These are useful things, adjournments. Its what a lawyer says when he needs to reschedule. Its what I just did at the Appellate Division, First Department, for my appellate argument previously calendered for next Friday. You see, the Viking Bride is being admitted to the hospital today for preeclampsia (follow the link if you want to know more). I am more or less beside myself with worry and writing this to distract myself and use up some time until the next train leaves to take me back out to Connecticut so I can be with her at the hospital. They are going to keep her over night, at minimum.
The baby is fine but, who can say, may decide or the doctors may decide that he or she will be coming out soon. Sooner than expected by a lot. It goes without saying, I suppose, that we are so far from ready for this baby to be born. We still need to locate and wash all the old baby clothes and put the cradle together. This will happen (meaning, I will do it) while everyone else sleeps, I bet. An adjournment of the birth would be helpful, but even with a stipulation with all parties consenting, I don't know which judge or clerk to present such a request to.
Yes, indeed. Life is happening while we fiddled and made other plans.
Ok, off to the train and to join my wife at the hospital.
I know I've written about the power of smells before. Smells/odors have the power to transport you temporally. I had that experience a couple of nights ago on the train. It had been a very hard couple of days at work and I had spent that particular day in front of a very demanding judge so, by the time I hit the train, I was more than ready for my nap. In fact, I was out before the train left the station. When I awoke, and I did so sort of gradually and grudgingly, it was to a smell. It was a kind of clean, at first, odor. And then, as I become more conscious, I was struck by memories of 9th and 10th grade study hall, sitting in the back left corner of the room that we dubbed the swamp. I vividly recalled the space, the arrangement of the desks, the appearance of my friends, and the smell of the Kodiak dip we regularly (me, not so regularly) put in our mouths and spit on to the carpet behind the radiator. And that's when it hit me, the nicely dressed, gray haired fellow with the respectable spectacles sitting next to me was spitting dip or chewing tobacco into an empty bottle.
Uh, yuck?
While I appreciated the nostalgia trip, I was actually mildly grossed out.
Just the same, we had a short but very pleasant conversation and he told me that a lot of the people he worked with, bond traders, used it. A lot of them are ex-baseball players and picked up the habit there. Also, as a trader, its hard to step away from your desk for long enough to have a smoke. Hence, the smokeless stuff.
Funny experience, though. Even if it was a little icky.
I came through the door last night into the kitchen and could see my family in the dining room, the room next to the kitchen. They were all playing on the floor. My wife, 8 months pregnant, was actually on the floor letting the kids take turns riding on her back. She didn't see me come in. The Boy Child announced my presence:
BC: Mamma! Is him!Mamma: Hvem? (Who, in Norwegian)
BC: Him! Your friend Pappa!
I don't know why I thought that was so funny but I did. Maybe because it was interesting to see how his mind worked in terms of figuring out his mother's and my relationship.
In any event, later we read a story with the word "salute" in it and, if he remembers, I have him primed to go into his classroom today and say hello to his teachers by announcing: "Greetings and Salutations!" We'll see. Keep your fingers crossed.
I think my memory is going. My short term memory. The thing that lets me retain instructions from my wife, for instance. I know she told me I have to do something but I have little to no idea what that thing might be. Honey, if you're reading this, shoot me an email, ok?
My memory for blog material is also suffering. I think I need to get a pad or something. I see all this cool and interesting stuff and I want to blog about said stuff but something happens. Sometime between thinking its cool and getting to my keyboard, I lose the thread. I get here and can't recall at all what I wanted to write about. *sigh*
Court went well yesterday. I do remember that much. My client was pleased and I got a preliminary injunction to shut down a former officer from competing with my client after said former officer admitted to stealing file and confidential business information. Injunctive relief work is very consuming. It is all done on short notice and without the usual care you might take in preparing a serious application. Sometimes, it is all about the speed. And the speed, that my friends, is a rush.
So much of a rush that I was still happy this morning when I got to the gym and put up 70 pound dumbbells, 10 times, for my last set of chest press. That explains, in part, why it was difficult to dry my hair after my shower. You know you worked out hard when you can't dry your hair because your arms and chest are too pumped.
So, that's it really.
Before I dash off to Court for a hearing on a preliminary injunction, let me share the following, very quickly. We're in the car on Sunday and pull in to the gas station to fill the beast up. In front of us is an older guy who is getting back into his car, the driver door swung so wide open that we cannot move around him. So we wait while he re-enters his car. And we wait. And I comment, something along the lines of: C'mon Sparky, any slower and you'd be moving backwards! I'm none for my patience, you see.
And from the backseat, the Boy Child and the Girl Child, it was impossible to tell who began the chant, they sang out practically in unison, came, loudly:
Who let the dogs out?!?!?!WHO, WHO??!!!??!! [last bit barked out like a dog]
You can't teach that kind of thing, you know. All you can do is share the rich cultural bounty that is our collective heritage and then rely on the wisdom of the 3 and 5 year old as to when it is appropriate to use it.
I'm so proud.
My wife and I laughed very hard.
This post represents something special to me. This is a milestone reached, a distance covered, a length traveled.
This is post number One Thousand. For around two years now, I have been filling my blog with whatever falls out of my head. I began my first post by noting:
My goal here is to create an outlet where I can comment on the things that piss me off, interest me, amuse me, or will do any of those three things to my readers. [Ed.: Mind you, I had no readers when I wrote this!] In short, this will be a general interest blog for catholic (with a small c) interests. I welcome your participation in my little experiment.
I think, modest as my goals were, that I have mostly achieved them. Additionally, modest as my invitation was, it has mostly been accepted. Indeed, the comments make it all worthwhile. I still wrestle with why I blog or what I get out of it. I am way past caring that for some unknown reason I feel compelled to share some of my thoughts with a planet full of strangers and a small mini van full of people who I have come to share a friendship with. I am, however, pleased that my blog has also become a place where I memorialize -- what for many must be mundane but for me are -- the daily joys of sharing the lives of my extraordinary children and wife.
And I am, as I said, happy to receive the comments even if I tell myself that I would surely just keep on writing without them. Surely, I would. Surely I would derive the same pleasure from the writing that I do when I receive the largely thoughtful and intelligent comments I am fortunate enough to attract. Surely I am not lying to myself.
So, although I have said it before, thank you for the comments you leave. I am very appreciative of them.
One thousand posts seems like an awful lot to me. For a while there I thought maybe I was running out of things to say, running out of inspiration, losing my juice. My site stats bore silent sentinel to this as I have seen my average daily hits drop by a third. But recently I feel like it is all slowly creeping back in -- the pleasure derived simply from writing and expressing my thoughts, the having of the thoughts worth writing about, the caring. And the hits are slowly coming back up again. And the comments are still worth reading. So, I think that I pick option (A) on the menu: I will continue this little experiment and keep on writing.
And I will keep on writing here on MuNu where, courtesy of the gracious hosting by Pixy and thanks to the kind invitation from Helen, I have found a home and a place within a community of writers who I respect greatly. MuNu is a fabulous world and, if you haven't, I urge you to explore the MuNu links on my side bar. You will be richly rewarded by the experiment.
So, as numbers go, this is post one thousand, as I expect you have gathered. I am a bit humbled by what comes next. Many of the thousand were written elsewhere but since the first post I have put up here at MuNu, I have garnered some 3900+ comments. Since starting, I have had around 68,000 visits, many of them repeat offenders, of course, but we all know that recidivism is a problem not just for MuNu but for the world as a whole.
I guess I end this post here with a simple (as if I could do anything simply) thank you for sharing my life over the last 1000 posts. I think it has made my life richer and for that I am quite grateful. Here's to the next 1000!
I can't seem to get my thoughts organized into a coherent post today. As much as I keep prodding them and pushing them, they keep expanding / escaping / resisting all my efforts. So, I give up. Herewith, a random, disorganized post.
*I just returned from taking my tax information over to my accountant. He wasn't there, which is just fine with me. On the way back, I purchased a DVD to watch with the children: My Neighbor Totoro (link to review). I'm told that the animation is so equisite that it looks as if it was painted. Very excited, I am.
*The Viking Bride fled the state yesterday for meetings in Rhode Island. Before leaving, she attempted to poison the minds of the children against Rhode Island. They requested that she return with toys and she responded that Rhode Island was completely devoid of toys. A desert of toys, as it were. She's hoping that in 15 years time when the Girl Child hears the name "Rhode Island" she will have a negative reaction to the place and not know why. I ask you, dear readers, is it any wonder that I am as warped as I am after spending over 20 years with this woman?
*As a result of her leaving for meetings in RI, I had the kids to myself last night. If I was restricted to one word to describe how it all went, after a really shitty day at work yesterday, I would have to say: Bliss. Pure bliss, if two words. We read five stories and then tumbled around like kittens, cuddling, tickling, trying to squish Pappa, all with no one getting hurt, especially me. They listened like angels and the Boy Child went to bed without a peep. The Girl Child, on the other hand, was allowed secretly to stay up. We cuddled on the couch and watched a little pre-season baseball. She told me that I had to watch a lot of baseball when she grows up so I can see her because she's going to be a baseball player when she grows up. On the weekends, though, she says she's going to work in a restaurant as a chef but she's not going to tell me what she'll be cooking. Well, at least she has a strong work ethic, which I like.
*We have hired a new nanny. The old nanny does not know. Expect tears and recriminations when we hand her a plane ticket home. This will be my first time firing a nanny for performance issues. It has been tense, at least for me.
*I have been fighting an urge to flee lately. A desire to load the family in the car, shut the door on the house, start driving and just keep on going. We probably have enough cash to last for a couple of months, I suppose. Or just pack everyone off to the airport and get on the next plane out to anywhere. Well, not anywhere. I don't care for Michigan, so that's out. It is a combination of wanderlust, unhappiness at work, and probably some other stuff which I cannot really identify. Just the same, it looks like our Saturday just freed up. I think this could be the day to just fill the tank and see where the highway leads us without reference to anyone's nap schedules.
*The Viking Bride will travel into the City tonight from the far reaches of Connecticut and we will dine with the CEO and Chairman, and his wife, of a major league, big time, you'd know the name, international company. I'd be less than completely honest if I said I didn't hope that I'd get some business out it.
Ok, that just about wraps it up.
I spent last night in my tuxedo for the monthly meeting of a board I am a member of. The meeting was fine -- a little contentious but in a good way--, the dinner was forgettable, the wines not great. That was ok. I was on my own for the evening, staying in the city, dressed up, and for once, not pressed for time. That was the key to my feeling good, you see. Not being pressed for time. I did not have to worry about the train schedule or getting to sleep in time so that my wife had enough rest or making sure that I had enough sleep to be able to get up for the early train or anything. I stepped off the treadmill for the evening. It was very relaxing. Even if you only take your vacation from life in four hour doses, sometimes the right four hours is really medicine enough.
But what made the whole evening terrific was the conversation later.
After the dinner part of the meeting ended, I found myself in the bar with two older gentlemen from the board. One was in his early 80's and the other in his late 70's. We chatted for a long time over brandy. The topic of virginity came up and the elder fellow told us about losing his when he was 16. He came into NY with some chums from prep school and found himself with a much older woman, a prostitute. They all drew straws and he got to go second. He said she actually lit a cigarette and told him that he had until the cigarette finished burning to "complete his mission". He confessed he wasn't sure what his mission was! Anyway, he said he did go back to her one more time, after redeeming some of his dad's soda bottles to get another $5. I asked him if he brought a cigar with him for the second time and when he asked me why, I said, "well, cigars burn a whole lot longer, don't they?" He threw his head back and roared.
All in all, it was a fabulous way to end the evening as these two older gentlemen reminisced about their mis-spent youths. I felt quite lucky to be included in their conversation.
I love these kinds of stories. An ancient sarcophagus has been found in Cyrpus. The 2,500 year old burial vessel bears "vivid color illustrations from Homer's epics". I understand from the article that it is the best one of these ever discovered, that the other two -- in museums in London and New York -- are not as colorful.
Fascinating:
[T]he coffin painted in red, black and blue on a white background dated to 500 B.C., when Greek cultural influence was gaining a firm hold on the eastern Mediterranean island. Pottery discovered in the tomb is expected to provide a precise date.Experts believe the ornate decoration features the hero Ulysses in scenes from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey both hugely popular throughout the Greek world.
In one large painting, Ulysses and his comrades escape from the blind Cyclops Polyphemos' cave, hidden under a flock of sheep. Another depicts a battle between Greeks and Trojans from the Iliad.
Just in case the article link expires, I reproduce the whole of it in extended entry.
Ancient Sarcophagus Unearthed in Cyprus
Ancient Sarcophagus With Vivid Color Illustrations From Homer's Poems Unearthed in Cyprus
By GEORGE PSYLLIDES
The Associated Press
NICOSIA, Cyprus - A 2,500-year-old sarcophagus with vivid color illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus, archaeologists said Monday.
Construction workers found the limestone sarcophagus last week in a tomb near the village of Kouklia, in the coastal Paphos area. The tomb, which probably belonged to an ancient warrior, had been looted during antiquity.
"The style of the decoration is unique, not so much from an artistic point of view, but for the subject and the colors used," said Pavlos Flourentzos, director of the island's antiquities department.
Only two similar sarcophagi have ever been discovered in Cyprus before. One is housed in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the other in the British Museum in London, but their colors are more faded, Flourentzos said.
Flourentzos said the coffin painted in red, black and blue on a white background dated to 500 B.C., when Greek cultural influence was gaining a firm hold on the eastern Mediterranean island. Pottery discovered in the tomb is expected to provide a precise date.
Experts believe the ornate decoration features the hero Ulysses in scenes from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey both hugely popular throughout the Greek world.
In one large painting, Ulysses and his comrades escape from the blind Cyclops Polyphemos' cave, hidden under a flock of sheep. Another depicts a battle between Greeks and Trojans from the Iliad.
Archeologists think the scenes hint at the status of the coffin's occupant.
"Why else take these two pieces from Homer and why deal with Ulysses? Maybe this represents the dead person's character who possibly was a warrior," Flourentzos said.
Other drawings depict a figure carrying a seriously injured or dead man and a lion fighting a wild boar under a tree. These are not believed to be linked with Homer's poems.
Reflecting a long oral tradition loosely based on historic events, Homer's epics were probably composed around 800 B.C. and written down in the 6th century B.C.
The tomb was found in an area containing several ancient cemeteries which belonged to the nearby town of Palaepaphos, 11 miles inland from modern Paphos.
First settled around 2800 B.C., Palaepaphos was the site of a temple of Aphrodite the ancient goddess of beauty who, according to mythology, was born in the sea off Paphos.
For what, I cannot say. But I feel poised, balanced, suspended between what has passed and what will occur. To a certain extent, we all are, aren't we? Every second of the day we live in a moment until the moment is no longer and we are in the next one. But sometimes, rarely, but sometime we can sense that exquisite tiny balance. Sometimes we become aware of how precariously we are perched in the present, not quite out of the past, not quite into the future.
I noticed it this morning as I was waiting for my train. It was 5:25 a.m. To my left, a short walk away, is the Long Island Sound and a charming beach. The sun was rising from that direction. It was painting the sky in bands of pink and orange and purple, all clearly delineated as if G-d had finally learned how to color within the lines, thank goodness. Above the colors, it was a very sweet baby blue. To my right, it was still night, complete with moon and stars and mostly black sky. And there I was in the middle, suspended between day and night, between yesterday's darkness and today's light. It was as if time had stopped for a moment, leaving me there to appreciate the balance as the clock ticked over for another day.
Perhaps I feel it because spring has, technically, arrived, although you wouldn't know it based on the serious cold snap we are trapped in. The cold weather actually makes you feel it better, the sense that you are suspended between time. You know spring is coming, because little green things are beginning to poke their heads through the earth, because I no longer travel to and from work entirely in darkness, because you can just feel it. But it is February cold, still, like winter hasn't quite finished with us. We are poised to shed our heavy coats and embrace the weak spring sun but it is not quite ready for us. We are expectant but still anticipatory.
Maybe it is because we are countdown mode for the arrival of our new child. Induction will be, as I mentioned before, on April 21, if he or she does not decide to poke his or her head out earlier. We are both ready (happy for the pregnancy to finish) and utterly unprepared for the birth.
Either way, I feel it -- hung up between possibilities. It can be exciting, sometimes. Like while I wait for a friend to provide introductions so I can continue to explore career change options (or futures, either instrument, really). The possibility is tantalizing, the reality of the perceived immediate professional future significantly less so.
I'm not sure where I am going with this entry but that's ok. I'm not sure what's going to happen when this pause between moments ends and I am launched, however unwillingly, into the future. Care to come along for the ride?
Warning: you will lose a lot of time with this time suck.
That is my suggestion for the day and I make it thanks to the excellent spot by Jeff . Things not happy for you? Kill the day by flipping through over 400 80's music videos. Bear in mind, if you are looking for any Twisted Sister or any of the outstanding 80's metal, this collection will leave you cold. If, however, you are (and I realize I reveal too much about myself with my selections, buuuuuut) excited to see any of the following, then go forth and explore:
*Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
*Echo and the Bunnymen, not to be confused with Pseudoecho and the Bunnyrabbits, not that anyone would do that, right?
*Der Kommissar, by After the Fire
*99 luftballons, Live!, by Nena
*Sunglasses at Night, by Corey Hart
The fun will last for hours.
UPDATE: Found Falco's Der Kommissar and Rock me Amadeus, including a live version. I can't decide which one I like better, truthfully.
You learn stuff taking the subway that you never, ever could have the opportunity to learn by taking a taxi to and from Court. I went to/from Court yesterday on an emergency application by taxi and learned nothing. Parenthetically, the client called me at 8:30 that morning with his very real, very serious emergency and by 4:00 I was at the court house with an 18 page complaint, three affidavits and an order to show cause with a temporary restraining order. Now, that's an example of service-oriented, can-do legal practice, my friends. But, back to the subway.
Today I was not in a hurry. I could take the subway, which was faster anyway at rush hour, and I could observe away to my heart's content. And today I learned.
I learned an important difference between men and women, today. There are differences, you know. Some of them rather critical. This is one that I never knew although I might have suspected. Curious? Want me to share my hard earned wisdom with you? Ok.
A nicely dressed woman on the subway in New York City will never, no matter how hard she was digging away in there, no matter how much force was applied to the problem, no matter how great the effort expanded to obtain a successful resolution -- she will never eat her own boogers. I can't say the same about a man.
Interesting what you can learn on the subway, ain't it?
Overheard today in the lobby of my office building, the following:
She says the most dumbest things some times.
No irony here, folks. Nope. Just move along.
Needless to say, perhaps, but it tickled me mightily.
I know that of late my poor little blog has suffered. I know that. I’ve seen the number of daily hits go down. But, between the quite encompassing demands of my job and the demands on the home front, my poor little blog has gotten squeezed out a bit. Couple all of that with the fact that I am a bit down and, well, the blog suffers as my motivation to write declines. I’ve had some time, this week. Not a lot of time, but enough time to think it through a bit and here’s where I am, here’s why I haven’t been writing. I have been feeling fey. Quite down, actually. A feeling that I am communicating with only great difficulty here. I’ll explain.
I am feeling overwhelmed by the idiotocracy. The feeling that the forces of stupidity are beating the forces of good. The sense that, looking at the world, we are not in a good situation at this point. True, there are sprinklings of good news here and there. See, e.g., recent elections in Canada as a ray of hope. But, by and large, it looks bad and it has my down and too tired to keep fighting the good fight. If you are unsure about what I am referring to, let me give you a non-exhaustive list:
*Venezuela – Chavez is a nutburger with oil money and strikes me as being a menace.
*Bolivia – Morales. Need I say more? If so, let me note that the Cubans and Chavez’s people have taken over security for him and he has dismissed the entire army general staff. Not good. We need our secret equipment back.
*Jimmy Carter – Hasn’t met a terrorist he can’t empathize with. As for his election to the Presidency, I demand a recount!
*Al Gore – Put a sock in it, Al. Telling the Saudis that we abuse Muslims is so beyond the pale that you, sir, are committing treason in my book.
*Israel – Looks more and more alone every day and seems unjustifiably to inspire more hatred and fear than anyone out there. I fear for her future.
*Jews – The world looks not so good for Jews these day, truthfully. I wonder if there has been more naked anti-Semitism in the world at any other time, WW II excepted. I worry about what I am bringing my kids into.
*Cartoons – Free speech and the great tradition of Western Liberalism has just been shot in the head and buried in a ditch behind the Mosque. Bravo to the Danish Government and brickbats to the craven Norwegians who officially apologized for free speech.
*Islam – This a religion of peace, are you kidding me? This is a religion which seems fundamentally incompatible with world peace and with anything approaching Western values. Why are we tip-toeing around on this? The Islamic world sure isn’t. Am I really the only one who thinks we are in a full blown ideological conflict, the biggest one since the Cold War ended?
*Europe – Further to the point above, by the way, I think it don’t look too frigging good for Europe. Pity. As one comedian once said, “Nice country; we beat them in world war II, you know?”
*Kids, today, or Moral relativism / Multiculturalism – What passes for the willingness to entertain a dissenting point of view today on our college campuses is nothing short of admirable, if your name is Josef Stalin, that is. Colonel Boyington and the University of Washington, springs to mind by way of example. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Google it, rinse and repeat.
*Media – Big media is no longer worthy of trust. Can you believe the amount of ink spilled over Cheney’s hunting accident? Tell me, honestly, that the media has become one huge partisan hack. You can’t; because it has.
*Politicians – of either party. All they seem to be doing is scoring points on each other. They are not doing the people’s business. I am totally disgusted. When will we get politicians who govern instead of this lot? Maybe we get the politicians we deserve, but I’d like to think we deserve better than this lot.
*Africa – Repression in Zimbabwe, so bad that I have ceased trying to record it since the world clearly does not give a fuck. AIDS in every other country. Corruption. Starvation. Everyone dying and no one caring.
*Iran – Are we really gonna let these nice people get a bomb? Enough said.
This list could go on and on. But it won’t. One more point, though:
*Truth – I leave off on this point. When was the last time someone actually stuck to the truth in advancing an argument? When did everything become spin? This is the last casualty. I am so dispirited by the lies.
No wonder I can only find energy to write about my kids, lately.
So, there I was in the fitness center this morning, after completing my workout, chatting with a couple of friends, one of whom is off to Amsterdam for her first trip. She's going for business, to close a very nice deal, and one of her business associates suggested that in celebration she get herself a pot brownie. This sort of scandalized my very nice friend and led to me making the following observation:
You know you're getting old, and I feel like I am all the time, when you kindly respond to the offer of a pot brownie by saying: gosh, thanks, but I'm on a low carb diet and I really can't eat that.
Water came out of my friend's nose. A successful snarf.
We spent much of Sunday going from our house in Connecticut to the birthday of the daughter of our college room mate in New Jersey. Between 3 and 4 hours of driving, all told. The kids were terrific in the car. Just fine.
The Girl Child sang to us almost the entire ride back, making up songs, performing them, and then quizzing us on what our favorite parts of her inventions were. At one point in the ride, the following transpired:
GC: Hey, Boy Child, you sing now while I have something to drink, ok?BC: OK. [Sings as commanded]
GC: Great! Now, we’re going to sing a rockin’ song!
Me: You mean, like “Rockin’ Robin”? [Which I then went on to sing for her]
GC: No, Pappa. When I said rockin’ song, I didn’t mean a song that had rockin’ in it; I meant a song that was groovin’
Oh. Silly me. Where did she ever learn the word “groovin’”? She's only five.
The Viking Bride was at the doctor today for her usual pre-natal checkup and she received some interesting news. Because of her medical complications, which I have not written about here, her doctor told her that he was going to do a planned induction for the baby's birth. This means that she's having the baby by appointment. Her labor by appointment is scheduled for April 21. Fortunately, I don't seem to have other plans for that day. But you never know what may crop up in the intervening days, of course. Still, I will endeavor to hold the day open.
Seriously, my wife is quite happy to at least have an outside date. Given her other pregnancies, this really is just an outside date and, well, you never know.
We still don’t know what the new baby will be: boy or girl. I’m kind of interested to find out, though. Ultimately, as long as the child is healthy I do not care a whit about what s/he has between the legs. Just be healthy. That’s all I ask and I hope it isn’t too much.
Margi is hanging up her blog. Go wish her well, will you? She's one of the really good ones, you know. I'll miss her writing, very much.
My only consolation is that she has done this at least once before and decided she couldn't stay away. I'm hoping that history repeats itself in this regard and she comes back soon.
So, instead of good bye, I will simply wish her a nice break and keep my fingers crossed.
So, the birthday party of the Boy Child was grand. He threw himself around all over the place and loved it. Predictably, the cake was his favorite part. I had a good time, too. I put the camera down and spent as much time as I could chasing him and the other kids around the gym. It made for a very enjoyable party and a nice payoff for all the time I've been spending in the fitness center. In other words, I'm totally in shape enough to play and play hard.
I've actually been keeping a log, since Jan. 3, of my workouts so that I can show the doctor at my annual physical, which physical I need to schedule soon. Since Jan. 3, I have traveled some 130 miles and burned around 22,000 calories. Is it any wonder I have had to bring my cummerbund in on my tuxedo? That doesn't include all the weight lifting and pilates and general daily ab work. I will be, if this keeps up, the perfect picture of pumpitude.
D.C. was great. It was an excellent meeting for an informational interview, ending with an offer to not only continue contact but to have me meet with his colleagues if I thought it would be useful. That is really about as good as it gets with an informational interview. And it was mighty useful, filling my head with interesting ideas and thoughts and information about how to effectuate a career change into the financial services / investment management world.
Speaking of which, by the way, the one guy here in NY I was trying to summon up the courage to call next, just called me to invite me out for a drink because he wanted to learn more about the topic of the speech I gave last night. He heard that my speech was fantastic and he wanted to chat about it. Upon his return from foreign climes, we are going to meet up and I am going to share information with him and then ask him for his thoughts and, if willing, his assistance in making some introductions. This guy knows everyone, is terribly senior, and extremely well thought of. Somehow, he likes me and respects me. That he called me? A perfect alignment in the cosmos, somehow.
D.C. was chilly but beautiful. I know I repeat myself, but I like the place. Something to do with the human scale of the height of the buildings and the real youthful vibe it actually has. I got to steal lunch with my cousin and take the train back to NY with my dearest friend from law school, with whom I spent the entire ride chatting, reminiscing, and catching up.
Now? Well, now I am back in appellate briefing hell while, with the other hand, trying to keep a settlement from blowing up. Would you, dear reader, be so stupid as to let a million dollar deal go down the tubes for the sake of $150k? Well, after three days of intense conversations, I have convinced my clients to be flexible and bid that money goodbye in exchange for receiving the bright shinny other money. Some people, I tell you, can't keep their eyes on the ball.
Anyway, I hope you all our well and happy.
If I know you, and you know what I mean, and you are curious to see a picture from the Boy Child's birthday party, and promise to gush appropriately, drop me a note.