Give A Hoot

Hello World,

And so here I am back again, and making a pest of myself. No, wait a minute, that's not me, that's what I say to the cats. Oh well, somebody around here is making a pest of themselves, and although I don't like to cast aspersions, I think it's only fair to say that I can't rule out anyone either, so don't say I didn't warn you. In fact, it might very well be you, so don't think that I don't have my eye on you as well, and don't try any funny stuff. I may not know much, but I certainly know a pest when I see one, and you'd be surprised how often one is as close as your own mirror. Unless you have cats, that is.

Meanwhile, in local sports news, I'm happy to report that there finally is some joy in Mudville, because the Mets eventually did win enough games, and the Phillies lost enough games, for them to clinch the National League East championship at long last. Although it appeared to be a foregone conclusion for months, when it came to the actual sticking point, it seemed that everything conspired against it actually happening. But they pulled it off in their own ballpark and made the home town fans happy by winning their division for the first time since 1990. A few days later across town, the Yankees also clinched their division, although not in the most optimum way, because they lost, and only clinched because the Red Sox also lost and were mathematically eliminated. Of course, winning the division is old hat to the Yankees, as this is their ninth in a row, so I'm sure it doesn't carry that same sense of euphoria as it does with their Queens rivals. This is just another day at the office for the Yankees, which is why they wear pinstripes.

Speaking of offices, at least every other week we get a visit at work from our retired co-worker, who drops in to see us on her way to her physical therapy appointment, and brings us something from her neighborhood bakery to have while she sits and chats. I said to Bill that I find it remarkable that she comes so regularly, and early, in all sorts of weather conditions, which is something that she could never seem to manage when she had a full-time job there. But retirement seems to agree with her, and I admit that I have a much more charitable attitude about her now than I ever had while she was still working there, or perhaps that was just my Evil Twin speaking. But I notice that when people come to Purchasing from other departments and see her there, they greet her like a long-lost relative, and fall all over her with hugs and kisses as if they've been inconsolable since she left. Honestly, the way they carry on, you'd think she was Ed McMahon showing up with that big cardboard check for them, instead of just an old retired Clerk that no one paid any attention to when she worked there. How she suddenly became America's Sweetheart after she retired is a complete mystery to me.

Also at work, rather than tearing down the ancient pile of bricks that I work in, as they've been threatening to do for years, they decided to paint it instead, although I admit the logic of that continues to elude me. So every time you want to go anywhere, you have to walk around the painter up on his ladder, patching and spackling, in the hallways and stairwells and every imaginable place. At one point, our Payroll manager (we all remember the ersatz Tom Sangeverionio from the story about Federal Express invoices) told him that he was doing a great job, just like Michelangelo. The painter thanked him but said with some modesty that he wasn't just like Michelangelo, since of course, he's not Italian. This apparently took Tom by surprise, especially since the painter's name is Mario, so he asked him to name a famous painter from his own country that he could be compared to. Alas, the painter sighed, "I'm from Croatia, and there are no famous Croatian painters." He said this so matter-of-factly that I couldn't help but laugh. It was refreshingly honest, if a bit wistful, and not to mention a surprising bit of historical trivia for all of us geography fans out there.

Of course we all remember the fun house mirror at our end of the hallway that makes everyone look short and fat, no matter how exquisite they might look in real life. The worst part of it is that you can see it from all the way the blazes down the other end of the hallway on the other side of the building, and as you walk towards it, you can watch yourself getting smaller and wider and more mis-shapen, and it's only a wonder that people don't just jump out a window by the time they get to it. Everyone hates it, even people with nothing to fear from mirrors, and the most popular thing we do every year in Purchasing is cover the mirror with a holiday door decoration for Christmas. Since Mario has been patching and spackling in the hallway, he has been fielding a steady stream of requests for him to paint over the mirror once and for all, and spare all of us from this workaday horror show in our midst. It might not make him famous, but he'd certainly be the most popular Croatian painter of all time!

Last weekend, we had a family reunion of sorts, involving a small bunch of relatives who shared a common grandmother (my great-grandmother) and right from the very beginning of the planning stages got saddled with the handle of The Cousins Hootenanny for some reason, and the name simply stuck through it all. The guest list included my Mom and all of us girls, her brother, and a cousin-in-law from Massachusetts plus two of her daughters, who are the same ages as my sisters. We had been to visit them in 2000, when we discovered that it's just about impossible to reserve a hotel room, anywhere in the Berkshires where they live, during foliage season. This time around, we met at my sister's log cabin in New Paltz instead, which was more centrally located and made an easier trip for my Mom coming up from Long Island. Rather than driving by myself, I bummed a ride with my other sister, and four of us crammed into a rental car with all of our belongings, which may have been an idea whose time had not yet come. But we set out on Friday night in good spirits in spite of a light drizzle, and reached our destination with only minor mishaps along the way. We stayed overnight at a very pleasant Day's Inn at Newburgh, and in the morning, the view of the lake with the mists rising above the hills along the Hudson River was simply breathtaking. The rooms were spacious and well-appointed, especially as inexpensive as it was, and included breakfast which was a welcome convenience for weary travelers. Of course, it was nothing like the spread we enjoyed at the Renaissance Hotel, but we still dove right into it and glad of it. Thus fortified, we hit the road for the last leg of our journey, and joined up with everyone else already there. Mom was the belle of the ball, as everyone was delighted to see her, and since it was a mere matter of days to her 84th birthday, she even got presents, which is always one of her favorite things. In fact, there were plenty of presents to go around, since Bill was so grateful to my traveling companions for taking me off his hands for a couple of days, that he got them all presents as well. The weather on Saturday could not have been more glorious, and the food was delectable, and I can safely say that a fine time was had by all, and don't think that I don't have the pictures to prove it. We left around 8:30 and made it back without a hitch, although they were so anxious to get home that by the time we got to my house, they threatened that they would make me jump out while they were still moving, because they didn't want to stop. By all accounts, the Cousins Hootenanny was a rousing success, and might turn into a regular happening, or at least more regular than every six years.

I see in the recent USA Weekend magazine that there is a new DVD boxed set including the 1954 original Japanese monster movie called "Gojira" as well as the re-edited American version starring Raymond Burr and known to legions of fans as "Godzilla." For the entertainment of their readers, the magazine printed a review of the movie by someone they describe as "Bill Holmstrom, the collection manager of the Department of Herpetology at the Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo and a lifetime monster movie fan." In describing the scene where Godzilla unleashes his powerfully destructive atomic breath, Holmstrom says, "The popular misconception is that Godzilla breathes fire. Actually, he breathes a stream of compressed radioactive air that bursts into flame on impact. There are no animals that actually do that." What a relief! I guess we can lay those rumors to rest right now, and I'm certainly glad that USA Weekend went to all the trouble to call in an expert to stem the tide of these popular misconceptions run amok. I tell you, you just can't make this stuff up, and thanks to Japanese horror movies, you don't have to. Just don't tell Bill Holmstrom, whatever you do.

Take A Walk On The Wild Side

Hello World,
Beware the Ides of September! Actually, nobody said that, and as a warning to Julius Caesar, it would have been about six months too late. But here we are on September 15, believe that or don't, which only goes to show how the year is just charging along like a runaway freight train and no end in sight. Once Labor Day is over, all bets are off, and you'd better not blink, or else. Last weekend, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and set off on some wild and woolly adventures, and from which we lived to tell the tale, wild and woolly tails notwithstanding. This worked a lot better than the weekend before, when the weather would not have been conducive to our plans at all, and we would have found ourselves in the same predicament as other people with plans for Labor Day weekend. But we lucked out and could not have asked for two nicer days, in a year that has been notably deficient in nice weekends as a whole.
It all began innocently enough when our four friends from the Albany area came down for a visit with the intention of going to the Bronx Zoo, where none of us had been in the last 20 years or so. We met for brunch at the diner, although in retrospect, it probably would have been more circumspect for all six of us to get together at some place that we would never have to show our faces again, rather than the diner that Bill and I go to every Friday. Overall, we didn't behave as badly as we sometimes do, although I did notice that the hostess was posting our names on a bulletin board in the lobby, along with drawings by the sketch artist they had called in. Honestly, you'd think no one had ever seen six people play "Lady of Spain" with their armpits before.
After that, we drove around the local haunts a bit to show off some new developments that had happened since their last visit to our shores, including Trump Tower, Huguenot Hill and Avalon Bay all under construction in our fair city. They were suitably impressed, although perhaps outraged would be the better word under the circumstances. Then we synchronized our walkie-talkies and headed for the Bronx Zoo, making it there on the first shot and without getting lost, which is a notable achievement for our group. It was such a beautiful day, and mobs of people decided to join us in enjoying it at the Zoo, where luckily, it was shady enough all around that the heat wasn't oppressive. We discovered that the Bronx Zoo, along with other municipal attractions such as the Central Park Zoo and New York Aquarium, are operating under the administration of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and their dedication in protecting and husbanding the animals is to be commended. Why don't you just go ahead and visit their web site at www.wcs.org and see for yourself. They certainly have done a heck of a job in the Bronx, where a lot has changed in the last twenty years since any of us had been there.
For anyone who considers going to the zoo to be just a walk in the park, let me say that the Bronx Zoo is 265 acres of bumpy terrain, and feels every bit of it, especially when you rent one of the Zoo's broken wheelchairs for one of your mobility-challenged friends, and have to push him around up hill and down dale all day. This quickly loses whatever appeal it might have had, which I can assure you was little enough to start with, and makes for a very long and arduous day. Because the park is bigger than we remembered, and the exhibits are farther apart than we realized, and some of them with long lines, we did not have a chance to see everything that we might have wanted, and in fact, later in the day we split up to give everyone a chance to see what they wanted most. Bill and I wasted no time in hopping aboard the Skyfari, the cable cars that glide gently and peacefully over the park, and provide a panoramic view and a sense of solitude that is not to be missed. Unlike amusement parks, where they turn the lights on and let you enjoy their attractions all night, the Zoo closes up shop at 5:30 PM, and you'd better get out while the getting is good. In fact, you can't help but notice if you're on the last tram going to the parking lots at that time, that the animals who have been hiding at the back of their enclosures all day, are suddenly all lined up in front at the fences, and eyeing you eagerly as you go by like tasty treats on a tea trolley. We decided when it was feeding time at the zoo, that was our cue to skidoo, and we ran out of there with our coat-tails flying behind us, broken wheelchair or no.
However, I can't leave the Bronx Zoo without telling Bill's favorite story of the day. We all wanted to take the monorail ride through the Wild Asia exhibit, so we headed off in that direction, although we heard people complaining that it was an hour wait on line. We were all standing very patiently on line, and even behaving fairly well for us, when our mobility-challenged friend decided to stand up and stretch his legs for a while. Rather than push an empty wheelchair in line with us, we invited one of our other friends to take the opportunity to sit in the wheelchair, and have a little bit of a rest from standing, so she took us up on the offer and sat down. Frankly, she was a lot easier to push around than the person we got the chair for, so we were in no hurry to chase her. It was during this period that we came to the attention of the ride operators, who hurried us through to the front of the line, cutting off everyone behind us who had been waiting in the wilting heat all that time, and making us about as unpopular as Moslem terrorists at a baby shower. The helpful park staff was particularly solicitous of our friend in the wheelchair, no doubt infuriating the people directly behind us, who knew that she wasn't the person we had gotten the wheelchair for in the first place, and undoubtedly feeling that we were getting preferential treatment under false pretenses, and who could blame them. As a matter of fact, our guilty consciences were feeling the same way, but after a long hard day of standing on lines, we were just as happy to see that gift horse when it showed up.
After leaving the zoo, our next stop was at the beautiful Renaissance Hotel which considers itself in White Plains, but is actually along Route 287 out in the wilds of nowhere, and believe me, I know nowhere when I see it. Our friends had reserved rooms to stay overnight, and we decided to join them in a mini-vacation of our own, even though we were only 30 minutes from home. I think I can say without fear of contradiction, that we have stayed at more expensive places and less expensive places, but this was probably the nicest hotel we have ever stayed at in our whole lives. It was quiet, plush and comfortable, while the staff was friendly, helpful and attentive. We were loath to hit the road again and try to scrounge up dinner for six hungry sojourners, but we were afraid to take our chances with hotel food, having been burned before. We checked out the menu of the pub in the lobby and decided to give it a try, and were we ever glad that we did. It turned out to be a wonderful meal in a delightful room with impeccable service, and we could not have had a lovelier time. It's true that we cleared the room, as the six of us always do, but at least they didn't call in the sketch artists and post our names at the door, like they did at the diner.

Everyone who says that they can't sleep in a strange place should take the Renaissance Hotel challenge, and see if they don't have the best sleep of their lives there. It's phenomenal, and worth the price of the room just for that alone. In the morning, we reconnoitered in various groupings to avail ourselves of the diverse amenities, such as the indoor pool, Jacuzzi, spa, gym or hiking trails on the premises. A continental breakfast was included in our room rate, so we finished up there, and it turned out to be a spread of lavish indulgence that can only be described by saying that it was indescribable. We hated to check out, because we figured that stepping out into the real world would be like waking up from a wonderful dream.

Our plans for the morning included getting a jump on the season at the Trim-A-Tree department in Fortunoff's, and pulling in at the train store across the tracks, but we struck out on both counts. The Christmas displays were just beginning to be assembled at Fortunoff's, so there was not much to see there, and the management at the train store decided to stay closed on Sundays for whatever reason. We ambled around for a bit, but our hearts were not in it, and as it was becoming late and our friends wanted to get on the road, we had no choice but to bid our fond farewells and go our separate ways. Years ago, when Bill and I would go away overnight, our cats would assume that we had been taken over by pods from the Cat Hating Planet, who didn't care if they starved, and they greeted our return with enthusiasm, if only for the food. The cats that we have now seem not to notice if we're there or not, and so when we return from being away, they give us a "Do I know you?" kind of look that is humbling in its bored indifference. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted, and at least they didn't look at us as a meal on the hoof, like the last tram out of the zoo at feeding time. Garcon, let's have some Worcestershire sauce with these tourists, if you please!

Room Service

Hello World,

Happy September! I hope that you enjoyed yourself over the long holiday weekend in the spirit of Samuel L. Gompers and rested from your labors. Around here, the weather wasn't much to speak of, at least on Saturday, no thanks to Tropical Depression Ernesto, in a year that has exhibited an unwelcome consistency of storms with high winds and drenching rains that flood streets, topple trees and take out the power and phone wires along with them. In fact, it was reported in the newspaper that they expect 100,000 customers in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties to be without electricity for most of the week. We found our lights blinking on and off repeatedly on Saturday, punctuated by a series of unsettling "BOOM" noises from down the block, but in the end, they stayed on and we didn't lose our power. Even our cable TV service that blacked out for a few hours returned on its own without having to wait for the service technicians on Monday. At the time, we thought this was a good thing, although with the way the Mets ended up playing over the weekend, it was more of a mixed blessing than we had anticipated. But I said to Bill that we were already having a better weekend than people we saw on the news all along the Southeast, being evacuated from their homes by firemen in Ernesto's wake. Considering that it was not a full-blown hurricane, it certainly caused all sorts of problems, and wouldn't win any popularity contests by a long shot. In fact, if I was Ernesto, I'd be thinking about wearing a wig and dark sunglasses the next time I showed up any place.

Fortunately, Sunday and Monday were much nicer, and people with plans for the holiday could salvage what they might from the rest of the weekend. Monday was nice enough to put the flags outside, and we flew them with gusto, lending that patriotic air to the neighborhood and adding some much needed color to the local landscape. Next to the vacuum cleaner, nothing seems to rattle the cats more than seeing someone walking around with a flag on a pole, which even when it's rolled up, seems to suggest an instrument of diabolical torture in their tiny minds. They go flying in every direction when I carry the flag from the library out to the front porch, in spite of the fact that they've never actually come into contact with it and they see me do this at least four times a year. So here's something else that wouldn't win any popularity contests, at least around our house, for reasons known only to the feline residents and they're not talking. (At least not to us, although I have every reason to believe that they are in almost constant communication with the mother ship that will be returning them to their home planet at some future date.) I even remembered to take the flags back in after dinner (yes, on the same day!) which is a noteworthy accomplishment that should be recognized and not taken for granted by more able-minded individuals.

One thing we were glad to see over the weekend was the return of Cliff Floyd to the Mets lineup, after he had been out for an extended time with a foot injury. He continued to have some problems with it, however, and was unable to return to playing every day, as originally hoped. Before one of the games, he was interviewed about the injury, and he actually said: "Well, I'll tell you, it is what it is and all I can do is ride it out and see what happens, because this is not my first time at the rodeo, and at the end of the day, I just have to put it all on the table and give it everything I've got." It made me wonder if he was actually on the Disabled List and taking rehabilitation in Florida for four weeks, or whether the team just packed him up and sent him off to cliche school instead. I mean, it's not easy to string together all of those idioms, all in a bunch in one sentence like that, and for you non-professionals out there, please don't try this at home. Remember, this is not Cliff Floyd's first time at the rodeo.

I recently had occasion to purchase a set of jumper cables, and was I surprised to find out that this is not as easy as it sounds. Apparently I'm the only person who doesn't realize that everyone else in the world calls them "booster cables," so an online search for "jumper cables" basically turns up a whole lot of nothing, except for accessory cables for your laptop. In fact, these seem to come in a wide variety of options, which is probably a good deal for your laptop, although I would tend to doubt its effectiveness at starting cars. Luckily I happened upon our friends at Battery Mart in Virginia (and I'm sure they'd be downright tickled to have you visit their web site at www.batterymart.com and set a spell) who had just what I was looking for and were as eager to send it right out for me as I was to get it. Now, here is where I have to say that my new friends at Battery Mart and I are of two minds on this issue. I'm thinking of heavy-duty jumper cables as being thick, dense and about as indestructible as anything you can get your hands on, and if you tossed them loose in a package and sent them off in a truck, what's the worst that could happen to them? Not our friends at Battery Mart, where they may have sentimental feelings for the little darlings, because they wrapped up this 20-pounds of cables in a large cardboard box with about 9 cubic yards of Styrofoam packing peanuts, so in case God forbid anyone dropped them, the precious lovelies wouldn't get bruised. To their credit, I have to say that the cables did arrive in the most pristine condition that anyone could ever imagine, not that pristinity (is that a word?) is much of a selling point when it comes to jumper cables, I wouldn't think. Now I love my new friends at Battery Mart, but when it comes to packaging, this is what I say: It's a good thing they don't sell mirrors!

It took many years, but I finally had enough of being cramped and in harm's way with my computer in the den, where there was no room for anything and everything was covered in plastic in case of unexpected drips from unpredictable overhead sources. I pushed the couch from one wall to another, and relocated my desk and computer equipment to the living room, where there was plenty of room to spread out and no questions about the integrity of the ceiling. Instead of piling everything precariously on top of each other, now I could assemble bookshelves and cabinets all along the wall to hold things that I needed, and everything was easier to store, to retrieve and to use regularly, than the rat's nest I was working with previously. I was very happy with the improvements, and bid farewell to the den without a backward glance, and glad of it. It's only lately that I've begun to truly appreciate the disadvantages of this move, and although it hasn't tipped the scales to the point of returning to the den, it has got me thinking about the trade-offs. I always thought that there was no place in the house as cold as the den in the winter, although Bill says that early in the morning, he has to wear his jacket in the kitchen. But my desk was in front of the bay window, which is technically outside of the house, and you can believe me when I say that it feels every bit of it. But at least the den is small, and if you turn on a heater, it doesn't take long to make the room warmer, and you can close the doors so the warmth stays in with you. I found out that the living room is just about as cold as the den, but being a capacious 20' x 40' there's no way to heat the room up enough to be warm, no matter what you do. In one of those perverse twists, it's also unbearably hot in the summer, and unlike the den, is also too large to cool with a window air conditioner to get any relief. So these were two problems that I didn't have in the den, that I wasn't anticipating when I moved. But I found that it all paled in comparison to the major problem with the living room, which is that it has no doors. Actually, it has plenty of doors, but it lacks the key element of a door that would close it off from the rest of the house, because it has a very large and unobstructed archway that opens onto the front hall. In our family, this means that whatever you do in the living room, you'd better plan on having lots of company, because there's no chance that you'll be doing it without at least some of the cats "helping" you. This includes what we think of as our "regular" cats, as well as the ones we have of the "invisible" variety and everything in between. This help can take many forms, but most common is the desire to sit on the keyboard, play with the mouse, knock papers on the floor, or climb into my lap so that I have to reach over them to type. This is all well and good when time is not of the essence, but often this element of help is not a good fit with my need for speed and productivity. Since there is no way to close the cats out and away from where I'm working, my options are limited. To get the offender off my lap, my first step is usually to stand up. This has the desired effect only insofar as the cat gets off me, but then wastes no time in taking my place on the chair instead. Now my options are even more limited, which is that I can share the chair with them, drag another chair out of a different room, or stand up and type. Having tried each of these at one time or another, I can say without reservation that they have nothing to recommend them, and I ought to know. For people out there keeping track, we file this under the "out of the frying pan, into the fire" category of improvements.

Speaking of dubious improvements, here is where Chevrolet and I part company, as I recently saw a full-page feature article in the Wheels Extra section of our local newspaper for the new and improved 2007 Chevy Avalanche. Avalanche???!!! Excuse me, but could anyone possibly think that name conveys a positive image of power and performance in a family sports utility vehicle? Am I the only one who finds a totally negative connotation immediately springing to mind instead, with shrieking winds, tons of cascading debris and relentless gravity all converging to leave a wasteland of death and destruction in their wake? What's next from Chevy, the Earthquake? The Volcano? The Monsoon? I mean, there are simply some words that are without any positive associations, and Avalanche is one of them believe me, and to name your product after them is just asking for trouble. Avalanche, indeed.

And so here we have come to the end of another short week at work, and everyone already knows what I think about those short weeks. However, I will say that since we have our new person in Purchasing, Hosanna, my weeks are certainly not as crazy as they used to be, which has been a great benefit not only to my sanity, such as it is, but even more so to my beleaguered co-workers, who had been urging me to take some time off as a “mental health day” for themselves. But now, thanks to the miracle of modern herbal supplements, not to mention Hosanna, I've been doing a creditable job of behaving like a normal person, which would have seemed laughable four months ago. The staff may not have welcomed me back from the "Mentally Disabled List" with open arms, but at least they don't still give me that same "deer in the headlights" look as before, so I'm hoping that I can put it all on the table and give it everything I've got. After all, this is not my first time at the rodeo.

Nice Work If You Can Get It

Hello World,

Happy Labor Day weekend! Now is the time that we honor the great proletariat spirit of the immortal Samuel L. Gompers, which seems to take the form of rampant retail sales, and which you would think would have the opposite effect from honoring the proletariat, by making all the retail employees work on a holiday that was designed to give them a day off. Oh well, I'm sure there's some logic in there somewhere, but it's too much work for me to figure it out, and this weekend, I'm determined to honor the spirit of Samuel L. Gompers by doing no work whatsoever. In fact, as soon as someone carries me outside to the hammock and gives me some lemonade, I can get on with the rest of my plans for the weekend.

Of course, anyone who's been watching the news can see how Tropical Depression Ernesto has been spoiling people's plans for a week already, and the word is that he's headed our way for the weekend. Frankly, I think there's enough depression around here as it is, without Ernesto to contend with, so you can be sure that I would be voting against his visit to our area. We all know that the climate puts no stock in the power of the ballot box, however, so our choices with the weather that comes our way is to like it or to lump it, and that's about all. We'll have to wait until Monday to see if the weather is not too inclement to fly the flags for Labor Day, or whether we will simply have to honor the holiday by showing the colors in our library and sun porch, which is where the flags stay until the time comes for them to be seen outdoors. On the other hand, putting out the flags might end up being just too much work, and I'm determined to rest from my labors this weekend and not do any work, so all of those union organizers will not have died in vain. And thank you, Samuel L. Gompers.

Earlier in the week, I bumped into our Pharmacy Director, Tom, in the hallway, and he asked me if I was all set for Halloween this year. I said that I was in the process of gathering the costume parts and accessories that I would need, but I was mostly all set already. Tom, who we always refer to as "Father Bob" for obscure reasons, has always been a big fan of my costumes, and a great audience for whatever I come up with, so I never miss going to the Pharmacy on Halloween, even though it's a waste of time to trick-or-treat there. (And unlike the weasels in the Storeroom, he doesn't hound me every year to dress up -- or NOT -- as Lady Godiva.) Anyway, he said his suggestion for me this year would be to come as Finance or Human Resources, but I said that I had already been the Devil. (Oh, hit that easy target!) Oh no, he said, he meant as The Invisible Man. I laughed.

Anyone who's been to the hospital's web site lately (feel free to visit us at www.soundshore.org and see for yourself) would have noticed that we recently received the 2006 Hospital of Choice award from the American Alliance of Healthcare Providers, as well as designations as a Center of Excellence in Ante-Partum Testing, Bariatric surgery and Stroke treatment. In fact, we have one of just two Hospital of Choice awards in all of New York State, and only 40 nationwide, including the Mayo Clinic, of all places. Anyone could see how something like this could go right to our heads, but our fearless administrators refused to be daunted. They sent out a memo congratulating all of us, and I'm covered with kudos to prove it (or perhaps I'm thinking of cooties instead, I get so confused with these technical medical terms) and invited us all to the SSMC Celebrates Excellence Barbecue on Thursday. Just like at church, all you have to do to draw a crowd at work is to serve food, so the visitor parking lot was packed with kudo-covered staff on Thursday, scarfing down hamburgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob and watermelon like it was going out of style. I wasn't about to miss it, because last year when we won some award and they threw a barbecue for the staff, they gave out T-shirts, and there's no such thing as too many T-shirts, I always say. (Actually, nobody in their right mind would ever say that, but it was still a nice enough T-shirt in any event.) People who turned up hoping for another T-shirt would have gone away disappointed, however, since the party favor of the clambake this year was a handy apron instead. I thought it was nice as a change of pace, and glad to get it. I'm using mine to keep the cooties off.

I stopped off at church in the middle of the week to leave some things in the office, and when I was standing in the Narthex, I heard the unmistakable sounds of a small electric motor kicking into motion. "By golly," I thought to myself, "someone has gone ahead and plugged in the darned water cooler after all this time." Mind you, this would be no mean feat, because right now, the cooler has been stuffed all the way at the far end of the Narthex, in between the coat rack and the umbrella stand, where there's no place to put anything, and certainly no electricity to speak of. But our janitor, whose name is Malcolm, although everyone in the world calls him Mel, had become increasingly apoplectic over the idea of the unplugged cooler, taking up valuable floor space and acting as a warm water dispenser, and for what he considered no good reason. So I have the feeling that he simply took matters into his own hands, and snaked an extension cord up the stairs behind the coat rack and into the carillon tower, and plugged it into the light socket over the door into the balcony. There was certainly no mistaking the sound of the little motor cycling on and off, chugging along happily and keeping the bottled water nicely chilled. In fact, if there had been any cups nearby, I could have helped myself to a nice drink of cold water right then and there. Of course, we keep the cups all the way the blazes downstairs in the fellowship hall, which is where the cooler started out in the first place, and at this rate, it's just a matter of time before Mel either moves the cooler back there, or brings the cups upstairs to join it in the Narthex. Mel worships at the Altar of Logic, and he simply can't abide things that make no sense, and that's all there is to it.

While we're on the subject of things that make no sense, we have the voting for Most Valuable Player in major league baseball. The announcers for the New York Mets feel that they have a legitimate MVP candidate in Carlos Beltran, and on the face of it, his numbers for the season are impressive. Of course, the same could also be said for Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals and Ryan Howard of the Philadelphia Phillies, plus a few other more long-shot contenders for the award. The analysts on the pre-game show were discussing the pros and cons of all the players under consideration, and how they might fare in the voting by the sportswriters. To them, the crux of the matter was whether a player was the most valuable to his own individual team, or instead, someone with the best individual statistics of the league overall. For instance, they expected Beltran to be slighted by the voters, because his team was running away with its division since Opening Day, and he was just one of many great players contributing to their success. On the other hand, they also felt that a stand-out player on a last place team would not get proper consideration, since his contributions were not enough to keep the team out of the basement, thus calling into question how valuable he was to them after all. I said to Bill that this MVP voting was turning into a textbook example of a double-edged sword, where you couldn't win if you were on a team that was too successful, and you couldn't win if you were on a team that was too unsuccessful, in spite of your accomplishments, which would seem to fly in the face of the whole concept of the Most Valuable Player. The result is that this pretty much narrows down the field to players on .500 teams that are in the thick of pennant races and fighting for their playoff lives with a shot at the wild card. That being the case, I'm proposing that they change the name of the award to the Wild Card .500, so the players with better stats on first-place teams and last-place teams don't feel rejected.

I don't know about anyone else, but I would have to ask myself the musical question, "What's not to love about a car called the Tango?" You'll be doing us all a favor if you visit their web site at www.commutercars.com and see for yourself. They claim this is The World's Fastest Urban Transportation, that has the maneuverability of a motorcycle, but safe and dry with cargo space. It sports the requisite four wheels and carries almost 2,000 pounds of batteries, making it highly stable for its size. Its looks are indescribable, since its actual dimensions are about 100 inches long by 40 inches wide and 60 inches high, or about as far from "car-like" as you can get and still have 4 wheels and doors. It can reach speeds of 130 miles per hour and travel distances up to 80 miles before recharging the batteries. The company loves the idea that these cars can drive two-abreast in regular highway lanes, as motorcycles do, and can also park sideways in one shared parking spot, or park in odd left-over spaces between cars, next to buildings or unused corners of lots everywhere. With its economical lead-acid batteries, it costs just pennies per mile to operate, and provides an alternative to foreign petroleum dependence. It seems to come in racy red as well as basic black, and for everyone who is wondering what's not to love about this automotive innovation, well, wonder no more. The T600 carbon-fiber model costs $108,000.00 (that's not a typo) and believe it or not, comes as a kit that you have to assemble yourself. (!!!) They assure me that it is easily assembled in less than 8 hours, although they also advise me to check into my state and federal laws about registering a kit car, which involves applying for a vehicle identification number and having the car inspected in order to receive a title for it. Oh well, they had me up until those last two things, anyway, and I still think it's a car that you have to love, even if the only people who could afford it would never want one, and vice versa. Of course, if I had one, I'd enter it in the Wild Card .500, and keep the award all to myself. As long as it didn't come with cooties.