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Thursday, May 12, 2005
Heat
Today I gave up pretending that it's not hot and I turned on the airconditioning. Over the last month I have almost turned it on many times, but talked myself out of it. After all if the temperature is such that neighborhood children still go to school each A.M. wearing parkas...and they do, I mean with the hood up and all zipped, snapped, tied and fastened...why would anyone need airconditioning? Forget those people. If it is high in the eighties and if I am dripping with sweat, that's the right time to turn on the airconditioning. Yesterday while walking Pork Chop, I got so hot, I almost exploded. Took me nearly an hour to cool down. I got a glass of icewater and held it to my forehead. Later, Lydia and the kids picked me up for a day of going here and there, and I immediately said, "Crank up the air conditioning in this van." Now today I gave up being a stoic and turned it on in my house. Why suffer? What about the natives wearing parkas? They're crazy. Completely out of their minds. Think about it. My squash and watermelon plants are up, about a foot tall now. The tomato plants literally droop to the ground with big, fat tomatoes. All the spring flowers came out and did their thing long ago. This is warm climate state and I live at the bottom of that state. Chesapeake is next to Norfolk, all part of the Hampton Roads metroplex, and the border of Chesapeake is the North Carolina State line. Hot here at this time of year. Time to call it like it is, the airconditioning time of year.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Love Thy Dog
We are commanded to love our neighbors, our parents, our God...why not say, "Oh, and don't forget to love thy dog?" Because the dog is so loveable that anyone who needed a commandment, has to be so crazy the commandment would do no good. Funny thing about dogs, they don't seem loveable 'on paper'. Pork Chop, for example, is a small, fat, irrascible, frequently stinky, yappy mutt. You would pass up a dog like that, right?
I didn't love her right away. It was more a matter of having made a choice and sticking to it. Slowly, though, insidiously, day by day, little Porkeeisms began to wheedle their way into my heart. The itty bitty running commentary out of her mouth, just muffy squeaks and sighs and grunts, barely audible, but it never stops, day or night. The enthusiasm with which she erupts up the stairs every single time I go up there and then follows me around as I do whatever I went up to do and then joyfully rushes back downstairs with me, glad to be along for even so small an occasion as an excursion to put the mail on my desk. The entitled determination with which when I sit on the sofa and pull up an afghan, she roots under the fabric until she has settled herself on my lap in a tiny circle of contented dog. The sounds of a baby crying which fragment from her as I try to hold her still long enough to put on her walkies harness. The heads up, bouncing off the ground gait with which she does her daily trip around the neighborhood. The way she eats her food, one itty bitty kibble at a time, carrying each microfragment from the kitchen, sitting on a clean patch of carpet, and chewing with loud satisfaction, strewing crumbs, then looking at me with the friendly chihuahua slow-blink which says, "Thanks, good stuff." The never-say-die fury with which she attacks the laundry room door when I isolate her to keep her out of trouble with strangers in the house. The shock and outrage with which she bolts to the end of her leash yelling at any bird sitting on the grass near her. The patience with which she will return again and again to bed or sofa, days on end, to burrow under the covers and curl up next to me when I am so frequently sick. The way that while I take a bath, she sits outside nose to nose with the bathroom door, listening intently, and if she hears the least unusual sound...a dropped soap bottle, a splash, she barks sharply, "Take it easy in there! Don't hurt yourself." The multitude of goofy little doggy expressions which cross her rubber face and which manipulate her great big silly ears; one minute scringed down in mock humility, the next-straight up like fence posts, her eyes beady and fierce and then soft and kind. The fact that when I must leave her at home and say at the door, "No, Porkee," she hangs her head, and walks back to the nearest sofa with slumped shoulders, so sad. And when, anywhere we are in the house, I say, "OK, now we'll go out," she frisks and leaps and rushes to and fro in uncontrollable ecstasy simply because we are going outside.
Little scroungy dogs ask almost nothing, require minimal food and few possessions, can be either played with or ignored, only want to be with us, sit by us, would never, never, never , never say or do a hurtful thing because nothing hurtful ever crosses their minds. Their greatest joy is to be allowed to be someone's dog. People with no friends might take lessons.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Choices
I suppose that even obscenely rich people have to make choices. No one can have it all. I, not remotely rich, but retired and living on a 'fixed income', make choices all the time. Example; today a man is coming to give me an estimate re. the cost of installing a ventless gas fireplace in the living room fireplace...the fireplace which does not work because the building inspector told me only a lunatic would go ahead and use the chimneys in this house. Do I need a fireplace? Not even slightly. So why am I getting that estimate? Because if I can afford it, I WANT a fireplace. All last winter, I wanted a fireplace. As a person who perforce sits around a lot, I do quite a bit of time on the sofa either in the living room or here, in the dining room where the larger TV is. Wintertime sofa-sitting is vastly enhanced by the presence of a cheerfully crackling fireplace.
What if I find today that I can't afford a fireplace? Well, then I'll put it on the list for later after I save up the necessary dough. What's choice got to do with it? Everything. If I get a fireplace, I'll have to postpone something else. Postpone what? I would like to have a carpenter line all four walls of the workroom with built-in shelves and cabinets. I would like to have electricity supplied to the garage and a workstation for power tools built there. I would like to have all the back yard fencing removed and new 6' privacy fencing installed so that I could get an inground pool and a trampoline for the children to enjoy. I would like to have all new windows custom made for the house. Etc., etc., etc..... choices. Can't do all of those things at once. My toes and fingers are crossed that today's estimate will fall within the realm of the near-time possible. Why would I even consider something 'nice' like a fireplace, when something sensible like new windows is on the list? Because I won't live forever and if I don't hurry up and do all the things I WANT to do, I may not get them done. The older I am, the more "just because I want it' seems like a wise choice.
Hit Me, Beat Me, Kick Me.
"There you go encouraging me like the teachers at the mediator center." That's what I said to someone the other day who attempted to allay my fear of mediating, fear of doing badly.
You see,the teachers at the center do SO much stroking and patting, figuratively speaking.
I asked one of them, "Has anyone ever come through here immune from the relentless encouragement going on all the time? Does anyone ever get THE WORD? Has anyone ever been taken aside and quietly steered in another direction?"
She said, "My goodness. Would you LIKE to get browbeaten, demeaned, and discouraged?"
"No," I replied, "Not at all. I'd hate that. However, I wonder how seriously to take the kind words directed my way. Personally, I do not feel that I am doing better. I can see myself making mistakes. To listen to you, though, I'm doing just fine. So I ask if all this warm treacle daily applied with a big shovel, is it intended to be taken seriously or is it about as real as when you say anything at all to a southern woman and she answers with, 'Oh, you're so SWEET!' "
The teacher laughed. She told me that very few people come through the program unfit to practice. The few who do are not recommended to the Supreme Court for licensing. She said that nearly all of their mediators are older adults who have already succeeded at something else and who take up mediation as a sideline...and then some of those go on to do the job full time. Academic background and life experience has made them ready up to a point and then on-the-job- experience under supervision finishes their preparation.
I certainly like and need encouragement but.....
You know it was different in law school. Students WERE demeaned, discouraged, and browbeaten...deliberately...as a matter of policy. I was the one the Contracts professor made the butt of his venom for a whole semester, just like in the movie, The Paper Chase. It was very, very good for me. Practice of law is a somewhat stylized form of warfare. Someone always wins and someone else always loses. I went to law school at night and my entering class numbered 75. By Thanksgiving, that number was down to 22.
Student after student could not take the adversarial, rude, outrageous attack mode of teaching night after night after night. It was terrible for me, too. But it toughened me as well. One night after being made to stand and recite without notes for forty-five minutes while the teacher did everything he could to confuse me, humiliate me, force me to cry and quit, I suddenly got blindingly angry. I said to him, "I caution you that some day you will begin to meet your former students in court. This is inevitable. At that time they will no longer be tired working people with families, people who are also going to school full time and therefore are more vulnerable to unfair pressure than they otherwise would be. They will be working and experienced professionals who remember how you treated them and every single one of them will want to make you pay. You are a teacher here but a working attorney, too. The law of averages has you lined up for a string of wretched courtroom humiliations that will make you want to quit and work at McDonalds. What goes around, comes around. Think about it."
He stared at me silently for a few minutes and then stood up, collected his books, and left the room. When the door closed behind him, the rest of the class stood up and applauded me, a standing ovation.
Of course, after I fired a shot across his bow in that way, he came after me even more ferociously. I learned everything there is to know about standing up under pressure. Never again in my life would someone be able to frighten and confuse me in an adversarial setting.
Two years later just before I graduated, I met that professor in the hallway and he congratulated me on my approaching graduation. Then he added, "I just wonder if you would allow me to share a few comments with you," he was looking down and shuffling his feet.
I said, "Fire away."
He replied, "I don't apologise very well, but I wish to apologize to you for the completely unjustified torment I put you through in your freshman year. I have never treated a student so badly, although I do have a well-earned reputation for weeding out weak people. Funny thing is that you are the only student ever to stand up to me.
Here's what I want you to know...You've really got what it takes. As law is practiced in this country, only the very strong succeed. Lots of people can learn the law, but not too many have what it takes to stand up in court every day facing a bored judge who entertains himself by tormenting the lawyers, facing opposing counsel who want to win at least as much as you do. I'm not proud of the way I treated you, but I am proud to think that I helped to turn you into one of the toughest people to ever walk out of this place. I have made it my business, besides teaching Contracts Law, to divert students who should not head into a life of simulated warfare. Most of your class quit before the end of their first semester. They were smart enough, but did not have the right character to do what a successful lawyer does. I looked at you and saw a sweet little kindergarten teacher and decided to help you find the door. You took it and took it, and took it, and took it, night after night and then one night you looked me coldly in the eye and gave it back. I have never had a student do that before or since. It sent a chill down my spine. I thought, 'Wow. This one's got it.' So, congratulations on finishing law school and I wish you much success."
I answered, "Good move. You are just about at the stage where in a courtroom you might have to meet a rested, experienced, prepared, and highly motivated Joanna Jenkins, Attorney At Law."
He laughed, "Yep. You're tough," and walked away shaking his head.
The truth is that he was right. He did me a favor. The process wasn't any fun, but it made me into a whole different person. Anyone who could be embarrassed and unnerved out of law school, should not practice law. Learning to think under extreme pressure is crucial.
The job of mediator is also harrowing. We have been told that during sessions, people scream and yell and cry and curse and try to shout you down and misbehave all kinds of ways. A nervous, rattled, embarrassed, confused mediator would be no use whatsoever.
I look around me in classes and in practice sessions and wonder how any of us will be able to function on the job when we are still fumbling for the right words.
That House Is Like Me
Across 38th Street, the new house more nearly assumes its final shape. Going to look like a very big place. Impressive. I, however, know that the entire structure amounts to four and a half decent sized rooms. No doubt inside it will be carved up into the regular living, cooking, pottying, bathing, sleeping areas, but it's going to all be small in there. My house doesn't look that large, but it's got much more floor space. What we have going up across the street, is a house like me; I'm a little person on the inside and a fat person on the outside.
Monday, May 9, 2005
Bah Humbug
A pair of birds chose an unfortunate location for their nest...in the middle of one of my hanging baskets of pansies out on the front porch. I suspected this would happen. Birds were flying into and out of the baskets. Yesterday afternoon Benny and I waited on the porch for his parents to pick him up. I took down one of the baskets and sure enough, there is a perfect little nest and in it, a perfect little pale blue egg. Benny loved it, wanted to hold the egg, kept trying to convince me a baby bird was singing inside and needed his help to get out.
Today I see that one of the birds sits on the nest at all times, singing and singing. Cute and so forth. However, now I can neither water nor take down the plant and it has already drooped, plant and flowers hanging drearily down the sides, nest very visible up there in the middle. Guess I'm stuck with an ugly plant on the porch for a while.
What's fair about this? I am the only person the entire whole refried length of 38th Street who put up hanging flower baskets. Now a couple of little birds kaboomed one of them.
Another thing... every single morning my lawn is littered with junk. Yesterday it filled a garbage bag; a two liter bottle of pop, pop cans, pages of a newspaper, McDonalds wrappers and sacks, plastic bags for Cheetos and potato chips and Doritos, a Cheezits box, fragments of this and that, styrofoam items, all kinds of junk and lots of it. Every morning I pick up the trash and then my lawn looks nice for the rest of the day. Then the next morning there it is again, TRASH! I suppose I'll have to stop just throwing the junk away. To really get rid of it, I'll first have to pound a wooden stake through each separate item. Between Plant Killer Birds and Curse of The Undead Trash, I have to work at making this place look respectable.
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.
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