The legacy of the lady in the rain

In her living room, one of my three or four grandmothers--such was the blessed state in which I was raised--had a plug-in ornament, shaped something like an old-fashioned round lantern suspended from the ceiling by a chain. Between its "caps" at top and bottom was a small Greco-Roman statue of a woman bathing in the midst of plastic foliage and the three or four classical columns that connected the caps. Slanting from top to bottom were clear plastic filaments that formed two rings, inner and outer. When the ornament was plugged in, a small light bulb illuminated the interior, while a nearly silent motor pumped mineral oil from the reservoir hidden in the bottom cap through the hollow columns to the top, where it ran in drops down the filaments in their alternating slants to give the illusion of a Classical beauty bathing in the rain.

What I've since been "educated" to consider "good taste" would not approve of that ornament, however pretty the illusion. But back then I was captivated by the illusion, even aware of the legerdemain involved in its making. As I watched entranced, I think it was my aunt who jokingly warned Grandma, "Careful. Pretty soon she'll be taking it apart to see how it works." Now, while I wouldn't dream of doing that to a gadget I couldn't call my own, I still flatter myself that it's one of the truest statements made about me, ever.

The above self-congratulatory navel-gazing popped into mind on the drive home tonight, in the wake of wondering why the heck I persist in a trade so prone to (cough!) "rightsizing" on another continent. If my employers are gracious enough to let me slip out long enough for a math class, why in my right mind am I not leveraging the education I've had thus far toward a new career in law or upper management?

Except that laws and regulations and organizations/institutions large (bloated?) enough to have "senior" management can't be taken apart--meaning, broken down to their minimal functional elements. And, more to the point, they can't be reassembled or hacked (in the good sense) into a form that makes them useful to the moment and purpose at hand. Why would I ever want to work with that when there are computers and software to hack? Talk about a no-brainer...

I was fortunate enough to visit that particular Grandma within a few weeks of her death. Behind Grandma's hospital bed--set up in her living room to honor her wish to not die in a hospital--hung the lady bathing in the rain. Likely, only the aunt who made Grandma's exit from life as comfortable as possible knows what became of the lady And she's long since passed on herself. But I--perhaps over-nostalgically--like to think that the lady lives on, in my case not so much ornament as a totem of what it means to be a geek.

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Coda: The internet being what it is, I was understandably more than a tad nervous at the results of punching "mineral oil statue pump" into Google, but the good news is that I learned that these gadgets were called "rain lamps." You can find photos here. I recall the one in Grandma's living room being smaller in scale and white, but the general idea is spot-on.