The Wisdom of 'A Stitch In Time'

The month began with a major Minneapolis bridge crumbing to pieces during rush hour traffic. Everyone’s been asking how something like that could happen? But anyone who’s familiar with the state of this country’s infrastructure wasn’t particularly surprised. For years now, people having been starving government at all levels of the resources - not just taxes, but political will - to take care of these things. There will be consequences.

Speaking of which, this month also saw the subprime mortgage mess blossom into a full-scale inter- national credit crisis – the Panic of ’07 Redux. Bernanke’s Fed has been toeing the fine line between responsible leadership and letting everyone sleep in the bed they made for themselves – regardless of whether it continues to be under a nice, cozy roof. We live in interesting times.

This month also saw Karl Rove and Alberto Gozales step down, so the lame-duckness of Bush’s presidency is official. This month also marks two years since Hurricane Katrina (and the Army Corp of Engineers’ faulty construction) laid waste to New Orleans, and ten years since the death of Diana. Closer to home, Ali & I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. (With brunch at Greens – yum!)

Two weeks ago we joined Mira (and her parents, Ashish & Anjali) for a weekend at Lake Tahoe, which is every bit as beautiful as I’ve always heard. Although the 5-plus hour drive coming and going through heavy – and slow! – traffic has ensured that next time we will arrange to go on an alternate schedule. But traffic woes were the last thing on our minds Saturday as we hiked (a portion of) the Tahoe Rim Trail. The views were stunning, but we were shocked to see so much dead timber all around. Deferred forestry maintenance has made this place a wildfire waiting to happen.

The weekend before that we went to a zydeco party that, it turns out, is a local institution. Great bands, tons of people, and a potluck buffet come together several times a year in a custom cabinet factory in East Palo Alto. The host is a friend of Nancy, the office manager – and wife of the owner – of the company where Ali works.

The party was an interesting mix of die-hard zydeco fans, custom cabinetry customers, and Bootcampers. Bootcamp is an exercise group. Nancy’s been going since it started 11 years ago. They work out at the Stanford University athletic field, Monday through Friday. At 6:00 a.m. Everyone we met said we must join them. At 6:00 a.m.?!?!?!? But we did. The first day I was miserable, but Ali enjoyed it. The next day was much better for me, but Ali was miserable. Somehow, we made it through the week and on Friday we got commemorative t-shirts. We signed up for a 5-week session. People keep telling us if we get through that we’ll be in it for life. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad: I’m still pretty miserable just about every other day. But the sunrise is lovely. And the “lifers” – mostly older than us – are in very good shape.

This is also the month we finally got all the boxes unpacked, books shelved, and pictures hung, so our apartment feels like home instead of a large storage locker. I’ve begun looking at jobs enough to see that “California Bar required” is a pretty common prerequisite, so have begun looking into that. The next exam isn’t until February, so I’ve got time to prepare.

Since Ali just got his books for CFA Level III, he’s positively gleeful that I’ll have to study, too. I just don’t like the sound of taking the bar exam again twenty years after graduating from law school. So I’ve decided to look at it another way: infrastructure maintenance.

Cheers,
Sandie