Pennermag.com

Every other day of the week is fine, but come Sunday and I m a mess. I don t want to get up, and the entire day seems rushed. As if the hours are catching up with me.

Ironically, Adam has the same problem with Sundays. He s always referred to Sundays as crispy.

I don t know what that means but it boils down to one gloomy day in our house.

So this past weekend we were sitting on the steps dreading another full day of Sunday when we started talking about Sundays as children.

This is my memory of Sunday. I woke up at my paternal Grandmother s house. We got dressed up and went to church A.M.E. Zion in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Then we went back to her house and waited for my father. He would usually show up much later than I thought, we d run into Manhattan and do a little shopping or we d spend some time in downtown Brooklyn. My grandmother would make a huge dinner which we d eat in the late afternoon. Then he d call a cab and take me home usually by seven o clock. When I got home, there was a whole routine there bath, getting ready for school, and other stuff.

I think Adam s routine was much the same, except his played out on Long Island.

Even though I haven t done the child of divorce routine in many years I still feel rushed on Sunday. I feel like my carriage is going to turn into a pumpkin unless I rush through the day and get home by seven o clock.

One day I’ll work out a routine to avoid this Sunday funk. But until then, it’s not my favorite day of the week.

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Adam and I play a little game with everyone. A classic good cop — bad cop routine.

Whenever we interact with anyone, contractors, reatlors, tenants, anyone really — we have a routine. One of us is nice, pleasantly persistent. The other plays the heavy.

I’m the one who calls people, daily. I cajole, complain, and generally persist. Adam comes in occasionally, smiles, shakes hands, and leaves.

This, however, is generally where people make an error. All I ever require is people live up to their obligations, act in a timely manner, and we generally leave them alone.

Occasionally, these folks misstep. They don’t do things on time, don’t return my phone calls, or generally blow me off. Whether it’s youth, gender, or race, I don’t know.

How do they transgress? The buyer of our last house didn’t take my word as the last and threatened, “I’m going to call your husband.”

I said, “go ahead.”

Yes, they want to call the smiling friendly guy. He’ll smooth things over. He’ll be better to deal with than this woman who doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

Then they call him — and they learn who is the bad cop.

It’s not me. Despite my thousands of phone calls and e-mails, really I’m the nice one.

Once they call Adam — they never call him again. People realize that really, I’m not so bad.

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I’m in the process of destroying my old legal files. Though there’s no specific Ohio law on how long one should hold on to files . . . I’ve decided five years is long enough.

This time, though, I’m not destroying files of my criminal defendants, but the files of children and parents I represented in abuse, neglect, and dependency cases in Cuyahoga County’s Juvenile Court — i.e. poor, black, inner-city folks who got caught up in the system.

A couple of years ago, I was going through the files of my criminal defendants and even though only three of my clients went to jail on my watch — all of them were in jail — on other charges.

It was a little disheartening — but it woke me up and got me the hell out of public service.

So, today, I’m destroying the ‘yellow’ files — my color coding system for juvenile cases. So, I start flipping through the files and start looking up some of my clients and parents of my clients (thank god for public records) to see where they are now.

The answer: jail.

Again? I’m thinking I have a curse. People I touch in the justice system end up in jail. The father of one of my clients — who at the time I met him was in jail for having 120 rocks of crack cocaine — in a housing project — a definite no,no. He beat that rap and vowed not to put the housing of his child and the child’s mother in jeopardy again. Well, things didn’t quite have a happy ending. This father is in prison again — this time for aggravated robbery with a gun.

It turns out, since I left his family’s life, he’s been indicted about seven times for various escalating crimes — drugs, robbery, guns.

And don’t think the curse ends here. I just saw an ex-husband of one of my clients on the state’s most wanted list.

There are days when I miss some aspects of Ohio. One thing I don’t miss is my law practice. I don’t know what it will take to change the lives of the poorer members of our society — but it didn’t work for me — or them — on an individual level.

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As I mentiond months ago, we’re gonig through this renovation . . . which thankfully is coming to an end. To see pictures of the early renovation, click here.

Unlike life on the east coast, here our washers and dryers are in our kitchens — or in our case, an alcove called a laundry room. So, of course, as the kitchen is being remodeled, I have no in home laundry.

First, there was the search for a Laundromat. As it turns out, there are no Laundromats here — just Coin Laundries. The ‘Laundromat’ is a trademarked term owned by White Westinghouse. It was brought into our lexicon in the late 1930s. Well, that was lesson number one.

Second, I realized that the best thing I ever did was purchas a washer and dryer. Six years ago, when we bought our first house, was the first time in my life I had complete in home laundry service. I tell you — it was a revelation. Not only could I wash clothes (naked, if I wanted), but I could wash them any time of day or night. No longer did I have to share a laundry and time it so I could move fast enough to make sure my wet laundry didn’t get dumped on the floor. No longer did I have to deal with dryers which superheated my laundry and reduce my elastisized underwear to shreds.

So, it was ironic, that I had to bundle my dirty clothes into my car and seek out a laundry. I ended up in coin laundry rich Hollywood.

In the fifteen years, since I was at a laundry, things haven’t changed much. The cost to wash your clothes is still way to high — $1.25 per load. The washing machines are still super small. The dryers are still too hot, and now instead of taking dimes, they take quarters — each quarter for ten minutes, no less.

They’re still filled with college students, young actors, and homeless people. There’s still nothing to amuse you there — no where to sit — no television. Just elevator (or laundry) music.

People have asked me again and again, how was life with no kitchen. I’m telling you, it’s not bad. With prepared foods from Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, and a mircowave and coffee maker (for tea) — it’s really just fine. It’s the lack of laundry that was far worse.

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I know, I know . . . it’s not a photo blog. Here’s one of the last pics I’ll share from last weekend’s photo shoot.

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