Tired mountains and rally towels

It's week 4 or so on the government project, and I'm starting to understand the project and the organization. And I'm neck-deep in level setting and boots hitting the ground. As I wrote once before, business jargon isn't necessarily bad in and of itself. Sometimes, a business slang term colorfully and concisely expresses an idea not expressed in any other word or phrase.

When I first started at the government site, I was a little overwhelmed. There was a lot to take in. In one of many meetings during the first week, our government boss asked how we liked "drinking from the firehose." I have since heard lots of other people use the expression "firehose mode," so I guess she didn't coin the phrase, but I thought that it was a good, apt description of a person trying to take in a very large quantity of information in a very short time.

"Tiger team," on the other hand, is ridiculous. What can a team of tigers do for you other than protect their young and prey on large mammals? I'm pretty sure they don't have any other skills, though I wouldn't tell one that to its face. Pigs and dolphins are smarter. I can easily see why you'd want to avoid standing up a pig team, given that recruitment would be difficult, but everyone would want to join a dolphin team. OR--you could just use regular words, and call it a special projects team.

Or an A team! Because everyone loves it when a plan comes together.

*****
Ignore what I said last week. I totally want the Capitals to win the Stanley Cup.

Obviously, I'm delighted that they beat Columbus in the first round, but of course, now they have to try to get past Pittsburgh again, and if Thursday night's third period shit show was any indication, then the climb is Mount Everest-style uphill.

Meanwhile, I have an official complaint to lodge with Mr. Leonsis and the Capitals organization. We attended Game 1 of the Columbus series, and although that series turned out happily, the first game ended badly, with an overtime loss, notwithstanding an early game 2-goal lead. We had hoped, when we bought the not-at-all-cheap tickets, that the traditional Game 1 giveaway would be something good, like maybe a bobblehead, or a rally towel. Instead, we got light sticks. And when you picture that in your mind, don't think about a decent, self-respecting miniature flashlight kind of thing. Picture instead a styrofoam tube wrapped in cellophane (and there's two archaic words in one sentence). Because it was a styrofoam tube wrapped in cellophane, which Boeing unwisely allowed its logo to be imprinted upon.

Insult added to injury--the Penguins gave away t-shirts at their first-round Game 1. T-shirts, for Penguins fans! Those bitches have Stanley Cups out the proverbial yinyang and they get t-shirts!

Light sticks. Hmph. You can't cry into a light stick. Round 2 continues.

*****

This is my family in 2014, at the Pyongyang Platform at Dorasan Station. Dorasan Station is the northern terminus of a railway line that used to run the entire length of the Korean peninsula. It's less than a kilometer from the Demarcation Line at the Demilitarized Zone. The sign in the upper right corner reads: "When the Trans-Korea Railway (TKR), the Trans-Siberia Railway (TSR), and the Trans-China Railway (TCR) are connected in the future, Dorasan Station promises to emerge as the starting point of the Transcontinental Railroad." As my husband explained it to me, after he visited in 2008, the South Korean government maintains the station, though it's no longer operational, so that it's ready to transport passengers between Panmunjom and Pyongyang when the two Koreas reunite.

At the time, nothing seemed less likely than reunification. Now, I guess anything is possible. Maybe Trump deserves some credit (and now my hands hurt, from typing those words). Or maybe it's a case of Tired Mountain Syndrome.  Whatever. If one or the other or a combination of those two things represent the first step toward collapse of the worst regime on earth, then it's good news. I can't imagine how beautiful and energetic South Korea will be able to absorb and integrate the undereducated and impoverished North Korean people, but that's a problem for later. Hope springs eternal, for Korea, and Capitals fans during Round 2 against Pittsburgh, and for the rest of the whole world.

Leave the gun, take the cannoli

Monday: I won't even discuss this morning's ridiculous hyperventilating panic attack. What I will discuss is what I'm reading, which is Rumer Godden's The Battle of the Villa Fiorita. It might be even better than In This House of Brede, and that's a very high bar. It reminds me in many ways of Brideshead Revisited, despite the fact that it's absolutely nothing like Brideshead Revisited. Except it is. It would be more accurate to say that Rumer Godden is nothing like Evelyn Waugh. She was probably a much nicer person than Waugh, who was famous for being a jerk, but they were both converts to Catholicism, and both possessed sparkling clear moral vision. The Battle of the Villa Fiorita anticipated--and refuted--the myth that children of divorce don't suffer and that they're better off with happy, though separated parents. And Caddie Clavering reminds me of Cordelia Marchmain, though they are also two very different characters. I recommend it. Now I want to read Brideshead again.

And speaking of moral clarity, and speaking of books, I'm not going to read Comey's book after all. I don't need any more convincing that Trump is a liar and a scoundrel and unfit for public office. And now I think that Comey is kind of a jerk. And not the Evelyn Waugh kind of jerk who recognizes and acknowledges his own jerkitude. I read an excerpt of the book, the part where Comey describes Trump's personal appearance, and I think that a guy who has obviously never suffered insecurity about his appearance who writes so cruelly about another person's very obvious massive insecurity is a special breed of jerk.

Thursday: I went walking after work, dressed for January on April 19. It's just too cold for spring, but I still enjoyed every moment outside. My iPod (my husband's iPod, actually; mine did not survive the laundry incident) was on shuffle and I skipped around, singing along with songs that I hadn't heard in a while. The cherry blossoms and forsythia, though fading, are still in bloom and the sky was pale, pale grey blue warmed by fading, thin spring sunlight.

Paul Simon's "Train in the Distance" played as I walked and contemplated the horrible fact of the suicide of a 12-year-old boy at my son's middle school. How lost he must have been, and how lonely. I don't want to think about his last moment. I hope he lost consciousness quickly.  As Paul Simon sang that "the thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains," I thought about how this is sadly not true for everyone. I hope the child is at peace now.

Saturday: You know, I had something in my head, and I failed to put it on paper , so that might be it for the week. It might come back to me. Stranger things have happened. Like the President tweeting that he's sure that his lawyer won't "flip," making it official that a crime boss is the President of the United States. I mean, think about it. How would cooperating with the government constitute "flipping" from the perspective of the President? That's the one guy who should be on the government's side, right?

You got a nice Department of Justice here. It would be a
shame if something was to...HAPPEN to it. 

I'm sure I'll remember it later. Just when I try to get OUT, it will pull me back IN.

Passage of time

Sunday: I always feel like I won't have time to write during the week, and I always manage to find time, but this time, I really feel like I won't have time (and that's time four times in one sentence, not counting this parenthetical insertion, which brings it to six). So I'll start tonight.

We're watching "I, Tonya." It's a great movie, and although I couldn't decide whom to root for as Best Supporting Actress (I loved Laurie Metcalf in "Ladybird," but I've been a huge Allison Janney fan since "The West Wing"), I think that the Academy made the right decision.

I followed the Tonya/Nancy story very very closely in 1994. I was sure then that Tonya knew more than she admitted; now, I'm not so sure. Even then, though, I felt some sympathy for her. I was a working-class girl, too. I couldn't ice skate to save my soul from Hell, but if I had been a figure skater, I wouldn't have fit in with the sparkling ice princesses either. I find it hard to believe that a skating judge admitted to Tonya that he and other judges were deliberately lowballing her scores because they wanted to force her out of the sport. But I find it very easy to believe that they actually did lowball her scores to try to force her out of the sport. I remember watching her skate, and hearing commentators say things like "some have called her Trashy Tonya." Those "some" of course, being the commentators, who could thus call Tonya Harding trashy without actually calling her trashy.

Monday: I'm wearing glasses now. I normally wear contact lenses all day long, but my eyes were badly strained today. Eyestrain has been a problem for me for some time, but it's gotten worse. I look at a screen for hours at a time, and by the end of the day, my eyes are burned out. By 8 pm tonight, I literally couldn't see anymore. The glasses feel much better.

I've worn contact lenses for ten years. Every so often, though, I think about just wearing glasses all the time. I don't really like the way they look on me, but it would be nice to just put glasses on in the morning and take them off at night--no cleaning, no soaking, no worry about running out of lenses. On the other hand, I don't know what I'd do about sunglasses. Prescription sunglasses, I guess. Or maybe those glasses that just turn dark when you're outside?

My mom has worn glasses since she was six years old. When I was growing up, we almost never saw her without them. They became part of the architecture of her face; part of its basic structure. She changed glasses every two years or so; at one point, she even had those upside-down frames that Allison Janney wears in "I, Tonya." One of my fears about wearing glasses is that I'd tire of the ones I chose and would want to buy new ones every three months. One of my hopes is that the glasses would become so much a part of my face that I'd look a little weird when I took them off, just like my mom.

Tuesday: I keep losing things. It's spring, season of massive anxiety and panic attacks, and I tend to be forgetful and not to mince words, stupid, at this time of year. This afternoon, I came this close (imagine my thumb and forefinger about 3/4 of an inch apart) to calling my bank and telling them to cancel my debit card. Then I found it in my pocket, where I'd put it after filling my gas tank minutes earlier. I left my computer charging cord at my desk at the government site two days in a row; following the day on which I left my phone at home. I keep dropping things. I keep tripping, and bumping my head, which has probably already sustained as many blows as it can take. And now, even Microsoft Word thinks that it can mess with me. I might not have Google Docs on lockdown yet, but Word is my bitch, and I won't allow it to disrespect me.

Wednesday: Well, that took a turn, didn't it? Meanwhile, in the Day in the Life department, Shit Just Got Real division, this person is now a licensed driver in the state of Maryland:

It's always later than you think. 

Thursday: My second-ever playoff game ended with an overtime loss for the Capitals. True confession: I don't actually care that much if they win in the playoffs, although I know I'll be really happy when they eventually win a Stanley Cup. As much as I love hockey, I like the routine of the regular season much more than the intensity of the playoffs. And even for a fan, it's hard to sustain playoff excitement for over two months, which is how long it takes. It's too much.

That's right, you better run. 

Saturday: Maryland has become the home of six-month winters that end abruptly with summer. It snowed a week ago; today, we're in shorts and flip-flops. At least we haven't seen or heard the mouse. Maybe it likes the weather and wants to stay outside. Or maybe I scared it last week. That's probably it.




Sunday. Maryland weather: "I'll see your crazy ass in Hell." Thanks, Colin Jost.

To the mattresses

Wednesday, you feel like Tuesday. And Google Docs: That little hide yesterday’s six pages of meeting notes as a two-days-late April Fool’s joke? Totally not funny. Just one more indicator of the pressing need to figure out G-Suite and Chrome OS, and PDQ. I’ll get to it.

The mouse has returned (a new mouse, of course); and the efforts to catch and kill it are ascending to new heights, or descending to new lows, depending on your perspective. Although the low-tech, non-violent approach was successful last time, the new mouse visitor appears to be notably brighter than his deceased predecessor and he (or likely she) has thus far thwarted every mouse-catching effort. My husband has tried a combination of sticky traps, traditional spring-release traps, and a variety of bait. The space underneath the kitchen sink is now nearly spotless, having been thoroughly cleaned, and it's also a virtual killing field for mice. However, we continue to see evidence that the mouse has been able to gnaw its way through the door-mounted garbage bag that hangs on the inside of the cabinet door and to then enjoy a late-night buffet.

So my husband bought an electronic mouse trap, which I promise is a real, manufactured item, available for sale at Home Depot and other retailers, for an obscene and ridiculous price. Well, it’s $40, but $40 for a mousetrap is absurdly expensive. Even as he bought the silly thing, he was almost sure that it wouldn’t work, but he was determined to at least try it. Meanwhile, he rigged the traps and the garbage bag in a way that appeared virtually mouse-proof, except to the mouse, who easily picked her way around the landmines.

So now we have a night-vision deer camera. Do you think I’m kidding? I’m not. Here it is.

It's the fatigue-green plastic thing on the left. Note that there are
no fewer than four mousetraps here, and those are only the ones visible. 

I didn’t even ask how much this cost, because I would rather not know, and because it wouldn't matter to my husband, who would pretty much pay any price to figure out how this stupid mouse was managing to evade his carefully constructed obstacle course of death. Last week while shopping for my son’s baseball pants, he wandered over to the hunting section at Dick’s and there it was: An infrared light deer camera, or whatever the hell technology allows you to take video of wildlife under cover of near total darkness. He was sold.

He caught some footage of the thing last night, but we could only see part of its body (not sure which is worse--the head or the tail--we could see its icky little beady-eyed face but not its revolting tail) so we know that the mouse was at large last night, but we’re still not sure how it got through the cabinet and avoided the traps. The camera has been re positioned in the hope that we’ll get footage that shows the whole sequence: Entry into the cabinet from whatever tiny hole or crevice remains open after the extensive hole-plugging efforts, dodge and weave through the minefield, mouse middle finger at the camera, trash feast, exit stage left.

Or maybe we’ll just house train the vile creature and learn to live with it. If it didn’t leave droppings behind, then I could maybe, possibly coexist with it. As long as I didn’t have to see it. Or hear it. Or maintain any conscious awareness of its existence under my roof.

Never mind: It has to get out of my house, or die. We’re going to the mattresses.

Book learning

Monday: It's spring break for my husband and kids. A few more days of work, and I too will have a short break.

Tuesday: I’m at a new job site today. Not a new job altogether, but a new location. Or rather a new job and a new location, but the same company. My company won a new government contract, and I have been assigned to support it as a writer/editor/communications person. Ordinarily, I would not be blogging when I’m supposed to be working, but I can’t really do anything else yet. The first morning at a new job is always the same. You’re introduced to a few new people (who are all very friendly in this case), stashed at a desk that might or might not remain your desk, and then left to await additional instruction. It’s 8:45, and I’m supposed to attend a meeting at 9, but I don’t know where the meeting is.  I don't know where anything is, actually, including the bathroom.

This is a new office, and only partially occupied. It’s extremely quiet. I suspect that the people who work here every day have no idea yet what they’re supposed to do with me nor what I’m supposed to do for them. It’ll all be clear enough soon. Meanwhile, I have no computer, no office supplies, and no instructions, so I’ll just write until it’s time to stop.

This office is very modern and very businesslike and very clean. I have a window in my regular office, but here, I’m in a cubicle. But the cubicle is in a room with windows, and so I’m not cut off from daylight altogether. Other than the hum of the HVAC system and the quiet tapping of a cubicle neighbor’s keyboard, there’s no sound at all. This is partly because the office is half-empty, and partly because the carpeting and padded cubicle walls absorb sound.

It’s 8:53 now, and I have to figure out where my 9 o’clock meeting will be. I have a very poor sense of direction, and indoor navigation is sometimes harder than outdoor. Outdoors, at least I can use Google Maps. My life has become a Portlandia sketch.

Now it’s 10:47. I’ve been to two meetings, which have revealed a little bit about what this project is about. In a supreme irony, the person who is least able to calmly deal with change (that person being me) is apparently going to be heavily involved in what appears to be a pretty big change management effort. But the project seems interesting, and it's surprising how much you can learn in a meeting, especially when everyone knows you're new and they don't expect you to do much other than listen and smile and nod your head. I'm also pretty good at remembering names, so now I have an idea of who is who, and who does what. Still not much idea of what I will be doing, and I’m sure that it will be weeks before I don’t get lost on my way to or from the ladies’ room, but it's only been two hours, and I know a lot more than I did when I showed up this morning, so I'm optimistic.

Now it’s 1:12. I’ve been to three meetings, and am waiting to attend a fourth. Without any access to any systems here (I can’t even ride the elevator unaccompanied yet), writing about my day in the vaguest possible terms is all I can do in between meetings. I seem to learn something new in each meeting, and I’m actually rather looking forward to the next one. And I know my way to the ladies’ room now.


Thursday: I was too busy to write anything yesterday. After the four meetings on Tuesday, I returned to my regular office for the rest of the day. It was nice to see how much people missed me while I was gone. Wednesday was much the same as Tuesday: A morning of back-to-back meetings at the government office, tons of note-taking (I have no idea if I'll ever refer to those notes again, but the physical act of documenting something helps me to remember and understand it better), more names to remember, and then back to my office. The project officially kicks off next week, so I'll learn more, I hope.

I used my Chromebook to take notes. It's fun to use, but I still don't really know how to properly use Google Docs. I suspect that you're not supposed to just copy and paste everything into Word, but that's what I'm doing right now. I'll figure it out. 

We took our older son for his first college visit today. He liked the school very much. We ate at the student commons, and I bought him a t-shirt in the bookstore. After weeks of lingering cold, it was beautiful and sunny and 70 degrees, and a college campus filled with what appeared to be very happy young people was the perfect place to be.

Friday: It's Good Friday. I would normally go to Stations today, but we have another college visit planned. The new job will involve more analytical and program management work than I normally do (because I normally do absolutely nothing like that) so I decided to do some online Excel courses, because I think I'll need far better Excel skills than I have. I did one course last night, which wasn't hard, because it focused on formatting, and many of the formatting features are intuitive if you're an expert Word user. Formulas, on the other hand, are a whole other thing. I took a pre-test on the formulas module, and received a 28%, which could easily have been even lower, because I randomly guessed the correct answer to one of the questions.

Some people enjoy video/interactive/online training courses. I do not. I'd rather read something, or sit in a classroom. My learning style is ideally suited to the mid 20th century. Since I can't go to Stations, I'm planning to complete one module of the formulas course this morning, and another later tonight when we get home. This will serve as penance.

And now it's later tonight. The second college visit went well, though we were not prepared for an abrupt 20-degree temperature drop from the time we left home to the time we arrived. The Excel lessons are really excruciatingly boring; so boring that just typing whatever thought pops into my mind is far more interesting. I'm definitely learning, though. I had absolutely no idea that you could change the properties of a document, or add tags to make it more searchable. Genius! Well done, Microsoft!

Saturday: I don't know what it is about the Saturday of Easter weekend. I always have intense anxiety attacks on this particular day. Spring is PTSD season for me. But it also means that summer can't be far away.

OK. I know how to create a pivot table. But I have no idea why. Why is this useful? In what circumstances will I need this? I have no idea. But what I do know is that a trendline that draws trend inferences only from the spreadsheet's own data is worthless.

Sunday: Happy Easter! Anyone who wanted to see my 13-year-old son wearing anything other than a t-shirt and shorts should have attended the 10 AM Mass at St. Patrick's in Rockville. By 11:30, he was home, out of his shirt and tie, and back in a pair of shorts and a Capitals t-shirt. 16-year-old, on the other hand, has decided that the people deserve to see him in his full splendor, and he is still wearing his crisp white shirt, bowtie, and dress pants. He did make one concession to comfort, exchanging his dress shoes for black Nikes.

Usually when I write daily diary-style entries here, I try to find a theme for the week to unify the whole thing. And this morning, I realized what that theme is. During both of our college visits this week, we encouraged our son to get involved when he starts college, to try new things, and to learn as much as he can. Even if, for example, you have never had to analyze project performance or create reports and spreadsheets, you can learn, and maybe you'll find that that's the thing that you should be doing.

I might need to learn more about SharePoint, too. And although it's true that anyone who appoints me as their SharePoint administrator or project analyst will probably live to regret that decision, I can at least try to help the people who are actually qualified to do those jobs. What's the worst that could happen?