The sound of flowing water

Good news: the Hungarian invasion is over, and I have three new faucets and a shower head. Massive relief all around.

The major issue was the kitchen faucet, which (as you’ll recall) required the two Magyars uninstalling and reinstalling the dishwasher. Good thing, too, as the drain hose that was there was looping all over the place (in addition to being too small), causing the motor to work extra hard.

But it’s so nice not having the sink top all cluttered up with an extra hose (my new faucet is all-in-one) and the dishwasher drain thing. Also nice that two lav faucets don’t leak, and the shower is more 21^st Century rather than 20^th.

Overall, it took Mr. Hungary three trips to Home Depot, and me holding my tongue as he assured me that Ashburn is so much better than other areas in Fairfax and Loudoun counties because "no ghettos". That would be Magyar code for "whites only". 

Glad to have it over.

A prince of a guy

This NPR story came across my Twitter feed, about the death of Prince Henrik of Denmark. Henrik, husband-consort of Queen Margrethe, was 83 and had apparently been in poor health. He and Margrethe were married for more than 50 years, so I’m guessing she (and their family) are having a rough Valentine’s Day, even if the end was expected.

But here’s what I find interesting: a good chunk of this story (admittedly from a US media outlet) gives the impression that—whatever his other stellar qualities—Henrik apparently had a 50-year case of the sulks over his title and status. He wanted to be styled King Consort, instead of Prince Consort, which would have given him a place in the succession to the throne. (Although I do not know what that place would have been—ahead/behind of Margrethe’s siblings, their children, or her cousins and her aunts. And, tbh, I don’t care enough to look it up. I’m an American.)

I'm wracking my brain trying to hawk up an instance more recent than Maria Theresia of Austria where the consort of an anointed queen (or in MT’s case, empress) got the title of King, but I’m coming up dry. (And Franz I came into the marriage as Holy Roman Emperor, so it was more an instance of him keeping it. Franz also pretty much kept shtum and let Maria Theresia run the family business, which was smart of him.)

In soon-to-be-not-part-of-Europe Britain, Victoria and Albert got miffed when Parliament wouldn’t grant him the title King Consort, but he, at least, got over it. Anne’s consort was a Danish Prince, George; he was not made King. Not sure that the prospect of king-hood ever cropped up in the case of Elizabeth II’s Prince Philip. If it did, it long since disappeared.

(Okay, up the pike a bit, when Lord Charles Darnley married Mary, Queen of Scots, he did get the title King Consort. But it was short-lived, and didn’t do him much good. Also, for about 27 minutes, Philip II of Spain was married to Mary I of England, and during that period, he did have the title of King of England, and he co-reigned with her as Catholic monarchs. However, at her death, he had no succession rights, and Elizabeth I took over and returned the country to Protestantism.)

In Spain we had los Reyes Católicos—Ferdinand and Isabella. But they were independently co-equal monarchs, bringing into the marriage the provinces of Aragón (him) and Castilla (her). It was equal parts marriage and merger. It’s always good for a woman to have sovereign possession of valuable property; it concentrates the male brain somewhat. (Thinking Éléanore, Duchess of Aquitaine, who inherited a vast swath of what we now think of as France. She first took it to Louis VII of France, but when they divorced, it went with her to Henry II of England. She was queen-consort to both kings, and wielded considerable power as Queen dowager after Henry’s death, while Richard I was off at the Crusades. Éléanore was a dame.)

The husbands of the most recent reigning queens of the Netherlands, Wilhelmina, Juliana and Beatrix, all sucked up the titles of Prince Consort (although, tbf, I think most of them came into the family business as princes, so it was more or less of a muchness).

Juliana’s husband, Prince Bernhard, actually had A Past: a German prince, he met Juliana (while she was still a princess) at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. He’d been a (Nazi) Party member, and served in the Reiter-SS (an SS cavalry brigade). However, when push came to shove and then turned to invasion, Bernhard earned respect and admiration amongst the Dutch by organizing armed defenses against the Germans while still in the Netherlands, and then by serving Queen Wilhelmina’s government-in-exile in London. When he accepted the surrender of German forces in 1945, he spoke only Dutch to them. That’s class.

And I don’t know about Sweden or Norway, but I’m guessing that if there are reigning queens, their husbands don’t get to use the K-word.

So it’s kind of interesting that Henrik just couldn’t get over it. My Danish friend, the Viking Maiden, says, “The Danes had a hard time getting used to him, but because our Princess/Queen loved him they gave him the benefit of doubt. The queen is very much loved.” He was a Frenchman by birth, so I dunno if that has anything to do with it. The French are big on airs and graces.

Okay, but here’s the thing. Why does this issue of title and succession for the spouse only ever arise when the consort has the XY chromosome configuration? Not that I’m a student of monarchies (aside from how they fit into history in general), but there has never ever been a question of a woman marrying a reigning monarch (or the crown prince) having any succession rights. She almost always gets the title of queen, but everyone knows that she’s there to do two things: look nice at court functions and produce heirs. Male heirs.

Men marrying into the family business, on the other hand, get ideas above their station, and seem to assume that of course they’ll be given equal status with their wives, even though they may have only a glancing acquaintance with the business and are frequently brought in from other countries. They don’t seem to grasp that their role, in this admittedly anachronistic line of work, is exactly the same as the queen-consort’s: to look good standing next to the queen, and produce heirs. Male or female heirs.

(Franz I gave Maria Theresia 16 children, which was really a stellar effort, I’d say. Way above the customary heir and a spare. They were none of them 18^th Century equivalents of rocket scientists, but that’s not part of the job description. Royal heirs just have to have a pulse and not drool a whole awful lot. Extra points if they’re good looking, but as long as they look enough like their parents to not draw questions, they’ve fulfilled their obligations.)

That’s it, folks; that’s the whole purpose of the consort: complement the monarch during photo ops, don’t eat with your mouth open (in fact—in general be very careful when you open your mouth; a duty Prince Philip ought to have reread every once in a while) and ensure the line of succession.

Henrik might have been a happier guy if he’d taken this on board. He did fulfill the responsibilities of Prince Consort of Denmark—he’s survived by two adult sons, in addition to the Queen, and photos show him to have been quite the good looker. Also, he made wine at his French estates. Seems like a pretty good life to me.

Pancakes and ashes

Man, how time flies, eh? Last year on Shrove Tuesday, I was sat in a meeting with representatives of an organization that gives out awards that are nearly ten times the monetary value of Nobel Prizes ($3MM, as opposed to approximately $350,000) in physics, life sciences and mathematics; wearing business clothes and trying not to crunch my potato chips too loudly. (Where were you in my time of need, Pepsico?)

It was an odd get-together, but the part that’s stuck with me was when our colleague in Switzerland, who was calling into the meeting starting at 1800 CET mentioned that he was missing Pancake Day with his little boy for it. And my manager did not know what Pancake Day is.

I didn’t want to wax theological for someone who doesn’t care about it, but I’ve been thinking about it over the past week—the last hurrah before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Pancake Day is when you use up the last of the fats (including eggs; ergo the perfection of pancakes) in your kitchen, preparing for the lean days of Lent. Mardi Gras (literally, “Fat Tuesday”) and Carnival are different—some might say excessive—expressions of this idea; drink yourself stupid and go crazy so you hit Ash Wednesday with a monumental hangover and a properly penitential demeanor.

At the moment, I’m less interested in Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras/Pancake Day than I am with what I view as the opportunity that Lent presents to cleanse my spirit, reflect, discern and distil my current place in life, what I have to contribute, and how I might pull it all together. I feel like I’ve got myself into a muddle, so it’s going to take an effort to find my way out of it.

I’m hoping 40 days and 40 nights will be enough.

Lemon crush

Even if we’re not experiencing typical February temps hovering around freezing (it’s supposed to be 71 bleeding degrees tomorrow, for crying out loud), I’m keeping my potted garden inside.

My two surviving herbs—rosemary and parsley—are producing nicely for various meals, and I have hopes for the gardenia. That one gave me a few flowers last summer when it was out on the patio, and I fancy I see the start of more that will come out this year.

However, the one I’m really, really praying for is the dwarf Meyer lemon. I grew up with a lemon tree (and an avocado, and a plum and a persimmon, although that one I loathed) in our back yard, and it’s burnt my bacon ever since I moved out and had to pay for lemons at the supermarket. We used to harvest the lemons (which I recall were a year-round crop) and squeeze the juice into ice cube trays. Even when we didn’t have lemons, we had juice by the bagful.

Even in the Valley They Call Silicon, it was possible to scrump lemons off front-yard trees as you walked past, so coming back to the District They Call Columbia brought me back into citrus sticker shock. So I bought a dwarf lemon. I’d have preferred Eureka, but by the time a mail-order nursery had totally screwed up, I had to take what I could get from Merrifield Gardens.

So I nursed it through one cycle of blossoms last summer, but no fruit. Then a second in late autumn, apparently ditto. So imagine my excitement when, a few weeks ago, I noticed little green nobs that might be proto-lemons.

At this point, there are three, recognizable lemons, and I am reveling in anticipatory joy.

I’m not seeing full ice cube trays of lemon juice in my immediate future. But I am so looking forward to the idea of having the makings of homemade lemonade, lemon-roasted chicken, limoncello, lemon curd, Pavlovas…

And I’m going to check out dwarf limes and orange trees, too.

Gratitude Monday: the insight of rain

A rather nice change from the bone-rattling cold we’ve been experiencing here in the District They Call Columbia—we’ve had several days of rain. Rain means the temperature is above freezing; I like above freezing. It’s especially nice because it hasn’t hit at a time when I had to remember to carry an umbrella with me to work. (In all the years I’ve lived outside of California, I’ve still never got into the habit of walking out of the house armed with rain gear.)

Yesterday morning, I was listening to a piece by Pleyel on WETA, when I looked up and saw something rather more than “rain”, however. More like “downpour”. Viz.:

At one point you can hear some of the nature drowning out Pleyel.

As I watched it chucking it down I was struck by a sense of gratitude that I was safely inside my own home, dry and with the thermostat set to 73°, on a day off work where all I had to do was tidy up a week’s worth of paper accumulation and plan for the workweek ahead. Laundry done, dishwasher running, food in the fridge, a job for the moment and bills paid. And from that place of security I could watch the deluge with the kind of fascination that only a native Californian can feel.

I am not comparatively grateful for this, only grateful in comparing the blessings I enjoy against those who are homeless, hungry, jobless, struggling. I do not say, “Well, at least I’m not…” Because that’s not real gratitude to my mind, only considering your condition of comfort in relationship to others less well off. That’s a form of schadenfreude, and I see way too much of it in the world around me.

No, I am just grateful that my little place of security allows me to take pleasure in things like my birds at the feeders and the wonder of a rainstorm.

Sadly, standard

Since moving into my house a year ago, I’ve found another category of humanoid with the same work ethic, honesty and communication skills as recruiters.

Yes, I’m talking about contractors—those who can make repairs and improvements in your living space.

Finding contractors who combine competency in their declared area of expertise with reliability and accuracy is like finding a purple squirrel. You either go to Yelp or you ask your friends for recommendations, but even then it’s problematic.

I learned within the first couple of months here to ignore any of the names given me by my realtor: his plumbing firm came out twice; each time there were “lady, you should get this done” sizeable additions to the final invoice. And of the two handymen he recommended, one never responded at all to my call, and the other kept insisting on texting me even after I told him repeatedly that texting is not how I communicate. His estimate was also quite vague.

I lucked out on the electricians, whom I found via a neighborhood social media platform, Nextdoor.com. Every person I’ve dealt with at Autumn Electric has been professional, competent and good at explaining things to me. Plus—they clean up after their work. They didn’t give the lowest estimate, but I’ve had them out for two rounds of remediation work, and I’ll happily call on them for the improvements, too.

I just wish they did plumbing, too. Because I’m back on the grrr corner. I’ve called a total of six providers, four from Nextdoor and two recommended by friends.

Of the Nextdoor crowd, two flat out refused to come out to look at the job, and gave me estimates over the phone, based on hearing “replace a kitchen and two bathroom faucets”. I don’t do business without a written estimate, and I’m extremely uncomfortable with someone tossing one out without actually seeing what the issues are. So they got scratched straight away.

One came out, looked around and gave me a quote. He’d put himself forward on Nextdoor as being “cheap”, which isn’t necessarily a positive. Moreover, I gotta say that I had to air out the house after he left because the stench of cigarette smoke he exuded like to knocked me out. I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of him being around for hours in somewhat small spaces.

The fourth is someone I’ve used before. I found him agonizingly slow, although thorough, and he had to go out three times to Home Depot because he only completely scoped out what parts would be needed for the job immediately in front of him, not once for everything on his list. Still—thorough and competent. Although I got a little tired of him talking about Hungary, the paradise of the universe. (His parents brought him here when he was a boy; they’ve since returned and he goes “home” once a year, where he gets another injection of nationalism.) Dude—do not wave that flag in front of someone who’s ingested the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, interbellum Europe and nation-state Nazi collaborators.

He came out, did a thorough assessment, and pointed out that if I want to attach the dishwasher drain directly to the garbage disposal, he’ll have to uninstall and reinstall it, because it’s using the wrong size/type line (half-inch copper instead of three-quarter inch flex). Well, no one else had mentioned that, so I thought about it and put out a call to friends for recos.

Enter the last two. One joined the ranks of don’t-need-no-stinkin’-visit-to-quote, but embellished it by being rude, condescending and insulting. He quoted his rates ($110 for the first 75 minutes; $15 for each quarter hour thereafter), and tossed out what he thought it would take to replace a standard faucet. I asked what his definition of standard is, and he gave me a brand name (Moën, if you’re interested), not a description (center-set, single-hole, widespread, for starters). He then dissed the replacements I’ve already bought (“Take it back and get a Moën.”). When I suggested that there might be special circumstances, he reverted to his rates again, only very slowly.

Again—nothing in writing, incomplete assessment of the jobs to be done and the very real possibility that his upfront laziness could end up costing me a lot on the backend. Plus—in a free market, there are many plumbers out there who aren’t jerks to the customers’ faces. So he’s dismissed with prejudice.

The final outfit were quite professional, showing up in an extremely gaudy panel truck. They took a look at the kitchen sink, and were marking it down on their estimator app when I drew their attention to the dishwasher drain line issue. Oh. Well. Yeah—wrong size/type. Have to disconnect and reinstall. Okay, fine. But then they didn’t bother to look at the bathrooms because “they’re all standard.”

I got their app-generated estimate, but honestly: what kind of estimate doesn’t have a total? And there was only one bathroom faucet listed, not the two. Again—it’s an app; you couldn’t click on the function that indicates the number of instances, and the function that totals it all up?

So I called Mr. Hungary, and get this: he’s not sure when he can come do it. I gave him a three-day window next week, but… (He runs a renovation company and does this on the side.) Dude—you bid on the job, WTF?

Well, I just stayed quiet, and eventually he thought he might be able to do it next Thursday. Send thoughts and prayers for me, readers. I want the new faucets.

Innovate this!

As you know, I’m fascinated by how people present themselves on social media, particularly on Twitter. Those who are legends in their own misspelt minds, click follow only so they can spam you with system-generated DMs, or just go straight for the money shot in their profile.

And then there are those who—having found tweets they think are clever, or profound (in a fortune-cookie kind of way), or pithy—use some third-party app to keep flinging them out to the Twitterverse.

I follow a woman (she followed me first; at some time I must have looked at her profile and decided she did not appear to be a pornographer, RWNJ or someone eager to sell me thousands of Twitter followers, so I followed her back) who’s a prime example of this. Here’s a sample of the type of thing she tweets:

Your basic corporate platitudes. Well, earlier this week, I was scrolling through my feed and stopped at this:

My first thought was, “Well, that’s a complete crock of moose milk. Yeah, we want people to acknowledge our ideas. But one splendid form of recognition is monetary, particularly when our ideas bring in vast sums of money to the corporation. Giving us an attaboy when we’ve favorably affected the bottom line is a sure-fire way to find your innovators jumping ship, you cheap-ass skinflints.”

My second thought was, “Hey—I’ve seen this before, because it sparked the same response then.”

I don’t think I necessarily twigged that it was this woman who’d done it, but I went to her page and started scrolling. Sure enough, in addition to Tuesday, she’d spewed this recipe for a decline in morale and innovation on:

2 February

30 January

26 January

25 January*

23 January

19 January

16 January

12 January

9 January

5 January*

1 January

*On these occasions the message was slightly varied:

As though “a study”—an anonymous study—is any kind of validation. Also—she obviously doesn’t read her little platitudes before she clicks the Tweet button. (Or, perhaps she’s just not very sure about the construction of simple English sentences.)

Interspersed with that little gem were others similar to it—also repeated ad nauseam.

Well, at this point, I looked at her actual profile, and all became clear:

“Head of Global Executive Talent” for Cisco is the antithesis of an innovative mindset. Also, 5846 tweets in nine years. I’m betting that there are actually fewer than 200 unique tweets. She’s just recycled them 300 times each.

Thank God for the mute button.

Setting expectations

As I’ve mentioned, my gig until the end of June is to produce a business plan for a new-ish service for my company. Toward that end, I’ve put together a project plan, breaking down all the goals and deliverables in a multi-page schedule. It’s a straightforward plan—a matrix of deliverables, due dates, components, information sources, dependencies, comments, approving authority and completion dates. I’ve also got a fistful of assumptions, resources and constraints, because I want to be clear that I’m not pulling any of this stuff out of the ether, and that Stuff Happens. I’m just laying out what some of that Stuff might be.

It's called managing expectations.

It’s not the most sophisticated thing—it’s in Word, not even Excel, much less Project. But it’s easier for me to work with it in this application, and since I’m the sole actor in this project, I don’t see why I should have to wrestle with Excel, or try to get IT to buy Project (and then try to learn how to use it). After all—I’ve only got until June to deliver a business plan.

One of the milestones was to have said project plan reviewed and approved by today, so I sent out a draft version (with DRAFT watermarked on each of the 12 pages) on Friday. My former manager had already given me his input, so the only thing I needed was feedback from my new manager, which she returned over the weekend.

With two exceptions, all her comments were regarding the content of milestones/deliverables—i.e., she was not responding to the elements of the project plan, but to what I speculated will be elements of the business plan. (The business plan is the end result of the activities outlined in the project plan, which is how I propose to produce that end result.)

I puzzled over those comments for a while on Monday. Then I wandered into my former manager’s office and asked, “Is the concept of a project plan new to this organization?” He replied, “Yes. Yours is the first one anyone here has ever seen.”

Huh.

Well, I don’t know whether to be amused or dismayed by this. On the one hand, no one’s going to be peering over my shoulder and tsk-tsking me about my lack of project management finesse. On the other…oh, dear.

Well, nevermind. I got the plan approved on Monday, and I’m working toward my next milestone. Plus, you know, networking for my next gig.

Non-opioid addiction

I came across this story in the New York Times yesterday on the effects of digital addiction—both mental and physical. The specific focus of the article is on mobile phones, which have essentially become the always-pumping dope syringe most people carry around with them—including to bed and to the toilet, which…ugh.

There have been plenty of studies on the loss of actual human connections when people disappear down the virtual connection rabbit hole of social media, along with hand wringing and advice. For example, “distracted walking” has been A Thing for several years, partly exacerbated by the Pokémon Go lunacy; pedestrians bump into other pedestrians, smack themselves on light stands, fall off curbs and walk into moving traffic while they’re busy scrolling through their Twitter feed or texting.

About five or six years ago I was at a Panera Bread in San José, Calif., and watched as a mother, father and two kids sat at one of the big tables, each engrossed in the screen of his or her device. Not talking, not paying attention to their food. That was the first time I’d noticed it, and since then it’s become the norm, not the exception.

What completely wigs me out is that this kind of behavior happens at home, during family meals. I recall with great discomfort some unpleasant dinner conversations in my family home, but the notion of replacing actual realtime verbal interchanges between multiple participants with heads-down finger poking at screens just…well, it wigs me out. (The picture of what Mom would have done if anyone had showed up for dinner and plopped a book in front of our plate is even more unpleasant than those conversations. We were every one of us avid readers. But at the table? No.)

(Also: nothing says "I'm hoping there are much more amusing people than you queuing up to text or call me" like a clutch of people pitching up at a restaurant and putting their mobile phones on the table. Face up or face down, doesn't matter. That device is a clear message that its owner doesn't rate your ability to capture and retain his/her attention. At all.)

And don’t get me started on convening meetings where you’re constantly repeating yourself to a roomful of people tapping furiously at laptop keyboards or mobile devices, because what’s going on anywhere else is ever so much more important than what’s going on in that room.

Well, back to the NYT story. That stat on vehicular accidents—25% of accidents in the United States are caused by the driver talking or texting on a mobile phone. This means that no matter how religious you may be about putting your device out of sight/sound, you have to assume that the drivers around you are squirreling around with them, and you have to be extra super vigilant for them. “Inattentional blindness” seems much too benign a term to apply to people making deliberate choices to focus on their quasi-imaginary friends instead of paying attention to the operation of 2000 pounds of lethal equipment in the immediate dynamic environment of traffic.

The other point I found interesting is the one about “text neck”—actual physiological damage caused by sitting with our heads bent over a screen. I feel it myself when I use my mobile for checking Twitter on my morning and afternoon Metro commutes. I try to prop my phone up on one of my bags, but it invariably starts sagging into my lap, and I definitely feel it in my neck.

A while ago I introduced you to Anastasia Dedyukina, who’s on a mission to get people to step away from their devices and just, you know, live fully in the present. Last month she ran a #DigitalDetox challenge and posted one- to two-minute videos on steps you can take to detach from your device. If you’d like to try some of her tips, go to her YouTube channel. Each video includes the supporting neuroscience for why you’d probably be better off following the day’s challenge.

The time to defeat inattentional blindness is…now.

Gratitude Monday: harmony restored

Kind of a small Gratitude Monday today: on Saturday I picked up my repaired Osgood Marley backpack bag, now good as new.

This is literally a relief, physically, because my canvas J. Peterman jobber—even without the two cameras, laptop, journal and miscellanea—was causing a strain across my middle back.

But it’s also a relief figuratively, because now I’m restored to my routine, and can thus keep track of my wallet.

Yay!