Merry Christmas to my 6 readers. Hope your Holidays are bright and loving.

MCBruce

Ho ho friggin' ho

Well. Christmas is still a month away, right? I can still do some shopping, write a few cards and still have time to catch my breath, yes? I mean, it's not like it's this Friday or anything.

What is there about Christmas? Its the only day of the year that seems to show up way faster than it should. Unless you're under ten. In that case, it takes about three eons to show up.

But I'm trying to stay on top of it while still working the practice. Getting a few things done. Was in court this AM for a client getting justice from some guy who took $150,000 from her on false pretenses. The judge will rule on Jan 8, so who knows what's going to happen, but I'm pretty confident the law cuts for us. After all, he admitted he didn't pay her a penny of it back.

But that's work. At home the house is now decorated (I keep meaning to get a picture of it to show you, since I know that you're really interested) and I've bought about 3/4 of the gifts I want to get. The rest are gift cards and I don't much care whether someone thinks it's a thoughtless gift. Most people I send gift cards to have never, ever given me a gift, so I don't have a lot of guilt on that score. I send them because they are related to me and I have no idea of what they want. What would you do?

As you note, I am rather telegraphic in the blog these days. The times when I could stretch out and do a nice long entry have seemed to fallen under the wheels of the holidays. Just as well. I get into less trouble, the less I say.

So I'm telling you now. I'm likley not to put another entry here until after the new year comes creeping in. So Merry Christmas to you. Happy Channukkah. Extraordinary Eid, Super Solstice, and for those of you who don't go in for any of that--Humbug to you, too. Hope you enjoy it.

Christmas, Inc.

Okay, an update on the decoration dilemma.

You knew I'd cave.

Yup, I put the stuff up anyway. I figured that, being a 16 going on 36 year old, Adam secretly wanted me to put up the stuff but didn't know how to tell me in a way that would maintain his "cool." So I played sentimental Daddy and did it anyway. Lights on the house. Wreath on the door. Tree with ornaments and lights and a poorly strewn strand of plastic golden beads all over the tree. Very festive.

I need to take some time tomorrow when the courts are closed so that I can get some Christmas shopping done. I will likely try to limit the Christmas gifts this year to things which are easily mailed--thank you, gift cards--and not beat my head over what someone I haven't seen in a few years (my niece and nephew in SoCal) or ever (my grand-nephews in Sacramento) might want.

I do love shopping, though. It's the 14-year-old girl in me, that likes the sparkle and glitz and outright tackiness of Christmas in America. I am not one of those who bemoans how commercial Christmas has become. I say, make it more commercial. Deck the halls with advertisements from Sears. Trim the tree with the latest circular from K-Mart. I wonder if the wise men stopped at Kohl's on their way to the manger? Gold, Frankinsense and Myrrh are great, but you know kids. They need underwear and want toys. If it had been me, I might have thrown in a GI Joe for the Baby Jesus, peace on earth but keep yourself armed just in case.

The law calendar has slowed a bit, so I can get myself caught up before the new year. I might even try to take a day or two off, though I seem to have cases on the 22 and 24. Sigh and double sigh.

Oh well. Maybe I can walk in the Arcata Forest in the rain. A Humboldt Christmas. And not a circular in sight.

A Christmas Quandry



So the question this year is whether I will decorate the place for the Holidays. The Boy is now 16 years old, going on 17, going on 53. He is too mature and adult, he says, for the usual holiday fol-de-rol. Trimming the tree is for kids (the last two years I've had to do it myself) and it all just gets in the way of stuff he wants to do in the living room. Anyway, if I decorate the house I'll do it alone.

Of course, you tell yourself as your kid is growing up that you do all the Christmas stuff for him. You do it because you're a good parent. You do it because you want to give him the memories. You do it to give that piece of magic that he will hang on to for the rest of his life.

But it's all justification and you know it. I should say, and "I know it." I decorate the house for myself as much as for him. I do it to remember the few Christmases that I remember from my very young childhood as being magical and wonderful and warm and familal. I hope that, by decorating, I will recapture that feeling. Such magic is in short supply in one's adult life.

Still, it's a lot of work. Particularly doing it alone. There's something unutterably sad about putting the tree decorations on by myself.

So take a good look at the picture above, taken two years ago. It might be the last time in a long time the Little Yellow House dresses up for the holidays.

Planet Smog

Just back from a quick business visit to L.A., my hometown, scene of many childhood victories and disasters, Planet Smog. I am of two minds on SoCal in general and L.A. in particular. On one hand, as I drive down the freeways I notice that the place is all buildings and roads and the occasional sad tree or bush; compared to my present home in Humboldt, L.A. seems gray and garish and crowded and dirty.

On the other hand, it's where I come from, so I have a comfort level in L.A. that I don't seem to feel anywhere else, even a green paradise like Humboldt. It repels and attracts me at the same time. I love the place like a brother--and, like a brother, I seem to constantly get into disputes with it and leave for long periods of time.

The nature of the business is, of course, confidential, but I was at least able to see a few friends. My old friend Leslie and her daughter Helena had lunch with me and I entertained the child as only I am able to do. I'm not sure why, but kids and cats love me dearly. I guess with the kids they see that I am harmless and like to be playful and make funny faces (including the one I usually wear to the rest of the world). I think, too, that I take kids as they are--I don't try to mold them or instruct them or control them. I let them be kids and I let the kid in me be a kid with them. Anyway, I'm very popular with the under-5 set.

Cats? Who can say with cats? All I know is that when I am in the same room with one, no matter who else is in the room, the cat will come to me first, rub my legs, meow to be petted. I suppose I should try to cash in on this--become a cat whisperer or something--but really, I can't see spending my life devoted to cats. Especially since I'm allergid to cat hair dander.

But I digress. L.A. Planet Smog. The Big Tamale. Taco? Avocado? I dunno. NY is the Big Apple, mostly because musicians call gigs "apples" and if you got a gig in NY you were playing the biggest apple of them all. I suppose L.A. would be the Big Orange, except Orange County is right next door and if you told a musician he was playing the Big Orange he would get hopelessly lost and end up at the Block in Orange, a rather large shopping mall which is a monument to our insatiable need to buy unnecessary things.

I was only there for a day or so but I was able to drop in on a poetry reading with some very boring poets, including one who had received his MFA. The MFA boy (he looked 23, was probably 30) read poems about how lonely he was and why all these girlfriends had dumped him. Poor me, boo hoo, except my friend whispered in my ear that he probably used this act to pick up women at the readings, as he was a very good looking young man. The other poet was an old guy from Oregon who once played tenor sax with Chet Baker and Woody Herman--except none of his poems were about jazz or music or even anything interesting. They were mostly polemics about the way he thought the world should be.

We should have known better because he began his set with a long and rather confusing dissertation on his theory of poetry, how the consonants and the vowells had to agree and more stuff that, frankly, I didn't pay much attention to. My theory of poetry is that if you have to think about vowells and consonants while you're writing, you're probably not so much a poet as a crossword puzzle master.

Anyway, I flew out Saturday morning, getting on the plane with moments to spare. I always seem to be red lining it in the city of angels. I suppose I've become immersed in the Humboldt way, where one is rarely late because there's no traffic, no crowds, and damned few clocks.

It was nice to come back to the 'Boldt but, contrary as I am, I'm already missing L.A. Go figure.

In Case You're Wondering...

Probably be even more occasional than usual during this month in posting the blog. I'm taking part, as I have for the last 4 years, in the National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days--the month of November. The first year a struggled to finish it, but I did and it was a pretty good novel, too. No, there's no where you can read it. So sorry.

As the years have gone on, I've become better at pumping out the words. I now average 2200 words a day, with occasional spurts of 5000 words or more. This year I'm already at 20,000 words and it's only Nov 10! I think I'll finish in plenty of time.

Thing is, I really come alive during this time of year. I slog through the day but I keep going because when I get home I can get into that little world I'm creating word by word. It's usually a fun place to be.

This year I'm doing a book about my childhood in Catholic School, with some rock and roll thrown in. It's rather surprising the things I recall when I start to write--like the time my mom was stopped by a cop who said she'd gone through a stop sign.

"I did not," she said. "I know I stopped for it."

"I'm writing you up anyway," the cop said. "How fast did you go through that sign."

"Zero," my mom said. The cop dutifully wrote it down. Then he tore the ticket out of his book and gave it to her to sign.

"I'm not signing this," she said. "I did't roll through that stop sign."

"You sign this right now," he said, dropping the traditional "ma'am."

"I won't sign. YOu're wrong and you know it," mom said.

"If you don't sign, I'm going to arrest you."

"Arrest me, then. I'm right and you know it."

Leslie and I were in the back seat, somewhat scared that my mom was talking back to a cop.

"If you don't sign this," the cop said, "I'll arrest you and I'll put your kids in a foster home. Is that what you want?"

Leslie and I were crying at this point--we were about five and six years old--pleading with my mom to sign the ticket so that we didn't have to be taken away from her. My mom grabbed the ticket from the cop and signed.

"I'll bet you feel like a big man because you made my children cry," she said. I recall she dressed him down a bit more but I don't remember what else she said because I was still scared.

Later mom said that when she got to court and the judge saw the ticket which said she went through the stop at "zero miles an hour," he laughed and dismissed the thing.

So I suppose I come by my penchant for criminal law honestly. I've got bad childhood memories of the abuse of police power.

On the other hand, my mom stood up to the cop and I didn't end up in a foster home. So maybe there is a kind of justice.

Anyway, I'm at 20,000 words and working. Gotta get to it. Wish me luck.

The Way It Should Be

When he first came to my office, it had been years since he'd seen his daughter. After an ugly divorce, the mother took the child and lived a nomadic existence. The only time he heard from the child was an occasional telephone call.

He missed his daughter and he loved her, that was clear. So we filed a motion to try to get him reasonable visitation.

The mother responded with vitriol and made a hundred accusations against him. He was an awful father, he didn't want to see his daughter, he did terrible things--all untrue, but you know how the family court goes. It's not a rodeo unless someone makes an accusation.

The attorney for mother proposed supervised visits. Although reluctant at first, the father agreed if this was the quickest way to see his daughter.

And then the miracle: Father and daughter reconnected. She hadn't forgotten him, had missed him as much as he missed her. And then the second miracle: Mother saw how much happier her daughter was with Daddy back in her life, and she relented.

Last week they were back in court. This time there was no acrimony, no heated looks, no shouting. In fact, father and mother talked amicably together, laughed and smiled. "It was fear that made me act like that," the mother said in the hallway. "Now I'm not afraid."I have said it a thousand times in the hallways of the courthouse: When both of you are shouting, neither of you are listening. In this case, the miracle was that mother and father stopped worrying about old hurts and slights and insults and looked at their daughter and realized that she needed both parents.

Now there's an agreement that the visits will continue without a supervisor, and that in a few months father and daughter can have weekends together.

I walked out of court that day with a strange feeling. No one was angry anymore. No one was miserable. No one hurting. Everyone was happy with the arrangement and, most important, a 10 year old girl now had an early Christmas gift: Both parents are now in her life.

So many times attorneys are the bringers of misery and dissention. For once in my Family Law career, I had helped--along with the other lawyer--to create harmony.

A strange feeling. One I wouldn't mind having more often.