Two Roads Diverge
(The venerable F9F Panther flown by a Sierra Hotel Naval Aviator- just ask him- in the early 1960s. Photo USN).
Steve Canyon is in town, and rang me up to see if we could get together and talk something over. I agreed, since Steve is one of my favorite shipmates, from the time I met him as one of savvy veterans of the unpleasantness in SE Asia on the teaching staff of the Armed Forces Air Intelligence School at Lowry AFB in Denver.
Steve had been to The Show with the legendary Studies and Observation Group, and that may have accounted for his barely contained contempt for the straight-leg nature of the Service in peacetime. We students admired his coolness.
Our paths crossed periodically in the years after- it is a small Fleet, after all, but most of our best adventures came when we formed a co-conspiracy against our superiors when we worked at the Phone Company after retirement.
Steve and his bride are dealing with the same sort of dementia in the senior generation that I had, with the exception that it is the parents of his lovely bride. There are many similarities in the whole thing- the men were Navy Pilots, with the risk-taking talent and coordination that goes along with it, and the Mom’s were homemakers.
Things diverged from that. Mom insisted that Raven stop flying hulking attack aircraft, since he was a family man, and he meekly agreed and got out of the reserves. Big Mama was very much her own woman, and went back to work when she considered her three delinquents ready to shift for themselves.
She had validation outside the home, and she loved her man right to the end of things. And if the coincidental timing of their passing is any indication, their love survived beyond the end of the End County Maintenance sign on the road.
Not so much for Steve’s in-laws, who are nearing the last mile-markers in a different mood. The Father in Law is going down Raven’s road now, but their paths diverged before they became the same. Steve’ Father-in-law stayed active Navy, and rose through the predictable and challenging wickets of command at sea at least three times to make Rear Admiral.
If you have not considered just how hard that is on a family, particularly a large Irish-American family, consider this one: in all those moves, he got to fly his jet to wherever they were going, and the Mother-in-law got to pack up the house, rip the kids out of school, deal with the tears and unpack the whole mess on the other end.
Eventually, seven kids.
I had the opportunity to participate in the birth and development of two; Big Mama did the analysis and thought three was sufficient. I don’t know how she did it, but the idea of dealing with seven belligerent constituents boggled my mind.
Steve took a sip of beer at Willow and looked up toward the Amen Corner where Old Jim was flanked by Jon-without, the Lovely Bea and John-with. “I have never been here,” he said. “Nice place. But check this out: orders came for the bold pilot to transfer from NAS North Island to Oceana or someplace on the East Coast. Off went the jet and the white silk scarf, while Mom packed four kids under the age of five into the sedan to drive across the country.”
“Great leaping Jesus,” I said, involuntarily taking a deep draught of the happy Hour white and shivering. “That is a horror beyond imagining. I had to drive from DC to Coronado twice in three weeks to get the family out to San Diego.”
“Precisely,” said Steve. “So you can understand there are still some issues to be worked out now that they both are forgetting some things and can never let go of others.”
“Ugh,” I said. “I guess Raven was pretty lucky to have met Big Mama. As the super-ego goes, the real deal emerges. He became a sweet guy at the end. Not a mean bone in his body.”
“Doesn’t always work out that way,” said Steve. Then we went on to talk about what he really came to talk about. It was exactly the sort of thing you might see some broken down ex-Spooks huddled at any bar discussing in low voices.
It might even happen. You never can tell.
(Another mode of 1960s travel across America. “Mom! she is on my side!!!”)
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com <http://www.vicsocotra.com>
TMI
It is getting too late in the morning to launch into any polemics. I wrote the Red Wings off a couple weeks ago, so I should not be surprised that they fell to the Blackhawks last night in OT.
Crap.
Several associates announced they would not be watching due to blood pressure issues, and I think preventive care probably made a great deal of sense. I have waxed emotional on several issues already this morning via separate correspondence, and can’t dredge up the same emotions at this distance from rising.
The concern is about the Bulgarians. I have no working shower in the residence as a consequence of their actions yesterday. The good news is that the project appears to be lurching toward some sort of conclusion, though I am going to have to find a few thousand bucks to shell out to the former East Bloc.
The bad news is that I am going to have to deal with the world sans a refreshing ablution and last night’s plunge in the pool is going to have to do.
Too much information, sorry. Oh, wait, that is the story every morning, isn’t it?
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Dandelion Wine
My alert reader in the Shenandoah Valley forwarded a link to an earnest practitioner of the art of herbal cultivation in response to some musings about the uses for the only crop I seem to be bringing in this year at Refuge Farm. Another reader enjoys dandelion tea. Life is good some places, though I an uncertain how to view it here.
I take refuge in the political Continuing Crisis as a sort of solace from uncertainty. I understand- or kid myself that I understand- the mendacity and lack of commitment to the Republic on the part of our government, both sides, but the inability of anyone to take things seriously is troubling, and inclines me to retreat from the Imperial City.
So, this morning we are just going to ignore the Iranian Bomb, the Chinese Hackers, the deficit, the out of control entitlements, the three scandals which may (or may not) represent the some looming Orwellian future.
Not to mention the resurgent Chicago Blackhawks, and the very real determination of the senior management of the National Hockey League to ensure that the Detroit Red Wings do not advance to the Stanley Cup.
Instead, let’s turn our attention back to more tranquil days- like the ones that Ray Bradbury described in his fine trilogy of novels about summer life in the mythical Green Town recreation of his boyhood home of Waukegan, Illinois.
Specifically, The story “Dandelion Wine” was part of the evolution of his most personal and intimate stories from a place a century away form us here in the hurtling future. The story appeared for the first time not in the pulp pages of “Astounding Stories,” where you would think Bradbury’s fiction might have found a home, but from the June 1953 issue of Gourmet magazine.
We stand on the brink of June right now, and the dandelions are rising on the lawn at Refuge Farm. I need to talk to Frank the lawn guy and make sure he didn’t dose them with Round Up before I harvest them, though.
Dandelion Wine Recipe, courtesy of The Herbgardener
*10 to 12 Cups Dandelions (Flowers only)
1 C Honey
2 ½ Pounds Sugar
1 Orange rind, chopped
1 Lemon rind, chopped
1 Gallon of resh well water
2 Tbsp. fresh, chopped ginger
5 Cloves
1 Package yeast
1 Cup Orange juice
1/2 Cup Lemon juice
Dandelion Wine Instructions
Combine dandelion flowers, honey, sugar, orange rind, and lemon rind in a large pot.
Boil water in a separate container and pour over flower mixture.
Bring back to a simmer for 30 minutes.
Cool to room temperature.
Add prepared yeast (Follow manufacturer’s directions for hydrating yeast before adding it.)
Add orange juice, lemon juice, and spices.
Cover in a non-reactive container (like ceramic, glass, or enamel) and set aside for a month in a dark place to ferment. (This will get fragrant.)
Strain and decant into sterilized jars. Seal. Let wine season for three months or so in a cool, dark place before serving.
Tips and Tricks
*If you want to accumulate 12 cups of dandelions, try harvesting them a little at a time and freezing them until you have enough. This is a great spring project. You can have a batch ready to serve for your Labor Day picnic.
Never use dandelions that have been treated with pesticides- talk to Frank the lawn guy.
This recipe uses no sulfites or special equipment, and no horses or dogs were harmed in the process.
Copyright 2013 The Herbgardener and Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Situational Awareness
(One of the Ford F-250s headed north from Lake Ana on Virginia Rt 29 after the holiday.)
The Holiday is over and the Red Wings could not put away the top-seeded Blackhawks last night, but damn, there was a lot of activity crammed into three calendar days. Motorcycles on Sunday, and the Great Rolling Thunder traffic jam. Last night it was the big husky pick-up trucks hauling pleasure craft and long camping trailers north on the Zach Taylor Highway and Route 29 north from Lake Ana.
It wasn’t a bad drive back up to the Imperial City, if you kept your wits about you and flowed with everyone else.
I have to deliver a proposal to the government this morning out in Reston, and I am pleased I have enough awareness to remember that I have to be there, sunny side up, at an improbable hour.
Now that the work-week is not only looming, but right here, I am pleased to be alert enough to navigate out to the wilds of western Fairfax County. There is a lot to consider, in terms of the immediate future. I have a pal who has warned me about trying to explain things like budgets and out-years, so I will take a light touch to that. Suffice it to say that “major policy addresses” have budget consequences if they are real.
It is hard to figure out what the President’s attempted ‘re-set’ on the whole Terror thing is going to mean for the industry. Not good, I imagine. It is sort of weird, the relation between Government and Industry, now that I think about it. My situational awareness- SA- is a little low on that.
“SA” is shorthand for the old fighter pilot contention that if you did not know exactly what is going on around you at all times, someone is about to put a missile up your tailpipe.
It is funny. My colleagues and I used to BE the Government. In my case, it was only 27 years of active service, but that should be close enough for Government work. We did all that periodic training: ethics and diversity and harassment training- all the stuff we were supposed to believe because they told us to. We had to sign it off, too, along with the random urinalysis tests, polygraphs and periodic investigations.
I signed documents saying I would not conduct medical experiments on my co-workers, something I thought was absurd, until I found out about MKUltra, the program under which clandestine LSD doses were passed out with wild abandon by a sister agency in the go-go days of Camelot and the grim times that came after it. That revelation was quite an eye-opener.
Our pal Mac was part of the answer to the abuses of the wide-open 1960s. All these things come in great sine waves. I mean, who would have thought that the intel bean-bags would be flying armed drones and blowing up American citizens? I had to sign a paper agreeing not to do that. Plus ca change, I guess.
Anyway, with retirement from active service came the hard adjustment to being mostly like everyone else. I avoid classified material like the plague now, unless the Task Order solicitation is issued by the Government at a classified level.
Some projects need to be protected, after all, and the Chinese are merrily hacking away at the companies, collecting everything they can. Without some sort of firewall segregation (normally stand-alone non-networked computers for production) we essentially would be transferring government proprietary information VFR direct to Beijing. If, of course, it wasn’t stolen direct from the Government in the first place.
The end of the Cold War and the ‘permanent wartime footing’ that the President decried left us all in quite a pickle. The Agencies had to cut the workforce by around 20%- they took care of their people as best they good with early-outs and no hiring for most of the 1990s to make the goals.
The slack in capability was moved off the personnel leger with a simple trick: the same people just given early retirement came back in the door the next morning wearing different colored badges as Contractors. It was a change from one pot of money to another. Presto Chango!
In the bad old days, the companies were viewed as a necessary evil. The Agency routinely badged a lot of us, with suitable continued investigations and polygraphs, of course, so we could drop by and talk about things- projects coming up, areas we might want to invest private money to keep the right people “on the bench,” ready to go when the Government needed something.
My favorite requirement was a Government task issued to industry for the provision of “3-4 TS/SCI-cleared sociologists, with a minimum of three years field experience in sub-Saharan Africa willing to work in Stuttgart and eligible to pass the stringent TESA standards for employment of the German Government.”
We read that solicitation and laughed. For a long time, the social scientists viewed the Spook world with deep and abiding distrust- in no small part because of things like MKUltra. The idea that we could find sociologists well versed in our field was frankly absurd. I felt a little like Alice, when she told the White Queen, laughing:
“There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Did I mention that the Government wanted it cheap? That is another function of what is going on. Now that the war is “over,” or the terms of reference have changed, the price the Government is willing to pay for services is coming way down. Dramatically way down, and you can imagine that is sending shock waves through the industry.
Anyway, it is a complex and arcane business as you well know, but the reverse of then-VP Al Gore’s ‘outsourcing’ initiative is going on today.
For the last couple years they have tried to just hire us all back into the Government, but there is neither world enough, nor enough Government cash to actually do it. They call it “in-sourcing,” naturally, and clearly, they are uncomfortable with our presence in sheer numbers.
The award of the new multi-task order omnibus contract I manage came with the stipulation that they would sponsor only a limited number of clearances- the key to the kingdom, so to speak, in that a badge meant you could actually visit the agency, have lunch in the cafeteria, chat up old colleagues or attend conferences in which the Government tried to explain what it was doing.
You should have heard them try to explain Sequestration, for example. Hahaha.
Anyway, in the case of one contract I know well, the total number of sponsored clearances was slashed by almost 90%. The panic of being cut out of the loop was palpable- knowledge is power, you know, and there is nothing more formidable than the certainty that something is going on behind closed doors that you don’t know about.
I felt it personally last week when I delivered a proposal- unclassified- to the Agency last week. The contracts people are now located in a big new refurbished building out by Dulles International. There is a huge amount of spooky stuff out there now- and the Contracting Officer met me in the lobby to countersign the receipt and take the package. That is the same drill for this morning.
All business conducted in a public place, on the public side of the guards and guns. No conversation that could even vaguely be considered sensitive. Public. It is getting to be a matter of routine.
It occurred to me that this is a direct function of the reduced access of business to Government. I could just take my package to the contracting officer’s desk, shoot the shit, maybe get a cup of coffee and collect some business intelligence about what is going to happen for planning purposes by my company and partners.
It is not a great deal different in nature than what I have been doing all my professional life, but we call it something different. I view it as a simple matter of SA.
But there is a lot less of that now, and I wonder if someone is going to launch a missile at my tailpipe. The Government folks don’t want to talk, and that is policy from the Director on down, and I assume someone told him.
We are flying blind, then, and thank God I am not in the time of life where I have little kids and a real requirement for a steady income. Blind is no way to go into the future we are facing. But that is the policy.
It is not going to work very well, but that is the way we do things these days.
Have a great week- four days and I am back down on the farm where my requirement for SA is confined to whatever that stuff is growing in the garden. Some of it might actually be edible, but I will have to have my situational awareness really tweaked up to try the right stuff.
(They claim dandelions are edible. That may be the only crop I bring in this year).
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Memorial Day
The 26th annual Rolling Thunder rally brought motorbike enthusiasts out in their thousands. The gathering of riders in Washington D.C. aims to help turn the spotlight on the plight of military prisoners of war. It’s also intended to focus attention on troops missing in action. The bikers assembled in a parking lot at the Pentagon in Virginia. They headed out together, crossing the Memorial Bridge and finally ending up at the Reflecting Pool facing the Lincoln Memorial on National Mall. The rally attracts biking enthusiasts from all over the U.S. each Memorial Day weekend. – Washington Post
The Memorial Day weekend had turned into a magnificent few days of bliss. It started cool- so cool that the first plunge in the Big Pink pool was a near life altering experience. More temperate conditions prevailed as I headed south with a load of sentimental debris, and the Farm was a welcome vision when I arrived. Peaceful, but not quiet- the powerful roar of the 17-yer cicadas rolled out of the woods below the back deck, lending a certain science fiction sound track to the otherwise bucolic setting.
I thought about important chores that needed to be done- check the garden, mount the brass dragons on the side of the barn, stuff like that. Or deal with all that crap in the estate office.
Chicken and egg, you know? I will have to pull all that stuff out of there to get it organized. Where are the day laborers when you need them?
I unloaded the Panzer and added to the chaos in the garage. Then I took a holiday moment to catch up. I was chatting via the vastly improved speed of the satellite internet with a pal- a combat vet- and I thanked him for his service.
He caught me up short by reminding me that Veterans have their own holiday, in November. This day off is for those who did not come back, he said.
I had time to think about that. The first note on the plan was to see if I could get the new satellite broad-band to communicate with the television. I have one of those television plans that I don’t fully understand, or use much, and actually using all those DVDs seems like more trouble than it is worth.
How did I get suckered into a new technology that is obsolete? I have a large box of cassette tapes I need to get rid of, and probably those BetaMax tapes I thought were thought were a good investment not so long ago.
I do like some aspects of living in the future, though. I have taken to just buying the television series that have good reviews, and watching them in batches when I have the time and inclination.
The old satellite connection could not support streaming video, so the point was moot. I suppose I could have used the view-on-demand feature, but that is another expensive option I don’t want to deal get used to.
I could not get the Sony Blu-Ray DVD player to access the internet, and have been looking around for an alternative. I hate to use this solemn holiday as a product endorsement, but the Roku 3 streaming video box costs less than a hundred bucks, and the thing works like a dream. I can access my Amazon, Netflix and Hulu Plus accounts from the safety and privacy of my couch.
Fabulous.
Then I wandered out to check the garden. Fabulous progress there, too. There is all kinds of stuff growing there. The slight downside is that the lush greenery is nothing that I planted, and it is all an exceptionally nice collection of local weeds that really liked the fresh-tilled soil.
I could have followed the guidance of The Naked Gardener, shed some clothes and got my fingers deep into Culpeper’s rich red dirt, but the nagging imperative of all that stuff back in Arlington was calling.
“Why not,” I told the Russians later over a vodka on their front porch, “I run up in the morning, get a swim, and fill the Panzer up with stuff and bring it back. Should be a piece of cake.”
Mattski nodded, serene in the knowledge that his garden was planted, weeded and complete. He picked up his banjo, strumming a few chords of “Dueling Banjos” from the film Deliverance. I should have listened to the cautionary music.
I did manage to get organized enough to get on the road at a decent hour and the Sunday morning traffic was light, as I had expected. I hit Big Pink in record time, and wandered through the now spare and freshly painted unit. It did not feel like home any more- the construction effort in the front bathroom and the blank white space of the walls made it sterile and unwelcoming. The stacks of incorrect art the Realtor and The Stager had evicted needed to get out of town and down to the farm where they can be whoever they want.
(The girls still look apprehensive, but the Harem Master is content above the bed at the farm. VADM Rex had it above his bed, too. Photo Socotra).
I loaded boxes and artwork into the car until the level of junk was up to the windows. The central problem was the painting from the estate of VADM Rex. It had been hanged with pride- hung?- in the dining nook at Big Pink. The Stager had cringed when she first observed it.
Where the hell would it go at the farm? Could I get it down there without puncturing the canvas or cracking the ornate frame?
Time would tell, I thought, and packed around it with a quilt embroidered in the memory of PFC Evan W. O’Neil, KIA at a place called Shkin, Afghanistan on 29 September 2003. I bought it at a silent auction held at the New England Homeless Veterans Shelter a few years back, before the war on the roof of the world took a back seat to the Iraq invasion, and things got really ugly. It was appropriate cushioning, I thought.
Then to the pool, and a refreshingly chilly dip under the watchful eyes of Milos, the new Polish lifeguard, a chat with the usual suspects who have emerged from their units after the long winter, and back in the Panzer to head home to Culpeper. New concept, I thought, looking at the clock on the dash. Should be there in time to get unloaded and set up shop on the back deck and listen to the cicadas.
Instead, I was about fifteen minutes late to miss the consequences of two motorcycle accidents.
(This was west bound Interstate 66 at two-fifteen. Traffic was a lot slower than it looks.)
I had not calculated the fact that while Rolling Thunder was still in progress downtown in the District, a vast hoard of Harleys (and some Rice Burners) that had already completed their circuit of the city and had snaked downtown, past the monuments and Vietnam Memorial’s solemn black wall, and thence back out of town to surround the bewildered four-wheelers.
(Bikers are different. Grid lock means it is time to dismount and grab a smoke. Photo taken with personal peril by Socotra).
I had thought I was going to miss this edition of Rolling Thunder, since I had only ducked back up north from the farm to pick up a load of crap from Big Pink. I was lucky- Rolling Thunder and a couple biker crashes brought it right to me.
It took an hour to get to the Beltway, not that I minded. It was sort of cool to see a different sort of traffic jam in Arlington.
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Making a Splash
(The Big Pink Pool Gate is open and the season has begun. Photo Socotra.)
It is strange writing about Up There, when I am down here on the farm, with the big F-250 pick-up trucks rumbling down the farm lane early for the horse event at Rosemary’s Summerduck Run Farm just up the road. Damn, it is good to be in the country.
I guess this strange juxtaposition will go on for a while as the pile of crap diminishes at Big Pink and gets larger down here.
I had a large load to get down here, and the Panzer was prepared, seats folded down, trunk compartment cover removed, and lean and ready to take boxes of books and clothes and fragile stuff I have no particular use for, but meant something at one time to someone and for which I am now custodian.
We all have our little crosses to bear, and this one, on the whole, is not bad.
I had crap staged by the door and looked at the clock. It was a little before ten, and it was unseasonably chill, with a brisk breeze under crystalline blue skies and bright thin sun. I changed into trunks and flip-flops with a t-shirt and sweater to open the season.
I packed the iPad and the latest issue of The Atlantic magazine I am going to let go when the subscription expires later this summer. The cover article was about what straight couples could learn from gay ones, and I blinked at how the world has changed in such short order.
The magazine has a new format- sort of Atlantic Lite- and with some other grand old print publications (like the one I used to edit) I am going to shed the weight of the issues. I threw out a couple years worth of them in the Great Purge I had been meaning to get around to, but the hell with it. World enough and time, the man said, and he was right.
I grabbed a towel, forgot the pool pass and went down to the elevator and said “Hi!” to Lauren at the front desk and padded back down the corridor to the side exit and sat on Tony’s patio wall, waiting patiently for the latest crop of young Poles to show up and open the steel fence.
They are usually early on the first day of the season, so it was unusual for this eleventh start to the outdoor aquatic season. I found I could get a signal from my Wi-Fi router all the way down there. All the ‘netizens of the building are broadcasting the contents of their most intimate communications to all sorts of ranges, so it is a powerful argument to keep things encrypted.
The breeze was positively cutting, and glancing at the time on the iPad, I realized that there was something wrong. Too cold for the pool opening? This global warming thing is hell. I gave up as I started to shiver and went back to see Lauren at the front desk and inquire if the opening had been postponed.
She shrugged her substantial shoulders and gave me a brilliant smile. “If they did, they haven’t told me.”
“Could you just loan me the keys to the gate for a second?” I asked, and she politely declined.
So, I was disappointed but went back to putting things in boxes and hauling them down to the Panzer. On one of the trips Lauren called out: “The lifeguards called. They are running late, but should be there now.”
“Mind if I park the cart in the foyer while I go and jump in? I don’t want to miss being first just because they are late.”
She told me she would keep an eye on the cart, though increasingly I sort of hope someone would just help out and roll it away and deal with the crap themselves.
No towel, of course, since I was in mid-trip, but what the hell. Some things are important.
Joe, the Deputy Commander of Deep Blue Aquatic Management was walking up the sidewalk, escorting a small gaggle of New Junior Poles who would be supervising us on the pool deck through the summer. I introduced myself to all six, some of whom I am going to know very well before this season is done.
Joe graciously did not insist on seeing my pool pass, and regally waved me through the gate ahead of the life-guards.
“You can just get the ritual out of the way. You don’t need to sign in. Get wet.”
I thanked him profusely, rolling my sweater up over my head and depositing it on the usual table that was still without umbrella. Keys, pass and glasses followed and the breeze on my skin was cutting. Nothing for it but to do it. I turned and marched toward the edge, the water glittering in the little corner where the sun shone down over the battlements of the building.
No point in thinking. I jumped toward the water, waiting for the shock and marveling that the muscles on the left leg worked, sort of. What a change from last year. Some things get better, I thought, in the millisecond before water impact.
And then there was the splash.
Game on, Gentle Readers. Game on.
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Double Novel
I have to say that this is a novel time to be alive, wouldn’t you agree?
I don’t know which of the seasons of our lives can be stranger, or how the ever-rising generations look at the times in which they live. Terrorism as a concept is not as scary as the notion that we all could go up in an atomic fireball with only a couple minutes warning, don’t you think?
It certainly is not as frightening as a time when Nazi saboteurs landed on our shores with impunity, and everyone went to war in a way that is quite impossible for who did not live then to comprehend.
The odds of being killed by some whack-job radicalized young man may be as rare as a lightning strike, but still…the President’s big address that claimed we could stand down from a “perpetual war footing” seemed sort of strange, coming on the heels of the butchering of a British soldier on the streets of suburban London.
I don’t know what to think, exactly, except maybe this is actually a golden moment, since the whack jobs maybe be back with Atom weapons shortly. Crap. Time to avoid crowds, stay alert, and stop living in major target areas. It is kind of like one of those science fiction novels I used to devour as a kid.
That was very much on my mind yesterday as I boxed up a bunch of dreams and memories, worth nothing and everything yesterday. I looked at the outrageous cover art as I tossed a couple hundred paperbacks in the general direction of one of the large cardboard boxes I discovered in the storage locker left over from the last move.
Cool ones- space-damsels in distress, monsters of all sorts, rockets to forever. I hefted one of them: “The Weapons Shops of Isher,” a fine outing by A.E. Van Vogt, which explored some issues as relevant today as they were then. And of course, that science fiction was real.
That is part of what made the day so nuts- these bits of sudden cognition and memory floating up out of crumbling paper and petrified binding. Funny that so much of it has come to pass, and then gone again, like the idea of manned spaceflight. But I had to work fast, and the memories blurred.
I mentioned that there was a crisis with the movers- “What? Packers didn’t come? Sorry, that is not what we do.” Their truck was blocking the entrance to Big Pink, and the sole freight elevator was out of service, and the usual crap you go through dealing with moving piles of crap, with the growing realization that none of it is worth the trouble, at least the paper stuff.
Then there was the added stress that I had to be in Maryland on a very important job-related mission. The traffic can be manageable in the brief respite between the great imperative of the traffic flow in the morning southbound and the afternoon back north.
But this was the eve of a major holiday, and each minute after noon the great river of steel and steely-eyed drivers trying to get ahead of the rush would make it more and more problematic on the dreaded Beltway.
Specifically, this trip was to the deep northern suburbs Maryland to pick up the proposal that twenty or thirty people sweated bullets creating over the last nine days. It is a novel thing, having responsibility for so much labor and emotion packaged in a sixteen-by-sixteen square of corregated paper- but all I have to do now is navigate to the wilds of Reston, out by Dulles airport, and make the requisite window of time to get it in the paws of the Government contracting officer on Tuesday morning.
DO NOT FORGET.
Then life goes on again. I hope.
Meanwhile, there is some hopefully less fevered activity here today, though I don’t know. Lounging by the pool is no option- I wonder if I can do two trips to the farm? Down this morning, after a plunge in the pool, unload, come back tomorrow and load up again, and then return at a sedate pace on Monday? I could clear out a bunch of stuff, moving crap from one place to another.
There was that moment of clarity while making a command decision about paperback books, cherished artifacts of long ago, of the fantastic and of innocence. “Ace Double Novels,” 35-cent volumes bought with my allowance at the Rexall, recycled novellas commissioned to fit the needs of the old pulp fiction monthly rags aimed at a new market. I was a sucker- there may be a hundred of them, published in a strangely appealing format: one story front to back, ending half way.
Then, to start the next, one flips the paperback over and reads backwards to meet the ending of the other story in the middle.
That is not a metaphor, I think. But things are so crazy, and we are asked to believe so many things that make less sense than an Ace Double Novel, which is a lot more affordable than anything going around today.
Anyway, maybe I am nuts. Maybe we will all meet in the middle, like one of those double novels that disappeared into a box and trundled off down the corridor, and which I probably will never see again.
I think it is OK if I don’t, which is a novel feeling since I have been hauling them around for most of my life. Actually, at least twice as novel.
(Bye, guys. See you again someday? Photo Socotra.)
Copyright 213 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Crap, Part 27
(A consolidated pile of…well…crap. Photot Socotra).
I was up early, as usual, to try to scribble some words secular and profound and naturally with such lofty goals, failed.
I could drink coffee, though, and I noticed that the books- Mom’s books, bless her- were looking at me accusingly. They had to be moved. And the pictures.
Crap. So I started moving things around and when the moving guys arrived, they blocked the front entrance to Big Pink and the fun began.
I can’t begin to tell you how much mirth and merriment this turned into, and I have not even tried to drive to Maryland yet.
Have a great Memorial Day Weekend, though pay a thought to those who served, but did not live to see this one.
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Day in the Life
Jamie goes anonymous as The Lovely Bea arranges limes with her vodka. Photo Socotra).
No story this morning, sorry, there is too much going on to talk about.
I am constantly entertained by the antics of the White House, and have become accustomed to the ability of Jay Carney utter bald-faced lies from the podium at the daily press briefings. He has got to go, but there are so many who need to go and face criminal prosecution that it is hard to pick on him.
I am absolutely flummoxed by the fact that “I don’t know” has become an acceptable defense for illegal and unconstitutional behavior by the senior government officials- sort of like “I am innocent but I am taking the 5th” from the lady that headed the IRS 401(c)4 Office. Funny, you know? Claiming the protection of the Document that the same official has been merrily shredding. Is this a great country, or what?
The IRS thing made me realize that we are in the crosshairs, and if you take the wiretapping of the journalists- I don’t care if you are right or left, the idea that Justice should be feeding the IRS with reasons to get in your face over some part of an incomprehensible tax code is chilling.
According to the US Government Printing Office, the code is 13,458 pages in total. The full text of Title 26 of the United States Code is another 3,387 printed pages, bringing the adjusted gross page count to 16,845. And it isn’t just the IRS. One of those nasty right wing people who applied for tax exempt-status and previously imagined that she was exercising her first amendment rights swiftly had four IRS audits, an FBI investigation, and visits from OSHA, ATF and the EPA.
Prior to filing, she had nothing to do with the government except to pay taxes to it and be concerned about it.
Seems she was right. I had to scrub the Panzer before venturing across the the American Legion Bridge to go to Maryland yesterday, since due to the comings and going of the Bulgarian workers and movers in the apartment, I have to keep the high-value items I have not moved to the farm with me. Hence, all my backpacks contain objects whose purpose could be- well, misconstrued. What do you say to a trooper about a razor-sharp samurai sword in the trunk? “Um, it is a souvenir?”
Well, it is. From a long time ago and a war far away. But I am almost used to the idea that I am doing something illegal all the time.
This is not exactly the land in which I grew up, and Scandal-rama, the other parts are sprouting wild and crazy paths. That was all swirling through a day that had virtually everything.
Thank Goddess today is not nearly as challenging as yesterday, which featured the demolition of the front bathroom, two young movers and a truck, five conference calls, a trip to Gaithersburg, MD, 27 miles around the Beltway and up the I-270 technology Corridor and back to pick up a proposal for delivery this morning, a Gold Team Review of the next proposal due on Tuesday morning followed by a conference call on another major contract bid, and then Willow, since the Bulgarians had quite sternly informed me that I could not return to the apartment before 1730.
Everyone was ready for the coming holiday weekend, and maybe that is why The Lovely Bea decided to dress up her vodka and lime with the whole lime, and why LTJG Socotra stopped by the bar to catch up and try the Special Flatbread and Bea’s pal Jamie decided to go incognito.
I think, on the whole, anonymous is really the way to go from here out. Given what is going on all over, it only seems prudent.
Gotta get rolling. It’s business.
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Collateral Damage
I have been bustling around, distracted, since about three-thirty. Can’t sleep. Too much to think about.
I have to be in Gaithersburg to pick up a proposal to deliver tomorrow, the Bulgarians are coming to continue painting and demolish my front bathroom, and a crew is coming to take a load of assorted furniture that I don’t really care if I ever see again to points south.
Whew- what a week…there may or may not be a story this morning. I was going to pass along a public service announcement on ticks that I got from The Lovely Bea at Willow last night.
Let me back up for a minute. See, I got to the office for the pipeline review in the morning, a couple minutes before nine, and picking my notebook up from my desk I turned my wrist over casually and saw a black blob right where you would slit your wrists, if it came to that- the part where the blood is rich and right near the surface.
A moving black blob, at least parts of it. I had a damn tick. I put down the notebook. Fire, right? Shouldn’t I set fire to the little monster? Do not try to pick it off, I thought. I found my little folding knife with the wicked serrated blade and flicked it open while watching in fascination the movement of the tiny legs of the monster. I flicked my Bic open and heated the blade, then applying it to the tick and the tender flesh of my wrist.
The blob did not appear to like that, and frankly, neither did I. It took a couple tries, but the blob appeared to abandon his assault with head and teeth intact, and I destroyed him with the application of massive force from my white bucks as blood began to seep from the wound. Collateral Damage, I thought.
Bea looked at me sadly, later at the bar. “Vic, all you have to do is swab a little Vaseline on the insect- I think ticks are insects- and they can’t breath and relax. Then you can lift it off, put it in a little baggie and take it to the hospital to see if it carries Lime Disease.
I made a note on a napkin, and another to check the incubation period for a rash or something nasty.
So then home and boxes and piles of crap around the plastic-wrapped living room. My problem is books at the moment, since the Stager says they have to go before the first open house:
These are a combination of my hard-backs and Mom’s slip-cased folio editions that I have looked at in wonder all my life.
What to do with this? The books are not crap, like most of the rest of it, but holy cow, all those ideas are heavy.
So I was doing that, cycling through the bedrooms moving things around in anticipation of the larger move on Friday and the impending arrival of the Bulgarians when the words that dribbled from the radio started to hit me with electricity. Or was it the onset of Lime Disease?
I was not going to write a story, but a Turkish Journalist asked for my thoughts on Syria, not knowing that I don’t have any, and specifically who Secretary Kerry ought to pin the rose on in the Syrian opposition as the recipients of military aid. I think that decision was already made, on the QT, but like I said, I don’t have any thoughts.
They are all idiots, regime and insurgents, and I think we should blow Assad away and get on with life. We have done that everywhere else in the Arab Spring, right?
I deferred advise on the insurgent groups and told the journalist that the trifecta of things this here this morning is going to intensify the urgency in the White House on many issues in the Middle East:
“I think Secretary Kerry has got a real problem in identifying the best of the bad alternatives in Syria.
There have been two developments this morning, a third if you count yesterday’s leak about Libya. Let me frame the issue in the context of the American leadership conundrum with his current scandals. Strength enables bolder action on Syria. Weakness means continued dithering:
The FBI announces they have identified five suspects in Benghazi attack. This is a ticklish issue, since the whole point of the cover-up was to claim that al Qaida was on the run and there was no planned or coordinated terror attack. But the President is no longer facing re-election. If he goes ahead and treats them as enemy combatants and kills these guys with a drone strike or a SPECOPS mission (I think the former rather than the latter is likely) he will look strong again and put the Republicans back on their heels.”
Then, whammo, the Bureau announces this morning that they have shot and killed an associate of the older Boston Bomber. Wild card- just in, first things always wrong- supposition is that the Special Agent who went to interview the guy, who was in touch with Tamerlin and preparing to go to Chechnya, may reveal that there is in fact a domestic network of Jihadis.
Will this undermine or strengthen the President’s hand? If true, he looks like he lied to us again, but has a superb National Security Card to play.
Then there is Yesterday’s News, still explosive:
“Ex-Diplomats Report New Benghazi Whistleblowers with Info Devastating to Clinton and Obama” was the headline. Truth or more lies? I do not know.
“…former diplomats (say) the new revelations concentrate in two areas — what Ambassador Chris Stevens was actually doing in Benghazi and the pressure put on General Carter Ham, then in command of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and therefore responsible for Libya, not to act to protect jeopardized U.S. personnel.
Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups issued to them by the State Department, not by the CIA. Such a mission would usually be a CIA effort, but the intelligence agency had opposed the idea because of the high risk involved in arming “insurgents” with powerful weapons that endanger civilian aircraft.
Hillary Clinton still wanted to proceed because, in part, as one of the diplomats said, she wanted “to overthrow Gaddafi on the cheap.””
There it is- the reason not to send fighter jets or C-130s filled with commandos that awful night: the aircaft could be shot down by jihadis with our Stingers. Maybe the leadership feared the same sort of ambush that killed 17 members of SEAL Team Six in Afghanistan just weeks after the bin Laden raid.
Maybe the potential collateral damage that must have seemed unsupportable at the time. But I don’t think that is even the full story.
I think that mission also included an off-the-books Iran-Contra style operation was in progress to transfer some of these MANPAD missiles to the Syrian Rebels. Incendiary, if true. We know for a fact that Stinger-like missiles started to show up several months ago in rebel hands to defect the advantage of the Syrian Air Force.
…and note the fact that the FBI was crucial in the revelation of personal emails with his lovely biographer that destroyed CIA Director Petraeus just when the Administration needed no leaks from Langley about what was really going on in the Libya operation.
Take that with the intrusion by the Justice Department into the computers of two journalists from Fox News and ABC, and the wholesale monitoring of the AP. Well, it certainly seems like something a bit…comprehensive.
I think the Administration has promise and peril here. They may have to do something big to divert attention- but the FBI (under the hands of Eric Holder) is becoming some sort of Praetorian Guard. Interesting…but scary.
You will see more on all three of those new threads, and how the spinmasters in this town treat them could change the calculus of the political game being played.
And the poor Constitution? Another bit of collateral damage, as the FBI becomes something with powers that J. Edgar Hoover could only dream about.
Anyway, remember, if you get one of those pesky ticks, try the Vaseline and avoid the knife. You want to minimize the collateral damage, where possible.
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com