Unidentified blossoms hanging from a pergola: pergolaniums?

Here at the Buccaneer, excerpts from the New York Times are stapled to the back of a daily calendar. The little items are always the keenest.

Every year at about this time there is a story about the crazy things that big law firms are doing in order to hold onto talented associates. Lynnley Browning’s report on the latest nonsense put Kathleen’s eyelids on the fritz. She looked amazingly stroke-like.

Even lawyers need a hug. When workdays stretch into worknights and the pressure to meet the quota for billable hours grows, lawyers and staff members at the firm of Perkins Coie can often expect a little bonus.

In Perkins Coie’s Chicago office, members of the firm’s “happiness committee” recently left candied apples on everyone’s desks. Last month, the happiness committee surprised lawyers, paralegals and assistants in the Washington office with milkshakes from a local Potbelly Sandwich Works, a favorite lunch spot.

Another story had me sighing over the simplicities of youth.

“We are pack rats who are evolving,” said Matthew Birnbaum, a 33-year-old chef who lives in the West Village, cocking an eyebrow at the acrylic desk organizers, storage containers and place mats he and his wife, Jennifer, 28, were carrying through the crowd at the Muji SoHo store on Friday.

“We’re reducing clutter and selling all our stuff on eBay,” Ms. Birnbaum added, explaining that they would continue selling their possessions until their apartment held nothing that wasn’t used daily.

If only it were that simple! Unfortunately, as I expect this bright young couple will discover (probably after a painful break-up), one must be living the life of a gerbil in a cage in order to do without the household impedimenta that aren’t “used daily.”

A better idea, which I have found to be very successful, is to gather up the contents of the kitchen drawers and lay them out on trays. Put the trays in a room other than the kitchen. As you take things from the trays in order to use them, put them back in the drawers. At the end of a week, or two weeks, or whatever period seems right to you, stash whatever’s left on the trays in a “special item” box. You can store this box out of the way, as long as you remember where it is. Over the next two years, transfer any “special items” that you actually use to some other place. Then get rid of what’s left. Admit that you’re never going to get serious about cake decoration. After all, isn’t that why you live in New York City? Where there are hundreds of people who decorate cakes full time?

Yes, I really did say “two years.” Patience!

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
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