After much consideration, Bridgette determined that what she’d like to do for her birthday was to put in the patio out front. Fair enough.

The patio, when in its natural state (as encountered a year ago) was buried under, at the deepest point, nearly a foot of refuse and soil. We reclaimed that land, put up a retaining wall (at just the height to sit on and lounge), and gardened the field of St. John’s Wort that had overgrown the upper reaches in shaggy, cobweb-woven piebald disarray. In fact, we married in the midst of the reclaimed garden.

The patio lies in the ten feet between the retaining wall and the concrete walk that runs the front of the house. It used to be river rock, random sizes and shapes of paving stones, and, of course, dirt and St. John’s Wort that had overrun both those items. There were some rotted-out railroad ties, as well, and some rubbish hidden by the SJW. We removed all of that, but had failed to lay a new patio in its place, largely because of the river rock. The river rock, you see, had to be removed before we could lay the patio.

River rock is not something that can be easily dismissed by the casually passing shovel’s blade. It doesn’t simply move from the path of the inserting blade, but has sufficient width to assault the shovel directly, applying immoveability and cliches to hold its position. River rock, therefore, is not something one wishes to shovel about unless one is working off bad karma.

Now let the river rock sink into clay mud over the course of a decade. And let the clay dry and harden over the summer.

I had succeeded in keeping my bad karma intact all summer, and was congratulating myself on that, when Bridgette determined that the patio was the next thing. Oh, for my lost bad karma! We sought shovels, the Landscaping Fork Of Doom, and the Bludgeoning Edging Device of Total Destruction, as well as a gallon of iced tea, and took us to the the pseudo-patio.

And dug.

It was as horrible as I thought it might be. My bad karma liquified and dripped from my brow, my neck, all of my assorted parts and pieces. Bridgette was similarly covered in her bad karma. And we moved a full cubic yard of river rock embedded in dried clay. The truck’s tires were almost fully compressed by the mass we’d thrown into the truck’s bed. Later, we purchased a pick/mattock that made short work of the hardier bits of patio that were left behind.

And now it’s clear. Hooray, or quiet words that indicate the same feeling. We’ve still to dig a ditch for a french drain that will keep the patio above the winter’s waters, but we’ll be renting equipment for that task.

I’m okay with that. Really, really okay with that. I played with my shiny new pick/mattock for a while and determined that, yes, it was in me to dig ditches, and, no, I didn’t want to.

Side benefits of the work: the front yard is clean and tidy in appearance, and the yard of material (plus another 1/3 yard I added today) went into the pit housing our septic tank, neatly filling the hole and removing both an eyesore and a traffic hazard.

I’m tired.

My supervisor, Gilligan, came late to work today. She arrived in the office at 11:45. I was filing.

“Mnarra. What are you doing!” Her questions always have exclamation points after them. I think it’s something to do with indicating how important the points that I’m missing, the mistakes that I’m making, and the missteps I’m taking are. Or, perhaps, she has a narrow band of emotions that she can understand and communicate.

“I’m…” I looked at the files in my hands, the filing cabinets, open, that I was standing before, and the pile of unfiled papers on the table next to me. “I’m filing.” She looked puzzled. “See, when you take papers that are in disarray, and order them and store them in an organized way — ”

“I know what filing is.” I stopped talking and looked earnest and open. “Why are you filing?”

I looked at the rather unwieldy pile of papers and looked for an adequate answer. She continued without waiting, ” I think you should be doing X. Yes, definately X.” She indicated X, which was a log sheet that I had generated on my own some months ago, and nodded earnestly. X should most certainly be done, yep, X.

She gave me a quick block of instruction in doing X. Halfway through, she caught sight of another project, and shifted gears. “Oh. What’s this?” It was Y, which I had also generated some months ago. It was labeled Y right at the top. I felt I was on firm ground, here.

“That,” I told her, “is Y.” I pointed at the top line, which delcared its identity.

“Oh. Oh, well. This needs updating. You should do Y. You should do Y right away.” My coworkers, Frick & Frack, were silent, as they generally are when Gilligan is supervising me. All three are female, and there is a certain amount of discrimination in the office; men aren’t, it seems, very bright, and they bear close watching, but Frick and Frack are pretty egalitarian about my unfortunate gender shortcomings.

Gilligan looked puzzled again. “Or. There’s Z. Z should –” then she caught sight of something, grabbed it up, and dashed fromt he office to discuss it with someone up the hall. I started working on Y.

We were all quiet for a moment. It was 11:52.

Without preamble, or stopping work, I asked the room at large, “when Gilligan comes back, how many times do you think I can get her to change my priority before lunch at noon?”

Frick answered quickly, “Two. Get her to change it twice.”

I snorted. “Two. Two. A child could do two. I’ll get her to change her mind three times by noon.”

Frack made a low whistle, indicating she was impressed by my chutzpah.

11:57. Gilligan returned. I had three minutes.

I moved quickly. “Gilligan. I found this request for log A that the president’s secretary wanted three weeks ago. Should I get that done first?” She assented, after carefully looking over the paper I presented. I looked startled, and grabbed the file box. “I was meaning to ask you; Subcontractor Dopey returned his contract without signing, and the president is waiting for the signed copy. I have a fax header sheet already made up, do you want me to fax the request before lunch?”

“Oh, yes. Certainly, if President needs that contract, we should…”

“No problem. Think of it as done.” She turned to leave. “Before you go, can you help me with this retention voucher? It’s the voucher that you handed me last night, and I think Goldy is running a check print this afternoon after lunch.” She looked over the finished voucher and explained to me to do it just the way it was already done. ” Thank you. Shall I copy it for our files and get it to Goldy, then?” She nodded. “Okay. That’s three. I’ve finished Y, and a printout is on your chair to approve. X will be done in a moment, and the fax was just sent.” It was 11:59.

Gilligan went to her desk, happy to have managed me so well and made me so productive. Why, I’m quite efficient when she’s around to guide me — just lookat all the ground we covered, and in such a short time!

I walked past Frick, who, like Frack, was staring at her desk and shaking silently. I patted her on the shoulder as I passed. “Frick, are you all right? You’re breathing sort of funny.”

Frick & Frack broke. Frack had to lean on her desk to laugh. Gilligan was confused, but Frack, who sits across from Gilligan, explained the challenge to her. Gilligan went through a few emotions, from irritated to amused, and settled on amused when her irritation didn’t stop the ladies from laughing.

I brought Gilligan a hazlenut truffle after lunch, and left it on her desk with a Post-It saying, “For being such a good sport.” She still has the Post-It on her computer monitor.

I called Othello last night. I told him to find a quiet place to talk, and we were off.

I usually start with shared premises when I talk to Othello; I state clearly what I am treating as the basic facts of the discussion, ie, that he has, over years, developed some poor schooling habits, that his environment has certain features that will generally fail to motivate him to change those, and that creatures do not change without motivation to do so.

Having achieved consensus reality between us for the limited purpose of the conversation, I entered into the conversation. Or monologue.

I don’t recall the words. The points, in general, were:

• “You have developed habits of failure to achieve
• The methods used on you, thus far, to change those habits, are not sufficient motivation to you
• I promised a long time ago to permit you as much rope as you needed to hang yourself
• You did
• Your options are disappearing due to your hanging. Your future is starting to be limited to “do you want fries with that?”
• I also told you a while back tha