Untitled Document

23 February 2006

Flurries

The day was going to be too long.

I did not want to stay downtown at the end of it for the speech, but the Boss asked me to cover it, and a fellow employee wanted to see if there would be some good contacts to work in the crowd.

The radio said there might be a flurry or two in the morning, but instead, the white stuff came down so hard that traffic just stopped and gave up. I sat in traffic and watched the digital clock move inexorably through the appointed time of the meeting. Late.

I hate to be late. It is unprofessional, even if it is because of snow. That is a traditional excuse for anything in Washington, but it just meant I should have left earlier. The radio noted that it was the birthday of Samuel Pepys, the noted diarist of London's 17th century government. He had been a functionary in the Admiralty, I thought, and he wrote down the events of his times at the end of the day.

There was a lot going on then, what with the fires and plagues and rumors of war. Imagine having the time to write about it!

I watched the clock and listened to the reports of the spreading violence in Iraq after the bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra.

The meeting I was missing was part of the revenue scramble that has everyone so nervous. I made some calls from the cell-phone and hoped that someone would pick up the people who were visiting, and keep them occupied until I got there.

When I hit the building, the imperturbable Turk who mans the door told me the guests were in the executive conference room, and that three people had been directed to “be at their desks” bright and early tomorrow. I thought for a minute and realized it was the last Thursday of the month, the last day to get their computers back and have them off the payroll before the next pay-period.

I strode briskly down the empty halls and burst into the meeting. I produced a memory stick with a briefing and launched into the pitch.

Badly as it started, it came out pretty well. By the time the guests had to depart, I was feeling all right. Maybe it was the amount of time I had been away from the radio; I had not heard anything terrible in more than two hours.

No Katrina, no Bird Flu, no posturing from that pipsqueak Hugo Chavez, no Arab civil wars or American kids killed by IED explosions. Nothing at all from the Chinese. I deliberately turned off the radio before I started the engine.

Everyone in town had either arrived where they were supposed to go, or had given up. Traffic was light heading downtown and there was a place to park in the underground garage.

I went upstairs to see if there was a message on my phone directing me to be at my desk the next morning. There wasn't. I read and answered e-mail the rest of the afternoon.

When I went out for a smoke and to do my sidewalk superintendent job on the construction across the street, I saw that the flurries had transitioned to a slow mist as warm air came up from the Gulf. The season is changing. I could feel it in my bones.

It was wet enough that we took a cab over to the function at the St. Regis Hotel, conveniently located on K Street just up from the White House for the Lobbying Community. The Somali man driving the cab didn't seem to have much interest in the brake pedal and my foot twitched involuntarily against the back seat as we approached pedestrians in the intersection.

I like the St. Regis. It is a grand old place, heavy dark beams in the lobby and a solicitous old-school staff.

The function was a networking thing with some remarks by some guy from the Administration. It was sponsored by a major manufacturer of aircraft engines and luxury cars. In other circumstances I might have liked it. There were two open bars, and a big cold-beef buffet.

I chatted with a couple of people in expensive suits that I remembered from the Pentagon, but I wanted to be home, where it was safe.

In time they called us to our seats and I got out my notebook. The Administration Official was quite stern about the non-attribution thing. He lectured a rather truculent reporter from the Defense News about not wanting to sees anything in print about his remarks, not even credited to “a senior Administration Official.”

I closed my notebook as the speaker launched into his remarks. He started by asking us to think abut the total amount the Government spends on defense-related health care, including the active duty force taking the blows in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Veterans Administration that takes care of the old soldiers who already paid.

He complained that the amount spend on health care was starting to impact major programs of the Department.

I could have made a note, since it was me and my health plan he was talking about. I felt a little guilty about impacting his plans, but in the end I just shrugged. You can't take these things personally, and it wasn't for attribution anyway.