A Liberal Retirement

A Liberal Retirement

This is a strange week for me. So much is strange and new in 2020 that it’s hard to calibrate strangeness, but this seems to have crossed a threshold that has caused me to want to write about it. Let’s start with what makes this a strange week. I am in an expert witness hearing all week (actually two separate hearings since one goes all week and I must listen to it all at the direction of the law firm that remained me in the issue), and the other is a hearing on another matter. I have testified in that other arbitration starting three weeks ago (it is an arbitration involving multiple claimants based on the same set of facts). On that second matter, I did two full virtual testimonies three and two weeks ago and then last week and this week, the lawyers have allowed a video of my testimony and the cross-examination to be used asynchronously in the current hearing. I am then made available to the current week’s arbitrators (there are usually several, as many as five) to answer any questions they may have of me. Therefore, today I will be listening intently to one hearing (as I have done now for three days in a row) and jumping off for a few moments to answer questions about the other hearings and matters. This is more mental gymnastics than you might imagine since giving expert witness testimony involves a fair amount of factual memorizing and keeping ones opinions straight. In addition to all that, this is the week I am trying to move forward on a 6-month plan for my scientific R&D company that requires buy-in by the five managers who do this with me (having negotiated with the three investors and their lawyer over last weekend on the substance of that plan). Each person needs to be able to make their personal points to me, which they mostly have. That alone is a lot to keep track of. The good news of the week is that I finished my USD course last Saturday and will get fourteen final exams/papers this week by Friday, but I can ignore them until the weekend, when I will grade them. But then this morning unfolded.

We have now lived full-time in this house for going on ten months, all but a few weeks of that we have been here together. Kim has expressed in the past that she is not totally comfortable up here on this hill all by herself. It is a bit isolated, but there are three other homes (two of which we are friendly with the inhabitants) within several hundred yards. So, we do have elbow room, but we are not exactly in the north woods of Alaska or on a desert island. I tend to shrug-off her concerns of being in the house alone and certainly when we are here together we don’t even put the alarm on or the panic button at the ready. I have joked about a New York City friend who tripped the alarm a few times earlier this year when he set the alarm to protect himself while in the house. I have already chronicled the mysterious noises outside our bedroom wall/window, which gave rise to my replacement of all the motion-activated security lighting around the house. That problem has long since disappeared and I have adjusted those motion-activated lights to a far lesser setting so that a moth or bat won’t likely set them off. In fact, they rarely come on unexpectedly. I also have a Ring security camera on the garage that shows us the entire entry area of the house and driveway. So far, no incidences.

This morning, Kim and I were up early. I have to claim credit since I awoke a bit after 4am, having gotten six hours of sleep and having forgotten to take my nightly dose of Advil PM. That, of course, caused Blind Betty, who sleeps most of the day, to get up and wake Kim in her quiet, but relentless way. Kim went into the living room as she always does to catch up on emails and news on her phone. Meanwhile, I was doing my ablutions and was ready to jump in the shower, knowing I had to be online for the hearing and my rather full day by about 6am. Just before going in the shower, Kim came in to say she was hearing noises in the living room that were troubling her. I asked if she wanted me to come before I showered and she said yes. I put on my shorts and went into the living room, admittedly expecting to find it was nothing at all. I turned on a bunch of lights as I went to be sure I didn’t stub my toe. Once in the living room, we stood still except for Blind Betty doing her usual routine of bumping into walls and furniture. What we heard was the clear sound of something or someone walking on the newly replaced flat roof of the house. There was a distinct sound of crunching roof material and the weight of the walker was unclear. The walking noise was a bit start/stop in nature and seemed a bit random in terms of direction. Strange.

I proceeded to turn on all the indoor and outdoor lights I could find on the theory that whatever was up there needed to know its presence had been discovered in the wee hours of the morning. You know that prickly feeling you get when your adrenal glands are thinking about starting to activate? I think that was happening in me too. Of course, when you suddenly need to turn lights on you discover all the gaps in your security and outdoor lighting system. For instance, the deck lights don’t turn on unless you go out on the deck to turn them on. That was not happening at this hour and under these circumstances. Once all the lights that could be turned on were on, the noise seemed to go away. Kim and I analyzed it as best we could with me saying that there was no sense for a person to be on the roof since any burglar would have an easier way to get in and there was not even a chimney to slide down so why would they be up there. I therefore rationalized that it must have been a varmint up on the roof. Who knew how it would have gotten up there other than the infamous shadesail or some tree. But the sound was less scurrying than a mouse or rat and more purposeful like a larger mammal. But who knows. 5am is a bad time to be fully rational about strange and dark noises. Things calmed enough and as 5am became 5:30am, I told Kim I needed to shower and that she should scream if anything changed. I’m not proud of that, but I saw no real alternative.

It is no secret to my readers that I trend towards the liberal side of the political and social consciousness spectrum. I am decidedly anti-gun. I was reading last night about the St. Louis assault rifle brandishing homeowners who have been indicted for reckless endangerment in waggling their guns in the faces of protesters they considered a threat to their house and home. In thinking about what to do about a noise on the roof, I figure I have two choices. I can either decide we need a gun in retirement or not. I know I can install more lighting and I think I can probably benefit from a roof Ring camera, but otherwise it is a gun or not. I have always believed that a gun in the house is a recipe for disaster of unknown and unanticipated collateral damage. I actually believe it is a great danger to us (physically or psychologically) than to anyone else. My liberal thinking is not deterred in the least by the noises on the roof. Of course, the sun is up now and I am much braver than I may have been at 5am in the dark. But that is my whole point. I do not want a gun anywhere near us when we are edgy and jittery in the dark of the early morning. To put it succinctly, I am in favor of continuing in a liberal retirement as I have always intended. If I see a critter in the dark, I will feel less inclined to have a gun. If I see a person on the property, multiply that by ten. Guns and people should not cohabitate.