Man Interrupted
There has been a theme in recent cinematic content about interrupted lives, first with Girl, Interrupted and then Boy Interrupted. Girl, Interrupted was a 1999 film based on an earlier book that details the life of a young middle class woman who gets put into a mental institution for attempting suicide. Boy Interrupted is a 2009 true-life version of the same thing except its about a boy who is diagnosed as bipolar-polar and who does, eventually, succeed in committing suicide. The word interrupted must resonate with people, particularly those with troubled stories to tell because there are other movies like Life Interrupted and A Life Interrupted which all attempt to suggest that there is always something that can derail a person’s life and cast it adrift. This is clearly a troubling theme to people. I have a very different take on the word and feel good about saying that I feel that I am currently a man interrupted.
I am sitting here on day five of Kim’s absence for her girl’s weekend in Chicago. I took her to the airport on Thursday morning and will pick her up this afternoon. For three days of that I had the excuse that I was on a cold and needing to recuperate, so Buddy was outsourced to his Day Care under the direction of Colean. That arrangement ended rather abruptly yesterday morning when Buddy got bitten by another pup and I had to spend my Sunday morning with him at the vet’s office getting dog bite treatment. That process involved an urgent care inspection to see the extent of the injuries followed by what I assume is a well-honed process to arranging for his care and treatment. As I read the materials sent home with the medications I was given for Buddy, I learned, not surprisingly, that one of the biggest causes for small pet vet visits is, indeed, biting injuries. In other words, Buddy is not the first dog to get bitten by another in a Doggie Day Care setting.
One of the more surprising things I learned yesterday was that the one-bite policy or zero biting tolerance is such that the offending dog, a normally cute looking pup, was immediately banned from the facility, where he had been a regular client for some four years. It made me wonder what that owner must now do to get doggie day care services. Do dogs have rap sheets that follow them around? Is there a doggie day care grapevine that causes a pup to get labeled a troublemaker? Are there higher risk doggie day cares where one-time losers can get served for perhaps some premium? All interesting stuff which I’m sure has been considered at length over and over again.
For yesterday I only had a half day to deal with and a rather groggy pup in Buddy’s post-surgical stupor. Buddy didn’t eat or drink too much so his trips out to the garden were not terribly productive. Mostly Buddy wanted to sleep it off, which is what he did until this morning. This morning, no surprise, Buddy woke up with lots of excess energy. He was bouncing off the walls and since he is far more an inside dog rather than an outside dog, his trips through the garden were still not very long lasting. Our key requirement for the day is to get through two events and then make it to airport pick-up departure in mid-afternoon.
The two events on the agenda are a prospective client conference call for an expert witness case I have on the hoof. It is a hedge fund case involving a person hired and contracted who was lured back to his prior owner before he could really start his new gig. Needless to say, there were contracts signed and promises made that went unfulfilled. Those derailed plans, a case of trader interrupted, led a degree of damages defined as actual losses and opportunity loss that have to be analyzed, calculated and opined on. This is very much in my wheelhouse and experience since the three asset management businesses I ran for all those years of my career involved doing exactly this sort of pro-Forma business model analysis for hiring traders and then onboarding them to fulfill those expectations. The most recent asset management shop I ran at Bear Stearns had fifty such hedge funds in the stable, more than half of which I onboarded during my four years running that business. Therefore, I think its safe to say that my experience is extremely well suited for this assignment, so the call likely will focus on more personal factors and how well the client feels they connect with me and my style of testimony. During that call, my objective will be to keep Buddy at bay and out of my Zoom call way.
The second agenda item is that the glass replacement guys are coming to replace the first of the big picture windows. I am led to believe this will be a three-man job and while there is a fairly easy straight shot from driveway to living room window spot and no reason for concern over logistics, it is a very big piece of double-panel glass and will likely involve lots of grunting and groaning by those involved. the last thing those guys need is a slightly wounded Buddy running around under foot. Naturally, the glass guys are coming about the same time the conference call is scheduled, so I will have a little bit of juggling to do to keep Buddy away from the installation and closer to me, yet with him otherwise amused enough to not interrupt my call on an untoward basis.
Interruption seems to be the theme of the day and weekend. My recuperation weekend was interrupted by Buddy’s recuperation. The start to my week is getting interrupted by this glass installation and this conference call. My goal is to keep Buddy, my unexpected housemate today, from interrupting the glass installation and/or the hedge fund conference call. But mostly, what you are hearing about and what I am experiencing is that Kim’s girl’s weekend in Chicago is generally interrupting and unsettling my existence. Kim is Buddy’s primary caregiver. I have made him two meals and I have exactly followed Kim’s instructions, but I don’t sense that my cooking is working for Buddy. Kim is the person who walks him and he hasn’t wanted to walk so much with me. Kim is the one who distracts him when I have workmen here or have a conference call to make. Being a man of focus, my multitasking skills are not as impressive as are Kim’s. Nevertheless, I have no alternative but to muscle through my interrupted weekend and interrupted day today. When we are in polite conversations, interruptions occur all the time and the only thing worse than an initial interruption is someone getting so annoyed by an interruption that they make a scene over it and cause an even bigger and more noticeable interruption. So, I guess I will take my interruptions like a man and whimper a bit about it, but just keep on keeping on as a man interrupted.