Return of the Prodigal
Our collegian returned for spring break last weekend, but we haven’t had a chance to bond. He’s either out or incommunicado during the evenings, and when I leave in the morning he’s still asleep. He needs to recover from the stress of school, his mother says, so leave him alone. I wonder silently why no one in the past 30 years has worried about my stress. Self-pity by a groan man.
Defense
The ants invaded our kitchen again, so I walked slowly around the house peering at the foundation. A line of them had climbed a fence connected to the living room wall, so I saturated the entry point with pesticide. That reduced the invading force from two divisions to one. Several years ago ants gained access by means invisible, probably a crack in the cement or an electric conduit, so we’re forced to use bait. I put out stakes and ant traps and after three days the infestation is subsiding. I suspect there are some colonies under the bushes outside, so next weekend I’ll strap on the old sprayer and go a-hunting. The best defense.
Good Advice
As I was getting ready to leave the office last night, T. called to pitch a structure that involved a seller of a residual interest in a lease, an intermediary entity, a lender who would eventually acquire the interest, and a residual value guarantee from the seller. It took me 20 minutes just to understand what he was talking about; the objective was to produce a good result on the income statement for all parties, coupled with minimum current tax cost.
I advised T. about some post-Enron accounting rules that he had to surmount. More importantly, CEO’s and CFO’s these days don’t want to be bothered with complicated financial structures. Business, credit, and interest-rate risks they know how to handle, but the risk of seeing their name in the news, not the business, section? That “Headline” risk they avoid like the plague. “Stick to the knitting”, said the best management book of the past quarter-century. Good advice then, good advice now.
Open House
The youngster and I went to the open house at the middle school. We looked at the posters on the wall and talked to the teachers, who I found a little disconcerting to address as “Mr. Smith” and “Ms. Jones” when they’re half my age. The science teacher showed student-produced videos on the environment, complete with snappy tunes, charts, pictures, and voice-over narration.
Flashback, Way Back
I flashed back to my second-year Latin class, when I gave a presentation on Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars [which begins Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres (all of Gaul is divided into three parts), one of ancient literature’s most famous opening lines.] I remember describing the Roman campaigns in a dreary monotone and wonder how long today’s students would sit through a lecture which didn’t have music and flashing colors.
My mother thought that Latin would help me become a doctor or lawyer, but I didn’t turn out to be either. Verbal facility in Latin--or English for that matter--isn’t required in my line of work (can’t you tell). Once in a great while I recognize a word’s Latin root, but that’s thin gruel for hours of sweating over the genitive and ablative cases.
Non sequitur: Yesterday the church continued its celebration of Holy Week by commemorating the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday. Maundy is not a misspelling but is derived from the same word as mandate, after Jesus’ command to serve others by washing their feet.
At least Latin is becoming cool again. © 2005 Stephen Yuen
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