Jewels and Jim
Jun. 4th, 2010 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogIt's been a few days, I know, since embarrassing our daughter with praise and gushiness, but hey. I've been busy.
So has she. She spent much of the early part of this week working on a birthday present for the BF. We'd already gotten him the gift from the wallet (a Game Stop certificate), but the one from the heart is always the more important one, so over the early part of the week, she made him a plushie. Of Toothless, the main non-human character in How to Train Your Dragon.
[picture will go here when she gets home; her dumb father forgot to take one, but she reportedly did]
Right now, she's still on the Canuckistani side of the border; the annual senior trip this year was to Canada's Wonderland, north of Toronto, and they're not due back for close to anotherhour 3½ feckin hours on account of all the terrorists infiltrating high school tour buses .
Last night, she and Eleanor went to Cameron's chorale finale, which included Mozart's Requiem. Tomorrow is Cam's 18th birthday party, and next week is ::sniffsobcry:: her last week of classes before her graduation three weeks from tomorrow.
----
Occasionally, I've used this space to speak highly of the true gentlemen of my profession. That's not sexist; in their generation, there were so few ladies among the graduates, the few who rose to that level of competence and courtesy are, invariably, all judges now.
This week's tale is of a pillar of the legal community who, in casual conversation and among all who practice, goes simply by "Jim." We didn't start out on the best of terms- he cleaned my clock in an early-career trial of mine- but over the years, especially as he got to know me through the occasional bankruptcy case, we gained a mutual respect and as much of a friendship as years and miles would permit. He also knew Eleanor from her days working in the home security business; she had a minor accident at his home, and he was incredibly helpful and apologetic about it when it happened. (He later asked me how I had managed to bag such a wonderful woman as my bride;)
We haven't had dealings in many years, but in the past few weeks, we've wound up on opposite sides of two different cases. In one of them, there are multiple parties on my "side" and at least one other party on his; he quickly came to the table and accelerated the settlement process for the benefit of everyone involved. During the day today, emails flew to and fro about the terms of the deal. One of the other parties, represented by a younger guy who's much more removed from Jim's era of practice, asked for a whole layer of protections in case somebody wound up going bankrupt after checks and releases were exchanged. It was another lawyer in the circle (ironically, the one who replaced me in my original firm 16 years ago this month) who put that nonsense to rest with the following reply-to-all words:
if Jim says the debtor is not going to file bankruptcy for at least 91 days from the date funds are paid over to the lien holders, you can take that representation to the bank - you can still settle any case with Jim on a handshake or a phone call.
I couldn't have said it better myself, and I can only hope to have such kindness bestowed on my reputation before I hang up these computerized tools of ignorance.
So has she. She spent much of the early part of this week working on a birthday present for the BF. We'd already gotten him the gift from the wallet (a Game Stop certificate), but the one from the heart is always the more important one, so over the early part of the week, she made him a plushie. Of Toothless, the main non-human character in How to Train Your Dragon.
[picture will go here when she gets home; her dumb father forgot to take one, but she reportedly did]
Right now, she's still on the Canuckistani side of the border; the annual senior trip this year was to Canada's Wonderland, north of Toronto, and they're not due back for close to another
Last night, she and Eleanor went to Cameron's chorale finale, which included Mozart's Requiem. Tomorrow is Cam's 18th birthday party, and next week is ::sniffsobcry:: her last week of classes before her graduation three weeks from tomorrow.
----
Occasionally, I've used this space to speak highly of the true gentlemen of my profession. That's not sexist; in their generation, there were so few ladies among the graduates, the few who rose to that level of competence and courtesy are, invariably, all judges now.
This week's tale is of a pillar of the legal community who, in casual conversation and among all who practice, goes simply by "Jim." We didn't start out on the best of terms- he cleaned my clock in an early-career trial of mine- but over the years, especially as he got to know me through the occasional bankruptcy case, we gained a mutual respect and as much of a friendship as years and miles would permit. He also knew Eleanor from her days working in the home security business; she had a minor accident at his home, and he was incredibly helpful and apologetic about it when it happened. (He later asked me how I had managed to bag such a wonderful woman as my bride;)
We haven't had dealings in many years, but in the past few weeks, we've wound up on opposite sides of two different cases. In one of them, there are multiple parties on my "side" and at least one other party on his; he quickly came to the table and accelerated the settlement process for the benefit of everyone involved. During the day today, emails flew to and fro about the terms of the deal. One of the other parties, represented by a younger guy who's much more removed from Jim's era of practice, asked for a whole layer of protections in case somebody wound up going bankrupt after checks and releases were exchanged. It was another lawyer in the circle (ironically, the one who replaced me in my original firm 16 years ago this month) who put that nonsense to rest with the following reply-to-all words:
if Jim says the debtor is not going to file bankruptcy for at least 91 days from the date funds are paid over to the lien holders, you can take that representation to the bank - you can still settle any case with Jim on a handshake or a phone call.
I couldn't have said it better myself, and I can only hope to have such kindness bestowed on my reputation before I hang up these computerized tools of ignorance.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-05 02:10 am (UTC)And the Requiem! I would have loved to have heard it. I always think of Mozart shaking his fist at an implacable God in the "Rex tremendae majestatis" portion. There's anger in those notes.
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Date: 2010-06-05 02:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-05 08:26 pm (UTC)It was a hoot and a half watching that particular director conduct. Think Leonard Bernstein mixed with Gregory Hines. Expressive but in at times a rather relaxed kind of way. Quite a bit of humor.
And then there's the music itself. I wished I'd thought to bring a book light with me. It was too dark much of the time to read the program, but I decided simply to let it speak to me without notes, to let it reach me emotionally and spiritually, then look at the notes later. Very rarely during the performance was there anything heard to indicate the youth and inexperience of the performers. Totally awesome.
Years ago, I put Mahler's Eighth Symphony on the stereo to listen to it. Emily was in the living room at the time, and this was before I'd changed my work habits and was able to go to church with her and Ray. He turned to her and explained, "You and I go to church on Sundays. Mom is going to church now." Which was highly accurate. Music is one of those portals through which we mortals can peek at something more sublime.