Go Paddle Your Own Canoe

Hello World,

And so here we find ourselves on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and I feel it's only fair to warn you that this coming Sunday will actually be the first Sunday in Advent, believe that or don't. Of course, we all know what that means, except for the godless heathens who may be monitoring my email, and that is that Christmas will be a scant four weeks away. Actually, it's not as bad as it sounds, because Christmas is on a Sunday this year, so after the fourth Sunday in Advent on December 18th, there's still almost a whole week left to panic ... er, I mean, finish all of your shopping, wrapping and any other loose ends before the big day. Unless, of course, you're among those "free thinkers" who consider Christmas a moveable feast, and celebrate it early or late, depending on whenever it's convenient for your family, and then it doesn't matter if you're ready or not on the 25th. On the other hand, that does tend to take all of the panic ... er, I mean, FUN out of the holiday, at least for us purists. And the godless heathens are on their own, as far as I'm concerned.

We didn't know until the very last minute that my family was canceling Thanksgiving this year due to lack of interest, and so we found ourselves at loose ends for the holiday, just like any other old orphans, cast adrift in this cold, cruel world. And as much as people may complain about spending the holidays with their family, we discovered that the alternative certainly doesn't have much to recommend it either, believe you me. And speaking of things that have nothing to recommend them, I wouldn't suggest that anyone go to a major shopping mall like the Palisades Center in Nyack on the Friday after Thanksgiving, but for those of us who wanted to see The Polar Express at IMAX in 3-D, that was exactly where we found ourselves early this morning. We had been looking forward to seeing it again, and were glad when they brought it back for the holiday season, because they usually don't bring back IMAX movies for any reason. We even talked our friends into driving down from Albany to see it with us, and we assured them it was worth the trip, even though they had to leave home at 7AM to get there on time. Luckily they agreed with us after they saw it, so it was all worth it in the end. We had a very nice lunch at TGIFridays and did some browsing, and it was really very pleasant, because it was not nearly as crowded as we had feared. The Palisades Center is four floors crammed with every possible thing, from Lord & Taylor to 99-cent stores, from Sharper Image to CVS, and everything in between, not to mention a skating rink, Ferris Wheel, carousel, roller coaster, and toy train that you can ride on. Even Santa Claus was there, and I'm sure if we had been more observant, we would have found the kitchen sink besides. The place simply has everything.

Two weeks ago at church, The Powers That Be decided that it would be too much trouble to have our usual seasonal service of Lessons & Carols before Christmas, so they canceled it. (I don't mind saying that this has been a tough year for the traditionalists among us!) Anyway, there was such a hue and cry over this, that they backed down a week later and said that we could have Lessons & Carols after all. So on December 18th, we'll be torturing poor George Frideric Handel once again, and probably a bunch of other notable composers, and you know I'll be right in there with them, and doing my best to drown out all of the other sopranos within earshot. If they're going to keep canceling this service out from under us, at least I'll go down at top volume.

Let's take a peek at some of the morning messages that have greeted us at work, from our friends in the crack IT department at the hospital --

WE WILL BE PEFORMING OUR DAILY BACKUPS

please sll users please sign off oyur termonals

we will b econducting ourdaily saves

please remember to SIGN NOFF YOUR terminal

we will be condcuting our daily saves

any usersstill active will be terminalted

please all users sign offf your terminlas

we will bw preforming our daily backups

any jobw still actiove will be terminated immeidately

ALL ACTIVE JOBS WILL BE IMMEDIATELLY TERMINATED

please all users sidn off you terminals

we ar going to preform our full system save

attn all users please sign offyour termilnas

We will be performing the Regulartory Grouper Install.
The system will be unavailable until Wednesday, November 10th

REVISION: We will be performing the Regulartory Grouper Install.
The system will be unavailable until THURSDAY, November 10th

I'm thinking that other places might probably worry that their computer department doesn't know what day of the week it is, but fortunately at the hospital, we're fearless. Or perhaps, what we are is fareless, but whatever it is, we're certainly all full of it.

Speaking of things that are full of it, Bill subscribes to a Phrase-A-Week web site that picks an idiomatic expression at random and sends it to their patrons with the etymology behind it and other tidbits of interest. Apparently the linguistic dodge is no field for the faint-hearted, as the following reference indicates:

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Finally, we have this week's Phrase. It's "the bitter end" and I wouldn't have sent it to you at all, except I knew you'd enjoy "CANOE".

THE BITTER END

Meaning
To the limit of one's efforts - to the last extremity.
Origin
Bitter has been an adjective meaning acrid or sour tasting since the year 725AD at least. The word was in common use in the Middle Ages and Shakespeare uses it numerous times in his plays and poems, as do many other dramatists. The phrase 'the bitter end' would seem, fairly obviously, to come directly from that meaning.
But not so fast. Enter, stage left, Captain Smith. Here's what he has to say, in his publication Seaman's Grammar, 1627, which is the earliest citation of the phrase in print:
"A Bitter is but the turne of a Cable about the Bits, and veare it out by little and little. And the Bitters end is that part of the Cable doth stay within boord."
As you might have deduced, a bitt is a post fastened in the deck of a ship, for fastening cables and ropes. When a rope is played out to the bitter end, it means there is no more rope to be used.
But again, not so fast. Folk etymologists are those who say something is true with no more justification than that they would like it to be true. They are thickest on the ground in the area of military and especially naval attributions. People seem to love a sailor's yarn, and anything with a whiff of the sea is seized on with enthusiasm. So much so that more thoughtful etymologists have dreamed up the inventive acronym CANOE - the Committee to Ascribe a Naval Origin to Everything.
So, is this one from CANOE or not? We like to be definitive and, although the naval origin does seem to have a good case, it isn't conclusive. This time we'll sit on the fence and let you decide.
================================

Well, it's certainly true that I love that part about CANOE, and you can just shiver me timbers and yo-ho-ho with a bottle of rum. Of course, everyone knows what a hidebound traditionalist I am, not to mention a language purist, but I can see where I have more than a little CANOE in me too, and I will stick by that to the bitter end.

The old song and dance

Hello World,

What a difference a week makes. Last week, we were complaining that it was 70 degrees (and you know how I always say, when people do their Christmas shopping in their shirt sleeves, you have blizzards at Easter) and today when I left work, they tell me it was 37 degrees and I have no reason to doubt them. I'm thinking that someone at the Kremlin's infernal weather machine must have fast-forwarded our climate right from early September straight through to late February, and cut out all that other stuff in between. It certainly felt like the dead of winter out there, especially compared to last week. On the other hand, Bill and I were at Wal*Mart last Saturday, to look for some seasonal decorations, and were astounded to discover one lonely staffer assembling trees in what was going to become their Trim-A-Tree department if they ever got around to it. There were a few boxes of ornaments tossed about in a haphazard manner, and some old broken outdoor decorations dragged out of the basement, but other than that, it appeared as if Christmas at Wal*Mart was still months and months away in the distance, and they had all the time in the world to set up for it. We just couldn't get over that.

Last weekend, we were at Mom's house to celebrate Bill's birthday, and could not have had a more lovely day. We had lunch at Friendly's, where they're always happy to see Mom, and our lunch was all that we could have asked for. Later we had fresh baked brownies and ice cream, not to mention presents, and taken all together as a whole, that would be hard to improve upon. Bill received a number of items from the clothing group, as well as the junk food group, which I consider a well-rounded gift giving experience. Plus having his birthday off on Friday, well, it just doesn't get any better than that.

Speaking of things getting better, I remember sending this note to a cyber-friend at the beginning of September --

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Thanks for sending along the note about the gas boycott on September 1st. I suppose I shouldn't thank you for that, or in fact, anyone else who sent that to me, because it ended up turning out pretty badly for me. I wanted to get gas on Thursday, but that was the day we were supposed to boycott buying gas, so I didn't. On Thursday when I left work at 5:30, the regular at the Sunoco station was $2.99/gal. When I went past the same station on Friday after work, same time, the same regular was now $3.57/gal, or more than 50cents per gallon increase in 24 hours. On Saturday morning, when I absolutely had to get gas, because I was driving to Long Island, I paid $3.69/gal for the same regular gas at the same station. It had gone up 70cents per gallon in 36 hours. And all because I didn't buy gas on Thursday like I wanted to! Mind you, on Tuesday it was back down to $3.57/gal and today it had gone down again to $3.46/gal, so buying gas on Saturday was about the worst thing I could have done.
=====================================

I was reminded of that now, because lately it seemed that every day, the price of regular gas at the Sunoco station went down by a few cents a gallon. One day, I noticed it was $2.57, and I thought to myself, it's too bad that I don't need to get gas. The next time I looked, it was $2.51, and in another few days, it was $2.49. At that point, I figured there was no reason for me to go get gas, because obviously the longer I waited, the cheaper it was going to get. I told Bill that if this keeps up, the next thing you know, they'll be giving away glasses and steak knives like they used to, and cleaning your windshield. I finally caved in and filled up the Tempo when the Sunoco regular was $2.44 a gallon, and felt like John D. Rockefeller when it came to only $30 total, compared with the prices from two months ago. On the other hand, today I saw that it had gone down even further to $2.39, but I still feel that I got the best of the bargain.

While we're on the topic of things that are cheap (oh, hit that easy target!) a while back, Bill was on the ElectricScotland web page, where they have a collection of MIDI files of Celtic folk music, such as "Cock o' the North," "Loch Lomond," "Annie Laurie" and "Bonnie Dundee." They also listed a selection they referred to as the "unofficial Scottish National Anthem," which was not only not "Scotland the Brave," but there seemed to be nothing listed as the real and official Scottish National Anthem. Everyone knows how Bill loves a research challenge, so he was all over that like a bad suit, and this is what he came up with.

=======================
SUGGESTIONS FOR A SCOTTISH NATIONAL ANTHEM

The Scottish Arts Council has suggested having a new national anthem written for post-devolution Scotland. However, a number of existing songs or tunes could be used. Here's the most frequently suggested.

Existing Anthem:
The current Official National Anthem is God Save the Queen, which is detested by many, not least because it was originally written as a pro-English, anti-Scottish song at the time of the Jacobite freedom fighters. Furthermore, many Scots are not particularly Royalist. The original version had this verse (now dropped)

God grant that Marshall Wade,
May by thy mighty aid,
victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
and like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush
God save the King.

Flower of Scotland is also used in an official capacity as the anthem for Scottish Rugby and Football and I believe it is also used at the Commonwealth Games. It was written to commemorate the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 when the Scottish Army under Robert the Bruce defeated Edward II's army. This ended the English rule of Scotland. (Bill says, "Yeah, right. For which 20 minutes?")

O Flower of Scotland,
When will we see Your like again,
That fought and died for,
Your wee bit Hill and Glen,
And stood against him,
Proud Edward's Army,
And sent him homeward,
Tae think again.

The Hills are bare now,
And Autumn leaves lie thick and still,
O'er land that is lost now,
Which those so dearly held,
That stood against him,
Proud Edward's Army,
And sent him homeward,
Tae think again.

(Very much further down, they obviously feel obligated to mention Scotland the Brave, but they do so only grudgingly, and refer to it disparagingly as "Victorian Celtic Twilight Nonsense.")

Scotland the Brave
Hark when the night is falling
Hear! Hear the pipes are calling,
Loudly and proudly calling,
Down thro' the glen.
There where the hills are sleeping,
Now feel the blood a-leaping,
High as the spirits
Of the old Highland men.

Chorus:
Tow'ring in gallant fame,
Scotland my mountain hame,
High may your proud standards
Gloriously wave,
Land of my high endeavour,
Land of the shining river,
Land of my heart for ever,
Scotland the Brave.
==================================

I said to Bill, you wouldn't think that it would be such a big federal undertaking to come up with a Scottish national anthem, for crying out loud. And after playing the MIDI file, that Flower of Scotland is certainly a tune that does not grow on you, and that's a fact. Although as tunes go, you can't quarrel with Amazing Grace, and I wouldn't recommend that as anyone's national anthem, including the Vatican. I can't understand what they think is wrong with Scotland the Brave for the anthem. It's got a great tune, and like La Marseillaise, it just makes you want to march off to war, even if you're not Scottish. The other problem with Flower of Scotland is that it has stupid Edward listed at least once in every verse, while only mentioning Scotland twice, which seems to defeat the purpose of a Scottish national anthem in the first place. Normally, it wouldn't matter if it was played rather than sung, but national anthems are generally sung. It's more of a song against Edward, rather than a song in favor of Scotland. Besides which, of course, there's no rivers of blood from the martyrs trampled by the barbarian hordes, defiling the scorched fields and plundered meadows of the fabled homeland. You'd certainly expect better of the Scots there.

On the other hand, when you look at the lyrics for Scotland the Brave, anyone could tell at a glance why that could never be the official national anthem of anything, because even when you get to verse 4, there's still no legions of proud dead slaughtered for the Fatherland, their rivers of blood snaring the unwary tread of the trampling inhuman hordes that defiled the ground where their gory remains lifted the olive branch of peace and freedom to the Heavenly Patriarch who smiles beneficently on His favored children of the sainted homeland. Not to mention, the gay darkies happy all the livelong day. (Oops, that was My Old Kentucky Home, with "the darkies are gay, the corn top's ripe and the meadow's in the bloom while the birds make music all the day.") Nowadays, it's considered bad form to make these kinds of references, even deep in the heart of Dixie, and they make them sing different lyrics to that when they show the Kentucky Derby on television. Damn Yankees!

Now, the Mexicans know a thing or two about national anthems, because even though theirs starts out with the forehead of the fatherland being girded with olive garlands, it doesn't take long for it to turn into this instead:

Fatherland, before your children become unarmed
Beneath the yoke their necks in sway,
And your countryside be watered with blood,
On blood their feet trample.And may your temples, palaces and towers
crumble in horrid crash, and ruins remain saying:
The fatherland was made of one thousand heroes.

In fact, even the Maryland State Song, "Maryland, My Maryland" can be counted on to contain all the necessary elements of a national anthem (although you have to wait until Verse 9 before you get to my favorite part about spurning the "northern scum") with the exception of having no references to the gay darkies all the livelong day.

The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle queen of yore,
Maryland! My Maryland!

Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll,
Maryland!
Thou wilt not crook to his control,
Maryland!
Better the fire upon thee roll,
Better the shot, the blade, the bowl,
Than crucifixion of the Soul,
Maryland! My Maryland!

In the end, Bill decided that Scotland the Brave was probably written by an Englishman, so then the Scots would naturally hate it. I figured it would turn out that it was written in 1900 by two Jewish store clerks working in Tin Pan Alley. I mean, they certainly didn't understand the first thing about the rivers of blood being trampled underfoot by the martyrs of the homeland, and that's not just whistling Dixie!

Paint The Town Red

Hello World,

Oh, for those halcyon days of yore, when today would be Armistice Day (and people would know what that meant) and the bunting would be flying from the porch railings, not to mention the bandstand in the square, where the Aldermen would be giving speeches. Nowadays, Veterans Day is only recognized by the businesses who have put up signs saying, "We're Open All Day on Friday" lest anyone mistake this for a REAL holiday. But where Bill works is closed, and I took the day off as well, so we observed what we consider our own little personal holiday today.

When we went to CVS after dinner, they were playing Christmas carols, which I find is pushing it a bit. It's still 53 days to Christmas, and that's in real time, not Daylight Saving Time, and if they're going to start playing Christmas carols now, by about December 15th, we'll all be sick and tired of them already. I've gotten used to the idea that you can see Christmas merchandise in the stores starting in September, and the Christmas catalogues start coming in August, but I think they should wait on playing carols in the stores until closer to Thanksgiving at least.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, you may be familiar with Paula Deen from The Food Network, where she has her own cooking show. I noticed in the TV Section of our newspaper that she's also hosting "Paula's Southern Thanksgiving," and they were kind enough to list her menu items, which included bacon-wrapped breadsticks, oyster dressing, deep-fried turkey, mini-cheeseburger puffs, fried creamed corn, sweet potato balls, apple-butter pumpkin pie and cranberry cider. My favorite part was when Paula Deen said, "Thanksgiving is a very traditional meal." You know, I don't care if you want to serve stuff like that for Thanksgiving, and you can go right ahead with my blessing. But don't try to tell me it's traditional, of all things. Mini-cheeseburger puffs, indeed.

Everyone knows that I'm no fan of game shows, and I just don't find them interesting or entertaining. I don't like to pick on people they have competing on game shows, because I know for a fact that if someone came running up to me on the street with a microphone and asked me a question, I could not for the life of me tell you what MY name is, much less who is the President of the United States or anything else. If I was on a game show, and they said, "You have five seconds to tell us your favorite color," I not only would never be able to come up with any color at all, much less my favorite, but I would most likely say something like, "Hawaii." But I already know this about me, and that's one of the reasons why I wouldn't sign up to appear on a game show in the first place. I'm continually amazed at the people who go on Family Feud, and when they ask them to name an animal with a very long tail, they say, "Elephant" which probably has everything long about it EXCEPT its tail, and when you can't believe that anyone in the world could come up with an answer that incredibly stupid, the next person then says, "Giraffe." It just makes you wonder. I was reminded of that yesterday, when a vendor called and asked me to send them a tax exempt certificate for the hospital. I said to her, “I need to put your address on the form” so she gave me the street address, and then asked me to put our account number on it as well. I wasn't finished with the address yet, so I asked her what city they were in. Honest to God, she said, “Arizona.” Thanks for playing our game!

Meanwhile, Bill loves this junk mail that he got recently --

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insignificant Absolutely exciting! Cleverest deals on top cures, eucalyptus

Hmm. Insignificant but exciting; deals on cures AND eucalyptus! What more could a bored Koala suffering from low self-esteem want?
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Well, that's got to make you wonder and then some. Speaking of things that make you wonder, I didn't mention in my Halloween recap that I had overheard people say that the Pope costume was one of the most popular ones this year, because of the new Pope. I was very surprised, because I never heard a word about it before, and I just came up with the idea for myself out of the blue. One person who came to my department on Halloween said I looked lovely, and guessed that I was some sort of fairy. When I said I wasn't a fairy, she went back to her department and told everyone that I was a princess. (They were certainly surprised when they saw me later!) A young man that I bumped into in the hallway during lunch greeted me by saying, "Hey, Sister!" I can tell you, that really made me wonder what kind of church HE goes to! I said to people later that I should just retire now, because after you've already been the Pope, there's no place to go but down from here.

Last weekend we went to the Fortunoff's store in White Plains with some friends to see their Christmas displays, and it was worth the trip. We've been there before, and found this year's display somewhat smaller than previously, but they had a number of animated villages set up with train layouts, and they are always a special treat that we enjoy. There wasn't as much to see as before, but what they have is always interesting and often unique to Fortunoff's. It wasn't crowded when we first got there, and I suppose that the staff waiting for youngsters to show up and have their pictures taken with Santa probably had some time on their hands, so I guess that's about the best explanation I have for why all six of us got talked into having our picture taken with Santa and Frosty the Snowman. It actually came out great, so we were glad we did. They have a fellow with a digital camera, and after he takes the picture, he prints it out on a special little printer on photo paper, and then inserts it in a special keepsake card, and all at no charge. It was very nice, although the way they print them, it does turn into a rather time-consuming and labor-intensive process, and if it had been more crowded, it would have taken all day to get your pictures back. But they made us three sets of picture cards, one for each couple, which I thought was very nice. After that, we hopped over to the adjacent Westchester Mall to browse around, and we enjoyed their seasonal decorations as well. We decided to have dinner at the City Limits diner which is handily located right in the mall, and where we've eaten before, but this time we found the food unappetizing and over-priced, and the service was surly. In retrospect, I probably should have worn my Pope costume.

Earlier in the year, we discovered that one of our friends, who up until that point appeared entirely normal, but is now apparently suffering from an advanced case of Mid-Life Crisis, not only decided out of the blue to get a tattoo, but went ahead and did it. I'm thinking that a 55-year-old suburban housewife who decides to get a tattoo, will most likely get a small rose on her ankle, or perhaps a butterfly on her shoulder. That turned out to be very much not the case, as she got a large and ornately embellished design on her lower back instead. At that time, we all had a chance to see it and say how nice it was, which we did, even though it wasn't, because of course we're too polite not to. Anyway, it was Bill who came up with the idea that when we saw them again, we should all be wearing a temporary tattoo in the same design, which we did, and we all had a lot of fun with that. He also made us earrings with the same design, and that went over very big as well. I found the temporary tattoos worked real well, as they went on easily, stayed on firmly, and then washed off with no trouble. Anyone could see that this was certainly giving me costume ideas for next year, so watch out.

The people next-door, who are actually alien pods from another planet, decided to spruce up around the joint, and the painters must have been there for 8 weeks, crawling all over the place. I have never in my life heard painters make so much noise, which you wouldn't think would be that noisy of a project to start with, but somehow they managed to get on our nerves day and night. Day after day after day, it would be the sanders, and the darned aluminum extension ladders, and the trucks back and forth, and the nail guns and the buzz saws, and on and on and on, even on the weekends. We were about ready to tear our hair out, and I don't mind saying, we don't have enough left as it is. (Although in spite of everything, these people were still a lot better than the crew hired by the neighbors on the other side, who were using a torch to burn the old paint off, and instead set fire to the house and caused $20,000 worth of damage, no thank you very much!) Anyway, we thought we would never see the tail-end of them, and looked forward to the time when we could bid them good riddance. Not so fast! Apparently the lady across the street developed a bad case of "painters envy" and the next thing I knew, her yard was crawling with men in dirty coveralls and noisy extension ladders. I may as well say this right now: I'm giving them exactly one week, and then I'm going to march right over there in my Pope costume and excommunicate the whole passel of them.

The Pope Stops Here

Hello World,

Happy November! Well, this was certainly a busy week, with Halloween on Monday, followed by All Saints Day and the Mexican Day of the Dead, plus EID which represents the last day of Ramadan. How the year has flown, and more's the pity I'm sure, although I feel it would be safe to say that there are probably millions of people who will not miss 2005 when it's done and gone for good. With Halloween out of the way, Christmas now has a pretty clear field in the wonderful world of retail, and when we went to CVS after dinner, the shelves were awash in reindeers, snowmen and candy canes. Thanksgiving may be a popular family holiday, but it's not much in the way of merchandising, so once the skeletons and goblins are out of the picture, it's nothing but ho-ho-ho all the way to the end of the year. And that will be here before you know it, just you watch.

Of course, Halloween was on Monday, and around here, that's considered a very big deal. I don't know why, but this year the holiday seemed much more subdued than usual. Even the outdoor decorations didn't seem as prevalent or elaborate as years past. As usual, I had a couple of costume ideas I had been working on, and one of them came together pretty easily, while the other continues to resist all my efforts to round up the necessary parts, so that is how I ended up being a Pope for Halloween. Personally, I feel that Protestant women have been woefully under-represented in the annals of Popes throughout history, and I really believe that the time has come for a change. Actually, I just thought it would be funny to have a short and dumpy woman in a pontiff costume, and I hoped that people wouldn't be offended. I have enough trouble with grouchy Lutherans as it is.

The first thing I was looking for was the miter, because once you have the right hat, that's half the battle right there. I was lucky to find a complete costume with a wonderful robe, sash, gold capelet and hat that was so beautiful considering that it was very inexpensive. After that, it's usually the accessories that cause the problems. I was looking for an ornate cross but couldn't find one, so I bought one in a plain gold color and attached my own paste jewels to it. I also got what they called a shepherd's crook, which had a very handy feature of disassembling into shorter pieces, which made it easy to get into the car, rather than one long piece. Then I got a big costume ring, and I was as set to be Pope as I'm ever going to be.

Here's where that very low-key part of Halloween started to present itself. I was going out to the car in my full papal regalia and passed one of the neighbors on the sidewalk, who nodded at me and mumbled, "How ya doin" as if they see the Pope in the street in our neighborhood every day of the week. When I got to the parking lot, the intersection with the blinking light where you take your life in your hands just to cross (even in the crosswalk!) was entirely deserted, without a car or pedestrian in sight. I actually thought that was too bad, because I figured for once, I could cross the street with impunity since nobody would run down the Pope! The first building that I go into has our out-patient clinic, which is usually crawling with people all over the place, and I can count on my costumes causing quite a stir among the crowds. But on Monday morning, there wasn't a soul in there, and not even the Pope could get a reaction out of the furniture. The next stop is the computer department, where they are always happy to see my costume, but their door was locked, which surprised me because I know that there are people running the hospital computers 24 hours a day. Somehow I managed to cover the entire distance from the parking lot all the way to my office without setting eyes on one other person. I was beginning to feel like Pope Invisible the First.

The people in my office liked my costume, although I expect they would say that anyway, just to be nice. And one person who was planning to take the day off, came in instead so as not to miss it. But unlike other years when people would come from other buildings to see my costume, no one came to see me, or called on the phone to make sure that I would go to their office on my rounds later. In fact, when I did go around later, I was surprised at all of the people who had taken the day off, so I missed many of the people that I always make a point to stop and see. It was just one more odd part of an oddly humdrum holiday that is usually more of a fun kind of event at the hospital.

Everyone knows by now that trick-or-treating at the hospital doesn't get you much in the way of candy, but I do it just to show off my costume and have some fun along the way. This year, I was surprised to get candy in Engineering and Admitting, where they usually don't have any, but not in Administration or Medicine, where they usually do. Even the O.R. and Lab came up empty, and I turned down an offer of electrodes from Pulmonary. When I barged into the annual party in Adult Day Care, they gave me a glow-in-the-dark skeleton and a spider ring, but no food as in previous years. (I always take a pass on the Ensure and graham crackers, but they usually have holiday cookies and cupcakes, which are a nice treat.) The biggest disappointment of all was finding out that there was no Halloween party in the nursing home, which is something I look forward to every year. For some reason, they already had their party on Friday, which makes no sense to me, so I missed having a chance to enjoy that as I usually do. Now that they've stopped having parties in the Lab and Physical Therapy, it's getting to be pretty slim pickings for entertainment on Halloween any more.

As a costume, I will say that the Pope was nice and comfortable, and not hard to work in. Monday turned out to be a beautiful day and must have been 70 degrees, so I was glad that I wasn't wearing something warmer, like a woolly gorilla suit or worse. After being the best Pope I could be at work, for a Protestant woman anyway, I hurried home so Bill could take pictures, which is always fraught with peril and beset by problems. After that, I ate something fast and got ready for our callers, because you can never tell how early or late they're going to start coming. With the weather being so mild, I was expecting a lot of visitors, and I had already made 80 goodie bags of assorted candies and a toy. I figured I could make more bags if I needed them as it went along, because I was sitting by the door with the candy anyway, and I fully expected over 100 trick-or-treaters. I admit I was somewhat disappointed when we had only 89 instead, especially considering the weather.

My biggest costume this year was vampires (8) for some reason, followed by witches (7), ninjas (7) and Scream (5.) Coming in at three apiece were Spiderman, SpongeBob SquarePants, Darth Vader, cats, Jason, aliens, angels and Skorpion from the game Mortal Kombat. I had 2 zombies, 2 skeletons and 2 princesses, plus singles of Superman, Batman, Phantom, Cinderella, Freddie Kruger, Michael Meyers, Grim Reaper, Power Ranger, Hulk, the big bad wolf, cheerleader, basketball player, spider, SWAT team, Minnie Mouse, a pirate, a cow, a turtle, a bunny, a scarecrow, a ghost, a unicorn, a devil, and one little boy who was Bruce Lee, which is certainly a first for me. I found the costumes unimaginative for the most part, although I thought the unicorn was adorable. But unlike previous years, I had no one that showed up without any costume at all, so at least I can appreciate that some effort went into it, and that counts for a lot with me.

My favorite callers were my first, who included Spiderman, who was probably about 6, coming with his younger and very blond brother being Superman at around 4, and their baby brother the turtle, being carried in his father's arms. While I was complimenting their costumes and handing out goodie bags, and unbeknownst to me, one of our cats must have run behind me to hide in the kitchen, and entirely out of the blue, we hear Superman exclaim, "Kitty cat!" and off he toddles from the front door right into the kitchen after the cat. I found out pretty quickly what his name was (it wasn't Superman) when everyone started yelling, "Dylan!" and chasing after him. The mother kept apologizing to me, and the father kept telling me how nice I was being, and poor Dylan couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about. That was certainly a first for me, when I had to corral a whole family of errant trick-or-treaters out of the kitchen, instead of staying at the front door like they're supposed to. I thought that was the funniest thing.

For people keeping track, here are the stats for the last few years:

YEAR DAY CALLERS WEATHER
1997 Friday 70 N/A
1998 Saturday 112 Clear, warm
1999 Sunday 108 Clear, warm
2000 Tuesday 113 Clear, cold
2001 Wednesday 31 Cloudy, warm (50 days after terrorist attacks)
2002 Thursday 53 Clear, very cold
2003 Friday 63 Clear, warm
2004 Sunday 96 Clear, warm
2005 Monday 89 Clear, warm

It's interesting to see over the years, how often the weather has been unseasonably mild for Halloween, and no rain. It's also plain that we have never bounced back to our pre-2001 levels, when even the day of the week made no difference in the numbers. Of course, that may be that we don't have the same amount of youngsters as before, or other factors that we don't know about. But at least we averted the major disaster that I was most worried about. We have the most enormous spider on our porch right over the door, that we call The Jumbotron and for good reason, and I was so anxious that someone might bump into the screen door and he would pick that time to decide to just drop down onto their head or something, and the screams would be heard in towns miles away. It's a good thing for all concerned that he didn't do that, because I'm not sure even the Pope could have rectified that, and I ought to know!