Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Hello World,

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! I hope this holiday will find you happy, memorable, and full of days of the weekend variety, where you can take advantage of all the festivities that are offered in your locality for this momentous occasion. Weather permitting, many of us expect to be flying the colors upstairs and downstairs, that is, if the flag brigade reminder squad does its job to remind the flag brigade to do so. I don't mind saying that these are challenging times for the reminder squad, which finds itself being more and more of a misnomer these days, if not an outright fraud.

Speaking of names, many people may be aware that the New York Mets play at Shea Stadium, without having any idea who the structure is named after. Since we live in the New York metropolitan area, and watch the Mets regularly, we were more surprised than anyone to find that they're busy building a new stadium, and in fact, you can see the construction cranes and heavy equipment right outside during the broadcasts of the games. Because it's being built in the parking lot, the announcers are encouraging people to take mass transit to the games, and since it won't be finished until 2009, it should be pretty messy there for a while. That's all they've told us so far, so we wondered what it would look like, and what it would be named after. The current stadium is about 40 years old, cheerless, cavernous and symmetrical, holding around 55,000 seating capacity, and was named after William Shea, the attorney who was considered instrumental in returning a National League franchise to New York after the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1959. Nowadays, they tend to build odd quirky little bandboxes that are deliberately mis-shapen and include all sorts of nooks and crannies, such as short porches in left field, and architectural elements like gardens, waterfalls, patios, picnic areas and luxury suites throughout. Then they give them silly names like Oriole Park at Camden Yards, or name them after corporate sponsors like Corel Center or Petco Field, or even worse, so you really don't know what to expect. But we've been seeing a lot of commercials for Washington Mutual Bank, which lately has been calling itself WaMu, so we're thinking that in three years, we'll be looking at some squatty little retro playpen with the unwieldy name of The Park at WaMu Fields in Flushing Meadows or some such nonsense.

We've been having a plague of locusts at work ... excuse me, I meant to say that the auditors are back and hard at work doing their auditor-type things, which I'm sure are very important, useful and well worth the price we're paying for it. Because they review and investigate our finances every year, they need to have access to our Finance department, and perhaps for this reason, Finance maintains a series of empty offices in the hallway to accommodate them when they come. For reasons known only to themselves, they give them the offices that are as far away from Finance as possible, while still being in the same building, and as close to Purchasing without actually being right inside of our department. We find this a nuisance, because they tend to do things like leave food in our refrigerator, use our microwave, or take over our conference room for impromptu meetings without asking. An even bigger problem is what I refer to as the "musical chairs" aspect of the invasion, which unlike traditional musical chairs, has no musical cues to alert you to the dangers. Because at some times more of these people show up than others, we have to be on the lookout for them spiriting away chairs and tables from us when no one is watching. This time, there were fewer of them, and the reverse happened, where they dumped excess chairs on us that were obviously in their way. I put them in my old office temporarily, but I was determined not to get stuck with these white elephants indefinitely. Today when I came back from lunch, I noticed that the Housekeeping department was moving one of our Accounting people to a new office further down the hallway, and we all know how nature abhors a vacuum, so as soon as that office was empty, I quick like a bunny grabbed those excess chairs and plopped them right in there. While I was at it, I grabbed three stacking chairs that had been dumped on us by a previous invasion of the auditors, and left those as well. I ended up with a net gain of minus 5 chairs, and consider that a good day's work all around. Music, maestro, please!

Speaking of work, one thing I never noticed about my new office before I moved into it, compared to my old office, is that it's not only on the sunny side of the building, but also on the noisy side of the building, since it overlooks the Emergency Room, whereas my old office had a view of the alley between two buildings. The distinction was never more obvious than on Tuesday, which was a beautiful day without a cloud in the sky, and with my window open, I could hear the sound of birds chirping in the trees and the leaves rustling in the breeze, and a nicer day could not be hoped for. In fact, it was a classic example of a day that you would not expect to be attacked by terrorists, so you can imagine my surprise when suddenly there were crowds of people running and screaming at full volume under my window from down the block on their way to the Emergency Room. Apparently the hospital was conducting a bio-terrorism drill, and in the staging area under my window, they had set up a rudimentary shower to hose off the "victims" of the attack, while others dressed in space suits were helping people into what appeared to be black plastic trash bags, and still other employees played the part of dead bodies being carted off on stretchers. I will say that all of the noise and ruckus really got everyone's attention in Finance, and pretty soon, there was no one left in the hallway except the auditors, because everyone else was in Purchasing watching the carryings on down below us. Personally, I thought there was way too much laughing for your average bio-terrorism attack, not to mention, mugging for the photographer who was recording the event, especially among the dead bodies. And although the person in charge of the drill had a megaphone, I found it was only nominally effective in getting people to do what he told them to do, and usually required him to say everything twice. Of course, many of the participants were department heads like the Pharmacy director (who made an excellent corpse) or Admitting registrar or Ultrasound supervisor, and everyone knows that they never listen. The amazing thing to me was that the first we knew of this drill was when people started running and screaming under my window in the middle of the day, and it made me wonder that people might not think we were really under attack. Mind you, when they were re-paving the doctor's parking lot earlier in the year, and the lot would be closed between midnight and 7:00 AM, we all got no fewer than six broadcast voice mail messages to remind us about it, every day for a week ahead of time. But for this full-scale bio-terrorism extravaganza, there was not a peep out of anybody at any time, and so if people were going to jump to the wrong conclusions, that was just too bad. I don't know how effective it was as a bio-terrorism drill, but in terms of entertainment value and negative productivity, it would be hard to beat.

Last week, I found myself running behind schedule in any number of areas, and as a result did not retrieve my incoming email on Wednesday night as I usually do. By the time I checked it on Thursday night, I found I had 92 incoming messages. Fortunately, at least 40 of them turned out to be from my close personal friends at JC Penney, Amazon, the Popcorn Factory, 1-800-flowers, Barnes + Noble, Broderbund, Lane Bryant, Classmates and the like. Earlier today, I was telling this story to a co-worker, and when I got to the part about the incoming messages, she exclaimed, "Ninety-two messages! How did they all fit?" Now, anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm not generally at a loss for words, but I will admit that at this conversational gambit, I was simply dumbstruck and found myself staring at her with my mouth opening and closing, but no words would come out.

You can always tell when it's spring in our neighborhood, because the contractors start to show up in droves, and we find the houses around us getting new roofs, siding, plumbing, paint, windows, electricity, patios, kitchens or landscape elements. The young man across the street from us is more the do-it-yourself type, and recently had two skids of bluestone delivered to his driveway for some purpose or another. Perhaps he expected to have some left over, because we came home from work one day to find that he had used a bunch of it to create a sort of rustic curb all across the front of his property in the street. (Years ago, we discovered that making your own curbs out of portable materials is a chancy proposition at best, especially when the snow plows come through, but young Sheridan likely has no experience with this aspect of the plan.) Previously, he had ripped all of the pachysandra out of a slope on one side of his yard, and planted small azaleas and spring bulbs in its place. Today when I left for work, I noticed that he had begun piling up bluestone along the slope around the new bushes, sort of like building a diagonal wall that leans against a hill. Actually what it looks like is a man paving his yard over, and I can't say that I care for the effect all that much so far. I mean, I like landscape elements as much as the next fellow, but this strikes me as a little too much of a good thing. And while I don't so much mind the short porch in left field with the picnic area, I have to draw the line at the billboards, and that's all there is to that.

It's A Wrap

Hello World,

Greetings and then some! And so here we find ourselves on the other side of Mother's Day already, and very nearly staring down both barrels of Memorial Day, which will be observed this year on May 29th. That's a scant ten days hence, for those math-challenged among you out there in the vast vastity of vastness, or wherever you might be, so don't say I didn't warn you. For racing fans with a need for speed, it's about twenty past the Kentucky Derby, and nearly quarter to the Indianapolis 500, with the Preakness nipping at its heels. Of course, these days, Memorial Day is considered to mark the unofficial start of the summer season, although any climatologist will tell you that the true summer solstice is not until June 21st or thereabouts. As for myself, I think all of the climate people are in league with the Devil, and wouldn't believe anything they had to say at this point, but I admit that is just a personal prejudice I have against diabolical heathens who have sold their souls to Satan. In exchange for what, I don't know, because it certainly didn't make the weather any better for the rest of us, no thank you very much.

Many people in the local area will tell you that Mother's Day around here did not feature the world's best weather, but we outsmarted them this year by celebrating the holiday with Mom a day early, on the Saturday before Mother's Day, when it couldn't have been nicer. In fact, it was nice enough to have sandwiches out in the back yard and watch the bunnies cavorting in the tall grass. Mom was aglow in a pretty new outfit, and looking every inch a lady, or at least, every other inch. Of course, there were presents, and there are very few things that Mom likes better than opening presents, so she was in her glory. I'm sure she appreciated all of the time and attention lavished upon her, although I can't help but notice that once you hand her a box of Mallomars, everything else sort of fades into the distance in her mind, which is a humbling experience for those of us who like to feel that we have more to offer than a chocolate-covered marshmallow. However, be that as it may, we had a lovely day and a good time was had by all.

We also celebrated Mother's Day at home on Sunday, with a line-up of presents from all the major gift-giving categories, from the household practical, through apparel and entertainment, and straight out to the wildly impractical. It was a veritable cornucopia of excess, an embarrassment of riches, that is, if I were the type to be embarrassed by too many presents, which fortunately for me, I'm not in the least. And for the curious, let me assure you that the apparel and entertainment items did not include any long black sun-dresses or shiny pink RAZR cell phones, in spite of their presumed popularity among the population at large.

For music fans who might be wondering about the Sunday afternoon concert series from the nearby band-shell, you'll be glad to know that the powers-that-be in their infinite wisdom decided that Mother's Day was just the time to have their Latin music festival, so we were treated to the salsa rhythms of trumpets and maracas at full blast. I have to say that a little of that goes a long way with me, and I found myself feeding the birds as fast as I could, so I could retreat into the relative quiet of the house, and away from the bongos and pulsating guitars, coming through loud and clear from the park. Mind you, I'm not suggesting that the Dinosaurs of Rock would have been any more appropriate for Mother's Day, but I can't say that this choice exactly hit the nail on the head for the occasion either, so it would seem that there's still some room for improvement in this system, at least in the scheduling of events, if nothing else.

Although it does seem like the year is just charging right along, the way they do nowadays, for certain things, such as the baseball season, the year is still young, although you'd never know it. We've been watching the Mets on their new channel, and every game is treated with an urgency that entirely belies the Boys of Summer traditions of yore. With a 162-game season stretching out ahead of us, and barely 40 games played, it's a surprise to find the broadcasters scoreboard watching already, and breathlessly announcing the out of town scores as if momentous events hang in the balance. You see even the hardened veterans making plays in the outfield, like diving catches and running into fences that you expect in division-deciding pennant races in September, not in these "it's too early for this game to make any difference" contests in April. In fact, one of the Mets announcers when showing the standings, actually said that the Mets and Phillies are vying for first place, with the Braves closing the gap right behind them, while the other two teams in the division "are basically out of it," and this was the first week of May! I hate to be on the side of the nay-sayers, but there's still a lot of baseball yet to be played, and an awful lot can happen over the next 120 games that can't even begin to be hinted at in the first quarter of the season. You can quote me on that.

Normally, this would be about when I'd be telling everyone what was afoot in the wonderful world of the Metro New York Synod Assembly, except for two things. One of them is that they re-scheduled the 2006 Assembly for June instead of May, and the other is that I'm boycotting the Assembly this year as a protest against the prohibitive expense of it. I mean, I can take a joke as well as the next grouchy Lutheran, but I think that $200 per person is an outrage, especially on top of making us all tramp to Poughkeepsie for three days besides. Every year, people complain that the Assembly is too expensive, and then every year, somehow it manages to get even more expensive. Last year, when we were expecting it to be less, it blew out our church budget of $100, by turning out to be $120 each for the three people we sent. So at our budget meeting in December, we duly increased our budget to $400, so we could send three people without breaking our budget, only to find that we would still over-extend ourselves by the same $200, since the cost per person has nearly doubled over last year. What I object to most is that the actual cost to attend the Assembly is only $100 per person, but they make you also buy the meal plan for $100, regardless of whether you want to eat all of your meals with them or not, it's not optional. Personally, I'd much rather forage for myself than fork over $100 for boxed lunches and catering hall steam tray food for three days, and I finally just put my foot down and refused to go. So don't watch this space for upcoming Adventures in Assembly Land, with 500 grouchy Lutherans and tales of the three hour pitched battles about prayer at the Melville Marriott in 2002, reports of the gift shop inadequacies and freezing in the ballroom at the posh Rye Town Hilton in 2004, or the further exploits of freezing in the tents outside of St. Peter's in Huntington from last year. There will be no dispatches from Poughkeepsie, as I have drawn a line at the meal plan that I will staunchly refuse to cross, and let me say that I am unanimous in that.

Dress Code

Hello World,

Happy Mother's Day weekend! In this area, they're predicting rain for the next couple of days, but for the sake of Mom's everywhere, we're hoping for good weather to get out there and enjoy it. Remember that Mom's deserve a break, so whether you're a Mom, or have a Mom, or just know a Mom, now is the time to do something special for them. Around here, the cats know better than to forget this special day, and I can always look forward to some nice treats. And not just dead birds and catnip mice, mind you, but real actual presents, because luckily for me, they send Bill out to do their shopping for them, and he has better taste than they do. So I'm looking forward to it, even though technically, I'm not what would be considered a Mom by the classic definition of the term.

One thing I'm not looking forward to, in spite of voluminous advertising to the contrary, is a pink RAZR cell phone, which apparently is all the rage nowadays, and everywhere you look, they are busy assuring us that this is just what Mom wants for Mother's Day. Don't you believe it! This is not to say that there may not be a gadget-oriented Mom here or there that craves one of these slim pink wonders, but you can take my word for it that for the most part, flowers or jewelry would be a safer bet for the average Mom that this high-tech novelty. And I realized today that I am obviously woefully out of touch in a different area, when I picked up a J.C. Penney sale catalog and discovered two entire pages full of long black sun-dresses (some with the same lattice-back effect as our friends at Willow Ridge) so this must be a new fashion sensation that has been embraced by the rest of humanity, which still makes no sense to me in spite of its popularity. But now that I've found it in two different places, it obviously can't be dismissed as a fluke, no matter how fluky it might seem to the rest of us.

This is as good a time as any to thank everyone for generously imparting the gems of their compendious archive of folk remedies and wonder cures for the common cold, after my recent bout with the nasty bug. It's good to know that there is this resource of collective wisdom to draw upon in the hour of need. Fortunately I was able to get back on my feet and return to my post, ever vigilant, at the hospital, and just in the nick of time, too. It seems that our errant co-worker, only lately returned to the fold, if not our bosoms, has once again "gone missing," this time for two weeks in Aruba, where her son is getting married. I don't know about the rest of you, but at this point, I wouldn't bet against a bridal party consisting of bridesmaids in long black sun-dresses with lattice backs, so I'm bracing myself for those pictures when she comes back. After all, it would be unseemly to break out in hysterics at the sight of the happy couple and their attendants.

I said to Bill that it's amazing how, one minute it seems like the ground is frozen, and the next time you look around, the weeds are three feet tall all over the yard. (And not to be an alarmist, but I already spotted a patch of alien mutant poison ivy growing over a wall at work outside of the Emergency Room.) We're being over-run with garlic mustard, false chrysanthemum and another invasive stalky weed, that have resisted all efforts to eradicate them, and left to their own devices, they will just keep on going, like Jack and the Beanstalk. The only thing you can do with them is mow them down while they're still tiny, because once they get a toe-hold, they turn so enormous overnight that the lawnmower quails at the sight of them. After that, it's a slow and arduous process to root them out by hand, made even more tedious by the sure knowledge that it's doing no good, since their runners are already busy at work underground starting even more new plants than the ones being uprooted. It's enough to make anyone check out their local Army-Navy supply store for defoliants like Agent Orange, and we all know how I worry when things like that start to make perfect sense to me.

Speaking of lawnmowers, we have two of them, both of which were given to us many years ago, by people who no longer needed them, since they had landscapers to do their yard work for them. Last week, Bill was complaining that the mower he was using sounded like it had a bearing that was going bad, which is the same thing that already happened to the other one. I said it was a shame that these machines get to be 50 years old or so, and suddenly they just fly to pieces on you, just like that.

It might have been while Bill was outdoors mowing, and I was feeding the birds, that we noticed we were being serenaded by a concert being held at the band-shell in a nearby park, and which was no challenge to hear, in spite of the distance, because it could only be described as the Dinosaurs of Rock Concert, and you could hear them for miles in every direction. For people who can't get enough 60's and 70's hard-hitting, straight-ahead rock and roll, these folks certainly pulled out all the stops and didn't disappoint their cheering fans. Anyone in the local area, unless they found another way to drown them out, was also treated to heart-pounding versions of Crossroads, All Right Now, Jumpin' Jack Flash, You Really Got Me, Gloria, Roadhouse Blues, Your Momma Don't Dance, School's Out, We Are the Champions, Summertime Blues, Whole Lotta Love, Hot Blooded and Magic Carpet Ride, among others. This was certainly not your grandfather's Sunday afternoon concert in the park series, that is, unless your grandfather is Eric Clapton or Mick Jagger. We don't know if this was an isolated occurrence, or will turn into a regular event, so it might be interesting times ahead in the neighborhood for music fans and foes alike.

Speaking of music, it may seem impossible to believe, but we're actually coming up hard and fast on the one-year anniversary of the take-over of our local oldies station, WCBS-FM at 101.1 on the dial, by the new JACK format on June 5th of last year. For anyone who has their doubts on this, feel free to go back and look up my email about it from July 1, 2005. (Go ahead, I'll wait. Dum dee dum dah dah dee dum dah dah dum dee dum dum ... ) Anyway, I'm frankly surprised that they made it this long, and if I were a betting person, would have given them six months at the outside. I thought it was too radical and free-form for this market, and I also thought that the purists and hide-bound traditionalists would make them bring back CBS-FM for old time's sake, as a historical landmark, if nothing else. It also occurred to me that the powers-that-be behind the scenes had a plan to scare listeners with the JACK format, so that when they switched back to a station of a more popular style, people would be so grateful that they would listen to it in droves. But here they still are, and apparently still going strong in spite of the purists and nay-sayers, and anyone who is interested is welcome to visit their web site at www.ilikejack.com and find out what sorts of songs they play over the course of a four-hour period. Because I've been listening since the beginning, I notice some subtle changes, but for the most part, they have stayed the course, and stuck with what they want the station to be. They certainly don't lack for sponsors, so someone must feel that enough people are listening to justify paying for ad time with them. One thing I noticed them doing lately is what I call the "Short Attention Span" radio version of longer-form album tracks, such as Frankenstein by the Edgar Winter Group or My Sharona by the Knack, and just cut out the middle parts to make it all that much quicker. I thought that was so funny, as if they decided that hard-driving modern types can't be trusted to listen to a 5-minute song any longer than 3-1/2 minutes during their busy day of people to meet and places to go. I suppose they could be right, if they have their own panel of experts to make these important decisions, rather than us simple folks who are driving 30-year-old cars, listening to 40-year-old music in the band-shell and using 50-year-old lawnmowers.

Sick Leave

Hello World,

Feliz Cinco de Mayo! [Insert upside-down exclamation point at beginning of paragraph.] It seems like we just get finished with the jolly Russkies doing their famous Russian sword dances around Red Square for May Day, and suddenly here we have the jolly cabelleros doing their famous Mexican hat dances around the plaza for Cinco de Mayo. Everyone gets to be Mexican for a day, and celebrate the Battle of the Pueblo, so get out there and party your pantalones off. Well, maybe not quite that far, but have a good time anyway, because after all, Cinco de Mayo only comes once a year.

Not so fast! In a peculiar turn of events that would seem impossible even by the laxity of modern thinking, where there are no standards any more, I discovered that Cinco de Mayo does not only come once a year. As incomprehensible as it might be to rational people, but in keeping with the way these things seem to go nowadays, it turns out that even Cinco de Mayo has joined the ranks of movable feasts, and we have the city of Yonkers to thank for having their Cinco de Mayo celebration in April, of all things. They seemed to have a high old time of it, complete with pictures and feature articles in the local press, and never a mention of the purists huddled in alleyways, wailing and gnashing their teeth at it being about 10 days too early. I mean, it's one thing to push around St. Patrick or even Thanksgiving, which are holidays that have just been randomly assigned to certain days by committee, but I think it's a whole different kettle of fish, or perhaps tequila, when you take a holiday that's named after the day that it happened, and just decide to celebrate it on whatever day you darned well feel like it, no matter what. It's like having your 4th of July parade on June 25th, because that's when the bandstand was available. I honestly can't understand who comes up with these ideas, but I have to say that I just don't go for it, and I think we can all stand firm with our Mexican brothers and sisters and say as if with one voice, "Ai carumba."

In another peculiar turn of events, I came down with a bad head cold in the middle of the week, and ended up staying home from the office for a few days, even though our injured co-worker has only returned to work on a sort of part-time basis, in spite of what we were led to believe. She hasn't put in a full week, or a full day, since her return, and normally I wouldn't leave the office unmanned under the circumstances, but it was unavoidable. I took to my bed with a scratchy throat and sniffles, and my head felt like a block of cement, except that cement at least has air holes that you can breathe through, while my nose didn't. I couldn't swallow, and trying to eat without being able to breathe presented a challenge that I was not equal to. I said to Bill that it was very strange that it just came out of the blue like that, and hit me like a ton of bricks, because I literally did not know of one single solitary other person who was sick. No one in my family was sick, no one at work and no one at church, so I have no idea where I could have gotten something that just laid me so low. In fact, the only one that I know of who was sneezing was one of our cats, so I told Little Spot that she made me sick, although if this inspired in her the sense of guilt that I was intending, she managed to hide it surprisingly well with an eloquent shrug of indifference. I can tell you that was not the reaction that I was looking for, believe me.

Meanwhile, I regret that I have to report that there is no joy in Mudville, at least in our household, because the New York Rangers, whose season opened bright with promise in October, found their hopes dashed in the murky waters of April when they were eliminated from the playoffs, much to the disappointment of their loyal fans. They played well all year, surprising even their harshest critics and nay-sayers, and even set a number of team or league records, but in the end, it wasn't enough to overcome their opponents in the opening round of the championship. All along, it seemed like they were having a charmed season, so it was especially disappointing to have the season end the way it did, and once again, we find ourselves watching the playoff picture evolve from the outside looking in, except for the fact that we don't watch the hockey playoffs when the Rangers aren't in them. On the other hand, the revitalized New York Mets started their season with a bang, getting off to about their best start ever, and setting a league record of having a six-game lead on the second place team in the first month of play. They showed no signs of slowing down, going 16-8 in April, and in fact, last week I asked Bill what their magic number was. At this point in the season, it would probably be about 130, but I'm thinking, what the heck, there's no sense in waiting for the last minute to figure these things out.

In other sports news, some of us were not surprised to find a professional athlete being arrested on DWI charges here in scenic Westchester County, although here in the suburbs we find 11:00 AM to be just a wee bit early to start that sort of behavior. It turned out to be Sandis Ozolinsh, who was acquired by the New York Rangers at the trading deadline in March from the San Jose Sharks, when they suddenly needed to replace one of their injured defensemen, and at the time, we all thought it was a fortuitous opportunity that Ozolinsh was even available. He's a young, strapping fellow originally from Latvia (as is Rangers teammate Darius Kasparaitis) and he did a commendable job filling in on defense, providing some offense, and being a large and intimidating force along the boards. For those of us who wondered how he came to be available, when he seemed to have a lot to offer and worth keeping, it wasn't until the season was over and one of the announcers let slip that he was impressed how well he had played, considering he had voluntarily checked himself into the NHL's substance abuse program earlier in the season. Now this is where I have to wonder what people are thinking when they make these deals, and bear in mind that they already know all of this stuff is going on. Who is the genius who says, "Hey, I've got an idea. Let's send this guy to New York City. That ought to keep him out of trouble." Hello? Am I on the same planet as these people, and does no one else see this as a ticking time bomb that is just what it turns out to be, an accident waiting to happen? I mean, if you've already got a substance problem in sunny San Jose, brother, I can't believe that anyone in their right mind would think that coming to New York would be the solution. Hey, I'm on cold medication and my brain isn't working, and even I can figure that one out.

Last week at work, we very nearly had one of those inadvertently funny moments when I walked into a stairwell on my way to lunch, and didn't notice until it was too late that someone else was coming into the same stairwell with me, or I would have held the door open for her. I apologized and said that I didn't hear her coming, and was just about to say, "After all, I wouldn't want you think I was one of those snobby people that would slam the door in your face, like the doctors do around here," when I noticed that the two people coming down the stairs in front of us, yes, were in fact, two doctors who would be exactly the snobby sort that would slam the door in our faces. So in the spirit of "timing is everything," it was a lucky thing that I didn't say that when I first thought of it, and waited until after they left the stairwell to share that with the other lady, and we had a good laugh over that later.

Usually when I poke fun at our crack staff in the IT department, it's because of their baffling consistency at sending out messages riddled with typos, even though the messages basically say the same thing every day, or even several times a day, when you would expect them to have that pretty much down to a science ("Can you spell 'macro'?") by now. But this message from last week really got my attention:

============================
attention all users:
the dayend is still running.
you can not sign on the
system for at least an hour.
=============================

Now, this message happened to be from Saturday, and I saw it on Monday morning. But the fact of the matter is that on our network at the hospital, you can't see any of the messages unless you're already signed on, so the only way anyone would know that the dayend was still running and they couldn't sign on, would be for them to sign on and see this message that said they couldn't sign on. If that doesn't entirely defeat the purpose of this message, well then I don't know what would, but it certainly left me shaking my head.

Also in the head-shaking category around here, last week in my travels around town I saw a full-size pickup truck, and no kidding, it actually had a spoiler at the back on top of the tailgate, like it was trying to be some sort of a sports car. This is the automotive equivalent of a mixed metaphor, because after all, the whole point of a spoiler is ..... oh, never mind. These are certainly challenging times for us purists, when there are no standards any more and no one seems to care. Or perhaps it just seems that way to me because I'm sick, and I should call to have the doctor come over, so I could slam the door in his face. Say, I feel better already!