Planning life

We can't seem to plan for the average week, so life seems a little bit out of reach. The haul-out we have been trying to get to for the last five months is a case in point. December was our goal; finally, this week, I have managed to get it scheduled for early June. What's a delay of seven months or so? Well, the obvious answer is, half a year of our lives.

Not that it matters, because we haven't been able to schedule the rest of our lives with any greater success. We had hoped to take a month or two and head north to Desolation Sound this summer, an area we have passed through but never yet really explored. An early season trip, ahead of the hordes of July and August, seemed to be the best bet. But the haul-out delay, other business bookings, and nothing else getting done this winter as we had expected, have put that idea on the rocks as well. I suppose we're neither the first or last people to notice how life keeps getting in its own way.

Watching what has happened to other people during this recession has only reinforced the point. We don't want to buckle down, work for the next twenty years, and hope we're in good enough shape still to enjoy retirement. We could just as well end up trying to do it in the next recession, or after a bout of serious medical problems, or who knows what? Everything we see screams out at us that every day is important, that you can't count on reaping the rewards at the end of a career. The time to enjoy is now, in whatever capacity one can manage.

So we hate having our lives just slide randomly along this way and we thought we were taking steps to keep all that from happening. We're not so foolish as to imagine we can control all the little ups and downs, but we thought we might structure our lives and livelihoods such that those things need not get in the way of what we really want to do. More than two years ago, I started cutting back on the support side of my business in favor of projects and report-based consulting, to reduce the on-call nature of the job; at the same time, we started building up the web presence for Mandy's business to reduce her dependence on having face time with students. The latter effort has been fairly successful; the former has been a victim of the recession or my own ineptitude, it's hard to say at this point. Last year, we moved out of our house, got it rented out, and moved aboard our boat, dramatically cutting back both expenses and possessions.

As I look back at it all, we mostly did what we set out to do in terms of cutting back. But it hasn't served to cut us loose at all. I'm not sure what went wrong. It's a bunch of small things, I guess. A cold snap, a miscommunication, a sense of professional responsibility, lack of resources, the price of gas, personal matters, money matters. The thing is, it's always the small things. There are always going to be small things. If we can't figure out how to live the way we want to despite the small stuff, how does it ever happen?

I've always thought the answer was basically "don't sweat the small stuff." That's a great thought. But it turns out that a lot of the small stuff matters; in a sense, I suppose, it's actually big stuff. I'm not sure this is as counter-intuitive as it sounds. After all, everyone knows that it's the details that count, whether they are in customer service or boat maintenance. So you shrug all that off at your own peril.

Recognizing that doesn't really provide a tool to help deal with it, though. If anyone else came to me and told me about all this stuff that is making them crazy, the way it is making us crazy, I would tell them to just drop it. Walk away, recognize that what you are accomplishing in dealing with these small things is never going to add up to the big thing you want your life to be. It calls for a fundamental restructuring, I would say, a life lived by taking only the road that leads toward your goals. There are sure to be enough speed bumps on that route already... don't force yourself to deal with the potholes on all the side roads as well. Stay on the highway.

We thought that we had done that, though, and yet here we still are, rambling down the dusty little roads that seem to take us further away from the mountain of our goals, not closer at all. We're not really sure what turn to take, so we keep going, easing off on the accelerator a bit as we watch the mountain recede in the rear-view mirror, but never finding a spot to make a U-turn.

We both know that this is how you give up on dreams, slowly and with small, rational steps. Neither of us want that to happen. But the way we thought we knew to stop it, just didn't work. Now we're sort of at mile one again.

F/V Time Bandit and the Caveman

Sorry, even if the Hillstrand brothers of the Time Bandit, a fishing vessel featured on Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch, try to convince me to switch to Geiko, I don't plan to do it. Not even if they team up with the Caveman (playing the part of a newly-arrived greenhorn). I just saw their new commercial on Discovery Health channel, and it doesn't seem it has found its way to YouTube yet. So, no easy embed to this blog just yet.

I have to appreciate, though, that the Hillstrands manage to not take life too seriously, even in the midst of a very serious profession. That said, seeing them in a commercial with the Caveman has me scratching my head, and saying, "Huh?"

If only Progressive had gotten to them first. I'd truly think about switching if they got the boys in a commercial with the all-too-funny Progressive lady.

~M



WAIT, don't stop reading yet: Just as I was ready to hit publish to this post, ANOTHER commercial aired, this time with Jonathon sitting in the captain's chair of the boat, giving his signature giggle to the little wad of money with the big eyes. I actually didn't catch the beginning of the commercial, so there may have been more to it. I don't know. Even the bit I saw was better than the Caveman ad.

I still won't switch, though.

What if it's a big hoax?

This, from USA Today Editorial Cartoons (via No Impact Man and Empress of Dirt).

Cheers,
Mandy

5 Hadlock Earth Day Lessons Learned

1. Picking up trash on the beach is better exercise than strolling on the beach (wet trash is heavy trash).

2. It is important to keep in mind the plastic bottle that sprung from your own boat's cockpit during a wind gust last year in order to keep from getting pissed about all the trash on the beach today.

3. Double-bag the plastic grocery bags you're re-using for this trash (again, wet trash is heavy trash)

4. The super-heavy waterlogged Rubbermaid garbage receptacle lid that was too far from home to drag home may mysteriously move itself 50 yards closer to home in the time it takes to walk back home for more bags for the stuff you've already collected that has landed back on the beach (due to the lack of the aforementioned double-bagging) and back again to recollect that trash.

5. Plastic is FOREVER: reduce, reuse, recycle; in that order.

Happy Earth Day everyone!

~Mandy

Apparently the couth and class of participants at the annual Fisheries boater's swap meet (which we were unable to attend this year) has not improved since this depressing episode I experienced a couple years ago.

Marty over at Three Sheets Northwest seems to have had a similarly poor experience this year. Are people just broke and desperate now? Or do events like that just draw out the few jerks in the community?

We've never been aboard in a hail storm before

It's quite noisy!

I walked up to the bathroom only a half hour ago under blue skies. To the south, where the weather is from today, all I saw were more blue skies. Oops.

There's a big blow forecast to come in later today, I guess maybe we're getting the leading edge of it. The pebbles of hail on the cabin top are like a continuous drum roll overhead. Mandy is sure to wake up now, but the only conversations we can have will have to be shouted.

One-hour Vietnamese cultural immersion

Yesterday I taught another 8-hour corporate course. Most (but, oddly, not all) of the students are non-native English speakers. While the classes are all multicultural, this client has a high number of Vietnamese employees that sign up for my classes. This group of 20 students consisted of about 8-10 Vietnamese, most of whom hadn't ever met each other before this class. I found what happened at lunch to be quite interesting.

We take a one-hour lunch, and I don't usually go anywhere during that time. It gives me a short break to decompress from the previous four hours of straight teaching to build up for the next four. I'd brought a sandwich from home (thanks to Terry's left-over Easter ham). I could see the Vietnamese group in the back of the room making their lunch plans. Just as I'd taken the first bite of my sandwich, they invited me to join them. This is outside of my comfort zone for a couple of different reasons, the main one actually being that I need to make sure I return from lunch on time. It seemed that it would have been rude to decline, however, so I put my sandwich back in it's bag and grabbed my coat.

Let me backtrack a bit. I have the best assistant in the world for my corporate classes. She is a first-generation American of Filipino descent, and she is awesome. When she is with me, I don't need to worry about anything running correctly. If I'm showing a video the lights magically go off, if I need a handout, it magically appears, even if I hadn't expected to need it or made copies for it. She knows my needs before I do, which I value greatly. Let me say, these 8-hours courses are tough! It is a long, strenuous day of constant focus. My assistant has my back in any possible situation during these days. She'll even watch my water intake and make sure I stay hydrated! Because of this, she has my complete trust. At lunch, she tends to disappear, though. It isn't a problem, since I don't tend to need her for anything (professionally). Except, for instance, that if she had discovered a sandwich in my bag, she'll go find a refrigerator for it somewhere and forget to give it back to me before disappearing. (She didn't do that yesterday, but she has in the past.) Yesterday morning she took my car to pick up the coffee after the class had started, and I wasn't sure where my keys ended up. At the point of leaving for lunch, she was gone, having disappeared into thin air, and I was without keys to drive myself to wherever we were going. I'd be at the mercy of lax Vietnamese.

As we left the building, the growing Vietnamese group was tossing around their orders, in Vietnamese, to one lady on a phone. They asked what I liked, but of course, I had no idea. "I like anything," was my honest answer. "Get her the BEST thing," came out of another lady's mouth.

I'd already told them I had lost my assistant, who had my keys, so I wouldn't be able to drive. The quick carpooling conversations began - in Vietnamese. We walked to one car, and the driver began taking two small car seats out of the back. Then they stopped and shut the doors. I was told that we'd go in the other lady's car because her car seats were easier to remove. I regretted not having my keys. I wouldn't need to remove any car seats, and everyone would have fit!

Off we went to the restaurant, about 15 minutes from the building the classroom was in. We got there and met up with the other carload or two of Vietnamese from the class. The restaurant was medium-sized. It probably could hold about 50 people, and there were already about 6 people not from the class seated that the people from the class seemed to know. (One of whom was actually another student who had taken the class in the past, but was not enrolled today.) They motioned for anyone they knew to join us, and our table grew. And grew. And seemed to grow again.

What struck me, though, was the flexibility and friendliness of everyone. Even the restaurant workers didn't care that they were continually rearranging the place, mixing people who just showed up with people who had ordered already and kept moving around on them.

The food began arriving, in bits. Unfortunately, my food was among the first to show up. The people around me kept saying "Begin, begin, please!" Sure, but I don't know HOW to begin. I was served a noodle soup with shrimp and pork, chop sticks, and a spoon-like apparatus. I'd had Pho before, though I was told that this wasn't Pho, but at least I knew the concept. Still, I desired someone else's food to show up so I would not make a fool of myself in some unknown way. Luckily, the exact same dish came for the lady across from me. She dug in, and I followed suit. And yes, I can handle chopsticks. Perhaps a but clumsily, but I can do it. I turned down multiple offers of asking the waitstaff for a fork for me.

I was glad I hadn't been served the chicken dish that showed up for many others. I do not know how to eat chicken, still on the bone, swimming in broth, with chopsticks. I watched the etiquette of it, just in case I ever find myself needing to separate chicken from bone inside my mouth in front of strangers in the future.

The conversations around me were a constant switch between Vietnamese and English. I'm certain that if I hadn't been there, it would have been all Vietnamese. Most of the conversations were work or education related as people made quick friends with one another. Either what division, or department, or group someone was in, or where they graduated from, and when. Sometimes the conversation went to where someone was from in Vietnam, but mostly it stayed with current, professional topics. Based on the dates, the group was mostly right around my age.

I knew I had no cash with me, and when the bill came a a combined check, I was glad when the man to my side pulled out a credit card and handed it to the lady who was handed the bill. I can follow suit on that as well. As I reached for my purse, I was told by multiple people around me that it was their treat, and I was the special guest. I was relieved, mostly for the awkwardness of not having cash with me. Plus, I had no idea how much my dish cost if I had had cash.

Somehow, even small groups of American have difficulty splitting up combined bills. This group, however, somehow pulled this off with absolute finesse. Money was passed from one end of our long table to the other. It seemed like, with a look, another $5 would be pulled out from somewhere. Then a twenty dollar bill shows up, and a ten dollar bill goes back the other direction. But the lady handling the money didn't even know who had sent the $20, at least not from what I could tell. Nobody seemed to care if they paid more that their share, or less, or about tip calculation. In a matter of just a few short minutes, the bill was paid.

Now, I have to admit, I was watching the time closely. I HATE being late to a class. We were down to 15 minutes to return, but I kept my mouth shut. Finally one of the ladies I rode with said that they needed to go to take Teacher back, and they began their good-byes. I keep thinking that much of this table is obviously also in the class. Yet, that did not seem to concern anyone else there. I kept my mouth shut again, and graciously thanked them all for lunch, and for the experience.

We arrived back a few minutes late, and I began teaching immediately, knowing that the rest of them would show up sometime. My assistant had given them a handout, a page copied from the textbook. She said she noticed a lot of people were taking notes on that page, and she wanted to blow up the diagram on that page for them. Good idea, I thought. She'd been off at the copy machine when I lost her at the beginning of lunch. I don't even know where this copy machine is that she keeps finding.

The day was fun (though extremely tiring). The surveys for the class came back with high marks, and I felt a new sort of connection with the people who take my classes. Especially though, I have a new regard for the friendliness and relaxed nature of the Vietnamese, both in their interaction with "outsiders" and with strangers from their own culture. I have a great job!