Top of the Pops

Hello World,

Happy July 4th weekend! Although today is technically still in June, with July 4th on Tuesday, many people are taking off from work on Monday to make a nice long holiday weekend of it, and I think we can all rally around that idea. Or, as we used to say in the old days, let's run that up the flag pole and see who salutes. Of course, that's an expression that's lost on young people nowadays, as is so much from the olden times, like silent movies, 8-track tapes, and the milkman delivering milk in bottles with the cream on top. Mm'mm! Speaking of the olden days, Bill was surprised recently to find an old pop-top from a soda can in our front yard by the porch steps, that just appeared seemingly out of nowhere from about 1965, back when you were supposed to pull the pop-tops off the can, instead of how they have them now where they stay attached to the can lid. You would think after all this time, it would have been buried in the garden, or hidden in the crawl space, and working its way ever deeper into the sediments, but there it was instead, right out in the open for all the world to see. Of course, I said to Bill that we should hold onto that, because it's bound to be worth something someday.

And for anyone who wondered, after my note about the inflatable church, if there was anything else they should know about in the wonderful world of portable and/or inflatable structures, wonder no more. We have our friends at Airquee (visit them at www.airquee.co.uk) to thank for the world's first inflatable pub, and a dandy looking piece of inflatable architecture it is, too. Actually, inflatable bars and taverns seem to be all the rage in the inflatable industry, according to BIHA, which keeps track of these things, and you don't have to take my word for it, but can see for yourself at www.biha.org.uk and get the latest. Of course, our friends at Xtreme Innovations also have inflatable pubs and bars, but I would have to say that my personal favorite of their products is the 2-man ski xtreme machine, which is not only inflatable and portable, but also snows on you, and I don't see how anyone can top that for being way cool. There is also the Official Home of the Church on Wheels and their Mobile Church Solutions at www.churchonwheels.com, although I have to agree with Bill who despairs of their acronym COW, which like Richard Nixon's re-election committee that found itself being referred to as CREEP, needed to go back to the drawing board for further review. Unfortunately, unlike the inflatable structures, the Church on Wheels is nothing more than a very large, plain and frankly homely-looking tractor-trailer that you could pull around with a truck. I suppose it has its advantages in many situations, but I prefer my portable religious edifices to offer more in the way of decorative architecture than this over-sized eyesore. After all, we "holy rollers" have our standards, you know.

Everyone knows that I'm nothing if not helpful, so here's a suggestion for people who can't get enough of books with interesting, obscure or arcane words from off the beaten track here and abroad --

==========================
The Meaning of Tingo:
And Other Extraordinary Words
from Around the World
by Adam Jacot de Boinod

~ tingo (Pascuense, Easter Island) to borrow things
from a friend's house, one by one, until there's nothing left

~ uitwaaien (Dutch) to walk in windy weather for fun

~ achaplinarse (Spanish, Central America) to hesitate
and then run away in the manner of Charlie Chaplin

~ neko-neko (Indonesian) to have a creative idea
which only makes things worse
==========================

Ya gotta love that last one, although perhaps that only makes sense to people who are working at the same place I do!

Meanwhile, Bill has this to share from his junk mail collection --

============================
I got on some Reiki forwarding list and got a note this morning from "Anastasia Bogomolova, Ph.D., Reiki Jin Kei Do Master/Teacher" which has GOT to make for an uncomfortable visit to the printer for business cards (maybe she sends them to people psychically!) The other two are just junk mail:
From: Ahtahkakoop Peterkin Re: 309 tapste
Ah, Ahtahkakoop! Yet another long day at the printers'!
And finally:
From: Jesus Subj: yo
And I didn't even know he was still speaking to me!
============================

In other news, I was recently enjoying a bottle of Snapple Kiwi Strawberry juice, and found this intriguing item inside the lid. Of course, they're much too small to read, but I went to all the trouble to go get my magnifying glass to make sure I saw this correctly. [ Real Fact #184: The most used letters in the English language are E, T, A, O, I and N. ] (They also invite you to check out all of their Real Facts at snapple.com and you're welcome to it, I'm sure.) Now, far be it from me to argue with the fine upstanding folks at Snapple, but I have to say that I reject that out of hand. I mean, I like N as much as the next fellow, and heaven knows where our nattering nabobs of negativism would be without it, but it seems to me that in terms of usage, S would be right up there in the top of the pack, and way before N. Heck, where would these folks be without it, because after all, who in their right mind would buy Napple Kiwi Trawberry juice? Come to think of it, where would the good old United Tate of America be without S? Or any of our Founding Fatherz, like George Wahington, Thoma Jefferon, John Adam, or even the poor woman who gave us the emblem of our nation, and would go down in history as Bety Ro instead of the fabled Betsy Ross. Not to mention, the current occupant of the White Houe, George W. Buh, and his cohortz in the Enate, Houe of Repreentative and Upreme Court. I tell you, it jut inupportable, and I for one, abolutely will not tand for it.

And here's a little something that needs no introduction, because it's for our psychic friends out there, who could see this coming a mile away. I happened to be checking out the events among the Connecticut tourism information web pages, and found myself at the City of Norwalk Events Schedule, which you are welcome to visit at www.norwalkct.org and see for yourself. I couldn't help but notice that on August 23, they are planning to have a 50's concert and car show, featuring Sharky & The Unknowns at Calf Pasture Beach, with a rain date of July 24. So for everyone who already knows that it will be raining on August 23 in Norwalk, please be sure to attend the make-up version of this event 31 days earlier than it is originally scheduled, and if I'm planning to be there, kindly save me a seat. Thanking you in advance, but of course, you already knew that.

You Can Say That Again

Hello World,

Happy Summer! Two days ago on Wednesday was the summer solstice, so now we are officially in the summer season here in this hemisphere, and no buts about it. In fact, not to be an alarmist, but next week at this time, it will be the last day in June, and any number of lucky individuals will be looking at a long four-day holiday weekend, with July 4th on a Tuesday this year. So if you don't want the parade to pass you by, it's time to hurry up and get busy with that lemonade and watermelon, set up the hammock and fire up the grill, because after all, those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer aren't just going to stand around and wait in the wings, chew the fat, shoot the breeze or any of those other idiomatic expressions, and I'm not just whistling Dixie.

Last weekend was Father's Day, of course, a time to honor dear old dad and all the men who have shaped, guided or supported us through the years. At home, the cats were on board with the idea of their "Daddy Cat" having breakfast in bed, although they would have preferred their menu choices of Seafood Supreme or Tender Mini Chunks, rather than the Pecan Danish Ring that Bill favors. They found his gifts to be an uninspired collection of apparel and entertainment options, compared to the catnip mice and bat-a-birds that they would have selected instead. If Bill really wanted catnip mice and bat-a-birds, he managed to hide his disappointment remarkably well, and seemed to have a good time on his special day. So three cheers for dear old dads everywhere, whether biological, hypothetical, or purely imaginary. Or as the cats so eloquently put it, "Hip, Hip, Meow!"

I actually had a nice long weekend for Father's Day, because I realized that with our co-worker about to retire, I would not have many opportunities to take a day off before she left, so I took off that Friday and glad of it. Of course, we all know that those short weeks usually have nothing to recommend them, and the week she was retiring probably even less so, but it all worked out in the end, and I was able to take a breather when I really needed one. This week turned out to be not as bad as I feared, holding down the fort by myself, owing to a notable lack of attacking savages shooting flaming arrows over the stockade walls. I figure if I can keep the barbarians from the gates for the next couple of weeks, after that I'll be on vacation (HOORAY!!!) so I can come back relaxed and refreshed to face the challenges ahead. For everyone who believes that this is purely delusional thinking on my part, please don't let me know, because my delusions are about all I have left to keep me going, and here again, I can assure you that I'm not just whistling Dixie.

The tech person responsible for maintaining the hospital computer system is a somber young man who always appears as if he has just lost his best friend, and would be inconsolable in spite of your best efforts to cheer him up. He would not appreciate the many ways in which I find the email service at work to be inadvertently funny, especially lately as I seem to be getting a wide variety of bogus emails purporting to be "hot stock tips," with the kind of enticing subject lines such as "Today's Winner," "This is going to explode," "As sure as it gets," and so forth, designed to really get my attention. It would utterly fail to do that, except that I couldn't help but notice that after the "red hot news" and supposed market-related gibberish on the messages, each one of these dissolved into a series of proverbs, colloquialisms and well-known sayings that were as diverse as they were unexpected. You're welcome to have a look over my shoulder from the previous week --

==============================================
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day. Spring forward fall back. Stone cold sober. To rule the mountains is to rule the river. Timber! Slow as molasses in January. Were you born in a barn? Turn over a new leaf. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Through the grapevine. Spill the beans. You throw filth on the living and flowers on the dead. Pin a rose on your nose. Raking in the dough. You have to separate the chaff from the wheat. Plant kindness and gather love. Read the tea leaves. Sweating blood. Weed 'em and reap. The season of goodwill. Weed it out. Short end of the stick. Which came first, the chicken or the egg. A rolling stone gathers no moss.
Red as a beet. When the cows come home. Rain, rain go away; come again some other day. Strong as an ox. What goes down usually comes up. Put off the scent. A place in the sun. Up one side and down the other. Slow as a snail. Say it with flowers. Putting the cart before the horse. Worked night and day. Raking in the dough. Take time to smell the roses. Sweet as apple pie. When it rains it pours. Sitting on the fence. Your name is mud.
When you get lemons, make lemonade. When life gives you scraps make quilts. Stuck in a rut. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. She has a green thumb. We'll hang you out to dry. When we love, we grow. Run to seed. Ugly as a mud fence. The stronger the breeze the stronger the trees. That's a whole new can of worms. Spring rain, Fall gold. A rose is a rose is a rose. Up a tree. The silly season. She's a nut. Two peas in a pod. Where man is not, nature is barren. Top of the morning. Put to bed with a shovel. Sturdy as an oak. Water it down. Throw pearls before swine. Timing is everything. A place in the sun. That's a real stem winder. You're barking up the wrong tree. Plain as water. Scraping the bottom of the barrel. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Stir up an ant's nest. Run to seed. The sharper is the berry, the sweeter is the wine. Up a tree. Wrinkled as a prune. Stop, look and listen. School's out for summer. Walking on water. Shake like a leaf. Stubborn as a mule. A tree does not move unless there is wind.
You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip. Seed money. You're in hot water. The scythe ran into a stone. A weed is no more than a flower in disguise. Watch and wait. Too little too late. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. You feel like a fish out of water. You reap what you sow. Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow. Some like carrots others like cabbage. Root it out. Raking it in. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. You're all washed up. The shoe's on the other foot now. Thick as a brick.
==============================================

Well, there's certainly nothing like your daily dose of aphorisms to go along with your hot stock tip of the moment, is there? Speaking of things going along, last week I bummed a ride to work with Bill, and on the way to drop me off at the hospital, we heard the unmistakable sound of screaming sirens that is a common feature to that neighborhood, as emergency vehicles pull into the Emergency Room from all over. This turned out to be an ambulance, and we let it go speeding past on its mission of mercy with no interference from us. At the intersection ahead of us, we were more surprised than anybody to see it go right past the hospital, and continue on its merry way with all of its lights flashing and sirens blaring, honking its horn and intent on getting to wherever it was going as fast as it could possibly get there. Since it was apparently not on its way with an emergency for the hospital as we originally supposed, we were left to wonder where it was off to in such an all-fired hurry, and we figured it must be bound for some place like the Mom & Pop House o' Docs across town, down by the sewage treatment plant, or some other even less likely destination. Of course, Bill said they were just out on an errand to pick up donuts for the rest of the ambulance crew, and he may be on to something there, but that would be purely speculation on our part and would never stand up in a court of law. And that's really not just whistling Dixie, and with powdered sugar on top, to boot!

Full Circle

Hello World,

Well, suddenly here we find ourselves at the Ides of June and then some. People like me who are planning to be camping out in another few weeks were starting to despair of the weather, but finally the fates took pity on us, and the last couple of days have been reassuringly warm, if not downright hot, as we might expect with summer vacations right around the corner. Frankly, I'm relieved and not only on my behalf, because I know there were people out there, and don't bother to deny it, who were blaming the unseasonably cool weather on Bill for putting in the window air conditioners. But I admit my complicity in the situation, as I had already taken the flannel sheets and heating blanket off the bed, and believe me, I had plenty of opportunity to regret that, when I went to bed with chattering teeth and frozen toes. So I'm just as glad to see those 80 degree temperatures at long last, and I don't mind saying, not a moment too soon.

Wednesday was Flag Day, of course, and it was a beautiful day around here to run up the colors for all to see. I didn't even have to hurry up and drag them back in later ahead of any bad weather, because it stayed nice all day, and I remembered to put them out and take them back in, so everything worked very smoothly for a change. This is not something we can count on, so we want to remember to be grateful for small favors.

While we're being grateful for small favors, I suppose I should mention that the 2006 Metro New York Synod Assembly has apparently come and gone, and that sound you don't hear is the sound of explosive controversy, internecine violence or outright anarchy in its wake. Usually I'm at these events, so I know what's happening, and I don't mind saying, that the way things had been going, I had reason to fear the worst. I have to admit that I consider it a good sign when our Assembly is so unsensational that it doesn't rate a special section on the front page of the newspaper with screaming headlines and pictures of grouchy Lutherans throwing things at each other. Then our pastor was back at church on Sunday after attending the Assembly and appeared to be none the worse for wear, without a black eye or any obvious bruises, so I have reason to be cautiously optimistic that this was not the end of the world as we know it, in spite of the sense of impending doom that we all had beforehand.

While we're on the topic of impending doom, I noticed this arresting paragraph in the FitSmart column by Jorge Cruise in the latest USA Weekend magazine:

============================
Despite the sobering fact that men die
nearly six years younger than women,
on average, and have higher death rates
from all but one of the 15 leading causes
of death, many men make health and
fitness a low priority.
============================

Now, I realize I might be reading this wrong, but I have to say that I'm confused by that part about the higher death rates. Is it my imagination, or is the death rate 100% for everybody, regardless of cause or gender? How can men have a higher death rate in various causes of death than women? Do they die more times than women, or perhaps they die from more different causes at the same time? It seems to me that 100% of all men and all women will die one time each, and if you break it down by cause, it will still all have to balance out to be 100%, so that if men are higher in one category, then women will have to be higher in another. That's just the way it is with statistics, I'm afraid, and there's no getting around that, unless there's some hidden stash of women somewhere who are living forever that the government hasn't told us about yet. Of course, that would be cheating, and we can't have that in statistics, or it would be nothing but outright anarchy.

That reminds me that I took the opportunity last week to complete the mandatory courses that we have to take every year at the hospital, and which are now handily available online that we can take right at our own desks, rather than schlepping off to the auditorium or cafeteria to attend classes in person. I like to be one of the first people to do these right in the beginning of January, and get them out of the way for the year, but a variety of circumstances conspired against me this year, and I have only just gotten around to them now, when the year is already half over. These courses have been available online for 3 or 4 years now, and every year, they change them just enough to be longer, more complicated or less applicable to our own job categories. This time around, I was surprised to see that no new courses had been added since last year, and all of the exams had been pared down from 15-20 questions to 3 or 4 each. Then I realized that the problem with that is, in order to pass with 80% or better on a 3 or 4 question test, you have to get all of the answers right, because the value of the question is more than 20% each. That actually makes it harder than a 20 question test, where you can get one or two answers wrong and still pass with an 80% rate or better. They also change the questions from one year to the next, so that even though I have the previous year's tests, it doesn't always help. An even bigger problem is that they occasionally change the ANSWERS to the same questions from the previous year, either because the original answer was wrong to start with, or because guidelines and regulations might have changed in the meantime. So even when you have the same test and the same questions and you're basically cheating on the mandatory courses, it often doesn't help you if they change the answers on you in mid-stream, which is why I flunked the HIPAA Compliance course, even though everyone knows that I am nothing if not jiggy with HIPAA and about as compliant as any one person could be. Thanks not.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm not in the least bit fashion conscious, and wouldn't know Tommy Hilfiger to trip over him, or tell a Gucci bag from a Prada bag at gunpoint. But one thing we all know about fashion is that the couture shows all happen out of sequence with the seasons, so when we're roasting in the summer, the designers are showing their fall and winter collections, while in the dead of winter, the runways are alive with the skimpiest outfits in the sheerest possible fabrics. Bill has always maintained that at some point, this "couture creep" would keep edging backwards and eventually come full circle, to where the summer shows were showing summer clothes and the winter shows had winter clothes, in spite of themselves. For those who scoff, I offer the "Summer / Transitions 2006" Lane Bryant catalog, that I received the first week in June, which is five full weeks before I go on vacation, and which features not only 10 pages of winter coats, but also 2 full pages where it says, "Swim preview ... see the new 2007 styles right here." So I could actually buy a 2007 swimsuit right this instant, get it in time to take on my vacation in July, and wear it a whole year early. Well, that is to say that hypothetically I could do that, but I'm sure the fashion police would show up and make sure I didn't do that, because after all, we have to maintain some standards around here, otherwise once again, it would be nothing but outright anarchy.

Also in the way of fashion, and falling into the category of "How Times Have Changed," I happened to be watching an episode of the old "Andy Griffith Show" on TV Land recently, where Aunt Bee went to pick up Opie from the house of some snooty people who lived in the rich section of town, although it was news to me after all these years that Mayberry even had a rich section of town. When she rang the doorbell and the maid invited her in to wait, she looked flustered and stammered, "Well, I'm not really dressed for visiting." Mind you, at the time, she was wearing a dark blue suit with matching hat (and veil!) plus navy blue dress shoes, a string of pearls and white gloves. Honestly, I don't know what more she could have been wearing if she DID consider herself "dressed for visiting," except perhaps a ceremonial sash with jeweled clasp, a tiara and floor-length cape with ermine trim. When you contrast this with people nowadays, who consider themselves dressed up if they're wearing socks that match each other, much less the rest of their outfit, you can see how times really have changed, and not always for the better, I can tell you that. In fact, at this point, I'm just about ready to let the fashion police and statisticians fight it out among themselves, because I've already got my hands full holding off the anarchists, especially since my sash and cape are at the dry cleaners and I'm not really dressed for it.

Get Me To The Church On Time

Hello World,

Here is where I would normally be posing the musical question, "What is so rare as a day in June," except for the fact that, at least in these parts, we've been having the same crappy weather that we complained about in April and May. In fact, I stand by my assertion that it was actually warmer in April than it's been since then, which I would expect to be against the laws of nature, if not against the actual civil legal code in this jurisdiction, as it certainly should be. Of course, everyone knows that there's no standards any more, so it does no good to complain, and especially about the weather, heaven knows. But you know you're in bad shape when even CVS realizes that they can't sell beach balls and swim fins in this weather, and they've moved the entire display of them out of the seasonal aisle, and way into a back corner of the store by the wart removers and shoe polish.

I may as well get this off my chest right up front and say that I am disgusted with the whole lot of you, all of the cynics and nattering nabobs of negativism (boy, nobody remembers Spiro Agnew any more, I'll bet you!) and I just hope you're all satisfied. Everybody out there in the wide world (and don't think I don't know who you are) who said that our injured co-worker was just stringing us along for four months to use up all of her sick time, then come back part-time for a week to earn her pro-rated vacation time so that she could go to the Caribbean for two weeks at full pay, and when she came back from the islands, would just turn around and retire anyway, well, that's exactly what happened. I just hope you're happy, and thank you so not very much. Of course, people had been saying that among themselves for a while, and even more no doubt thinking the same thing, since the whole ordeal started way back in the middle of December. Call me naive (oh, go ahead) but I was about the only person who said that would never happen, because after all, how would that look? Well, it turns out that it was exactly the way it looked all along, and the cynics and nabobs hit the nail right on the head the first time. So after next week, we will find ourselves once again left in the lurch, and at this moment, just in time for vacation season, as the rest of us already have plans to be off in the next few weeks. So it should be interesting times ahead in the Purchasing department, I'm thinking, where often will be heard a discouraging word, and people who come to see me should not be surprised to find my evil twin instead.

In other health-related news, Bill wanted to buy some elastic stockings for me, to help with a problem I was having with my ankles, and found a handy web site that would send them in a jiffy and at a reasonable cost. When they arrived shortly thereafter, I pointed out that it said right on the package in plain sight, "Caution: Federal law restricts this device to sale by or on the order of a physician," so I couldn't understand why the web site would just go right ahead and sell these to any old schmo, and not Dr. Schmo like they were supposed to. But there they were, and my favorite part was when I opened them up and found they came with what they referred to as "Instructions for donning," as if anybody would use that term in real life. In fact, if it wasn't for that seasonal classic of "Deck the Halls," with its timeless invitation to "Don we now our gay apparel," no one would have any idea what "donning" means any more. On the other hand, I may as well admit that I don't happen to be of that school that believes that everyday items such as hairbrushes and stockings require instructions for use, and my personal feeling is that if you can't figure out how to put on stockings all by yourself, then no amount of instructions are going to be of much help to you.

Meanwhile, in what passes for international news in our local newspaper, The Journal News (their motto: "News, Schmooz") they ran a picture on the front page of the Colosseum with the headline, "Landmarks in Rome in Serious Disrepair." (DUH!) Honestly, you turn your back on something for 2,000 years, and it just falls completely to pieces on you. Then there was the television commercial that invited me to sign up for cosmetology classes at a beauty school they identified as "The House of Esthetics," apparently without irony, and certainly without a spell-checker. No thank you very much, I prefer my aesthetics "old school," if you know what I mean. That reminds me that in the parking lot at work, I've just noticed one of those old-fashioned foam hair rollers with the plastic side grippers on the ground, as if it just dropped out of a clear blue sky from a 1960's women's magazine or something, because I wouldn't even think you could buy those anymore. Of course, who would have believed that bell-bottoms would ever have come back in style, and short ones at that, so I suppose it only goes to prove that anything is possible.

Speaking of endless possibilities, we have our friends at Innovations Xtreme to thank for something that most of us would not have considered possible, and that is the inflatable church. Please feel free to visit their web site at www.inflatablechurch.com and see for yourself. This looks like your average gothic cathedral (except for the inflatable part, that is) in a gray stone-like design with turrets. They say the sanctuary area is about 20 feet wide and 22 feet high, while the tower in the chancel area is about 15 feet wide and 35 feet high. It features plastic "stained glass" windows and airbrush artwork which replicates the traditional church, and includes an inflatable organ, altar, pulpit, pews, candles and a gold cross, not to mention doors flanked by air-filled angels. They tell me the church can be built (their term) in two hours, and dis-assembled in less than one, and they take pains to point out that there's "no problem with high heels." This must be a real comfort to fashion-conscious brides everywhere who want to be married in an inflatable church, as I'm sure their name is legion. What I find most disturbing is in the beginning, where it says that this is "one of the world's very first inflatable churches," as if this sort of thing has been sprouting up all over, and they need to make this distinction to separate themselves from the rest of the thundering herd of inflatable churches. In fact, they go on to say that they're listed in the Guinness Book of Records as being the world's largest inflatable church, which would not be a category I would have expected much competition in, previous to this, but there you have it. Their motto seems to be, "Now we can bring the church to the bride, rather than the other way around." This is what I say: It's no wonder the terrorists hate us.

And just in case you find yourself near a church, inflatable or otherwise, and not sure if you'll fit in with the rest of the crowd, our friends at beliefnet want to help you, and you can also feel free to visit their web site at www.selectsmart.com to try out their handy Belief-O-Matic feature for yourself. It asks you a series of questions and then lets you know where your answers place you in comparison with various religions of the world. When Bill tried this, we found his answers aligned him 100% with Liberal Quakers, 99% with the Baha'i Faith, and 93% with Jehovah's Witnesses. That last one surprised me, because anyone who knows him will tell you that Bill would rather gnaw off his own arm than ring someone's doorbell, and would no more engage a stranger in a discussion of religious doctrine than he would start a fan club for umpires and referees. In an even more interesting coincidence, much farther down on the list and coming in at only 55% was a five-way tie with Eastern Orthodox, Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Roman Catholic and Sikhism, which you would think would be impossible to achieve even if you were trying, and really makes you wonder what type of answers you would have to give to get those sorts of results. In fact, you would expect that those five religions would be so far apart from each other that no set of answers would tie them together, and they'd be so all over the map that they wouldn't be in the same time zone, much less zip code. Quick! Get me an inflatable church on wheels!

March Madness

Hello World,

Happy June! There's one thing you know, when Memorial Day crops up, that June is bound to be right behind it somewhere, and most likely sooner rather than later. And so that's exactly where we find ourselves, although I'm sure in many places, the weather has been less than cooperative as far as what might be expected from the June of lore and legend. Around here, we had a week where the weather was all over the map, from the chilly and damp to the hot and humid, so that you didn't know what to wear from day to day, and sometimes even on the same day, not to mention, what to expect next. It finally got so sunny and hot that Bill said the only way to fix that would be for him to put in the window air conditioners, which he did, and now they tell us that we're going to have 3 days of rain, including local flooding, which is certainly not what we had in mind, thank you not very much. Although it does beat the blizzard, which is what I predicted as a result, at least in that you don't have to shovel it, so people in the local area should be glad for that anyway.

Every year, my sister hosts her famous Memorial Day weekend barbecue, which has attracted friends and well-wishers from all corners of creation for 34 straight years, and this no different. My other sister and I made the trek there together this time around, which was a first for us, and had a very pleasant day of it, besides making it there and back without a hitch, which is always a plus. Because all three of us had never been there together on the same day before, I don't mind saying that there had developed a certain element of skepticism over the years that our hostess actually had two sisters, rather than one or another sister, plus some imaginary third sister that didn't actually exist. So I'm happy to report that at long last, we can lay those rumors to rest, and not a moment too soon, I always say.

Meanwhile, anyone who spent Sunday hanging around in the local area to find out what would be the "Concert du Jour" from the nearby band-shell would have been sorely disappointed, and with good reason. After three straight weeks of concerts from the park, including classic rock, oldies and Latin programs, at the appointed time last Sunday, we were greeted with nothing more than the sounds of silence from that part of town, and plenty of it. I admit that my money was on John Philip Sousa and assorted marching band music, in honor of the martial nature of the holiday, but even if they had picked something not quite so appropriate, it never occurred to me that they wouldn't have any concert at all. To be fair, we did not send any scouts down to the band-shell to reconnoiter the situation and report back on the results, so for all we know, they might have planned a rollicking program of mime, featuring a vast array of white-faced people in berets walking against the wind, pulling a rope, or finding their way out of invisible boxes. As with so many other things in this mixed-up world, we'll just never know. But I can tell you one thing for sure, I certainly know The Washington Post March when I don't hear it, and I certainly didn't on Sunday.

It was on Monday that I put out the flags for the holiday, as it was observed on the 29th this time around, and everyone knows that I never miss a chance to fly Old Glory when the opportunity presents itself. The day seemed nice enough early, and people might have enjoyed a backyard barbecue or day at the beach or park, with food, folks and fun, and not much to complain about. But I found that I had to step lively around 7PM when it started to rain all of a sudden, and grab the flags back inside before they got wet and unmanageable. So that was a quick and unceremonious end to flying the colors for the day, which is not to say that it's usually more ceremonious than that, because that would be over-stating the case by rather a lot, but it's generally not quite so peremptory. However, if there's one thing I can't abide, it's wet flags, so when the time came that they had to come in, believe me, they had to come in on the double, no matter what.

Everyone knows how Bill loves a research challenge, so it will come as a surprise to no one that we have him to thank for the information about the new stadium being built in the parking lot next to Shea Stadium for the New York Mets, and you can feel free to visit the web site at http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/nym/ballpark/newpark_overview.jsp and see for yourself. Of course, baseball is known as a game of inches, and famous for its stats, so here they are: In comparisons of the new park with Shea (New/Shea) the new park will have more elevators (12/4), toilets (646/568), restaurants (4, seating 3300/2, seating 520) and luxury suites (58/45) and also no roof, which I thought might have been considered. Although it will have a smaller seating capacity (45,000/57,333) the seats will be wider (21"/19") and have more leg room (33"-39"/32") between them. The new park is being built as a baseball-specific stadium, with stands closer to the field and better sight-lines, and will have 3 categories of seating with 40% of them on the field level. Shea was built in 1964 as a shared space for baseball and football, as well as concerts and various other events, and has 4 categories of seating with only 20% on the field level. Then it goes on and on about the new design, which incorporates elements of the old Ebbets Field, Polo Grounds, Shea and all five boroughs of New York City in a 1.26million square foot complex brought to us by the firm of HOK Sports, who are also responsible for 7 of the last 8 new ballparks to open around the league. The biggest surprise for me was that after years of complaining how enormous Shea is, compared with ballparks in other cities, and how the team would hit more homeruns if they just moved the darned fences in by 10 feet all around, in the new park the fences are actually farther out, thank you so very much not! Throughout all of the descriptions, they refer to it as "the new Mets Ballpark" and since they make a point that the Mets ownership is building it at their own expense ($550 million) that might actually be the case, instead of some other screwy name for the place. Of course, this doesn't include the $90million in special funds and tax credits from New York City, or $75million from New York State, which apparently doesn't count because it's too insignificant. Now, I'll have you know that I can remember way back when the dinosaurs and I used to consider $75million to be real money, and not a bit insignificant, but that seems not to be the case any more. Ah, those were the days indeed, and how I do miss them. On the other hand, back then if you wanted to attend your local sporting event, you had as your choice of seating categories Level D for dirt, Level R for rock or Level L for log, and the luxury suites were up in the trees where you had to fight the pterodactyls for them. And don't even get me started on the elevators and toilets!