Words of Danny O'Bigbelly My idea of a good time

I know that I’m using the word incorrectly, but, like so many things having to do with reproduction, it feels good to do it even if it’s not done perfectly.

Last summer I grew some flowers in the garden, but my efforts were somewhat frustrated by the long period of time between covering the seeds with dirt and the appearance of flowers (or anything otherwise interesting).  Add to this the annoyance of having some of the tiny sprouts, once they started to appear, mowed into oblivion by the guy who cuts the lawn, eaten by insects, crushed by the errant feet of small children, dried out in a drought, or just die for no particular reason, plus the lack of yield for some of the efforts (such as an enormous moonflower vine that produced only two blooms all year) and you can imagine that this year I decided that things would be different.

Of course, whenever I decide that things are going to be different, my doom is to discover that things can be different in many ways.

Last year I planted late, and therefore things were just starting to get going in July and we didn’t really start to see serious flowering until August.  The fault was shared; first, I put the seeds in the ground later than necessary, and second, the seeds took their sweet time germinating and getting their first leaves out into the sun.  So this year I decided I would jump-start the process by using seed starters to start growing the plants indoors before the last frost, and then transplant the young plants outside when the weather was good.  I carefully consulted the seed packages, which list the expected germination time and the elapsed time until emergence, and then consulted the long-range weather forecast, and then added a little pessimism based on my experiences from last year, and decided that last weekend was the right time to plant the first batch of morning glories and nasturtiums.

If you’re a fan of suspense, go read a book for an hour or so and then check back.  Otherwise, I see no need to prolong the narrative by including a full chronicle of the ensuing events.

One week later–and still more than a week earlier than I was lead to believe I could reasonably expect to see young shoots tentatively emerging from the soil, I have a tray full of morning glory vines, some as many as 9 inches in length, threatening to choke each other already, and I have nowhere to transplant them, because the forecast calls for a hard frost several nights this week.

I might as well confess that one of the other reasons that I don’t have anywhere to put them is because I did not fully comprehend the difference between gardening and potting soil until this week.  I thought garden soil would be adequate for containers, but I was wrong.  Potting soil has radically different draining and absorption properties than garden soil.  This makes sense if you think about it at all, which I neglected to do.  But I digress.

It’s a bit frightening that a relatively small seed can increase in size so many-fold in a single week.  At this rate, in another week the vines will be large enough to threaten our living room.  By the end of the next week, the vines will occupy a space the size of Middlesex County.  By the end of the following week, most of the continent will be overrun.  Some time during the following week, the growth rate at the ends of the vines will exceed the speed of sound.  In the next month, the vines will rival the national deficit in size, and in three months the solar system will be in peril.  In less than a year, the vines will be long enough to circle Dick Cheney’s arrogance.

OK, that last one is a little silly, and perhaps an exaggeration.  I don’t think the vines will grow that large.

What to do?

If I can’t come up with a plan soon, I’m going to pitch the whole thing in the trash, and start over from scratch in mid-April.  Of course, next time I do this, the morning glories will take four weeks to sprout…  Nothing ever happens the same way twice, especially if that’s your hope.

One of the basic truths about education is that if the student doesn’t have some idea what you are trying to teach, or what knowledge you have that would be of value to him or her, then they are not very likely to learn it.  They might learn something, and they might find it amusing, but it probably won’t be much help on the test or for the homework.  The correct framing of a lesson or a lecture is an essential part of the contract among the members of the class, which is a clear codification of the goals, methods, evaluation criteria, expectations, and syllabus–the student expects this from the students, and the students expect that from the teacher, and the test will have such and such format, and be worth so much of your final grade, etc.  I might write more about this on another day, but today I’m just setting the mood for the rest of the entry.

From the title of this blog, you know that I am going to ask a question, and that there are two acceptable answers to my question.  Your job is to figure out the question, and the two acceptable answers, before I reveal them.

Today I asked one of my co-workers if he knew how to use a certain technique to solve a problem we have.  It’s a relatively well-known technique, but “well-known” in this context means that many people know of this technique, but not everyone knows how to apply it.  I know of this technique, and have promised myself that someday I will learn it–in fact, several years ago, I bought a book about it, and then, several years later, after the first book had fallen out-of-date and been superseded by newer, better books, I bought one of those newer, better books.  I still have both of them, and they’re sitting right where I put them the day I brought them home from the book store,  unread and unopened.  But hope springs eternal.

My co-worker answered “no”, and the conversation moved on to other topics.  I still need to find someone who can solve the problem; perhaps I’ll get the opportunity to do it myself, if I can find a way to escape from the endless planning meetings I find myself stranded in more and more often.

I have heard an anecdote–whose provenance I have been unable to trace (it is attributed to many different people)–but that seems like a useful parable in my sort of work, where it is so very easy to get bogged down in the details (such as those contained in the dusty books on my shelves) and lose sight of the true goal, and where it is also so easy to get distracted by setting unrealistic or hopelessly optimistic plans that lack all necessary detail.  I will now relate it to you.

An architect is looking for workers to help construct a new building he has designed.  Lacking local connections, he knows nothing of the reputations of the construction companies in the area.  Desperate, he visits several construction sites, looking for good people.  He stops at the first site, where he sees a man digging a hole with a shovel, and asks the man what he is doing.  “I’m digging a hole, dumb-ass,” responds the man.  The architect moves on to the next site, where he sees a man hammering nails into a board, and asks him what he is doing.  “I’m nailing these two boards together, idiot,” says the second man.  Dismayed, the architect moves on to the third site, where he sees a man sweeping up sawdust, and asks him what he is doing.  “I’m building a cathedral,” responds the man with the broom.   “I would like to hire you, at a significant increase in salary and benefits,” answers the architect.

The most valuable people are those who can relate the minutia of their work to their goals, and accept the necessity of accomplishing all of the little things that are necessary in order to reach those goals.  It is not beneath a construction worker (or an architect, or a vice president) to sweep up sawdust; it has to get done.

Whether it is cost effective, and whether the customer will scream when he or she discovers that a vice president with a billing rate of hundreds of dollars per hour is sweeping the floor, is another question–but it is a question of economics, not pride, dignity, or necessity.

I am always looking for floor-sweeping cathedral-builders for my team, but they are few and always in great demand, and so I usually have to be content with people who are talented at sweeping (like me) or people who have a grand and glorious vision and the ability to convincingly articulate it to our customers–an extremely valuable set of skills, without which my company would have no customers, and therefore I mean them no disrespect.  (Quite the contrary; it’s a skill I simply don’t have, and the people who do have bigger offices and much bigger paychecks than I do, so I would love to have it.)  But a person in my position, which is that of keeping the promises that the visionaries have made, needs all the cathedral builders available.

After talking to my co-worker, I realized that he was not going to be of any help in solving the particular problem I need to solve, but it was worse than simply that.  I began to wonder whether he was going to be much use in helping me solve any of other problems I have on my ever-growing list.  I was very concerned about his answer.

Let us consider some of the answers he might have given, and why he might have given them.

He might have said “no”, even though the truth was “yes”, simply to avoid the work or get me out of his office.  This would have made me question whether he really had any commitment to the group, and would effectively end our relationship.

He might have said “yes”, even though the truth was “no”, in order to get this plum assignment (you never know what someone will consider a plum…) and then throw my planning into disarray with slipped schedules and slipshod work as he tried to cover up and correct his ignorance.

So what answers are acceptable?  Consider the cathedral builder.  When you’re building a cathedral, and someone asks you whether you’ve figured out how to put on the roof–a problem that cannot be avoided–there are really only two answers: “yes“, and “not yet“.

A few years ago, I was in a college dining hall, and a student organization was selling T-shirts to support themselves.  They didn’t actually have the T-shirts on-hand, however. They took your name and money and then, a few days later, after they had enough people lined up to make a cheap bulk purchase from the manufacturer, they would send in their order, and then, at some point in the future, they would call you or send you an email to tell you to come pick it up. This is not a scam; the story doesn’t end after they take your money and vanish. They’d been doing this for years, and everyone got their shirts; no problems. But one student was concerned. He wanted his shirt by a particular date, for some irrelevant reason, but the sellers simply couldn’t make any commitment.

It was at this point that I leaned over and said to my dinner companion, who had been watching this exchange with me, and said “When the student is ready, the T-shirt will appear.”

I probably should have asked if he was Buddhist first, but I doubt I would have made any difference.  It was going to come out of my mouth anyway.

And that, my friends, is just one of the very many reasons why I will be reincarnated as a potato bug in my next life.  If I’m lucky.

Parts of my house seem to defy simple explanation, although perhaps the simplest explanation is the best–whoever did the penultimate remodeling (before we started our eternal process) was blind. It is conceivable. There are many small clues, like the fact that the lumber markings on the wood used to build some of the bathroom cabinets can be clearly read (very clearly read) because they are on the outside surface and preserved behind a very light stain. Usually furniture-grade lumber is not marked, and usually diligent workers put the good face of each piece outward, suggesting that this is crappy wood that was nailed in place by careless workers who couldn’t see their own work.

The kitchen counter is a similar story. It appears to be supported by paranormal forces. There’s certainly nothing physical holding it up, and yet it can support the weight of a dancing nine-year-old. The marble just wants to be where it is, and gravity be damned.

But I digress.

Friday was already going to be a busy day, but it got busier when the flush handle unexpectedly broke off the toilet, bouncing along the floor tiles with a loud clang whose echos were chased by an expletive chosen hastily and without conscious effort from my deep reserve of casual, everyday profanity.  It’s the sort of combination of sounds that makes my wife yell, from whatever part of the house she’s in, “Is everyone OK?” with a low expectation of a positive response.

Such was my introduction to the secret world of toilets that have the flush handle on the side, instead of the front. I now understand the difference between the two mechanisms, and can fully appreciate the inexorable truth that all such toilets will break eventually, at least if they are equipped with the sort of flush handle assembly sold at Ace or Home Depot. Side-handle toilets are simply a bad design. Front-handle toilets are the way to go. If you look at it, you’ll see what I mean. I’m not going to bother describing it, because you can probably get your hands on a side-handle toilet and play with it yourself. There’s simply too much torque on the pivot for the pivot housing to be made out of plastic, but plastic is the material from which they are made.

The evidence is clear at the hardware store. Although the majority of toilets have a front flush handle, it is very difficult to find a replacement front handle. This is because they do not break. In contrast, it is very easy to find a replacement side flush handle, even though side flush handles are rare, because being broken is apparently one of the common states of a side flush handle.

I installed a new handle, adjusting the action a bit so that in the future, only one turn of the knob should suffice to accomplish a flush, and significantly less jiggling will be required–perhaps even none at all–in order to end a flush.

But looking inside this toilet I was, once again, amazed at the simplicity of the overall device and the elegance of the mechanism. True, as a fifty-year-old toilet, it does appear, from certain angles, to have been assembled from spare parts by a lesser student of the Rube Goldberg school of engineering, but in reality every piece is necessary and they all work together in glorious concert. It is a wonderful machine that improves my life every single day.

Well, except for that day last summer when it decided to imitate a fountain. That particular day may have been a net loss. But on every other day, I’m very happy that my home has a toilet.

Yesterday an unfamiliar catalog arrived; it is from a nursery that sells various seeds and seedlings through the mail.  My wife flipped through it, mentioning this and that, with oohs and ahs over some of the pictures.

I haven’t looked at it yet.  I am afraid.  To me, all catalogs are somewhat like pornography, and take my mind to a weird place where I imagine how my life would be different if the objects shown inside the catalog were present and available to me in my everyday life.  I can spend a happy hour with a catalog from an office supply store, thinking of fun things I could do with, for example, twenty-five pounds of manila envelopes or a box of green hi-lighters.  A wine and cheese catalog is more exciting to me than a catalog from Victoria’s Secret or Frederick’s of Hollywood because I know that the models, who are essential to most fantasies about the successful use of their offerings, are not included with every piece of lingerie.  With the wine and cheese catalog, on the other hand, I know that if I order something, then when it arrives everything I need will be in the box.  In contrast, the Victoria’s Secret catalogs should include a warning, saying “Claudia Schiffer not included.  Your wife may legally refuse to wear anything you buy from us.   Professional models used on a closed course.  Don’t try this at home, kids!”  The Victoria’s Secret catalog may be excellent fapping material, for those who prefer such form of fapping fodder, but it offers a fantasy that can’t be made real, at least not in the O household.  It might be different if I was married to a svelte twenty-year-old fashion model, or at least someone who would even consider wearing a thong, but that’s not how things shook out.

I’ve been starting to think about what to plant in the garden this year, so this catalog is full of temptations.  To sweeten the deal, they are offering $25 off my first purchase–if the first purchase totals less than $25, it’s free.  This sounds like Claudia Schiffer telling me she’ll let me kick the tires for free, knowing full well that she’ll get it back, and more, during the test drive.

I do want some sort of flowering bush or climbing vine I can use to make a border along the back wall, so I will be scanning through the catalog later, hopefully with adult supervision.   The difficulty of finding the proper plant is that there is an enormous tree that shades this wall most of the day for all of the Summer and Fall.  I don’t know why, but things that flower seem to typically require a lot of sunlight, and sunlight is something our yard generally lacks.  The trees are beautiful–I can’t complain about that–but they do limit my options.

Time will tell if the catalog is full of dry facts and figures, or whether it’s the Victoria’s Secret of garden catalogs, showing only the finest specimens, photographed in perfect light and weather, posed in the carefully manicured garden of a regal manse.  In that case, it will just be gardening pr0n, and I should be able to resist it without effort.  If it tells me things like soil type, sunlight indices, temperate zones, growth and spread rates, and proper fertilizer mixes and watering regimen for optimal growth and flowering, then I’m doomed.