debriefing

First of all a big Thank You to the team that helped make Operation: Scott and Mary Go Skiing a success - or at least, phase ONE a success. Phase two is a little out of our hands. For those of you not privy to the finer details of the operation, allow me to elaborate.

Many years ago, as I was blissfully swishing, swooshing, and tumbling ski boots over goggles down the Alaskan slopes, it occurred to me it had been a long time since I had so thoroughly enjoyed myself. Maybe it was the company I was fortunate enough to keep or the cranial hemorrhaging suffered from a complete lack of balance or my unusual proximity to the Arctic Circle, but I hadn't been skiing in several years and I realized just how much I missed the activity. My parents had spent their mid 20s as ski bums in Park City, Vail, and other parts of Colorado and Utah and, from the wistful tones of their voices and faraway looks in their eyes - well, let's just say, I totally ruined that, haha! That day though I had so much fun and, as a broke twenty year-old college undergrad I realized what I had to do. Riding an Alaskan lift back to the top for another run, I promised I would send my parents on one more ski trip. Someday.

There was more than one problem with this plan. You might remember, for example, that I was a broke college student with my only steady source of income being my parents and a student job that paid $6.25/hr. Not a problem; they still had a dog, a horse, and a seventeen year old daughter at home to tend to. I amended my promise to, "When they no longer have those responsibilities, I will send them on a ski trip" and the quiet, unspoken thought that followed was, "please let [my little sister] grow up in the next few years". Fast forward six years to early spring of 2009 - my sister still isn't grown up (really, very immature) but she's at least moved out to the east coast and is no longer a physical and mental burden on my poor parents, the horse is still around, but all he needs is a bale of hay and he's good for a day or two and we have neighbors that are happy to help, and the dog, the dog finally passed. At 17 years old she was deaf, blind, and suffered from vertigo - if you could ignore how sad it was, it was pretty funny watching her navigate around by bumping off the walls/furniture/strategically placed boots. She was still happy though and not in any noticeable pain, until one day she was, and the next day wasn't any better, and the third day they made the tough decision that no parents or pet owners ever want to make. And with that Tootsie was laid to rest. Seventeen years spent being the smallest pup of the litter. Seventeen years spent making parents and kids/teens/young adults laugh. Seventeen years of non-stop barking at shadows. And seventeen years of being the perfect height to jump up and nail Dad in the junk. Never fail. That dog would jump, extend both front legs with purpose, and drill the family jewels. And, never fail, Dad would collapse onto a chair muttering something about the dog (and his testes) not being long for this world.

Now that the dog had finally stopped fighting the good fight, I had to fulfill my promise. As luck would have it their anniversary was coming up in a little more than three months and I was no longer an unemployed college kid (now I'm a tech grunt with a steady source of income, limited expenses, and student loans sitting in deferment!) The plan was twofold; first, I emailed their brothers and sisters asking for volunteers and donations. The donations would go towards buying gift certificates towards airfare, hotel stay, rental car, and lift tickets. The volunteers entered in Part Two where I gathered pictures of my parents skiing from relatives and my Mom (under the guise of doing a web project), photoshopped them into one picture, which ended up looking like my Mom was running Dad off the mountain. Then I blew the picture up into an 6' x 3' poster, numbered all 24 pages of the poster, and mailed 3 or 4 pages to each of the volunteers who then sent the packet to my parents. So, during the week of their anniversary my parents received three or four seemingly random pages with no distinguishable features printed on the front and a random number on the back. Slowly they filled in the puzzle until at last they received the final pages from me with a Visa gift card and a voucher good on American Airlines.

Special thanks to Grandma for not ruining the surprise with your love of ruining surprises...I mean, your incessant talking...I mean, talking. And special thanks to my Mom for not buying a similar trip as a present for yourself. In the three months leading up to this there were no fewer than a dozen phone calls in which my mother excitedly discussed the prospect of skiing again. Nostalgically she would recount the time that her and Ellen had skied The Upper Rim or something or the time it snowed a whole lot and their car could barely make it to the parking lot ¡LOL! I developed a sneaking suspicion that she knew about the whole Operation and was just enjoying the sound of grinding teeth on the other end of the line. To her credit though she didn't purchase her own trip and I didn't have to remove my hair with my own hands and shout expletives into a pillow all while pretending to be happy to hear that they'd get to go skiing again. No, instead we get this:



full-size image

Yes, that is my Mom putting bunny ears on a picture of my Dad - and now we know where my sister gets her maturity.

specialists

The longer I'm at my job the more and more I'm convinced that anyone could do it. It requires no special training; only patience, curiosity, and the ability to suppress your homicidal instincts. The last part is especially easy when your as mellow and easy-going as I am. We'll be in a meeting and my boss will make a comment along the lines of "Our specialist will get in touch with your coordinator and make sure everything is working together properly" and suddenly people are looking at me and saying things like, "Right?"

My mind struggles to figure out who I am in this scenario...I'm certainly no coordinator, I'm merely a tech grunt. Am I...am I the specialist? Holy crap, she did mean me, me the specialist, when did this happen? How did this happen? Did I get a raise too? No? What about a new title? Nu-huh? Ok, how would you like this "specialist" to proceed? Contact the coordinator, work with the director, fulfill all their requests, and make sure their conference goes off without a hitch? No problem. By five o'clock you say? Easier done than said.

I think any field that requires a "specialist" to interpret things into lay terms is pretty suspect. Specialists and consultants fall into the charlatan category when it comes to job knowledge and amount of work done - think of them as the op-ed author in your local paper. They talk a good game, but largely they're grasping at straws and making up technical jargon that they'll cite as "industry speak". When it comes to work actually getting done or getting things to actually function properly, you can rest assured the specialists and consultants will be far removed from the action, but always at the ready to swoop in and take credit for what the proletariat has accomplished. When in doubt, remember this graph:

Constants Pt. 2

A shuffling sound in the room triggered something, a primal response, a wave of fear and anxiety rushed over him. He was the protector after all. Slowly and calmly he opened an eye. She was tugging at the bottom of her sports bra with one hand and in the other held...running shoes. Crap, he thought. It was too early for this nonsense, he had just gone to bed a couple hours ago after thanklessly patrolling the living room and keeping it free from invaders. Besides, it was cold and wet outside. He could smell it. No, this was not a morning for running, this was a morning for lying curled up with ones favorite chew toy or stretched across floor getting a tummy rub. He closed his eye and tucked his head down into his pillow hoping she wouldn't notice.

The door closed with a click behind her and he found himself wondering if maybe he should have gone with her. He had anointed himself her personal bodyguard and he wondered if he was negligent in his duties by wanting a couple extra hours of sleep. The thought wouldn't leave him. He tried changing positions, stand up, circle, circle, circle, change directions, circle, circle, flop, close eyes. Nope. He was awake now and really wishing he had gone with. Maybe he could find solace next to Jason - she called him Jay or Jason (he just thought of him as His Pal). He'd either get yelled at for being on the bed or be ignored, but a warm body might be a nice comfort. He hopped up and, as stealthy as he could, stretched across the remaining part of the bed. It was easily large enough for the both of them, but his long, slender frame took up considerably more than half of the space. Jason adjusted himself and he felt one of his paws and toenails make contact with his back. Uh oh, he thought, this will not end well. He continued to adjust himself and his nail continued to dig into his back until, finally, a muffled "Hmph, huh, wha" was heard and what followed next was as predictable as the sunrise. "Dammit dog, get DOWN". Fine, he thought sullenly, I didn't want to be up there anyway, but you'll notice you're all by yourself. And for emphasis, he barked.

He paced his way into the living room, back into the bedroom, checked the bathroom, and meandered his way into the kitchen. He stopped here to take in the smells; last night's baked mostaccioli still hung in the air like a heavy mist and the sweet smell of wine cut through like a single ray of light through a thundercloud. He looked up at the hanging basket where they kept the peaches and bananas, and their scents reached down and tickled his nose with a pleasant odor that begged him to poke one out for breakfast. He'd had peaches before, when she was making fruit salad or had an extra slice from a morning snack she'd slip it to him when Jason wasn't looking. He liked the sweet, tangy juice, but he was already in the doghouse for clawing Jay so he thought better of sneaking any fruit. He hadn't had bananas before, at least, he didn't think he'd ever had bananas before. He remembered once how she had told Jason, "you're not supposed to eat them when they're still crispy" and he'd mumbled something about being left to eat his not-yet-rotten bananas in peace. The kitchen was nothing but temptation and he decided to evacuate before he submitted to the voices in the trash can telling him to tip it over.

He found himself in the living room again, there weren't many other places for an anxious cerberus to go, collapsed in front of the door and woefully stared up at the handle. Maybe he could will her back. She had left her phone, maybe she'd come back for it and see him eagerly waiting for her. She'd retrieve his leash from the top of the fridge and maybe grab a tennis ball from the closet and he'd play keep away. He was good at luring them in before snatching the ball up and running off. They were gullible like that, but she had a quicker first step and would occasionally pounce on him before ripping the ball away. He always did like a challenge. His Pal was content to serve as interference, standing in her way while he hid behind, or sometimes actively teaming up and tossing him the ball while she chased after. He closed his eyes and felt himself begin to dream of games of keep away and chasing after the Australian Shepherd that was always at the park.

skinny

No fewer than three people have commented to me this week that I must not be eating because it looks like I'm "wasting away". Truth is I haven't lost any weight in about ten months - I've been at 175 ± 3 since last August, which is the same weight I've been at for the past eight years (except for a brief soiree in '06 and '07 into ~200 territory). Since I hit "adulthood" I've been pretty close to the same weight the whole way through. I was a little lighter when I got to college (around 160) and there was a time I pretty much stopped exercising at all and just drank a lot of beer that pushed me up over two hundred, but mostly it's been steady.

It got me to thinking how much of it is genetic predisposition (metabolism) and how much of it is diet and exercise. As soon as I started riding my bike and playing basketball again, my weight returned to normal. The funny thing is that I didn't look much bigger, at least, I don't think I did, I just had less muscle and an extra inch of fat around my midsection. Which doesn't make since since muscle is supposed to weigh more than fat.

Either way, the experience brought me to one very important point: it's about taking small steps. Go slow, one step at a time, baby steps, and any other cliché you can come up. Tasks that seem daunting need to be broken down into smaller parts. It's not about losing twenty pounds and becoming healthy this week or this month, it's about spending twenty minutes on the bike in the morning before work and twenty when you get home. It's about replacing that danish and coffee with an apple and glass of milk. Maybe not even every day, start off by doing it on Fridays, then after a couple weeks, Thursdays and Fridays and go from there, in a couple months it'll be every day and the difference will be noticeable. Apply the same approach for large projects, like say, Master's projects that seem impossibly demanding =\

Anyways, don't worry Mom, I'm eating plenty.

Constants

Her eyes flickered open, slowly she shuttled herself to the side of the bed. Judging by the light seeping through the blinds it was obviously daylight, but not the kind one would expect from a midsummer's day in the desert. She peeled back the blinds to reveal an unusually cloudy day. Groggily she slogged into the living room and slid open the door to the balcony. Expecting a blast of hot air to shake her from her daze she was instead overwhelmed with cool, wet air and the smell of rain. Invigorated, she glanced at the clock, 6:49, a normal time during the week and had it been a normal Saturday she might have been more upset at being up so early, but there was rain and cool air that smelled of life and ozone instead of decaying garbage and tar. She looked at her boys. One a German Shepherd curled up in the corner on a massive pillow with the stuffing coming out. The other in bed, propped up against the wall with a body pillow. She was tempted to have them start the day with her. On a run. She debated between having two angry boys the rest of the weekend and having a peaceful run all to herself and, wisely, decided on the latter of the two options.

Quietly, she slipped out of her jams and pulled on her jogging shorts, sports bra, and shoes. It was cool, but still not cool enough to warrant an actual t-shirt, besides, the sports bra had a mesh lining that allowed her body to breath a little easier. Thunder stirred from his pillow, opened an eye, and quickly put his head down before he'd be noticed.

She went to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of orange juice and plucked an apple from the crisper. She turned on the weather channel to apprise herself of the situation while she pulled on her running shoes and drank her juice. The talking head on TV indicated that the hurricane to the south would be pushing wet air up all weekend and advised people "not to leave the house without an umbrella because it's gonna be wet, oh boy". She laughed to herself softly and thought, 'it rains here ten days a year and he's advising people not to leave without an umbrella - seems like a bucket would be more appropriate'. She finished her juice, placed the glass in the sink, stuck the apple in her mouth, and walked to the door.

As she locked the door behind her and took a bite of the apple, she started thinking about the route she would take; she could run downtown around the stadium and back - it would be quiet during the early weekend hours or she could head to the park and run around the "lake" front. The "lake" being a generous word the locals used to describe the man-made puddle in the middle of an otherwise impressive park. She took another bite of the apple as she headed towards the gate of the apartment complex and decided it would be a nice morning to see the lake in action. The rain was sure to bring out the ducks and other wildlife that would make the run there worthwhile.

The park consisted of several basketball courts, two volleyball courts, a playground, softball field, numerous benches, and a sprawling green space in an otherwise desolate, urban landscape. Normally it would take less than 5 minutes to jog here but she had opted to walk to the park and jog around the lake which meant she had long finished the apple by the time she got the entrance. Upon reaching the lake, she tossed the remaining apple in - there were plenty of creatures around to nibble on it and barely had it hit the water than she saw the ripples of fish picking at it's fleshy, submerged core.

The slight drizzle that continued to fall had an oddly muting effect on an otherwise noisy area. It was the middle of a city after all, but now, early morning on a rainy weekend there was only nature. Birds called back and forth to each other. Crickets chirped from their dry havens beneath the ramadas. Even the fish were making noise, breaching in the lake as they took aim at the insects (and apple cores) floating above their watery prison. She found it all to be incredibly peaceful, almost, comforting.

As she began her jog around the lake, thoughts of simpler times crept into her head. Being in this place, seemingly devoid of human activity, transported her - as her feet wandered, so did her mind. It's amazing all the things humans have in common, she thought. We're all born, we all have death on the horizon, and in between we all try to find a space in which to be happy. We all see rain (if we're lucky) and we all depend on the sun for, well, pretty much everything. We all feel attraction and seek out happiness even if some people's happiness is different than others. She chuckled to herself, the Buddha was right, all suffering does come from desire. It's because we can't have what we desire that causes that suffering. She thought of her boys and how happy she was that she had them. She desired them, no doubt, but they desired her as well and that made her happy. Well, that and the fact that she also had them. She tried to imagine what it would be like to desire them and not have them, but it was too disturbing to consider for more than a few seconds. She had been with both of them for almost the same amount of time and loved both equally. In her eyes they were all a family and picking a favorite would be tantamount to picking a favorite offspring, it just wasn't done.

She continued to think of all the things humans have in common which lead to her thinking of other constants. Instead of universal constants, she began thinking of familial constants. All the women in her family were doing amazing things - getting advanced degrees, working in chem labs or law firms, getting married and starting families, or traveling the world and making a difference. And what are you doing? she thought sarcastically. Living in a shitty little apartment and working a monkey's job while you wait for what? For him to pop the question while he works at his state job, making nothing? Maybe you're waiting for Thunder to just offer his back so you can ride off into the sunset? SHUT UP, she thought to herself. Her thoughts had the tendency to get the better of her and she had to remind herself it wasn't necessarily about the here and now that was important, but what things would be like a few years down the road. They'd both have better jobs and degrees by then, and they'd have a house with plenty of room for the dog to have a better half and maybe even some puppies.

As she rounded the lake for the third time she began to think of her own mother's journey. She realized she was following in quite similar footsteps. They both had been adventurous as young women, granted it had taken her a little longer to "branch out" than her Mom, but eventually she moved away from the homestead in search of something both unfamiliar and comfortable. She wasn't sure if she had been lucky or just looking for the right qualifications, but she felt lucky in landing in a place where both what she was looking for and what her boys were looking for existed together. It was funny, she thought, one came from a group of friends highly recommended and another came from a group at the park, also highly recommended. The two were interchangeable and she laughed at the idea. If only there were a pound for boys: she could go and find one that looked right, behaved himself, and treated her right and she could trade in whichever wasn't acting proper. Part of her chastised her mind for thinking such things, the other part laughed and thought what fun it would be to trade them both in for a weekend with a body-builder. She was not one to give in to such flights of fancy. She was happy with what she had; even though should knew things could be better she knew that they didn't have to be better. THAT was the difference, she wasn't settling, she knew what she had, could have, and had had, and was happy in her current situation.

The idea of constants came flooding back to the forefront. Things that her family all seemed to go through and things his family all went through. If there were such things as omens the families' past were sure to be an example. The male side of his family all had problems with recklessness, misogyny, and alcohol, but they had problems in their late teens and early twenties and he was well past that. She saw flashes of it. When he came home from work in a mood or spent a night drinking with his friends he would get more mouthy than usual, but overall he was respectful, unless she decided to have fun and push back, in which case, all bets were off. They'd had their share of fights - early on a couple were even physical - but more and more they had been nothing more than a close couple blowing off steam. She found it as entertaining as she did puzzling. How could someone so calm and balanced become so loud and vitriolic? It was like there was an entire world lurking beneath what she knew.

She rounded the bend of the lake for her fifth and final lap and thought of the paths she'd followed, of the paths her mother followed, of the paths her cousins followed, and of the paths her nieces, nephews, and offspring would follow. Even the difference between herself and her cousins, which was only a few years, amazed her. She had grown up with a library, rotary dial phone, and ceiling fan. They had grown up with the internet, cable TV, and central air conditioning. The expectations of each group were so enormously disparate, she could barely fathom the concept, and the only reason she could was that upon arriving at her college dorm room she had the internet, cable, and AC. Again the idea of constants came to her. What could she reasonably expect other people to have experienced? Obviously the things she had seen and done were exceptional, but not everything she did could be exceptional, could it?

It began to dawn on her that with each generation the gap closes a little bit, and at this point in time, the gap closed a little bit more per generation. The gap for her aunts and uncles and her great-aunts and uncles, for example, was greater than the gap between her and her aunts and uncles. In fact, technology had likely closed that gap for good - except for her "IT Aunt". She was the one everyone in the family went to when they needed help setting up their printer or configuring their new computer to get on the internet. It was amazing, she thought, the internet had completely closed the technology gap. She knew how to setup printers, routers, modems, and servers as well as her technologically capable aunts and uncles did. Her parents were a different story, a special story, a story she didn't expect anything out of, especially when it came to technology. Why should they have to worry about the latest and greatest when they had her to look out for them and their technological needs?

She kept thinking of the gap between cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and parents. It got her thinking about how excited her Grandma had been when she bought her the digital picture frame for Christmas. Her grandma had been rightfully excited and expressed her gratitude even though they both knew she would never update the pictures or otherwise touch the frame. She felt a slight twinge as she uploaded the pictures she could gather for it. A few of her brother, a couple she had forced from her parents, and a few older pictures that her parents had of the cousins. It would make her Grandma happy, but she wanted current pictures, not something from last May.

It began to dawn on her that she was leaving the park without really coming to any conclusions. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that's how most of her excursions ended. Sure, sometimes she'd have the dog with her and they'd stop at the park and chat with the other dog owners and she'd go home when it got dark, but when she was by herself she left with nothing but her own thoughts - thoughts she'd been having all evening. Now she decided to have specific ideas, to be "strong" and not give in to the other pressures in the park. Surely this would mean she'd run into other ups and downs, but it was better than not being part of it at all. She ran past the gate and towards the complex. She would be there in less than five minutes...unless something stopped her.

semantics

"So where do you want to go to dinner?"

"Meh, I could care less."

Your brain freezes for a moment. Is that their subtle, passive-aggressive way of suggesting they have a restaurant preference, but that you have to play twenty questions if you ever want a hope in hell of figuring out what it is? Do they want burgers? Maybe thai food? Do they want to go to IHOP again? Perhaps they're in the mood for Chinese or Indian? It IS Monday, maybe they want the spaghetti special or their taste buds are screaming for-

"Just not IHOP again"

Oh, well that clears that up.

Then there's our second scenario. It's two thirty in the morning and you're watching tv (because what else would you be doing?) An ad comes across your screen pitching something that's "free with subscription". Again, your brain freezes (or maybe not, it IS two-thirty, there's a good chance your brain has been off for awhile). Your neurons struggle with the definition of "subscription" and it occurs to them that anything included in the subscription is thereby covered, in cost, by the subscription. Then the next commercial features a young WASP couple saying, "We used the money we saved to buy Product X!" Later the coroner will declare CoD to be an aneurysm.

While we're talking about semantics, what is up with "sub par"? Someone unfamiliar with golf had to be the originator here. It had to have gone down like this; Bob, in his weekly TPS report (with the proper cover sheet) demonstrates a new shipping model that will save the company millions and Alice, his boss, compliments him on doing a sub par job. Bob, being an idiot and knowing nothing about golf, thinks Alice is going to take credit for his work and continue to climb the corporate ladder and leave Bob behind, so he hatches a scheme. One night when Alice is staying late, Bob locks Alice in her office and burns the building to the ground. The next day the PTBs from corporate meet with Bob and promote him into Alice's old position and mention that Alice had emailed them - the term only recently entered the lexicon... - Bob's idea for saving the company money and credits Bob with doing a "superb" job. Bob then changes his name to Karl Rove.

I try to present my concerns over language to "friends", but every time I start describing the need to use proper semantics I'm met with

"Meh, I could care less"

transfer

You've dropped the last couple ice cubes into your glass and now it's time to refill the tray and stick it back in the freezer. No problem, right? Well, no problem as long as you're not me. You see, I have a problem with this process. I'm not sure why or how, but every time I try to put an ice cube tray filled with something besides ice, like water, back into the freezer I end up watering my hardwood floors like I'm growing a garden under the fridge. Sometimes I even manage to spill ice cubes all over. Go figure.

There are other everyday, household issues that most people seem to be able to handle that I just can't manage. Dishes, for example, more closely resemble a three year old bathing than an adult cleaning silverware. By the end of a load of dishes the ceiling, walls, spigot, and my hair are all covered in soap suds and a sinking feeling that this is not the way things should be. Laundry is an animal all its own. I haven't had to separate whites and colors in years because I don't own any clothes from this century (ok, there are a couple t-shirts that I picked up in 2004). Then there's making the bed...actually, I can make the bed as well as the average person considering I have a single blanket and it's folded up and stuffed in the closet when temperatures are above 110° (which is everyday after May 13th). Setting up the home wireless network? Piece of cake.