Litigation II

A bit more than two weeks since my son's sister-in-law asked (via text) if her lawyer had contacted us and still no word from the lawyer, himself. It took me a while to get around to telling Hubs about the text. I felt confident that he would react badly and I needed time to process my own shock before I took in his reactive verbage. As expected, his volatile expostulations were saying the same as mine, but in verbage from a different library, leaning on different talents. He is quite gifted with phones/conference media while my hearing issues make both a dangerously impossible dream for me, especially when dealing with litigeous matters where the diffs between a "p" and a "t" can make or break the case. Written, the diffs are obvious. Spoken, even the most articulate of lawyers can blurr the phonetics without noticing. Good luck defending the phonetic confusion in a court of law.

My long, White Trash herstory with housing project/jailhouse lawyers had me suspecting delusional expectations within the latest litigation threat from the get-go. My siblings and I came of age during the 60's/70's boom of the frivolous lawsuit. Their off-spring remain entrenched in the next generation of this bizarre social evolution. They dream of starring in their very own episode of litigious "Reality TV." I don't know which frightens me more: Airing my strictly personals on TV or people who call that brand of entertainment, "Reality." 

Courtroom drama uses an entirely different library in Hubby's upper middle class conditioning. We are both solidly agreed that capsizing our little ship of fools would be devastating for all at this point in the healing journey, but we are grounded in radically different verbage. For the most part, I am thoroughly okay with using his hearing gifts and social skills to represent our family on the legal/bureaucratic fronts, but we officially reached the limits of that okayness over the long, bewildering negotiation of the current court settlement with the rejection from the foster care certification step in the adoption process he was working with the help of CPS social workers. **I** was the one who was rejected in that step. The rejecting social worker adored him. They were expostulating from the same library and Hubby even earned his own pedastal in her library for taking in the piece of White Trash she swept aside with stereotypical ease. Out of my way, Saint Hubby. Even with all my handicaps, I fight my own battles. It's okay if I lose any given skirmish. My dignity requires I give it a try, handicaps and all. I am still not okay with the courtroom logic of adopting my own grandchildren.

The current litigation threat is, of course, the very legal maneuver which gave birth to the courtroom logic of adopting your own grandchildren. Maternal Aunt relationships are held as equal to paternal grandparent relationships, with the age factor giving maternal aunts a potent favor. In this particular case, the maternal aunt's staggering list of physical/economic/family disabilities mitigate the age factor by a pretty wide margin. That margin was fairly well documented during the protective custody shuffle and further documented during the orphan shuffle. I can't imagine a competent lawyer being willing to challenge the current court settlement with zero change in the documented logistics. I suspected delusional housing project lawyer tactics from the initial text. Still do.

His scant exposure to my birth family was Hubby's first and only exposure to housing project/jailhouse lawyers. Our departed son's in-laws remain his only first-hand exposure. His expostulations on the subject remain on his side of the class divide. He, of course, wants to respond with a telephone call so he can expostulate freely. I want to respond with a continuation of the text dialogue which is summarized to simple, documented verbage. Please remember the actual lawyer has yet to speak. For now, those folks who call us "Gringo" are socially closer to my White Trash heritage than your upper middle class heritage.

For now, the maternal aunt's threat remains unanswered. I am sorely tempted to let it remain unaswered by the same precedent I have long used to deal with the nuts on my own litigious family tree. Arguing with a fool only proves there are two fools. Good luck finding and paying your lawyer, Sweetie. In the decades I have danced this weary waltz, I have yet to hear from one of their bar-certified lawyers. Housing project/jailhouse lawyers are far more bark than bite.

Sorting. . . Processing. . . Again I leave the mood icon on the rapid cycling median. The gut knots are responding well to the guit-chi. The guit-chi inventory indicates that I am out of balance and out of tune, but I've worked with less.