The Deal With Dearth

Sorry for the delay. I've been a little bit under the weather of late.

A few months ago I was speaking with a friend and we were shocked to find that we both mis-knew a word. We both thought the word "viscous" meant that something was fluid. In reality, it means exactly the opposite - that something is sticky. Somewhere along the line we had both mis-learned the word. To this day I feel like a little part of my past is flawed.

I bring up this story because recently I was on the opposite ends of one of these linguistic flip-flops. It happened with the word "dearth." On several occasions in the past two months I have used the word several times only to find that my fellow conversee believed the word to mean the exact opposite of its definition. I even went so far as to ask several co-workers straight up what the definition was. Everyone was wrong.

Before you go Google the definition, ask yourself, what does dearth mean? What do I mean if I tell you that there is a dearth of equipment. I totally expect all readers of this blog to know correct definition (wink wink).

What I find especially interesting is not just if you knew the word or not, but whether you thought it had the exact opposite meaning. Leave a comment saying if you got it right or not. It will be like an informal poll.

Real Definition

It Was Golden

Oh what a night. Late December nineteen eighty-eeeee. What a very special time for me. 'Cause I was born on such a night. That's right. In case anyone forgot (or didn't know) I recently celebrated a birthday. But not just any birthday, it was my golden birthday. To anyone who doesn't know what that is, feel free to send me gold. Bullion is acceptable. Bars are preferable. For those of you who are too sly to fall for my clever rouse, I'll save you the trouble of looking up "golden birthday" in wikipedia. A golden birthday is when your age is the same as the day of the month you were born on. I turned 26 on Dec. 26th. That made me golden.

I didn't get awesome cosmic powers or Eddie Murphy to be my personal comedic savior, but I did get nice gifts from friends and family and a nice dinner out with Michelle.

Lawyer Land

I'm late. I'm sorry. A guest spent the night on Sunday night. Plus there was the Patriots game. That doesn't really account for all of the lateness though. Most of it was due to late-night video game playing. In any case, on to the post....

Contrary to most people, I have a fond spot in my heart for lawyers. To me, there is something pure about the law. It represents order and unbiased logic. It is the system of rules by which we live, and a lawyer delves into this lake of purity to find the great fish of truth. I actually considered going to law school before realizing that I really didn't want to do all of the grunt work that young lawyers need to do in order to make the big $$$ to pay off student loans. 100 hour weeks also aren't very appealing.

Recently, I had an encounter with my landlord's lawyer (or the lawyer of the late father, I'm not really sure). I had heard that he was a respectable fellow and contacted him in hopes that he could act as a bridge between my landlord and me. I reasoned that I could have a constructive conversation with the lawyer and that the lawyer could then have a constructive conversation with my landlord. (If you are wondering why I couldn't have a constructive conversation with my landlord just read back a few posts.)

When I arrived at the lawyer's office I quickly saw that my expectations would not be met. Instead of acting in good faith, the lawyer tried to bully me. He said that I had a problem and that my lease was not valid. I remained civil and refuted every one of his potential arguments concerning the validity of the lease. Of course it didn't hurt that I had received legal counsel confirming that the lease is indeed valid. The whole conversation really brought out the (potential) lawyer in me and I genuinely enjoyed the game of negotiating/posturing. I would like to think that I handled the situation with grace and that one of us left the office with dignity. But then again, he is a lawyer, so I'm not sure how much dignity he has to lose. (See how quickly I've become jaded with the field.) The result of the meeting was that I am supposed to call the lawyer back with approximate damages caused by the landlord breaking the lease and he now knows that Michelle and I won't be pushed around.

A tangent to the story:

The discussion with the lawyer included a type of bullying that I find incredibly childish. My position entering the discussion was that our lease is valid and that Michelle and I have consistently acted in good faith. The lawyer's position was that our lease is not valid due to reasons explained in a previous post. The lawyer's argument of choice for helping to determine the matter was to tell me that I am wrong and that he is right. Does this strike anybody else as incredibly stupid? OK, so you say the lease is not valid. Well I say the lease is valid. So there. If the lease is indisputably not valid, we wouldn't be having the conversation in the first place. We are meeting because the validity of the lease is in question.

It also bothers me that while the lawyer may think he is acting in the best interests of his client (it would certainly be best for them if we just gave in to all of their demands) I don't think he is acting in the best interests either of the law or the client. He had the opportunity to broker a deal that both sides could agree to live with, at minimal cost to his client, but instead chose a confrontational approach that will end up costing his clients more. In that regard the lawyer was truly acting in his own best interests. The longer this gets drawn out, the more meetings he has, the more times he has to appear in court (if it gets to that) will mean more money for him. To be honest, he has little incentive to reach a mutually agreeable solution quickly. My father explained to me that often times lawyers will reject a settlement with an insurance agency and prepare for trial. Immediately before trial they will settle the suit for the exact amount they could have settled for initially. There was never any intention of going to trial, but this way the lawyer gets to bill a whole heck of a lot more.

Pundits banter about the degree to which lawyers and malpractice suits have contributed to the rising cost of health care in America. I wonder if anyone has ever quantified the degree to which the legal profession has increased the overall cost of either general insurance or even of cost of living. Seriously, the number must be out there somewhere.

Scheduling Note

Work has been pretty hectic of late. I'll probably even head into the office tomorrow (Friday is the beginning of the weekend in Israel). In light of this and due to the fact that people are visiting, I am going to push back the upcoming posts 2 days each. Don't yell at me. I am giving you fair warning.

'Tis The Season

" 'Tis the season..." The phrase is oft repeated this time of year. It's a time for families. It's a time for rest and relaxation. And it's a time to be jolly. But not in Israel. Here late December means very little. There are a few parties and maybe people take some time off of work if Chanukah is towards the end of the month, but otherwise its a pretty normal time. I realized recently that this was the first late December of my entire life that I have had to work. Needless to say, it was a sad time for me.

The good news is that despite my lack of vacation, many friends have been able to use their breaks to come and visit. The other week, while out to dinner with visiting friends, Michelle and I randomly bumped into other visiting friends. Tonight we had dinner with a different friend and tomorrow we are hosting yet another visiting friend from the States. And of course next week we'll be hosting again. It's great. We are vacationing vicariously.

Seriously though, it has been wonderful to see so many friends over the past couple of weeks, and we are looking forward to more friends who will be visiting in February. Michelle and I are truly lucky to have friends who care enough to visit Israel, and more importantly, who like us enough to let us know that they are coming.

Landlord Problems (Again)

Happy New Years!

As others around the world ring in the new year with streamers and noise makers, Michelle and I get to anticipate another year of landlord issues. We had thought that our landlord issues were behind us, but little did we know that they would once again rear their ugly head.

When our current landlord inherited the apartment from her late father (for whom she had been the legal custodian) we didn't think that much would change. She had effectively been our landlord for the past year, while her father was infirmed, and while we had a few bumps earlier in the year our relationship now seemed fine. Even when our landlord decided to sell the apartment she assured us that the lease would be honored and that we would not be forced to move.

That was until she realized that the lease was extended longer than she thought. She called up furious and was extremely nasty. She accused me of being underhanded, of writing in the extension without her knowledge, and of taking advantage of her while her father was on his deathbed. I explained to her that I had acted in good faith and referred her to e-mails where she had been made explicitly aware of the length of the desired extension and had agreed. Her response was to continue being mean and threatening. She said that we could either reduce the length of our lease or go to court.

About 15 minutes later my landlord called back and said that the lease wasn't valid in the first place because her father had died, meaning that she was no longer the legal custodian, and therefore lacked the authority to sign the lease in the first place. I pointed out that the lease was signed before we were aware of her father's passing. She again was mean and threatening.

Funny how after pointing out to her that she had accepted the terms of the extension, she suddenly decided that the lease is not valid.

What really gets me is that throughout our (Michelle's and my) entire time as tenants in the apartment we have acted in good faith. We care for the apartment and have treated our landlord with respect. In spite of this, our landlord chose to attack and demean us in an attempt to bully us into shortening our lease. She could have asked about the extension politely. She could have appealed to our sense of decency as a woman who had just lost her father and who may have mistakenly or unthinkingly signed a now problematic (to her) extension. If a mistake was made, we should be able to talk about the ramifications of that mistake and search for possible solutions. Instead, the landlord attacked our character and took zero responsibility.

It's shaping up to be a "great" new year.