No Way!

I was an engineering intern ("co-op") at Procter and Gamble during college -- three terms in Cincinnati and one in Sherman, Texas. During one of my Cincinnati semesters I roomed with three young P&G engineers, two of whom had been in the same fraternity at MIT a few years before. This story is from them, and has stuck with me ever since...

The frat house was having a party on Saturday night. The guys were trying to talk their Monday-through-Friday cleaning lady into coming in on Sunday to clean up after the party. She knew better, and rejected all of their pleas using her less-than-perfect English, but they were being very persistent. She finally said, "No! You're barking up a dead wall!"

Writers and public speakers know how useful a good metaphor is, but that mixing two metaphors is the sign of a hack (or at least a sloppy writer). It's the rare author who can mix three metaphors, though, in such powerful fashion:

• Barking up the wrong tree
• Beating a dead horse
• Talking to a wall

It has a certain ridiculous charm, doesn't it? So the next time you want to say emphatically "No way!" feel free to say "You're barking up a dead wall!" instead, and see what happens. It worked for her, and they had to do the Sunday post-party cleanup themselves.

Pat

Naked Seoul

The downside of making several trips to Korea in the last few years was the flight: Almost 14 hours on Korean Air (direct) , or over 18 hours on United, connecting through Tokyo or San Francisco. After you've had a snack, done some reading, watched a movie, taken a nap, gotten some work done, listened to some music, had a meal, done a sudoku puzzle, and napped again, you look at the time -- and you've still got 4-6 hours left to go. Ouch.

The upside was getting to stay at the nicest hotel I've ever been in, the Shilla.

Part of the corporate hotel deal we had with the Shilla was limo service from the airport, included. So when you ooze out of the Seoul airport customs area, tired, blinking and aware of your own breath, you're met by a driver with your name on a sign, and he takes your bag and whisks you off to your limo (a very nice Hyundai Equus). During the pleasant one-hour ride he'll make a little small talk if he speaks a little English, and he always touches base with the hotel via cellphone when you're getting close.

As you pull up to the hotel you're then greeted at the curb by a front desk clerk and a bellhop: "Welcome back to the Shilla, Mr. Harrigan. I hope you had a good flight from Chicago." They take you and your bag straight through the lobby and up to your room, hand you your key, and check to see if you need anything special this time. No front desk stop for paperwork (it's already on file), just efficiency. Now that's how to arrive at a hotel.

The rooms are done in clean, understated Asian luxury, as is the whole hotel, but the real treat is the fitness center/health club. Working out in the morning really helps me function when I travel, especially if I'm jet-lagged and not getting a full night's sleep. And this place makes it worth getting up at 5 or 6 a.m.

Again with the service: you check in with your room key at the main health club desk, get a locker key from the friendly attendant, and by the time you get up the stairs and down the hallway the fitness center guy is out of his office to greet you: "Good morning, Mr. Harrigan. Can I help you with anything today?" Half of the fitness center usage is from hotel guests, the other half from local members: very successful Korean business executives in their 40's through 70's, by my estimate. (I'm sure membership is super-expensive.) The gym is very well-equipped, especially by hotel gym standards.

After the workout it's spa time, where it gets interesting culturally. For me the perfect ending to a workout is a heat treatment of some kind, and here I get to do the trifecta of steam room/sauna/whirlpool, with a few additional variations available (medium- and super-hot whirlpools, cold pool, wet sauna, etc.) Plus showers with amazing water pressure, and scrubbing cloths and brushes, and a variety of soaps and shampoos and such, and plush, thick towels. You're warm, relaxed and squeaky-clean when you leave.

But in a dozen mornings at the Shilla I don't think I ever saw another Westerner in the men's spa; just me and a bunch of late-career Korean executives.

Naked. Really naked.

I understand that the whole naked-spa thing is part of Korean culture, but it did take some getting used to. I'm in a foreign country, tired from working out, a little muzzy-headed from sleep deficit, and surrounded by naked Korean businessmen strolling, chatting, and doing the spa thing without a care in the world. Since I don't speak any Korean (just a couple of words) I have no idea what my naked brethren in the whirlpool were talking about, but it's hard not to be self-conscious and imagine they're talking about me:

• "Hmmph. I'm not impressed."
• "Look at him -- if he were any more white he'd be clear."
• "I hope he's not in the whirlpool just to fart."

They probably didn't really care that I was there, and I shouldn't imagine the worst of anyone, but still...

I'm happy to report that in a typical Korean business setting everyone wears clothes, all day long. (I'm pretty sure it wasn't just for my benefit.) And the Koreans were polite, on the ball, and generally a pleasure to do business with.

The project that took me to Seoul ended, so I won't go back there for a while. If I ever do I'll try to stay at the Shilla, rejoining my naked brethren each morning, emerging self-conscious but squeaky-clean, ready to start the day.

Pat

The Teal Ribbon

Rachel passed away a year ago today, as many of you recall. It seems like ten years ago, and yet yesterday. We were all shocked as things happened so quickly, but we adapted to do whatever we could to make things better for each other, in ways big and small. We wore the teal ovarian cancer ribbons in solidarity with Rachel, and then with her memory.


I've gotten many kind notes from people in the last couple of days, on top of the million and one kindnesses in the last year. Thank you, all of you.


The kids have done so well this past year. With the support of friends far and near, family, neighbors -- everyone -- there hasn't been a single real behavior problem or issue along the way. I was in touch with a grief counselor for the first few months post-Rachel, discussing every few weeks how the kids were getting along, and our joint decision each time was: they seem fine, so let's not force anything on them. And that's how the year played out.


One issue -- maybe -- was their total lack of reaction/recognition to what happened. They'll mention Mom in passing, comfortably, but don't talk about her or her death in depth -- ever. They rebuff any discussion I start on the subject. I think they've wanted so much just to blend back into their social fabric and not be "the kids whose Mom died".


The one time I took them to her grave was last October, on Rachel's birthday, to visit and leave some flowers. It was a total bust. I had to practically drag them there, and they wanted to leave immediately. At first I was pretty mad at their selfishness, but I came to appreciate that they just couldn't deal with it then, and I cooled off. (I've heard from adults who still can't visit their parents' graves.) When I say "they" I really mean "Fiona", as the boys just follow her lead. I won't take them all back to Calvary Cemetery until they ask me to.


St. A's 8:15am Mass was said in Rachel's name today, and I'd given the kids a heads-up that we'd be attending. I didn't get any guff from them in advance, nor did I this morning as we headed out. They were cooperative, but with little commentary, as usual. I thought: Does this day mean nothing to them? There was quite a crowd of friends and schoolmates in attendance as well, a great gesture.

While the whole day turned out to be harder and more emotional for me than I thought it would, the part that affected me most was when the four of us took the communion gifts up to the altar. As I walked behind the gang I noticed in Fiona's ponytail -- her teal ribbon. There was no fanfare, no planning, no "look at me" -- it was just her simple, perfect remembrance for the day. She seemed so mature, and she reminded me so much of...someone many of you knew.

What did I ever do to deserve such a wonderful daughter?

Pat

Green Sneakers

My general lawn care goal has always been: don’t have the worst lawn on the block. I think I’m currently coming up short against that goal.

Growing up we boys had lawn duty, from whatever age it was that we could pull-start the mower -- maybe 11 or 12? The mower was always a Toro, with a side-bag attachment to catch the clippings. We got a lot of pull-starting experience, as you’d have to stop and empty the bag pretty frequently.

At some point that attachment broke and we had to rake everything up, which was the ultimate tedious work. I figured out that I could minimize the raking by cutting in a spiral pattern towards the center of a section of lawn; the re-cutting and blowing would reduce the clippings to a much smaller area, although at some point you couldn’t plow the mower through, and it would stall, and you’d rake up what you had to. I’m guessing this wasn’t the best for either the lawn or the mower, but I don’t think my Dad cared, since his general lawn care goal was about the same as mine now.

The sides of our sneakers were stained grass-green all summer long, like those of every other kid in the neighborhood.

After about a 12-year break for college/Peace Corps/apartment living I had to buy a mower for our first house, on Grant Street. (I should mention that lawn duty for kids in Cameroon meant bending over at the waist 90 degrees and cutting by hand with a machete, making the ol’ Toro seem pretty convenient.) I chose a manual reel-type mower, as a) we had a small lawn, b) it was cheap and didn’t need gas, and c) it was eco-friendly.

The eco-friendliness would get me the occasional cheers from people driving by -- they’d wave and say “Way to go!” as I was cutting, missing the irony from their CO2-spewing internal combustion vehicles. Ahh, Evanston.

The reel mower worked pretty well, and I used it for quite a few years. It took some effort to push, but I didn’t mind the extra exercise, and loved the rythymic chk-chk-chk sound of the blades. It also took a little longer to do the lawn than a gas mower would, turning a 30-minute job into a 45-minute one -- not bad. The only major downside was when I let the grass get a little too long: then it was really hard to push, and there would be tufts of taller poorly-cut grass everywhere, making the lawn look like a kid’s head after a bad haircut.

When my Dad moved into a house without a lawn I inherited his gas mower -- a Toro, naturally, and one that mulched the clippings right into the lawn, eliminating the need to rake. After using it a few times I was reminded why these were so popular, and I relegated the reel mower to the back of the garage, with only a twinge of guilt. And so it has been, ever since.

The only other lawn care effort I make is to edge the sidewalk, which looks very tidy, and is easy to do. De-thatching, aerating, seeding, fertilizing, weed-killing? No thanks, or at least only rarely. And watering? “That’s God’s job,” as I like to say.

Yet I might have to break down and do some of this, or pay someone to do it, as my lawn is looking pretty ratty -- even with the neatly-edged sidewalks. I know someone has to have the worst lawn on the block, but I just don’t want it to be me.

Pat