Fielder's Choice
Hello World,
Howdy, Pilgrim! Although around here, the weather does not seem to be cooperating, all other indications point to that time of year when families everywhere can look forward to a visit from Mr. Tom Turkey and all the trimmings. For weeks, the newspapers and magazines have been stuffed (you should pardon the expression) with recipes for those traditional holiday favorites, such as turkey kabobs, cranberry salsa and sweet potato chowder. Now, just hold on a minute there! I tell you, these are challenging times for us hide-bound traditionalists out here. Next thing you know, we'll be having mashed potato pizza with fried stuffing fingers, and then where will we be? Turkey kabobs, indeed.
Earlier in the month, we were joined by our friends from up north, who wanted to take a second swing at the seasonal offerings at Fortunoff's, since the previous time they visited, it was too early for that, as impossible as it might sound, but there you have it. When they first opened the new Fortunoff's in White Plains several years ago, their Trim-A-Tree department was something to behold, spreading out in every direction with a veritable cornucopia of unusual and distinctive holiday decorations. Our favorite part was the abundance of spectacular and intricately designed dioramas in display cases, which included a model train running through a landscape of Victorian England, vintage New York City, New England seashore, country villages or amusement parks by turns, and featuring wonderfully animated shops, houses, rides, theaters, skating ponds, churches, farms, town squares, toy stores and many other seasonal attractions. It was worth a trip, and we were glad that we caught its inaugural season. In the years since, we have found the department has not been decked out quite so elaborately, and this year there were practically no dioramas to speak of, which we sorely missed. Some of us (who shall remain nameless, but who look a lot like me) managed to console ourselves by spending outrageous amounts of money on things that we certainly didn't need any more of, and anyone who collects things will know exactly what I mean.
After that, it was off to our new favorite hotel, the Renaissance, where we all stayed recently and had a wonderful time. This was no different, and we were pleased with our accommodations, and the breakfast buffet, which is out of this world. Early in the morning, we hurried downstairs for a dip in the pool, as well as the Jacuzzi, and even availed ourselves of the hiking trail that winds through the bucolic woods behind the hotel. After we checked out, we decided to go some place we had never been before, since it is new to White Plains and is called the City Center right in the heart of downtown. It has wide-ranging offerings from all the major retail groups, including food chains, banks, clothing stores, discount stores, book stores, movies and more. Unlike most malls which tend to sprawl outward, this has a more vertical design, so that the movies and food court are on the third floor, while Target is two floors below ground level. It's done in a very interesting way, and because it's so new, everything is clean and fresh, with wonderful murals and artwork throughout. Later in the day, when we were in the mood for a snack, we discovered Cold Stone, which is a locally famous ice cream parlor, where they take their own homemade basic ice cream and blend in the flavors you choose, on a cold stone slab right in front of you. It's highly entertaining, and you can believe me when I say that the banana almond caramel is worth the trip all by itself. In fact, I'm pretty sure that our friends left at some point around then, but I was still eating my ice cream, so I didn't really notice.
Alert readers may be wondering what is new and exciting in the wonderful world of sports these days. Well may you ask! Anyone who had been watching the New York Mets playing at home at all earlier in the year, would have had no trouble seeing that the parking lot just beyond the bullpen at Shea Stadium was being systematically chopped up by a motley assortment of heavy equipment and a bevy of construction workers in hard hats. This went on for months and months in plain view of everyone, and in fact, the announcers routinely mentioned this disruption in the parking situation when encouraging people to use mass transit instead of driving to attend home games. Frankly, if this was supposed to be a secret, it was about the worst kept secret since the Earth was flat. (It's not.) So you can imagine our surprise when we saw a story in the sports section of our local paper announcing the groundbreaking ceremony for the new $600 million ballpark, featuring the Mets ownership, politicians and financiers. I certainly hope that no one fell in that gaping hole in the ground that has been there for the past 6 months ahead of this so-called groundbreaking ceremony, and I don't mind saying a misnomer if ever there was one, because that would really be hard to explain to anyone. They also let slip the interesting tidbit that the new ballpark, which is set to open for play in 2009 and is supposed to look like the old Ebbets Field, will be calling itself Citi Field, as a result of Citigroup Inc. paying the Mets $20M each year for 20 years in exchange for the naming rights. I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that the Viagra people couldn't come up with twenty million dollars for twenty years, or even worse, Port-A-Potty. "Say fans, get behind your team and watch the Mets kick some butt at the Port-A-Potty Bowl in Flushing!" The mind reels.
People who are not geography challenged may not relate to this, but I had a humbling experience earlier in the week when a cyber-friend sent me a link to something called GeoQuiz (and by all means, please feel free to visit their web site at www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz and see for yourself) where you can test your knowledge of the modern world. Or, if you're a moron like me, what you end up doing instead of testing your knowledge is confirming your ignorance, which if I wasn't already taking a variety of mood-enhancing drugs, I would tend to find pretty depressing, thank you very much not. I started in Europe, where I figured I would have about the best chance, since I know practically nothing about Africa, and I knew if they asked me one question about Australia, I already wouldn't know the answer. So they show you all the European countries nestled together cheek by jowl, as they are, and in different colors (which they aren't in real life, by the way) and then they tell you to go ahead and click on the one that you think is Slovenia. So you click on something to the right of Italy, and it tells you, no that's Slovakia, try again. So you click on something different even farther to the right, and that turns out to be Ukraine. So then it feels sorry for you, and asks you to try to find The Netherlands instead, which only goes to prove that you can find Norway, Sweden and Finland, but somehow The Netherlands continue to elude you, that is, if you're an idiot like me. Then it really must have taken pity on me, and lobbed me a few fat ones, so that I could at least demonstrate that I knew where to find France, Spain, Portugal, England, Ireland, Greenland and Poland. After that, it asked me to locate Moldova, and at that point, I just had to throw in the towel and splutter, "Okay, now you're just making this stuff up!" Moldova, indeed.
Meanwhile at work, there must have been some sort of a major slip-up somewhere, because it was impossible not to notice that all of a sudden this week, the toilet paper in the ladies room was way too soft. This was in stark contrast to our regular "prison-grade" material with the wood chips still in it, which I have the feeling is distributed under the trade name of Scratchex, and lives up to its name and then some. Our Housekeeping department at the hospital is out-sourced and buys its own supplies, we don't do that in Purchasing, so we have no way of knowing how this monumental blunder could have occurred. But I would expect there to be wholesale employee ousters as the management company, you should pardon the pun, gets to the bottom of this. Of course, they'd have to do it at the Port-A-Potty Bowl in Flushing, but that goes without saying.
Howdy, Pilgrim! Although around here, the weather does not seem to be cooperating, all other indications point to that time of year when families everywhere can look forward to a visit from Mr. Tom Turkey and all the trimmings. For weeks, the newspapers and magazines have been stuffed (you should pardon the expression) with recipes for those traditional holiday favorites, such as turkey kabobs, cranberry salsa and sweet potato chowder. Now, just hold on a minute there! I tell you, these are challenging times for us hide-bound traditionalists out here. Next thing you know, we'll be having mashed potato pizza with fried stuffing fingers, and then where will we be? Turkey kabobs, indeed.
Earlier in the month, we were joined by our friends from up north, who wanted to take a second swing at the seasonal offerings at Fortunoff's, since the previous time they visited, it was too early for that, as impossible as it might sound, but there you have it. When they first opened the new Fortunoff's in White Plains several years ago, their Trim-A-Tree department was something to behold, spreading out in every direction with a veritable cornucopia of unusual and distinctive holiday decorations. Our favorite part was the abundance of spectacular and intricately designed dioramas in display cases, which included a model train running through a landscape of Victorian England, vintage New York City, New England seashore, country villages or amusement parks by turns, and featuring wonderfully animated shops, houses, rides, theaters, skating ponds, churches, farms, town squares, toy stores and many other seasonal attractions. It was worth a trip, and we were glad that we caught its inaugural season. In the years since, we have found the department has not been decked out quite so elaborately, and this year there were practically no dioramas to speak of, which we sorely missed. Some of us (who shall remain nameless, but who look a lot like me) managed to console ourselves by spending outrageous amounts of money on things that we certainly didn't need any more of, and anyone who collects things will know exactly what I mean.
After that, it was off to our new favorite hotel, the Renaissance, where we all stayed recently and had a wonderful time. This was no different, and we were pleased with our accommodations, and the breakfast buffet, which is out of this world. Early in the morning, we hurried downstairs for a dip in the pool, as well as the Jacuzzi, and even availed ourselves of the hiking trail that winds through the bucolic woods behind the hotel. After we checked out, we decided to go some place we had never been before, since it is new to White Plains and is called the City Center right in the heart of downtown. It has wide-ranging offerings from all the major retail groups, including food chains, banks, clothing stores, discount stores, book stores, movies and more. Unlike most malls which tend to sprawl outward, this has a more vertical design, so that the movies and food court are on the third floor, while Target is two floors below ground level. It's done in a very interesting way, and because it's so new, everything is clean and fresh, with wonderful murals and artwork throughout. Later in the day, when we were in the mood for a snack, we discovered Cold Stone, which is a locally famous ice cream parlor, where they take their own homemade basic ice cream and blend in the flavors you choose, on a cold stone slab right in front of you. It's highly entertaining, and you can believe me when I say that the banana almond caramel is worth the trip all by itself. In fact, I'm pretty sure that our friends left at some point around then, but I was still eating my ice cream, so I didn't really notice.
Alert readers may be wondering what is new and exciting in the wonderful world of sports these days. Well may you ask! Anyone who had been watching the New York Mets playing at home at all earlier in the year, would have had no trouble seeing that the parking lot just beyond the bullpen at Shea Stadium was being systematically chopped up by a motley assortment of heavy equipment and a bevy of construction workers in hard hats. This went on for months and months in plain view of everyone, and in fact, the announcers routinely mentioned this disruption in the parking situation when encouraging people to use mass transit instead of driving to attend home games. Frankly, if this was supposed to be a secret, it was about the worst kept secret since the Earth was flat. (It's not.) So you can imagine our surprise when we saw a story in the sports section of our local paper announcing the groundbreaking ceremony for the new $600 million ballpark, featuring the Mets ownership, politicians and financiers. I certainly hope that no one fell in that gaping hole in the ground that has been there for the past 6 months ahead of this so-called groundbreaking ceremony, and I don't mind saying a misnomer if ever there was one, because that would really be hard to explain to anyone. They also let slip the interesting tidbit that the new ballpark, which is set to open for play in 2009 and is supposed to look like the old Ebbets Field, will be calling itself Citi Field, as a result of Citigroup Inc. paying the Mets $20M each year for 20 years in exchange for the naming rights. I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that the Viagra people couldn't come up with twenty million dollars for twenty years, or even worse, Port-A-Potty. "Say fans, get behind your team and watch the Mets kick some butt at the Port-A-Potty Bowl in Flushing!" The mind reels.
People who are not geography challenged may not relate to this, but I had a humbling experience earlier in the week when a cyber-friend sent me a link to something called GeoQuiz (and by all means, please feel free to visit their web site at www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz and see for yourself) where you can test your knowledge of the modern world. Or, if you're a moron like me, what you end up doing instead of testing your knowledge is confirming your ignorance, which if I wasn't already taking a variety of mood-enhancing drugs, I would tend to find pretty depressing, thank you very much not. I started in Europe, where I figured I would have about the best chance, since I know practically nothing about Africa, and I knew if they asked me one question about Australia, I already wouldn't know the answer. So they show you all the European countries nestled together cheek by jowl, as they are, and in different colors (which they aren't in real life, by the way) and then they tell you to go ahead and click on the one that you think is Slovenia. So you click on something to the right of Italy, and it tells you, no that's Slovakia, try again. So you click on something different even farther to the right, and that turns out to be Ukraine. So then it feels sorry for you, and asks you to try to find The Netherlands instead, which only goes to prove that you can find Norway, Sweden and Finland, but somehow The Netherlands continue to elude you, that is, if you're an idiot like me. Then it really must have taken pity on me, and lobbed me a few fat ones, so that I could at least demonstrate that I knew where to find France, Spain, Portugal, England, Ireland, Greenland and Poland. After that, it asked me to locate Moldova, and at that point, I just had to throw in the towel and splutter, "Okay, now you're just making this stuff up!" Moldova, indeed.
Meanwhile at work, there must have been some sort of a major slip-up somewhere, because it was impossible not to notice that all of a sudden this week, the toilet paper in the ladies room was way too soft. This was in stark contrast to our regular "prison-grade" material with the wood chips still in it, which I have the feeling is distributed under the trade name of Scratchex, and lives up to its name and then some. Our Housekeeping department at the hospital is out-sourced and buys its own supplies, we don't do that in Purchasing, so we have no way of knowing how this monumental blunder could have occurred. But I would expect there to be wholesale employee ousters as the management company, you should pardon the pun, gets to the bottom of this. Of course, they'd have to do it at the Port-A-Potty Bowl in Flushing, but that goes without saying.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 7:55 PM
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