Hey Hey We’re the Monks, and Other Tails…,

Not tales of woe, but a few tails of doe, from three straight very busy days for me to end last week. Those two led into a very quiet Sunday, and what will likely be an artificially busy day for me today, just because tomorrow, Eleanor’s artificial knee replacement surgery is all systems go. Now that she's cleared her final day-before COVID test, we're on track to head to the outpatient place at 10:30 tomorrow morning for the deed to get done.

On a typical Buffalo workday, I probably average between one and two fixed commitments- be they client appointments, court appearances (which are usually done remotely in office these days) or other work things. I started Thursday with five of them scheduled between 9:30 am and 3:30 pm. The third was moved out a month during the first one, the last one got postponed until today, but the two in between were doozies.

First was meeting one of my own clients, for a routine production of documents and initial case information to respond to a demand by the other side. He was on time and reasonably well prepared, but then we got to a fairly routine question. The case involves  damage to a property he us not the sole owner of. The simple question, therefore, what is the name, address and phone number of the owner of record. This was the not so simple answer to that question:



I told my opponent to let me know if his call gets to her at the monastery.

Next was my first actual meeting with a guy I've been chasing since right before COVID hit three years ago, who was also involved in an even earlier case of mine before that.   My claim is against him personally, but he's been peripherally involved in two corporate bankruptcy cases that operate out of the same location in the Black Rock section of Buffalo.  I'd heard rumblings that he'd stashed a "penis car" under wraps in its premises, so I wanted to get him in before that building complex gets broken up in one of the bankruptcy cases. The car has now been identified as a 1991 Dodge Viper. He also has a 2013 Tesla stashed in his three-car garage at home. He can keep the 1980 Dodge van, far as I'm concerned.  Or maybe he can become a monk and we can have all three of them....

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Friday wound up just as busy, and on the road at that. The road started out clear and dry, but disgusting conditions of sleet, rain and possibly massive snow were threatened, so I was determined to get in and out early.  Again, five stops were involved.

Clients met with, in Rochester: Mohan, Sarah, Ethan.

Client not connected with: Skip.

Opposing lawyer exchanging documents with on the way home: Paul.

Unexpected meeting next to Paul's office with:



Bambi. There were at least six others in the same wooded area next to Paul's office.

After all that travel, and a workout to end the week near his office, I got home just as the rain was starting to come down.  A neighbor had offered Eleanor a never-used recliner she bought a few months back for her sister just before she passed away, and we spent half an hour wrangling it out of the neighbor's house and safely into our garage. I was down for the count by 7:30 that night and didn't rise from the dead until almost the same hour Saturday morning,....

which turned out to be the begining of a third straight busy day.

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Usual Saturday errands to run to office and bank. Then Pepper was off to Petco for her long-scheduled three-month spa visit for a bath and grooming. I picked her up just in time to turn right back around and head to Rochester for a very unusual second day in a row. I did finally connect with Skip, but I was mostly there for tunes at the east side church home of one of the city's longest running series of folk music.

Cafe Veritas runs out of the Unitarian Church that's maybe two miles from our former Methodist home.  Their opening act was a local singer named Lisa Bigwood; her set was short but memorable.



Then, longtime friend and inspiration came out to headline the evening:



This would be the fifth time I've seen Lucy Kaplansky perform over the past dozen or so years, Rochester being the fifth different city to host her (after Buffalo, Syracuse, Hudson and Beacon, New York).  She was open to requests, and right before heading to the venue, I messaged one, after visiting the subject of the request where he's been memorialized outside the cinema at George Eastman's mansion and museum:



Philip Seymour Hoffman was from the Rochester area, but Lucy came to know him in NYC through their kids, who attended the same lower Manhattan elementary school as her daughter. After getting the sad news of his passing, she wrote and eventually recorded this song about him on her last pre-pandemic album:
 

Watch on YouTube

She hadn't played the song in awhile, so she had to check her iPad for chords and such, but it was a moving tribute to the memory of a professional and parent our towns both share.

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All yesterday was for was walking the dog with friends, who quickly tried to make a friend of her own:



We also found a silver lining on some sad news I got from Eleanor right before I left for the show the afternoon before: she'd heard of the passing, the previous weekend, of a Canadian actor named Gordon Pinsent.  He was 92, and we knew him from a long-time recurring role as a bad guy on Republic of Doyle, and from a much kinder and gentler role in Sarah Polley's feature film directing debut called Away from Her. But the film of his Eleanor found was much lighter: The Grand Seduction, from 2013.

Take a big chunk of Local Hero.  Mix thoroughly with the basic premise and quirkiness of Northern Exposure. Pinch in a fairly small amount of lovely lovely controlled substances a la Saving Grace.  Maybe squint and think the cricket bits are kinda like Men With Brooms.

Now set the whole thing on the Rock that is Newfoundland, borrowing a soundtrack from there with the Dardanelles and authentic island music throughout, plus.an AHL roster's worth of cast members from Republic of Doyle. We knew Pinsent was in it, but so are Sean Panting (Jake's lawyer Walter), Steve O'Connell (Leslie's cop partner), Mark Critch (Ned Bishop in several) and several others in one-off appearances.

Awesome stuff, 'by.

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Two more appointments to end the day with, neither of them here yet.  And then, ve operate!