do they have a constructive security interest in the collateral? Does the cosmetic surgeon, who was never paid for the work, have a right of reclamation against the property? Is the ex responsible for unreasonable wear and tear after they are returned?
I puzzled over these briefly, and then my case was called- and ended quickly and without any excess assets being reported. Before going in, I had predicted that things would go smoothly and that, "unless something weird" happened, he could expect to receive a discharge of his bills in a little over two months. So my final words to him (he was there for the previous guy's whole exchange) were these:
Remember what I said about geting your discharge in about two months if nothing weird happened? Well, for you, that's true. For that guy ahead of you, not so much.
I'll probably check the guy's docket around the same time. The ending of a story like that is something you want to keep abreast of.