Mirror, Mirror

Hello World,

Not to be an alarmist or anything, but here we are at the last weekend in August already, believe that or don't. In fact, anyone with plans for summer activities that they wanted to get underway before Labor Day weekend, had better hop to it and on the double, because that will be upon us before we know it. In baseball, the pennant races are heating up, with football nipping at its heels already, with nary a nip in the air to make us think that summer will soon be well and truly over for another year. Quick! Where's that back-to-school candy?

And we're certainly not complaining about the New York Mets (in fact, just yesterday, the broadcasters announced that their magic number is 22, so that tells you something right there) but Bill and I have noticed a peculiar condition that appears to have afflicted the team this year. We're calling it The Bermuda Triangle Effect, and although it may not be new, or unique to the Mets, this is the first we've noticed it. In fact, it has happened so regularly that the conspiracy theorists out there must be having a field day. You can follow the team closely and get used to seeing the same players, for the most part in the same positions, day in and day out for weeks at a time. Then suddenly one of them gets injured, or perhaps just misses a game or two for what seems to be no particular reason. At first, during subsequent games, the announcers let you know what is going on with the player in question, who may be on the Disabled List, or sent to the minor leagues for rehabilitation, or just resting a slight sprain for a couple of days. The team fills in with another player who does a nice job in the interim, and everything carries on as usual while waiting for the original player to come back. Instead what happens [Insert the theme music from the Twilight Zone here, with Rod Serling saying, "These people don't know it ... "] is that they don't return, and no one even mentions a word about the person ever again. Just this year, it has happened so many times and to so many different players, that it has the eerie creepiness of a classic horror movie, plus the paranoid complicity of an espionage thriller all rolled into one. And not to cast aspersions on Omar Minaya, the General Manager of the Mets, but I noticed when he was being interviewed in the clubhouse and walked in front of a mirror, he had no reflection. But you don't have to take my word for it, you can just ask Victor Zambrano, Angel Hernandez, Jorge Julio, Alay Soler, Kaz Matsui, Jose Lima, Andres Gallaraga, Dave Strickland, Eli Marrero or Victor Diaz. If you can find them, that is.

Last week, Bill had some time on his hands, so he decided to take the bull by the horns, metaphorically speaking, and replace the burnt-out bulbs in the yard lights along our driveway. This can be a nuisance, because of the way the lights are constructed, so you have to completely dis-assemble them just to do something relatively simple and routine, like replacing the bulb. They have the added disadvantage that our newspaper service uses them for target practice, plus all the delivery trucks run them over when they pull in or out of our driveway. (I often do that myself, which is why I rarely use the driveway, so I don't like to complain when visitors do the same thing.) So this is a bigger undertaking than it would seem on the face of it, and Bill deserves a lot of credit for taking it on. In fact, he did a heck of a job, because I noticed that all of them were lit when I was out in the yard yesterday, which hasn't happened in months and months. Of course, it was 8:30 in the morning at the time and I was on my way to work, so I suppose there's still some room for improvement in this system, at least as far as the timer settings go.

In the middle of last week, I was at church during the day, and was surprised to find the doors locked but the alarm not set. I went downstairs to see if anyone else was in the building, so I didn't accidentally set the alarm on them, or vice versa, and when I opened the door to the fellowship hall, I heard the unmistakable sounds of tippy-tap toenails on the tile floor coming toward me. I was surprised to see a cute and friendly golden-haired dog of a sort of cocker spaniel mix, and happy to greet me with the conviviality that is a hallmark of the breed. Just then I heard the janitor calling, "Hey, Lucky! Lucky! Go find your ball! Come on, go find your ball!" Lucky seemed to think not much of this idea, and stood his ground in a complacent manner, while the janitor continued to exhort him with verbal enticements and gestures. I finally asked him who his cute friend was, and he replied that he was watching the pastor's dog while the family was on vacation, and brought him to church to keep him company while he was working. I said that I could tell right away that it couldn't possibly be his dog, because he doesn't listen, just like the pastor. The poor man laughed so hard, I thought he was going to break something.

Meanwhile at work, we have recently gotten the latest copy of our in-house newsletter, Esprit de Corps (yes, it's true that name does sound a lot more like "corpse" than you would expect a health care provider to saddle itself with) as opposed to our OTHER newsletter, Sound Health, which is more for the community rather than the employees. In the message from the President and CEO, we find that the hospital has hired a consulting firm to improve our image. What it actually says is, "As a national healthcare consulting and management organization, the Studer Group has the experience to help us build a framework that will maximize our efforts to create a culture of excellence." I love the way they can string all of those words together and still convey absolutely no meaning whatsoever. And while I can state without fear of contradiction that our President and CEO bears no resemblance whatever to Omar Minaya, when I saw him walk past a mirror in the hallway last week, he had no reflection.

When I first started working at the hospital, shortly after arriving on the Mayflower with the rest of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, I was assigned to the large employee parking lot at the bottom of the hill, where the bulk of the staff of 1,600 park their cars for all shifts during the day and night. This is a good sized lot in a sprawling L-shape with rows upon rows of spaces and easy access. I used to park all the way at the end, with the squatters and weirdoes, where the weeds grow up through the broken asphalt and unexplained detritus shows up in mysterious piles from one day to the next. When our department was relocated to another building, all of us were re-assigned to a different parking lot, right outside our office which was certainly convenient. When our department moved again, we were all re-assigned again, this time to what I refer to as the stupid little lot across from one of the doctors residences down the block. The stupid lot is small and cramped, hard to get into and even harder to get out of, and is so undesirable for parking that even when they leave the security gate up, there's no danger of unauthorized vehicles sneaking in there illicitly. That's why it continually amazes me that there is never a time, since I've been in that stupid lot, that there hasn't been at least one abandoned car sitting in a heap with no license plate, broken windows and flat tires, taking up space that could be put to better use. I would expect that to happen in the big lot, where you have thousands of cars coming and going (and some of them instead, coming and staying) every day of the week, but in the stupid little lot, there's only 40 spaces to start with, and the idea that two of them could be filled with abandoned cars is just incomprehensible. If you had that same proportion in the big lot, it would translate into something like 80 spaces full of abandoned cars, which would be ridiculous in the extreme, even for the employer of last resort. And while I hate to be a busy-body, I finally had to complain to our Director of Security. Of course, he didn't have time to do anything about it, because he was too busy building a framework to maximize our efforts at creating a culture of excellence, don't you know.

Yes Sir, That's My Baby

Hello World,

How time flies and then some. It seems like only yesterday, it was August 17th, and we all know what that means. No, wait a minute, that can't be right. What I mean is, it seems like you just look up, and the year is more than half over already, and nothing to show for it, that's the scary part. The time just seems to go rattling along, whether we're ready for it or not, and pretty soon, you're looking back over the ages and wondering whatever happened. I was reminded of this recently when I went to install some software on the spare computer at work, and which I was thinking of as fairly modern and up-to-date, when I found them assuring me during the installation process that their program was completely Year 2000 compliant. What a relief!

I'm sure it will come as a surprise to everyone, myself included, that the hospital finally got around to replacing our retired co-worker in Purchasing with a new person earlier this week. That sound you don't hear is the sound of me blowing my brains out after trying to do two jobs for eight months, not that there was much left to blow at this point. It's been my experience that when a department needs to fill a vacancy, rather than sifting through applications to find the most qualified candidate, the hospital simply assigns someone to the department who is most likely: (1) "connected" to a Board member; (B) from a list of laid-off employees that they don't want to keep paying benefits to; or (iii) a problem employee that they have to move out of a different department because of complaints from co-workers. So we were prepared to be "underwhelmed" with our new addition, and since there's no choice in the matter, it does no good to complain.

Anyway, our new person, who I would call Hosanna, because I was just so glad to get someone after all this time, is a nice young woman from another department in the hospital, and happens to be of a different ethnic category than the other three people already in Purchasing. This fact seemed to be of some concern to our Vice President who interviewed her, and said to me later that he hoped that hiring her wouldn't affect the "chemistry" that we had in our department. This was the first that I ever considered that we had anything like "chemistry" in Purchasing, and it made me wonder what he thought our other options would be, under the circumstances, that would preserve this supposed element that he thought was so important. Did he think we could lure our recently departed co-worker out of retirement to return to her post and thus keep our chemistry intact? Or perhaps he thought we should limit our potential replacements to other 70-year-old women with no office skills, thereby maintaining that quality of camaraderie that he found so appealing. Personally, I was just as happy with Hosanna, who not only knows her way around a computer, but is also completely Year 2000 compliant.

It appears that the auditors have packed up their tents and stolen away in the night, because they don't seem to be using those empty offices in the hallway any more, as they were a few weeks ago. The one good thing about having the auditors there is that someone always makes sure that the ladies room is fully stocked with the necessary supplies at all times, because they don't want to upset the auditors in any way, and the rest of us all benefit from this largesse, when the rest of the time, they couldn't care less about us. After they left, we ran out of soap, first in one dispenser and then the other, so I finally had to call Housekeeping and ask them to refill the soap dispensers. Now, our housekeeping services (pardon me, that's "Facilities Management" in the new health care jargon) are provided by an outside company, and they are responsible for their own supplies and cleaning products. The soap dispensers that they had installed include a handy "peep hole" feature in the front, so you can see how much soap is in the dispenser, or when it needs to be replenished. That is, you could see what's in the dispenser, if the soap was white or pink, for instance, and it would show through the peep hole. However, the brilliant thinkers who order their supplies decided to select instead a clear liquid soap, which is impossible to see, thereby rendering the entire peep hole concept totally irrelevant. This is taking the idea of "soap confidentiality" a little too far for my tastes.

In addition to being invisible, I found the new soap didn't do much in the way of lather, and for a product with limited obligations, I thought these were two rather significant drawbacks. I happened to be in the ladies room at the same time as Jean the bookkeeper from down the hall, and I mentioned that the new soap didn't lather as well as the previous choice, possibly reflecting a change to a less expensive item. Jean, who has been working at the employer of last resort at least as long as I have, and has seen them come and go and then some, actually said, "Maybe they picked this new soap because it's milder and is more gentle to the skin, and not as harsh so that it dries everything out when you use it." I looked straight at her and then held up my hand to her forehead, the way mothers do when they want to see if their children are feverish. She laughed. I didn't realize that this new soap also had the ability to make people hallucinate, so that's obviously something else we need to be on the lookout for.

Meanwhile, on the cutting edge of technology front, Bill was attempting to report a problem with our telephone service, by calling Verizon's automated feature where you speak and the jolly synthesized attendant is supposed to understand you and take care of your problem, with the following results --

====================================
The fun part is -- just try to report phone problems these days.
Calling the repair number was so annoying ("Did you say
'Pilliam'? I'm sorry, Pulliam. I'm not understanding you.
Please, Gillian, say that again.") that I ended up reporting
the problem online. Faster, less personal, but lacking that
human interaction that worked so well when you would
report phone problems. At least in the old days, the
Operator would test the line while you were on it and
let you know if it was their problem or your problem.
====================================

Hmmmm. I'd say there's some room for improvement there. And while we're on the subject of names, I came across an interesting article in the USA Weekend magazine about celebrity baby names, and while many of us are already aware of Woody Allen's Satchel or Gwyneth Paltrow's Apple (not to mention Bruce Willis and Demi Moore with Rumer, Scout and Tallulah) many of these others were new to me, and as surprises go, unpleasant at that:

David Beckham (athlete) - Brooklyn
Toni Braxton (singer) - Denim
Rachel Griffiths (actress) - Banjo
Marcia Gay Harden (actress) - Eulala
Penn Jillette (comedian) - Moxie CrimeFighter
Jason Lee (actor) - Pilot Inspektor
Elle Macpherson (model) - Aurelius
Jamie Oliver (chef) - Daisy Boo and Poppy Honey
Julia Roberts (actress) - Phinnaeus
Shannyn Sossamon (actress) - Audio Science

Well, I suppose there are worse names that people can come up with (I remember a colleague at another hospital complaining about a newborn named Pretzel) but even I'm thinking that it would be hard to dis-improve on Moxie CrimeFighter for an infant. In any case, that should give us all something to be grateful for, no matter how much we might hate our own names, that at least our parents didn't call us Audio Science instead, or even worse, Year 2000 Compliant.

We were at CVS earlier today, and Bill pointed out what he thought looked like a display of Halloween candy in the seasonal aisle. "Don't be silly," I said, "It's August. It certainly wouldn't be Halloween candy." Sure enough, on closer inspection, it turned out to be that standard of seasonal merchandise, a display of back-to-school candy. Oh, how the times have changed, since the dinosaurs and I went back to school, trudging through the primordial ooze, on our way to learn important lessons about dirt, rocks and fire. (Inventors were still working on the wheel at that time.) It seems like only 50 years ago when back-to-school meant new clothes, new shoes, a new bookbag and lunchbox, spiral notebooks, pencils and ruler, and the idea of fun-size candy bars never entered into it at any point along the way. I don't know what the dinosaurs would think of it, but you can believe me when I say that we managed to survive without back-to-school candy, and somehow still be Year 120 Million B.C. compliant, or my name isn't

Mrs. Pilliam Pulliam Gillian

Fast Forward

Hello World,

Just in case there was still anyone out there who didn't believe that the KGB is monitoring my email, let me just say that after complaining about the horrible climate conditions around here last week, someone at the Kremlin's infernal weather machine must have felt sorry for us, and we've had the most beautiful weather all this week. The skies are blue, the temperatures mild, the humidity perfectly comfortable, and no sign of the dog days that August is so justly famous for in these parts. It's lovely and cool in the mornings and evenings, and balmy during the day, which is so unlike the usual conditions this time of year that you have to wonder if we're getting some other city's weather by mistake. And I don't mind saying, the other place would have gotten the worst of that bargain, and not thought much of the idea, I can tell you that.

Meanwhile at church, one of our patrons donated a water cooler, and for several months it was in our fellowship hall downstairs, near the kitchen where they serve coffee and refreshments after worship. It must not have met the standards of our energy watchdogs, however, because even though it came to us complete and in working order, it was not allowed to be plugged in, so that it could accomplish its only purpose in life, which is to chill bottled water for drinking. So essentially, what we ended up with, in spite of being conveniently located right near a handy electrical outlet, was a large and bulky gravity-fed dispenser for room temperature bottled water. While I will say that the inaptly-named water cooler does an admirable job at this function, it must be admitted that there has never developed much of a demand for its wares. I guess those refrigeration folks must be on to something after all.

Speaking of refrigeration, this was another one of those years where I ended up getting more exercise on vacation than I anticipated, because every morning I had to walk all the way to the Registration Building to get a cold drink to have with my breakfast. Of course, we all remember that over the winter, our friends at the Long Island Parks & Historical Preservation Commission decided to tear down the Old Roundy and replace it with a brand new building. I think they did a remarkable job of getting it all done in time for camping season to start this year, with all of the plumbing and fixtures in place and operational, so they weren't faced with hordes of angry campers and no bathrooms. But it wasn't completely finished on the outside, as the walks, curbs, signs and decorative fences were still under construction while I was there. And although there was a soda machine in the same place as one had been previously, right next to the door of the ladies room, I said to Bill that I wasn't sure that it was working. Sometimes it's hard to tell, because you can't always see if the lights are on behind the selector buttons or where you insert the money, especially in bright sunlight. But I figured that early in the morning on Tuesday, when it would still be shady on that side of the building, I would be able to tell if it was working, and hopefully get myself a drink to carry back to the campsite. It turned out to be easier to figure out than I expected, since even I could see that the power cord came out of the back of the soda machine, and then just trailed off in the dirt of the construction debris alongside, and just stopped right there. Apparently, the exterior electricity part of the project had yet to be finalized, and why they set the soda machine in place ahead of having any outlet to plug it into, continues to be a mystery to me. So that was how I ended up walking all the way to the Registration Building every morning for a cold drink, and it was a good thing that worked every day, because I would have been pretty grouchy if it hadn't, and I had to walk to an even farther soda machine before breakfast. That would have been more the "evil twin" than the "happy camper" of lore and legend, believe me.

That reminds me of another interesting sight when I was driving out to Wildwood by myself on Monday morning, and the Buick and I found ourselves in the thick of mid-morning traffic all through the Bronx, Queens and most of Nassau, so that we never got over 40 miles an hour the whole time. Creeping along as we were, there was plenty of time for quiet reflection, sight-seeing and wool-gathering, and no danger of those vehicular mishaps that can occur at high speeds. At one point, I happened to glance out the side window and noticed that next to me was a white van that claimed to be from some place they called All-Boro Courrier. At first, I felt sorry for them, stuck in traffic when they might have had some important documents or packages to deliver. But then I decided that if they really were a courier service, they would at the very least know how to spell courier, and since I have no idea what function a "courrier" might be engaged in, perhaps it made no difference to them at all that we were inching along at a mere 6 miles per hour on the inaptly-named Expressway. For all I know, these "courriers" might be in the business of quiet reflection, sight-seeing and wool-gathering, and for which, these conditions would have been ideal.

Since we have a spare office at work (that's my old miserable office, and blast its dastardly black soul) I thought it would be a handy place for a spare computer, in the event that we had a new person in the Clerk's position who needed to use it for routine paperwork, reports or reference materials. The spare computer that fit the bill, in that it was available and in working order, is a trusty old stand-by still wheezing along with its out-moded processor and running Windows98 without a care in the world. (Note to Bill Gates: Those were still the best screen savers that any computer has ever had, before or since.) It's more than adequate to handle the rudimentary tasks that we need it for in word processing, spreadsheets or media files, and since no one else uses it, there won't be times when it's unavailable or otherwise engaged. I said to Bill that my favorite part about it is that, unlike newer computers, when you turn it on, it just starts right up and is ready to run, and when you shut if off, it simply turns right off. It's not a bit like computers are nowadays, where it goes through a whole big fat honking start-up routine, so that you can go have a cup of coffee while you're waiting for anything to happen, and then when you try to turn it off, it takes forever and a day, as if you have time for that sort of nonsense. It's funny what people get used to, with the extra time built in for loading all the security features, ad filters, spam blockers, virus protection, spyware detectors and every other darned thing. The old computer is blissfully uncomplicated, not to mention, a quaint anachronism of a time gone by, and not that long ago, when things seemed much simpler. And while it might be much slower, somehow it still seems faster, which is what the technical people refer to as "progress," and thank you so very much not.

While we're on the subject of progress, and just in case anyone was wondering if there could be any reason why the terrorists hate us, I came across this arresting full-page ad in the USA Weekend magazine recently with the screaming headline: "Custom Printed M&M's make any occasion sweeter." There's a picture of a young girl with birthday candles, and a bunch of colorful M&Ms that say things like Happy Birthday and Anna Banana, instead of just the usual M. It goes on to say, "Now you can put your words on MY M&M's Chocolate Candies! Choose from 17 colors, then personalize them with your own message. Whatever your occasion, however you want to say it, Custom Printed MY M&M's Candies are the sweetest way to send a message." I'm thinking if this is not a textbook example of outrageous excess, and a sure sign of a civilization on the edge of ruin, then I don't know what is. The next thing I'd be on the lookout for is hordes of barbarians storming the gates, and I can't say that I would blame them one bit. So don't say that I didn't warn everybody, although if the barbarians are planning to get here by way of the Expressway, at least that gives us plenty of time.

Spies Like Us

Hello World,

Happy August! Anyone who's been watching the weather reports for this area could see that the fabled "dog days of August" are well and truly upon us, with blistering temperatures and sweltering humidity for a solid week just suffocating the region, while the thunderstorms and cool front supposedly behind it remain stalled farther west, and oh so tantalizingly out of reach. I think the meteorologists kept promising us better weather, simply for the sake of preventing riots in the streets, and it turned into a long and dismal week that had little to recommend it. We never did get thunderstorms, although we did lose about 5-10 degrees in temperature, and Bill said that if it ever did drop to 75 degrees as predicted next week, people would think we were having a cold snap and break out their winter coats. Of course, we all know that it does no good to complain about the weather, although I did remark to a co-worker that people can say what they like about 100-degrees temperatures, but at least you don't have to shovel it.

Lately I've been taking a new supplement called Relacore, which you see on television, and it's supposed to reduce stress, give me more energy, and help me to remain calm and cheerful. (You couldn't prove this by the people I work with, who have seen much more of my evil twin lately than they ever wanted to, I'm sure.) I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but this year, I certainly finished up my camping laundry faster than I ever have in the past, and got it all packed away and ready for next year. Usually I find that weeks after coming home, I'm still washing beach towels, swimsuits, bedding and camp shirts, but not this time. Within two weeks, I had turned all of that stuff around, and just like magic, it was all washed, dried, folded, wrapped up in bags and back in the attic in the "camping corner." I'm thinking this is a good thing, and remaining calm and cheerful, although I admit that it doesn't really seem like I've been camping, without the piles of dirty laundry all over the place, and the smell of moldy beach towels everywhere.

Here's another story from camping. This seems to be a new development at Wildwood, or at least I don't remember it from when I was younger. Nowadays, it's not a bit unusual to find a campsite, or even several of them, that appear to be harboring spies engaged in some sort of covert operations. Like any campsite, they have a tent or two, plus chairs, and maybe a cook-stove or lantern. But unlike regular campsites, you never see anyone there, day or night, or any cars coming and going, no matter when you pass them. They also fail to exhibit any signs of a specialized interest, such as fishing rods, kayaks or backpacks, that might suggest activities that could take them away for long periods at odd hours. They simply seem to be abandoned, as if people drove all the way out to Wildwood, set up their campsite, and then fled, leaving everything behind them. And it's gotten to be such a routine sight there now, that the people in the neighboring campsites take no notice of it, and wouldn't think to report it to the registration building. At Wildwood, you can be a spy working on covert operations, and sneaking in and out of a seemingly abandoned campsite for whatever nefarious purposes, to your heart's content with no fear of exposure.

Of course, I realize that my campsite is one of those that occasionally has that same appearance of being abandoned, especially when we spend all day at the beach and then get in the car and stay overnight at a motel, and people must think that we're just another part of that whole big spy network they've got out there. But at least we come back, and settle into more regular habits, so we stop looking like some sinister hide-out for secret agents engaged in clandestine adventures of espionage skullduggery. I've had this happen at campsites right around mine, where I've sometimes heard voices in the middle of the night, but never clapped eyes on a single soul at the site for the entire week. I suppose there might be some less dramatic or glamorous explanation for this phenomenon, but I prefer to think of them as spies. Anyway, as I said, this is now so common as to become unremarkable at the park, where the sense of "spy confidentiality" runs at a very high level, and no one pries into anyone else's business. This reached a whole new extreme this year, when one of these campsites, complete with tent, kitchen, chairs and even a flag, and located in a highly visible spot directly across from the Camp Store, not only remained abandoned all week, but had the added attraction of the tent collapsing on Tuesday. It didn't blow over, or succumb to a storm, it simply lost its vertical integrity for whatever reason, and slowly sank down on itself in puffy billows of nylon and plastic. Since it's the campsite nearest the path to the beach, it entertained a steady stream of spectators for days, and by Thursday, had even managed to attract the attention of the Park Police, who seemed unwilling to violate the unwritten rule of spy etiquette by disturbing the status quo. It was still like that when I left, and makes me wonder about the safety of our undercover friend, especially if the organization he works for can't even give him a tent that will stand up by itself for a week.

I may as well say right up front that I am not one of these people who feel that reading instructions on things is only for wimps and losers, or that doing so would impugn my dignity and compromise the pioneer spirit that made this country great. I have a handy new hose reel caddy that is a sturdy model capable of holding a copious amount of garden hose in a neat and functional manner, and right at your fingertips. I very carefully read the directions for attaching the hose to the caddy, and the caddy tube to the faucet, even though it was printed in very tiny and faint type on a shiny background, making it almost impossible to see. All of this worked like a charm, and I was well on my way to being in garden hose paradise, with my previous tangled and disorderly nightmares behind me. Having said all that, however, I do not happen to be of the mind that every little thing, such as the hose reel handle, needs to have special instructions in order to be used. On the contrary, I would expect that something like a handle, by its very nature, would be self-explanatory, the use of which would be obvious to any moron without resorting to printed documentation. Apparently not! The handle on this hose reel is retractable, and must utilize some secret password, hidden latch, or God forbid, federally mandated safety switch in order to make it snap into position for winding up the hose. At this rate, I'll never know, since I was singularly unsuccessful in prying it open, in spite of much time and effort, plus a variety of colorful expressions that could not be printed in a family publication. In the end, I was reduced to winding up the hose by pushing the reel around by hand, which was tiresome and impractical for 100 feet of garden hose, but at least we can rest assured that the world was safe from runaway hose reel handles, if that was their intention.

As long as we're out in the garden, and communing with nature, at least in our mind's eye, I found another disturbing article among the natural wonders of the great outdoors. Last week when I was feeding the birds, I took a long hard look at the invasive weeds that I have growing through the cracks in my bird bath fountain, and was more than a little concerned to discover that these weeds seem to have no parallel anywhere else in the flower bed, or in fact, the whole yard that I've noticed. I find it odd that they seem to have sprouted just in the bird bath out of nowhere, and I see nothing else that looks like them, no matter where I turn. Even more alarming, and here I hate to be paranoid, but they have the same distinctive saw-tooth narrow leaves and stalky features as marijuana plants, which I recognize not from personal cultivation, but rather pictures in the newspapers. Of course, everyone realizes that our yard is over-run with juvenile delinquent squirrels of the worst stripe, but even I would be hard-pressed to accuse them of growing marijuana in my bird bath. In fact, the implications of that are so unnerving, on so many levels, that it would give the conspiracy theorists goose-bumps just thinking about it. Personally, I'm more inclined to chalk it up to the spies in the collapsed tent across the street, at least, that's what I'm planning to tell the Police if they show up to bust my bird bath, and the heck with spy etiquette.