Let's Do Lunch

Hello World,

M'aidez! M'aidez! Yes, that old French expression meaning "Help me!" that American flyers adapted as "Mayday!" before ditching out of their airplanes, reminds us that May Day is indeed right around the corner. In fact, it's on Monday, believe that or don't, so let's all be on the lookout for throngs of happy Russians reveling in Red Square for the occasion, da?

Speaking of outmoded technology (oh, hit that easy target!) I just received a fashion catalog that has a model on the cover holding what appears to be a portable phone circa 1990, which is about the size of a tissue box, and is so bulky that the poor woman has to hold it with both hands. I found that a curious low-tech anachronism to put on the cover for whatever reason. It might have been in that same catalog that I came across a textbook illustration of what is wrong with the language nowadays. I think we could all agree that a dress is an article of women's apparel that begins at the neckline and continues all the way to the hemline, say, around the knees. This is what makes it distinctive from a sweater, blouse or skirt, for instance, because it keeps together and doesn't dis-assemble into separate sections. Then they decided that anything goes, and started calling any old thing a dress, whether it fit this description or not. Now it has finally come full circle, so to speak, and reached the point where they actually had to specify that this particular outfit was a "one-piece dress." Of course, they went on to further describe this one-piece wonder as an "ensemble," which would seem to fly in the face of the meaning of the term, leaving the language purists among us with nothing to do but shake our heads and groan.

Speaking of the deterioration of the language, I noticed that I had some incoming email with the subject line of "Personal Request." Now, this particular message was from the pastor of my church, and since I'm the treasurer of the church, I made sure to open it right away, since based on the subject line, I thought it might be a request for some financial information, an advance on his salary, or clarification of some expenditure. It turned out instead to be a prayer request sent to myself and 50 other people, and here I may differ from the rest of humanity, but my feeling is that once you send something to 50 people, by its very nature, it is no longer "personal."

While we're having Fun With Language, Bill would like to share with us some subject lines from his incoming email --

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orthodontist Luxury look alike chronometers anywhere! axisymmetric
tuan cordwell - fictive int'l authorized pharmaceutical, winkle
Oscar Collier - viaduct message from Oscar Collier Thu 03/30 2KB Andres Mccullough - Re: bolshevism message from Andres Mccullough Thu 03/30 1KB Aubrey Prater - whereof message from Aubrey Prater Thu 03/30 1KB Marquis Heller - Hey message from Marquis Heller
Mattie Neal lubricate message from Mattie Neal Sat 03/25 1KB Ruth Bailey marshal message from Ruth Bailey Sat 03/25 1KB Emile Caron recalcitrant message from Emile Caron Sat 03/25 2KB Jami Gilmore surreal message from Jami Gilmore Sat 03/25 1KB Lorrie Cook bunny message from Lorrie Cook Fri 03/24 1KB Jeanette Mercado since message from Jeanette Mercado Fri 03/24 1KB Grover Suggs Sweet teen panties message from Grover Suggs Fri 03/24 1KB Kathleen Cortez kalmia message from Kathleen Cortez Fri 03/24 1KB Celina Dickey furry message from Celina Dickey
Rodney Salazar polemic demeaning Tue 03/21 27KB Monty Stokes adamantly paucity Tue 03/21 27KB Leon Bunch kodachrome message from Leon Bunch Tue 03/21 1KB Josiah Temple afternoon message from Josiah Temple Tue 03/21 1KB Janie Tatum Panty peek Panties message from Janie Tatum Tue 03/21 1KB Deanne Watkins shrapnel message from Deanne Watkins Tue 03/21 1KB Maggie Dennis rawboned message from Maggie Dennis Tue 03/21 1KB
[I suppose I'd go for the panty message over the shrapnel, if I were forced to choose!]
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Well, I don't see any way to improve upon that, try as I might.

Wednesday of this week found many of us enjoying the New Rochelle Chamber of Commerce's Secretary Day luncheon, which they have every year at a local country club with dignitaries and boring speeches. Someone must have complained last year that the program ran too long, so this year they wouldn't let them make any speeches, except the Mayor. We actually have a new Mayor, even though it wasn't time to elect one, because our current Mayor had been elected to a County post in mid-term, so we were able to throw the rascal out ... er, I mean, we celebrated his achieving an even greater opportunity for public service away from our fair city. Anyway, after he left, the City Council appointed someone else to fill out the remainder of his term, and he seems like a nice and earnest young man. I already like him, because he came to address our neighborhood association, where I don't mind saying, the local government has been pretty unpopular lately, and began his comments asking for a show of hands on this inquiry:

Do you feel that in New Rochelle, at the moment,
a) Everything is going great;
b) We are headed in the right direction, but we still have major issues to resolve;
c) We've had a couple of successes but are headed in the wrong direction; or
d) We're doomed.

He didn't try that gambit at the luncheon, I suppose, because the City Hall contingent is one of the larger participants in the event, and the reception might have been a bit cooler than the general public. But in any case, he made some very nice remarks about secretaries, and got a nice round of applause for his efforts. Moving on to the important part of the program, they started calling out names for winners of the raffle prizes, for which they sell chances as a fund-raiser to award scholarships to worthy local organizations. I would always buy tickets to support these causes, even though I would never win anything. Then one year, it occurred to me that one of the people in our Mail Room is about the luckiest person I have ever heard of, who routinely wins at slot machines, scratch-off lottery games or Bingo at church, with a consistency that is uncanny. I figured that if I wrote her name on the tickets, she would probably win, and sure enough, that was exactly what happened, and it even rubbed off on another person from a different department, so that they both won some nice prizes. I continued to do that, and her record at winning was a refreshing change from my consistency at losing.

This year, with the return to work by our injured co-worker, I decided to also write her name on some tickets, even though she is unquestionably the most unlucky person I have ever met in my entire life. She couldn't catch a stroke of good luck if she was infected with a good luck virus during good luck season and standing in a vat full of good luck germs. Her slot machine pays off after she moves to another one, the person next to her wins the door prize, she can have three Aces and easily lose to someone with four Deuces, as impossible that might be for normal people. For someone who is so unlucky, she's very superstitious, and as an example, refuses to pick up stray coins that are face-down, because she claims it is bad luck. I point out to her with unassailable logic that she is already as unlucky as any one person could get, and that these upside-down coins couldn't possibly make her any unluckier, but she won't hear of it. So you can imagine my surprise when one of the first raffle prizes of the day was announced with her name, being a gift certificate for Applebee's restaurant, and I was so stunned at this improbable turn of events that I nearly forgot to stand up and claim it. Bill also asked me to buy some tickets for him, and he's never been a particularly lucky person either, but the Mail Room luck wave must have rubbed off on him as well, because he won a mug and T-shirt, much to my further surprise. This was about all the good luck the Mail Room effect could muster at one time, and retired in exhaustion after that, so that this was one of the only years that the original lucky person didn't win anything at the luncheon. I mean, there's only just so much that luck can do, and I ought to know.

Lamb Chop

Hello World,

Isn't it amazing how it seems like you just about finish packing away the Christmas decorations for another year, and the next thing you know, you look up and suddenly the stores are full of sale merchandise for Cinco de Mayo already. Well, somehow that couldn't be exactly what I meant, but you understand my point, and that is that the year is flying by at an alarming rate. A scant few weeks ago, when it was cold, we were being charmed at the sight of jonquils, blue squill and early tulips, so welcome after a long winter. Yesterday, it was 80 degrees, and our whole yard exploded in waves of violets and dandelions. Yes, dandelions! I ask you, is this any way to run a climate? I think not!

I was reminded of Christmas decorations recently when we were faced with the hypothetical return of our injured co-worker, who only seems to have been on a six-month holiday, but actually has been out on disability with a boo-boo since before Christmas. Of course, we've heard of her hypothetical return so many times before, and somehow she never actually materializes, so we've tended to grow increasingly cynical about the likelihood of these pronouncements as they've come along successively. In fact, my original choice of Bastille Day in the office pool, far from being a laughable exaggeration, is starting to look like a stroke of genius. In any case, I have steadfastly refused to give up our temp based on these hypothetical reports of imminent return, and so the possibility does exist, however remote, that we may find ourselves with two people trying to occupy the same space at the same time. I asked our temp, if that does happen, to please move her belongings into the spare office and do her paperwork in there until we get it all sorted out, and make sure the errant co-worker is back to stay for good and not just hypothetically. It only occurred to me later that there's no place for the young lady to put her coat and bags and other items, since what is now the spare office is in reality my old office, which has the Christmas tree still decorated in the closet. (You know I can't wait to have that conversation and try to explain that to anyone at this point in the year!) I have no place else for the tree, which has spent more time on the move since Christmas, than a high-pressure salesman trying to earn frequent flyer miles. So things might get a little cramped next week, not to mention surreal, with the juxtaposition of the old and the new, the incoming and the outgoing, the spirit of Christmas past and the spirit of Christmas still with us, fa la la la la la la la la. Should be interesting times ahead, I'm thinking.

Speaking of my old office, not that I care to, I don't mind saying that I'm sick and tired of that place and disgusted with it to boot, and so mad at it that I just can't see straight. Honestly, ever since that fateful day that I moved out of there with my coat-tails flying behind me and said that I could not spend one more minute in that horrible place where it was always too hot, since that very moment, that office has not been the slightest bit hot by any means at any time in any way. Now when people come looking for me from another department, and they find that I'm in a different office, and a much nicer one besides, and I tell them that I had to move because my old office was too hot, you can tell that they're just humoring me by nodding and smiling, because what they're really thinking is that I'm obviously some sort of office-grabbing lunatic on a crazed power trip fueled by delusions of grandeur. And meanwhile, my old office just sits there, nice and cool and innocent-looking, with this smug and complacent look on its foul and two-faced smelly old self, looking for all the world like the wounded victim of some unfair smear campaign, instead of the wretched architect behind this whole steamy imbroglio to start with. Oh, it's not fooling me one bit, no sir, and I don't mind saying that I am flat-out disgusted with it, and that is just the plain truth of the matter right there.

While we're on the topic of steamy things, I came across this fashionable item in a catalog from our friends at Willow Ridge (and feel free to visit their website at www.willowridgecatalog.com) which appears to be a floor-length black sun-dress with a lattice decoration in the back and no sleeves. I find this a curious combination of elements in one dress, because in hot sunshine, I can't see any appeal in wearing a long black dress, while at the same time, being sleeveless and open in the back makes it unsuitable for cooler conditions. Rather than being a season-spanning classic of timeless functionality, it instead has a season-less impracticality that has me totally stumped. Sort of like a fleece swimsuit or a gauze parka, it simply doesn't make any sense to me at all.

No discussion of the weather would be complete without mentioning Easter, and if you happened to see any of the justly famous Easter Parade on TV, you know what kind of a beautiful day we had in these parts. It was sunny and balmy, which you certainly can't count on in April around here, and we were glad to get out and enjoy it. Our trip to Long Island was uneventful, and we had a lovely day at Mom's with all the trimmings, plus dinner at the diner for good measure. To top it all off, there was a bakery cake shaped like an adorable woolly lamb, complete with bow-tie, jelly beans, and plastic decorations of bunnies and eggs. It was almost too cute to eat, but somehow we managed to do just that. It was a wonderful holiday and a fine time was had by all, and I have the pictures to prove it. I have a new pink knit dress that I wore for the occasion (which is actually a long-sleeve nightshirt, but don't tell anyone) on the theory that it would match my Easter Bunny sunglasses (and I have the pictures to prove that, too!) and over the course of the day, managed to spill something from every single meal somewhere on it, from the lace-trimmed neckline to the hem to the sleeves and everywhere in between. I've obviously moved past the point where a bib would help me, and I need to wear something that is entirely made out of a plastic tablecloth, so I can just hose myself off afterwards.

When we were coming back home, we turned on the radio to listen for signs of any traffic problems, and heard a commercial for a revolutionary plastic patio deck, that they assured us is held together with invisible fasteners. "No, it's not!" I retorted with effrontery. Bill wondered how you could tell if it was assembled correctly, if the fasteners were indeed invisible. I said, what would you do if you dropped the box of them, you'd never be able to find them. And Bill pointed out that the manufacturer could send you a limitless supply of replacement fasteners in empty boxes, without fear of complaints. We had a good laugh about that, but actually, it's pathetic the depths to which the language has sunk, and the scary part is, it hasn't hit bottom yet. Invisible fasteners, indeed.

When I shared the story of our Payroll department directing people to our conference room by mistake, I heard back from a colleague at another hospital, who wrote:

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Ah yes....the ole huntin' down the paycheck routine. I know it well. Around here, they don't even bother to tell you that the paychecks can be picked up in a different location than usual. First we go to the payroll clerk's office, and when we find it locked up, we just wander around trying to sniff it out. Talking about having a nose for money!! Most of the time we can find our checks in the admissions office, but the newcomers wouldn't know that....poor souls. A little sign up at the Payroll Office indicating where we can go to find our earnings would be a nice gesture.
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So it appears that this is more of a problem than you would expect, considering that there is a whole department solely for this purpose, and you would think that at least on payday, they would make the staff in that department stay put, and serve the very purpose for them being there in the first place, but apparently not. Of course, I have a long-standing policy against using logic with irrational people, but even I find this inexplicable. On the other hand, I have a fully decorated Christmas tree in a closet at half-past April, so this smacks a little too much of the pot calling the kettle black, and then some. Black sun-dresses, that is, with invisible fasteners. If you don't believe me, I'll be happy to send you a box of them.

The Brush Off

Hello World,

Happy Easter! For many of us in the Western world (or as Bill refers to it as "Unorthodox") this Sunday will be Easter, while the Eastern Orthodox religions have to wait another week for the big day. We have Bill to thank for even more meticulous research into the whole Easter situation (and anyone who misbehaves, don't think I won't send you the entire voluminous compendium of it, so you'd all better watch your step!) including picking the right date for the event. Based on the calculations used by the Eastern and Western camps, there appears to be a cycle where both celebrate the holiday on the same day, then a year that the former is a week behind the latter, and then they're about 5 weeks behind (as in 2005, when Orthodox Easter was May 1) before going back to the same Sunday again for another year. So where do these calculations come from? According to Bill, it's not really all that complicated: [ OK, as I see it, the bottom line is, in OUR calendar, you start at March 21st which, for argument's sake, they consider the Vernal Equinox, whether it is or not. Then you watch for a new moon. This new moon marks the beginning of the next lunar month. From there you count 14 days, which they consider the Full Moon, whether or not it's off a little bit. Easter is the Sunday after that. Got it? It's the first Sunday after the 14th day after the beginning of the first lunar month after March 21. Now I ask you -- what could be simpler? ] On the other hand, Wikipedia has one entire entry on "Computus," which is the word coined to describe the process of determining where Easter is.

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The method for computing the date of the ecclesiastic Full Moon that was standard for the Latin (Catholic) church before the Gregorian calendar reform, made use of an uncorrected repetition of the 19-year Metonic cycle in combination with the Julian calendar. In terms of the method of the epacts discussed above, it effectively used a single epact table starting with an epact of * (0), which was never corrected. In this case, the epact was counted on 22 March, the earliest acceptable date for Easter. This repeats every 19 years, so there were only 19 possible dates for the ecclesiastic Full Moons after 21 March.
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Well, that's just about as clear as mud, which is about all you can expect from a bunch of experts. Making just a little bit more sense (although he could just be making this all up out of whole cloth, and who would know the difference) is Kenneth C. Davis in USA Weekend magazine, who informs us:

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The English name for this holy day has long been linked to the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring usually called "Eostre" or "Ostara." Also known as a pagan goddess of dawn, Eostre is a deity whose name is connected to the word "east" -- where, obviously, the sun rises. According to Anglo-Saxon myth, the goddess Eostre changed her favorite pet bird into a rabbit to amuse some children. The rabbit produced brightly colored eggs, which the goddess gave to the kids. In Germany, that tradition carried into Christian times with the tale of a Santa-like magical rabbit, Osterhase, who leaves colored eggs for good children.
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I don't mind saying that I like our Easter Bunny a whole lot better, who already knows that I prefer pastel M&Ms and Hershey Kisses to actual raw eggs any day, goddess or no goddess.

Meanwhile, in the wonderful world of retail merchandising, I received a catalog from JC Penney with a page full of Knitworks French Terry Gauchos in Girls sizes, that were available in a variety of prints including what they referred to as "camouflage." Here I'm thinking, I guess you could consider that print a sort of camouflage, that is, except for the part about it being pink and all. I suppose if you were hiding out in a forest of Barbie Dream Houses, this pink camo might come in handy, but other than that, its usefulness as camouflage would elude even the most relaxed interpretation of the term. Honestly, words have simply lost all of their meaning these days.

Speaking of which, all I wanted to do was get a new hairbrush, because the little plastic one that I had been happily using all these years finally wouldn't stay together any longer because the glue must have let go or something. I may as well warn everyone right up front, if you haven't gone out and tried to buy a brush for a while, it's a whole new ball-game out there, and that's putting it mildly. Nowadays, brushes come with labels and instructions, so you can't just go and buy any old brush and use it with impunity like you could back in the day. Oh no, no, no! Some brushes are for straightening, and some brushes are for curling, and some brushes are for de-tangling, and some brushes are for use with blow dryers, while still yet others use micro-ion technology to control static and inhibit bacteria. I tell you, it's a jungle of brushes out there, and if they weren't mostly black and silver, you can be sure I'd be wearing my pink camouflage gauchos in that aisle. And as much as I hate to be an alarmist, I discovered that you can pay $6 or $10 just for one of these brushes, and even more, if you have special requirements in your hairbrush preferences. Anyway, I finally found one that looked like a pretty comparable replacement for the one I have now, and at a mere $3 it was like they were giving it away, so I snatched it off the shelf and glad of it. That's when I noticed the instruction label on it, and honest to God, it said, "For traditional brushing." I mean, really, sometimes you just have to shake your head and wonder.

Here's something else to wonder about, and I find that people don't pay enough attention to how their Internet addresses look whenyourunthemalltogetherasoneword and without any punctuation or capital letters to help make the meaning more clear. Last week at work, we all had to attend one in a series of meetings they had scheduled about the pension plan, and it was presented by our new friends at A.G. Edwards, who I'm sure are fine and upstanding folks who are investment brokers from White Plains. They repeatedly invited us to make use of the information and resources on their web site, which I thought was saddled with the unfortunate address of www.agedwards.com and looked to me for all the world like Aged Wards. For my tastes, this would not be the image that I want to project as a cutting edge and forward thinking vanguard of financial wizards, but there you have it. In fact, it reminded me of when our Telecommunications director gave me his email address at some screwy ISP with the extravagant name of Omni Sky, but when you print it on a business card as rachod@omnisky.net, it makes you look instead like Comrade Omniskynet, in charge of the road paving cooperative in the Urals section of good old Mother Russia. I know that young people take these things in stride, but I find I'm getting too old for all this folderol.

On the other hand, just to prove that you can teach an old dog new tricks, last week on Palm Sunday, we were astounded at church (congregation founded Christmas Day, 1899) to find our service being projected on the wall with the use of a laptop and computerized projector, rather than an overhead projector and transparencies, which had been the extent of our technological advancement up to that point. It worked like a charm, and everyone was very impressed with it. And it was a big surprise to everyone, since we don't usually embrace any sort of new technology until it's so out-dated as to be impractical. But there we were, being dragged into the 21st century, kicking and screaming, and like it or not. Next thing you know, we'll all be getting new hairbrushes, and people would think of us as a bunch of free-thinking radicals, except that in our pink camo, they won't be able to see us.

Mixed Up

Hello World,

Well, this is turning into a busy week full of events and occurrences that would amaze and confound lesser beings, and all we can hope is that we're all up to the challenge. It all began, of course, with April Fool's Day on Saturday, with its practical jokes and trifling mischief. After that, we had the switch-over to Daylight Saving Time on Sunday, which is always fraught with peril and the potential for disaster. This coming Sunday is All Cats Favorite Church Holiday, known to the rest of the world as Palm Sunday, so you know I'll be there and stocking up for the home front, if only to keep them from biting my ankles by coming home empty-handed. Then at sundown on Wednesday is the beginning of Passover, which will be over-lapping Easter the following Sunday, except for those tardy Orthodox Greeks, no doubt. So you can see that there's already plenty going on to keep people busy and on their toes, if not entertained.

But wait, there's more! If you act right now, we'll also throw in these other special days at no extra charge, that's right friends, they're perfectly free! I have it on good authority that April 4th is Vitamin C Day, which commemorates the discovery of Vitamin C in 1932. I was also alerted by any number of people that on April 5th, we had two different opportunities during the day to observe the time as 01:02:03 04/05/06, and I'm thinking that the numerologists would be having a field day with that one. (Get ready for D-Day this year, when you can have two chances to see the time as 06:06:06 06/06/06 for what it's worth.) Also having field days, baseball fields that is, Monday was Opening Day in many cities around the country, always a welcome sign of Spring and this year no different. And we have our friends at Glenlivet, makers of fine distilled spirits, to thank for Wear A Kilt To Work Day on April 6th, which raises money for charity, one supposes, based on the idea that people will pay money to have their co-workers' knobby knees and scrawny shins exposed for all the world to see. Personally, I would think you'd raise more money from people paying their colleagues NOT to Wear A Kilt To Work, but I guess that would take all the fun out of the day, such as it is.

Speaking of fun days, we had one last week that began with patchy ground fog, so the car windows were all coated with dew early in the morning. We were assured that this would burn off, which it did, and was followed by bright sunshine and no clouds to be seen. At lunchtime, I mentioned to our temp, "I hate to be an alarmist, but I just noticed that it's snowing," and sure enough, the air was filled with swirling flakes, apparently out of nowhere. I came back from lunch amid more bright sunshine and not a cloud in sight. By mid-afternoon, it was raining, and I said to our bookkeeper that we were having an entire year's worth of weather, all in one day. It was like they were just throwing darts at a board, and couldn't decide what kind of weather to hit us with next. What a mix-up.

Of course, we're all familiar with Russia's glorious October Revolution, which thanks to the change-over to the new calendar, is now celebrated in November, or vice versa, I can never remember which. I was reminded of that recently when I looked up from my March Madness brackets and found the Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight and Final Four still going at it in April, and creating a major sports misnomer in the process. Something's gotta give here, guys. If you want to call it March Madness, and it takes too long to finish before the end of the month, you have to start earlier. Running it over into April is not the solution, when you've already got the name picked out.

Meanwhile, for those among us for whom shopping for costumes and accessories is a year-round activity not limited to October, I was not surprised to hear from my online friends at Star Costumes to check out their seasonal offerings, but even I was not expecting this screaming headline --

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Up Coming Events to Celebrate
or a Reason to Part!
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Hmmmm. More a reason to proof-read, I'm thinking. Then there's this headline that Bill loves from The Journal News of last week --

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Crash Victim Improves
Croton man, 49, died in Route 9 accident
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Frankly, that doesn't seem like much of an improvement. We had to read that story twice, in order to figure out that they were talking about two different people from the same accident. Nice reporting job there by the crack team at TJN. Not to pick on our local paper, which unfortunately is an easy target, let's take another bite out of the hand that feeds us. After I complained about the tasteless China Boy noodles, Bill asked me if the label called them Genuine Chow Mein Noodles made at the Genuine Chow Mein Noodle Factory in Brooklyn Heights or something like that. Instead it turns out that the China Boy noodles are packaged by our friends at the Everfresh Food Corporation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that world renowned hotbed of Asian cuisine. You can tell that because also on their label is a recipe for China Boy Oriental Dip, which includes soy sauce, garlic powder and ground ginger mixed into a base of sour cream. Of course, everyone knows how much sour cream they use in authentic Chinese cooking. (NOT!)

And people can say what they like about Bill (don't you dare!) but he is nothing if not accommodating to my whims, no matter how, well, whimsical they may be. So he set off on a hunt to find another brand of chow mein noodles that I might like better and came back with some from our friends at Streit's, who assure us they have A History of Baking Kosher Products for Over 75 Years. Perhaps I'm the only one who finds it funny that their chow mein noodles have a notice on the package that they are Not For Passover Use. (Dang!) It certainly begs the question of what do Jewish Asians do for chow mein noodles during Passover. Although I think a better question would be, how much of a problem is it that people are mis-using Chinese foods during Jewish holidays, that they have to warn them off with labels on the packaging? Oy veh, grasshopper.

Earlier in the week at work, our bookkeeper was wrestling some heavy boxes out of the closet in the hallway, when one of the fellows from my department was passing by. Not wanting to seem ungentlemanly, he said, "Hey, do you need a hand with that, Jean? I can get our secretary to help you out." Jean told me that story later, so I could appreciate his thoughtfulness at pitching right in and volunteering me to be her helper, and in absentia, no less. I said it was just par for the course, and all that we could expect from a week like this, where I called Housekeeping to request soap and paper towels for the ladies room, and instead they sent over someone to vacuum. There's a joke in there somewhere, but in the immortal words of Schlomo Wong, it's "Not for Passover Use."