One of my more dubious distinctions is that I am a recovering lawyer. When you use the adjective "recovering" with almost any interesting noun there is the implication you might fall off the wagon and start doing whatever it is that you're recovering from. Like ending sentences with prepositions if you are a recovering 8th grade English failure like myself (Report card: "Mr. Acton, I hope you grow rich so someone else will be tasked with sorting through the mess that is your writing, as I am passing you onto the ninth grade and will no longer be available.")
But really, the only thing you can do to recover from being a lawyer is STOP BEING A LAWYER. So, having a fool for a client, I took my own advice last year and decided to go on "inactive status" with the Washington State Bar Association, the local organization otherwise tasked with riding herd on people more interested in arguing about justice than actually preserving it.
Inactive status, as it turns out, does not come cheap, merely cheaper than active status. The insidious plan I had hatched was that for the paltry sum of $144 I would not have to register for nor suffer through another 4-day session of Trusts and Estates at the end of the year to satisfy my mandatory continuing legal education classes. What I know about trusts and estates can be encapsulated thusly: trust no one with an estate, especially if they are dead.
My assumption was that being "inactive" required little more than…well…. not being active. And if I don't put too fine a point on it I rather expected it to work in a relatively self-evident manner: I'd pay the fee, go – or at the very least, become – inactive and kick back every December instead of being jammed into a small conference room with a bunch of other idiots who've also waited until the last minute, spending four days reading USA Today and checking e-mail.
So, imagine my surprise when I received a CERTIFIED letter from the WSBA, admonishing me that I hadn't paid the annual fee to be inactive and was now in danger of being suspended.
Suspended from what? I mean, it's not like "recovering" is it?
I called the bar and was put through to "Arthur" in Member Benefits. Member Benefits? I'll grant you that my suspension would obviously be a benefit to the great unwashed public, but really – which mental giant put it under "Benefits" in the phone tree?
Anyhow, Arthur informs me that I'm on the pre-suspension list and there's a fine to get off the list.
"Arthur, I thought I was inactive, so I'm a little fuzzy on just what happens if I stay on the pre-suspension list.
"Well, your name could be forwarded to the Supreme Court and suspension proceedings could ensue."
"Arthur, maybe I wasn't clear – I'm supposed to be on the inactive list. I've already suspended myself."
"But that's not the same as the Supreme Court suspending you."
"Are you telling me they're going to suspend me from the inactive list?"
"If you don't pay the fine, yes, sir they could."
"And so if they suspend me from the inactive list, does that mean I have to practice law again?"
"I don't understand."
"Well, Arthur, I'm on the inactive list. If they suspend me, that would mean I'm not able to be inactive, so I must be active, right?"
A long awkward pause is followed by,
"Sir, I'm not a lawyer so I can't advise you what your status might be."
"Well, until I called I didn't think I was a lawyer anymore either, but increasingly it looks like I'm not only a lawyer, I'm very likely an active lawyer again. And I can tell you the idea of suspending an inactive lawyer is a little bit like taxing the unemployed."
"Sir, I can help you there – if you're unemployed, we have a deferment plan for your fees."
I gave him my VISA card before my head exploded and I was drafted into the judiciary.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Mac Attack
Everyone says your first love is the one you measure all others by. You know, you're young, naïve, impressionable – she's on the rebound, desperate and can't hold her liquor. But everyone's full of crap – the love that really stays with you is your first pet. In my case, a MacKenzie River Husky/Wolf hybrid that would have considered Cujo a nice snack and Balto a shameless fraud. In case you're just tuning in, the first love of my life and the standard against which all pets are measured is "Leader the Wonder Dog".
Leader and I were just about the same age – kind of a brother my parents didn't have to house train. He didn't have a name right away – the legend goes – because he hadn't named himself, which made sense to me as a kid because it obviously took him some time to learn how to properly use the crayons after he discovered they weren't edible. Plus which, as everyone knows, dogs have notoriously bad handwriting so I wasn't at all surprised it took some time for him to name himself. At the same time, however, I was suspicious of the whole Santa-Claus-down-the-chimney thing, but Leader not being able to write until he was older was bulls-eye stuff for me.
At any rate, he became "Leader" because he would invariably walk in front of you and seemed to know where you were going at all times. Of course, when you're a kid you don't have any place to go so from a probability and statistics standpoint the dog's topping the scale in the "WOW MOM – you won't believe what Leader did" department. At this point, I feel compelled to disclose I have never scored well in standardized testing, so the dog may not have been all that smart. But then again, if you were one of those Santa-Claus-down-the-chimney chumps, neither were you.
Leader would walk me to the bus, be sitting there waiting when the bus dropped me off, run around the woods with me, chase off other dogs and moose (this was Alaska, so chasing off moose isn't one of those special skills at the bottom of his resume), and slunk off to my room when we were in trouble (again, it wasn't normally Leader that got in trouble, but he'd occasionally take the fall).
This unpainted Norman Rockwell went on until I was 12 when an Army Sgt moved into the area, saw Leader making his rounds one day and shot him, thinking he was wolf. Leader died in my arms a week later and with him died my belief in a lot of things. After we buried Leader, my Dad (to his great credit), wandered down to the G.I.'s house and suggested that if he couldn't tell the difference between a dog and a wolf, my Dad might not be able to keep his own WWII flashbacks under control and could mistake a US Army uniform for a Japanese Imperial Marine's uniform. The guy moved (I suspect my Dad was somewhat less obtuse, but I liked the story as he told it) but it didn't bring Leader back. Nothing did. And if anyone tells you that time heals all wounds, let me assure you it doesn't, it only dulls them.
So, when my wife and daughter announced recently that we should just drop by a pet shelter and look at some cats, warning lights went off. All I could think of was Robbie the Robot, "Danger, Will Robinson. Danger!" We're just looking, kinda interested in what they might have, but we're not going to get anything. OK, well, if that's all it is, I'm in if there's snacks involved. I was promised a hamburger and a Roy Rogers (I like maraschino cherries, so what?) so off we went.
We get to the pound or pet shelter or whatever they're calling pet jails and my first indication that things had changed was that we had to register – fill out paperwork – to see animals no one else wanted. Are you jiving me? I have to apply to look at a throw-away pet – a pet that someone else already didn't want, and I have to apply to see it? R U kidding me?
No, not so much. In fact, "they" take this throw-away pet thingy pretty seriously and don't have much sense of humor about it, either – thank you very much. OK, so now that I've been told I may or may not be qualified to look at a used cat, I'm truly just along for the Scooby snack I was promised.
After a background check with the FBI's NCIC and the TSA's No Fly List, we were granted full access to the pets, but of course, were accompanied by adult supervision. R U jackin' me around? We need a chaperone to LOOK at a fleet of previously owned cats? Which of these doors gets me back into the parking lot?
We're waltzed around some 2 dozen cats or so and none of them are doing anything for me except delaying lunch. Then Laurie The Chaperone says we have one more cat – but he's in quarantine from the other cats because he has FIV. And she says it like I know what that means.
Me: "What's FIV?"
Chaperone: "That's Feline Immunodeficiency Virus."
Me: "Right. What's Feline Immunodeficiency Virus?"
Chaperone: "Well, it's kinda like HIV for cats."
Me: "HIV for cats. You mean the cat tested positive for kitty AIDS?
Chapeone: "No, feline HIV."
Me: "Right. So… ah… Where's your back door?"
Chaperone: "We don't have one."
Me: "Where do you want one?"
OK, I do NOT need to see a cat with HIV or FIV or any other IV. And, incidentally, why would anyone with even below average standardized testing scores want to adopt an FIV cat? Before I can say any of this, I've followed the troop into the quarantine room where this ratty looking cat ("Goliath") about the size of a small Ocelot is curled up in a cage and listening to the dogs in the next room bark. He's a train wreck but without all the excitement.
The dogs are barking so loud you have to actually speak louder to be heard. And not only is the cat FIV, he must also be deaf because the barking isn't fazing him at all. He kinda rolls over, gives us a look and is completely non-plussed. But he and I get eye contact and I think, uh-ho… this ain't just a regular cat. He knows something… he knows the odds are stacked against him – he's kinda sick, they got him off by himself, not many people come in to see him. He knows he probably ain't going anyplace. This is as good as it's going to get for him so "Hello and welcome to my world." And then I made the BIG MISTAKE.
I picked him up. If I hadn't picked him up, he wouldn't have head-butted me in the face or wiped his face all over mine. And then he just kinda relaxed and I realized that for some unknown reason, we just "got" each other. He seemed to know he was going home with us before we did.
Me: "Does he answer to his name?"
Chaperone: "He answers to the can opener."
Me: "Me, too."
Turns out he was a stray and someone gave him the name because of his size. He's about two years old, strong and healthy, and probably picked up the FIV in a fight with another cat. I'd hate to see what the OTHER cat looks like.
Apparently adopting a "special needs" cat takes some soul searching so they made us leave to think things over. I was ready to take him right then and started lobbying for a special parking permit, but the rest of the family suggested we make a show of "thinking it over" during which time we could go to the store and buy all the stuff he'd need.
We picked him up and on the way home named him Mac – for McKinley, the BIG Alaska Mountain. Yeah, I know – it's fashionable to call it Denali these days, but I ain't calling a cat "Den" and besides, I still call Mumbai, Bombay and Myanmar, Burma. And since he won't answer to Mac anyway, why quibble about what they're calling a mountain?
So, Mac is all settled in. Head butts all around, Mr. Calm about everything, happy feet when he gets petted, lays around the house like a dog (hates the bed we bought), and has pretty much taken over the house (we're thinking of putting his name on the mortgage). His fur looks a lot better, he's getting chow he likes and generally has lost that drug-through-a-bird-cage-backwards look.
And as if all of this wasn't weird enough, here's the "bookend", as we like to say in screenwriting: Mac NEVER walks behind you – he ALWAYS walks in front. If I didn't know better, I'd say he wants to be a leader.
I'm leaving some crayons out for him just in case.
Leader and I were just about the same age – kind of a brother my parents didn't have to house train. He didn't have a name right away – the legend goes – because he hadn't named himself, which made sense to me as a kid because it obviously took him some time to learn how to properly use the crayons after he discovered they weren't edible. Plus which, as everyone knows, dogs have notoriously bad handwriting so I wasn't at all surprised it took some time for him to name himself. At the same time, however, I was suspicious of the whole Santa-Claus-down-the-chimney thing, but Leader not being able to write until he was older was bulls-eye stuff for me.
At any rate, he became "Leader" because he would invariably walk in front of you and seemed to know where you were going at all times. Of course, when you're a kid you don't have any place to go so from a probability and statistics standpoint the dog's topping the scale in the "WOW MOM – you won't believe what Leader did" department. At this point, I feel compelled to disclose I have never scored well in standardized testing, so the dog may not have been all that smart. But then again, if you were one of those Santa-Claus-down-the-chimney chumps, neither were you.
Leader would walk me to the bus, be sitting there waiting when the bus dropped me off, run around the woods with me, chase off other dogs and moose (this was Alaska, so chasing off moose isn't one of those special skills at the bottom of his resume), and slunk off to my room when we were in trouble (again, it wasn't normally Leader that got in trouble, but he'd occasionally take the fall).
This unpainted Norman Rockwell went on until I was 12 when an Army Sgt moved into the area, saw Leader making his rounds one day and shot him, thinking he was wolf. Leader died in my arms a week later and with him died my belief in a lot of things. After we buried Leader, my Dad (to his great credit), wandered down to the G.I.'s house and suggested that if he couldn't tell the difference between a dog and a wolf, my Dad might not be able to keep his own WWII flashbacks under control and could mistake a US Army uniform for a Japanese Imperial Marine's uniform. The guy moved (I suspect my Dad was somewhat less obtuse, but I liked the story as he told it) but it didn't bring Leader back. Nothing did. And if anyone tells you that time heals all wounds, let me assure you it doesn't, it only dulls them.
So, when my wife and daughter announced recently that we should just drop by a pet shelter and look at some cats, warning lights went off. All I could think of was Robbie the Robot, "Danger, Will Robinson. Danger!" We're just looking, kinda interested in what they might have, but we're not going to get anything. OK, well, if that's all it is, I'm in if there's snacks involved. I was promised a hamburger and a Roy Rogers (I like maraschino cherries, so what?) so off we went.
We get to the pound or pet shelter or whatever they're calling pet jails and my first indication that things had changed was that we had to register – fill out paperwork – to see animals no one else wanted. Are you jiving me? I have to apply to look at a throw-away pet – a pet that someone else already didn't want, and I have to apply to see it? R U kidding me?
No, not so much. In fact, "they" take this throw-away pet thingy pretty seriously and don't have much sense of humor about it, either – thank you very much. OK, so now that I've been told I may or may not be qualified to look at a used cat, I'm truly just along for the Scooby snack I was promised.
After a background check with the FBI's NCIC and the TSA's No Fly List, we were granted full access to the pets, but of course, were accompanied by adult supervision. R U jackin' me around? We need a chaperone to LOOK at a fleet of previously owned cats? Which of these doors gets me back into the parking lot?
We're waltzed around some 2 dozen cats or so and none of them are doing anything for me except delaying lunch. Then Laurie The Chaperone says we have one more cat – but he's in quarantine from the other cats because he has FIV. And she says it like I know what that means.
Me: "What's FIV?"
Chaperone: "That's Feline Immunodeficiency Virus."
Me: "Right. What's Feline Immunodeficiency Virus?"
Chaperone: "Well, it's kinda like HIV for cats."
Me: "HIV for cats. You mean the cat tested positive for kitty AIDS?
Chapeone: "No, feline HIV."
Me: "Right. So… ah… Where's your back door?"
Chaperone: "We don't have one."
Me: "Where do you want one?"
OK, I do NOT need to see a cat with HIV or FIV or any other IV. And, incidentally, why would anyone with even below average standardized testing scores want to adopt an FIV cat? Before I can say any of this, I've followed the troop into the quarantine room where this ratty looking cat ("Goliath") about the size of a small Ocelot is curled up in a cage and listening to the dogs in the next room bark. He's a train wreck but without all the excitement.
The dogs are barking so loud you have to actually speak louder to be heard. And not only is the cat FIV, he must also be deaf because the barking isn't fazing him at all. He kinda rolls over, gives us a look and is completely non-plussed. But he and I get eye contact and I think, uh-ho… this ain't just a regular cat. He knows something… he knows the odds are stacked against him – he's kinda sick, they got him off by himself, not many people come in to see him. He knows he probably ain't going anyplace. This is as good as it's going to get for him so "Hello and welcome to my world." And then I made the BIG MISTAKE.
I picked him up. If I hadn't picked him up, he wouldn't have head-butted me in the face or wiped his face all over mine. And then he just kinda relaxed and I realized that for some unknown reason, we just "got" each other. He seemed to know he was going home with us before we did.
Me: "Does he answer to his name?"
Chaperone: "He answers to the can opener."
Me: "Me, too."
Turns out he was a stray and someone gave him the name because of his size. He's about two years old, strong and healthy, and probably picked up the FIV in a fight with another cat. I'd hate to see what the OTHER cat looks like.
Apparently adopting a "special needs" cat takes some soul searching so they made us leave to think things over. I was ready to take him right then and started lobbying for a special parking permit, but the rest of the family suggested we make a show of "thinking it over" during which time we could go to the store and buy all the stuff he'd need.
We picked him up and on the way home named him Mac – for McKinley, the BIG Alaska Mountain. Yeah, I know – it's fashionable to call it Denali these days, but I ain't calling a cat "Den" and besides, I still call Mumbai, Bombay and Myanmar, Burma. And since he won't answer to Mac anyway, why quibble about what they're calling a mountain?
So, Mac is all settled in. Head butts all around, Mr. Calm about everything, happy feet when he gets petted, lays around the house like a dog (hates the bed we bought), and has pretty much taken over the house (we're thinking of putting his name on the mortgage). His fur looks a lot better, he's getting chow he likes and generally has lost that drug-through-a-bird-cage-backwards look.
And as if all of this wasn't weird enough, here's the "bookend", as we like to say in screenwriting: Mac NEVER walks behind you – he ALWAYS walks in front. If I didn't know better, I'd say he wants to be a leader.
I'm leaving some crayons out for him just in case.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
10 minutes with Lucy
Somewhere along about 3.18 million years ago a homely but memorable girl apparently passed to her reward and went to meet the Great Hominid in the sky. Then, in 1974 while I was running around Nicaragua stumbling over burial mounds with a Harvard archeologist, Donald Johanson looked up a ravine in Ethiopia on his way back to camp and met the most important girl in his life: Lucy.
Lucy is now visiting the Seattle Science Center and today, after kicking back for the past 35 years or so in Ethiopia, she's making her rock-star tour of the US. Some museums are boycotting her for what seem entirely reasonable and utterly incomprehensible reasons. Fortunately, Seattle decided to give her a look and I got in today when the door opened.
I expected to find Lucy just inside with a sign that said something roughly the equivalent of, "Joe, you been waiting 30 years, this way to Lucy." No go, no sign, they didn't even know I was Joe. What I got instead was a large exhibit on the history of Ethiopia, a place about which I knew little and cared less. Where's Lucy? was the only thing in my head. Ethiopia happened to be the map coordinates, but let's be clear – when Lucy lived there it wasn't called Ethiopia, so why do I care what it's called now. Where the hell's Lucy?
You in the Gold coat, where's Lucy?
I gotta go through the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce exhibition first?
Far out, where is it?
First exhibit: Jews came to Ethiopia and blah blah with exhibits, artifacts, and photos.
Where's Lucy?
Next exhibit: Christians came to Ehtiopia and blah blah with exhibits, artifacts and photos.
Yeah, so where's Lucy?
Next exhibit: Muslims came to Ethiopia and blah blah with exhibits, artifacts and photos.
Next exhibit: Halie Sallasie came to Ethiopia and blah blah with exhibits and photos.
Cool, so we're getting the band back together, where the hell's Lucy?
By this time I was at the head of the First Pack of Lucy Lookers and must have looked desperate because a Gold Coat caught my eye. I raised my hands palm up like, "Where". He points down a hall and says, "Up two ramps – you'll be the first today."
The sign at the ticket booth was clear, "No food, drinks, or photography." Not a word about running. Feet, do your thing.
I blew past Gold Coat ignoring his plea to slow down, up two long ramps where people would later be waiting to get in. Right up to the armed guard where I broke stride and walked into the Lucy exhibit. Up to where she lay – a mandible and six skull bones, along with 40% of her skeleton.
All alone. Me and her. By myself. For 10 minutes I was the only one there and it gave me chills.
I'd seen history. Hell, I've lived through history.
But I'd never seen mankind. Never seen THE antecedent. Never stood that close to both ends of the evolutionary process.
It doesn't matter if you believe in God or not, according to the exhibit the Ethiopians have you covered no matter what your persuasion might be. But whether God did it or evolution did it, standing next to Lucy will convince you that something extraordinary happened in the woodlands of Ethiopia and you and I are the benefactors. I'm pretty sure Lucy didn't have a cell phone but am equally certain that without her, neither would I. Or you. That's the funny thing about evolution - or God - there doesn't seem to be a destination. But it's a hell of a journey.
Lucy is now visiting the Seattle Science Center and today, after kicking back for the past 35 years or so in Ethiopia, she's making her rock-star tour of the US. Some museums are boycotting her for what seem entirely reasonable and utterly incomprehensible reasons. Fortunately, Seattle decided to give her a look and I got in today when the door opened.
I expected to find Lucy just inside with a sign that said something roughly the equivalent of, "Joe, you been waiting 30 years, this way to Lucy." No go, no sign, they didn't even know I was Joe. What I got instead was a large exhibit on the history of Ethiopia, a place about which I knew little and cared less. Where's Lucy? was the only thing in my head. Ethiopia happened to be the map coordinates, but let's be clear – when Lucy lived there it wasn't called Ethiopia, so why do I care what it's called now. Where the hell's Lucy?
You in the Gold coat, where's Lucy?
I gotta go through the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce exhibition first?
Far out, where is it?
First exhibit: Jews came to Ethiopia and blah blah with exhibits, artifacts, and photos.
Where's Lucy?
Next exhibit: Christians came to Ehtiopia and blah blah with exhibits, artifacts and photos.
Yeah, so where's Lucy?
Next exhibit: Muslims came to Ethiopia and blah blah with exhibits, artifacts and photos.
Next exhibit: Halie Sallasie came to Ethiopia and blah blah with exhibits and photos.
Cool, so we're getting the band back together, where the hell's Lucy?
By this time I was at the head of the First Pack of Lucy Lookers and must have looked desperate because a Gold Coat caught my eye. I raised my hands palm up like, "Where". He points down a hall and says, "Up two ramps – you'll be the first today."
The sign at the ticket booth was clear, "No food, drinks, or photography." Not a word about running. Feet, do your thing.
I blew past Gold Coat ignoring his plea to slow down, up two long ramps where people would later be waiting to get in. Right up to the armed guard where I broke stride and walked into the Lucy exhibit. Up to where she lay – a mandible and six skull bones, along with 40% of her skeleton.
All alone. Me and her. By myself. For 10 minutes I was the only one there and it gave me chills.
I'd seen history. Hell, I've lived through history.
But I'd never seen mankind. Never seen THE antecedent. Never stood that close to both ends of the evolutionary process.
It doesn't matter if you believe in God or not, according to the exhibit the Ethiopians have you covered no matter what your persuasion might be. But whether God did it or evolution did it, standing next to Lucy will convince you that something extraordinary happened in the woodlands of Ethiopia and you and I are the benefactors. I'm pretty sure Lucy didn't have a cell phone but am equally certain that without her, neither would I. Or you. That's the funny thing about evolution - or God - there doesn't seem to be a destination. But it's a hell of a journey.
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