#5 This is a Day Timer

I use this ancient method to keep track of appointments. Today, Tuesday February 23, 2010, we meet with our former partner and make the last payment on his buy-out. Done. Over. Fini. So wonderful but also like having a date with a Sith Lord on the books.

Love and anger seem the fuel of poetry or, at least cheap doggerel.






Out to Pasture

Well, old Frank, you creepy codger
Today we rid you from our ledger.
The last five years we’ve been paired
Have been so much worse than we ever dared.
Had we known sooner you were mental
Maybe we would have quit and rented
A little shack on a beach in Maui
And sold lemonade to all the haoles.

Where do I start with your indiscretions?
The list is long; I’ll need libations
To keep me fresh as I recite the tome
Of your crazy deeds that begin alone
With the day I met you at a meeting
Secretly I had been seething
At the amount of time the speaker’d taken
To discuss the over-valuation
Of a company selling school lunch trays
By then I know my eyes were glazed
And needing something to pass the time
It was then, dear Frank, you happened by.

“Are you the lady who owns a business
That needs a partner on commission?”
“That would be me,” I smiled and extended
My hand to the man who blended
Old school wit with folksy charm
Nothing yet to raise alarm.

We spent two months just business dating
Understanding the problems facing
Our business needs; hopes were great.
“He’s come along in time; why wait?!”

We made some calls; all good it seemed
Only one alone said, “ He’s not that clean.”
“What could be wrong?” we thought. ”How bad
Could it be; he looks like Dad!”

Then days stretched into weeks and months
It wasn’t long before we had a hunch
He wasn’t really all that aware
Of how business worked out there.
Oh, he understood things as if he’d been
Locked in a time ruled just by men.

He used to talk about all the ladies
Popping from cakes in the roaring 80’s
The frolicking, chasing, outright boasting
Of office trysts, make Tiger-roasting
Seem a warm-up act for this old geezer
Grandpa posing as a sexed-up loser.
“I miss those days,” he’d muse and moan
In shock all we could do was groan
And realize too late how much we’d missed
During our shoddy due diligence.

So to you, we were wedded by our stock
Ink was dry; too late to rock
The boat or change direction
To act on doubts and premonitions
That our new partner wasn’t a gent
But a nasty leprechaun instead.

By luck, grace and divine intervention
We found a way to unwind our relation
This, our last day of entanglement,
So happy are we to end this stint
In business boot camp, five years hard labor
We know now how to be more stable

So old Frank, your time has passed
For us, for others, it’s really quite sad
To think of all that has been lost
No one today can afford the cost
Of protecting someone just out to win
Especially if the price is in
The ruined wreckage laid bare to see
In lives, in dreams that will never be.
For us, we’re whole and stronger still
And I can guarantee that we will
Never again be quite that blind
Free today. So long, good-bye.

#4 This is Fabric

Random numerical highlights of life

- 1 friend is having a baby and his name is Dean which rhymes with bean. I am making him 1 blanket out of 2 different fabrics.
- Today marks 421 days of uterus-free living and I’m not sure yet how I feel about that.
- 30 uterus years + 1 husband = 2 kids who are in the the 11th and 12th grades.
- 2 adults and 2 teenagers which equals 4 people are all hanging out together right now in our living room which is about 10’x15’. We are not hungry. Hazel is asleep.
- 5 containers of leftovers were finished at dinner tonight.
- 219 pennies spent on a pretzel and water I split with E. We ate at 4:15.
- Display House is at 4478 E. Sprague where we stopped to buy 1 wig for E's costume party. She will be Cruela deVille. 101 Dalmatians. She will be 1 cute Cruela.
- IKEA has 4 letters in its name. Trader Joe's has 10. There is 1 TJ's distribution center being built in Everett. 20+ new TJ's will be built in the NW in the next 5 years.
- 11 books lying on or around the coffee table that my feet are resting on. One is called The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell and is about the Puritans landing in America in the 1600’s. It’s overdue at the library. The fine will be 75 cents.
- The numbers on our house are 603. It is 1.4 miles to the library and 1.5 miles to Aunties Bookstore.
- We replaced 3 couch cushions in our basement couch. It’s 53 years old, vintage and has street value.
- In 10 years I will be 53 and my girls might be married. With kids.
- Today is my Mom's 70th birthday. I have 1 step-dad, 1 brother, 1 step-sister, 4 aunts, 1 living uncle, 3 cousins, 2 nieces, 2 nephews, many in-laws, a family.
- My favorite number is 6 which was Steve Garvey’s number when he played for the Dodgers. One year I made a costume of his jersey for Halloween which is on 10/31 ever year.
- I am flying to LA next weekend on Flight #2234 to visit my friend Jenn. Who is having a baby. His name is Dean.

#3 This is a Manila Folder

This is a manilla folder. Until last Thursday, it held copies of the contract I was working on. Now, il est vide, it is empty and our 'new' partner has changed his mind. Actually, he changed his mind about a lot of things and decided February was a great month to have a mid-life crisis. This experience helped bring into sharp focus what I want to do next in my career. I'm really grateful to have met you both even thought things didn't work out.  Awesome, loser. Moving on...



Ode to That Old Young Man From Idaho

I’ll miss the bygone days of yore
when your emails held in store
the promise of hope and revenue
but now I only have the view
of the speed-dial space where your name is missing
but then inside I think I’m sensing
We aren’t probably missing much
You didn’t really have the touch
Or the edge or guts, wits or passion
You seemed confused about our mission
To build a company that will last
You just seemed to want a pass
On working hard from dawn ‘til dusk
Your feet have begun to rust
From sitting and staring at your navel
Contemplating life as it unravels
Regaling us with stories of old
Of attending meetings and counting gold.
So now that we have parted ways
You can finally have back your days
Of life and leisure and making babies
We refocus on what mainly
Keeps us happy at this dance
Old young man, you missed your chance.

#2 This is a Contract

I've spent the past 2 months working on this contract. Contracts cost $$ to get produced, like most things do. We're dating business partners right now and this is the marriage license. This isn't what I thought I'd be doing when I was 43. Life is quite interesting that way.

Actually, contracts are somewhat intriguing. It’s one of the things I’ve actually enjoyed about this adventure of owning a business. There's some elegant writing in most of them, and if you need a break from the sheer thrill of cold calling, believe me, there is always a contract that needs reading.

The first section of this particular contract after the opening paragraph is entitled “Article 1. Background and Definitions.” The last, simply stated, is “10.5 Entire Agreement”. That is sort of the boilerplate ending section for most contracts. After that, two signature blocks at the bottom for everyone to sign-off.

So as a grown-up, I’m learning a great deal about contracts and the patience, the incredible patience, that is required in taking the time up-front to do them right. As with marriages, sometimes business relationships unfold. You open the filing cabinet, dust off your contract and hope and pray you did it right, that your now ex-partner didn’t push you too hard to put in that section about a pay-out and that you had the wisdom to listen to your counsel. (That’s a word for lawyer or attorney, by the way. Just like in the movies. As in, “Let’s check with our counsel on that,” in which they reply, “That will be $250.”)

And yes, we have way too much counsel right now. I am thinking the next time I have to pee I will need to first consult with the Pee Counsel. I am exaggerating but not a whole lot… employment law counsel, trademark counsel, corporate counsel, tax counsel, patent law counsel… Sometimes I imagine that they all get together in their fancy offices, throw our money up in the air and laugh hysterically that we’re still falling for the same racket after all these years.

Anyway, I wish I could say I’m doing things right this time and it is just going to work out swell with our new partners but the reality is, we’ve learned this the hard way. We had a contract with a former partner that had language we didn’t understand but didn’t take the time to figure it out. Part of this is because obviously when you’re doing a contract, there is a reason. Usually, money is involved. And time. And therefore, pressure. So you’re pressured to get it done fast and in this instance, we did. As that partnership deteriorated, we got to face two years of nasty exchanges that ultimately involved even more new counsel (litigation counsel, arbitration counsel…) who found ways to charge even more insanely high hourly rates. We are hoping we’ve learned our lessons this time.

These are nice folks, these potential partners, who seem interested in just doing a good deal and making money. Honest, through the front door, straight-up. I can live with that so I’m taking the time to do this contract because I think in the long run, we won’t have to pull it out again to set things straight.

So, my mind is spinning with legalese and I wonder at times, “How did I ever get here?” This isn’t really what I thought I’d be doing at 43, it’s true, but neither was that poor Michael Corleone. I’m watching The Godfather Part ll and you know, he just never got respectable like his wife kept wanting him to. Bedroom shootings, constant threats on his life, then him constantly shooting people which had to contribute to that awful, baggy-eyed look that said, “I am sure am not getting enough sleep around here.” I don’t think when he came back all fresh-faced at 22 from Dartmouth and the military, that he envisioned someday taking over his father’s mafia empire, even if his dad was Marlon Brando. What a helluva midlife crisis to have.

So, I guess my lesson learned is, life sometimes throws you a curve ball and you make the best of it. I didn’t really set out eight years ago to learn about contracts and litigation and employment law but here I am. Actually, I didn’t really set out eight years ago to do much of anything but survive. And I sort of think that’s how it ends up working for a lot of us which I think is much more respectable than most of us give ourselves credit for.

“So, is it a deal?”

“Si.”

Ciao.

#1 This is Hazel

#1 She came into our life 18 months ago. She chases squirrels, doesn’t bark, chew or rip up furniture. She bakes cookies. Well, not really because she won’t even come in the kitchen. She heels, runs with us off leash, finds her way home. To us. She's our amazing pound puppy, Hazel the Wonder Dog.