E.T., Phone Home

Hello World,

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! I hope that you've already got plans afoot for a rip-roaring, razzle-dazzle, rootin-tootin' red, white and blue blowout of a holiday, and don't spare the bunting. (Now, there's an article of patriotic lore that's lost on young people nowadays.) Remember that Memorial Day weekend is not just the unofficial start of the summer season, or a time to take advantage of deep discounts on retail merchandise from clothes to cars. Let's all take more than a few moments to recognize the contributions of veterans past and present, from sea to shining sea, for the land of the free and the home of the brave, amen. While you're at it, please feel free to go out and buy a new car. I'm sure the President's economic advisers and the oil companies would love you for it. They'd probably send you some bunting.

Around here, it seemed that every day this week was hotter than the day before, up until today, which was about 90 degrees, and felt every bit of it, believe me. I can never get used to 90 degree days in May, even though it happens often, it just seems much too early to me for that kind of intense heat. In fact, I was surprised that we didn't have thunderstorms along with it, because extreme temperatures and storms usually go hand-in-hand in this area. That hasn't happened yet, and I'm concerned that if the weather stays like this, everyone who goes to the beach over the weekend will find themselves burned to a crisp, and turning a shade of aubergine that is not found in nature. This would not be a pretty sight. So I urge anyone with plans to visit the beach this weekend to please take the proper precautions. That is to say, please stay home instead, preferably inside watching television with the air conditioning on. You know the dinosaurs and I always say that you can't be too careful in these dangerous times nowadays. The dinosaurs ought to know.

Earlier in the year (in fact, it was February 2nd for all of you finicky fuss-budgets out there, and don't think I don't know who you are!) Bill had a bone to pick with a jar of CVS Gold Premium Dry Roasted Peanuts, because the label included the following tidbit which can only be described charitably as an oxymoron: [[ ALLERGEN STATEMENT: CONTAINS PEANUTS. MAY CONTAIN CASHEWS, ALMONDS, BRAZIL NUTS, FILBERTS, PECANS, PISTACHIOS, MACADAMIA NUTS, WALNUTS, SOY (SOYBEANS), MILK, WHEAT. ]] In a perfect world, you wouldn't expect a jar of dry roasted peanuts to need an allergy statement to the effect that the product contains peanuts, but there you have it. As I always say, this is how we know that we haven't all died and gone to heaven, because things are not perfect. At any rate, I recently ended up with a jar of these very same CVS brand peanuts, and what I found most disturbing about them is the list of Ingredients:

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Peanuts, Salt, Maltodextrin,
Modified Food Starch, Torula Yeast,
Sorbitol, Paprika, Natural Flavor, Spices,
Garlic and Onion Powders, Dextrin,
Oleoresin of Paprika.
======================

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but the dinosaurs and I would say that's not your grandfather's dry roasted peanuts, not by a long shot! What the heck is that with the paprika and Sorbitol, for heaven's sake? Are they growing peanuts now with so little flavor that they're afraid people won't eat them if they don't season them first with garlic and onion powder? Whatever happened to the good old days when roasted peanuts had peanuts, salt and oil, and that was the end of it? I tell you, sometimes you just don't know what this old world is coming to, but I can tell you that no good can come of it.

Speaking of no good coming (oh, hit that easy target!) we were all surprised at work earlier in the week, when we looked up and found ourselves being visited by the surveyors from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, more or less out of the blue, and about as welcome as your average plague of locusts. Of course, these JCAHO inspectors come regularly every three years to all hospitals, but previously, they would release a schedule of when they would be at each institution, and everyone knew when to expect them. They recently changed that so that there's a general idea of when they might arrive (for instance, "spring") but not exactly when. This is obviously inconvenient for us, in terms of preparation, because it means that instead of everyone in management being berserk for a week before the survey, they're basically berserk for three months, not knowing exactly when it will happen. I don't know how other hospitals prepare for JCAHO, but for us it means canceling the vacations of anyone that needs to be on hand at the time (this would be anyone who can recite the mission statement, describe the evacuation plan, or explain how to use a fire extinguisher) and giving immediate furlough to all those employees whose only job seems to be drinking coffee and leaning against the wall in the corridors. Becasue the inspectors showed up without us expecting them, we had to step lively to line up all of our reciters, describers and explainers, and ditch all of the wall-huggers, not to mention, make everything vanish from the hallways, such as 20 skids of rock salt, broken hospital beds, and homeless people living in piles of empty cardboard boxes. Anyone in the neighborhood passing by would surely know that something was up, because in your whole life, you've never seen people planting flowers as fast as they can, all over the campus. In fact, I walked past the residence across from the lot where I park, and found that it had just gotten a brand new, small and decorative landscape element that I would refer to as a "JCAHO picket fence" on Tuesday, and today after they left, I noticed that it was gone. I expect by Tuesday, the rock salt and wall-huggers will be back in the hallways, and things will be back to normal for another three years. I'm going to miss all those flowers, though.

Speaking of flowers, I must say that for all the bad weather we've been having in these parts, whatever it's doing must agree with the wood hyacinths, because they are just busting out all over. We have waves of them in every color in the front flower beds, along the driveway, and all over the backyard. I don't know what it was, but there must have been some combination of meteorological conditions, or perhaps alignment of the planets, to make our wood hyacinths just put on a show to beat the band. Honestly, you'd think the JCAHO inspectors were coming here or something. (I'll be happy to explain how to use a fire extinguisher to anyone who wants to know.) In other landscape news, the time has surely come where I play the same game every year, messing with the minds of the sanitation crew. Every week, I put out three large trash cans full of twigs, leaves and other debris, and I know this must really make them scratch their heads and wonder, because every week, the yard looks exactly the same with no discernible improvement. Although Bill does a heroic job with the grass, everything that's not lawn is pretty much a lost cause and an exercise in futility, so playing with the sanitation crew is about the only thing that keeps me motivated. And I haven't even started on the rampant mutant alien poison ivy yet, God help us.

Meanwhile at work, the hospital is apparently getting a whole new telephone system, with all new phones, features and yes, even new numbers. (GADZOOKS!) The implementation for this system is actually next week, and of course, the employees are always the last to know, and in fact, only found out about it when we were invited to attend telephone training classes this week. The main switchboard number stays the same, but everything else changes, including the local exchange, and I can't imagine the wholesale disaster that is going to be after the cut-over. This system also has a handy feature that any voice mail messages that come in between Friday night on the old system to Monday morning on the new system will be summarily obliterated, with no possibility of recovery. Now, I don't mind saying that's the kind of voice mail system that I think we can all rally around. Mind you, it would be just my luck that Ed McMahon would pick that time to call, and want to drop off that big cardboard check, and I would miss out on it. After that, my only talent is explaining how to use a fire extinguisher, and I don't see that having the same sort of lucrative potential as Ed and the sweepstakes folk. So if anyone out there has any better ideas, I'd be happy to hear them. Just don't leave them in my voice mail.

I Remember Mama

Hello World,

Happy belated Mother's Day to all the Moms out there in our audience, as well as whatever mother figures that may be around us providing some much needed maternal guidance in our lives, and not to mention, making the world a better place. I hope whether you're a Mom, or have a Mom, or know a Mom, or just watch them on TV, that you had a holiday that was special and wonderful, and just brimming with treats for the matriarchs among us. Around here, the weather was nice enough, but brisk, and anyone taking their Mom out to the New Rochelle Post Office, for instance, would have had to hold onto her good and tight, or watch her being blown sideways all the way along North Avenue and into the bay. Of course, we're wise enough to know better, and wouldn't take that sort of risk with Mom, and luckily, she is the type of person who will just stay put and let the presents come to her, rather than chasing around after them. So she managed to stay out of danger on her special day, and I'm sure she was glad to see us, although it does seem that the appeal of her loved ones pales in comparison to a box of Mallomars, on a side-by-side basis. I console myself with the thought that she would probably like us just as much if we were covered in chocolate, but it's cold comfort.

That reminds me of the time last week that I was typing up a book report for what I refer to as "my book blog" (and please feel free to check it out at http://thebookreporter924.blogspot.com and see for yourself) and I inadvertently described one of the characters as "desplondent." The spell-checker didn't seem to think that was a word, but personally, I happen to love it. It sounds so utterly, exquisitely, explosively full of despair, like someone who is resplendently despondent, not just your average garden-variety despondency by any means. I defy the spell-checker to improve upon that, try as it might. And speaking of things that are resplendently despondent, many of us who had at one time bought hockey tickets through the New York Rangers web site, found a very touching video salute to the fans in our incoming email, just after the team had been eliminated from the playoffs. (Ottawa has been having better luck with the Sabres than we did, and I like to think it's because we softened Buffalo up for them, although that's small satisfaction now.) The fan tribute video was very well done, and positively reeked of genuine appreciation of the fan support for the team throughout the season and two rounds of the playoffs. Bill and I thought it was a very nice gesture on the part of the team ownership, but I have to say that it did make us feel more than a little desplondent. And don't forget, I just invented that word, so I ought to know.

Normally, this is the time that I would be telling everyone all the news and happenings at the 2007 Metro New York Synod Assembly, which is going on right this very minute, and practically right under our very noses, at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in scenic Huntington Station on Long Island. That is to say that I would be telling everyone what was going on there, except for the curious fact that I was summarily dis-invited to the Assembly by the powers-that-be at my church, and replaced by other people ostensibly more qualified to report on the activities. Well, I like that! (NOT!!!) Honestly, when I think back to the years that I toiled at these darned Assemblies far and wide, and under some of the most grueling conditions, when you couldn't get anyone else to go to one of them at gunpoint, and now all of a sudden, I get cut off without so much as a by-your-leave. I was the one freezing in the ballroom at the Rye Town Hilton. That was me choking down clammy box lunches in a tent the first time at St. Peters. It was yours truly being bored to tears at the Marriott in Melville, when 500 grouchy Lutherans spent an agonizing three hours arguing about prayer, of all things. And now after all that, I find myself cast off like an old shoe, unceremoniously tossed onto the trash heap of Assembly casualties over the years, my long years of yeoman service and heroic effort down the drain and long forgotten by a fickle public. Oh, the humanity! I don't mind saying that I am completely desplondent, and I hardly need to add, that I am unanimous in that.

Adding insult to injury, things had reached the point, as they often do, where I simply had to pay my bills or face the consequences. Of course, nobody wants to mail payments in for anything, now that stamps are so expensive, if that idea ever had any appeal, it's long since gone the way of the dinosaurs now, and I ought to know. On the other hand, you can't even drive there and drop off your payments in person, because the darned price of gas is just going through the roof, and shows no sign of slowing down. It had gotten to where even Luddites like me were saying to ourselves that we're going to have no other choice but to pay our bills online and lump it. Not so fast! I'm sure that you will all be relieved to find out, as I was, that in spite of my best efforts, the minions at Citibank were able to fend off all of my attempts to pay my credit card bill online, by successfully protecting my account from me, after a relationship with them that goes back to my high school days. So we can all rest assured that now the only people who will be able to easily gain access to my Citibank account are 13-year-old computer hackers and international terrorists, but not me, heaven forbid. Sometimes, the dinosaurs and I just have to wonder that this electronic commerce idea ever caught on, because so many companies, and not just Citibank believe me, seem to go out of their way to make it impossible for a normal person, much less a Luddite, to do any business with them. And here I'm thinking that they would want me to pay this bill (silly me!) and instead, they do everything they can to foil my plans. I'm at the point now where I figure if they want this money bad enough, they can come to me and get it. Let them pay the $3.35 a gallon to get here, or better yet, just send me a 13-year-old computer hacker to get me into my own account online. Call me crazy (don't you dare!) but it's no crazier than 41 cents for stamps, and it's a lot less crazy than gasoline, by far.

We get the following from Bill, and around here, we file this under the category of "Bonanna-Fanna-Fad-ulla" and that's no (crazy hand) jive:

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Then I went to Wikipedia to look something up and the following was a news item there. Can you imagine -- The Name Game happening in real life all these years later?!
*************
Afghan officials report the death of Mullah Dadullah, a Taliban military commander in southern Afghanistan killed in a battle with the coalition forces in Helmand.
Me Mi Mo Mullah!
============================

And once again, I don't see how the spell-checker can improve upon that, try as it might. In other news, some of us might be surprised to realize that Memorial Day is next weekend already, especially around here, where it's been about 40 degrees and pouring down rain for the last two days, thank you very much not. Mind you, this is just after earlier in the week on Tuesday, when it was over 80 degrees with about 90% humidity, and people were collapsing in sodden piles all over town. Tonight after dinner, Bill and I came back from shopping, and it was so cold and damp that our breath was making steam. I don't have to wonder who's the evil ogre behind all of this, and I don't mind saying that as soon as Citibank sends me that 13-year-old computer hacker, the first thing (well, the second thing) that I'm doing with him is sending him off to the Kremlin to take on that infernal weather machine, and believe me, they won't know what hit them. In fact, I would expect them to be desplondent.

A Close Shave

Hello World,

Just when you think that the weather can't get any more ridiculous around here, you see that other places are having even worse weather, and between the tornados and brush fires, well, it makes our poopy weather seem positively ideal, so that you couldn't possibly wish for anything different. Of course, the problem with wishing things were different is that they can always be worse, as we have often learned to our chagrin. Many of us had found ourselves in that discomfiting time of year when it was possible for two of our favorite sports teams to lose on the same day, and in fact, if it happened to be a day when the Dragons were playing Arena Football, then it could conceivably be THREE teams all losing on the same day. (And don't even get me started on the Dragons, for pity's sake!) Now we no longer have that problem, although not in the way that we might have hoped, as the Rangers were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs, after throwing everything they had at the Sabres and coming up short.

Speaking of short, the Mets were having a little trouble getting themselves onto the fast-track to success, individually and collectively, so they decided to face the matter head-on, and all of the players shaved off their hair. (With the notable exception of their stand-out shortstop, Jose Reyes, who was already doing well, and probably figured, why jinx it?) Of course, "playoff beards" are a time-honored tradition in hockey, and although they've yet to catch on in the business world, tactics like that are widely recognized for developing team spirit and solidarity. It's true that not everyone was on board with this idea for the Mets, and they came in for some criticism, although it must be said that they went 3-0 after that. For a superstitious bunch like baseball players, that's worth its weight in gold, although I personally feel that if the skinhead treatment was a means of getting the under-performing players out of their slumps, I don't see how it could have helped Carlos Delgado, who's already bald. But in any event, it got a lot of attention and everyone seemed to have fun with it, and as reported in the newspaper, "It was all done in the name of team unity." It goes on to quote pitcher Scott Schoeneweis: "We obviously can't do a drug promo warning against peer pressure."

While we're on the topic of America's Pastime, the press had a field day with the Mets home opener, when the starting pitcher gave up seven walks to the opposing batters, practically in a row.

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"I know the feeling," said former Mets pitcher Jerry Koosman, who had come to Shea to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. "You just lose the plate and can't find it again. It's a terrible feeling."

His command wasn't too bad.

When one pitcher is particularly wild, and the opposing pitcher also lacks control, the caustic press box line is, "He's got the mound so screwed up, nobody can pitch." So, maybe it was partially Koosman's fault.

"Don't blame me," Koosman said, kiddingly. "When I went out there, I even asked him, 'What side [of the rubber] do you throw from?' I threw my one pitch from the other side."
===============================

It's a lucky thing that Koos wasn't with them this week in San Francisco, or they probably would have made him cut his hair off too. Now, that's what I call a close shave! That's one of the problems with superstitions, that they are unencumbered by logic, undeterred by ridicule and entirely impervious to sentiment. When it comes to winning streaks, it's "hair today, gone tomorrow."

It may still seem early in the year, but there's a tremendous amount of horticulture busting out all over, and you know what they say about how you can lead a horticulture, but you can't ..... oh, never mind. In any case, I personally thought it was much too early for chestnuts, but the trees in our neighborhood are awash with them, so there's no arguing with them now. I also expected it to take longer for the first rampant alien mutant poison ivy to rear its ugly head, but I spotted some by the hospital this week already, standing straight up as they do nowadays, and waving its tentacles at unwary passers-by. This particular specimen has basically taken over the hapless lilac next to it, which now appears for all intents and purposes as a poison ivy tree looming over the sidewalk, rather than a lilac. Our juvenile delinquent squirrels could be doing a land-office business selling calamine lotion in this location, if they weren't so busy digging up my bulbs from the flower beds and burying them in the driveway and patio instead.

Just when you think that the gas prices couldn't get any more ridiculous around here, totally out of left field comes the Post Office raising the price of stamps again. Now, people can call me a Luddite if they like (don't you dare!) but I know it hasn't been long since they raised the stamp rates, because I still have 37-cent stamps left over from when they raised them to 39-cents, after I had just bought two coils of 37-cent stamps, plus snowmen stamps for the holidays. I go through stamps at a pretty good clip, so for me to still have left-over 37-cent stamps at this point, well, it could not have been very long that the stamps were increased to 39 cents. And so here they are, raising them again to 41 cents, and it's simply mind-boggling that it could cost almost a half-dollar just to mail one envelope, especially when the rest of us Luddites remember when it was 6 whole cents for first-class postage, and don't think that we didn't complain about it then, too. In fact, I recently made the unwelcome discovery that the Gift Shop at the hospital is actually selling the new 41-cent stamps at fifty cents each (!!!) which would be laughable if it wasn't so outrageous. I don't mind saying that I'm disgusted with the whole bunch of them, and that's putting it mildly. If this doesn't drive everyone to paying their bills electronically, rather than mailing them in paper form, I don't know what it would take. You may as well get in your car and drive the check to the payment center, because between the price of gas and the price of stamps, they've really got you coming and going.

Speaking of going places, have I got a deal for you. We have our good friends at Haband to thank for the following travel advisory:

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You've surely noticed how expensive ocean-front property has gotten. Seems every year the price goes up. Well, what if I told you I happen to know that you can get your hands on some prime coastal real estate for the lowest imaginable price: Zip! Zero! Nada! Totally FREE!

Sound too good to be true? Check out the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act passed by Congress in the year 2000. Ever since, the U.S. Department of the Interior has been turning over ownership of many of America's Historic Lighthouses to anyone or any group willing to take them! Now's the time to set out on a Springtime road trip and pick out the perfect one for yourself before they're all snapped up!
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Now that's more like it! I have to say that I'm on board with the idea of leaving everything behind and heading for the coast to find the lighthouse of my dreams. I'm thinking that I might be better suited to a job as a lighthouse keeper, rather than working in healthcare, especially after it was Nurse Recognition Week recently, and I bumped into our bookkeeper down the hall, who groused, "When does it ever get to be Finance Recognition Week?" I told her that was entirely unnecessary, because it was already easy to recognize our Finance people, due to their horns and tails, although I thought the trident was just way too much. It was a good thing she laughed, because our finances are never going to win any prizes, so "playoff beards" are out of the question, and my next suggestion was going to be that they shave their heads.

Hearts and Flowers

Hello World,

Feliz Cinco de Mayo! This is certainly turning into an eventful time full of occasional days, what with May Day on Tuesday and Cinco de Mayo on Saturday, plus Mother's Day will be coming up before we know it on the 13th. With so much to celebrate, we will really have our hands full, recognizing the proletariat, honoring the maternal figures in our lives, and giving Napoleon a well-deserved heave-ho. (Elba toast, anyone?) From there, the month settles down somewhat, and doesn't really pick up steam again until Memorial Day weekend later in the month. And while I hate to alarm anyone, it must be said that weekend is generally considered the unofficial start of the summer season, which appears to be barreling at us full-speed, ready or not. Of course, it does seem to some of us at least that it was only two weeks ago that it was still snowing in these parts, so this whole summer idea might be just a little bit hard to swallow at this point. On the other hand, everything goes better with tequila, so I say let's break out the limes and full speed ahead.

Speaking of eventful days, we had a strange thing happen right under our noses last week, when our neighbors on one side packed up all of their belongings and snuck off in the dead of night without a peep. This is the family of aliens that ripped up their front yard to install enormous stone slabs that look like the ruins of some horrid Mayan temple, and then ran Christmas lights along them to give the appearance of airport landing lights, so the mother ship would know where to come back and pick them up. Bill always referred to them as the "Louden-Funquies" because they had noisy catered parties in their back yard, and a bad habit of smoking smelly cigars outdoors. And now they're history, and not even a meteorite to remember them by, much less any dilithium crystals, which I'm sure they needed for the trip back to their home planet. Usually the neighborhood scuttlebutt is such that you can't help hearing about things long before they actually come to pass (although I have always said that people who don't have dogs to walk are at a real disadvantage in our neighborhood, as far as picking up the local news) but this was over and done with before we ever heard any inklings about it. So, to paraphrase a famously former Vice President, long before he became an even more famously former President, we won't have the Alien Funkmeisters to kick around any more, and more's the pity, I'm sure. Actually, we haven't stopped celebrating since we found out, although I have the feeling that they're just as happy to see the tail-end of us as vice versa. Mira, mas tequila, por favor!

While we're on the topic of things people are happy to see, how about those April Showers bringing these glorious May Flowers? While it does seem that it was still snowing around here just recently, I did notice that even in the midst of the worst that April had to throw at us, and it was plenty, believe me, there were still rampant outcroppings of dandelions everywhere, in spite of it all. The next thing you knew, the forsythia were all putting on a show, and the magnolias were astonishing. Our yard turned into an eye-popping display of daffodils of every description, followed by a veritable explosion of grape hyacinth, blue squill and wind flowers in a rainbow of colors. Now even the bleeding heart and azaleas are coming along, with the wisteria not far behind. We'll be having early wild roses before we know it, and the fact that I'm driving a small green fuzz-mobile tells me all I need to know about our maples and lindens bursting into leaves. This year stands out not only in recent memory, but just about since we've been married, for having actual tulip flowers, not just the leaves and stems. This would seem to indicate that our juvenile delinquent squirrels, who routinely chew the buds off of our tulips before they flower, must be otherwise occupied at this time of year, perhaps starting their own Internet business, or operating a terrorist cell out of some unsuspecting suburban tree-house. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that the local authorities have finally responded to my repeated requests to have these wildlife vagrants apprehended as they deserve. In any event, my tulips are glad and so am I.

Although the squirrels appear too busy now to be decapitating my tulips, they were obviously plenty busy over the winter, and the evidence of that is all around. Whenever I see a crocus growing in the driveway, or a wind flower coming up between the cracks in the walk, or a grape hyacinth under the picnic table, I know that our juvenile delinquents have been at it again. I'm sure that I didn't plant them in these cockamamie places that they're sprouting up in now, and one thing about bulbs is that they don't just migrate all over the yard by themselves. Especially the grape hyacinth, which were only planted originally in the back yard, and now routinely appear in the most ridiculous places in the front of our house. Honestly, the people who deliver our mail and packages must think we're a bunch of lunatics in this place, with all the flowers we have coming up in the driveway, sidewalks and worse. I'm thinking of putting up a sign that says "Landscaping Courtesy of Juvenile Delinquent Squirrels" to protect my reputation.

Meanwhile, in the "isn't-technology-wonderful" category, there's a new wrinkle in the age-old battle between ignorance and arrogance. Of course, everyone knows that if you have an emergency and want to notify the police, you can call 911. No matter where you travel that has this service, dialing 911 reaches the local emergency response unit in that area. Turning that idea on its head, the technology has been developed that if an emergency exists that the citizenry should be alerted to, there's a "reverse-911" service that can be used to send a message to all of the telephones in the locality. While this is an idea which might have some merits, it is certainly not the most popular thing that a municipality is going to come up with. Bill and I discovered this unexpected interloper over the winter, when severe storms had been predicted, and Westchester County Executive Andy Spano felt obligated to shower us with repeated announcements about the forecasts, protective measures and available resources from the county. This went on for days each time, sometimes with several messages in the same day. I said to Bill that we would never be lonely as long as the county thought they had to call us all up and read news flashes at us whenever there was bad weather. As if this wasn't bad enough (it was) the next thing we knew, we were also getting these same sorts of recorded messages from our very own Mayor Noam Bramson, for situations specific to residents in the Queen City of the Sound. No thank you very much not! I mean, I understand that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, but there's also such a thing as too much information. Hey Mayor, how about you call me when you're going to reduce my property taxes, not when it's going to rain. After all, it's my tax dollars at work.

On a different technology front, I had filled out an application for Internet banking of a small commercial account, and many weeks later, had still heard nothing from the bank about it. For security purposes, you can't set up a commercial account online, or over the phone, but have to mail an actual paper application to the branch where the account is located. I didn't know how to follow up on this, so I called the bank's 800# and asked them what to do next. The lady I spoke to was very nice, but said she couldn't help me, and suggested that I go to the bank and have them get this all straightened out for me. After all, she gushed, I certainly wanted to set this account up for Internet banking, which is SO convenient! "Not if I have to go to the bank in person," I retorted. Perhaps that was just the tequila talking.

It's possible that you have to come from a family of Brownies and Troop Leaders in order to find this funny, or perhaps "mildly diverting" would be the better term. I received an email at work from someone called Suzette Moehrs, who is apparently one of our friends at One Stop Leasing, which seems to be a capital financing company for medical equipment purchases. I may have been the only person who found the inadvertent humor in her return email address of Smoehrs@onestopleasing because it's all too true that s'mores are indeed ones to pleasing. And they're even better with tequila!