I am sleeping poorly but, after talking things over with Vera, realized that it may be just that my sleeping habits don't fit the industrial clock. I resolve to simply work when I'm not sleeping, and sleep when I need to, and don't worry about it.
I found myself therefore neatening up at 3 or 4 in the morning. This is more practical because I'm in the basement and it therefore bothers nobody else. I napped while Kris was preparing for work, and when she left I got up and back to it.
I resoved to organize her lawsuit against me into a dedicated 3-ring binder. 3-Hole punching the pile of paper her lawyer sent me was awkward; it was simply too thick. I unstapled it to punch and discovered near the back there was some order or other to which I had to send a reply or the judge would grant it, no doubt on Kristine's terms.
I quickly drafted a reply. On the way over to meeting a veteran at the Thriftway coffeeshop, I mailed it to opposing counsel. After helping the veterans, I went to Seattle and filed the original with the court. Once again home, I filed the paper in the binder, noting a few typos but I'm sure they aren't significant. I don't remember the exact day on which I was served but it had to be after the date of the memo, so I should be o.k. or at least have an appealable issue if there's a problem.
Still, it showed the value of getting organized.
---
The more I think about simply buying Kristine out, the more practical it becomes. However it is a major, major project and I need to get on it. Lining up financial backers wouldn't hurt either.
Tuesday, September 09, 2014
Sunday, September 07, 2014
Sunday: 4freeCLE and then preparing for the return of the angry spouse
The sun rose after a night that was not quite sleepless, but definitely not sound sleep. I worked on the newsletter in the kitchen, which is very pleasant; the air is good. Placating the cats was a frequent reason for a break, but that's just part of the fun. Less pleasant was not knowing when Kris would show up and start complaining that I was in the kitchen, but she hadn't been around yet when the newsletter was published, so that's all right.
I resolved to go out and have some human contact. I'd enjoyed going out Friday night and then Saturday at St. Ed's, and I realized that I just needed more contact. Mostly I wanted to talk over how to cope with Kris. I rode my bike down to Village Green and hung out talking with Vera a bit; she'd been through much of this and was just a good chat. She had evidently suffered through the divorce but is much happier now, and I take that for a good sign. I also like being able to talk things over with someone who knew us bother and would not take sides.
Eventually someone came in asking about bees about the time I was ready to go, so that's all right.
I stopped by Big Al's and played the Our Me A Riddle game (it was a tasty bitter) and then sat in the shady area outside. Mostly I talked with a guy from Georgia but it was nice just to hang. When my glass was empty, I returned home, napped, and then arose to neaten up the Nametka and Biedel matters.
Giner's SUV rolled up and Kris got out. She was pleasant enough coming across the front yard, and offered me the second flan that was in the fridge. She stiffened when she smelled the biscuits I'd baked, and when she saw the memo I wrote, she assumed the angry rigidity. I took the biscuits and the flan downstairs, then sat outside working on cases till 8:30, then went inside and showered. Eventually Kris came downstairs to rag about something and we had what might have been a discussion if Kris understood the concept of listening. She kept asking about a dairy item in the fridge upstairs; I said that I had asked (which I had, via text) and she agreed. She repeated this question a couple of times; it was her way of being angry and feeling justified.
Kris said she could not live with me; I said I was sorry about that and that she could not know that because she had never mentioned what made her unhappy so something could be done about that. She laughed dramatically and said it was too late for that. I repeated I was sorry about that and could not stop her if she left. She tried to explain how it would be better if I left, and I said this was my house, it had my life savings in it, it was my place of business, and I did not see why I should go. She said then I'd have to buy her out, she would stop payments, the bank would foreclose and I'd lose the house. I disagreed (although it would be a major pain and I'd have to do a lot of fast work to hold it all together. As I think about it, this would be an acceptable outcome although I'll try to do better.)
Finally I said that I remembered we were best friends and I was sorry we'd gotten away from this. Kris did not have the decency to say anything vaguely polite about being sorry too; she did squeak out that we did have some good times.
I'm pretty sure she had been drinking, but I couldn't smell anything; she was just rigid and shaky.
Well, as I think it over, maybe buying out Kris is the best outcome. I'll have to check with some friends (many of whom could buy this place outright for a snack) and if I have to get a more normal gig, sacrificing Veterans and Friends - I don't know. I must think.
Friday, September 05, 2014
Good-Bye False Friends. Thank You True Friends. Hello New Friends!
I am in the process of shedding friends who, as it turns out, were false.
The criterion is simple: if you cannot offer a word of solace in this, my greatest crisis, then you are not my friend and never were.
I am not asking anyone to take sides. That would be both unfair and unreasonable.
But in my years I have had many friends who have divorced. The decent thing to do in every case is been to tell both persons that I am still the friend of each.
At the WSBA, there are several with whom I broke bread on a regular basis from whom I have heard silence no matter how I reach out to them. In contrast, there have been those who, within the bounds of propriety, have hinted at support and the wish to continue friends. It's awkward for them I know, and I would not repay their decency with the embarrassment of naming them, but you know who you are, and I thank you. Others have frankly been merely professional relationship and that's cool; we have a decent working relationship and this has nothing to do with it; it is mildly comforting to know that this professional friends does not skip a beat.
But as I inventory the false friends for a final good-bye, I realize that most of them have great pains in their lives. Is it coincidence that what I know of their karma is already sad? Perhaps the pains in their life interfere with acknowledging those in mine; I am tempted to reject that as pop psychology piffle, but actually, it's a pattern. Perhaps I can forgive them because ... and I just realized this as I write ... each of them is worse off than me.
Whoa. That was strange!
This same pattern obtains among the my Ex's family. Each has a greater misery than the next. This is neither the time nor place to enumerate their issues (I'm sure they can do that on their own) but the pattern is there for all to see - except that I have been blind.
The falsest friend of all was the one I had the poor judgment to marry: Kris Marie Hickman Larsen McCord. What a surprise it was to learn in December that, according to her, she had never loved me; it was just something to do! All the charity and bar activities and the home we were to grow old in together were a source of grand amusement to her; she actually wanted me to earn more money and drink more alcohol, so I could be a proper husband she could display like her Coach purses.
Something very bad happened to her in her youth; my guess is that it was associated with at least one of the drunken scum that her mother slept with while toting around her two children. It was a point of pride with Kris that she could move an apartment quickly, because she'd learned in her youth that you just have to run off when the rent comes due and your man has disappeared with the money.
In her life, she has had three lovers: her first, who she never discusses or even names, but who she disliked; her first husband, for whom she has great contempt; and me.
Well, that's a pattern. I think I understand her way, and it is sad.
This really complicates things.
Among my other false friends are two men with unhappy marriages - and that's an understatement - an engineer with health problems, and a paralegal with an unhappy past she never discusses. I had hoped that at least one of them would have the character to respond to my outreach with a modicum of understanding - not agreeing with me but at least recalling our friendship enough to extend sympathy - but I guess it really is true that suffering does not necessarily ennoble.
So off with them.
----------------------
I still have a great many friends. First, I have a bit of a surfeit of family. Somehow I have managed to get along with everyone on every subject except politics, and we laugh about that last one, so I will never be short of crash space as needed. Next, I have solid friends from school - even that cute girl from fourth grade is around, thanks to the magic of Facebook, although we have somehow begun approach sixty.
Yes, friends of the seminary; you have been beaten by a little girl ;-)
College, SCA and law school friends abound. I have only to reach out to them and they respond. Perhaps I should do so more.
My neighbors could not be better. It's like something from a 60s sitcom: a street of zany characters, each one with an idiosyncratic yet kind word. I try not to lean on them too much, but they are just too much fun not to enjoy, a little each day, like a full rack of syrups at a coffee bar.
I don't know which character I am in the comedy; I suspect it is the straight man ;-)
And now I can say hello to new friends. I'm not sure who they will be, but friends always come along. Just last Friday I met a few while bar-hopping. I guess when I drop something out of my pack, it only leaves room for something else to go in.
The criterion is simple: if you cannot offer a word of solace in this, my greatest crisis, then you are not my friend and never were.
I am not asking anyone to take sides. That would be both unfair and unreasonable.
But in my years I have had many friends who have divorced. The decent thing to do in every case is been to tell both persons that I am still the friend of each.
At the WSBA, there are several with whom I broke bread on a regular basis from whom I have heard silence no matter how I reach out to them. In contrast, there have been those who, within the bounds of propriety, have hinted at support and the wish to continue friends. It's awkward for them I know, and I would not repay their decency with the embarrassment of naming them, but you know who you are, and I thank you. Others have frankly been merely professional relationship and that's cool; we have a decent working relationship and this has nothing to do with it; it is mildly comforting to know that this professional friends does not skip a beat.
But as I inventory the false friends for a final good-bye, I realize that most of them have great pains in their lives. Is it coincidence that what I know of their karma is already sad? Perhaps the pains in their life interfere with acknowledging those in mine; I am tempted to reject that as pop psychology piffle, but actually, it's a pattern. Perhaps I can forgive them because ... and I just realized this as I write ... each of them is worse off than me.
Whoa. That was strange!
This same pattern obtains among the my Ex's family. Each has a greater misery than the next. This is neither the time nor place to enumerate their issues (I'm sure they can do that on their own) but the pattern is there for all to see - except that I have been blind.
The falsest friend of all was the one I had the poor judgment to marry: Kris Marie Hickman Larsen McCord. What a surprise it was to learn in December that, according to her, she had never loved me; it was just something to do! All the charity and bar activities and the home we were to grow old in together were a source of grand amusement to her; she actually wanted me to earn more money and drink more alcohol, so I could be a proper husband she could display like her Coach purses.
I have always been a trifle literal; I didn't understand that "I love you and you should pursue your dreams and bugger the money" meant "Knock it off, go work for wages as I do, because money is all there is".I know her pains better than anyone other than herself. It grieves me to let go of my anger, for it has been a steady friend, but by golly, I understand her pain.
Something very bad happened to her in her youth; my guess is that it was associated with at least one of the drunken scum that her mother slept with while toting around her two children. It was a point of pride with Kris that she could move an apartment quickly, because she'd learned in her youth that you just have to run off when the rent comes due and your man has disappeared with the money.
In her life, she has had three lovers: her first, who she never discusses or even names, but who she disliked; her first husband, for whom she has great contempt; and me.
Well, that's a pattern. I think I understand her way, and it is sad.
This really complicates things.
Among my other false friends are two men with unhappy marriages - and that's an understatement - an engineer with health problems, and a paralegal with an unhappy past she never discusses. I had hoped that at least one of them would have the character to respond to my outreach with a modicum of understanding - not agreeing with me but at least recalling our friendship enough to extend sympathy - but I guess it really is true that suffering does not necessarily ennoble.
So off with them.
----------------------
I still have a great many friends. First, I have a bit of a surfeit of family. Somehow I have managed to get along with everyone on every subject except politics, and we laugh about that last one, so I will never be short of crash space as needed. Next, I have solid friends from school - even that cute girl from fourth grade is around, thanks to the magic of Facebook, although we have somehow begun approach sixty.
Yes, friends of the seminary; you have been beaten by a little girl ;-)
College, SCA and law school friends abound. I have only to reach out to them and they respond. Perhaps I should do so more.
My neighbors could not be better. It's like something from a 60s sitcom: a street of zany characters, each one with an idiosyncratic yet kind word. I try not to lean on them too much, but they are just too much fun not to enjoy, a little each day, like a full rack of syrups at a coffee bar.
I don't know which character I am in the comedy; I suspect it is the straight man ;-)
And now I can say hello to new friends. I'm not sure who they will be, but friends always come along. Just last Friday I met a few while bar-hopping. I guess when I drop something out of my pack, it only leaves room for something else to go in.
Thursday, September 04, 2014
Three things not to trust
Three things not to trust:
Unsworn claims, drunken exes,
and post-dated chicks.
Wednesday, September 03, 2014
A Swift Tiny Violin Song
 |
| Miniature Violin Shop at Mini Time Machine |
With a little one within,
And each a smaller one inside'm
And so proceed, ad infinitem.
--- Randall Winn
In this comment, I follow Jonathan Swift:
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em;
And so proceed ad infinitum.
--- Jonathan Swift: Poetry, a Rhapsody.
I was alerted to this item by the article "A Mini Time Machine Museum Showcases Tiny Violins. Really Tiny Violins" By Greg Cahill June 13, 2013
Tuesday, September 02, 2014
An Odd Tuesday
On the whole, Tuesday came in three parts.
I met with Cyril and Diane about the Manning Medical Mall project. Keeping relentlessly positive on this is the way forward.
I packed a lot of books from the Labor Day sales. It's not a high-end activity, but it's steady.
I negotiated on the dispute over mom's worldly goods, between various people unhappy over something and unwilling to talk things over on their own. In the process I acquired an enhanced respect for my brother in law who is in an awkward position, and feels pretty much as I do on some of these things.
Bonus oddness: Kris came back from Big Al's distraught or annoyed that one of the guys keeps bugging her. She's not interested in him and has even emailed him, twice, but she says he keeps getting her hopefully and offering to give her a ride home. I made comforting noses, and tried to divert with humor - she could try making out with a girl there to show him she's really not interested. Kris was not going to lose her distress, and said he'd probably think that was hot.
Which is probably true.
I made a few equally absurd suggestions, then gave up and just commiserated. It was a very odd conversation, and I'm sure I don't know what's going on.
I met with Cyril and Diane about the Manning Medical Mall project. Keeping relentlessly positive on this is the way forward.
I packed a lot of books from the Labor Day sales. It's not a high-end activity, but it's steady.
I negotiated on the dispute over mom's worldly goods, between various people unhappy over something and unwilling to talk things over on their own. In the process I acquired an enhanced respect for my brother in law who is in an awkward position, and feels pretty much as I do on some of these things.
Bonus oddness: Kris came back from Big Al's distraught or annoyed that one of the guys keeps bugging her. She's not interested in him and has even emailed him, twice, but she says he keeps getting her hopefully and offering to give her a ride home. I made comforting noses, and tried to divert with humor - she could try making out with a girl there to show him she's really not interested. Kris was not going to lose her distress, and said he'd probably think that was hot.
Which is probably true.
I made a few equally absurd suggestions, then gave up and just commiserated. It was a very odd conversation, and I'm sure I don't know what's going on.
Ethics; Bankruptcy; and more from 4freeCLE: Free Continuing Legal Education! August 31, 2014
If you 
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)