Sir Snoozeth

... or Sir Peeketh, as the case may be. Sir Chilleth Ninety-Five Percent of the Timeth, at any rate.

Javier the Chihuahua.

There's sweet ... and then there's Melly sweet

Our five-year-old granddaughter, Melanie Noel, will undergo surgery on June 7th to correct a relatively minor spinal stenosis.

Both the surgery and recovery time are expected to be routine and short.

Still, as always we are concerned for her welfare. Melanie was born with a cleft palate -- not a cleft lip; only her palate was open -- which was closed in a single surgery when she was eighteen months old.

She has suffered some developmental delays but overall her health is good.

Please keep Melanie and her parents in your prayers!

Uncle! I said Uncle, Uncle Andrew! Photo Jennifer Weber 2010

Cold all my calls

Chillin' ... Photo Jennifer Weber 2010As I have already elaborated, it has been a long week.

And yesterday it got even longer.

I had worked all day writing and I was tired. Truth be told, I had a headache. 

It was late in the afternoon; TG wasn't yet home. Erica had gone out.  

Half a giant Symphony bar had been mocking me from a corner of my desk all day. Clearly it was yearning to commune with an icy Diet Pepsi. In my tummy.

Having collected all the things I needed in order to relax in my chair -- Javier the Chihuahua (who waited expectantly for me to sit so he could make a trough of my lap), Symphony bar, Diet Pepsi, a few books, a notebook, my pen, TV remote, cordless phone, cell phone -- cell phone --

Where was my cell phone? I had been talking on it moments before.

Oh, forget it, I thought. Sit! Enjoy the solitude.

But experience has taught me that if I don't have my cell phone by my side and I sit down to relax, I will immediately receive a call.

I looked on both my desks, in my bedroom, in the family room, on the floor, in the kitchen, in the living room … twice.

No cell phone.

And perhaps even to place a surreptitious call to Al Gore.

Desperate, I grabbed the cordless and punched in my mobile number.

A few seconds passed before I heard a very faint cascading tinkly chime. It sounded as though it was coming from the kitchen so I walked in that direction. 

It wasn't there. The chiming stopped and I was no closer to finding my cell phone.

I called myself again and heard the faint chiming again.

The sound led me once more to the kitchen.

And I realized the chiming sounded very like it was coming from the refrigerator.

Which it was.

I opened the door and there was my phone … chilling beside the orange juice, the ice water, and the remaining bottles of Diet Pepsi.

Giving a whole new meaning to the term "cold call."

I had chucked the phone onto the shelf when I had trouble releasing my soft drink from its plastic tether with just one hand. 

Then I left it there in the dark to break the ice with a bunch of cartons and bottles.

And perhaps even to place a surreptitious call to Al Gore.

My phone gave me a cool reception at first but at this writing there is a warm relationship between us once more.

The Pepsi is still frosted but I'm confident I can win it over. More chocolate may be required.

As you were.

The week that was what it was

I dream of Paris. Photo Jennifer Weber 2010Here at IHATH we do not shy away from sensitive subject matter … if the subject matters.

Should it become necessary to advance hip-deep into the muddy, roiling waters of social and cultural consciousness, we do so … without flinching.

Dressed in stylish, feminine, modest, flattering waders to keep our pedicure tidy … of course.

The result may or may not be politically correct.

You've been warned.

This was a week I will soon forget … I hope.

It started on Tuesday (not to be confused with TRUEsday) with the deposition of a young "minority" male in a most unfortunate South Carolina town.

His pain level is a seven.

Geographic coordinates aren't necessary. Just envision a place where generations of welfare recipients have existed in poverty-level conditions and all that goes along with that scenario, and you'll get the depressing picture.

This town's motto could be Where the entitlement mentality reigns supreme and if you're not black, you're a racist. Obama 2012.

(On the positive side, there's a new billboard visible as you're on your way out of town headed back toward Columbia. It features a giant photo of MLK and this little-known factoid: "Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican!")

This is incendiary because you may rest assured that ninety-nine percent of the residents of this southern suburban netherworld voted for The One … He Who Walks on Boiling Water and Prances on Radioactive Shards of Glass Without Injury Because He Is Divine … none other than B. Hussein Obama.

And they did so for one reason only: because he's black.

Pardon me while I retch. 

(Kudos to RagingElephants for installing that particular bit of billboard business, and for their demonstrated willingness to take the heat that's sure to ensue … you can read about the precedent for said impending political pressure here.)

So anyway, the plaintiff/deponent has sued his ex-employer because he picked up something heavyish at work a year or so ago and a pain shot down his right leg.

One pain. One time. 

Now his back hurts. On a scale of one to ten, one being no pain at all and ten being excruciating, he claims his pain level is a consistent seven.

He was three points off excruciating and yet he was beyond calm and composed. He was relaxed, lucid, and dispassionate as he slumped in his chair, speaking in a barely audible voice designed to convey contempt.

Come to think of it, the five pounds of dreads bunched into a massive scary ponytail may be the source of his back pain.

I was rudely upbraided.

According to his sworn testimony, our plaintiff (age 32) spends his days taking pain meds and watching TV. His girlfriend has to tie his shoes.

Don't dare look at me like that. No, I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on television, but if you'd been in the room with this person you'd be convinced -- as I am -- that he was lying.

I am a 53-year-old woman. I have been gainfully employed since the age of 15. By the time I was barely 32 I had made four trips to the delivery room ... to bear children for the man to whom I was and am married.

(And yes ... I know how to spell his name. I even know his Social Security number and where he's ticklish and where he hides the M&Ms.)

Believe me: I live with more back and leg pain in one day than this able-bodied young man experiences in a month of Sundays, and yet I work every day … unmedicated.

The deponent's lawyer was a real specimen too. He told his client -- on the record! -- that the defense lawyer's questions were "meaningless" but instructed him to "go ahead and answer them anyway."

(See, that's how it works. If you sue somebody, be prepared to answer some questions … and be advised that counsel for the party you've sued can ask you anything they want.)

At the conclusion of the depo, I asked the perjured injured suit-bringing party to wait so that I could verify the spelling of a name he'd mumbled mentioned. 

Turns out he couldn't help me spell the name … of the mother of his 13-year-old son.

Of course, he's never even lived with said female, much less been married to her. And it all happened a long time ago. Maybe that explains it.  

Why sweat the details of tenuous familial connections when there's TV to watch and narcotic pain meds to ingest and a shoelace-tying girlfriend to entertain?

When I sort of insisted that I really needed to know the proper spelling of the woman's name so that the record would be accurate, I was rudely upbraided … by the plaintiff's (white) lawyer.

I'm getting good at Ebonics.

In a voice that would wake the living, Mister Attorney "Man" lashed out at me: "He can't spell the name, OKAY? So WHAT? It doesn't MATTER!"

That's what you call moronic.

His client had testified under oath, the same as if we had been in a court of law, before a judge.

What he said -- and how it is spelled -- matters. 

If it doesn't, I'm going to sit in the shade and read poetry for the rest of my life. Occasionally I shall dream of Paris and I may spot Johnny Depp strolling on the Champs Elysees. 

Keep the Diet Coke coming but don't wake me. 

You may be thinking at this point, good grief Jenny, it was one deposition, you do this all the time, I thought you were a pro, it's not like it's your first rodeo, why did you let this one get under your skin? Shake it off already!

Only problem is, virtually identical little pseudo-dramas played out the next day … and the next … in other towns, in different conference rooms.

Wednesday's case was about a drunken party attended by hundreds, held out in the "screet" (I'm getting good at Ebonics … I guess that's a plus) in a particular Columbia neighborhood, in which an inebriated black male got behind the wheel of his pickup truck and put it in reverse and sort of backed up into a bevy of pregnant females, knocking one of them down and putting a little mark on her leg.

(The baby was fine. He's one year old now and expecting a little brother or sister. Same mother, different fathers. I'm not making this up.)

All those involved in the potentially tragic incident were underage … as in, way south of 21. It happened at about two o'clock in the morning.  

There were small children present.

The next plaintiff was a very young black woman who has a three-year-old by her babydaddy, which fine upstanding gentleman lives in a distant state. She was in a fender-bender while pregnant with the child, who was born perfectly normal and is thriving.

Not for the likes of me.

At least that one has a full-time job. And she seemed like a nice girl.

But I have heard about his/her babydaddy and babymama and she stay at her mom house when she pregnant and she 21 and pregnant for the third time now and no, none of us ain't never been married and no, we don't work and he like to talk horrible trash to all the females, you know, and I'm not down with that crowd like she be and he was drunk and staggering and my truck's got 26-inch rims and that's why my sister baby like to ride in it and blah, blah, blah, blah until I'm practically sick with it.

Wait! It gets better.

I have to listen to it all again. I'm obliged to relive it twice while typing and proofreading verbatim transcripts of the proceedings.

And for the coup de grace? None of the attorneys for any of these plaintiffs could "afford" to order copies of the transcripts. They're hoping to settle their pathetic cases before incurring that inconvenient expense.

(Hint: that's how court reporters make money … by selling copies of the transcript. Now I'm obliged to do the same amount of work for considerably less pay.)

Oh, sure … every now and then you take a hit when the copy attorney won't play ball. But four times in a row? An entire week of testimony … at least 200 pages … for forty percent less money per page than I'd normally earn?

It gives one pause.

To top it all off … this is like the whipped cream, y'all … the third and last of these depos I've described was held on Thursday at an extremely prestigious law firm in downtown Columbia. 

Let's just say that their monthly budget for courtesies such as coffee and soft drinks probably exceeds my house payment. Not to mention what their office space costs.

I have worked jobs at this law firm many times over the years. They occupy several upper floors of a beautiful high-rise building. The view is spectacular.

Another nice touch is, they validate the ticket that the machine spits out when you enter the attached parking garage.

Except yesterday they wouldn't … not for the likes of me, anyway.

You see, neither of the two lawyers involved in the fender-bender case at issue actually work for this firm; they had simply been granted permission to use a conference room for a couple of hours.

And because the proceedings weren't for one of "their" lawyers, I was told by the destination firm's receptionist that she wouldn't be able to validate my parking ticket. With her tone she thanked me sweetly for going away quietly and not making a fuss.

So, after a week of many miles driven and many hours sat and much minority reporting and no copies sold, I was forced to write a check for $2.25.

To get out of the parking garage.

Generally done dirty by white folks.

Because the garage doesn't have a machine to read a debit card. And of course, as has been amply demonstrated, I rarely carry cash. 

So here's how it shakes out: there are those who don't work and who attend all-night drunken parties and who produce multiple children outside the bonds of matrimony and who collect welfare checks and unemployment benefits and who sue employers and anyone who bumps into them, however slightly.

That's the life of at least some "minorities" in America … those who, according to progressives, are constantly beaten down, held back, denied opportunities, and generally done dirty by white folks.

Those who are supposedly not capable of racism because they don't have enough "power."

And then there's me ... working the job, grubbing around for $2.25 to pay for parking because the lawyer who retained me to report his depo works at a different firm than the one where the depo was held.

On the way home yesterday, rather tired and a bit discouraged, mulling all of the above in my aching brain, I was waiting at a traffic light when my eyes focused on this sentiment, marching in white decal letters across the heavily-tinted back window of a black SUV:

It Is What It Is. 

Yep. I reckon so.

Break over! Back to work.

Bel-Lissy-mo!

Allissa Joy. Photo Jennifer Weber 2010