Whatta Fiasco

We heard from Max. He called his dad yesterday to ask a favor and in the process had to tell him what was going on. He has a bus ticket to Miami and a plane ticket to from there to Buenos Aires. He leaves on the twenty-first of January. But first he needs a report from the National Crime Information Center in order to get his visa, and he doesn’t have a credit card of his own to order it online. It seems he and his girlfriend have been working on this plan since late this past summer at least but he waited until he had the ticket in hand to tell us. That means he hasn’t been completely honest with us about his financial situation, even while hitting us up for more cash. It also means he doesn’t have to worry about finding a new place to stay because he’ll be gone before the eviction can happen.

On the one hand, I am glad that if he’s doing this, he’s at least (mostly) doing it on his own. On the other hand, it’s mighty tempting to start a pool to predict how soon it will be before he asks to be bailed out and/or flown home. Could this work out as well as he’s hoping? It could. But this is the same kid who has yet to manage six months at any one job. In fact, he just lost his current second job by missing three consecutive days (due to illness) in his first two weeks on the job. This is the kid who speaks no more than a few phrases of Spanish and hasn’t bothered to study it in spite of having hatched this plan of moving to Argentina over a year ago.
I hope it works out for him but I have a bad feeling about it. And yes, there a certain selfish component to my worry. I don’t want to have to pay the monetary consequences of his decisions. I also don’t want to be put in the position of deciding whether or not it’s appropriate to do so. If we can’t even get an accurate picture of his position from less than five miles away, how much worse will it be from a continent away?

As of last night, his mother still hadn’t heard the news. That could be interesting. At least next year won’t be boring.

Here’s an example of the sort of book I don’t want to read. Chuck it in the box with any copies of The Celestine Prophecy you find laying around and most of those manipulative MBA fables. Beware of any book recommendation that includes the phrase “this book changed by life.” (I’m not saying to avoid them entirely, just open your eyes and look carefully before jumping in.)

The basic formula is to take a confused protagonist and put him in the presence of an enlightened guru. The skeptical protagonist asks “stupid” and “obvious” questions. The guru then leads the protagonist through the first stages of the process of enlightenment. The protagonist is always portrayed as less bright than the reader. The idea seems to be that if this dim bulb can follow the reasoning presented, then surely you, the reader, can do so too. And, of course, the protagonist also represents the guru before his own process of enlightenment, and the author is the guru who used to be wandering soul. In the process of reading the book, the reader is supposed to identify with the protagonist and thereby be led through a second hand version of the enlightenment process. Tada! Your life has been changed.

Yeah, right.

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Three years into my fencing career, coach decided I as ready to read a fencing book. Severe? Maybe, but he was right. The first tip that this might be a good fencing book? No fencing diagrams. None. The worst part of the book (for me) is that it comes from a foil point of view when epee is my weapon of choice. And the biggest weakness of the book is its strength: the author has very firm convictions and opinions about fencing, finely honed over thirty years of fencing and teaching. I find myself in disagreement with him on several points, but on many others I am in complete agreement. This is a fencer I could respect and I’d be very happy to meet him someday. In the meantime, I managed to learn a few things about my fencing and found a lot of ideas to think about.

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It was a long and good holiday weekend. On Christmas eve day I slept in and then did the last of my shopping in downtown Larryville. Everyone and his third cousin twice removed wanted to park in the unmetered, no time restriction, bookstore parking lot. Cars and minivans were crammed in every which way. Two blocks down was a half empty lot with two hours of free parking. It was a bit on the nippy side walking around, but not enough to keep third cousins from walking the five blocks of downtown and back again. Shopping was mostly successful.

Christmas day itself was spent with friends with plenty of cooking and eating and conversation. Â But first hubby and I managed to get all the way there without the turkey, and there was a good half hour away. To complicate matters hubby was supposed to drive back into KC to pick up his mom and bring her out for dinner. Way too much driving was involved all around, but eventually we made it work and there was turkey to go with plenty of side dishes, including vegan appropriate food. (Planning a traditional midwestern holiday dinner for a party that includes both a vegan and a non-eater of vegetables is interesting.) Mother-in-law seemed to have a good time, but every time she went to coax the cat into her lap (about once every ten minutes) she couldn’t remember the cat’s name. Max chose to stay at his apartment and chat online with his girlfriend so we didn’t get to see him.
After we got home Saturday night I realized I had left my heavy jacket behind with my keys in the pocket. There was a lot of forgetfulness over the weekend. We decided we could survive without it until Monday night.

On Sunday we got up a little later than we had intended and then took off for the farm to visit my folks. More food, more presents, more conversation. Plenty of time to relax. I heard plenty of stories about how various relatives are doing. I wove a couple of sample pieces on a mini tri-loom just to see how those work. Had a goat nibble on my pants leg. A good time.

On Monday watched pony antics. My mom has a neighbor’s pony on the place to keep her pony, Bugsy, company. Except it turns out that Bugsy is determined to eat Blackie. They’ve slowly been trying to introduce the two to each other to see if the aggression will work itself off enough for them to get along. We had Bugsy on a lead line on the other side of the fence from Blackie, so the round, shaggy black pony had to do his own dominance display. He took off at a dead run around the pasture. It was full speed, lean into the corners and throw divots into the air charging. Around and around, bucking and kicking and running some more. Until he came to a dead stop, wheezing and huffing. He’s not used to that much exercise, so that’s not a bad thing for him. And Bugsy is no longer bored and dejected.

And then it was time to head back to town so we could make it to fencing practice. A good Christmas.

A wizard in Chicago helps the local police force solve crimes involving magic. No, the magical detective mystery isn’t new ground but he’s covering it well. Light, fast reading. Enjoyable. And the first in a series. Many thanks to the bookshop clerk who recommended the series to me.

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The stock market was closed so no work for me today. Instead I slept in. And I didn’t get out of bed until something like ten in the morning. Mind you, it took until noon to completely wake up, but still.

Good heavens is it cold out around here. And consequently a bit chilly inside too. It got up into the mid-twenties this afternoon, a good ten degrees warmer than yesterday, but the wind was even fiercer. At least it made for brisk walking.

We stopped by one of my regular coffee shops today and had a nice conversation with one of the barristas. When we came in she was admiring one of her espresso pucks. (Ooh aahh. No, really. It’s a good sign when your barrista cares what her little compressed cake of espresso grounds looks like.) And then we got to talking about latte art and she admitted that she had just managed her very first bit only the other day. It was a tiny little leaf, but it was latte art, and it wasn’t a drive through customer so the recipient got to express her joy at seeing said latte art. Hey, there’s a reason I like this coffee shop.

And then we decided to grab an early dinner out tonight before everything closed up, and guess who was working the evening shift at the restaurant. Oh yes. We admitted that we were stalking our barrista and so she found us a table. Small world.

My favorite overheard conversation from shopping was a middle-aged couple. The woman picks up a book and says to her male companion, “Have you read this? You really ought to read this one. But if you like it, I’m going to have to divorce you. Just so you know.”

I had a good fencing practice last night. Lots of long lunge drills and some decent bouting. And then I woke up at some godawful hour of the morning with my left knee locked in place. Any motion at all was a recipe for pain and it took a good couple of minutes of wincing to get the range of motion back. I guess I stressed the knee a little more than I had thought and then forgot to take any ibuprofen afterward. Ah well. No more practice until next Monday so I have plenty of time to rest it up.

Let’s see. A couple of weeks ago Louise called to suggest a Christmas present we could get for Lisa: we should get her cable internet access. Um yeah. My first question was for how long was Louise expecting us to foot
this bill? In perpetuity? And was the service going to be in her name, Lisa’s name, or hubby’s? Hubby and I quickly came to agreement that putting it in his name was not going to work for various reasons and I was to the point of suggesting that the duration question be handled by simply Lisa’s name, or hubby’s? Hubby and I quickly came to agreement that putting it in his name was not going to work for various reasons and I was to the point of suggesting that the duration question be handled by simply gifting her the cash equivalent of however many months of service we were willing to pay for. Not a great compromise, but it would be something. Now it turns out that putting it in Louise’s name probably isn’t possible without paying off a debt run up by Louise’s sister in Louise’s name. (No comment. Just a sigh.) What a mess. I think we’ll be finding some other way to mark the occasion.

And word from Max today is that he gave his roommate his share of the rent last month and then his roommate lost his wallet before paying the rent. And didn’t bother to tell Max. Instead the roomie has just been making himself near invisibly scarce and the landlord is threatening to start eviction proceedings this week. Merry Christmas, eh? The good news is that Max is now claiming not to be on the lease after all, so he technically can’t be held liable for the lease. If need be he can cut and run, but he doesn’t currently have any place to run to. At least he’s still working both jobs, but even between the both of them he isn’t making enough to pay going rate on a one bedroom in this town. But his passport showed up so he doesn’t have to worry about that getting lost in the mail, and he has at least a few weeks to get his ducks in a row.

Are you looking for some seasonal type online reading? It’s not normally my thing, but here are a couple of tidbits I’ve enjoyed. First, there’s a series of posts from a bookseller about his day to day experience of surviving the Christmas week rush at Fresh Eyes: A Bookseller’s Journal.Scroll back to December 19th for the beginning of the week. And then there’s a very red Christmas story from China Mieville called ‘Tis the Season to get you into the mood. (The preceding link dedicated to Florilegia.)

No, I haven’t finished my Christmas shopping.

Wow. That was an artistic and painful look at different ways in which drug use can warp lives. I can’t say that it was terribly enjoyable but it was undeniably powerful. This morning I could no longer remember the name of that other DVD I watched this weekend, Kill Bill: Vol. 2. I literally couldn’t put my finger on any detail about it all. I had to look it up to get that oh yeah moment, to be absolutely certain I watched any other movie at all. I suspect that the choice of music for this film added a huge amount to the impact. Very much on a level with Naked Lunch but I don’t suggest making it a double billing. And definitely avoid pairing it up with Nil By Mouth.

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I can’t decide if I’ve just watched enough anime that my brain converts certain kinds of violence into that idiom, or if this book was written with that idiom in mind. Either way it’s an interesting effect. So, yes. Plenty of violence in this noir-ish semi-cyberpunk first time novel. A little cliched in places but it moves along in a sprightly manner with plenty of interesting seedy characters. Not bad.

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