29 May 2008
Old Business
It was a tough call. Wings vs. Penguins, Game Three. The pool vs. exercise.
The Condominium Board vs. Residents at the meeting.
The last item would have been a colossal loser in ordinary times, something I read about on the bulletin board on the short elevator trip to the fourth floor. Unfortunately, Mrs. Hitler had leaned on me pretty hard to show up and give a brief testimonial on behalf of Jigs, who for some reason wants to serve on the Board when elections come up.
I’m kidding, of course. There is a lot at stake, and the decisions made in the East Party Room can have a real impact on the pocketbook. In the grand scheme of things, what we do about who is installed on the Board will have a greater personal impact on us than whatever happens in November.
At least in the short term, and as Lord Maynard Keynes once pithily observed, in the long run, we are all dead.
So I agreed, which mean getting away from the office as quickly as was reasonable, and getting to the pool with expeditious haste. There was about twenty minutes of post-prime-time sun available, and I pulled out the latest Vanity Fair magazine from the pool-bag that is filled with the necessities of summer life in a lounge chair: magazines I don’t have time to read, sun-block I don’t use, sodden books of matches that won’t light and the phone I do not want to answer.
Vanity Fair is a big thick glossy magazine with a lot of fashion ads. In terms of heft, it is right there with Vogue, the latest copy of which was also in the bag.
The Vogue is the biggest mystery of the season thus far. It started to plop into the mailbox last month, the subscription made out in my name. Highly curious, and I have been looking around for the practical joker who signed me up for it. I figure the best way to find out is to take it to the pool and wave it around and see who comments.
Vanity Fair has real articles in it, if you can get around the fashion ads, and it is a good read when I get around to it. At the back of the June issue I was riveted by an account of a Cuban Missile crisis U-2 mission gone horribly awry.
I was forced to imagine, there by the pool, as Bennett the American lifeguard stalked around trying to stay occupied, that I was at 70,000 feet in the frail jet-powered glider with the aurora borealis blazing all around the bubble of my canopy on a nuclear sampling mission to the North Pole.
I used to help the folks that did that, so naturally I was interested in how the fashion magazine handled what used to be a very significant national task.
There was no GPS in 1961, though there were nuclear weapons aplenty. Aerial navigation in the high arctic relied on star sightings from the cockpit.
The Strategic Air Command had not considered the possibly of inadvertent miscalculation in the arctic as tensions rose in the Caribbean, and when the dazzling light disoriented the pilot, he wound up flying south from the Pole not to Alaska, but to the Far East Military District of the Soviet Union.
The Russians scrambled everything they could to shoot down the trespasser, even as tactical nuclear weapons were being moved to launch positions in Cuba. It appeared to have been a very near thing indeed, maybe the closest we have come to annihilation.
The article was written for the interest of people who also care about Hermes scarves, so it was fairly light going, but it revealed several things that used to be pretty big-time secrets and was riveting nonetheless.
By the time the magazine arrived at the whisker-thin successful crash-landing on US soil, I realized that there were only minutes to splash around in the pool if I was to make the Board Meeting. I apologized for not being better company to Bennett, and left the pool deck dripping to change out of my swim-suit and into something appropriate.
I had just been immersed in fashion, not to mention chlorine, so I selected a blinding white Brooks Brothers dress shirt, acid-washed jeans, and white buck shoes from Sperry. Casual elegance was the right note, I thought, intimate with a hint of starched formality.
I took the elevator up to eighth floor and got out for the short walk to the roof staircase and the formal of the two Party Rooms. Fred the Mayor was just opening the place up. Jiggs was waiting, as was Uncle Bill and a couple people I knew from the building, and the crazy woman with the irritating little yapping dog. The stout woman from the eighth floor was there, too, who was such a hot item at poolside over opening weekend.
She is one of the Dog People, though not a good one. Apparently her dog is a mean one. She has a hard time controlling the beast, and it had escaped her care several times. It attacked Ms Hamilton’s Rocco twice, leaving him a bloody mess and staining her shoes.
The East Party Room had been intended to be a showcase for Big Pink, the access to the roof garden that had never been completed. The view is spectacular from there, or would be if there were a window large enough to gaze out from. It is one of two elongated rectangular blockhouses that sit atop the building. Absent its function as a it is now a sort of Florida Room with 1970s-vintage patio furniture and floral cushions. I took a seat at the bar that fronts the little kitchen and waited for the Board Members to arrive and for the President to convene the meeting.
The only time the residents are permitted to speak is right after the minutes of the last meeting are approved. We are allowed no more than five minutes to present new business items, or make general comments.
When the time came, I was called upon. I resisted the temptation to make a plea for construction of a roof garden. I did not want to be perceived as a simple crank. I made my testimony for Jiggs. It was swift and painless, in addition to lauding his capabilities and resume. I earnestly thanked the Board for their service. I was sincere enough about that, since I was already thinking about face-off in the Stanley Cup game and the left-over stew that was simmering on the stove downstairs.
I am glad someone is interested enough to give their time to our collective well-being.
I figured I could make my escape when the general comments section was done. Accordingly, I listened to the Hindu man who had a list of well-considered items about prospective finance issues, and the special assessment that may re-pave the parking lot.
Uncle Bill presented a bill of particulars on the drunks whose voices boom and echo from the tall walls of the horseshoe at the back entrance when they return to the building after the bars close. He specifically cited their obnoxious and belligerent behavior to the night concierge. The President agreed to take the matter under advisement, and that Uncle Bill was right to be concerned. He directed that Fred the Mayor flag the matter for the attention of Eddie, the night security man.
The stout woman from the eighth floor was then recognized, and rose to present a summary of the actions she has taken to remediate the savage conduct of her dog. Apparently Fido is now only a phone call to Animal Control away from being arrested and put down. She said she kept him muzzled now at all times on the grounds, and that her daughter would never bring the Spaniel again to visit, and that thick carpeting had been put down on the wood floors, and they had only been bare for five weeks and that her neighbors could always call her to discuss any concerns they might have about noise or dog attacks, although they apparently do not and go straight to Management.
It was a very illuminating glimpse into the concept of property rights, anonymous complaints and collective action.
The last person to speak was the crazy woman. She had a rambling list of concerns, and based on the way the President’s eyes rolled, I gathered this was not the first time she had addressed the board.
There were people who deliberately had children in the building, after all, and they were noisy, too. “The dogs were here first, and the people who do not like them can just move out.”
Her dog is a real pain in the ass, I thought, and considered an anonymous call. I decided it would only lead to some sort of mutually assured destruction, like the Missile Crisis.
I left after the President thanked her for her comments, and the Board moved on to consider old business.
Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com