(Pool Furniture piled up after the first winds of Autumn swept through Big Pink. Photo Socotra)
The water was wonderful. The vastness of the Big Pink pool retained the heat of summer, even as the tornados of the changing season swept through yesterday, hurling the light furniture up against the fence. It was chaotic down on the pool deck when I rose, deeply introspective on Sunday morning.
Your firstborn does not get married that often, and so the celebration of his union with the lovely Bre’Anne was a moving experience. The in-and-out-laws were all there, and the newlyweds got us all to pose for pictures. Then they got down to the serious business of having a good time. I slipped out into the darkness, my leg aching after a few hours. I did not see that dancing till dawn was a credible option.
Sunday dawned crisp and clear and filled with work. I was hung-over, not so much with the fumes of Chardonnay but of the reality of seeing those kids who grew up with the boys matured into young parents themselves, and the passing of the generations happening right before our eyes.
Konrad thanked me for yelling down from the balcony that the Weather Service had reported a funnel cloud on the ground in Fairfax, and the front was moving our way. “Take cover!” I had yelled down. Then I sat on the Adirondack chair to watch the show.
When the front arrived it was too scary to stay out there, and I hustled in with the cushions as the rain began to hurtle sideways and the maple tree off the balcony waved frantically.
The temperature had dropped abruptly. The radio told us to seek shelter in a room with a sturdy interior wall. I decided the bed was probably the place to be, and if the tornado smashed the big window and swept me away, that is precisely the exit I would like to take.
Then it was gone, the fierce winds diminished to drizzle, and it was time to head over for the family pictures at the Arlington Arts Center. Konrad padlocked the pool and Saturday went away. Then the reception, and the wonders of the new generation.
(New In-laws and Newlyweds)
Sunday brought distressing reality. The only way to get the proposal written was to enter into Proposal Hell. All the contractors know what that is. Deadlines and snap-turnarounds, search for credible candidates, a scramble for intelligence on the competition, establishing a pricing model that makes a convincing case with an acceptable technical approach.
The ten o’clock Sunday conference call established the goals and consigned me to the office on a lovely sunny day. It is always weird in there on a Sunday; the air conditioning in the building is shut down, and the IT backbone is always up to its own little tricks.
We are caught up in the panic of the end of the fiscal year downtown. I won’t bore you with the details. I have been often castigated for trying to explain The Process; “No one cares how you guys make sausage. It is all inside-the-Beltway crap and no real people care.”
So, it was a lovely afternoon looking out the windows high above North Glebe Road, trying to find the Redkskins opener against New Orleans on the little clock radio on the desk.
I got what I felt was a solid draft of my volume of the proposal complete and shipped it off to the Proposal Manager and went home. I was surprised to find 30 seconds of the football game still on, and that was the NFL for me on the big screen. Then I went down to swim and talk to Alex about the end of the year. Fast Eddie with the comb-over was in a buoyant mood. He has lived in the building since the late 1980s, since way before he had a comb-over, and he talked about year’s past. He even did the first in, last out challenge one year, long before I arrived here a couple weeks after 9/11.
He told a long rambling story about a woman who is still here who once was a pool stalwart in a tiny bikini. Her lover left for San Diego, and she lapsed into an angry fundamentalism, complete with a custom license plate that advertises her faith, and no pool. Certainly no bikini. “GodzGud” is the plate, if you happen to see it down in the lot and need the back-story.
“Things change,” I observed, thinking I might be about done with the first-and-last thing, or at least the last of this strange season. Konrad is done and gone, getting on a plane for San Francisco today for a few laughs before going back to Poland.
Fast Eddie got out and toweled down and shouted that we were going to regret getting out. “It’s freaking freezing!!” he said, and it was as good as his words as I eventually climbed out as the shadows climbed the flank of the building. I was shivering uncontrollably as I said goodbye to Konrad.
“Travel safely,” I said. “Ask Johanna to hook us up on Facebook. We are going to miss you.”
He looked at me through the dark lenses of his aviator sunglasses. “Yeah, sure,” he said, “I will. You come to Poland sometime.”
I swore that I would, and then went into the building before the chilblains overcame me.
Then I went back up to the unit and turned on the West Coast game and re-read the proposal with a nice cocktail. Busy day on Monday, I thought, and finally threw everything in the briefcase and took the iPad with me to bed. The Government has some money it needs to get rid of, though there is a warning in the solicitation that funds might or might not be available. We will do the proposal anyway, betting on the come.
The one thing for sure is that some money is going to disappear at midnight on September 30th, New Year’s Eve for Fiscal 2013, and it is heresy to let it expire. Hence our frenzy to get those bucks obligated before the new year arrives. So, we are meeting an unreasonable deadline with a totally reasonable proposal, if we can get it cleaned up and ready for delivery by Friday.
2013 is the year of Sequestration and the Big Cliff, so there could be some really interesting things to come. And the Recession that we have ignored out there in fly-over country might very well come to Washington.
If I was smarter I might know what it all means. And it would be wildly unrealistic to bet against DC’s intrinsic self-interest, regardless of party affiliation, to not expect someone to pull a rabbit out of the hat and everything will be fine.
Anything is possible, I suppose. But America- take heart. It could well be that The Beltway is about to feel your pain.
(Tiffany glass panel at the Arlington Arts Center from the condemned mausoleum at Henderson Hall. I will tell you the story some time)
Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com