Appalachian American Ennui: February 2026

Saturday, February 7, 2026

Vergel Clawed My Motion In Limine

I dearly love rattling keys, drawing out legal motions in limine emergent, and the like. 90% are drawn in my office at home. The other 10 drawn downtown. I treat them like the dead sea scrolls once spat out hot. I'm insanely particular about: 1. The substantive content, of course; 2. The organization and presentation of facts and ancillary law (I evene quoted the magna carta in the one that my beloved purloined cat, Vergel, radically punctured; and 3. The presentation. Very important. The clerks have commented that my motions are in a higher ascension of the arc, so to speak; see I even use a heavier bond that I call gravitas. I have dispensed completely with the time-honored "style" of the case proceedings; a method by which the names of the parties are margined to the far left and separated by little bracket-like spacers (]) that descend down the page several returns until a V for versus is installed far left, with more spacers until the name of the accused appears, followed by the the final tab to the last if the silly spacers. Instead, I employ the same technique as Tennessee's Appellate Courts, to wit: State of Tennessee v. Sweet Jane, in bold and italics, just like the higher ups. Duly endorsed in the now time-telling illegible signature of mine, (always in blue for obvious reasons), scanned, emailed to all interested parties, Clerk first, Judge, Prosecutor and client (or their family if they are warehoused) and copied in triplicate with the orginal to be lodged with the Clerk copies to the Judge and prosecutor for easy reference for when the hearing is scheduled, in anticpation of which witnesses are subpoenaed. All aligned very neatly on my desk. Now enter the acrobatic little cat that Frank named, Vergel, after a gaming character. Little grey cat I stole a year or so ago from a fourteen year old child who could barely get out of bed at dusk. You little mother fucker. You jettisoned from your staging area, lower flanks flexed, and jettisoned to my desk top where my motion lay and fought it like it was fighting back, emerging victorious as it floated down to dirty floor. Adorable.