Saturday morning. First day of spring break, and I can’t sleep in. As gloomy and rainy as the weekend looks to be, it is a chance to get started on all of the projects--big and small--that line up like jets on the tarmac waiting for clearance by some life director. My mind almost bursts with the possibilities. My only stumbling block is, as always, money, but my labor is free and I am an incredibly understanding boss to myself. I don’t hold myself accountable at the end of the day; I understand how my distracted and random approach about choosing which project to do when always works out, somehow; and, if it doesn’t, I still have a job tomorrow.
The other boss (Denise) is almost as understanding. She will, however, ask if she should not be around to witness the minute by minute excitement of a specific project--usually a project that starts with me walking around with a determined look while carrying a sawzall like an uzi and staring at a wall that is obviously in the way of something. Her love is manifested in phrases like: “I trust you. I just don’t want to be here to see what you are going to do.” She knows that any blueprint I have is locked in my head, and it is in a constant state of flux. My projects are more like the journey of a hardened explorer whose destination always includes the unknown. How many times have I heard, “I should have known that scraping the bottom of the boat required new brakes for the trailer and a fort made out of the neighbors discarded doors?”
My kids know that they can ask for most anything while I am short of breath and reaching into an impossible to reach spot crevice trying to loosen impossibly small bolts holding together something of unknown importance. “Can we ride our bikes down 117 without helmets and throw balls of packing styrofoam into the raging river?”
“Yes, fine, can you get me a pair of vice grips?”
That or they will go broke later in life paying for therapy: “I am still coming to terms with how my dad had me hold up a sheet of plywood on the roof of the house on a windy fall day while he drove to Butler lumber for the right size nail...but then remembered that the truck needed an oil change.”
Or maybe they will become like me and say, “Who needs a plumber when you can google: ‘Shower pan, rotten floor, rusted clogged pipes, how to fix’?”
I need to stop writing. There are probably very few successful project managers who are writers. Words trump action anytime.
That or coffee.
The other boss (Denise) is almost as understanding. She will, however, ask if she should not be around to witness the minute by minute excitement of a specific project--usually a project that starts with me walking around with a determined look while carrying a sawzall like an uzi and staring at a wall that is obviously in the way of something. Her love is manifested in phrases like: “I trust you. I just don’t want to be here to see what you are going to do.” She knows that any blueprint I have is locked in my head, and it is in a constant state of flux. My projects are more like the journey of a hardened explorer whose destination always includes the unknown. How many times have I heard, “I should have known that scraping the bottom of the boat required new brakes for the trailer and a fort made out of the neighbors discarded doors?”
My kids know that they can ask for most anything while I am short of breath and reaching into an impossible to reach spot crevice trying to loosen impossibly small bolts holding together something of unknown importance. “Can we ride our bikes down 117 without helmets and throw balls of packing styrofoam into the raging river?”
“Yes, fine, can you get me a pair of vice grips?”
That or they will go broke later in life paying for therapy: “I am still coming to terms with how my dad had me hold up a sheet of plywood on the roof of the house on a windy fall day while he drove to Butler lumber for the right size nail...but then remembered that the truck needed an oil change.”
Or maybe they will become like me and say, “Who needs a plumber when you can google: ‘Shower pan, rotten floor, rusted clogged pipes, how to fix’?”
Even as I write this, the four boys have stealthily occupied the couch and put on an episode of “Fairly Odd Parents.” Coincidence?
Little do they know what is in store for them today. (I love this strange hiatus between soccer seasons when there is actually a Saturday that does not include seven different soccer games for seven separate kids.) I know I can bribe them to do about anything as long as it includes chocolate chip pancakes and Mango Tango juice.
I need to stop writing. There are probably very few successful project managers who are writers. Words trump action anytime.
That or coffee.
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