beancounters

Hits too close to home

From McSweeney's: Reviews of My Daydreams

SYNOPSIS: With epic scope, this 43-second fantasy follows me through several grueling political campaigns and concludes with my years as a widely admired and distinguished elder statesman. Retirement suits me, I have to say, and my accomplishments while in office were great and lasting, such as nationalizing industry and education, eliminating poverty, and formulating a powerful foreign policy, all with my winning, if disturbingly flip, personal style.

Schedulista

One of my jobs at this agency is coordinating two completely different master schedules that are supposed to represent the same projects' beginning and end dates, but do not. See, two separate entities maintain two separate schedules for their own, totally separate, billing purposes. Rather than have the two entities coordinate their schedules together, or (heavens) use just one schedule, there's one person who manually checks each calendar for inconsistencies and notes them weekly - moi.

I'm supposed to check one schedule against actual work done in the field, and then submit the results to the other schedule-keeper. But checking work done in the field is not a simple matter. People never want to admit that their projects may be behind. People avoid me, I know they do. Some people? I am more familiar with their voice mail voices than their actual voices.

But I need numbers, so I sometimes get them from creative places, like my own fertile imagination.

Went into the office briefly yesterday with my kid in tow, because my report to the schedule-keeper was due. Met with the weirdly effusive rep at her cube, tried to hand her something I had cobbled together.

"Lisa, we are living a lie," I told her. She isn't the sort to cynically agree, so instead she nervously gave me an extention to her deadline. No doubt hoping that by 10 this morning, I will be more confident in my own schedule changes.

They're back.

Or else they never left. Geeeeesh. We're staying home this morning, and using another bottle of treatment. Wish us luck.

8:00 a.m. - This time, I cut her hair first. It's still ponytail length (barely). She's okay with it, which goes to show how desperate she is.

8:45 a.m. - The second application didn't finish them off. My God, are they SUPER LICE?!

9:02 a.m. - More stuff. Leaving it on 20 minutes this time. DIE. DIE. DIE.

9:12 a.m. - Bunny is using her own extermination methods. If the product doesn't finish them off, then surely an hour of Full House will.

10:24 a.m. - Over an hour of combing and we're still getting nits. I think we'll go completely through the head again. There's a show coming up that I've never seen, with this creature called Erkel in it. WTF? Who wrote this shit?

Then we'll move out her bed and vacuum under it. BB wants us to wash all the towels too.   

Live-blogging sucks! I'm signing off. Bunny has just offered to get a butch haircut. Talk about desperate. What a day.

After probation, the beancounter's decoder ring

In other news, BB officially joined the ranks of the bureaucrats yesterday! He says very positive things about his new government masters, he wants to be active in the union, and he's even going to cheerfully join the office Sunshine Club.

It's already weird, hearing him spout State-speak. He has pages of new acronyms to memorize. Freaky.

Another funny bit

Bunny: [worn out from having her head chemically abused and fine-combed for hours] So, now I know how head lice travel from one person to another. But how did all these nits get in my hair?

Me: I don't think you want to know.

Bunny: Yes, I do.

Me: The lice breed.

Bunny: Omigod.

BB: [in the next room] What's the matter?

Me: I just told her that lice had sex on her head.

Bunny: Omigod.

Lousy evening

So, how did you spend your evening? I'll tell you what we did: we fought lice.

It's amazing that none of us have ever had head lice in this house, what with a kid in public school and in daycare, and a man who was a special education teacher for 15 years. But it's true, not once until today, when Bunny's new daycare lady took us aside and gently showed us what she'd seen in the kid's hair.

There's no greater joy than seeing your beloved child's head crawling with bugs. Geeeeesh.

Since this isn't a mommyblog, I will spare you a boring description of all we had to do tonight. This was funny, though. The instructions on the de-lousing product start with this Hitchhikers-type reassurance: If you or a member of your household has head lice, don't panic. Keep calm. Ain't it great? Don't Panic. Let me tell you, we needed that.

Happy Birthday Anthony!

A festive day in Charlotte, NC!

Bothered and bewildered

So, Karen passed a quickie meme to me, which I've been pondering ever since. It is this: Which sitcom character would you most like to be?

As usual, I put way too much thought into it, but after narrowing it down to a few prime choices ... no wait. Hold the phone. I just this moment decided.

(Did I ever make you read my post about 'Bewitched' at Hogwarts? No? Mwah-ha-haa!)

I always loved Samantha Stevens. She had all this potential - she visited the moon! she played harp for Henry VIII ! - yet she gave it all up for true love in the suburbs. Let's not condemn her choices by today's standards - in the 60's she was living the dream, for sure. Still, part of me always wanted her to bust out, not be so repressed, and quit living through her cousin Serena. If I were Samantha, look out.

Besides, BB says most men thought Darren was an idiot for snubbing Samantha's powers all those years. He says that if he'd been married to Samantha, he would have had no objection to family trips to the Middle Ages and the like.

Air guitarists live out rock dreams

NEW YORK - Air guitar is growing in popularity (the U.S. competition has steadily grown in size since 2002) and is coming closer to a viable occupation for some.

The rules for air-guitar competition are simple:

• The guitar (which can be acoustic or electric) must be "invisible."

• "Air bands" are not allowed.

• "Air roadies" are OK.

• You can use a real pick.

The rest is an exercise of imagination — and for many, it's serious business ...

Not everyone is a believer. After a TV segment on air guitarists several years ago, CNN anchor Jack Cafferty declared: "That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen."

Well, I don't know. It's no dumber than karaoke - and at least you don't have to listen to them try and actually play like Jimmy Page.

Not sure I'd pay to attend a competition, however. Unless one of you were to compete ...? Hey, I'd join in as your air roadie!

British author threatens a nice scar-faced boy who never hurt her and actually has made her a gazillionaire

Why does she say things like this, why? It's not like her work really needs the publicity. You know that the day HP7 comes out, the entire Western world is going to shut down for business while we read it.

LONDON - Author J.K. Rowling said two characters will die in the last installment of her boy wizard series, and she hinted Harry Potter might not survive either.

"I have never been tempted to kill him off before the final because I've always planned seven books, and I want to finish on seven books," Rowling said Monday on TV here.

"I can completely understand, however, the mentality of an author who thinks, `Well, I'm gonna kill them off because that means there can be no non-author-written sequels. So it will end with me, and after I'm dead and gone they won't be able to bring back the character'."

Rowling declined to commit herself about Harry, saying she doesn't want to receive hate mail.

Sweetie darling, go buy yourself some nice barrettes and stop tormenting your readers.

Illegally cute puppy

Illegally cute puppy
Originally uploaded by beancounter.

This is Cleo, our canine houseguest. She's a Tibetan spaniel, 6 months old, and already housebroken, which puts her about 2 1/2 years ahead of our dog. But who's counting.

Daisy hated having Cleo in the house. She hid under the couch or climbed on top of the nearest human whenever the puppy was nearby. Is Daisy simply not a dog person? How does that work?

This is Jaime's and her mom's first dog. The two of them are just alike - they went out and bought not one but two big books on how to raise a dog, and proceeded to read them cover to cover. They bought one of those clicker training devices and are actually using it. And they keep the dog on a leash almost everywhere she goes, in the house or in the yard. They are afraid if she gets away she'll either mysteriously escape the yard or she'll chew wires. I don't know. We who are used to dogs just dog-proof the yard and hope for the best. As for wires, well, one mild electric shock from the lamp cord teaches a puppy not to chew better than two big books, lemme tell you.

So when I got to be in charge of Cleo, off came the leash. She hung out in the kitchen with me while I cleaned, and then gently chewed on my ear when I laid on the floor to watch a movie. And I watched to make sure she didn't find any lamp cords, yeah, yeah.

Grad humor

It's Saturday, and you're a procrastinator like me, so you have plenty of time to read a buncha PhD Comics before, well, you start your real work.

Can it be? Grad humor that doesn't revolve around beer jokes? Astounding but true! I'mma need one of them T-shirts, I think.

Room for two

We have an extra girl for one more night. Jaime's mother is home from the hospital, but is still pretty weak and in need of a kidless night. Her partner, a devoted soul, called tonight to thank us profusely for being there in an emergency. We were the first people she thought of to call. I felt guilty accepting her thanks - Jamie has been most welcome. She and Bunny get along wonderfully. They never fight; their disagreements are always over as quickly as they can collaborate on the appropriate rules of fair play (and yes, they talk that way too).

It makes me wonder why we didn't try harder to have a second child, oh so long ago. Except in my experience, siblings do not get along nearly this well.

Helloo, Reality, welcome back.

I must say, of all the ages my Bunnylou has been, age nine is the best. She and her friend are old enough to be left alone, old enough to stay up all night, unsupervised - yet young enough that I know they won't sneak their boyfriends into the house.

Tomorrow - pictures of the puppy, which is too cute to be legal.

Forecast: melting buildings

Woof! The mild temps earlier this month, which made all the TV newscasters in Sacramento want to french kiss their weather forecasters, are a thing of the past. We're in the triple digits, baby, starting this week.

At work, our facilities manager let us know the ugly truth in an e-mail yesterday. She informed us that, at the historically hottest hours of the summer, the A/C in our building has the tendency to cut out entirely. "This building was not built to withstand triple digit weather," she wrote.

What?! Did nobody inform the contractor that Sacto gets triple digit weather every summer? There were many wry jokes in the cubicles about some agency in Alaska receiving our building by mistake.

And what exactly does happen to a building that can't withstand the heat?

Incidentally, this e-mail was followed by one from a deputy something-or-other, reminding us that, melting buildings aside, we are still expected to dress professionally, and not show up in tank tops and cutoffs that show all our tattoos. (OK, I added that last bit because I caught sight of Exhibit 1 already.)

Cooooool

Chainless bicycles! [via Robert]

[W]e’d suspect that most people will have had an unfortunate recollection of an incident involving a de-railed chain, lost skin, grease and perhaps a destroyed garment or two.

Boy, that's for damn sure.

So we like the idea of a bicycle without a chain. US-based Dynacraft has introduced just such a beastie - the Dekra-D Drive bike has an internal drive shaft which offers less maintenance, greater safety and a cleaner solution than a conventional chain-driven bike ...

Where it's at

Nothing like an emergency sleepover to bring excitement to a dull household. Bunny's friend Jaime arrived on our doorstep this evening, pajamas thrown in a bag, new puppy in its carrier. It seems Jaime's mom has had the flu for five days and has not been able to keep down solids the whole time. Her partner has taken a hand, finally persuading her to check into the hospital tonight. They swung by to drop off the kid on the way. She looks like hell. They promised to call with news in the morning if not sooner.

On the plus side, you never saw such happy girls. Each of them went from boring ol' evening at home, to instant sleepover. They are on the computer right now - Bunny is introducing Jaime to Toontown. I also hear plans being made for tomorrow.

The puppy is quiet (for now). Daisy has retreated to her futon cave in Full Pout Mode. She won't budge no matter how much I wheedle. I don't hear so much as a jingle of her collar.

BB is still tinkering with the big computer. Everything is back to normal after the big virus scare, but he can't resist. He also switched us to Firefox this week - that's taking some getting used to. Firefox is so helpful. Do you want me to remember your passwords? How 'bout my IE tab functions? Do you want to see my page load timer? Huh? It's like, calm down, Fido, less is more.

As for me, I took two sleeping pills and will soon bail on this party. Aaaaarrivederci.

The coworkers get on board

I totally forgot to tell my coworkers that BB is starting a new job. Oy! I just happened to mention it casually over the cubicle wall this morning. It was in the context of a conversation about upcoming vacation time, or some such. Suddenly I heard squeals of glee! And three women appeared at my desk to hug me.

Crazy that I forgot to tell them. While we were chattering, I also apologized for my general moodiness over the last 7 months. In truth, the family's employment situation doesn't even scratch the surface of my reasons for moodiness. But it was a bonding moment and all. That's what you do. They said they understood and, showing mind-boggling loyalty, assured me I hadn't been that moody. Riiiiight!

10:30 meeting today at the mother ship. I think it's my week to drive said coworkers. Must pack.

The Prince at the pub

Maya has set up a summer book club for our public policy clique, the Study Buddies.  We are to meet at her favorite pub for discussions, which definitely seals the deal, but don't tell her.

If the selections have a theme, it is surely 'unusual outlooks on public-sector management'. The first book on the list? The Prince. 

I've never read this before. I was prepared for it to be a book about how to commit evil, because the term 'Machiavellian' is practically synonymous with cold, calculating despotism these days. But it wasn't an evil book; his writings weren't advocating long-term oppression of the people, or anything like it. He did discuss oppression, but mainly by citing examples and giving tons of anecdotal evidence as to its low degree of success. In his conclusions, he says the easiest and most efficient ways to a) obtain, and b) maintain power under various circumstances is to win over the people while rendering your actual enemies - those in the peerage - er, obsolete.

At the pub, I made the group consider some of the less savory anecdotes and decide if Machiavelli meant them figuratively or literally. We had four different translations on hand for reference.

Ch 3: "Upon this,   one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can   avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the   injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in   fear of revenge."

Group concensus: Figurative.

Ch. 7: "After this he awaited an opportunity to crush the Orsini, having scattered   the adherents of the Colonna house."

Group concensus: Probably figurative ...

Ch. 7: "Under this  pretence he took Ramiro, and one morning caused him to be executed and left on the piazza  at Cesena with the block and a bloody knife at his side. The barbarity of this spectacle  caused the people to be at once satisfied and dismayed."

Group concensus: Literal. Also: yecch. 

So, to recap: Machiavelli. Not evil; merely pedantic. A 15th century Italian public policy expert with a head for analysis and an uncomfortably long memory about those bloodthirsty Borgias and Medicis.  But some very useful lessons to be gained in the area of public management. If you take the advice about the enemies figuratively.

Would you ever wear

Targèt couture? [via Chaos Theory] I admit I've been sort of sucked in by the look of all that red pave. Maybe just one purse charm? Shiny!

Why are restaurant margaritas

usually so weak? Is it because they're simply stingy, these franchise owners who must keep their faux-funky themed family restaurants in the black? Or because we middle-aged mamas look like we're just one tequila shot away from losing it, dancing on tables and singing loudly to the barely-audible strains of Gloria Estevan?

Whatever the reason: I'm not buying. Go ahead and nail surfboards to your walls. Go ahead and offer me your strawberry and raspberry margaritas, your colorful paper coasters that say 'Grabba 'Rita!' I'm not having any.

Last summer at the family cabin, one of my brothers in-law broke out the blender and started our first dinner with the freshest, coldest, saltiest, and strongest margaritas I've ever had in my life. Just one (or two) glass(es?) vindicated my year-long boycott of franchise margaritas. This, this was the real thing. This was worth the wait. I could have propositioned the man right there. If I'd been able to focus my eyes.