Swedish puzzles

I swear—moving hell just never ends.

I bought an IKEA six-drawer dresser a few weeks ago—I figured I might as well let the movers schlep it up to the third floor in flat packs and I’d put it together after I got in.

Well, that was the plan, anyhow.

I got the frame set up, finally. But when time came to assemble the drawers, I just lost the plot. And IKEA’s text-less “instructions” are about as much help as a chocolate teapot.

I’m just flummoxed. The bottom of the drawers doesn’t actually attach to anything. It slides into a groove at the front & back and that’s somehow supposed to keep it from sagging when you put all your socks in there. Then there are these white plastic screw-like things you’re supposed to somehow get into the sides and rear pieces. They’re screw-like, but there’s no slot or hatch on the head to insert a screwdriver.

And the text-less instructions only tell you you’ll need Phillips and slot screwdrivers and a hammer for the whole project. The particular picture just shows the screw-like things going magically into the holes.

I guess I’m going to have to make a run down to IKEA to see this thing on the hoof and try to extrapolate how I make it happen.

Meanwhile I have a bedroom full of IKEA pieces.

Deep joy.

Dem bones

If you’re looking for a return on your investment you might consider buying stocks in manufacturers of ibuprofen. I’ve been popping it like Pez ever since I moved into this three-story house from the single-story Rambler.

My right knee makes a crunching sound, like stepping on a bag of bran, whenever I go up stairs, which I do rather a lot—moving things from one floor to another. I saw some young woman out running today, with support bandages wrapped around her knees and I thought, “Hey, I want some of those!”

I’m hoping this is temporary—that it’ll wear off as I get used to being in multiple floors. When I moved to the UK and started driving a car with the floor shift on the left, my left shoulder got sore for a while with the unexpected workout. And when I returned here I had the same thing happen with my right shoulder until I got used to shifting with that arm. So I hope this is a similar situation.

But just in case, you should keep that ibuprofen shares thing in mind.

She's baaaack

Since one of my three readers has commented on the lack of posts, let me just say that I’ve been in hell. While I’m not entirely sure I’m out, at least I’m now at least crawling up the circles.

You see, I’ve been moving house. And for more than two weeks la Bas Bleu is just beat.

You may recall my last attempt to become a landholder in the Emerald City. It did not end well.

So every step of the way on this round I waited for various shoes to drop. And drop they did. The loan processor turned out to be working on her first actual, you know, loan to be processed with me. So I didn’t make the closing/signing date and had to sign papers the next day and then pick up the keys the next day.

There was a deal where the builder gave you money to put towards things like appliances and window treatments. I had to submit invoices for the items in question and the escrow company managed to overpay the appliance people.

Sears, the appliance people, could not manage to deliver the right refrigerator. I gave them three tries before finally going to a local store. The last straw was getting a call at 0700 last Saturday from someone in the delivery department to tell me, “Your refrigerator has a dent in it. Do you still want it?”

I’ve been in this place since 5 June.

(But what I loved was, after calling the store and trying to get it sorted, I finally got a call from someone named Charles in the “Customer Solutions” department. His solution? “You could go to the store and pick out something different, or you can wait until July 22 for us to deliver one.” Not my idea of a solution.)

I finally got my refrigerator Thursday. Now I’m trying to get the double charges for the appliances back from Sears. Any bets on how smoothly this process will go?

The only thing that went according to plan was the actual move. They showed up on time, loaded the trucks, unloaded and set stuff up here and were gone by 1400.

So I’ve been unpacking cartons for the past couple of weeks. Some of my things (including well over half my books) I haven’t seen for more than a year. I am finding damage done by the “professional” packer back in Virginia to my books, which I’ll bring to the attention of the adjustor. I couldn’t believe how many ways there are to ruin a book. Thank God I packed 40 cartons of them myself.

Now, of course, I have the fight with Seattle City Light, which despite its name is supposed to provide electricity, water, sewer and trash collection. I can’t tell you how many twilight zone conversations I’ve had with their representatives trying to get them to just set up a bloody account for me. The one this morning couldn’t tell me anything about the trash or when I might expect to receive bins (since nobody out here will pick up anything that’s not in an official bin). And when I asked her what I was supposed to be doing with my trash in the meantime, there was silence and then, “well, hold on to it.”

Next thing you know I’ll be hauled in for attracting rats and being a plague carrier.

Well, whatever. I’m in my brand new house. My cat will eventually come out from under the bed where she's been ever since the movers left. Whether or not I’m paying for water, I’m getting it. And the fridge has two bottles of bubbly in it.

My usual posts should resume shortly.

Brown the buffoon

Further to the imbroglio over Queen Elizabeth II not being invited to the “Franco-American” ceremonies marking the 65th Anniversary of the D-Day landings—it turns out that the French extended their invitation to Prime Minister Gordon Brown…who decided that he and he alone would represent Great Britain.

I can’t decide whether that decision marks the height of pettiness, hubris or utter stupidity, even for a pol. Probably all three and some other crap, besides.

Brown’s not been living the dream these past weeks. On his watch it was discovered that Members of Parliament have been hitting up the ratepayers for all sorts of dodgy expenses. Even though the pecadillos date back to long before he took over from Tony Blair, and even though MPs of all parties were dipping into public funds for yard work, non-existent mortgage payments and packets of crisps, he’s the one standing there looking like the village schmendrick, trying to decide where he might possibly find a high road to take, as his cabinet ministers are being forced to resign in disgrace.

So maybe he thought he could ride the wave of past glory and patriotism that the “big” anniversaries of things like D-Day or VE Day invoke in the collective memory. And he obviously didn’t want to share the stage with someone who far better represents that zeitgeist because she actually, you know, served in the war.

And also, she’s the, you know, head of state.

As it turns out, Gordo the Grifter would have been better off deferring to HM: he was booed by WWII British veterans, and then referred to the heroism 65 years ago at “Obama Beach.”

In the end, he grudgingly invited the Royals, and Prince Charles, God bless him, swallowed the insult and showed up and noblesse obliged. One thing those Royals do better than just about anybody is honour their military—you should go to a Remembrance Sunday service some time at the Cenotaph. The Queen Mum appeared practically until her death, and Charles’ generation take it every bit as seriously.

Whatever else you think about him, the man understands the concept of duty. I remember him at the ceremony transferring Hong Kong to the People’s Republic in 1997. He stood there in his uniform getting soaked by a torrential rain, just as stoic as a Roman centurion.

He had that look about him yesterday, as Brown strutted and stumbled like a third-rate vaudevillian.

The good news is that he probably won’t be around for the 70th Anniversary. Possibly not even for the 66th.

D plus 65

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy. D-Day.

If you’ve watched TV or read a newspaper, you’ll have seen the coverage. Those frail old men making the pilgrimage one final time to touch the sand of the beaches where they and their comrades swam and crawled and climbed through hell to start the juggernaut towards Germany from the French coast. They are fewer and fewer every year, but they keep coming back to honor those who never left Calvados.

There are three military cemeteries within a few kilometers of one another near Omaha Beach: Colleville-sur-mer, American; Bayeux, British; and La Cambe, German. I’ve walked them all, several times.

The American cemetery is situated on the bluff above Omaha Beach. You can stand at the edge and look down on the scene of the slaughter. And wonder how the hell they ever made it up to where you are. The graves are marked with white marble crosses, with the occasional Star of David interspersed. It’s quiet, usually, except for the wind. More than 9300 men lie there—not all fallen at Normandy, but congregated there in the fellowship of death.

The British cemetery, run by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, is in the heart of Bayeux, the town they took on 7 June. The headstones are like those at all CWGC graveyards—identically-sized slabs of white marble engraved with the soldier’s name, regiment and date of death (if known; otherwise a cross and “known but to God” inscribed); a centrally-located Cross of Sacrifice (tall marble cross with a sword inset), and a Stone of Remembrance, inscribed “Their Name Liveth Forevermore”. More than 4000 Brits, Commonwealth, Poles, French and others lie there.

La Cambe is outside Bayeux; you get to it down a quiet road that seems to have no other purpose but to lead you to the dead. The cemetery is maintained by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge, the German counterpart to the CWGC. It’s not as large space-wise as the two Allied graveyards. That’s because when you look at the inscriptions on the black metal markers set into the earth, you see there are often two to five men buried in a single spot. Plus, there are the nearly 300 known and unknown under the central mound. More than 21,000 men lie there.

The thing that struck me almost from the first in these three cemeteries was the ages on the markers—you almost never see anyone who’d reached 24. Most were in the 19-22-year age range. When you’d expect them to be in college, or working their first jobs.

I’ve often wondered what the world lost through those early deaths. What music never was composed? What scientific breakthroughs never made? What civic gains, feats of sportsmanship, family enrichment just disappeared from the future in June 1944?

That, of course, is in addition to the anguish and sorrow that engulfed their families. Parents, siblings, wives, children—bereft and left alone to sort out a world gone mad. No one to repair the gutter or fix the bike; to guide a grandchild’s hands tying a bow knot; to comfort a friend; to surprise a lover with flowers.

It had to be done—it always seems to need doing. But take a few moments this weekend to think on those 30,000 lives cut short in Normandy 65 years ago. The boys of D-Day who put their lives on the line for their generation and those that followed.

Signs of the times

This droll visual commentary came through the email & I tracked it down on the Net to share with you.

I must say it’s an extremely good use of graphics software. &, sadly, all too true in our current economy.

A modest proposal for GM

As you’d expect, Michael Moore has a few things to say about the state of GM. The filmmaker/whackjob (depending on your level of investment in corporate propaganda) who made Roger and Me 20 years ago to document GM’s catastrophic oblivion to the world immediately about it, thinks we all lose if the bankruptcy just allows the company to keep on keeping on (albeit on a smaller scale), seeing as to how “keeping on” has caused far more damage to our society than just making cars people really don’t like.

Growing up in LA, I was told that before WWII there was a nice system of light rail electric transport to get people around the area. Post-war, the oil and auto companies (GM in particular) lobbied heavily that the city should replace that “old-fashioned” system with nice, new, gas-burning buses. And that’s what they did.

And between the buses and the 12,437,677 cars on the roads, it became damned near impossible to get from here to there even on brand-new freeways. And LA for decades wore the crown of the smog capital of the country. (Growing up, I can well recall that painful limit on the depth of breaths you could take in the summer, when smog filled your lungs and; burned your eyes.)

Moore has some suggestions about what the bankruptcy executives could do with GM's remaining resources that don't involve continuing to build internal-combustion cars with the old GM mindset of tail-fins and planned obsolescence.

In general I agree with Moore.

But, as with Roger, probably no one involved in the GM bankruptcy will pay any attention.

Plus ça change…

Motor City's burning

As has been expected for the last 60 days, GM filed for bankruptcy this morning. It was an electronic procedure, almost automated. & the American taxpayers just as automatically forked over another $30B to tide the behemoth over through the expected 60- to 90-day Chapter 11 period.

That’s in addition to the $20B we’ve already flushed down this particular sewer line.

Chrysler, the other automotive welfare mother, has been authorized by its own bankruptcy judge to sell its assets to Fiat. That deal doesn’t involve any real cash, just a promise by Fiat to build cars people will actually buy.

Quelle idée.

People have been watching the Chrysler process to predict what type of bankruptcy we can expect from GM. But the Fiat deal was already circling the body in the water before Chrysler filed, and there’s no one in sight except the US taxpaying chumps for infusing billions into a company that’s shown again and; again that it can’t or won’t reorganize its way out of a paper bag.

So it’s going to be a long, hot summer.

Looking in the rear-view mirror

As we wait for GM to announce its descent into bankruptcy, P.J. O’Rourke drives a big car with fins down memory lane for the WSJ.

It doesn’t entirely resonate with me, but I’m sure it represents the Y-chromosome set's attachment to American cars. And it does touch on the massive post-WWII changes in the American national landscape wrought by the auto industry.

You can certainly see it in any housing built after around 1950: there’s always a carport or garage, and usually it’s the first thing you see when you drive up to a residence. Which veritably screams, “We’ve got wheels!”

(Don’t get me wrong—I’m an LA native and where my car goes is pretty much as important to me as whether the place has indoor plumbing. And when I was looking for a house in Seattle I reconciled myself to the fact that there isn’t going to be any street parking for guests because so many of the houses were built in the expectation that no one would have cars, much less three per household, so the curbs are chockablock with residents’ SUVs and Lexuses.)

I myself never owned anything with more than four cylinders, although the vehicle has to be equipped with a sun roof. (A fact that stymied the car dealer in Wales: “But, madam, you’re in the UK!”) Well—and it does need to possess scoot; I’d never drive a Saab without the turbo charge.

But I take O’Rourke’s point: just as Gen-Yers grew up never knowing existence without PCs and video games, I cannot imagine a world without cars, highways and assigned parking spaces. (In my recent house-hunting forays there were townhouses I rejected because it was impossible to get the car into the attached garage.) Even in London that was one of the absolutes of finding a flat.

We’ll see in the next quarter whether GM emerges from its self-inflicted time of trial. But the era O’Rourke reminisces about is definitely long gone.

Code of honor

We’ve lost two important pieces of history this week: two of the Navajo Code Talkers have died.

Brown Jr. John, 88, last of the original group of Code Talkers died at his home in Crystal, N.M. He volunteered for the Marines & wasn’t told that he’d be part of the secret communications group until he started Boot Camp. Thomas Claw, 87, died of cancer in Prescott, Ariz.

Both men left families & a legacy of service to a country that didn’t always do right by their people.

Code Talkers were stationed around the Pacific Theatre to foil Japanese attempts to crack Allied communications. Navajos were picked because the language is extremely complex & almost impossible to learn unless you’re immersed in it from birth. But they didn’t just speak Navajo; they added another layer of confusion for cryptologists by assigning code words for military discussions. “Tortoise”, for example, represented a tank; “potato” a hand grenade.

After the war, Code Talkers returned to civilian life & were told not to speak of their service. The project wasn’t declassified until 1968.

Some Code Talkers were captured by the Japanese & tortured to reveal the code. None gave it up.

With John & Claw our connection to that story & to the concept of dedicated service without expectation of high reward has been diminished. Consider that on 14 August, which is “Navajo Code Talkers Day” in the US.