Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

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Under the aegis of St. Fiacre, the patron saint of gardeners (about which, more later), we began digging up our backyard garden Thursday night. We began gardening in this plot shortly after we bought the house in 1975, and kept at it for about 15 years before losing a little of our back-to-the-land mojo. About that time, our son’s soccer coach and family had just gotten evicted from a city pea-patch they had been tending because the city was selling the property, so we invited them to tend our backyard plot as a replacement. We didn’t even pretend to help, and have been non-gardeners since then.

For the last two or three years, though, the coach-family’s interest has waned, and last fall they told us they were giving it up. During all that time, we’d never lost our appetite for filching an ear of this or a sheave of that from the coach-family’s bounty, and we made non-commital grunts to each other about farming the plot ourselves this year. This ambition was bolstered a bit by our son’s interest in better eating over the last couple of years, and his reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
So, Thursday night found me, Mrs. Perils and our son busting sod with whatever implements we could find in our garage.

In about 3 hours, we had just about half of the plot turned over:

Friday night, with the help of a young friend of ours who had expressed an interest in participating, we made quite a bit more progress.

Today, Mrs. Perils went about town acquiring seeds and starter plants for a variety of vegetables, and we will start planting tomorrow. Oh, and about St. Fiacre - click on the interpretive sign below. We encountered this little shrine while strolling around Georgetown, SC last spring:

FEMA first response unit departs its San Diego base for Greensburg, KS

In cooperation with the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA will repair and enhance a system of dikes along the Arkansas River to ensure that the recent tornado disaster will never be repeated in southern Kansas.

We arrived back in Seattle last night from our extended weekend in Myrtle Beach/Pawley’s Island, but not without a dose of drama. Sorry for the posting hiatus during the trip. I had the time, of course, and even a broadband connection in our unit, but I just didn’t have the requisite focus. Perhaps it was the sun. Perhaps it was the salt air. Perhaps it was the redeye flight on Tuesday night. Or perhaps it was the batch of beer brewed by my youngest brother and his wife under their Cryin’ Onion Brewery label.  I had to increase my shutter speed to the maximum in order to capture these before they disappeared as quickly as the ghost crabs below.
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The cast of characters for this family saga was comprised of my two brothers (one 4 years younger, one 10) and their wives, my mom and her sister. Over the last 15 years or so, we’ve evolved this habit of gathering several times a year. It’s kind of remarkable, really, since we weren’t that close growing up, due to our age differences. I suppose it’s happening now because that age difference is less significant now that we’re middle-aged. We also now have the means to travel more than we did in early adulthood. Most importantly, in spite of the fact that they are frickin’ idiots, I love ‘em.

The weather was often coolish, even Seattle-like, but when the sun broke out, which it often did, it was very pleasant. An added bonus - the moon was full on the first or second night there. We love our Pacific sunsets, but an Atlantic moonrise is a lovely thing as well.

Several times as we strolled on the beach, we’d catch suspicious movements out of the corners of our eyes, but nothing would be there when we looked full-on. The culprits weren’t mini-strokes from sun and hops, they were ghost crabs:

We had several delicious meals, mostly centered around seafood (for those of us of that persuasion) both in restaurants and self-prepared. In the Myrtle Beach area, there seems to be an unusual level of creative kitsch, as I’ve photographed on previous trips. One has to suspend a healthy amount of disbelief in order to accept that a restaurant that has this:

erupting from its roof, and this:

parked in front of it can actually lay a nice meal in front of him.

Our trip home was an ungainly 3-legged itinerary from Myrtle Beach to Detroit to Minneapolis to Seattle. I noted the 3+-hour layover in Minneapolis, but cheap fares/mileage-award tickets put you through some strange calisthenics. When we got to Minneapolis, I noticed an earlier Seattle flight was available on the departure board, and briefly considered heading to that gate to see if we could stand-by for it, but decided not to, since we already had pretty good seats on our later flight, and standby almost always lands you in a middle seat in the last row, to be regaled by rhythmic toilet-flushing.

We had a nice bite of dinner, spent a little time in the Worldclub and headed to our gate to see if we could scam a first-class seat for Mrs. Perils, as we did last Tuesday. That was definitely not in the cards, and we were presented with some worse news: I either knew at one time and forgot, or more likely never noticed, that Mrs. Perils’ boarding pass was for the earlier Minneapolis-Seattle flight, while mine was for the later.

We had to put her on a standby list and sweat out the countdown to the door closing on the flight. There was one later Seattle flight if she didn’t make that one, but it was already oversold, and we (she) faced the likely prospect of spending the night in Minneapolis. She was quite beside herself, so much so that I was leaning towards staying on with her, even though it would have cost me a healthy fee to re-ticket.

Luckily, her name was called and we were just about the last people to board. I pressed my first-class seat on her and trudged to her middle seat in the back as penance for the blown arrangements. It turned out, however, to be an exit-row with a bulkhead and pretty good legroom, and some interesting companions, including a veteran flight attendant who sat facing us for take-off and landing.

So, we’re home and in good shape, except for a little bit of Atlantic Ocean still swishing around in my right ear, from an afternoon of boogie-boarding and body-surfing. If you’re volunteering for a marine-mammal rescue organization (I know a couple of you are), and you encounter this:

dragging itself onto the strand, guard it until its mother returns from the Davey Jones BaitMart with a six-pack. And watch out for those teeth.

Sort of disjointed posting this week, as I concluded one cross-country trip Friday night, and we’re embarking on another trip tonight (Tuesday) back through Detroit to Myrtle Beach, SC to meet up with my brothers and my mom, as we did last year. In the intervening hours, I’ve had a lot of work stuff to do just to get out of town without being flayed.

We’re on a redeye leaving at 10pm that’ll arrive in Detroit at 5am EDT. We’ll connect there for a flight to Myrtle Beach that arrives about 11:30 am. An issue has arisen, however, that has the potential to darken our marital bliss: my ticket, because I’m a Northwest elite flyer, has been upgraded to first class; Mrs. Perils’, however, is firmly ensconsed in coach (albeit a roomy exit row seat), because I used miles to purchase her ride. Frequent Flyer message boards unanimously say that the rule for survival in this situation is to chivalrously trade seats with your infrequently-flying spouse, and that’s the plan tonight.

Update - the Seattle gate agent put Mrs. Perils (i.e. me) on an upgrade waitlist, and she (i.e. I) got the last first class seat, so crisis averted.

On to the sunny south, where temperatures look to be in the high 70s and low 80s. I’m a little apprehensive. Let’s just say that my body is about as ready for beach action as the Iraqi army is to secure Baghdad. My camera lens will be resolutely pointed outward - you’ll never get a glimpse of my collection of festive Mama Cass mumus.

The place we’re going is actually called Pawley’s Island, about 15 miles south of Myrtle Beach. I’m not sure how this little family tradition of meeting up there got started. I think sometime in the 90s, my parents started golfing their way down there to visit my middle brother, who lives near Charleston. It’s gotten to be an annual spring event. I started joining them about 8 years ago. It’s kind of a slog to get there, but it’s a nice, relaxed way to commune with my bros and my mom, maybe because no one has to play host. The biggest point of contention will be the octane rating of the coffee, and that will be decided by whomever wakes up first.

Arriving at Seatac at 11:15 on Friday evening shortens the weekend a bit, since by the time I got my luggage and secured transportation, I didn’t arrive home until nearly 1 am. I slept in luxuriously Saturday morning.

The week in Milwaukee featured meetings and after-work dinners and socializing, and it took me out of even the tenuous exercise routine I’ve established there. I got out for fugitive walks on several nights, but no gym sessions for bike work or weights. After 5 nights of chicken tetrachloride, chicken melamino, etc., I could actually hear my body softening as I lay in bed.

So, I was glad for a nice spring day on Saturday, as I was able to get out for a spin on my bike and a Nautilus session. Some kid even flattered me by drafting me for 4 or 5 miles, so I must be getting a little stronger. I wonder, though, if they make a bike that keeps your thighs from hitting your gut with each pedal revolution. Oh, yeah, they do. It’s called a Harley.

I stopped at a park on Lake Washington and just lazed for awhile.

Sunday, unbelievably, was even a little warmer. While Mrs. Perils was off at the climbing gym, I grabbed my copy of Emma and walked down to Gasworks Park, there to wallow in the grass and read, something I really don’t do very often, and never have at Gasworks. Here’s a video from the top of Kite Hill, where people were flying kites (and arguing, already!), flying model airplanes, and one talented young fellow riding a unicycle. I thought he was awfully good just riding on level ground - I couldn’t believe when he started down the long winding path down the hill.

Some other images from that stroll:

A new cafe! You’d think that Seattle would run out of people capable of imbibing another sip of coffee. Or the world would run out of beans. This one’s playing off of the old Gulf Oil motif, for those of you old enough to remember the internal combustion engine.

Dogwood blossom. Each one is sort of a gazebo for its seeds.

A nifty front yard in the ‘hood. At my place, the grass hardly ever gets cut, and I’ve got a rain forest growing in my gutters.

Tile plaza adorns a stair climb down to Gasworks Park.

A venerable old yacht shares Lake Union with a spirited sailboat.

(ad in G Concourse at MSP airport)
See you this weekend!

I’m off again to Milwaukee today (Sunday). My plane this time was a fashionably late 10:30 am. I shared my shuttle ride to SeaTac with a couple of women who, when the driver asked, “what airline?” smugly said, “Hawaiian Air”. Now, when I answer the same question with “Northwest”, you don’t know, I might be going to Amsterdam, Tokyo or Honolulu - it’s not immediately evident that I’ll be sojourning on the shore of Lake Michigan. But Hawaiian Air is in Seattle for the sole purpose of transporting soggy treehuggers to the land of Aloha and Mahalo, and they’re headed for Maui. In fact, they’ll be staying at the same place in south Kihei that we’ve stayed when we’ve gone there. I did my best to tamp down my bitterness.

I had laid out some reading material for the trip (issues of NYRB, Emma by Jane Austen), but left it all lying on the coffee table in Seattle. So, during the “no electronical devices” portion of the flight, I was reduced to reading Northwest’s inflight magazine and the SkyMall Catalog. I seldom do this despite the amount of time I spend flying and in cozy proximity to them. SkyMall Catalog in particular might be what the puke bag is for. But. I was amazed at some of the things that could be waiting on your doorstop when you arrive home:

• Remote Controlled Robotic Hammerhead Shark - 23″ long, can range up to 40′ away. Eye sockets have working lights. Also available as a Bull Shark
• Pop-up Hot Dog Cooker - This thing looks like a Whack-A-Mole game played with male members instead of moles.
• The Flying Alarm Clock - launches a helicopter-like rotor that sails across the room when it goes off. The alarm won’t stop until you get up, retrieve the missile and place it back on the clock.

I apologize for my derision if any of you are enjoying these products in your homes.

Once aloft, my seatmate plugged in earphones and entertained himself with at least two miniature devices, a Crackberry-like thing with games on it and a Sony video player. I countered by watching two episodes of 30 Rock and the 4/19 episode of The Daily Show on my video iPod. 30 Rock is a show on NBC created by and starring Tina Fey, late of Saturday Night Live, and I’ve gotten hooked on it. It’s witty, sometimes witheringly sarcastic. Also stars Alec Baldwin, who may as well have been an SNL cast member, he’s hosted it so often, and Tracy Morgan from SNL.

The work week beckons.

Friday night we met some friends at a wine bar. As we were waiting for a table, we perused the wines offered for sale. I was intrigued by this Washington label:

We resisted this temptation, settled for a Tempranillo and a nice Sangiovese.

Today is the deadline for filing personal income tax returns, and I urge all of you to exercise extreme caution in those areas where CPAs are known to work, and drink (they’re often indistinguishable), because they’ll all be out partying, and it’ll take on the darker aspects of the Teddy Bears’ Picnic. I know this, because for many years I was among their number.

I don’t know if I’ve ever written explicitly about what I “do”, but here’s the short version, in which I omit mention of corpses and other criminal activity. I have an accounting degree, and did a stretch as a tax-and-audit CPA. I was never that hot on the “compliance” part of CPA practice, so I was pretty much working for the firm of Squarepeg & Roundhole.

In college I had taken a lot of computer science courses along with my accounting, but at the time I was in college, there was no business data processing curriculum, so I begged whatever courses I could from the engineering department, which led me into some odd stuff like 360 assembler programming.

So when, in the early 80s, our clients started buying IBM PCs and pestering us about how to use Lotus 1-2-3 and do their own accounting on their computers, I got involved as quickly as I could. By the advent of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, I had migrated entirely to accounting systems consulting, which is mainly what I do now.

I don’t really “practice tax” any more, but I do some “meta-tax” preparation for a few of my business clients, wherein I pull together information to send off to a real accountant. So, I don’t approach April 15th as I used to, impersonating a flaming 747 with broken flaps on final approach to an impossibly short runway. But I still have a moderate amount of excitement sprinkling tax fairy dust here and there.

And, some years around this time, if I find myself missing the frisson, the adrenaline-charged sense of mission, the gut-wrenching sense of doom that is tax season in a CPA firm, I’ll call an old co-worker who’s still in the business, usually when I know he’ll be the most strung-out, and impersonate a problematic mutual client that we both had once upon a time. Unlike me, he’s developed the tools and methodology to deal with the demands of the profession:

I once had a managing partner who was a singular individual - a swaggering Texan, profane, unprofessional, misogynistic - but fiercely loyal to the clients and employees he liked. He used to compare the tax season to a creek full of spawning fish - we had to spear as many of them as we could while they were running, because the creek would be empty after April 15th. Another memorable quote from him: he was a little ticked one time when he’d given out a lot of assignments, and he thought we were being lackadaisical about completing them. He called a meeting, and said, “I can pimp these clients ’til the cows come home, but sooner or later you guys are gonna have to line up and start screwin’ ‘em.”

He had a woman partner for awhile who was similarly colorful. I had just come to their firm from another firm that was a lot more, well, anal and hierarchical. For instance, a junior would perform work, then have it reviewed by a senior or manager at the next level. This reviewer would note deficiencies in blue pencil, and pass it back to the junior for reworking, and the junior would note his replies in red pencil. Satisfied, the senior/manager would pass the work to a partner, who would note deficiencies in green pencil, and pass it back to the senior/manager. (Only partners were allowed to own a green pencil). One partner in particular was famous for writing voluminously, spooling out pages of cramped green kvetch. Eventually, all of the noted deficiencies would be corrected, and the client would finally be delivered of his product, along with a sizable bill.

One day shortly after going to work in the new firm, I watched this woman partner storm out of her office with a set of workpapers, slam them on the desk of the miscreant who had prepared them, and screech, “You fucked it up, you FIX it!!” No green pencils in that firm.

I called my buddy this year on Friday, April 13th. He said that the Box of the Damned is full this year.

We had the opportunity yesterday to meet in person with Robin and Roger from the Dharma Bums blog. We’ve been cyber-acquaintances for a couple of years and, although we live within 25 miles of each other as the crow flies, haven’t had a real chance to cross paths until yesterday.

The occasion for this rendezvous was a shopping trip to Seattle for Robin & Roger. We had agreed to meet for lunch, and at the appointed time Mrs. Perils and I drove up to rescue them from a tile store in North Seattle. We’ve met up with a few online acquaintances, and it’s always interesting to see how closely their online persona matches their in-person ones. Online, Robin & Roger seem politically and ecologically passionate, as well as genuinely nice people that anyone would be eager to meet.

Still, there was that possibility that the package we encountered in the tile store parking lot would include a GMC Tundra, a woman in a fur stole, a bare-chested man adorned with gold chains and a Karl Rove Beanie Baby dangling from the rear-view mirror.

However, none of that proved true. Robin and Roger are, if possible, more delightful in person. We had a convivial lunch at Chinook’s at Fisherman’s Terminal, and the lively conversation seemed a continuation of our online one. At one point, during a pause in some dialog Roger and I were having, I heard Robin and Mrs. Perils pondering the presidential line of succession. I can only guess what regicidal fantasy led them to that point in their conversation.

Fittingly, as we prepared to leave the restaurant, I spied a bald eagle through the window, flying above Robin’s head.