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Saturday, May 7, 2005
Not Again
I question the existence of any category of human employment where the employed as a group are all wonderful, brilliant, immaculately competent people. No, I'm sure there are dodo doctors. Probably some chuckleheaded astronauts litter the NASA personnel list. Even Microsoft, that company founded on brains, likely has it's in-house cadre of dunces. That's where I am now. Cynical. Back when I was a kid, I read the superhero comics which now go for huge fees to collectors. I didn't believe in Superman particularly, but I think I did believe in superheroes as a group. To the extent that superheroes existed, if at all, they had superpowers. Every single one of them. There weren't any regular people walking around in tights pretending. Should I ever happen to sight a superhero, he/she/it would be able to do things unavailable to the ordinary run of flesh and blood.
Captain Caveman, Captain Underpants, Captain America, Captain Underdog...that whole bunch. They defined 'special'.
Now getting down to the subject, to me, forty years ago as a new kindergarten teacher, teachers seemed Olympian beings with supernatural powers...teachers other than me, that is. I respected my colleagues so much. Not only did they appear to know their jobs, they did those jobs without apparent effort. All this, while I was admittedly clueless but got there first and left last and then toiled at home all evening getting ready for the next day. They arrived split second on-time or later. They left with the students, looking fresh and rested. How amazing. I asked their advice and listened humbly to whatever they deigned to contribute to my education. In my heart I knew that I would never live long enough to approach their level of expertise.
Then another year down the road, I began to understand that most of those wonderful teachers were quite ordinary...not hyperskilled at all. Some of them were practically idiots. Lazy and smug and stupid. A few were conscientious..that's about the best you could say. Two of them showed real brains and talent. Generally, it was disappointing to learn how deluded I had been. What a shame. There I was ready to hero-worship. Since that time I have met teachers whom I respect, some that I believe to be wonderful people. As an employment category, however, the average teacher is...uh...average. The word TEACHER does not resonate with magical power. When you say, "Teacher," it's not like you said, "Shazzam!!!" What I mean is, there's a reason why I've never run across a Captain Educator comic book.
Then I became a lawyer. I was all set with the hero-worship again. Oooh. Lawyers must be brilliant. Every single book in law school was about 1,500 pages and they learned all that stuff. And they cleverly thought on their feet, entrapping opponents in their irresistible logic. Wow. How fabulously gifted they must all be. Yeah, well...
Turned out not to be true. Yes, there are some smart lawyers, but most of them are very average. And how hard is it to become a lawyer? I did it while teaching school all day and going to lawschool at night...and I passed the bar exam the first time...so big deal. If I did it without particularly breaking a sweat, it just was not special. Another disappointment. No Captain Litigator with a big L on his chest and a briefcase in one hand. The average lawyer is quite average by any standard.
Now I'm trying to become a mediator. Listening to and observing my teachers, I have felt that mediators must be super beings...I'll never measure up. How dare I - a sick, old, fat, has-been - attempt to weasel my way into this uniquely gifted confederation of competence? I should back away from mediators in a bowing posture while pulling my forelock. Then those two yesterday. What an illusion-shattering experience. Between the two of them they managed to do every single thing a mediator is not supposed to do. Yes, I'm 62 years old, but I still cherished that childish dream of amazing people with special powers. Oh, gee. Oh, boo-hoo. There's no Captain Mediator in that superhero pantheon, summarising and validating his way to world peace. Too bad.
Friday, May 6, 2005
Thank God For A Chance To See Something Not Up To Prescription
I have dutifully sat through hours and hours and hours and hours of tutelage re. mediation technique. And my teachers are fabulous people. Their skills dazzle one. I believe everything they say because so clearly they, themselves are able to do what they teach. By now I think I know what each of them would say about anything mediation related. I am in awe of them and want to be just like them .......someday...if I live so long...if possible...knowing that I lack whatever they have.
To say that I am humble about my prospects for success as a mediator would understate my self abasement. Come to think of it, my current frame of mind would be joy and ecstasy to the many people whom I kaboomed in my former life. Yes, world. Joanna is humble right now.
Which brings me to today. I got a call that an observation was open and, of course, I said, "Yes." I want to observe until I get restless and begin to think, "Why didn't he/she say.....?"
I suppose you might say that happened this afternoon. I was supposed to observe an elderly gentleman and a relatively young woman. They mediated a conflict between two people whose problem was so personal that even though you have no idea who they are, I would not mention anything about it.
To cut a long story short, at the end of the afternoon, I had a list of 84 things those mediators did which would have got my head taken off as a practice mediator in front of my esteemed teachers. And here's the bottom line....they obtained an agreement and the mediatees left professedly grateful. So...I feel that I spent my afternoon well. Now I know that even if I make a total donkey out of myself in terms of optimal mediation technique, I may just survive that embarrassment until I learn to do a really good job.
Weirdly, the elderly person gave his younger co-mediator a glorious evalutation. He verbally praised her to the skies. How do I feel about that?
Um. They got an agreement. She faced a dispute between two people of her ethnicity and she took them on as though Grandma was there getting them right. Abandoning any pretence of eliciting the solution from the clients, she told them exactly what to do and how to do it. She dealt with them separately...another no-no...made them call home for authorization, and called them back to the table to sign an agreement she crafted over their silence.
Would I have reached this "happy" ending? Maybe not...using the prescribed technique. However...her way to mediate looked and sounded a great deal like what worked for me many, many times in my previous career. Not that I plan to be influenced by what I saw today....No, no. I am dedicated to mirroring my mentors. No kidding. I mean that. If one time in my life I could bring peace to troubled souls like those wizards do, I would be so thankful. Yes the mediators, today, got an agreement. They chuckled again and again and congratulated each other repeatedly. However, both parties to the mediation left with their heads down. Afterwards one of them sat in his truck for 18 minutes, his head in his hands. I stayed in my car and watched...thinking. Mediation is supposed to send both sides out feeling as if they have won. You see, those people work in the same office. On Monday morning they have to look at each other and work together. From what I saw, they hope to never see each other again in their lives. What I saw leave the building was mutual shame and disgust and anger, each with a paper in his/her hand which said that the mediators did a wonderful job.
Communication
Communication...it's what so many mediations are about. Person A has communicated badly with Person B to the detriment of the entire neighborhood. Now they're sitting in mediation yelling at each other over relentless summaries and validations from the mediator...and still not communicating. How much trouble on earth might be avoided through better communication? Probably none because if everyone knew exactly what everyone else was thinking, instead of animosity, there'd be total war. However....
I recently confronted the problem of bad communication in potential conference with my chihuahua, Pork Chop. How do you talk to a chihuahua? It's a learning process on both sides. To be said for Porkee, she has figured out, "No," which means that whatever she had in mind, it won't happen, so she should go ahead to look brutally abused, and give up. I, on the other hand, sometimes fail at the yawn and stretch. It has meant, she wants to go outside. Sometimes, it means she wants her back scratched. A few times it has been about a nonfat snack between meals.
Just now I experienced a brief flash of partial clarity. All night rain thundered down, poured off the roof upstairs onto the roof over the laundry. Wet. Seems I fell asleep on the sofa in front of the downstairs TV and now it is almost 6:00 A.M. I woke up thinking how good a sandwich would taste; roast beef, horseradish sauce, and a fat tomato slice on a warm Kaiser bun. The perfect breakfast. Getting up to make this, I noticed Pork Chop doing her yawn and stretch. "Oh, no!" I think. "She has to go potty." I hurry to assemble coat, shoes, Porkee's leash and harness, de-activate the alarm, and we're out on the porch. I tug the leash and yip, "Let's get it over with." Porkee is not coming along. I look back. She stands by the door, hunched up, shivering, giving me the saddest, most accusing look yet. She looks meaningfully up at the door. She looks out at the rain and shudders. She gives me another accusing look. All perfectly clear. She wanted to go back indoors. I agree. But what about the yawn and stretch? What was that about THIS time?
I sit down with my breakfast sandwich and cup of tea. I bite into the tangy combination. Pork Chop groans like a lost soul. Huh? I look down. There she is yawning and stretching and power-staring at my sandwich. Aha! She wants kibbles. I hop up, go to the kitchen, get a handful, put them in her dish, sit back down at the computer, lift the sandwich and, mymy! we're back with the yawn and stretch. I pick her up. She sniffs such a mighty sniff that bits of roast beef waft in the breeze dognoseward. Before I can interfere, Pork Chop has gulped these microfragments, licks her lips, and power-stares again at the sandwich. You, know, I may be wrong. This could be a reach, but I wonder if she might possibly want a bite of my roast beef sandwich..? Nah. She can't be hungry because she rejected kibbles. What to do, what to do.....
Thursday, May 5, 2005
You Never Know
It's one thing to laugh about people acting up in a TV comedy. The real thing isn't funny. Day before yesterday I was called from the Mediation Center to come in for a one-evening class. Later, on the way home from class, I remembered that I lacked supplies for Benny to make something the next morning. So I rushed into the ghetto grocery just before they closed, grabbed a box of brownie mix, and hurried into the only line still open.
A woman approached from my right side as though she intended to step into line in front of me. Not interested in arguing, I pulled back my shopping cart and said, "Go ahead." She carried an overfull shopping basket which she threw on the ground. She raised both arms over her head and yelled at me, "NO!!! YOU GO AHEAD OF ME! No one loves me. Nobody gives a damn about me. I have no one to go home to but my husband who is either drunk or stoned, I don't know which. I don't even want to go home. All evening I've been making up errands to do so I can stay out of the house where he can't hit me again. I had supper at McDonalds and then took a walk and went back to McDonalds and ate another supper just to be away from home longer."
While speaking, she waved her arms around, continually smacking one fist into the palm of the other hand. She danced on her toes from side to side like a boxer in the ring.
You could have heard a pin drop in the store. I and the other customers and the clerks froze in place during the start of this performance. She yelled and screamed and threw herself around so wildly that I worried she'd hit me with one of those simulated uppercuts. So I moved my cart up to fill the space I had created for her, turned my head away. The woman behind me came up so close she almost touched my back. I heard her barely murmuring, "Oh, dear, oh, my, oh my goodness....." Evidently she, too, thought she might catch a stray punch.
The excited woman kicked her shopping basket away from the checkout line. As the clerk rang up my brownie mix, the poor soul continued to rant and rave although not exactly screaming any more. Again and again she punched her hand, snarling half words pretty much to the effect that she'd like to punch her husband in the head for all the times he'd hit her in the head.
After paying, I turned to pick up my bag and took a good look at the woman. She was a frail little old wisp of humanity, white hair dyed black but the roots showed, no teeth, a nice outfit, and very, very crazy eyes.
Feeling guilty, I left without trying to do anything for her. Mostly I didn't know what to do. If she wanted help from police, the security guard would have called 911 for her. She was so physically agitated, jumping around and fake punching, that I didn't think she'd listen to me if I tried to talk to her. Probably she had been abused as she said, but she was also quite crazy. She seemed to me to need to do just what she was doing, yell, scream and physically demonstrate her distress to a big group of strangers.
Last week a speaker to my Family Mediation class recited statistics for the incidence of wife beaters in the general population and he added, "They look perfectly normal. Some of you men sitting here could very well be wife beaters...and some of you women, unless statistics lie, are beaten fairly often and you're angry enough to kill your husband if you thought you could get away with it." He told us that beaten women lie about it, cover it up, don't want anyone to know. Yeah, except for one super-angry little old lady at the ghetto grocery.
Sunday, May 1, 2005
Don't Take My Pork Chop Away
I spent much of last night in the waiting room of the local veterinary hospital's emergency department. Pork Chop had done something to make herself sick. She refused to eat or drink anything for 24 hours, slowly went down, down down. When I took her outside, she stood just off the sidewalk and threw up over and over. Then she collapsed,and I had to carry her back indoors.
The hospital emergency personel did a wonderful job with her. They gave her a shot to stop the vomiting and put her on IV's for 18 hours. Eventually she looked and acted like her old self except that at the hospital she refused to eat. Two veterinarians conferenced and decided that I should take her home and try to get her to eat in familiar surroundings. Sure enough. I no sooner let her in the door, than she charged into the kitchen and stood where her dish usually was, glaring at me with a look of, "Well? Where's the beef?"
Having to leave Porkee at the hospital last night was terrible. I realized how much she has worked her way into my heart. Lydia laughed at me while I moaned and groaned over Porkee's situation last night (You have to also realize that she drove us to the hospital and stayed with us the whole time, then took me home, and watched until I was safely indoors.), but you know, I don't care. Pork Chop has someohow managed to become important to me. I love that small scrap of dog. Just now she is sleeping on my lap...life as it should be. Thank God for a good doggie hospital. Thank God that Pork Chop is OK again.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Pork Chop
The other day Lydia took some pictures of Pork Chop. Taaaaa-Daaaa!!!!!!
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Guts
Day after day I accumulate scar after scar from experiences designed to turn me into a mediator. Training in the state of Virginia runs the asperant up a steep learning curve because this state more or less initiated the present day role of mediators. To mediate in Virginia, one must first be certified by the Supreme Court. The whole process drags on as a long and embarrassing death march because one must mediate under supervision. The supervisors weigh in early and often, yell, "No!" Then they explain what you should have said and why the things you did say were disastrously bad. Sigh. Today I was told that I have made great improvement, however, I'm just not so sure about that. For all the good I'm doing, I might as well quack like a duck. At the age of 61 and 1/2, new skills come slowly. I appreciate the relentless encouragement of the staff at the mediation center, but both they and I know that REALLY, my chances of becoming a good mediator are about equivalent of those of the proverbial snowball at the fourth of July picnic. One chuckle; a speaker today told us that to become a good mediator, one needs guts. That is;
G=great
U=urge
T=to
S=succeed
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Judgement Day
Somewhere between its covers, the Bible issues a stern warning, "Do not enjoy the troubles of others." This morning I had no problem heeding that dictum. Something happened that I have wished for, but I admit that the reality of it was not a pretty thing to see.
Eviction time finally arrived across the street. Several tenants have moved out before today but that left a lot of wrong-doers in situ. My first clue was the landlord in his truck followed by a Sheriff's Deputy in his official car. The Deputy carried a wad of paper...hm... landlord and Deputy went into the second building. Meanwhile the old wrecky red truck belonging to men who sometimes do grunt work for the landlord...it pulled up and the usual gang of toilers emerged. I called Lydia and told her what was happening and she exclaimed, "This must be the day." Looked more and more that way.
The landlord had not gone three steps from his truck when a crew of goons poured out of his buildings, beseiging him with words and pleading gestures. He shook his head NO. The sheriff went into a building and came back out immediately. Landlord dug around in the workbox part of his truck bed and got out a cutting tool. Both men went inside again. Landord came back out and motioned for his workers to accompany him. Guess the inmates thought that if they padlocked themselves in, they'd be safe from eviction, but not so.
The first thing out on the sidewalk was a dining room table which even from across the street, I identified as a very nice piece of furniture.
Here came matching chairs, a king-sized bed, sofas, boxes and bags of small items, plastic tubs of stuff.
Meanwhile clouds poured in from the west, chilly day out there, Virginia natives all wore parkas. Raindrops began to spot the sidewalk. The evicted ones stood sullenly and watched their lives dragged to the curb.
Finally an old falling-apart car pulled up curbside near the pile of ousted possessions. A massively fat woman waddled around from the driver's side to the back of her car, unlocked the trunk, then went to sit in her seat out of the weather. Slowly, drearily, evicted ones reached out for small items to carry and began to fill the waiting car. One woman walked over to the new house construction site and said sopmething to one of the crew working there. He scornfully motioned her away. She hung her head and padded fatly back to the junk mountain at curbside.
Those being evicted from that particular apartment amounted to three of the worst young troublemaking men and a group of superfat women. None of the men lifted a finger to move the process forward. They stood casually by, smoking and chatting as though the eviction happened to someone other than themselves.
One of the young men was an enormous individual who wears his jeans with crotch between his knees and his ankles. His hair hangs in thick dreadlocks, ordinarily held up off his forehead with a barrette.
He is "Nacho", according to greetings called out to him many times during his period of residence. He also is a convicted and violent sex offender according to the Virginia State registered sex offender web page. I don't know his real name, but I managed to identify him by both his nickname, his picture, and his address. Good to have him living somewhere else.
The first tenant to move a week ago was a family group including another registered sex offender, Anthony "Little Ant" 'Something'. Always happy to see fewer persons of his persuasion living across the street from me. Now today another one has moved.
Oh, the trouble those two engendered. Fights without end. Nacho, in particular, was the heartiest warrior in scraps with police. Whew.
Meanwhile the work goes on, clearing the curb, one car load of stuff at a time. The car isn't gone too long, so I suppose these individuals are smooshing in on someone less than five miles away. Any distance from here, though, is a good thing.
How about the not rejoicing in others' trouble thing? Easy. I actually felt sorry for all those wretched characters although they have made life pretty scarey here since I moved in last November. The old people next to the Post Office live in terror of them. Mrs. Edna and her son, next to me, are ready to move away in order to not see the antics of those wrong-doers any more. All winter bad guys lived as haughty as Lords and Chieftains while law abiding citizens cowered. I will never forget my walk to the corner store as two freaks swore into my ears from behind and one freak ran backwards in front of me, spitting at me all the way. They had so much fun tormenting ordinary people. They scorned regular go-to-work types. They murdered, fought, assaulted, sold drugs, pimped and prostituted themselves. Now it's judgement day. This is not about paying the rent because all of those folks are section 8. The state directly pays the landlord. It's all about living outside the law, refusing to follow any rules whatsoever. Their last act in office was to fill all of the recycle tubs with kitchen trash and set the tubs at curbside. On Thursday when the city fianlly sent a truck to take back all those recycle tubs, I suspected that the party was nearly over for scofflaws of 38th Street. Watching the eviction take place today, I vicariously experienced fear on behalf of the evicted. I pitied them. I thought, "Oh, Lord. Have mercy on them. They aren't responsible because they're all as nutty as fruitcakes." Then a fight broke out which rages on as I type. There it went again, the roared curses and vulgarities and obscenities. The slapping, hair-pulling, hitting, wrestling, punching, etc., etc. A few of them are trying to move their stuff somewhere, but the rest remain at curbside. It ain't over, til it's over and that hasn't happened yet.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Don't Grow Up To Be The Person Against Whom You Used To Argue
While still young enough to argue points of view with those least likely to agree, I spent one entire evening duking it out verbally re. the relative merits of living life as a self-improvement project vs. living just as life occurs, being what you are. At that time I stoutly defended the second alternative.
Now here I am; old and crabby, retired, way too chubby, unhealthy, practically useless and what am I doing? I'm getting Supreme Court certification as a mediator. BECOMING certified.
For a person accustomed to consider myself all-wise in every respect, this is a hard way to go. I do it badly albeit with the greatest expenditure of energy and attention to business. Exhausting.
Today begins the Family Mediation training and I both anticipate and dread the process. Yes, I will make even more of a donkey of myself than heretofore. It's interesting to do, though.
Five Families Did It All
This A.M. Pork Chop and I did our large lap around civilization. Particularly admired the dogwoods, wisteria, and lilac. Just magnificent. Excellent dog-walking weather, seventy degrees. Local persons we passed all wore parkas. A block and a half from home, we came upon a fellow my age out planting ivy. Porky and I stopped to congratulate him on the beauty of his environs. He took off his hat, leaned up against the ivy wall, and gave us a short history of this community. He said that starting about 1970, Colonial Place looked like becoming a victim of white flight. Realtors, happy for the business, engaged in frantic block busting ventures. This chap told me that he/his wife/four other couples incorporated as a Community Preservation League. None of the members of the league were big shots or wealthy people. They were ordinary folks determined not to allow their neighborhood to turn into a slum. Over the ensuing years, they organized every single block in Colonial Place. They worked with the legislature and the city to obtain favorable legislation, grants, advice, whatever they needed to save Colonial Place as the pretty area it still is. He said that as a result C.P. is now a friendly mix of races, all proud property owners and maintainers. He said that the average property during that time period escalated to at least three times its original assessed value. Then he did a sell job on me, to get me into the Preservation League. I hedged. Seems like he has the job well in hand. He assured me that my house, no matter the adjacency of those yellow apartments, is a great investment. "Your property value will certainly double in five years at the most." My, my. On and on he enthusiastically chattered, pointing out each delightful feature of his and his neighbors' homes. "Look at the big nest in that tree. Do you know what is nesting there now? Well, it's a yellow crested heron from over on the boat canal. How about that? Have you ever heard anything so lovely as the song of that mocking bird? What a versatile performer it is. And do you notice how each house here is different from those around it? The variety makes this place easy on the eyes, doesn't it?....."
Bottom line; people who know what they want, have a chance of achieving their goals. I like to hear about those who set out against great odds, but who succeed in doing great things. Too many stories end with a shrug of, "Oh, well, what can you do?"
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