Travels with Grumpus

Hilarious.

Apropos of our dear sister’s calling to our attention this sad fact, I came across this blog post that reports that one of the partners at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz has left the practice to study sociology and psychology with the aim of becoming a social worker. To those of you who are neither lawyers nor closely acquainted with them, Wachtell is the creme de la creme, the choicest, the apogee of law firms. And to the skeptics who say “Well, he’s already made a shitload of money, so whatever,” I still say it’s a pretty darn cool thing to do.

Apropos of our earlier post on fair trade and organic food , here’s a quote from a short piece in the New York Times that sums up the idiocy of the whole movement:

Amid the wine bars and boutiques that line Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, Jonathan Coulton, 36, a musician wearing black rectangular glasses, was hunched over a laptop at Gorilla Coffee, where a blackboard proclaims all its coffees are fair trade. It “makes you feel like you’re doing something good just by drinking a cup,” he said.

“Nothing like painless sacrifice,” says Grumpus.

Read the whole article here.

Whenever Mickey notices a little lull in the frequency of our blog posts, he nudges me a little and tells me to update the blog.  When he starts emailing me random articles, I know it’s time to take the hint.  This one, from the Wall Street Journal, falls squarely into “WTF” territory for Grumpus.  Apparently, it’s now okay to cry at work:

Crying at work has long been seen as verboten. But there’s evidence that a growing number of workers, especially those in their 20s and 30s, see it differently. Some think it’s old-fashioned to hide your emotions. Others are quick to cry over negative feedback. And many find themselves at odds with managers who grew up with a more repressive definition of professional conduct.

…

Some bosses see tears as a natural side effect of the emotional investment required by many jobs. George Merkle, CEO of a San Antonio credit-counseling service who is in his 50s, says he doesn’t feel he can expect his employees to be “compassionate and caring to our clients,” then “turn off their feelings like a switch” in other dealings. If employees cry, “I just say, ‘No apology needed, I know it’s upsetting and we can work our way through it.’”

Wachu tink, dear readers?  And although:

No one accused 6-foot-3, 253-pound Vernon Davis of being a wimp when he cried last year over being chosen as a first-round NFL draft pick by the San Francisco 49ers. Onlookers took the burly 22-year-old at his word — that he was moved at achieving a dream,

Grumpus is still thanking the gods that there’s no crying in baseball.

I’m sorry for leaving you in the lurch, dear readers. I’ve been in hibernation for most of the past month, with Grumpus and Apple TV. Our little silver box has allowed us to watch 18 episodes of Bones, Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica, and most of Season 2 of Prison Break. In the interest of full disclosure, we’ve seen Prison Break Season 2 the same way we saw Season 1 - with me too tense to see a whole episode and Grumpus giving me plot highlights every 10 minutes. Nope, I couldn’t watch 24 either.

After Prison Break we’re starting on Heroes. The Colayco Couch Potato Society is in full swing. The only downside to this whole business is that I’m running out of space on my hard drive. Apple to the rescue again?

I be doing belated greetings a whole lot, eh?  This one goes out to Oba, whom we love and adore deeply, who turned a year older last Saturday.  Here she is last Christmas with her favorite son.

As Far as Cho-Fu-Sa

“If you are coming down the narrows of the river Kiang,
let me know beforehand and I will come out to meet you

As far as Cho-Fu-Sa.”
-Li Po, translated by Ezra Pound

What I am, ever, is this: composure of stone.
Spare weather visiting the garden, small as the hours
I keep watch by. Beyond this wall

Must be better weathers. This claw of stars
Must constellate somewhere into a bear,
Else names would lie.

Since winter’s thaws, no script from you
Save this: “I travel the river and follow
The white gulls—”

Husband. See me walking the dusty pass
Where loom our prior lives?
Here the years pass that I enshrine

Within these walls, sparing nothing
From the ardors of my stare. Blue plums,
Paired butterflies repeat you

In a walled world. I tell myself
To clear the moss, mend the gate
So long unswayed and caked with dirt,

But nothing moves. Somewhere You are actual.
Happen to me there.

By Mookie Katigbak.

This poem just won first place in the Philippines Free Press poetry contest. Lots of love and congratulations to the little one.