True Colors

Hello World,

And here is more than half of the month of June gone already, believe that or don't, and what have we got to show for it, I ask you that? It will be very easy for me to explain to you what sort of week this has been, when I say that in spite of considerable determination to the contrary, I completely forgot about Flag Day on Tuesday. I don't remember what the weather was like that day, but unless it was pouring down rain all day, you know I would have been flying the flags upstairs and downstairs, like I always do, and proud to show Old Glory on its special day. But no, I was having the kind of week that makes even Flag Day fade into oblivion, and the air is filled with the sounds of weeping and gnashing of teeth. In the midst of a week like that, poor Flag Day didn't stand a chance.

On the other hand, in the Ask Dr. Science newsletter for Tuesday, in the section of celebration days where they announce items of interest such as "National Anxiety Disorders Screening Day" (May 3) and "World Pork Expo in Indiana" (June 9) they declared June 14 as something they referred to as "U.S. Flat Day." I admit that I've never heard of Flat Day, and I would be surprised to find it on the same day as Flag Day. However, unlike Flag Day, where I totally fell down on the job, if there is such a thing as Flat Day, I feel that I have done my part for this holiday, because I certainly left things flat when I went to work. Of course, we have to consider the possibility that may not be at all what they meant by that.

Speaking of things that are not what they mean, our church recently had a dedication service for its new Community Prayer Garden, and afterwards, I found myself walking into the social hall with two other ladies, one of whom was dressed in lavender, as I was. I said to the other woman, who was wearing brown, "I guess you didn't get that memo!" She turned to me, and in all seriousness, said, "No, you know, I find that a lot of the information that's supposed to come to me, I never get it, or else I don't get it until it's too late to do anything about it, and so if they sent it, I didn't see it, but I'm not surprised, because this happens all the time ... " and she just went on and on like that. I finally had to stop her in mid-stream and tell her I was only making a little joke, like we often do at work, when two people show up in the same color, the next person we see who's not in that color, we say, "You didn't get that memo" just as a joke. And here she's thinking that we really did send out a memo from church telling people what color to wear to the dedication service. Hey, let's remember these are Lutherans, not Baptists!

And while we're on the topic of things that have gotten lost in the translation, we get this next tidbit from Bill, where one of their customers requested a sign in Spanish and helpfully provided the wording as follows:

================================
ATENCION EMPLEADOS:
SE LES SOLICITA POR FAVOR
NO DEJAR SUS UNIFORMES
EN LOS ARMARIOS CUANDO
SE VAN SUS HOGARES YA
LOS ARMARIOS SON
PARA USARSE MIENTRAS
SE ESTA TRABAJANDO.
GRACIAS

For your laugh of the day, I went to Babelfish online translation to see how it translated BACK into English from this and I got the following:

ATTENTION EMPLOYEES
IT IS ASKED FOR PLEASE
NOT TO LEAVE ITS UNIFORMS
TO THEM IN THE CLOSETS WHEN
THEIR HOMES GO AWAY ALREADY
THE CLOSETS ARE FOR BEING USED
WHILE THIS WORKING.
THANKS
================================

Now, you know I always say, there's just no way to argue with logic like that! Meanwhile, a cyber-friend shared some tantalizingly exotic junk email that she recently received (thanks, Jenny!) and they not only changed her name to Phoebe Houle (her name isn't any closer to Phoebe Houle than mine is) but the rest of the message is incomprehensible to an unprecedented degree:

==================================
Subject: Re: Glad I Made the Move
To: Phoebe Houle
Hello,
crew, dead and living, into the water.scarcely yourself we had dared hope to
expect. You find yourselfAnd then, the note of irony deepening in his voice:
"Do you supposelay directly between himself and the Royal Army. You also
knowAt that moment a terrific rolling thunderclap drowned his voice and"Of
course, since there she rides. What else was you expecting?"ventured once to
offer a remonstrance - whether they went to Petit"But if it's also your
intention always to think of me as a thieftestimonies of good faith, and Blood
was determined that in allthings even more unspeakable seen on that dreadful
evening rosehostility.chose it also because thither had the Pride of Devon
been tracked byfrom the ships, and each boat, he observed, was crowded with
armed"My property?""Did I not say that I desired to be your friend?"the bay,
and who profited further by commissions upon money which

----- End forwarded message -----

Text of the original:

Hello, Pharmacyscuttles in her deck, whilst into her hull they packed all the
tarByMail SHOP Welye'll be contacting if ye give way to heat like this."comes
you!

Our new greFrancisco."at offer:
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restrained.TRA andnothing left for her own fellow-countrymen. These, indeed,
stood many other

for VERYmore than possible." REASONABLE PRlCES.

With each purchaseI must have known then, if I had not already learnt it, that I
had you get:

Top disdainfully to that very disdainful but now dumbfounded officer.quaIity
Home deIimany actions that he fought - recorded in such particular detail byvery
Total confidentiaIiprecipitate an explosion of hatred from which no human power
couldty

Just try us and you will not be disappleading upwards to the house. Across this
patch of light flutteredointed!
===================================

Well, I hate to leave us disappleading upwards to the house and across the patch of light flutterdointed, but I just don't know any way to improve upon that!