Vic Socotra

04 November 2010

Peaks and Valleys

(Soaked Tribal Rug, knotted in a valley in Afghanistan. Photo Socotra.)

I am still de-watering the apartment. It was a more complex task than it appeared at the front end, and will certainly involve professional plumbers and maybe that Mexican magician who can repair old wooden floors.

I should have known the peaks and valleys of emotion that would ensure when the water that had soaked into the bold Afghan tribal rug squished immediately through my socks and sent a jolt of adrenaline to my heart in the wee hours of yesterday morning.

It was better, I thought, to be wiping up the pooled water on my knees than waking up at the Arlington County Jail after decking the little Creole. It took all my willpower to walk away from him. If I had been in the hoosegow, when the pipes failed, I might have been dealing with a flood that would have trashed the whole unit and the passageway outside and maybe the floor below.

I looked up a little apprehensively, wondering about the plumbing in the units on the four floors above me.

I wandered down to the lobby once people were awake and heard from Rhonda at the front desk later that morning that the little creep had erupted several more times during the meeting, and there had been consternation on the Board that they had no security to remove the little irritating fellow from the meeting.

I guess that is not one of the things the Board, or our hosts at the Unitarian Church consider necessary most times.

My pal Virginia said that she would have slapped him silly, and I imagined how exciting that would have been. Ginny was a Stew, back in the days when that was the accepted name for Flight Attendants, and though she is of a certain age, I am confident that she can still hold her own with any bantam-weight Frenchmen that may pose a threat to good order.

I thought a little wistfully that they could have designated me Sergeant At Arms, and I could have goose-marched him out of the Unitarian Church with impunity. Missed opportunities, I sighed. I think one needs to prepare for all contingencies, including the outbursts of deranged Frogs.

I thought I might float an initiative to the Board about a provision for Security for the next Annual Meeting and make up some cool arm-bands to signify authority.

I was listening to Wyoming Public Radio on streaming audio as I worked. It is two hours behind there, and they run the BBC World Service out there on the vast rolling plains since there is no one to disturb except the antelopes. The local DC station dropped the Beeb since there are so many pressing issues here to yammer about.

I prefer to listen to London’s take on the pressing issues with Dan Damon’s cool phlegmatic delivery. One of the things he talked about was the bold action of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who pumped $600 Billion into the economy on Wednesday.

I stopped mopping to contemplate the magnitude of what was happening in the midst of the turmoil and speculation about the Republican take-over of the House.

(Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Photo Forbes)

In normal times, or at least ones that are steadier than the surreal one we are living in, the Fed lowers interest rates to stimulate economic activity. Right now, the rates are near zero and there is nowhere further to go on that front. Chairman Bernanke is an independent actor, not responsible to Congress, and he has apparently decided to start buying up long term Treasury bonds to stimulate demand and push down long-term interest.

I don’t understand much about this, but it would appear this action is a de facto currency devaluation, and it contains significant risk. That is something the system hasn’t managed very well of late, but with the new Republican House, there is not likely to be any further stimulus legislation, and the time to act seems to be now. There was a flood of immediate consequences. The Euro gained against the dollar, climbing 11 cents against the greenback to $1.424, while the Pound rose slightly to $1.618.

Then I went back to de-watering and cycling the wet towels through the dryer in the communal wash-room down the hall. I fear that I am going to lose one of my favorite rugs. It weighed a ton from all the water and was spread on the balcony until I realized that it was going to rain for the next day. Now it is semi-rolled up and leaning drunkenly under the balcony above, at least not getting wetter.

Don't know if the parquet floors will have to be re-done. Leo the Engineer loaned me an industrial strength fan, which is roaring on the floor to hasten the drying of the wooden tiles before they warp and buckle. I know the consequences of insidious water intrusion, even if I don’t fully understand the impact of currency devaluation.

I was on an inspection trip to Bavaria during the last period of retrenchment, right after the Congress decided to harvest the “Peace Dividend” after the Cold War ended. I feel like I am walking through 1991 again these days, although this time the arthritis is worse.

We toured an Army walk-up flat in Augsburg, one of the legacy housing units left from the long occupation. We had paid to update some of them to support the 66th Military Intelligence Brigade, a nationally-funded Army activity whose budget I was responsible for at the time.

Housing was not normally one of the items on my property book, but the peaks-and-valleys of the budget made for strange times. I had just fought a bitter battle with the Department of the Air Force over who had to pay the bills to maintain the Shop-Ette convenience store at the airbase on remote Shemya Island in the Aleutians. Consequently, I was intensely interested in why we had to fund new parquet floors in Germany.

The valley of funding caused by the big draw down was forcing the 66th to divest itself of property for which we were responsible, and I was dismayed to discover that the ones we paid to fix were going to go to the German government to house immigrant Turks.

Due to the way the units were connected to the central utilities, the Army was keeping some of the ones that had problems because they could be separated logically from the ones to be handed back.

Of course, these had roof problems, and water infiltration had caused the parquet floors to swell, and lift from the concrete underpinning. The one we visited had peaks and valleys the resembled waves on the ocean. It was very surreal and reminiscent of the works of Salvador Dali. I expected to see a pocket watch draped over the sink in the kitchen.

I sincerely hope that is not in the future here. But as they used to say back at War College, “Hope is not a method.” I think even the President would agree that sentiment this week, though Chairman Bernanke seems to be going against the grain.

We will see how that goes. What is one to do in a period of devaluation? Keep mopping, I guess. Or go to Willow and pretend it is not happening.