New York Minute

Hello World,

Well, if this was March, we'd still have one last Friday left in the month on the 31st, but alas, this is merely February, and even with an extra day tacked on at the end of the month, there's still less than a week left to go until that last day. Time marches on, as we know all too well, and by this time next week, we will already be in March, and marching along through Lent in earnest. And for grouchy Christians everywhere, I do mean "earnest" and no joking around, that's for sure. Speaking of time, which is not only relative, but can also be rather a slippery character to boot, a friend was recently complaining to me about the sorry state of the economy these days, and what she considered the government's ineptitude in righting the ship of state, and setting sail for the sunny shores in the prosperity of yesteryear. She went on and on about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune being suffered by down-trodden citizens, and included numerous statistics that she said, came from an interesting segment of the network newsmagazine show which she referred to as "20 Minutes." Of course, everyone knows that I'm too polite to laugh, but I have to admit, it was a near thing. Now, here I'm thinking this is either a new and unimproved one-dimensional variant on "20/20," or the Readers Digest Condensed Version of the venerable "60 Minutes" for the short-attention-span viewers of today. Time marches on indeed, and sometimes, it breaks into a trot, by golly.

Meanwhile at work, it would not be an exaggeration to say that all of the wheels have come off, and people far and wide have just gone completely out of their minds, taken leave of their senses, and traveled entirely around the bend, so that insanity greets you at every turn, and the inmates have well and truly taken over the asylum for real. It all started innocently enough, as these things so often do, with this broadcast email that was apparently trying to alert everyone about a special occasion, but still managed to fail miserably -

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Happenings! Another Successful Outpatient Peditric Holiday Party
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If your spell-checker is anything like mine, it undoubtedly balked at "Peditric" when it stumbled over it. Perhaps out in the wide world, the term "Pediatric" is considered complicated and unfamiliar, and average people might be forgiven for spelling it wrong, but frankly, in the healthcare business as we find ourselves at the employer of last resort, and with a strong Pediatric program in place, we might expect a little bit more of that vaunted pin-point accuracy when describing our events. It was after that, I sent an email to a coworker, only to receive back an "Away" notice which would have made my eyes pop out of my head, except that I was too busy trying to figure out if I should laugh or cry -

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I will be out of the office from Monday, 02/6
and returning on Tuesday, 01/03/12.
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Frankly, I'm not sure if she should have gotten into her Time Machine, Way-Back Machine, or just slipped into a convenient portal to another dimension where time has no meaning, because otherwise, there's just no way to make sense of that. On the face of it, she seems to believe that she is taking off the first Monday in February, and returning to work on the first Tuesday in January, which would have been a full 5 weeks previously. Even worse would have been if she meant February 6 in 2011, and not returning for 11 months until January of 2012, which is a whole new kind of lackadaisical approach to attendance, even for the employer of last resort, I can assure you. Also not saying what they mean (one hopes!) I called a different coworker, who was away from her desk and offered this curious voice mail greeting in her place:

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"You have reached the voice mail of Celia Gomez, the
Clinic supervisor. I am not able at the present moment,
but if you leave your name and number, I will return your call."
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It didn't state when the present moment might pass and she expected to be "able," but I left a message anyway, and hoped for the best. This next memo was circulated from Administration, containing the praises from a satisfied patient, and thanks for a job well done - or at least, that's what one supposes it was trying to say -

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"My gratitude is profound to the Nurses who demonstrated
excellent nursing skills. Your responses to my calls were
continuously treated with urgency and clam."
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Of course, in a case like this, we can never be sure if the patient or family member made the original mistake, or if it was an error in transcribing the message in Administration - after all, this is the employer of last resort. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that the nursing staff did respond to the call bells with clams, as it says, and might be some sort of newfangled medical treatment that the rest of us have yet to be informed of. It's all too easy to say that nothing would surprise me at this point, or rather, at the present moment. However, I will say that if I were a patient, I would prefer the nurses to respond to my calls with hot fudge sundaes, rather than clams, and in that situation, the urgency would be all too real, believe me.

Personally, I've never seen such widespread miscues of all types at the institution, from one end to the other, and at every level from the highest to the lowest, and all at the same time. I don't know if the condition was contagious, or if it was just a quixotic coincidence, but it was in the middle of all of this that I couldn't help but notice the following meteorological information printed on the front page of our local newspaper, for all the world to see - not that they wanted to, obviously:

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WEATHER

Today: Short forecast
HIGH: ## LOW: ##

Tomorrow: Short line
HIGH: ## LOW: ##
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Well, I guess that makes things just about as clear as mud, and thanks so very much not. Heck, I would do better asking Comrade Mischka about the weather, not to mention, the Clinic supervisor, who would probably do better than that, even in the present moment when she's not able. Now, if you'll excuse me, I see that the portal has opened up to take me away to the other dimension, where the nurses will be bringing me hot fudge sundaes, and the Short Attention Span Theater is showing reruns of "That 40's Show," "One and a Half Men," "Hawaii 3-0" and the edited version of "Quarter to Midnight Cowboy." Don't worry, I expect to be returning on 01/03/12, and that's not just a lot of baloney with clam sauce, believe me.

Elle

Hit The Road

Hello World,

Happy Presidents Day weekend! I hope that you can enjoy a nice long holiday weekend full of all the pomp and circumstance that you could possibly wish for. Of course, relaxing is always at the top of the agenda, but there's plenty more to do out in the wide world, and all you need to do is make an executive decision and jump on that bandwagon, as it were. The holiday sales are out in force, as retailers are eager to wrest those dead presidents out of your wallet - which it goes without saying, would make the President's economic advisers giddy with joy. There's not another 3-day weekend until Memorial Day at the end of May, so you'd better make the best of it while you can, in the most capital manner you know how. Hail to the Chief, anyone?

There's always a lot going on in February, especially for a short month, right from the beginning all the way to the very tail-end, which always seems to come up a lot sooner than anyone expects. Not so fast! This is a Leap Year, so we can all enjoy one whole extra day in this most crowded of months, before March roars in like a lion, leaving all of the groundhogs, cupids, Chinese dragons, and even the tattered Waitangis in its sorry wake. Of course, before March can roar in like a lion, we're going to have to lose about 40 degrees or so, since this has been one of the most unseasonable winters that any of us can ever remember, and at this rate, about the only lion that March will come roaring in as will be The Cowardly Lion from "The Wizard of Oz." Not that I would be one to complain, but I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto.

On the local scene, things were just a little too hectic around the old homestead last week, and something obviously had to give - so unfortunately, it was that jolly old monk, Saint Valentine who got the ol' heave-ho while his feast day went on without him. Later, we had our very own belated mini-Valentine's Day on Wednesday after all the dust had settled, and things worked out a lot better after all the pressure was off. It was just as welcome for all that, and I can tell you that Cupid did not disappoint, with gifts of sweet treats and sparkly baubles in keeping with the spirit of the holiday. There was even a smattering of practical items tossed in for good measure, but everyone knows that I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. After all, that would be a horse of a different color.

Then we just about have time to kick the Presidents to the curb, and suddenly Shrove Tuesday has come crashing down upon our heads, with all of its panoply of pancakes, funny hats, and more shroves than you can shake a stick at, believe me. Outside of the old-fashioned Church Basement Women and their traditional Shrove Tuesday Pancake Suppers, the rest of the world knows the day as Mardi Gras, where it is more famous for parades, parties and excessive indulgence on an epic scale. Our neighbors have a more decorous celebration of the event on the Saturday before the actual Fat Tuesday - or as Bill likes to accurately point out, "Samedi Gras" instead. Meanwhile, the pancakes are hardly cold before the curtain rings down on all the fun, and the specter of Ash Wednesday is looming over us, ushering in the season of Lent in earnest, and no laughing matter, I can assure you. In fact, this is the time to be on the lookout for grouchy Christians who have given up chocolate for Lent, and not a pretty sight by any estimation, especially with store aisles awash with their vast array of chocolate bunnies, malted milk eggs and marshmallow Peeps of every description - not to mention, discount bins chockfull of left-over Valentine candy boxes in all shapes and colors. Why, that's enough to bring the Wicked Witch out in anybody, by golly.

Of course, it's an ill wind that blows no good, and Lent is no exception, so we look for the proverbial silver lining, and hope for better days ahead. At least there is joy in Mudville, as we revel in the three most beautiful words of the English language, that make life worth living even in the darkest days of the dreariest winter - and that is when Pitchers and Catchers report to Spring Training camps all over the South during this upcoming week, and not a moment too soon, I don't mind saying. There is no optimism like these sun-kissed days of green grass and balmy breezes, when hope springs eternal, dreams are born afresh, and the bright shining promise of a new season stretches out before us like a shimmering oasis of potential and success. For teams who made off-season deals, these are times of high expectations, and wondering if this roll of the dice will win all the marbles or not. For those squads that decided to stand pat, they already know what they have and what they need to do, so they face the prospect with eyes wide open and no illusions. On the other hand, when it comes to those franchises like the hapless Mets, well, frankly I'm hoping that they made arrangements for some flying monkeys, or else we could be in for a very long season, my pretty.

Meanwhile at work, I happened to be in the E.R. waiting room, dropping off magazines, when I overheard a young man trying to give directions over the phone to someone who was coming to the hospital to pick him up. It went something like this: "Okay, so you get off the ramp and bear to your left ..... no, that road has no name ..... then you enter the traffic circle ..... no, there's no street sign ..... keep going around until you come out to a four-lane highway ..... no, that road has no name ..... then make a right turn ..... no, there's no street sign ..... and then take the first left ..... no, that road has no name ..... " At this point, the other person must have made some complaint, and one might say, justifiably so, because the young man replied - and I thought, somewhat breezily - "It's not as bad as it sounds, you just keep driving around until you get lost, and that's when you know you're there." Personally, I think that sounds a lot more like The Road to Nowhere, than for instance, the fabled Yellow Brick Road of lore and legend, but hopefully with fewer witches and flying monkeys to watch out for. At least, that's how I see it, or my name isn't -

Auntie Em