If the skirt fits

Text conversation with R. in the middle of the day today:

R:  During passing period, I asked Ms X [student teacher] if she was wearing a skirt or a kilt, and she took 5 points off my participation grade.

Me:  Oh, R.  Next time, could you just assume it's a skirt?  [I say this because I know how important it is to him that we use language precisely.   He's not just being a smart ass, language really does matter to him.]

R:  Easier said than done, Mom.  The item is plaid.

The Office

If you're new to this story, it might make more sense if you read these first:

Something fishy 
Work work work work work
If I were any happier, I'd need medication
Weird out

Yesterday, I decided to pretend I work in a Toyota factory, where we’re all about teamwork, and if I have a problem, I go directly to management, who fixes things right away.

I was trying to print stuff out in color because it was a bunch of maps that really need color to be useful. As usual, the computer took 10 minutes to send the stuff, and then 15 minutes after that, I started getting the vague error message, “Failed to print”, but it pops up 15 times, because that’s how many things I’d sent, interrupting everything else I was trying to do. So I walk over to the printer, and notice it’s turned off. I move to turn it on, and someone stops me, oh no. Don’t touch that.

But it’s the only color printer in the building.

Yep.

I go to my boss in the Toyota factory. “S., production has stopped. We need a color printer, right away.”

“Betsy, I’m going to forward you an e-mail from Mr. Tree Planter. Could you draft a response for me please?”

“I think I got that e-mail already.”

“No, it’s only to me.”

“I was bcc’d.”

“Really? That’s weird. Are you sure it’s the same one?”

“I think so. The one where he mis-spelled “potpourri?”

“Out of that whole 3,000 word disturbing diatribe, what you take from it is that one misspelling?

“S., come on. 'Popery?' Who would do that? This is the guy who’s calling me average, I’d like to point out.”

“I see your point.”

My other point is one that you might be wondering about: why does the word potpourri even come up in an e-mail that’s about the restraining order he’s gotten on his neighbor, and the fact that County staff aren’t qualified medical professionals but suspect mental illness, and the disturbing red string that’s been tied around some of the trees, and so on. Yes, exactly.

The word “speedo” also comes up in this story, because the woman who the restraining order was about (would she be the “restrainee?”) came in to see me last week bringing dozens of 8 x 10 glossy photographs of All Things Nature, including a hawks soaring, salmon swimming, and her neighbor in a speedo and boots holding a canister of what one would assume is some sort of herbicide. Let me just say for once and for all, no one wants to see anyone in a speedo.

"How about that printer, S.?"

He laughs. "Yeah, I'll get right on that."

Anyway, leaving shortly to meet those people again today. I do hope there are no speedos involved.

Dog party

A friend was mildly complaining about, or maybe a more accurate word would be commenting on, a birthday party that her pre-school children were invited to, and seeking ways to get out of it that wouldn't hurt anyone's feelings.  This, because the mother of the birthday girl is friends with the owner of a pet cemetery, and the party will be held at the cemetery.  But that's not all.  There's also a dog therapy pool; party guests are asked to bring their own dogs, and the children and pets will all swim together in the dog therapy pool.

I can totally understand why the prospect of plopping her not-strong-swimmer 3 and 5 year-old children into a pool with large dogs, urine of all varieties, dog hair, and whatever else, isn't her favorite idea.

"But think of the blog," I pleaded. 

After a tiny bit of discussion, she finagled an invitation for me, and told the hostess we would drop by briefly, pay respects to the dead and living animals and the birthday girl, and maybe make a donation to the cemetery foundation.  I don't think we'll be swimming, but still, I can hardly wait.

Waterboarding before burger

There's an article in the NYT this morning about slaughterhouses, which I find interesting because we're trying to permit one right now, and it's complicated.  Government is good at dealing with routine stuff,  but if you propose something unique, like a bed and breakfast where the sleeping will occur in a series of treehouses, or a mobile slaughter house, where a truck will drive around and kill animals at their own pasture, government stumbles, because it takes a while to figure out what the impacts and safety issues are, and how these one-off things fit under the regulations.

The article is about how the demand for local meat has increased, but the shortage of slaughterhouses makes it difficult to meet.  (Aren't you glad I stopped myself from saying, 'difficult to meat?  I know.)  What struck me is this sentence about the situation in Vermont:  "Two slaughterhouses recently closed, one destroyed by fire, and the other shuttered because of animal cruelty charges."

Um, a slaughterhouse being cruel to animals?  What could they possibly be doing to deserve that?  At first it seems ridiculous, like, hello, their point is to kill the animals.  So I did a little research, and it turns out that there are some really warped, cruel people out there who enjoy torturing the animals before killing them.  That is really, really sad.

Art Show

Some art from the W'ville art show.

Fish, by the lovely S.U.,

and yoyo art by my own little R. who isn't so little.

The animals, bald eagle and some sort of feline were created by preschoolers that I don't know, and I just really liked them.

guns and roses

I try to do my job and not think too much about all of the material it generates, but there are points during the day when I want to just ask if its okay if I take some notes, or use a tape recorder so I get it right.  Because the truth is stranger, and sometimes a little bit sadder than fiction.

I visited side-arm man the other day, the guy whose parcel has a pop-up attached to it, “Do not visit without police escort!” because he’s threatened to shoot County staff who come onto his property.  We didn’t bring the police, but there were three of us, a goofy engineer, an oddball grading reviewer, and me. 

The man seemed like one of the sadder, lonelier examples of the species.  Maybe a hard-living 65, or a more typical 75, hard to tell for sure.  His problem, well, one of his problems, is that he brought many truckloads of fill and several shipping containers onto his property; it’s all in the floodplain and the stream buffer. Floodplain stuff is always the hardest, because people often have a legitimate fear/need, and dealing with it the way they want to usually isn’t allowed.  But there’s certain flexibility for farmers, since valleys are the best place to farm.

“So, what kind of farming are you doing here?”

“We run a five day thing here.  It used to be that when I’d get home from work at the shipyard, my wife would be out on the tractor, cutting the lawn, and she’d give me a big smile and wave, and keep at it.  I’d know what she’d been doing all day.  She died, though.”

“So, would you describe your farming as cutting hay?”  I was hoping there was something we could say yes to, because it always goes better that way.

“Yeah, this place looks just like a golf course the way we keep it up.  Friends come by and say, ‘Wow, this place looks like a golf course.’"

I looked around and thought, yes, it looks exactly like a golf course, if someone had stopped mowing it about three years ago, and mountain beavers had moved in and created hummocks everywhere, and rather than Kentucky bluegrass, it was quack grass and orchard grass, and blackberries had started to sprout, and a flood came through delivering out all kinds of garbage, random pieces of metal, stray boards, and semi-useful items like a mildewed dog kennel.  That’s the kind of golf course it looked like. 

“So, do you do any farming?”

“I’ve got this waffle table for welding.  Can I show that to you?  I really like it when women come out here.  It’s good to have a woman around.  My wife died three years ago, and I don’t see many women since then.”

We walk over to a pile of what I might have called junk, and he rummaged through it for a minute, kicked some dirt away with his redwing boot, and exposed a section of a steel board that was stamped out like a large waffle iron.

“Yup, I’m gonna’ get this set up for welding pretty soon.  I just need to see if my engines still work since the flood, and I haven’t had a chance yet.”

I think back to the flood that was almost a year and a half ago, and realize he’s not in a big hurry to check on those engines.  I start spacing out for a minute, and think back to the conversation I had with my boss before I left when he called me into his office. 

“Are you okay, Betsy?”

“Sure, I’m solid.”

“Okay, I’m just checking, because you’ve gotten more than your share of angry people lately.  And now with B. talking about the tea party all day, and leaving tea bags on your desk and everything.  Are you good to go see that guy today?”

This is why we like our boss so much.  He’s decent to the core.  I started to wonder if I told him about my little melt down at the DMV, (which isn’t the kind you’d think).  I had to go back about six times to get R’s car title transferred, because I didn’t have the proper signatures from the seller, who I had to hunt down through his suspicious sister, and I didn’t have the right amount of cash, and I didn’t have the odometer reading, and so on.  So I spent a bunch of time there, and kept getting the same employee, who was totally professional and kind to everyone all day. 

When I finally completed my transaction, I told her I thought she was really good at her job, but for some reason, I sort of started crying just a tiny, tiny bit when I said it, causing her to look at me with a mix of concern, fear, and gratefulness.  I think she was happy to be appreciated, but a bit freaked out at the same time, like, nice, but where are we going with this, which seems like a normal response, don’t you think? Which is exactly my point about her.

It was just that she was just really courteous and trying her best to be a kind human interface between the frustrated people and the giant bureaucracy, and I could relate to that, so for a second I felt a little kindredness, and was touched by it all.  

"Yeah, totally good.  Thanks for asking.”

“You know, don’t let B. get you down.  He’s just messing with you.  You’re right to remain hopeful.”

At this point, B. walks in.  “What’s going on?”

“B, sit down for a minute.  I was just telling Betsy that there is hope, and it’s worthwhile to behave as if things can get better, and to work toward that.”

“Um, right.  I don’t really see that, but whatever.  We’re all just out for ourselves, when it comes down to it.  We’re a greedy, self-serving species.”

B. and I replay a tired old argument about altruism that we’ve had over and over for years, and the boss interjects. “I have great hope for the green revolution, and we can place a lot of hope in technology.”

B. comments, “Yeah, it does make porn easier to access, I’ll give you that.”

The boss looks super uncomfortable, and B. elaborates.  “Betsy, remember about my uncle?"

And I do remember, his uncle died alone in a mobile home in Roswell, NM, one of  those people who probably thought way too much about alien corpses, and then was dead for days before anyone noticed.  When B. went down to take care of stuff, he found the mobile home littered with porn, and made the comment, “Dialup was really his only problem.  If he had a high-speed connection, his life would have been golden.  Not to mention that cleanup woulda’ been easier.”

I return to the present, and notice that the men are all talking about the winch that is laying amidst all of the other stuff on the pile of unconsolidated fill.  The engineer is in the middle of a long story about winches, how he bought three and gave one to his nephew, blah di blah blah, and I think again how really, I don’t know what people are talking about half the time, and that seems a little sad.  They’re talking about a winch, and I know what that is, but I don’t see anything in the debris that looks like a winch, and the way they’re talking, it seems like there’s more to it than I understand.  I’m picturing sort of a thing with a crank on it that you’d attach to a truck, but it seems different than that.

“Betsy, we think you need a MacDonald 225.  You could crank that thing all the way up and it would take you four days to go a mile, but you could be dragging a 747 behind you.”

I’m really not sure what’s going on, or what a MacDonald 225 is, so I do that, “let’s summarize” thing that government people get good at.

“It sounds like what you’re interested in is putting a large berm around your property to protect it from flood waters, and fill some other areas to store some of this….” I pause, looking for the right word.

The grading guy pipes in, “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”

And sidearm guy is quick to say, “Hey, nothing here is junk.  Let’s get that straight.  You know, I’m a Harley guy, and maybe it’s because I ride a Harley, or maybe it’s how I look, but I have a cylindar that I attached to my bike that I carry one rose in, for my wife.  She died, you know, and it’s a bear.  But people see me and assume that it’s a holster for a gun.  I could use it for that.  Did you know I pack my own lead shot?  It’s really nice to have a woman come out here.  That doesn’t happen very often.  I need a place to park my wife's car during a flood.  I don't know what else to do with it.  Will you be coming back?”

“Could we go back to your farming plans?  Do you do anything here that could be considered farming?”

“You know, my wife and I found this place, we both grew up in abuse and ugliness, me in the projects in Oakland, and her in Denver.  And we found this place, and we love it here.  We’ve had dogs, and one time we had a pig….”

He goes on for a while, talking about animals he’s had and known, and heartbreakingly, talking about his wife in the present tense.  We finally wrap it up, and start to get in our three separate vehicles (I know!), when he notices that the enginer has a fancy jeep with a flood light. 

“Oh, how do you turn that on?”

“It’s got a remote.”

“Hey, I’m a taxpayer.  So that’s my jeep!  Can I turn on the light?”

The engineer hands him a remote, and the boys play with it for a while, making it shine in different directions, and being super thrilled about it, which I have trouble understanding, but find kind of sweet just the same. 

And on it goes.  Thanks for reading.

Worry, me?

Going to visit this guy today.  "He probably won't bring the sidearm out with you," is what I am thinking about this morning.