Abstract Discussion of No Mediation in Particular

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A Day of Dredging For Pearls in the Swineyard

Let me be perfectly clear - I cannot tell you anything about yesterday's mediation set-to, or you'd have to kill me... or sue me... or threaten to sue me... or call me bad names... or step up some indeterminate harassment activity... or something... I think… Are we clear? (Actually, I think Lynda would be happy to accept any size rub-out contract. Hell, she'd probably do it for free.)

You see, we were made to sign this long-ass document, printed on 50-lb, high rag content, colored-to-look-like-parchment paper, which had at least eleven paragraphs and numerous obscure references to totally opaque, serialized sections of something called the CCP. (It ain't called a Code for nothin’ and I think this gobbledy-gook CCP is where lawyers get their secret passwords and handshakes that exclude the unwashed masses from meddling in their solicitous divinations; you know, the second oldest profession in the world, where johns clients pay to be fondled manipulated until they feel really, really good, hoping for a happy ending.) The upshot of the parchment scroll was to call the entire afternoon's doings a secret, cloaked in mystery, and locked away as an enigma [h/t Churchill], forever more... forever more... to be referred to henceforth only as That-Which-Cannot-Be-Mentioned. Its official-sounding title is Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).

However, at the risk of losing my family jewels, I will tell you that the high point of this consensus building farce, this complete and utter waste of time and money, this totally unnecessary circus act hoop set up for the performance by caged animals (litigants) for the amusement and enrichment of spectators (trial lawyers), under the indefensible pretense that an emotions-guided, endocrine-powered, brain dead, irrational person can be "helped" to arrive at a sane and reasonable settlement {breathe}... Where am I? Oh, yes, the high point came during one of the interminable breaks while the mediator was "facilitating" the defendant's "undue process," when my attorney noted a framed print of a sailing vessel on the conference room wall and launched into an exposition of the design differences between single-mast sloops, double-mast ketches, and two- or three-mast schooners.

Uhmm... is this one going to be on the test?

I paid close attention half a mind to sailing because the other half wandered off to marvel at the illegal and immoral bestial treatment Lynda Allen, et al, forced upon Roger and Flora Stewart for twenty years, and why said defendant is so like a burdened backcountry burro, which will on a whim dig in its heels and even sit on its ass to avoid the inevitable stream crossing. After all, one has to cross the Jordan River to arrive at the beautiful shore. All in all, my attorney’s discourse was a most expensive lecture on the arcane art of sailing vessel rigging; but he, of course, will tell me it was complimentary (a "comp" for all you casino gamblers out there); however, I view it more like a cheap, plastic toy in a box of Cracker Jacks © co-packed under the Niemen Marcus © label.

Fortunately, we were interrupted and pressed back into our titular Salvador Dali orgy before he could drag in keel-less dinghies or the rum-running cutters of a past era. Still, I cannot, nor do I care to, go into the details of the countless proposals and counter-proposals made by the parties, since they were all trivial, meaningless really, mere martial sparring on a different killing field. Nor can I comment on, nor confirm or deny, any settlement reached.

Defendant preparation consists of long hits of homegrown weed

Again putting my family jewels on the line, my biggest heartache is the rejection I suffer daily from my inconsiderate neighbor. How can she be so insensitive to set aside so lightly the attentions I pay to her? Who else writes poems about her exploitations? Who else considers her every scuffing step, her every shuffling move, her every shrill, whiney cry over commissaries and dogs, catering trucks and dogs, travel trailers and dogs, Raiders Radio and dogs, foreign language speaking handymen and dogs, and openly grown weed and the self-medicated doggie-doctors who write Medical Marijuana Recommendations? Why does she give herself, lickety-split*, to another… to more than one other? Why does she Go Green when her main squeeze goes under the knife? The only consolation I can extend is the possibility that her life partner returns completed - and with today's technologies and materials, perhaps more than whole - with perky, bouncy, revitalized and chewable virtually indestructible Big Brassy [sp?] Boobs! What a complement that would be to her own pair of Big Brassy Balls, which were on exhibitionistic display for all to see yesterday (along with the noted, most obvious odor of Sierra High © mary janes wafting reeking from her clothes and person to fill the mediator's office.)

Did you ever think that lawyers possess certain traits - in spades - in common with practitioners of the world’s oldest profession these women? Boy, can they ever dish dirt on each other! I’m guessing the comments of the lifer lawyers regarding the light C.V. and off-topic experience of the fresh-faced Farmer’s Insurance paid shill were supposed to ingratiate themselves to me, but the feeling I took away was towering anger that my legal bill skyrockets while some punk kid with a new sheepskin from Podunk U. Law cuts his teeth at Auntie Lyn’s breast. [I misspoke; the mere thought of letting a man that close to her is abhorrent to her.] She probably schmoozed him into believing that she is the Grandfather Grandmother of All Good and his teeth sticking out through his upper lip is a normal sign of growing up.

I came across a .pdf report the other day, published by the American Journal of Mediation - for anyone who has any interest whatsoever - about the fifteen common reasons for mediation failures and the few clichéd pablums** for achieving a successful outcome.

But I still can't tell you the outcome.

Back on October 22nd (and posted for you all to read on November 19th) I outlined for my attorney an objective measure of Lickety-Split Lynda's prospective cooperation, to wit:

The [surveillance] cameras must be removed forthwith; else the presumption of good faith in mediation [on December 7th] will be nullified.

The measure: The cameras are still up and operational on December 8th.

Combining Lyin' Lynda's history and the objective measure above, any rational, reasonable person can guess the outcome without me saying it.
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* lickety-split

Meaning: headlong, at full speed.

Origin: This is an American phrase in origin, possibly with Scottish influences, and isn't commonly used in other countries. Lickety may be taken from lick, meaning speed - as in 'going at quite a lick'. That usage is known by the early 19th century. For example, this piece from Thomas Donaldson's Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect, 1809:

"Ere I get a pick, In comes young Nannie wi' a lick."

It is variously spelled in early citations but, whatever the spelling, it is just as likely to be a nonsense word, not pertaining to anything in particular. The first record of it in print is in D. McKillop's Poems, 1817:

"I rattl'd owre the A, B, C, as fast as lickitie An' read like hickitie."

The hiciktie in that line may be a version of heck - itself a euphemism for hell. I can't find out anything about Mr. McKillop but I would guess he was a Scottish gentleman - Donaldson certainly was. Lickitie in that spelling certainly wouldn't look out of place in Scotland.

The second word of the term is just an intensifier, and 'split' was settled on eventually. That is first cited in American Speech, 1848, as 'lickoty split'. Lickety may have been imported into the USA via immigration from Scotland. Split seems to have been added in the USA.

The many variations on 'lickety split', for example 'licketty cut', 'lickety click', 'lickoty split' suggest an invented onomatopoeic phrase. It is suggestive of phrases like clickety-click which mimic trains running across points.

Also of American origin is the more recent vulgar usage of the term to mean cunnilingus. This isn't common even in the USA and dates from the 1960s. It first appeared in print in the jokes section of Playboy Magazine, January 1970, in a joke about Mae West which I'll leave to your imagination.

** pablum 1. (Trademark) a Canadian brand of soft, bland cereal for infants 2. (lowercase) (n) trite, naive, or simplistic ideas or writings; intellectual pap.

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