Courtroom Drama

Nothing was quite this contentious in the sentencing hearing in which I participated..

We've reached Catalina and are having lunch while waiting another half-hour or so for our hotel rooms to be ready. The boat ride was uneventful, which is the way I want my boat rides to be. We did spot a few dolphins about two-thirds of the way to the island.  My mom says that spotting a dolphin in its natural habitat will bring a person good luck good luck. It sounds like an Irish version of an old wives' tale to me, but I'll take good luck in any form and for any reason.

Yesterday's sentencing hearing was a bit more exciting than I had expected it to be.  I'll spare you the complete play-by-play, as if you were that
interested, you probably would have found a way to have been there in person. Still, a couple of incidents are worth recounting.

First, and most important to me, I did have actual participation beyond sitting in the second chair while attempting to look lawyerly. My main reason for being there was to look as though I was a legitimate legal representative of some sort. My PseudoAunt would have been better served in that regard by using her younger brother Timmy in that capacity, as he is old enough to be an attorney and actually looks almost old enough. On the other hand, he has less courtroom experience than I, and in the event that one of us were actually called into service, I was the superior choice.

My first opportunity for action came when PseudoAunt bolted out of the courtroom right in the middle of a defense witness' statement to toss her cookies. She's pregnant and isn't quite through her first trimester, so throwing up isn't unusual for her at this stage. I immediately raised my hand. The judge halted the witness' reading of her statement and called on me. "The people request a brief recess," I announced.

The judge granted a fifteen minute recess. I remained at the table with the court documents. It's against protocol to leave documents unattended, and I didn't want to mess with the order in which papers were laid out. The judge and others followed to determine the seriousness of the situation. Fourteen minutes later PseudoAunt returned after having brushed her teeth, touched up her hair, and freshly applied her makeup. She sat at the defense table smiling and  perfectly poised, as if the recess had been for the benefit of someone else.

I could print the entire transcript here and it would be almost interesting enough to read, but this is my blog and not PseudoAunt's, so I'll mainly retell the parts that pertain to me.

One of the defense witnesses, as she read her statement, opined that the convicted defendant should be sentenced to probation or house arrest at the very most, in part because she was very charitable and had annually purchased at least one hundred dollars' worth of Girl Scout Cookies for the past several years. Without consulting PseudoAunt or anyone else, I grabbed my wallet and rushed out of the courtroom. Once outside the courtroom, I took off my heels so that I could run without tripping.

On the way to the courthouse that morning, we had seen, maybe a block from the courthouse,  a makeshift kiosk where a lady and some Girl Scouts were selling cookies. It caught my attention because the Girl Scout cookie sale should have been over months ago. There must have been some extra stock that needed to be unloaded. I ran at my racing speed in my bare feet to that kiosk.

I told the lady in charge, as I really didn't have time to deal with children, that I needed to purchase as many boxes of cookies as I could easily carry. The lady had generously brought plastic grocery bags for the convenience of the customers. We decided I could easily carry four bags while running. I told her I didn't care what variety of cookies she gave me, but that I needed an assortment. She hurriedly shoved what ended up being twenty-eight boxes of all various incarnations of Girl Scout cookies in the bags.
The price was four dollars a box or six boxes for twenty dollars. I pulled out five twenties, told her to keep the change, and ran back almost as fast as I had run there, carrying both the cookies and my shoes. I quickly made it through the security checkpoint, up the stairs, and down the hall. I very nearly forgot to put my shoes back on before entering the courtroom. I'm sure the judge would have been most unimpressed, and I'm glad I remembered in the last minute.

I walked briskly but quietly down the aisle to my chair, stuffing the bags under the table. PseudoAunt  look down, then smiled at me.

Other witnesses made various excuses for the defendant's actions or praised her character, but nothing was terribly exciting. mostly it was redundant and boring.

Then came the closing statements. The prosecution went first. PseudoAunt began in typical formal fashion, addressing the ladies and gentlemen of the jury, and thanking them for their time and attention. She said the stuff that's always said. She rebutted a few routine excuses, and blew holes in the attempts to extol the lady's virtues.

Then she segued into what she referred to as "The Girl Scout Cookie" clause. She had me hand her all 28 boxes, which she promptly dropped all over the courtroom floor. Incidentally, she stole that move from Sidney Sheldon's Rage of Angels. The defense attorney objected. The judge said, "I think you've made your point with the visual, counselor. We now all now know what a box of Girl Scout cookies looks like. Move along."

PseudAunt deftly stacked the boxes of cookies and moved to set them on our table. She then turned and headed to the gallery to a man she recognized as a representative of the bank from which the lady embezzled. "I'll donate these to your bank," she announced, "since your bank actually paid for the hundreds of dollars of cookies Ms. S. purchased over the years. it's only a token reimbursement, but it's better than nothing. " she handed him the 28 boxes of cookies. Bewildered, he, handed some of them to those sitting on either side of him.

She went on to talk about how charitable giving is virtuous and is what we should be doing, but A) not with someone else's money and B) not for the purpose of avoiding punishment for a crime.  she pointed at me and said, "Alexis, my assistant, purchased nearly a hundred dollars worth of Girl Scout Cookies. Does that give her the freedom to park in a handicapped only space without paying a fine, or to be in possession of a controlled substance? No, of course it does not! I'm sorry Alexis, but if you do either of those things, you're on your own."

She went on to discuss the Twinkie defense, which happened sometime around 1980 when a man who shot the mayor of San Francisco and a county supervisor, then blamed the crimes on having eaten too many Twinkies and making his blood sugar excessively high. He was acquitted largely on that defense. She told the jury that it wasn't a perfect analogy because the defense attorney had not blamed the defendant's crime on blood sugar issues from eating the Girl Scout cookies -- yet, anyway. He still had his opportunity for a statement, and it might very well be a mitigating circumstance in his repertoire.

She said, though, that it was a legitimate analogy in the ludicrosity of both excuses. She talked about how recommending  light sentences for a serious crime based on purchases from charitable fundraisers would be, in essence, sending a message to all future criminals that all they need do before committing a crime would be to generously buy Campfire Girl mints, Cub Scout popcorn, or Girl Scout cookies. She told the jury they would essentially be giving a "Get Out of jail Free" card to up-and-coming criminals across the nation. she reached into her pocket and pulled out a Monopoly game "Get Out of jail Free" card, held it up, then passed it to juror number one, instructing him to pass it down to the others. She waited patiently while they each took the "Get Out of Jail Free" card. "I'll need the card back, " she told the jurors. "We occasionally play the game at home."

She told the jurors that she would have liked to send the Girl Scout Cookies into the deliberating room with them but !) that would be considered jury tampering, and 2) she didn't expect that they would have to deliberate for long enough to make it through a single box.

She concluded as eloquently as always. The judge gave his instructions and sent the panel off to deliberate. they were back in fifteen minutes with a decision, which was to recommend the maximum penalty of seven years plus restitution and punitive damages. The judge concurred and it was over.

PseudoAunt's husband reimbursed me the $100 I spent on the cookies, so I didn't have to raid the ATM on the way to the boat.

Hotel rooms should be ready. We're now a party of six, and everyone's a happy camper. For the record and in case my dad reads this, girls are in adjoining rooms, and the guys are in two other rooms that do not connect with ours. that doesn't necessarily guarantee anything, but we at least went through the motions of being pure and chaste.










 

Court Hearings, Chorionic Villus Sampling, Cystic Fibrosis, and Catalina

I'll probably look at least a little more legit tomorrow than she does, but I won't be quite as cute.

Tomorrow I'm going to court to assist PseudoAunt. It's just a sentencing hearing for a bank embezzlement case. It's pretty routine and there's not much for me to do unless PseudoAunt has to run out of the courtroom to throw up, in which case I will sit in the second chair and try my hardest to look really  official, or as official as a  nineteen-year-old who looks fourteen can look, anyway.

The Catalina trip begins when we leave for Los Angeles in order to  board the boat on Tuesday morning. We'll come home Friday afternoon. We're poor and can't afford to charter our own boat, so we have to drive a considerable distance to the nearest harbor with commercial service to Catalina.

PseudoAunt is having a chorionic villus sampling procedure on Tuesday to rule out the presence of cystic fibrosis in the baby. She won't abort if the baby has it, but she doesn't want to worry for the duration of her pregnancy about it, and she'd rather know from the outset if that is what the baby will face.  There are still a host of other problems that can potentially present themselves, as in any pregnancy, but cystic fibrosis is what she's worried about because she has the phenotype and her husband cannot be ruled out as a carrier. He does not have the most common CF-causing genetic mutation, which is the F508del - the mutation most commonly present in  northern Europeans who are carriers -- but there are too many other mutations for which to test at this point.. Any baby the mother produces will inherit the CF allele from her and will be, at the very least, a carrier. If the father is a carrier, the baby will either inherit the allele from him and will have the disease, or will inherit the normal allele and will merely be a carrier. By the time the baby is old enough to be a parent, genetic testing should have advanced to the point that its carrier status should be far less a concern than it presently is.  Chances are that everything will be fine, but expectant mothers have been known to worry, sometimes even excessively.

I was invited to view the procedure, but I declined. We could have moved the Catalina trip back a day with no major hassles. That wasn't really the issue. Neither is squeamishness the issue. If I'm going into medicine, viewing a routine procedure like chorionic villus sampling had best not sicken  me, as I'll be spending a large part of my first year of med school examining and performing procedures on cadavers. I admit to being just a bit squeamish about the cadavers, but it's part of the deal and I'll just have to get used to it. As long a I don't look at the face and recognize the cadaver, it will probably be fine. In any event, my choice not to view the chorionic villus sampling procedure is simply that I don't see how my presence will improve the situation in the least. PseudoAunt will have her husband and brother there for support.  She has the most skilled practitioner for the procedure in the entire area. Complications are rare, and she's an excellent candidate for the procedure for various reasons, but it doesn't seem as though filling the surgical suite  with useless bodies would weigh the odds in the favor of a safe outcome. I'll observe the procedure in med school when I don't know the patient.

I hope you all are enjoying nice weather. The sad thing is that I'm probably leaving the nicer weather of my home for slightly less pleasant weather on Catalina. C'est la vie. Sometimes one just needs a change of scenery.

The Art to Breaking Up

Very few first loves are permanent. Such is probably even more the case when it's somewhere between like and love.  The course of true like or love rarely runs smoothly, either, and it certainly didn't in Jared's and my case.  It's not a particularly painful thing to me for it to be officially over, and I'm confident that it's over for good. I'm OK about it. He's even more OK. We need to cease to delay what was inevitable and we are doing so.

Jared is now with my very good friend Meredith. I wouldn't say she's my best friend, or then again, maybe I would say that, because I have about four people I consider my best friends, and Meredith is one of them.  I have no animosity toward either of them. Jared had the decency to ensure with me that it was really over before he pursued his interest in Meredith, and Meredith likewise had the decency to call me and ask if I had a problem with her dating Jared. I'll never know what either would have done had I said that I DID have a problem with their dating, but the truth of the matter is that I really didn't. Our case of true like had run its course.

Jared, of course, has the pesky problem of a tattoo bearing the name "Alexis" on his arm.  My brother suggested he add to the tattoo so that it says "Alexis' friend Meredith" instead. I'm staying out of this debate,  but I think Jared would be wise to hold off on either getting any new tattoos or altering the one he already has.  If his tattoo were to read, "Alexis' friend Meredith," what would he then do if the relationship with Meredith didn't work out and he ended up with someone named Jessica?  Would he tattoo something else up the inside of his arm to further modify the statement, such as "Alexis' best friend Meredith's worst enemy Jessica"?  It could start to get ridiculous really fast. At some point in time he probably should remove my name from his arm or otherwise modify the tattoo, but because what has all the characteristics of  eternal love at the age of twenty may not necessarily be nearly so binding even six months later, it would seem prudent to act slowly and with deliberation in regard to the tattoo.

Before anyone starts to shed a tear on my behalf, I will make a veiled announcement of my own. I have a new man in my life.  My family knows him  and his family knows my family and me, but neither family knows that the two of us are an item. We don't know how they will take to the idea, as he is five years older than I.  My suspicion is that his parents would be highly concerned with the age difference, and that my parents would be skeptical of my ability to look out for myself and to recover with ease from what they would foresee as an inevitable broken heart. When the time comes, if we remain an item, we'll tell them all, and they can like it or not, as we are adults and can do what we want within reason. My new romantic interest is slated to be  completing a residency at the same institution where I will attend medical school. It may be a short-term thing, it may be longer in duration, or it may be the real deal, but we'll have the luxury of having it play out  a couple of hundred miles from where both of our families live.  

In honor of Jared, I'll post (though it won't be seen on my screwed-up computer; I hope you can see it on yours) Jared's and my song. It's a silly song, the content of which doesn't entirely have that much to do with us or our relationship. Still, it was and will always be our song. Meredith and Jared will need to find their own song, as will my new interest and I.

                                    for Jared and for a lot of good times

A few Additional Notes to Yesterday's Sad Story, After Which It Is Tme to Move On, as There Is Nothing More I Can Do

I know a little more today than I knew yesterday about the children whose adoption was to be finalized next week who were unceremoniously dumped back into the social services system. One thing I learned is that my neighbors wanted to keep the little girl and just give the boy back.  This may be gossip because it came from a third-party, but they apparently never wanted two additional children beyond the one they already had.  They wanted the perfect family of four.

If  this is indeed true, it seems that they could have figured this one out about sixteen months ago before they took both children into their homes under the guise of adopting both of them and freaking changing their first  names. if you're going to go so far as to change what a child has been called his or her entire life, at least make sure it's going to last for longer than a used car.

Social workers are sometimes given a bad rap for being bureaucratic, lazy, or uncaring, but in this instance, a social worker was thinking with his or her mind and heart. As devastating as being kicked out of a family at the ages of two and four must be, how much worse it would have been for the little boy to have been forced to go alone without his big sister.  My gratitude to the person who refused to allow that to happen is immense.

My mom says that who are we to judge, as we've never opened our home either to foster a child or to adoption, but there's something to be said for knowing one's limitations. Don't get into the business -- particularly the adoptive branch of the social services organization -- if, at the first sign of difficulty,  you are going to put a child on the next plane back to Russia or call the people who delivered the children to come pick them up as though it was the SPCA. For that matter, I don't even believe in adopting animals unless one is damned serious about it. Perhaps if a dog practically kills a person's great-grandmother, other arrangements may need to be made, but in general, I always thought adoptions were for life.

The neighbors didn't send any toys with the children, and in terms of clothing, they were carried out with only the pajamas they had on their little bodies. I don't know if the neighbors are planning a colossal yard sale or if they're saving the goods for the next child they hope to get. My dad says he hopes they're never again allowed custody of as much as a stray cat.

Once my mom, looking out the window like Gladys Kravitz, figured out what was happening, she ran upstairs into the attic and grabbed the crib quilts with matching stuffed animals  that had adorned Matthew's and my cribs when we were babies but that we had never actually slept with because they were too expensive to be contaminated with barf or urine on a daily basis. My mom had been saving them for our babies, but she decided she could buy new quilts and stuffed animals when we needed them for our own children. It was more important to offer some tiny gesture of comfort to the two little ones whose lives were being unexpectedly turned upside down. As the social workers carried the children out, my mom met them at the car and handed the gender-appropriate blanket and stuffed animal to each child.

My mom is quietly organizing a toy drive among the neighbors. We know what a lot of the toys the children owned were. They're being replaced so that the children may have familiar toys without the new prospective adoptive family going bankrupt. My Aunt Ilianna spoke to a social worker connected with the case to obtain the sizes of the children, so they know have appropriate cute, and well-fitting wardrobes. Neither adoption, clothing,  nor toys are cheap.

At this point, we cannot know the whereabouts of the children.  In the future, at the discretion of the adoptive (I don't know an icon for crossed fingers)  family, that may be allowed to change. If that happens, my mom suggested it might be appropriate to have a small celebration at their new home (the children should probably never return to our neighborhood until they are much older for their own peace of mind) to validate their memories and so that they could know the neighbors had not forgotten about them.

This is not about me. I knew and loved the children and was a small part of their lives -- in addition to babysitting, Matthew and I taught the little girl to ride a two-wheeler --
but it's more a case of having to face an extremely ugly occurrence going down right in one's own cul-de-sac.  Here's to hoping that the lives of these tiny children are right now taking a turn for the better, and that hearts that may never mend entirely will heal at least to the point that these babies may one day be functional adults with the ability to trust and love.

I'd like to offer a prayer and a truckload of positive thoughts on behalf of the new prospective adoptive parents. May their hearts be in the right place, may they know just what it is into which they're getting, and may they be up to the task.

This Gordon Lightfoot video is dedicated to my little former neighbors, but even though certain parts don't apply, it also make me think of the Lt. Col. and how he felt when he was in one place and his children were in another.

P.S.I hope you can see the video. it shows up on my dad's computer but not mine. I'll give the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38ik4yZg45o

Terribly Sad Story

This is not my former neighbor, as I wish to protect his privacy.

An unfortunate incident occurred in my neighborhood. In the grand scheme of world-related tragedies, this one barely pings, but two little lives were torn apart. Perhaps everything will work out of the best, but in the interim  I'm left feeling somewhat sick about it.

A couple who lived just across the street and down the cul-de-sac from us had one child and were apparently unable to have more. Their child is eleven. They took in two tiny siblings as foster children about sixteen months ago with the intention of adopting the children. The little girl was almost three when they were placed with my neighbors, and the little boy was just over a year old. The children arrived with the scars that one might expect a baby and toddler to have who, for reasons unbeknownst to me, were permanently removed from their biological parents, yet the children appeared to be thriving. The foster parents even changed the children's first names in anticipation of the adoption. I had babysat them, along with the couple's biological child, on what I believe was six occasions.  The children were beautiful, smart, cute, funny, lovable, and everything for which a parent should hope in a child.

I found out this morning that last week, which was just a month prior to the supposed finalization of the adoption, the couple returned the children to foster care.  The children are supposedly now in an excellent foster home with a childless couple -- two teachers -- who want to adopt them. On the other hand, I thought they were in an excellent foster home before. Furthermore, it's early in the process. Will the new couple still want the children a month or a year from now? Even if they do, will the children believe it's for real, or will they think this is just one more stop on their personal underground railroad  tour through the foster care system? How can these children learn to trust when the system has screwed them over so thoroughly?

As angry and broken-hearted on the children's behalf as I am, I'm trying to keep at least a small portion of my brain open to the idea that there might possibly have been a valid reason for what my neighbors did, although it's hard to imagine just what that might possibly have been. Perhaps they might have learned that one or the other of them is facing a terminal illness and will not be able to provide the children with what they need. Perhaps they're divorcing, unbeknownst to the rest of us, in which case the court system probably wouldn't even have granted the adoption. Perhaps caring for the foster children was creating a rift in the couple's marriage. I could sit here and suppose all day, but I haven't a clue. My only suggestion is that if there is a good reason for what my neighbors have done to the children, even though it's not necessarily anyone's business, they would be wise to share it with their neighbors in order to minimize the animosity.

Sometimes life is unfair, and too often  such is the case with society's most vulnerable people.

Are you smarter than a fourth (or fifth or sixth) grader?

PseudoUncle's Facebook Fiasco

My PseudoUncle Scott was killing time while his pregnant wife did one of the things pregnant women in their first trimesters do better than almost anyone else, which was to barf.  He clicked onto Facebook and was immediately faced with one of those numerical operations of which Facebook is so fond. People work the problems and argue viciously for weeks about the answers. 

The keys to the correct answers to these problems are almost exclusively tied to the concept of order of operations. Some operations take precedence over others. Once one has acknowledged the proper order in which things should be done and has taken care of those things, then one goes back to the left of the problem and works it from left to right.  The acronym I (along with about 20 million other fourth-graders) was taught was "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally," with P representing parentheses, E representing exponents, M representing multiplication, D representing division, a representing addition, and S representing subtraction.

No parentheses or exponents are present in this strand. Thus, if you work this equation correctly, you will first calculate 7 X 7, and will, we hope, arrive at 49. Next, you will divide 7 by 7 and arrive at 1. You will then work the problem in sequence from left to right, substituting "49" and "1" for the expressions " and  "7 x 7" and 7 / 7." At this point the equation looks like 7 + 1 + 49 -7. Your answer will be 50.

Not everyone will arrive at the correct answer because many of the people answering this question haven't done math more complicated than calculating a babysitter's rate of pay since he or she was in high school. This is almost to be expected.

The most amusing thing, though, is the vehemence with which those who answer incorrectly will either argue for the correctness of their answers or will insult others -- sometimes even those who have absolutely nothing to do with the problem presented -- or will defend their answers based upon their qualifications.  One lady answered  56 (which is the answer a person would've gotten from working the problem left to right in sequence without considering order of operations), then went on to say that those who got the incorrect answer did so because of the evil Common Core. I'm not 100% in favor of common core, but at least get the correct answer yourself before you insult all those who will get it wrong because they were taught by the principles of common core. Another guy who arrived at 56 said that we should trust him because he does math every day, and one always works the problem left to right in sequence. He may do math every day -- I have no way of knowing -- but he doesn't do it very well. There might be areas in which I would trust him, but not in regard to anything connected to math.  I could continue with silly responses, but I suspect you get the point.

The bottom line is probably "Who gives a a flying rat's rectum?" but sooner or later another one of these order of operations teasers will appear on Facebook, and people will argue about it again.  My suggestion to the people of Facebook, of which I am not one*, is to remember  "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally." You knew it once. You can learn it again. My advice to my PseudoUncle is to take up Sudoku or to play the piano while his pregnant wife is tossing her cookies.

* My mom has offered both my brother and me a sizable wad of cash to stay off Facebook until we turn 21.

Charity Sometimes Begins at School

This isn't exactly how my male Cinderella tenor looked  tonight-- for one thing, he wore a tux -- but it's an adequate representation.

I made it very nicely through accompanying the tenor's recital tonight. My services ended up being provided free of charge. My buddy the cellist told me the tenor is not exactly rolling in dough. The tenor looked as though he might cry when I handed the envelope containing the cash back to him. I have three hundred fewer dollars than I had planned for expenditures on my upcoming Catalina trip, but I have a seldom-touched bank account that won't even notice if I raid it for an additional three hundred bucks. 

Sometimes it's OK to do a favor for someone simply out of the goodness of one's heart.  When the favor is unexpected and the recipient is genuinely grateful, the feeling one gets from being nice is sometimes worth more in the long run than the cash would have been, anyway.

The tenor did well in his performance tonight. I didn't cry during "Nessun Dorma,"  neither because the performance was  unbelievably great nor because it was mediocre, but I did thoroughly enjoy the rendition. It would be blatantly unfair to compare the guy to Pavarotti, Bocelli,  Domingo, or Josh Groban in his present state, as it would be unfair to compare any twenty-one-year-old who looks as though he is fourteen to such legends. He may not have been all that far inferior to Groban in his very early years, though. Will he one day himself be a legend? The odds are stacked against any entertainer not well-connected in today's world, but who knows?  Will he make a living at his art? Quite possibly. His voice will mature, as will his physical appearance.  With a little luck, one can never put a cap on his potential. Additionally, he very definitely has "cute" going in his favor, and I'm not particularly quick to classify a young man as "cute." I have high standards in that regard.

The tenor's adviser was carrying in his wallet nearly five hundred dollars in gift cards to a neighborhood pizza parlor, which he very generously donated for an impromptu post-recital reception.  I doubt that the presence of the gift cards in the adviser's wallet was a coincidence. I suspect he purchased them this afternoon because he knew the tenor lacked the funds to provide a reception featuring anything more elegant than store-brand Oreos and Hawaiian Punch. My respect for the adviser grew exponentially tonight.

This young tenor is not from skid row, but neither has he lived anything resembling the ever-so-slightly-above-the-mean existence that I  have taken for granted. Many of the male music majors by now own tuxes. The tuxedo the tenor wore tonight was rented. (It fit well, and he looked very nice.) I'd buy the guy a tux except that I don't think he's finished growing, and the price of a tuxedo is a lot of money to spend on someone who is probably still looking at a growth spurt. My brother owns a pricey and still stylish tux that he has outgrown that has seen only very light wear. Perhaps my mom will agree that we can have the pants and sleeves altered to fit the tenor so that his next appearance requiring a tux doesn't involve renting or borrowing. Perhaps we can even avoid pressing the ends of the sleeves and pants heavily so that they can be lengthened to accommodate the growth he'll likely experience.

I felt proud to be a part of this young man's performance on what may very well have been the greatest night of his life to this point. As a surprise, his parents flew in from the upper midwest to see their son perform his senior recital. It's good that he saw them initially a few hours or so before the scheduled start of his recital, because had he first seen them immediately before he was to perform, his emotions may have interfered with his ability to sing. His parents were able to accrue enough money to travel from North Dakota (he's here on scholarship) to be present for the recital. The entire extended family chipped in so that the parents would have enough money for the flight. They had saved enough money for five nights at Motel 6, but a music faculty member donated the use of her beach house, which will allow them to use money designated for lodging to experience some of our area's nicer restaurants, as opposed to subsisting on McDonald's and Burger King fare, which had been the plan. My parents are letting his parents use the car that Matthew and I drove before we each were given our own cars. It's at least as safe, reliable, and well-insured as a rental car would have been, but no one will be terribly upset if  it gets a ding or two because all  it's doing is taking up space in the garage and has to be parked on the street when Matthew or my cousin Josh are home. Josh went over it thoroughly yesterday to ensure that it is in perfect working order. The father of one of the viola majors owns several local gas stations, and she donated a gas card that will work for the time they're here at any of the stations owned by their family.  The tenor's parents will not be able to see him receive his fake diploma, but having them see his recital was much more important to him and to them.

The tenor has received enough scholarships and grants to continue his education here, and plans to pursue a vocal performance master's degree. Only time will tell where the future will lead him, but for tonight and for the rest of the week, he's experiencing a male version of a Cinderella-like existence. It was gratifying to see so many people pool available resources to make this a memorable experience for the young tenor and for his parents. You may know of him someday, but I'm not divulging his name, so if he ever becomes genuinely famous, you can only guess as to whether or not it was he.

We in our campus community desperately needed something positive to happen. For me, this was it.

I Will Always Like You (imagine Whitney Houston warbling it): Chapter 16 in my on-again/off-again relationship with Judge Alex

There ain't [sic] no good guy. There ain't [sic] no bad guy. There's [sic] only you and me, and we just disagree. 

My cyber-relationship  of  almost five years with Judge Alex Ferrer has always been of a somewhat tenuous nature. For starters, anyone who is not certifiably insane -- and, despite what a few relatives and divas for whom I've provided piano accompaniment may say about me, I have both of my feet planted relatively firmly on solid ground -- knows that a relationship that consists of exchanging brief communications via social media does not constitute a bona fide relationship.  Cyber friends can in some situations turn into real friends, and have done so in at least a couple of cases in my life*, but largely, a mentally healthy person builds his or her actual life around those into whose physical presence he or she comes. 

Still, communicating with Judge Alex via the Twitter has on occasion helped me through rough spots in life . I assume I would have made it through most of those rough spots with or without the the occasional metaphorical pat on the head from the judge, especially since the most traumatic aspects of my life were things I did not share with the judge or with anyone else on Twitter. Still, Judge Ferrer was kind enough to offer words of encouragement or humor from time to time, and those words did on occasion give me the strength and courage to go out into the world and brave one more day of that often ugly period in one's life known as adolescence. For that I am most grateful.

Psychologist and behaviorist B. F. Skinner, building upon the earlier work of physiologist  Ivan Pavlov, categorized forms of reward, which we all remember from Psychology 101. In short, reinforcement systems as described by Skinner could be categorized as fixed ratio ( the provision of  reinforcement after a specific number of responses), fixed interval (the provision of  reinforcement after a specified amount of time), variable ratio (the provision of  reinforcement after an indeterminate or even random number of responses), or variable interval (the provision of reinforcement after an indeterminate or random period of time). 

While Judge Ferrer obviously did not create an application on his iphone designed specifically to track my tweets and his replies, it became apparent that his replies to my tweets were based very casually upon a reinforcement schedule falling somewhere between fixed ratio and fixed interval.  After noticing X number of tweets from me, or after realizing that he hadn't acknowledged anything I had tweeted him in a given period of time, he would eventually tweet a response. Other factors, including just how busy he was in his real life at a given time,  just how busy his overall tweeting life was at a given moment in time, or just how pertinent a particular tweet or set of tweets might or might not have been, also figured into the formula. 

I tweeted a brief version of this to my cyber-friend Jaci. I looked for the tweets because I wished to reference something here that was cited there,  but I could not find them though it was probably less than two hours ago that they were sent. Twitter is a fickle media in that regard. Perhaps Jaci deleted the original tweet to which my tweets were mere responses. that may have caused them to disappear.  Then again, perhaps the Twitter fairy removed them, or perhaps they merely disappeared into the ether.  Regardless, I refuse  to lose sleep over the situation.

Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky, according to Kerry Livgren of 70's rock band Kansas, and scientists will tell you, for that matter, that odds are against even  the Earth and sky lasting forever. Still, it's a sad time when anything that brought you happiness comes to an end. I hope this dissolution, termination, or whatever one might call it with Judge Ferrer, is merely a hiatus and not the actual end.


*I would never have met Becca without our respective connections to Judge Alex, and for that, I extend my gratitude to him.

Conspiracy Theories, Functioning Democracies, and the Press

I don't really like to align myself with those who place great faith in conspiracy theories, but former U.S. President Jimmy Carter made a comment in a recent interview that he doesn't believe we have an actual functioning democracy in our nation at the present. Carter said that he has reason to believe that his electronic communications are monitored, and if he doesn't want those in the U.S. government to know the content of his communication to anyone,  he sends the communication in an actual letter as opposed to an email. While I've not necesssarily agreed with everything President Carter has said or done, I've never seen evidence that the man is paranoid or delusional.

I have mixed feelings about former President Carter. I admire that he has spent his retirement in service to his fellow man. On the other hand, things I've read from what I would consider to be reliable sources have lead me to believe he was never the "common man" he pretended to be while he was president. He did things, for example, such as carrying his own suitcase for as long as cameras were on him, then dropping them as soon as the cameras were off, usually expecting secret service agents to carry the bags for him. Such was not their job, and, in fact, compromised the job they were hired to do, which was to protect the president. If he needed aides to carry his luggage, he should have had his aides carry his luggage, and he shouldn't have pretended to be something or someone that he was not. Yet still  I suspect he is a good man at heart, and I believe there is something to his allegations concerning the state of our current government.

My feelings in this regard were bolstered a bit by a recent tweet  from People magazine regarding a luncheon to be held between Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama at the White House. The tweet was posted, then taken down almost immediately. Since the backlash over the removal of the tweet, it has been reposted.

I'm not terribly concerned about President Obama and Hillary Clinton having lunch together at the White House or anywhere else, nor am I concerned about whether or not the press is aware of it and chooses to publicize it. What does give me pause is the decision of People magazine to report it and then to immediately take it down. Precisely who applied pressure to the publication to delete the post  is a cause of perplexity to me, as is the decision to re-post the item.  

Do we have excessive governmental interference with our press, or do we have individuals in high positions of power in administrating our news agencies who are too biased to do their jobs effectively? Do we have a functioning democracy?

For the record, I'm a registered Democrat.

Josh Groban, Bocelli, Pavarotti, and the REAL World of an Accompanist

Isn't he adorable? I'm not accompanying him, by the way, but a girl can dream.

I played for two master's degree recitals in one day today. The flute recital was during the noon hour, and the violin recital was at 7:00 p.m. I'm not sure what in the world is going on with all of these late recitals. My mom thinks it may have something to do with two adjudication panel members having been significantly ill at the same time. Suitable replacements supposedly couldn't be found. Then the accompanist or accompanists had prior commitments. In any event, I certainly felt for the degree candidates. It would have been terribly nerve-wracking to me to have my recital be thrown up in the air in such a manner. I did my very best for them. The flutist played several selections I've played for my mom since I was in about seventh grade, and the violinist played two pieces I used in my own recital. I'm not sure why the criteria allows the same works to be used in masters' recitals as in bachelors' recitals. My friend the cellist, who turned pages for me, said that most of my selection were actually above the bachelor's degree category, though he may have been saying that to feed my ego.

I picked up a recital for this weekend as well. This one's just a senior recital (which unfortunately doesn't pay as well as a master's recital unless the soloist pulls a total diva act on me, which I've been told is unlikely in this case) and not a master's recital, and probably was rescheduled because of the same situation that caused the others to be postponed. This guy is supposed to be somewhere between a leggiero (or leggero) tenor and a lyric tenor. A leggiero tenor is the rough equivalent to a coloratura soprano, with a light yet somewhat athletic voice capable of flourish. A lyric tenor has a warmer, brighter, fuller voice. I'm curious as to how these two sets of characteristics can be combined in a single voice. The department chair offered the description, so I'm not inclined to scoff at it.  The guy is performing "Nessun Dorma."  I just hope he doesn't ruin it for me.  I'll either be crying as I play because it's such a thing of beauty or because it's such a pathetic effort. Regardless, I know the music, so the tears in my eyes will not impair my ability to play the song.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that voice majors tend to be given greater latitude in their selections for their recitals. One selection this guy is performing is "Gira Con Me Questa Notte," which is, in my opinion, David Foster's attempt to make Josh Groban sound like Bocelli.  In my opinion, Groban does not need to be made to sound like Bocelli, as he sounds great as himself, but still I like the aria. I'm interested in hearing the degree candidate's rendition. 

It's a tall order this guy whose name I don't even know has created for himself. I don't know that I would be so readily setting myself up for comparisons between myself and Pavarotti, Bocelli, or Josh Groban. Still, people like to hear what they know. Some degree candidates pull obscure works out of thin air. Even if the adjudication panel likes the artist's rendering of the work, the audience may not, and the panel's scores are influenced to a degree by audience response. They can usually  tell the difference between genuine appreciation of a work and the enthusiastic cheering of family and friends combined with the hiring a frat to sit in the auditorium and make noise after each selection.

Going Down in History for Crimes

First and foremost, let me say that I do not wish to give any sort of official title to the mayhem that occurred over the weekend in Isla Vista.  In my title I referred to the incident as such because it was a massacre of sorts, and it did occur in Isla Vista.  Doing so, in my opinion, glorifies the action, and perhaps gives future sociopaths delusions of grandeur in terms of  what their own planned anti-social acts may  one day be called, and as to just how they might go down in history.   I recall a long time ago  --  or long ago  in relation to my relatively short life span, anyway  --  some rather wise news personality suggesting that none of these worse than  infamous murderers (at the time it was the "Beltway Snipers" of whom the press was writing)  be given any sort of moniker by which they would be referred. he suggested, if I remember correctly, that instead we should call them simply, "Piece of Shit Number One," "Piece of Shit Number two," etc.   it would nice to see the press unite rather than compete if just in this one area.  Do we really need the Night Stalker, the Zodiac killer, The Milwaukee Cannibal, Son of Sam, the Unabomber, or any of the rest of these creatures? Or, for that matter,does the world need  Nancy Grace's cutesy nicknames (AKA "Tot Mom" ) that she uses and thinks will catch on among other segments of the press, but usually do not?

When we apply sobriquets, handles, or bynames  of any sort either to those unknown deviates for whom law enforcement is seeking to identify, or to those who have already been charged or convicted,  are we doing anything but lionizing, aggrandizing, or even simply adding publicity to the characters of those who have committed heinous acts? Why must we do this for such depraved individuals? In many cases, they will go down in history despite our best efforts, but must we make it all the  easier for them to do so by supplying them with  clever handles by which they will be forever known?  Furthermore, are we aiding, abetting, or motivating them in the planning and commission of their crimes by helping them to imagining just what sort of a nom de guerre the press will envision on their behalves, thus boosting them into immortality?

I have additional opinions on the subject (since when do I lack opinions on any given topic?), including the supposed Asperger connection, into which I wish to delve at a point in the near future.  For the present, however, I shall focus on today's topic. The person who committed these unspeakable acts does not even have a first, middle, or surname to me any longer. He exists in my memory as Piece of Shit (garbage if you're less crude than I) Number One.

Visiting Graves, Parasailing, Tying Up Loose Ends

I don't have anything deeply profound to say at this hour, but I'd rather not leave my last post as my most recent pot any longer, as, true thought it may be, it's depressing even to me.

I picked up, courtesy of the recommendation of the department chair,  two last-minute masters recitals for which to accompany in this upcoming week. Even senior recitals, much less master's recitals,  are not supposed to be allowed so late in a quarter, so I assume there must have been special circumstances surrounding the rescheduling of them. Master's recitals pay better than senior recitals. so who am I to complain?

I met with both candidates at the music department building yesterday (Sunday). I ran through the music with each soloist - one flutist and one violinist. it's all straightforward music. I could do either recital right now if necessary. both musicians have had adequate preparation, which take stress from me. It's enough to worry about preventing my own miscuse; having to be concerned about reacting to and minimizing someone else's is stressful. There's still always the possibility of error on my part or someone else's, but it's easier to sleep between now and then knowing that it would be a flukish sort of thing and not a likelihood.

What to do with unexpected cash flow is always an interesting quandary. Conventional wisdom would be to put the money away for a rainy day, but i've put a whole lot of my earnings away for rainy days, and were experiencing a pretty heavy drought here in California, so the earnings from last week and this week are going to be spent. i'm taking mt brother, my friend Alyssa, ans Jared to Santa Catalina for three days. We're parasailing while we're there. They're each kicking in the fee for their ferry transportation and paying for their own food so that it won't all be on me, but i'll footing the hotel bill and the parasailing fees. 

Alyssa and Jared each have one more year of undergrad, but for Matthew and me, we're looking at a lot more drudgery than fun and games over the next four years. A few days of frivolity while we still have the chance seems like not such a bad thing. We'll essentially have summers off for three years, but our childhoods ar essentially over. The nice thing about the medical profession is that once one has completely finished education and training, one must work hard, but then has the means to play hard if that is what one desires.

Tomorrow morning, which is actually today, my brother and I will make the northward trek to our twin brothers' graves to clean the grave sites and place flowers on them. We've collected a nice selection of flowers from neighbors, and we're packed an ready to go. I should be sleeping in anticipation of the drive, but sleep eludes me at this moment.

Santa Catalina Island, which is soon to be my destination

He's NOT a victim, and PLEASE, let us not turn him into one.

Over spring break  a bit of  a disaster occurred in UC-Santa Barbara's off-campus residential community. In that particular case,  scads of high school students as well as a roughly equal number of young adults who attend other universities or no universities at al converged upon Isla Vista for some sort of event. Predictablly, things got out of hand rather quickly, and the "event" turned into a minor riot. Unfortunately for student of UC-Santa Barbara, blame for this was pinned on them when little evidence pointed to the the UCSB's student body having much if anything at all to do with the unrest.

Another incident took place last night. This situation was of a much more serious nature, and lives were lost. Six was the last body count I heard, although others may still be fighting for their lives.

I haven't driven anywhere near the crime scene today. To do  so would be painful and emotionally charged, and I'm sure that those involved with investigating the crime have plenty to do without curious rubber-neckers ogling the scene.

This particular tragedy was the work of one very narcissistic individual. I shall not mention his name here because he is not worthy of the publicity provided even by this lowly blog. I hesitate to touch upon the topic, but my conclusion is that those whose lives were lost merit  mention even if the amalgamation of lagoon scum deserves anonymity. The press is, as of yet, not releasing the names of those whose lives were lost. When the names are released, I will do what little I can to honor their collective memory.

This incident is neither the first nor the last of its kind.  I don't know enough about weapons to know if harsher laws in terms of the availability of assault-type weapons could have minimized the damage that was done, or if the weapon used was of a simple variety and is of the sort that will likely always be legal. Moreover, if I understand correctly, the BMW was the weapon of choice in the loss of some of the lives. I don't foresee BMWs being outlawed at any time in the near future.

Pond scum had apparently made a name for himself at several websites. my cousin showed me one particular off-tpoic comment he wrote at a particular board after which another poster commented, "Those sound like the writings of a serial killer."  The commenter probably truly believed pond sum's comments were stranger than garden-variety strange, but he/she probably had no clue as to how prophetic he or she truly was.

The perpetrator of this heinous act was twenty-two and was still a virgin, and for that, the residents of Isla Vista deserved to pay with their lives. he, the perpetrator, was, in his own words, a prefect gentlemen, but the ladies of a particular sorority were giving sex to other men less deserving than he. He had been in school two-and-a-half years - wait -- longer than that, and hadn't had sex. He attends a University of california and cannot correctly calculate how long he has been in attendance at the college or university level. Perhaps our requirements for entrance into the University of California are too lax if students there don't even know how long they've been there.

The whole dating quagmire is painful at the best, but many others before this amalgamation of pond scum have navigated it with the need to resort to mass murder.  My guess is that the perpetrator was aiming too high  in terms of those he wished to date versus those who wished to date him. Most of us figure this out very early in life.  When we first begin to notice the opposite sex (or same sex, for those who experience same-sex attraction), the venn diagram representing those we would choose to date and those who would choose to date us is typically two circles which neither intersect nor even touch. Eventually most of us become acquainted with reality. We socialize with others who aare not necessarily the girls or guys of our dreams,  but we learn a few social skills and have a bit of fun along the way. then eventually, if were lucky, something a bit magical happens:  the way we look in real life starts to a bit more closely resemble the way we looked in our imaginations, and people who wouldn't have given us a second glance in our earlier days actually notice us. That doesn't happen, in most cases, however, if we don't go through the motions and practice our social skills in our earlier years along with our fellow social inferiors.

The pictures I've seen of pond scum amalgamation do not portray a hideously ugly young man. Surely someone would have gone out with him, and might even have willingly had sex with him. I do hope they test his DNA, as a friend of mine was raped two years ago in Isla Vista, and if he's lying about never having had sex and happened to have been the perpetrator in her case, I'd like to see her get a bit of closure.

In any event, he appeared to have a type, from things he said in at least one of his videos.   It seemed tha he liked blonde sorority girls.  Though it's good not to get too heavily into stereotyping, I've not been a major fan of most of the sorority girls I've encountered in classes. Some have been merely snobbish, while others have been  outrightly nasty.  While no manner of rejection any of these girls gave to this man in response to offers of dates, sex, or anything else would in any way justify his actions, in this particular case, this creep's feelings were hurt, and he took it out on innocent bystanders.  if the sorority girls of which he spoke were the ones I knew, it's not hard to believe that any offer of a date (a more sexually explicit offer he may have made was sufficiently crude, in my opinion, that no response with which a girl might have come up would have been too rude for the situation)  might have been rejected in a publicly rude manner when a simple, quite, polite "no" would have sufficed. it's really no one's fault but his. At the same time, if he did make a polite request to one of those blonde sorority girls of his dreams for a date, and she rejected him in a loud and humiliating manner, I hope she's considering that she might have played at least a small role in this. I say this because I've seen the loud and humiliating rejections happen. Obviously, regardless,  that gives no one a right to kill anyone else.

This piece of pond scum seemed to think his BMW gave him  some sort of entitlement. I've never counted BMWs on campus, but I see them on a regular basis. I've read that the piece of pond scum's father works in he entertainment industry. That, combined with his BMW, would lead me to believe he was from at least a moderately privileged background.  While I have no way of  assessing relative wealth on campus, I'm comfortable in saying he is one of very many students from financially comfortable backgrounds. At UC-Santa Barbara, if a person wishes to distinguish himself or herself, it takes more than familial wealth in order to do so. Parents: don't think you can hand your kid the keys to a BMW and assume you've given him or her the keys to success in college or in life.

All's Well that Ends Well for the Accompanist

not my actual diva, but a reasonable facsimile

The Thursday night recital went off, though it would be a stretch to say it did so without a hitch.  I would like to know precisely what was the soprano's adviser's role in the process. We as performance majors pay those people big bucks to advise us.  I don't know if the adviser attempted to advise but the degree candidate refused to listen, or if the degree candidate, unbeknownst to me, is the offspring of someone important among benefactors to the university's music department -- I do know that the diva's parents have no eminence in the department itself, but perhaps her parents are big donors. In any event, if any good advice was being given, it was being summarily disregarded.

My first issue was with the selections. For instrumentalists, we're still required at most universities to hit major works from designated musical eras. The requirements for repertoire for voice recitals have gotten a bit flaky at most institutions in recent years.A smart person would use this to his or her advantage. Greater flexibility in selections allows one to form a theme of sorts, which is, in my idea, a good idea if one isn't hitting the major music eras with one's choices. At the very least, use the greater freedom to choose the prettiest songs one can find. I've attended and accompanied for enough of these recitals to know that  pretty beats impressive every time, and this is particularly so if one's attempt at impressive fails to impress.

The diva opened with "A Je Veux Vivre" from Romeo and Juliet by Gonoud.  I've always considered this piece somewhat blah, but it was clearly the least obnoxious work in the program. She didn't render it particularly well, but neither did she have all attendees with even average pitch discernment fighting their way out of the exits as though the building had caught fire.

From there it only got worse. She sang Ernest Chausson's "Chanson Perpetuelle," which translates to "never-ending song." it truly felt that the song would never end. When I was really little,  a lady named Shari Lewis hosted a program called "Lamb Chop" or something like that . Each episode ended with the puppet characters singing, "This is the song that doesn't end. Yes, it goes on and on, my friend. Some people started singing it not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever just because . . ." and then the song repeated until it faded out. The problem is that our soprano didn't fade out. I wondered at some point if I should segue into the "Lamb Chop" song, then fade out gradually, but thought better of it.

The diva thoroughly butchered "Alfin Mucciderete" by Scarlatti, which was a selection that I had previously liked. She ruined the song for me. I think it was at this point that one of the other voice majors handed the adviser a paper bag. I don't know whether she was supposed to put it over her head or throw up in it. Either use would have been both understandable and fitting.

I'll skip a few selections because I'm trying to delete them from my memory. She ended with "Mein Herr Marquis" otherwise known as "The Laughing Song," from Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss. With all due respect to Strauss, even considering for context, it's arguably one of the most ridiculous pieces ever composed.  She didn't put any sort of a new spin on it that lent respectability. I followed her the best I could, but she didn't know the piece well enough to be performing it and at one point actually forgot her lyrics. She should've faked it and just started singing "ha! ha! ha!" until she remembered where she was, but she's not a fast thinker. Instead, she turned and glared at me as though it had been my fault that she didn't know the piece.

I always find these things out after the fact, and this was no exception, but her glare at me very nearly cost her the recital.  Failing a senior recital is usually not an option. One may receive a mediocre [ or worse] score, but if one has jumped through enough hoops to have been extended the privilege of performing a senior recital, one will almost assuredly receive a "pass" on the final outcome.The department chair was present and in perfect position to catch a full view of the diva's glare at me.  At the immediate conclusion of the recital, he took the diva and her adviser aside.  Everything I know is from a fellow piano major who served as a stage hand because he needed the money. He told me the department chair totally ripped into her. Even if a discrepancy is the fault of an accompanist, it's considered a major faux pas to in any way call attention to such. (It goes both ways. An accompanist has an obligation to do everything in his or her power to avoid making a soloist look bad.) If said discrepancy is not the fault of an accompanist, it's doubly the responsibility of the soloist to own the error. The department chair told her she was a disgrace to the department.

The department chair apologized to me in the diva's presence for her rudeness and told me I had done an outstanding job.  I was gracious and thanked him without flashing a huge smile in her face.

The end result is that the diva will earn her degree but that she would be wise not to ask for any recommendations from anyone in the department.

When I was given my envelope with five one hundred dollar bills, I held each up to the light and examined it as though I had the skill to determine a counterfeit bill from the real thing. Truthfully, I probably wouldn't have recognized them as fakes  unless they'd had Dick Cheney's picture on them. Even though it may have been too late, I took the bills to the bank to get a professional opinion that they were legitimate. I shouldn't have been so concerned. If I'm not smart enough to tell the real deal from a fake, what are the odds that the diva would have had the street-smarts to come up with counterfeits that looked sufficiently legitimate to fool the casual observer?