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!
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!
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:30 PM
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