Soul Suckers

Things continue to be quiet in PERS-land. PERS is quietly invoicing anyone with a pulse who had an account in 1999 including quite a few lump summers who have been cruising in another galaxy while this whole debacle has been unfolding over the past 5 years. I guess I find it amazing that anyone residing in Oregon could be unaware of PERS issues at this time. You'd literally have had to have had your head buried deeply in the sand these last five years to be caught out unaware right now. Yet, each day my mailbox brings new surprises and I have to write the same pathetic reply to let them know that "no, there isn't an error. You have won the negative lottery and you don't have much choice but to pay PERS back or start finding yourself facing some rather severe efforts to recover that money.

For a brief moment last week, an unsubstantiated (and incorrect) rumor was floating that Judge Kantor was going to release one or more of his PERS-related rulings. For those of you who've forgotten, Judge Kantor is the Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge who heard the Arken and Robinson cases last September 28, 2006. He promised all in attendance - lawyers, reporters, PERS members and others - of a relatively quick resolution. We're starting to measure quick in geological time, not clock time. I don't have any sense that Judge Kantor is any closer to releasing a verdict in either case anytime soon. Maybe I'm wrong, but he's managed to redefine "relatively soon" so many times that I no longer know what it means.

Our Quebec foreign exchange student left this morning and we're all feeling a bit sad. It is wonderful to have the opportunity to spend time with young people from another culture. They try so hard to speak English and we try so hard to speak French. Regardless of language barriers, we and our daughter had a wonderful time. And, by way of symmetry, our daughter had a great time staying with our student in Quebec.

I hope I have some interesting, relevant, and useful PERS news before we leave on our next trip to New York City in June. At the current rate, that seems unlikely.