Panty Raids
Hello World,
Greetings, salutations and felicitations for you and yours, in your scenic and wonderful neck of the woods from our little corner of paradise, and I hope that 2007 has been treating you well so far. Of course, it does no good to complain, because apparently no one is in charge of these things, as we have learned to our chagrin, lo these many long years gone by and then some. Personally, I think all new years should come with some sort of warranty protection, just like every other new thing, and you should be able to return them if they turn out to be defective, and not be saddled with the thing for a whole year, after it's already shown its true colors. In fact, if they had the Federal Calendar Genome Project, then people could “pre-order” the type of year that they would like, based on certain features that they would like to include, or exclude, of their preferences. Of course, everyone knows that I would be in the market for a year with no Daylight Saving Time, and good riddance.
So here we are, already at the second week in January, believe that or don't, and because they pushed back the SuperBowl to February, we're still in the preliminary stages of the professional football playoffs. Alas, there is no joy in Mudville (honestly, does anyone else remember that besides me any more?) as the New York Jets were eliminated from the wild card playoffs by their arch rivals, the New England Patriots, while the New York Giants followed suit soon after, at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles. (They managed to do this without Donovan McNabb, who as you know from a previous note, was identified by a local radio personality as playing for the Phillies, which must have surprised baseball fans everywhere.) The Jets had a surprisingly successful year under their new head coach, and although their departure out of the playoff picture was much sooner than they might have hoped for, I'm sure they packed their bags and headed for home with a sense of satisfaction and the optimistic cry of “Wait until next year!” upon their lips. Meanwhile, the Giants decided not to wait until next year, and they already got a jump on losing next season also, when they not only renewed the contract of their wretched head coach, but gave him an extension for the year after that as well. So I guess we can count on seeing the Giants out of the playoffs until at least 2009, which is probably just as well, so that the Jets can enjoy having the media spotlight all to themselves for a while. Go, Gang Green!
Of course, being practically the middle of January already, everyone realizes that we are inching ever and ever closer to those three most beautiful words in the English language: Pitchers and Catchers. In fact, Bill said that there's a sign outside of Yankee Stadium that counts down the days to the return of the Boys of Summer, and earlier in the week, it said 36 days. Hallelujah! Now, this is my idea of good news, why the heck isn't this on the front page of the newspaper, instead of blizzards and bombings and Britney Spears without her underpants? I mean, there's only so much bad news that people can take, and then you've got to give them some reason to keep on living, and I figure the crack of a bat on a ball within the next few weeks should do the trick. No, don't thank me. I consider it a public service to spread good news whenever I can. Of course, you know what I say: If January is here, can Arena Football be far behind? I think not!
Everyone knows how Bill loves a research challenge, and the new year is not just going to sneak up on him and get away with anything, not on his watch anyway, so we have him to thank for the following seasonal tidbit:
=========================================
On one of my visits to Wikipedia. I started at Auld Lang Syne (which they insist is pronounced "sign," not "zine") and wandered through Hogmany (Scots' New Years celebration) and even made a quick detour to Flies Cemetery (which is a pastry filled with raisins and the name is a joke -- the raisins are the "flies" buried in the "cemetery" of pastry!) Anyway, the following section held such oddities that I had to copy it out and send it:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Auld Lang Syne" is usually sung each year on New Year's Eve (Hogmanay in Scotland) in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and English speaking Canada at midnight and signifies the start of a new year. In the United Kingdom, it is played at the close of the annual Congress (conference) of the Trades Union Congress. Also, in many Burns Clubs, it is sung to end the Burns supper.
It is used as a graduation song and a funeral song in Taiwan, symbolizing an end or a goodbye. In Japan, too, it is used in graduation, and many stores play it to usher customers out at the end of a business day. Before the composition of Aegukga, the lyrics of Korea's national anthem were sung to the tune of this song. In the Indian Armed Forces the band plays this song during the passing out parade of the recruits.
In the Philippines, it is well known and sung at celebrations like graduations, New Year and Christmas Day. Also, before 1972, it was the tune for the Gaumii salaam anthem of The Maldives (with the current words).
In Portugal, France, Spain and Germany this song is used to mark a farewell. It is also used in the Scout movement for the same purpose, but with lyrics that are a little different.
It has also been used on other occasions as a farewell. One occasion that falls in this category was in October 2000, when the body of former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau left Parliament Hill in Ottawa for the last time, going to Montreal for the state funeral.
The song is also the official corps song for the Kilties drum and bugle corps.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Playing people out of Japanese department stores? The national anthem of Korea? The Gaummii salaam??!! This is great stuff!
=========================================
Well, so there you have it and I guess we all learned something new. So if one of your New Year's resolutions for 2007 was to learn something new every day, there's one thing that you can cross off your list for today. You're entirely welcome, I'm sure.
Last Saturday, the local temperature set a new record of 70 degrees for the day, which is going way above and beyond “unseasonable” into a whole new category. And with blizzards in the Midwest, people must really be wondering what the heck is going on around here with this darned weather. We happened to be off visiting my Mom at the time, and we got ourselves some sandwiches and drinks at the deli, which we enjoyed at a nearby park, sitting at some handy picnic tables in the sun, and watching the locals indulging in their favorite pastimes of tennis, basketball, paddle-ball and more. It was beautiful and balmy, and a rare treat for the beginning of January in these parts. Of course, everyone knows that I always say, when it's warm in December, you can count on snow in April, so don't say I didn't warn you. We'll be wearing parkas and winter boots at Easter, and nobody will be glad then that it was so nice and warm four months ago at Christmas, you can just mark my words.
Speaking of Christmas, since it was so warm over the weekend, it seemed the perfect time to take in the outdoor decorations, unlike other years when I've had to chop the wreaths out of the ice around the porch lions, and dig through piles of snow to retrieve the red and green plastic covers for the yard lights. This was way better. Bill, who is not always recognized for his Herculean efforts but should be, took all of the lights off the tree and managed to wrestle it outside without loss of life or limb, which is not an accomplishment to be scoffed at, especially with the size of the tree and its unpredictable tottering tendencies. It should be in the backyard now, laying down by the compost, until I'm ready to remove the branches and add it to the firewood rack. But since the time that we stood it up in the living room, only to find it falling down on its own, frankly, I'm afraid to look at it in the backyard where it's supposed to be laying down, and find that it's decided to stand up instead. There are some things, like Britney Spears' underpants, that we're better off just being blissfully unaware of.
And while we're on the subject of the Christmas tree, we happened to uncover an interesting occurrence that we were heretofore not privy to, before this season of holiday jollity and jingle all the way. Now, the invisible cats have been living with us long enough at this point, that we have long since given up on the idea of trying to figure out what they're thinking, and not for lack of trying. Unlike real cats, the invisible cats seem to have no sense of curiosity or playfulness, and they appear to have no interest in anything that we do, or have around the house, for the most part. In the beginning, it surprised me that we could lug a 10-foot evergreen into the house and stand it up in the living room, to the bored indifference of the resident felines. We were used to house cats, who found the tree an irresistible delight, whereas stray cats are more of the “take it or leave it” frame of mind. Every year, we would put the tree up, and the strays wouldn't even glance in its direction, presumably because they had already seen plenty of trees outdoors and found them wanting as objects of interest. But since I moved my desk and my computer cart into the living room last January, I've been spending much more time in there than before, and so it came to pass that in the evenings, I couldn't help but notice that two of our most invisibles, Coco and Captain Midnight, would come out of their hiding places and sit under the tree after dinner. They didn't sniff at it, or try to climb it, or even curl up in the downy softness of the cotton batting making snow-like mounds in the village under the tree, like normal cats. (I have to point out that this last one was mostly because there is no village under the tree with mounds of cotton batting to curl up in.) But there they were every night, and don't think that I don't have plenty of dark and blurry pictures to prove it. They would just sit right there, under its protective canopy of branches, just as happy as, well, invisible cats under a pine tree. In fact, it occurred to me that this may have been going on for years, without us being in the living room at night to see it. And the funny thing of it is that all this week, when I've come downstairs after dinner, here are the two of them still in the same spot on the living room rug, just as if the tree is still there, which it hasn't been since Sunday afternoon. I can still see the indentation of the tree stand in the carpet, and one of the cats sits on one side of it, and the other cat sits on another side, just like they did before, only now they're wide out in the open, and obviously not caring for it all that much. In fact, it must be said that they've been glaring at me with a glowering expression in their steely gaze as the chief villain in The Great Christmas Tree Heist, no doubt wondering what other purloined objects I might have swiped recently. Honest, I was nowhere near Britney Spears' underpants!
Greetings, salutations and felicitations for you and yours, in your scenic and wonderful neck of the woods from our little corner of paradise, and I hope that 2007 has been treating you well so far. Of course, it does no good to complain, because apparently no one is in charge of these things, as we have learned to our chagrin, lo these many long years gone by and then some. Personally, I think all new years should come with some sort of warranty protection, just like every other new thing, and you should be able to return them if they turn out to be defective, and not be saddled with the thing for a whole year, after it's already shown its true colors. In fact, if they had the Federal Calendar Genome Project, then people could “pre-order” the type of year that they would like, based on certain features that they would like to include, or exclude, of their preferences. Of course, everyone knows that I would be in the market for a year with no Daylight Saving Time, and good riddance.
So here we are, already at the second week in January, believe that or don't, and because they pushed back the SuperBowl to February, we're still in the preliminary stages of the professional football playoffs. Alas, there is no joy in Mudville (honestly, does anyone else remember that besides me any more?) as the New York Jets were eliminated from the wild card playoffs by their arch rivals, the New England Patriots, while the New York Giants followed suit soon after, at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles. (They managed to do this without Donovan McNabb, who as you know from a previous note, was identified by a local radio personality as playing for the Phillies, which must have surprised baseball fans everywhere.) The Jets had a surprisingly successful year under their new head coach, and although their departure out of the playoff picture was much sooner than they might have hoped for, I'm sure they packed their bags and headed for home with a sense of satisfaction and the optimistic cry of “Wait until next year!” upon their lips. Meanwhile, the Giants decided not to wait until next year, and they already got a jump on losing next season also, when they not only renewed the contract of their wretched head coach, but gave him an extension for the year after that as well. So I guess we can count on seeing the Giants out of the playoffs until at least 2009, which is probably just as well, so that the Jets can enjoy having the media spotlight all to themselves for a while. Go, Gang Green!
Of course, being practically the middle of January already, everyone realizes that we are inching ever and ever closer to those three most beautiful words in the English language: Pitchers and Catchers. In fact, Bill said that there's a sign outside of Yankee Stadium that counts down the days to the return of the Boys of Summer, and earlier in the week, it said 36 days. Hallelujah! Now, this is my idea of good news, why the heck isn't this on the front page of the newspaper, instead of blizzards and bombings and Britney Spears without her underpants? I mean, there's only so much bad news that people can take, and then you've got to give them some reason to keep on living, and I figure the crack of a bat on a ball within the next few weeks should do the trick. No, don't thank me. I consider it a public service to spread good news whenever I can. Of course, you know what I say: If January is here, can Arena Football be far behind? I think not!
Everyone knows how Bill loves a research challenge, and the new year is not just going to sneak up on him and get away with anything, not on his watch anyway, so we have him to thank for the following seasonal tidbit:
=========================================
On one of my visits to Wikipedia. I started at Auld Lang Syne (which they insist is pronounced "sign," not "zine") and wandered through Hogmany (Scots' New Years celebration) and even made a quick detour to Flies Cemetery (which is a pastry filled with raisins and the name is a joke -- the raisins are the "flies" buried in the "cemetery" of pastry!) Anyway, the following section held such oddities that I had to copy it out and send it:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Auld Lang Syne" is usually sung each year on New Year's Eve (Hogmanay in Scotland) in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and English speaking Canada at midnight and signifies the start of a new year. In the United Kingdom, it is played at the close of the annual Congress (conference) of the Trades Union Congress. Also, in many Burns Clubs, it is sung to end the Burns supper.
It is used as a graduation song and a funeral song in Taiwan, symbolizing an end or a goodbye. In Japan, too, it is used in graduation, and many stores play it to usher customers out at the end of a business day. Before the composition of Aegukga, the lyrics of Korea's national anthem were sung to the tune of this song. In the Indian Armed Forces the band plays this song during the passing out parade of the recruits.
In the Philippines, it is well known and sung at celebrations like graduations, New Year and Christmas Day. Also, before 1972, it was the tune for the Gaumii salaam anthem of The Maldives (with the current words).
In Portugal, France, Spain and Germany this song is used to mark a farewell. It is also used in the Scout movement for the same purpose, but with lyrics that are a little different.
It has also been used on other occasions as a farewell. One occasion that falls in this category was in October 2000, when the body of former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau left Parliament Hill in Ottawa for the last time, going to Montreal for the state funeral.
The song is also the official corps song for the Kilties drum and bugle corps.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Playing people out of Japanese department stores? The national anthem of Korea? The Gaummii salaam??!! This is great stuff!
=========================================
Well, so there you have it and I guess we all learned something new. So if one of your New Year's resolutions for 2007 was to learn something new every day, there's one thing that you can cross off your list for today. You're entirely welcome, I'm sure.
Last Saturday, the local temperature set a new record of 70 degrees for the day, which is going way above and beyond “unseasonable” into a whole new category. And with blizzards in the Midwest, people must really be wondering what the heck is going on around here with this darned weather. We happened to be off visiting my Mom at the time, and we got ourselves some sandwiches and drinks at the deli, which we enjoyed at a nearby park, sitting at some handy picnic tables in the sun, and watching the locals indulging in their favorite pastimes of tennis, basketball, paddle-ball and more. It was beautiful and balmy, and a rare treat for the beginning of January in these parts. Of course, everyone knows that I always say, when it's warm in December, you can count on snow in April, so don't say I didn't warn you. We'll be wearing parkas and winter boots at Easter, and nobody will be glad then that it was so nice and warm four months ago at Christmas, you can just mark my words.
Speaking of Christmas, since it was so warm over the weekend, it seemed the perfect time to take in the outdoor decorations, unlike other years when I've had to chop the wreaths out of the ice around the porch lions, and dig through piles of snow to retrieve the red and green plastic covers for the yard lights. This was way better. Bill, who is not always recognized for his Herculean efforts but should be, took all of the lights off the tree and managed to wrestle it outside without loss of life or limb, which is not an accomplishment to be scoffed at, especially with the size of the tree and its unpredictable tottering tendencies. It should be in the backyard now, laying down by the compost, until I'm ready to remove the branches and add it to the firewood rack. But since the time that we stood it up in the living room, only to find it falling down on its own, frankly, I'm afraid to look at it in the backyard where it's supposed to be laying down, and find that it's decided to stand up instead. There are some things, like Britney Spears' underpants, that we're better off just being blissfully unaware of.
And while we're on the subject of the Christmas tree, we happened to uncover an interesting occurrence that we were heretofore not privy to, before this season of holiday jollity and jingle all the way. Now, the invisible cats have been living with us long enough at this point, that we have long since given up on the idea of trying to figure out what they're thinking, and not for lack of trying. Unlike real cats, the invisible cats seem to have no sense of curiosity or playfulness, and they appear to have no interest in anything that we do, or have around the house, for the most part. In the beginning, it surprised me that we could lug a 10-foot evergreen into the house and stand it up in the living room, to the bored indifference of the resident felines. We were used to house cats, who found the tree an irresistible delight, whereas stray cats are more of the “take it or leave it” frame of mind. Every year, we would put the tree up, and the strays wouldn't even glance in its direction, presumably because they had already seen plenty of trees outdoors and found them wanting as objects of interest. But since I moved my desk and my computer cart into the living room last January, I've been spending much more time in there than before, and so it came to pass that in the evenings, I couldn't help but notice that two of our most invisibles, Coco and Captain Midnight, would come out of their hiding places and sit under the tree after dinner. They didn't sniff at it, or try to climb it, or even curl up in the downy softness of the cotton batting making snow-like mounds in the village under the tree, like normal cats. (I have to point out that this last one was mostly because there is no village under the tree with mounds of cotton batting to curl up in.) But there they were every night, and don't think that I don't have plenty of dark and blurry pictures to prove it. They would just sit right there, under its protective canopy of branches, just as happy as, well, invisible cats under a pine tree. In fact, it occurred to me that this may have been going on for years, without us being in the living room at night to see it. And the funny thing of it is that all this week, when I've come downstairs after dinner, here are the two of them still in the same spot on the living room rug, just as if the tree is still there, which it hasn't been since Sunday afternoon. I can still see the indentation of the tree stand in the carpet, and one of the cats sits on one side of it, and the other cat sits on another side, just like they did before, only now they're wide out in the open, and obviously not caring for it all that much. In fact, it must be said that they've been glaring at me with a glowering expression in their steely gaze as the chief villain in The Great Christmas Tree Heist, no doubt wondering what other purloined objects I might have swiped recently. Honest, I was nowhere near Britney Spears' underpants!
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 7:08 PM
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