It Seemed Like a Good Idea

I could spend time coming up with something new, but I'll just use Buck's tagging of me the other day to reiterate that, yes, there really is an autobiography (of sorts) in progress, and yes, it should be damned funny. Most of the major events in my life either call for tears or laughter, and sometimes both, and whenever there's a toss up, I try to opt for the laughter.

With that in mind, here are the rules of the meme sent my way.

1 – Write the title to your own memoir using exactly six words.

2 – Post it on your blog.

3 – Link to the person who tagged you.

4 – Tag five other bloggers.

So, as one possibility, the title of today's post is a shortened version of what's already the working title: It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time. If I had to come up with a new one though, in just six words, I'd be most likely to pilfer the working title of the work we joke about around the office, but which, for obvious reasons, I'll never be able to actually write: You Can't Make This Shit Up! I suspect publishers might have an issue with such a scatological title, but as a working option, it has the virtue of consoling us on a daily basis. ;-)

As for whom I might tag, Buck's already hit Jay, but I'd be interested to hear from Barry, Chap, and Phil on this one. Or not. I usually opt out of these sorts of viral things, so I'm just throwing it out there in case they've got time on their hands.

Milestones and Bright Spots

Where did this week go? At least my good intentions to post make for a quick read after that last tome. :-)

Here's the thing: I told my father at the beginning of 2007 that I thought it was going to be a year of phenomenal change for our world, that we would see a shift of the sort that serves as a major milestone from which people then measure the rest of their lives. Not a personal shift, we all have those. But a societal one, the sort that make it into the history books: the Great Depression, either World War, the American Revolution. I think I was about a year early.

It's possible, of course, that I'm mistaking the turmoil of my own life at the moment for a shift that all can feel. I scored, after all, about 487 points on the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory. Wahoo. That just makes me chuckle. I read their note:

Now, add up all the points you have to find your score.

• 150pts or less means a relatively low amount of life change and a low susceptibility to stress-induced health breakdown.
• 150 to 300 pts implies about a 50% chance of a major health breakdown in the next 2 years.
• 300pts or more raises the odds to about 80%, according to the Holmes-Rahe statistical prediction model.

and I think, "Wow, guess it's amazing I'm still standing." And then I remember that my life is so much better than so many people's. I think the difference is friends. In truth, I think there are some problems with that whole inventory thing. Some of the items that I test positive for are just that, positives. They create some stress, true, but they come with their own counteracting positive excitement. Retirement is a stressor, as is moving to a new job, but both are positive things in my case. Bottom line, there's a lot on my plate, but I don't plan to crumble any time soon. Nobody's shooting at me at the moment. I can walk the dog without worrying about land mines or snipers. I jump out of airplanes for fun; I've been in uniform for 31 years; I eat stress for breakfast. Perspective.

Back to the rest of the world though. We are in a recession. Homes are not selling and those that are, are losing value. Jobs are harder to find. We continue, as a nation, to fight a war on two fronts while the threat of a third looms ever present. And this last reality is something that mainstream America has only been marginally conscious of. As I heard one officer put it: "America isn't at war; America's military is at war." A subtle but meaningful distinction. Gas prices have finally reached that magic mark of $4/gal where people actually begin to change their driving habits. I could go on, but you get the idea.

I don't know what it will be called, how we will refer to it, what capstone event or shift will lend its name to this year, but I think we are approaching that milestone in the road of all our lives that will serve as a crest, a bend, an embarkation to which people refer when they say, "Yeah, that was back before . . . "

Take inventory. Begin to decide now what really matters. Count yourself lucky if you are among those who already know. Friends, family, health--those seem good starts.

Yesterday, I gave what will certainly be one of my final tours of the institution I've called home for 14 years of 31 in uniform. It was an honor to do that for a family that so obviously has a good grip on those things that really matter.

I don't mean to be all doom and gloom here. I'm not. I just have a pretty good sense that a number of things--the economy, the climate, the stretching of our military--are going to get worse before they get better. But they will get better. At any rate, I think things are going to be different in the coming years. One thing won't change. It will be important to have people that you love with whom to share those years.

My best to you all. Doc.

UPDATE: Phil, from the Archer Pelican, provided the following link to an online version of the stress inventory that allows you to check the events then click a button for the results. I scored 523 this time around. After I hit "Calculate Results" a window popped up that said, more or less, "This individual will self-destruct in five seconds." Don't count on it.

Talk Less; Listen More

Warning: This is long. If you hang to the end, you may be throwing my own advice back at me. ;-)

It’s a hard truth in the world I chose for my first career that if you don’t like your boss, there’s usually not a lot you can do about it. Fortunately, most of the people I’ve worked for have ranged from not-all-that-bad to downright awe-inspiring. A rare few were mentors from whom I’ve taken lessons that will serve me to the end of my days, whether leading from a command position, executing another’s policy as first mate, or consensus building as a member of a group of equals.

I list those three particular realms here (there is, of course, also simply doing as one’s told in the follower role, and though even that is harder than many think, it requires far less finesse than any of the foregoing three) because I believe they cover three very distinct roles that may be required of a leader, and they require three very distinct skill sets for success. The latter two I’m going to give short shrift today; not because I don’t value them as much as the first, or think them equally complex, but because this post is really about that first skill set, and about the danger of confusing the requirements of any of those three roles. So what I will say about those other roles will be in relation to the role of commander.

To begin with, one of the most important roles of the first mate is to give honest input to the captain of the ship, and then to execute the captain’s policies whether in agreement or not. That person incapable of executing policy with which he or she disagrees will necessarily fail as a first mate. Likewise, the person without the courage to speak up when the ship’s course places all in danger may seem to succeed depending on the character of the captain, but that person seems guilty to me of a moral failing not much less serious than mutiny. What good is such an officer except as an agent to crack the whip on the backs of the crew? In all cases, the captain’s role is to make such input possible, to encourage it, to value it, to actually hear it, and then to make a decision with confidence that mate and crew alike will execute that decision. This pas de deux obviously requires a great deal from both parties. One of the worst things someone in a position of genuine command can do is squelch input. Input doesn’t always begin as dissent, but input discarded immediately because it doesn’t token full agreement will often fester into dissent of the worst kind—the silent sort that eats at the heart of an organization.

Equally as dangerous is input never heard because the commander is too busy mistakenly assuming that third role of consensus-builder. Commanders must frequently play this role, but only at “the big table” with their fellow commanders, their equals, whom they must convince rather than direct. (I use the word commander very consciously here. There are many organizations where leadership rotates, where the position of head is occupied temporarily by someone who will eventually return to the ranks, yielding leadership responsibilities to someone in those very ranks now. Many civilian academic departments function this way. In such organizations, consensus building may very well trump outright command as the appropriate mode, but the military is not such a place.) In the military, a skilled commander must be able to shift from consensus building with equals to blunt direction with subordinates, still soliciting, hearing, and incorporating input from below as appropriate. But this latter skill is not to be confused with consensus building. I have seen what can happen in an organization where someone in a position of full command makes the mistake of believing that consensus is necessary. Kahlil Gibran said in The Prophet, “You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.” The commander who spends an inordinate amount of time attempting to convince subordinates that the ship is on the right course will inspire nothing but worry in the crew.

And that is what all that follows is really about. A younger friend in just such a position of command with just such a problem recently asked for help in understanding why his unit’s morale was dragging along the depths like an anchor. It didn’t help that he’d been given command of a unit whose demographics were wholly unlike anything he’d ever commanded before, and that he neglected, largely, to take those differences into account. Nor did it help that he lacked experience with many of the finer points of the mission. This latter challenge though, was easily surmountable by depending on the seasoned crew, especially the ship’s officers. What paralyzed this person though, and undermined his success more than any other thing, was an over-valuation of consensus and an accompanying drive toward speaking it into existence that simultaneously silenced the voices of those who might have helped and announced to the crew at large that the captain was uncertain of both his role and his course. The result was an exodus of both officers and crew at the first opportunity they had. Those who stayed largely did so because they were not at a place where their careers would allow their departure. And those who stayed were and are unhappy.

But there may be hope. That person, whose very drive to consensus building is, among other things, a sign of how much he genuinely cares, recently asked for help in understanding the rancor among the ranks. Again, a person who didn’t genuinely care would not be so heart-wounded by the state of things. In answer, I offered some encouragement and the following simple advice: Talk less; listen more.

So, while this post is already longer than most anything I’ve bothered to share before, here, somewhat edited for more general application, is advice for anyone in a position of genuine command who struggles with a desire for consensus from the ranks. Bottom line: Talk less; listen more.

My friend, keep caring and keep trying. No one willing to objectively evaluate your time at the helm could realistically accuse you of being unconcerned with the welfare of your troops, the care with which you execute the mission, or the overall health of your parent unit as a whole. You have most of the right concerns at heart.

But all that said, you must somehow learn to change one thing before your unit’s morale is going to begin the long journey from the depths it’s plumbed back to the surface: Talk less; listen more.

Take as an example, any policy you wish to which the majority of your command may have once voiced objections. What are people’s objections to it? Ask your secretary and you’ll probably be told that no one really has any. Actually, they did once upon a time, but they’ve learned how fruitless it is to voice those objections. If someone were to come to the front office to “discuss” a policy, one might hope that they would be asked “What is it you don’t like about it?” “What do you suggest instead?” “Are there any adjustments we could make to the current program to make it more palatable?” The bottom line is, every question should lead to another question, because, in the end, if the commander’s mind isn’t changed by the complainant, then nothing changes. No justification from the commander is required, period. You can thank a troop for his/her input and send them on their merry way. You’ve lost nothing by listening, but you might learn something, hear some view that you were unaware of before.

Too often however, by all reports, that brave hypothetical soul can expect to spend 25 of their 30 minutes in your office hearing answers to all of the following questions, notwithstanding the fact that they never asked them: “Why does the commander think it’s a good idea?” “How does the commander think it should affect their morale?” “How does the commander think it aligns with current service policy?” “What advantages does the image of the unit gain from such a policy?” “What personal gains will the individual inevitably achieve as a result of the policy?” “How does the time commitment compare favorably to some other equally onerous policy that might be instituted instead?” “How popular by contrast (or similarly unpopular) was a similar policy that the commander enforced in a previous assignment?” “How did the commander handle objections from people in that unit?” “What were those people’s objections?” “How is the policy, and particularly any objections anyone might have to it, indicative of larger issues within the unit?” “In what way does the troop’s complaint or attitude remind the commander of some incident that occurred during the commander’s tenure as Executive Officer to some other well-respected commander?” And so on. The point is, people in your unit have learned that anyone coming to you to voice an objection to a policy or procedure can plan on spending 25 of any 30 minutes listening to the commander’s arguments for something rather than having their own input on it heard. Result: people stop trying to voice an opinion and you are left wondering why morale is in the toilet.

I am not suggesting that every complaint or objection should drive a commander to change a policy or procedure—far from it. Military command is not a democracy. In many cases, you can let your troops talk for 30 minutes, thank them for their honesty, and leave the policy or procedure in place. You will still have changed something: they will feel that you listened, perhaps even that you heard. That in itself will earn their respect and go a long way toward gaining their less grudging compliance. But if you spend most of the time you have with them talking to them, giving them your rationale for a decision, trying to sway them to your point of view, you will accomplish one thing and one thing only: they will stop talking to you. They will learn that, despite the fact that you may be interested in their opinion, you lack the listening skills to receive it, to draw it out, to encourage it. They’ll learn to be quiet. You will isolate yourself. And you will wonder how it happened. How it has already happened.

Talk less; listen more. In any 30 minutes spent with someone you command, you should spend 25 of it listening. Three of your five minutes should be spent in asking questions to keep them talking. Give yourself no more than two for expressing your own opinion. That’s more than enough.

Talk less; listen more. The same rules apply even if someone comes to you for advice. Ask them questions. What they really mean when they ask for advice is not, “What would you do?” but, “How would you go about making this decision?” The answer is not, “I would consider this, then this, then this?” The answer is, “Have you thought about this? What about this? And this?” Each question asked with pauses to allow them to answer. In the end, they’ll have done most of the talking, but you’ll get credit for having “given” them the advice they sought.

Talk less; listen more. You wondered aloud recently why unit members don’t want to spend time with one another at functions like your annual social, but I’m told, I’m sorry to relate, that you give little heed to the answers when they come. Rather than asking the right questions of the right people, they say you spend your time trying to talk them into enthusiasm. “Everyone should want to go. Everyone should feel an obligation to go. We owe it to each other. It’s tradition. It’s simply part of being a good officer.” Talk less, and listen more, and you may learn how to make it an event no one will want to miss. Or maybe not. But you will certainly never talk such an event or attitude into existence. Such consensus is impossible to build through words. The event was originally conceived as something that would be fun. Somewhere along the way it lost that as a raison d’etre. Restore the fun or abolish the event. Is there some risk in such an activity? Absolutely. But it’s worth remembering Churchill’s remark that there’s nothing so exhilarating as to be fired upon without effect. These are warriors after all.

I’ll just say it one more time: Talk less; listen more. If you doubt my analysis of the root problem here, then I challenge you to put it to the test. Keep a stopwatch discreetly in your hand during an office visit from some troop. Use it to time the amount of time they spend speaking and compare it to the overall length of the visit. If the result, initially, doesn’t support what I’ve said above about the way most conversations in your office go, then you can feel vindicated. But, if it does support it, then you simply need to decide whether my advice is worth anything or not. If you think an open-door policy is really just a good opportunity for you to transmit instead of receive, then you should save yourself some time and have more frequent commander’s calls to lecture everyone at once.

Lastly, if you decide there may be something to that simple four-word mantra I’m offering, you’ll need to be cognizant of one final hurdle. The longer you’ve spent in transmit-only mode, the longer it may take for your troops to recover. But it’s an intelligent bunch we have the honor of leading, and while it doesn’t take long for such unbridled consensus seeking from a commander to engender a culture of studied silence, neither does it take long for genuine change of almost any sort to be noticed. If you are willing to learn to listen, it may amaze you how much you’ll hear and how soon.

At any rate, I hope this is helpful. I wish you nothing but the best, now and always.

Of Jalapeños and Ballons

Two interesting tidbits from today's news:

On the Salmonella front, now they're focusing on jalapeños. Just great. My idea of a great appetizer is one of these peppers cut in half lengthwise, seeds removed, then filled with peanut butter. I eat them in my scrambled eggs most mornings, my salads most evenings, my popcorn whenever I have it (though the eye-stinging aroma of peppers in hot oil did cause my in-laws to abandon their home once like radicals fleeing a tear-gas cannister).

And in the competition for this year's Darwin award, lawn chair balloon guy is at it again. At least he's wearing a parachute. ;-) Go here for my comments on last year's attempt.

I've Got How Long?!

An interesting post over at Lex's place this morning reminded me of a revelation that came a little over a month ago as I sat in the Transition Assistance Program at my base, trying, for real this time, to wrap my mind around my impending departure from military service. It went like this:

The counselor for our Survivor Benefit Program had the stage. SBP is a program whereby you give up a set percentage of your retirement $ now in order to guarantee that your spouse will continue to receive a significant percentage of that retirement, even after your death, should he/she outlive you. On the screen was a chart showing the statistical chances that said event would occur. Average lifespan of the American male, average lifespan of the American female, etc.

Initially, I looked at that chart and thought, okay, so I've got x number of years left. Plenty of time. Then I did some mental calculations and realized that x equaled the number of years of my military career to that point. Considering that it seems like I just put the uniform on for the first time yesterday, last week at most, I realized that meant I'd be gone well before the end of the month, relatively speaking. And considering how much life continues to speed up with each passing day, I figure I'll be done more like next week.

I'd better get busy, and now. I'm not sure I've slept well since.

Betrayal, Free Will, and Cormac McCarthy

Over on The Extended Table, there was a conversation I missed back in April. My life lately has been a blur. I've commented little in the blogosphere and actually posted here even less. But the thread on this blog generated by the post on mercy below, led Piper to point out the earlier exchange over at his place. I eventually left a comment there, but rather than get long-winded on Piper's site, I decided to bring the bulk of my remarks here.

The aspect of his thread that generated the most thought for me was the assertion of one commenter that the why of "betrayal" wasn't necessarily important. That she had done something with good intention but bad result that left a friend feeling betrayed. For that commenter, as I understood her, this meant that she had betrayed that person. I disagree. Here's why.

I wrote an entire dissertation on Cormac McCarthy. Really, it was a very personal exploration of McCarthy's concept of God and man's relationship to him. I chose McCarthy because he seemed to put most of what I believed into words with far better skill than I could hope for. When I read that thread over at Piper's place, and that commenter's opinion on the seeming precedence of result over intent, I couldn't help but think back to my own work on McCarthy, his ideas, his fictional world, and how it applied.

Bottom line: intent is the important thing in truly establishing the character of an act.

But here, if you're interested, is the expanded version, extracted from my earlier writing:

Beginning with Judge Holden in Blood Meridian and continuing through Cities of the Plain with a varied cast of outspoken and occasionally somewhat unlikely philosophers, McCarthy gives voice to a system in which destiny is both real and immutable, a system which has governed events in McCarthy’s fictional worlds even before he gave voice to it through such spokespersons.

One important facet of such a system is a very Catholic belief that God (or Ben Telfair’s “something”) does know all that will be and has been, as well as every alternative that never was nor will be. While this system effectively negates man’s capacity to choose or control the course of events in actuality, it nevertheless preserves his illusion of choice. The key difference between man’s belief in choice and the fact of choice’s non-existence rests in the difference between consequence and intent. In this system, man can only intend. In such a system, the consequence of any act is destined before the act itself even takes place; therefore, the act is destined as well. But because man cannot foresee that consequence, the illusion of choice remains bright for him, and he believes that he chooses one path over another based on the consequence he intends to bring about. That the said consequence may or may not ever come to pass is beside the point. Intention is all. In intention rests free will. God has determined outcome. Man is nonetheless left free to intend what he will. This is the philosophy of McCarthy’s metaphysical spokespersons, and this is the reality of McCarthy’s fictional world.

When I wrote that, McCarthy wasn't still an unknown--he'd won the National Book Award for All the Pretty Horses. But he had still granted only one interview, ever. This was pre-Oprah, pre-Pulitzer. Maybe it's time to get to work on publishing that dissertation as a book. I've been a little distracted of late, but this "year of change" is half over. By Christmas, I should be settled into new routines. God only knows whether that will be the case or not, but I intend to be. ;-)

(I love the point in the interview where Oprah asks him, "You haven't worked out 'the God thing' or not, yet?" His reply: "Well," chuckling, "it would depend on what day you asked me." Ain't it the truth.)

Red Skelton: The Pledge of Allegiance

One thing is certain: I won't be the only blogger to post this for the Fourth of July, but it's better than anything else I have to offer. Here's Red Skelton, explicating the Pledge of Allegiance. Enjoy.

Hat tip: JPL

Mercy Is Wasted on the Unremorseful

At dinner tonight, we played a few cards from a game called Table Topics. One of the questions to come up was, "Which is more important, justice or forgiveness?" My answer: it depends.

Why? Because sometimes, justice precludes forgiveness; and sometimes, forgiveness is justice.

An example: I knew a family once, shattered by the perfidy of someone in a position of trust. To this day, one member of that family thinks that another member of the family is "unforgiving" because of the grudge they bear the betrayer. I happen to disagree. The particular wolf in shepherd's clothing in question not only failed to show any regret for his actions, but as nearly as I can tell, has since moved on to even richer pastures for the plunder of innocents.

Asked for my opinion on the matter, I offered this: even God demands that we ask forgiveness, because even God understands that mercy is wasted on the unremorseful.

Campbells Holding Our Own

In terms of the frequency of our name, that is. If you go here, you'll find an interesting analysis of the shift in the demography of the US.

Step aside Moore and Taylor. Welcome Garcia and Rodriguez.

Smith remains the most common surname in the United States, according to a new analysis released yesterday by the Census Bureau. But for the first time, two Hispanic surnames — Garcia and Rodriguez — are among the top 10 most common in the nation, and Martinez nearly edged out Wilson for 10th place.

Campbell, I'm happy to say, climbed three spaces.

Who Said What

I had thought about titling that last post, "Hell Hath No Fury . . . " But upon looking up the quote, I learned, oddly enough, that it didn't originate where I thought. Even better, I found that a number of other "quotes" I thought I knew well, also didn't come from the sources I was accustomed to crediting for them. While I recognize that the internet overfloweth with bad information, and only at great risk should anyone consider it the last word on anything, I've found over the years that, with regard to matters other than political biographies, sites such as Wikipedia are generally fairly reliable.

I hope the same may be said of Wikiquote, from which the samples below come. With that in mind, and the caveat that I've not done the personal research to confirm the validity of even the examples I'll offer, here are some tidbits from a page dedicated to some of the most frequently misattributed and misquoted "quotes." When you have a little time to kill, you might peruse the page simply for the fun of it.

• "Just the facts, Ma'am." Never actually uttered on Dragnet.
• "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Not from Shakespeare.
• "Only the dead have seen the end of war." Not from Plato.

Admittedly, many of the quotes listed on the page are not misattributed, but only "misquoted," in that they are paraphrases, capturing the meaning of the original, if not the exact wording. Still, it's an interesting page on which to kill a few minutes and learn a few things.

Half Carat Wedding Set - $350

I offer you this, from craigslist, as the funniest thing I've read in at least the last month, all the more so for knowing that it's true. You find it here, as the text for an ad under the same title as this post, offered by someone whom I really hope I never seriously piss off.

Soon to be ex-wife selling half carat diamond wedding/engagement set that had been custom designed years ago back when scum sucking bottom dwelling lying cheating duplicitious irrational spouse was putting on the dog and pony show of charm and good behavior. Buy this ring for your soon to be better half and put some good juju on it. I never want to see it again. Diamond has three occlusions in it (jewelry-speak for flecks o' carbon) and those pretty little baguettes that frame it. One baguette missing from some years ago (see picture. Note: must have had better sense to get lost early before all hell broke loose). Bands are fused together with little gold beading on the inside of the ring to keep it from rolling round and round that finger. Ring is size 5.5 but a jeweler can expand or shrink the band to fit the finger of your beloved. Contact me for serious inquiries only and CASH ONLY. Please do not waste my time as I am still in the anger phase of recovery. My soon to be ex-husband spent close to $2000 on this ring when he bought it unless he was lying about that, too. Appraisers told me it was worth $500.

On "Doing More with Less"

The office is like a ship with a gaping hole in the hull, and I am like a fatalist crewmember. Recognizing that all the frenzied bailing in the world will not match the flow of water in, I have settled into a steady bailing, unconcerned really. I will step off onto a raft on 18 July (or straight into the water if I have no job yet), but either way, I will float or swim away from this institution that has systematically gutted its crews while simultaneously making it harder and harder for those left to get anything done. The peripheral demands on time, in the form of ancillary training, nitnoy paperwork (most of which is digital and hampered by user-unfriendly interfaces that someone convinced the govt would be more efficient) and network roadblocks masquerading as protections but which, in the end, eat up far more hours across the force than any hacker attack ever has or likely could. In terms of cost-benefit analysis, I remain convinced our own Information Assurance folks are our own worst enemies. Meanwhile, institutional denial is rampant. "These aren't the droids you're looking for."

It is a good time to retire.

". . . of their own volition, they stayed with the ship until the very end, steadfastly playing light, airy music to help keep passengers calm while the available lifeboats were loaded." (Source)

"Misogyny Is Like Jazz . . .

. . . women know it when they hear it." So says Daily Show correspondent Kristen Schaal, as she laments that, "The media treats Hillary Clinton like a Hooter's waitress."

If you don't understand satire (in all of which, there is more than a small element of truth), then for heaven's sake don't click on the video--you have no business watching anything from The Daily Show, ever.

Manageable Chaos

My posts have been erratic at best lately, but I have more excuses to choose from than any man needs. A friend asked today how things were at my end. Slightly edited, here's my response:

I think the best description of everything on my end is "manageable chaos." I have both my girls and all the animals (two dogs, one cat, one goldfish) until next Monday. My nearly ex is in California for the week.

So the youngest daughter and I ferried three animals from the other place to mine last night, with her balancing the goldfish bowl in her lap and me trying to keep the cat from pouncing onto the dashboard while the newfy looked to be in a trance in the back seat. I don't think she likes vehicular travel, which is good--if she paced, even the Jeep would rock from side to side. Gotta love that window-rattling bark though and the fact that you can feel the house shake when she runs to investigate something. Better than ADT.

Manageable chaos because each night requires a re-evaluation of the setting of curfews I can live with and my daughters not chafe at overmuch. And because the house is for sale (I may actually be praying for no showings this week). And because when I scheduled the husky's surgery, I hadn't expected to be stabling the horse for the week, so I have to find a way to keep the 100lb+ Clydesdale "puppy" from licking or tearing out the stitches on what I used to think of as a full-sized dog, but who now looks like a grey, black, & white Alfa Romeo (would have said MG, but can't imagine one in those colors) parked next to a black Hummer. And because each day brings my last day in uniform closer, so there are the constant tasks that accompany ending a marriage, ending a career (via self-service online outprocessing--I frequently wonder what would happen if I just refuse to do it all myself, but probably not something I'm going to try), starting a career, setting up the end-of-career hoopla, selling a house, setting up a web for a charity, and constantly harassing the bad guys.

Manageable chaos through most of which I wear a permanent smile which is both genuine and inexplicable. Not because I can't explain it, but because I choose not to. I keep thinking of that great moment in The Turning Point (the first movie I spent the money (which I had little of as a freshman cadet) to see more than once at the theater) where Leslie Brown, playing the daughter, responds to an invitation to discussion from Shirley MacLaine, playing the mom, with something like, "I don't want to spoil it." Spoil is the wrong word. It's simply that trying to describe or explain some things is an exercise in exploring the futility and limitations of language.

And manageable chaos because sleeping girls have no retention when you wake them to tell them anything, thus my daughter's panicked text ("Where is your dog?!") when she realized around lunchtime that the husky was missing. No recollection of my waking her this morning to ask whether she preferred the newfy inside or out ("Outside please.") because I was taking the husky in for surgery ("Okay. I love you. Have a nice day."). "I don't remember that at all." :-) I'm going to start carrying my digital recorder in my pocket. Besides, who knows when I'll have a great idea like "Feed mayonnaise to tuna fish." (See Night Shift, for that and other equally memorable moments, like Michael Keaton's explication of the word "prostitution". >-) Honestly folks, I only saw this movie once and long ago, I swear, but when you see a movie during a SAC alert tour, the best lines get lots of mileage in the ensuing days of pseudo-incarceration.)

And thanks to the wonder of YouTube, here's that explication of "prostitution" which I last saw in 1982. :-)



And better still, it's not the "Feed mayonnaise to tuna fish" scene, but you can get the idea:

President Visits USAFA

I missed it because I was on leave to bring my daughter across the country from her first year in school. Then again, had it not been for that, I'd have taken leave to miss it. Ever since singing with the Merced Barbershop Chorus at a George Sr. campaign stop, back around 1988, I've been somewhat averse to any function with more than one or two guys walking around in suits and sunglasses and with their hands inside soft briefcases slung over their shoulders. I'm sure they just don't want to lose their place in the magazine they were reading before the event started, but that many dedicated readers in one place tends to make me nervous. Well-informed people tend to have strong opinions and if a fight breaks out about whether Southern Living or Cottage Living has the final say on eventually putting Shabby Chic to bed, I don't want to be caught in the middle of it.

But catching up on The Daily Show during my dinner tonight, I couldn't help but think maybe I'd missed something after all.

Enjoy.

On the Road Again

Sorry for the light blogging lately. May is usually a travel month for me it seems. I've spent the last two weekends in the South, and I'm remembering more than ever what I love about the part of the country I call home.

Last night, my oldest daughter and I sat in the heavy cool Southern air at the Time Warner Pavilion in Raleigh and listened to James Taylor take us back. The last time we sat together at a JT concert would have been around 1996 at Wolftrap. It was her and her sister's first concert. She was all of about seven, and her sister all of four, but they loved James as much as we did, and there could be no leaving them with a sitter. In 2003, we heard him in Charlotte, but they sat in the seats with their aunt and uncle while we sat in the lawn with the folks who were more interested in partying than listening. Never again, that.

So last November, I took the younger sister to see JT in Colorado. The older of the two finished her first year of college weeks ago, but hung out here in NC waiting so that we could see JT. This morning, we leave to drive back to Colorado for the summer.

Last night, though, was magical. As I said, last time we sat together for JT in concert, she could still sit comfortably on my shoulders. When she was still crawling, I would carry her around the room, dancing gently, and singing with JT, mostly Never Die Young and That's Why I'm Here. Last night, as she occasionally rested her head on my shoulder, we were both traveling back to that gentle time, that time when a family was just beginning. It was, in every respect, a magical night.

Change

Change is constant. And far too much avoidable human misery stems from an unhealthy reluctance to acknowledge that fact and work toward shaping ourselves to the world as we find it each day rather than struggling to keep it within the boundaries we set for it. If there is any supremacy in 'native' cultures, I believe it rests in the extension of that necessity in each day's physical life to a spiritual dimension as well. We tend too much to revere the static. The same misbegotten motivation that allows us to think we can arrest the shifting shape of North Carolina's Outer Banks drives us to stunt our own growth and sometimes even that of those we love. Every season has its beauty, including those of our soul.

The Impotence of Proofreading

Hat tip to Buck for this one, an English professor's dream. Funniest thing I've seen since the paper I graded whose first sentence read, "The subject of my S.A. is . . . " Enjoy.

The horse, the cart, the good man

If you had asked me, I'd have told you that getting together with an old friend was always a good excuse to break out the good Scotch and good cigars--Laphroaig in his glass, Johnny Walker Black in mine, and a Fuente Hemingway Short Story for each of us.

What I realize now, after two and a half hours on my porch in the setting sun, is that, really, the Scotch or Bourbon or cigars are really just an excuse to spend time in the company of a good friend and a good man.

Adventures in (not) Shoplifting

I have much to do today. I took a day of leave from the office to get it done. But I have to tell this story.

About an hour ago, I decided to make a quick run to the store for lunch. I figured I'd grab some sushi from the deli and knock out a little grocery shopping. This is not a leisurely exercise mind you. I have a list. I'm on a mission. Typical guy shopping. Get in. Get out. Get it done.

Checking the pantry beforehand to finalize my list I see a bottle of wine I've been meaning to return and exchange. Nothing expensive. I used to buy wine by the case when I had someone to enjoy it with every afternoon. Now it's more haphazard. And typically, a bottle will go bad before I finish it, suction corks and inert gassing notwithstanding. A few weeks ago, I picked up a couple bottles of shamefully inexpensive wine on the recommendation of the shop owner. He'd been dead right on the better bottles I'd purchased over time, so when he said this little $4 cab was worth a try, I figured what the heck. A cup of coffee costs more at Starbucks.

But when I went to pull a bottle back out of the rack at home, my hand came up all wet from the wine leaking around the foil. Figuring that bottle had a better than average chance of being corked, I set it up in the pantry to prevent it leaking onto the carpet if I left it in the rack, and I made a mental note to exchange it.

Fast forward a couple weeks to an hour or so ago. The wine shop is next door to the grocery store. I'm not going to mention any names here because I like these people, or I did. Still like the husband. Probably keep shopping there just out of sympathy for him. Keep reading, you'll understand why.

Anyway, I park right in front of the door of the wine shop. I take my bottle of wine and step inside. Not a soul in sight. "Hello." Wait. "Anybody home." Wait. Nothing. "I'll come back." I turn around and head right back out the door, open the driver's side door to the Jeep, lay the bottle on the driver's seat so I don't forget to go back in and try again, close the door and walk away to the grocery store. Mind you, I never stepped more than four paces inside the door of the wine shop. I was, presciently, a little worried about going deeper into the store without someone to witness that I was bringing the bottle in the door with me.

So, I press on to King Sooper, whiz through my grocery shopping, and am back at my Jeep in probably 15 minutes or so. Waiting for me are a man and a woman. As I'm putting my groceries in the passenger side, the woman begins to speak.

"Sir, we just want you to know that we've written down your license number and the police are on the way." Oddly enough, this isn't said in an exactly friendly tone.

I knew immediately what was going on. I think I must have foreseen it when I stepped in the door to start with and no one was there and I knew better than to go further.

"Well good," I said, really not unkindly or argumentatively. It helps to know that you're in the right. I wasn't really worried about how it was all going to turn out. I was mostly concerned about getting things straightened out and getting back here to get to work. (This blog entry is therapy--a winding down.) "When they get here, we can all look at your security tapes together. You do have a security camera don't you?"

"Yes. We know we're missing a bottle."

Without commenting on whatever problems they were having accurately tracking their inventory, I went back to the camera. "Have you looked at your tapes? If you'll look at your tape, you'll see that I came in the door with that bottle of wine to exchange it. It's leaking. I expect it's probably corked." As I say this, I'm walking around the Jeep, getting the wine out of the front seat, and walking into the store. "If you'd simply waited inside, you'd have seen me come back, get the bottle out again, and walk into the store."

Inside the store, the woman alternates between ignoring me in favor of the one other customer they have and continuing to cast accusations my way.

"Well what did you run away so fast for?"

?? "I didn't run away. I put the bottle on the front seat of my Jeep so I wouldn't leave without remembering to try again, and I walked to King Sooper to do my grocery shopping. I didn't run anywhere, and I wasn't even going to drive away without coming in the store again."

"We're missing a bottle," she repeated.

"I can't help that. I paid for this one weeks ago. I brought it back to exchange because it's leaking. Here," I said, taking a business card from my wallet, "I'll go you one better than a license tag, here's my business card. Look at your tapes!"

The husband meanwhile, who has driven in from home, has verified that the bottle is, in fact, leaking and possibly corked. To him, the truth of the situation is fairly obvious. Who's going to enter a store, make a circuit of the place and abscond with a $4 bottle of wine, drop it in their vehicle parked by the front door, then walk away, shop for a while and return. He says as much. Adding that it makes sense to him. If I were going to steal something, I'd certainly have chosen something worthwhile. But the woman, meanwhile, is having none of it. I've been tried and convicted in her book, and if I'm not guilty of stealing the wine, then, I'm by God guilty of making her think I did.

"Why didn't you just wait?" she asked.

"Because I have things to do, and it was no trouble to go on and do my grocery shopping and return since you were obviously busy in the back somewhere. I called out twice. For that matter, why didn't you, just wait? If you'd waited inside the store for about half a minute, you'd have seen me return, retrieve the bottle and come in to try again. Or better yet," and this was truly the snippiest thing I said during the entire conversation, "if you'd been up here doing your job, none of this would have happened."

"I was using the bathroom."

"I understand. People have needs. But if you came out in time to see me put the bottle in the Jeep, then why didn't you come out the door and shout at me then?"

"You're much taller than I am. I came in and called him."

I kid you not. I was dumbstruck. A thousand witty things come to mind now, and even non-witty, frank questions, like, "Do I look like I go around beating up shop owners?" (I'm wearing jeans, suede Timberline loafers, and a white golf shirt today.) Or, "I'm taller than him too you know." I stood there. Speechless.

"Will you please look at the tapes? Are the police coming or not?" I'm hoping they are. I want to be there when she looks at the tapes and sees that I never got far enough in the door to take anything.

"No. I didn't call them. I didn't want to ruin anyone's day."

"Well this has clearly ruined yours."

"I'm fine."

"You don't seem fine. And the boss had to come in."

"For your information, this is my husband, not my boss."

"Clearly," on the inside. "Sorry," out loud, looking at her, but really meaning it for him.

At this point, the husband is apologizing as much as he dares. You can almost see the mental calculations going on. Piss off a customer vs piss off the wife. I'd have kissed the customer goodbye too. And I wasn't even pissed off. Anger germinates in fear, and I never really had anything to be afraid of here. Loss of time, maybe, waiting for the police to review the security tapes, but the truth of what was going on was too intuitively obvious to the husband to require that.

"I'm really sorry," he said at one point. "Before we put up the cameras, we were losing a lot of inventory."

"I understand," I said. "Believe me. I grew up in a grocery store in North Carolina. I completely understand." I was trying, really trying, to find some common ground here.

The rest of the conversation gets somewhat fuzzy. I can't remember exactly what it was she was saying that kept making it clear she just wanted me to leave and she didn't care if I ever came back. I kept trying to find some middle ground where we could all be friends again, but apparently, if shoplifting is a misdemeanor, not shoplifting but looking like you might have--even though you tried studiously to avoid that appearance--is an unforgivable felony.

Still, I'd rather be the guy wrongly accused than the guy who wouldn't hold the cross while she nailed me up. Even after all was said and done, it was clear she was still convinced she'd caught me red-handed trying to make off with a bottle of wine worth considerably less than a gallon of gas. Worst of all, now the husband was my accomplice. All her left over anger had to go somewhere. I should pick up a good Scotch later today (from somewhere else) and drop it off for him in a gift bag. I think he's gonna need it.