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Mother. May. I.
May. 12th, 2023 09:55 pmThree really unrelated goings-on in life that will be summed up here. Breaking the order of the title, I'll start with "I" (as in my crazy day yesterday), move to "May," and end with the feels I do not get to feel about being a "Mother."
So, my day Thursday and welcome to it: The icon is from one of the true icons of my comedy upbringing from right around 50 years ago: a full-side parody by Firesign Theatre, of a Chandler/Spillane style film noir radio 1940s program. "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger" played on so many levels of humor, wordsmithing and genre-breaking. I can still recite it almost verbatim and at least once a week, one of its punchlines will work its way into my mind if not actual conversation. The bit took up the entire second side of this vinyl album of theirs, but Side One is a more stream-of-consciousness running gag that is essentially the title track of the album; Firesigner Phil Austin, who chews the scenery off the groove as the voice of Nick Danger on the other side of the record, even sings the title of the album at one point:
♫ How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All?♫
Only TWO places? That's cute. Because my day yesterday required being in FOUR PLACES at once, with stress to match.
----
Day Three of the arbitration from hell was back on April 26th. We'd hoped it would be the last one, but nothing here has gone as planned, and before my client and I left that day, we'd set May 11th, now known as "yesterday," for its continuation. When we scheduled it, I had a weird empty one-hour mark on my calendar that day at 2 p.m., but I had no recollection of what it was for, or if it even was an aborted attempt at an entry that didn't really exist. Last week, that became clear: it was real, a Zoomish call for another client in a foreclosure case who is very nervous and needy. I could've taken a break from the arbitration for it, as I eventually did, but then the arbitration client tried to beg off the May 11th date completely after sitting next to me while we scheduled it.
Meanwhile, a third commitment popped up: in Erie County, certain town court matters are still being referred to a "hub court" in downtown Buffalo, also done all Zoomy style. At the beginning of last week, my May 2nd court date in West Seneca had morphed into a virtual court appearance at, what else? 2 p.m. on May 11th. I tried using this, and my client's sudden unavailability, to beg out of the all-day arbitration yesterday- and failed. But they did promise I could use "a room" in the arbitrator's building to step out for, now, both of them.
So why not a fourth? THAT one showed up Wednesday morning, but would be at 9 a.m. by phone, before our arbitration's start time of 9:30. I emailed everybody to ask if I could come in and use that "room" for it, and that it could take anywhere from five minutes to the full half hour. They were cool with it, so I left for his office stupid early yesterday to be sure I didn't get into a traffic jam on the 90, did my prep from a Timmy's on Union Road, and hit the "room" right at 8:55....
to find that the "room" in question was apparently last used by Schrödinger. A room, to be sure, but no desk, no phone, not even a chair. And no time to grab any of same, so I did that phone hearing Indian-style on the floor; when it took the full allotted half hour, my legs were basically asleep.
Hell then proceeded until 1:55, as it did on each of the previous three occasions, and I excused myself for my pair of Zooms, this time hauling a chair and this laptop up there. "This laptop," however, had been in semi-constant use since before 8:15, and when I logged into Hearing One, with Hearing Two on my phone, I watched as my laptop decided to take a long spring's nap with its battery having just died on me. But not before both judges on both Zooms yelled at me for not muting them until my case was called.
Eventually, both were. Adjourned, both were- a win in the foreclosure case once I finally got to that one on the phone (I had to switch to one of the arbitrator's landlines because the judge muted me and couldn't figure out how to unmute), a pain in the "hub" case but I'll live with it. I'd warned the five other people involved in the arbitration that my 2:00 matters could go awhile, and indeed they did, but they all waited over an hour before finally calling it off a bit before 3:30. We picked June 15th as the final final date to finish it all up- hell, I'll subpoena my own client if I have to- and the other three cases were cleverly adjourned to three other dates. So no more two, three or four places at once for this guy, thankuvermush.
----
I wouldn't mind spending most if not all that time at my own desk. Which was the focus of what I spent today doing:
So, wow. This is the most nekkid my office has been in the eight years since I moved into it in May of 2015. We just re-upped for another three years and got a painting allowance as part of the deal. They (and "they" are the family business of one of our coworkers) do the deed tomorrow. But that meant the walls, and everything on and in front of them, had to be cleared off by the end of the day today. In just my office, the entire contents of two floor-to-ceiling bookcase crap catchers, loaded into a half dozen bankers boxes. Another couple worth of boxes of even crappier crap, pitched. My printer and other necessities, dumped on the desk that will be dropclothed. My bookshelf full of booze, from the two Christmases after I stopped drinking, regifted to the big galoots who moved those bookcases away from those walls while I didn’t wanna, go to Lackawanna today (long story but at least I was only in two places today and neither of them at once). Monday will feel like a whole new start. Which makes sense, since I've realized that May is my month for this sort of thing.
It was May of 1994, close to this very weekend, that I made one of the most significant decisions of my career, and left the law firm, and Rochester soon after, that had been my first home as a lawyer. My then-partners had become intolerable, and an opportunity in Buffalo offered a fresh coat of paint on my practice. A year later, that paint was peeling, and I spent the next decade between another Rochester firm commute, often 4-5 days a week, with the beginning of a Buffalo solo presence, as well.
By May 2006, that commute was finally gone and my connection to that firm gone, as well. I spent the next seven years mostly working from home with occasional places here and there to see clients.
Then, this month in 2015, a friend offered up a sublet in my current location. When the previous lawyer's time on the lease was up, that friend and one other now-friend (both purveyors of some of the booze I dispensed with today) became co-tenants for three years, and this is my second three-year re-up since then, but the first one with a new paint job and a better chance to feel starting fresh. My guess is I will do it once more before retiring, but at least the walls will be clean for at least the next three.
One thing that, um, May also change before the end of the month? My part-time Rochester gig. Even though I've got it down to around only once a week and occasionally less, that drive just gets harder as I get older, and the benefits coming from it aren't clearly exceeding that wear and tear. I'll give it some good thinking, and I'm sure I'll keep a place there to use occasionally, but this seems to be the time of the year to think those thinks.
----
The final piece of the monthly puzzle isn't for or about me. Mother's Day falls day after tomorrow, which is always a day of mixed 'motions for Eleanor, between her conflicted recollections of her own mother and the distance that has varied but is still there, and not just geographic, between her and daughter. I've resolved to observe the Prime Directive and not get involved between the two of them, but I know the absence of a call on Sunday will be felt right in the feels. I've never had the same kind of emotions about "my day" in June, because the distance from my own father was always too great for a call or card to do a damn thing to fix, and because getting the Kall from the Kid has just never been a day-maker or breaker for me. I'm too unsentimental about Hallmark moments to take it seriously.
This year, we'll have the added emo of Mother's Day being the first anniversary of what is simply referred to around here as "Tops." Already, the tributes and stories from those affected, immediately or fewer-degrees-of-separation than we had to it, are starting to fill local media. By Sunday, the pitch will likely be feverish, and I suspect our best approach to it will be to turn it all off. Not for lack of respect or feeling about the occasion, but to keep ourselves sane in the face of confronting it.
Yet despite that tragedy from 2022, and the still-felt what-ifs about the move here in 1994, I can still say, as one of our most famous former residents once did, that there's noplace I'd rather be than right here, right now.
Just only one place at once, though.
So, my day Thursday and welcome to it: The icon is from one of the true icons of my comedy upbringing from right around 50 years ago: a full-side parody by Firesign Theatre, of a Chandler/Spillane style film noir radio 1940s program. "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger" played on so many levels of humor, wordsmithing and genre-breaking. I can still recite it almost verbatim and at least once a week, one of its punchlines will work its way into my mind if not actual conversation. The bit took up the entire second side of this vinyl album of theirs, but Side One is a more stream-of-consciousness running gag that is essentially the title track of the album; Firesigner Phil Austin, who chews the scenery off the groove as the voice of Nick Danger on the other side of the record, even sings the title of the album at one point:
♫ How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All?♫
Only TWO places? That's cute. Because my day yesterday required being in FOUR PLACES at once, with stress to match.
----
Day Three of the arbitration from hell was back on April 26th. We'd hoped it would be the last one, but nothing here has gone as planned, and before my client and I left that day, we'd set May 11th, now known as "yesterday," for its continuation. When we scheduled it, I had a weird empty one-hour mark on my calendar that day at 2 p.m., but I had no recollection of what it was for, or if it even was an aborted attempt at an entry that didn't really exist. Last week, that became clear: it was real, a Zoomish call for another client in a foreclosure case who is very nervous and needy. I could've taken a break from the arbitration for it, as I eventually did, but then the arbitration client tried to beg off the May 11th date completely after sitting next to me while we scheduled it.
Meanwhile, a third commitment popped up: in Erie County, certain town court matters are still being referred to a "hub court" in downtown Buffalo, also done all Zoomy style. At the beginning of last week, my May 2nd court date in West Seneca had morphed into a virtual court appearance at, what else? 2 p.m. on May 11th. I tried using this, and my client's sudden unavailability, to beg out of the all-day arbitration yesterday- and failed. But they did promise I could use "a room" in the arbitrator's building to step out for, now, both of them.
So why not a fourth? THAT one showed up Wednesday morning, but would be at 9 a.m. by phone, before our arbitration's start time of 9:30. I emailed everybody to ask if I could come in and use that "room" for it, and that it could take anywhere from five minutes to the full half hour. They were cool with it, so I left for his office stupid early yesterday to be sure I didn't get into a traffic jam on the 90, did my prep from a Timmy's on Union Road, and hit the "room" right at 8:55....
to find that the "room" in question was apparently last used by Schrödinger. A room, to be sure, but no desk, no phone, not even a chair. And no time to grab any of same, so I did that phone hearing Indian-style on the floor; when it took the full allotted half hour, my legs were basically asleep.
Hell then proceeded until 1:55, as it did on each of the previous three occasions, and I excused myself for my pair of Zooms, this time hauling a chair and this laptop up there. "This laptop," however, had been in semi-constant use since before 8:15, and when I logged into Hearing One, with Hearing Two on my phone, I watched as my laptop decided to take a long spring's nap with its battery having just died on me. But not before both judges on both Zooms yelled at me for not muting them until my case was called.
Eventually, both were. Adjourned, both were- a win in the foreclosure case once I finally got to that one on the phone (I had to switch to one of the arbitrator's landlines because the judge muted me and couldn't figure out how to unmute), a pain in the "hub" case but I'll live with it. I'd warned the five other people involved in the arbitration that my 2:00 matters could go awhile, and indeed they did, but they all waited over an hour before finally calling it off a bit before 3:30. We picked June 15th as the final final date to finish it all up- hell, I'll subpoena my own client if I have to- and the other three cases were cleverly adjourned to three other dates. So no more two, three or four places at once for this guy, thankuvermush.
----
I wouldn't mind spending most if not all that time at my own desk. Which was the focus of what I spent today doing:
So, wow. This is the most nekkid my office has been in the eight years since I moved into it in May of 2015. We just re-upped for another three years and got a painting allowance as part of the deal. They (and "they" are the family business of one of our coworkers) do the deed tomorrow. But that meant the walls, and everything on and in front of them, had to be cleared off by the end of the day today. In just my office, the entire contents of two floor-to-ceiling bookcase crap catchers, loaded into a half dozen bankers boxes. Another couple worth of boxes of even crappier crap, pitched. My printer and other necessities, dumped on the desk that will be dropclothed. My bookshelf full of booze, from the two Christmases after I stopped drinking, regifted to the big galoots who moved those bookcases away from those walls while I didn’t wanna, go to Lackawanna today (long story but at least I was only in two places today and neither of them at once). Monday will feel like a whole new start. Which makes sense, since I've realized that May is my month for this sort of thing.
It was May of 1994, close to this very weekend, that I made one of the most significant decisions of my career, and left the law firm, and Rochester soon after, that had been my first home as a lawyer. My then-partners had become intolerable, and an opportunity in Buffalo offered a fresh coat of paint on my practice. A year later, that paint was peeling, and I spent the next decade between another Rochester firm commute, often 4-5 days a week, with the beginning of a Buffalo solo presence, as well.
By May 2006, that commute was finally gone and my connection to that firm gone, as well. I spent the next seven years mostly working from home with occasional places here and there to see clients.
Then, this month in 2015, a friend offered up a sublet in my current location. When the previous lawyer's time on the lease was up, that friend and one other now-friend (both purveyors of some of the booze I dispensed with today) became co-tenants for three years, and this is my second three-year re-up since then, but the first one with a new paint job and a better chance to feel starting fresh. My guess is I will do it once more before retiring, but at least the walls will be clean for at least the next three.
One thing that, um, May also change before the end of the month? My part-time Rochester gig. Even though I've got it down to around only once a week and occasionally less, that drive just gets harder as I get older, and the benefits coming from it aren't clearly exceeding that wear and tear. I'll give it some good thinking, and I'm sure I'll keep a place there to use occasionally, but this seems to be the time of the year to think those thinks.
----
The final piece of the monthly puzzle isn't for or about me. Mother's Day falls day after tomorrow, which is always a day of mixed 'motions for Eleanor, between her conflicted recollections of her own mother and the distance that has varied but is still there, and not just geographic, between her and daughter. I've resolved to observe the Prime Directive and not get involved between the two of them, but I know the absence of a call on Sunday will be felt right in the feels. I've never had the same kind of emotions about "my day" in June, because the distance from my own father was always too great for a call or card to do a damn thing to fix, and because getting the Kall from the Kid has just never been a day-maker or breaker for me. I'm too unsentimental about Hallmark moments to take it seriously.
This year, we'll have the added emo of Mother's Day being the first anniversary of what is simply referred to around here as "Tops." Already, the tributes and stories from those affected, immediately or fewer-degrees-of-separation than we had to it, are starting to fill local media. By Sunday, the pitch will likely be feverish, and I suspect our best approach to it will be to turn it all off. Not for lack of respect or feeling about the occasion, but to keep ourselves sane in the face of confronting it.
Yet despite that tragedy from 2022, and the still-felt what-ifs about the move here in 1994, I can still say, as one of our most famous former residents once did, that there's noplace I'd rather be than right here, right now.
Just only one place at once, though.