planning to fail

or failing to execute?

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They say failing to plan is planning to fail. I got more than my feet wet learning this. But first, a joke: is your refrigerator running?  Well, you’d better go and catch it! As a dad, I’ve been able to finagle a chuckle out of each kid with that one.  In addition to the play on words, like all good jokes it contains an element of truth. Fridges run, but not in the sense implied.

Now for some more truth with some borrowed humor: just like witches and really really small rocks, fridges float.  I learned this the hard way on Thursday morning when I awoke to three feet of water in my basement from the remnants of Ida and a refrigerator on its side, floating ten feet from where it was the night before (still plugged in, mind you).

If you’ve followed along at home, you’ll know that I consider myself a planner, almost to a fault, and a good one at that. Whether it’s what is on the docket for the day, what the week has in store for me, that month’s goals or what I want to accomplish in a given year, I have a predilection for planning. I am enamored of creating checklists, migrating tasks to when it makes sense to complete them throughout the week, month or year, and tracking completed habits with filled boxes or abbreviations for that day’s exercise. 

But I didn’t plan for Henri, and I didn’t see the three inches of water in my basement from that storm as a sign to shore things up for a future deluge. A few weeks later, with Ida forecast to drop significant rain that night, I still had ample opportunity to put some sort of defensive measures in place. Sure, I likely wouldn’t have bought flood insurance that day (something I learned we didn’t have), but maybe a few sand bags would have helped prevent our hot water heater from getting destroyed. And our dehumidifier. And our furnace. And our HVAC unit. And our aforementioned fridge, or at least the food inside it.¹

Instead, as the rain fell at a steady, though not extraordinary (or so I assumed) clip, I read Don Quixote on the couch.² The irony of reading about that good knight’s folly of following old books and stories isn’t lost on me. By the time I opened the basement door, it was too late to save anything. Despondent, I went to bed thinking that my castle’s moat had breached its walls.

Upon waking the next morning, I texted our plumber who lives around the corner; he came with a one horsepower sump pump and got the three feet of water to an inch before we burned out the motor (he also stopped by later with a temporary hot water heater - a true mensch).  We got the shit below shoe level when another handyman came by to try to use his pump - which didn’t work - only to unplug/replug in our house’s sump which caused it to clear out a blockage allowing that last inch of water to get sucked down the French drain.

With the water below electricity level - and let’s be honest, knowing my plumber walked through the water already made my fear of electrocution decrease (though for some reason, I thought tip-toeing would help prevent getting shocked) - I began to assess the full extent of the damage.  As I eyed a number of Rubbermaid bins across the room from where they were left, it was then that I realized that taking urgent actions the day of would not have solved my lack of planning. 

Some were spared, like the box of Christmas decorations. Others had a bit of damage, like the box of Christmas LEGOs.  Our winter gear was the only real casualty, found in a bin that capsized like the Andrea Doria.  All of those items belonged in the attic, but never made it there.  

Then I thought of the sump pump, which we hadn’t cleaned in the 18 months since we moved in.  By the way, raise your hand if you knew this was supposed to be done twice a year? Just me? Perhaps if it was in full-working order, we could have mitigated some of the damage.

Then I saw the weeping holes.  I noticed those after the snow from the first winter storm in November 2019 began to melt but did nothing about them. OK, that’s not completely true.  I did put “Fix Weeping Holes” on my Housework Collection in my Bullet Journal that same month. Same with “Fix cracks in the floor where water comes up sometimes”. 

I was reminded of other things I haven’t done around the house. I haven’t checked all the smoke and CO alarms regularly.³ I haven’t had the foundation checked. I haven’t had the chimney re-stuccoed. I haven’t had the outdoor outlet fixed. I wasn’t forceful enough getting our HVAC folks to reroute the lines that they incorrectly laid which are now preventing us from getting into and out of our basement door - which would be ideal with a soon-to-be-mold-infested fridge stuck there.

I realized that when it comes to our house, I’m like the car rental place who takes Jerry Seinfeld’s reservation, but fails to execute their end of the bargain by keeping it: while I am great at taking note of the things that need to get done around the house, I fail to execute on getting them done. This is still an issue I’m exploring more deeply, but at least I’ve gotten to its root. Not wanting you to go away empty-handed, I leave you with two resolved items:

• The vitality of humor. My wife had been impressed by how calm I was throughout it all, though I admittedly started to lose it when I called 29 different cleanup crews, all of whom had no availability and weren’t taking names for the wait list. The reality was I had a bit of humor to pull me through.  Earlier in the week, I shaved my beard, but left my mustache. I joined conference calls with this mug this week as my way of bringing joy to others. It came in handy as the water rushed in on Thursday. Save it for future use. You never know when you may need it.

  

• All is not lost. We’re going to take the opportunity to be like Biden and build back better.  Yes, our hot water heater died but it was installed when Adele’s Rolling in the Deep (just like our fridge) was Number 1 on the charts. Our furnace would have been eligible for Medicare a few years ago, and was just a backup system. And that fridge? Easily 10 years old and on its last legs (which apparently it used to swim).

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in case you missed it

Let’s have a look at what’s been happening at project kathekon:

recently at project kathekon

• We got to read a love story from Brandon. He’s back, (back), back in the New York Groove.

• Motivation’s got you down, make your bed. Maybe Jeremy should re-read his post after his failure to execute on his housework list.

books, jerry. they (still) read books.

We recently started a book club. But you know, not like a regular book club, like a cool book club. Want to read Don Quixote with us? It’s 922 pages long - it’s going to be awesome. We’re getting together on September 15th to discuss the first there parts.

Speaking of books, did you know we have also a book barter service at project kathekon? We now have two books to barter.  The first book on offer is Together by Dr. Vivek Murthy from Jeremy.

Our second, Lincoln’s Virtues: An Ethical Biography, was offered by Andrew.

Already read one of them? Feel free to let others know in the comments section of each to let us know what you think. Have a book to share?

join us for September’s 10thousand1 challenge

We all failed at August’s dips challenge. This month it’s back to basic training with some push-ups. Yep, 10,001 of them. I’m already well off the planned pace but have more time to execute.

Join us.

We have more in store for you. Until then, we encourage you to subscribe if you haven’t already, or share it with someone if you have already.

1. Thankfully, a completely sealed package of Hummel Natural Casing Hot Dogs were saved - they somehow exited the fridge and floated away like a life raft.

2. This is 10thousand1’s first book club read. Join us!

3. The fire department says to do this when we set the clocks/forward back, so make note of that this First Sunday of November