Party On
Hello World,
Happy June! There's no other month like this one, to charm the muse of poets and songwriters alike throughout history, with countless verses that croon, spoon, tune, moon, dune, loon, noon, soon, goon and prune. Not to mention, balloon, tycoon, festoon, raccoon, saloon, cartoon, platoon, typhoon, spittoon and Officer Muldoon from "Car 54, Where Are You?" (Now there's another one of those references that's lost on young people nowadays, and more's the pity, I'm sure.) You certainly can't do that with April or August, and don't even get me started on October, for heaven's sake. So June stands alone in the pantheon of doggerel du jour, and here we all are, standing right along with it, and probably sooner than any of us expected. Be that as it may, there's no turning back now, so let's all round up our pontoons and dragoons, especially if they're maroon in the afternoon, and sing a song to June.
Last week, we got a frantic phone call from a new neighbor, saying that they had lost their cat Benji, and the children were distraught. They left a flyer in our mailbox with Benji's picture, and he was a cute enough cat for a house pet, but nothing out of the ordinary. These people are so new to our little enclave that we haven't actually met them at any neighborhood functions, although our reputation seems to have preceded us, and while they stopped short of accusing us of "cat-napping" their beloved feline, they did seem to consider it a distinct possibility. I had to call them back and say we hadn't seen Benji in our yard, and since our cats stay indoors, he could not have gotten mixed up with our brood in their comings and goings. In fact, since we took in Smokey Joe last year, we haven't seen a single cat in our yard of any description, from battered old toms to dainty pampered pusses, or anything in between. In what can only be described as a miraculous turn of events, Benji was discovered locked in the basement of the house across the street, while the owner was away, and survived on his wits alone, until he was rescued 10 days later. The family basically greeted his return as if they had won the lottery, and the owner of the empty house just as glad to get rid of him, and we were all glad to hear a happy ending to a story that had a lot of potential for disaster. Other things may have gone wrong during the week (just ask the Ottawa Senators) but around here, the angels were working overtime on the Benji Caper, and came up with the right size miracle just in the nick of time.
Meanwhile at work, the JCAHO inspectors have come and gone, and the National Guard was not deployed to seize control of the campus and prevent us from practicing medicine, so I suppose we must have passed muster and are not considered a detriment to the health of the community after all. What a relief! In fact, the administration was so giddy at the results that they provided complimentary breakfast and lunch for all employees on Tuesday, and even tossed a pizza party for the night shift as well. Of course, I found out later that they followed this up with lay-offs on Friday, so I guess this turned out to be one of those "good news, bad news" kinds of situations in the end. But at least the hospital passed its inspection, and achieved accreditation, and for those of us who still have jobs, this is reason enough as a cause for celebration.
Speaking of celebrations, last weekend was Memorial Day of course, although it's getting harder to tell nowadays, because the local newspaper has pictures of people having what they call Memorial Day parades starting at the beginning of May, and continuing along pretty much every day until the end of the month. If there's ever any doubt in your mind when the actual holiday weekend is to occur, you must not be one of the thousands of lucky individuals invited to my sister Linda's justly famous and long-standing Memorial Day Weekend Barbecue, still going strong in its 35th year, rain or shine. Linda makes sure this happens at the right time every year, and sends out notices to far-flung friends and relatives, who then descend on the sleepy town of Stone Ridge in upstate New York, for three days of fun, food and frivolity Literally hundreds of people from near and far show up for this shindig, not just from across the country or other continents, but there's also parking for spaceships across the street, so that tells you something right there. Many guests arrive with their tents and sleeping bags, and camp out in the back of the property by the creek, for up to a week and make a whole vacation out of it. Some people have been coming for so long that they got married and had children, and now their grown-up children are married and coming with their own children. As an annual event, its popularity and staying power would be hard to beat, in spite of conditions that often range from blistering heat to torrential downpours, and frequently on the same day. I was there on Saturday with my sister Diane, when the weather was lovely, the company convivial, and everyone seemed to be having a great time. The usual activities were going on, such as volleyball, horseshoes and Frisbee golf, as well as arts and crafts projects for the less athletically inclined. At one point in the festivities, I found myself in the company of our illustrious "Hostess With The Mostest," my sister Linda, who said that she was glad that I could come and next year, I should bring Bill with me. I explained that Bill was more at ease in small groups, and not at all suited to large crowds of raucous strangers. "Oh, I know just how he feels," insisted my sister, surrounded as she was by a mere 500 of her nearest and dearest acquaintances, "I'm not a party person." [I will admit at this arresting statement that I was rendered speechless, so you'll have to supply your own punch-line here.]
Diane and I went there and back without incident, and even the traffic was unremarkable, although it was a long drive and a little too warm to be comfortable. This was because, although the Escort is equipped with air conditioning, I discovered that it didn't have quite enough "oomph" (please excuse the technical jargon there) to cool the inside of the car while still performing its primary function of propelling the car forward, especially uphill. This is my idea of an air conditioning system in name only, and one that the environmentalists would love, but I would have preferred something chillier. The weekend weather held up nicely for all three days around here, and even though they predicted thunderstorms on Monday, I was able to fly the flags upstairs and downstairs all day, without having to rush out and rescue them from the rain. This was in spite of the fact that I had already tempted Fate, not to mention the Weather Gods, by not only filling up the bird baths, but also watering the plants in the flower beds, so as you can imagine, I was expecting monumental storms of epic proportions. I suppose the Weather Gods must have been otherwise engaged in Indianapolis, raining on the Indy 500 as they so often do, and therefore were not a factor here on Monday, in spite of my bird baths. It was nice to have a day off from work, and good flag-waving weather besides. If only I'd had some bunting.
Of course, after that it was one of those short weeks at work, and this turned into a classic example of one, and a sharp reminder, if any was needed, of exactly why my feelings about short weeks can only be described in terms that are on the FCC's list of forbidden words. Apart from the usual chaos at work, including gearing up for the new telephone system this weekend, I fell victim to a couple of ugly financial setbacks that I wasn't anticipating. One of the features of the new postage rates is that the cost is based not only on the weight of the object, but also its shape, so that there is a surcharge for items that have non-standard dimensions. I had to mail a CD in a cardboard diskette mailer, and didn't know what it would cost for the shape or extra weight, so I took it to the Post Office on Tuesday to get the right postage for it. I don't know what I was expecting the nice friendly woman to say about it, but I know I wasn't prepared to hear that it was 80 cents (!!!) because my mouth dropped open when she told me that. Heck, even at today's gas prices, you could drive an awfully long way on 80 cents worth of gas, and drop off the diskette in person, which would make it only highway robbery, rather than a Pony Express hold-up. Although I felt like going home and pulling the covers over my head, instead I made the mistake of going to the supermarket, and walked blithely to the check-out with two bags of Chinese noodles and a package of Dixie cups, and when the cashier said it was $11, I almost fell right over on the spot. If this is part of the government's plan to nickel-and-dime us to death, they certainly got their money's worth out of me on Tuesday, and I've got the skid marks on my wallet to prove it. I realize now it's a lucky thing that we can drive to the gas station to fill up, because if we had to pay for it to come to us through the mail, we'd turn into a nation of pedestrians overnight, and our cars would be nothing more than decorative landscape elements. I don't know about you, but I would hang bunting on mine.
Happy June! There's no other month like this one, to charm the muse of poets and songwriters alike throughout history, with countless verses that croon, spoon, tune, moon, dune, loon, noon, soon, goon and prune. Not to mention, balloon, tycoon, festoon, raccoon, saloon, cartoon, platoon, typhoon, spittoon and Officer Muldoon from "Car 54, Where Are You?" (Now there's another one of those references that's lost on young people nowadays, and more's the pity, I'm sure.) You certainly can't do that with April or August, and don't even get me started on October, for heaven's sake. So June stands alone in the pantheon of doggerel du jour, and here we all are, standing right along with it, and probably sooner than any of us expected. Be that as it may, there's no turning back now, so let's all round up our pontoons and dragoons, especially if they're maroon in the afternoon, and sing a song to June.
Last week, we got a frantic phone call from a new neighbor, saying that they had lost their cat Benji, and the children were distraught. They left a flyer in our mailbox with Benji's picture, and he was a cute enough cat for a house pet, but nothing out of the ordinary. These people are so new to our little enclave that we haven't actually met them at any neighborhood functions, although our reputation seems to have preceded us, and while they stopped short of accusing us of "cat-napping" their beloved feline, they did seem to consider it a distinct possibility. I had to call them back and say we hadn't seen Benji in our yard, and since our cats stay indoors, he could not have gotten mixed up with our brood in their comings and goings. In fact, since we took in Smokey Joe last year, we haven't seen a single cat in our yard of any description, from battered old toms to dainty pampered pusses, or anything in between. In what can only be described as a miraculous turn of events, Benji was discovered locked in the basement of the house across the street, while the owner was away, and survived on his wits alone, until he was rescued 10 days later. The family basically greeted his return as if they had won the lottery, and the owner of the empty house just as glad to get rid of him, and we were all glad to hear a happy ending to a story that had a lot of potential for disaster. Other things may have gone wrong during the week (just ask the Ottawa Senators) but around here, the angels were working overtime on the Benji Caper, and came up with the right size miracle just in the nick of time.
Meanwhile at work, the JCAHO inspectors have come and gone, and the National Guard was not deployed to seize control of the campus and prevent us from practicing medicine, so I suppose we must have passed muster and are not considered a detriment to the health of the community after all. What a relief! In fact, the administration was so giddy at the results that they provided complimentary breakfast and lunch for all employees on Tuesday, and even tossed a pizza party for the night shift as well. Of course, I found out later that they followed this up with lay-offs on Friday, so I guess this turned out to be one of those "good news, bad news" kinds of situations in the end. But at least the hospital passed its inspection, and achieved accreditation, and for those of us who still have jobs, this is reason enough as a cause for celebration.
Speaking of celebrations, last weekend was Memorial Day of course, although it's getting harder to tell nowadays, because the local newspaper has pictures of people having what they call Memorial Day parades starting at the beginning of May, and continuing along pretty much every day until the end of the month. If there's ever any doubt in your mind when the actual holiday weekend is to occur, you must not be one of the thousands of lucky individuals invited to my sister Linda's justly famous and long-standing Memorial Day Weekend Barbecue, still going strong in its 35th year, rain or shine. Linda makes sure this happens at the right time every year, and sends out notices to far-flung friends and relatives, who then descend on the sleepy town of Stone Ridge in upstate New York, for three days of fun, food and frivolity Literally hundreds of people from near and far show up for this shindig, not just from across the country or other continents, but there's also parking for spaceships across the street, so that tells you something right there. Many guests arrive with their tents and sleeping bags, and camp out in the back of the property by the creek, for up to a week and make a whole vacation out of it. Some people have been coming for so long that they got married and had children, and now their grown-up children are married and coming with their own children. As an annual event, its popularity and staying power would be hard to beat, in spite of conditions that often range from blistering heat to torrential downpours, and frequently on the same day. I was there on Saturday with my sister Diane, when the weather was lovely, the company convivial, and everyone seemed to be having a great time. The usual activities were going on, such as volleyball, horseshoes and Frisbee golf, as well as arts and crafts projects for the less athletically inclined. At one point in the festivities, I found myself in the company of our illustrious "Hostess With The Mostest," my sister Linda, who said that she was glad that I could come and next year, I should bring Bill with me. I explained that Bill was more at ease in small groups, and not at all suited to large crowds of raucous strangers. "Oh, I know just how he feels," insisted my sister, surrounded as she was by a mere 500 of her nearest and dearest acquaintances, "I'm not a party person." [I will admit at this arresting statement that I was rendered speechless, so you'll have to supply your own punch-line here.]
Diane and I went there and back without incident, and even the traffic was unremarkable, although it was a long drive and a little too warm to be comfortable. This was because, although the Escort is equipped with air conditioning, I discovered that it didn't have quite enough "oomph" (please excuse the technical jargon there) to cool the inside of the car while still performing its primary function of propelling the car forward, especially uphill. This is my idea of an air conditioning system in name only, and one that the environmentalists would love, but I would have preferred something chillier. The weekend weather held up nicely for all three days around here, and even though they predicted thunderstorms on Monday, I was able to fly the flags upstairs and downstairs all day, without having to rush out and rescue them from the rain. This was in spite of the fact that I had already tempted Fate, not to mention the Weather Gods, by not only filling up the bird baths, but also watering the plants in the flower beds, so as you can imagine, I was expecting monumental storms of epic proportions. I suppose the Weather Gods must have been otherwise engaged in Indianapolis, raining on the Indy 500 as they so often do, and therefore were not a factor here on Monday, in spite of my bird baths. It was nice to have a day off from work, and good flag-waving weather besides. If only I'd had some bunting.
Of course, after that it was one of those short weeks at work, and this turned into a classic example of one, and a sharp reminder, if any was needed, of exactly why my feelings about short weeks can only be described in terms that are on the FCC's list of forbidden words. Apart from the usual chaos at work, including gearing up for the new telephone system this weekend, I fell victim to a couple of ugly financial setbacks that I wasn't anticipating. One of the features of the new postage rates is that the cost is based not only on the weight of the object, but also its shape, so that there is a surcharge for items that have non-standard dimensions. I had to mail a CD in a cardboard diskette mailer, and didn't know what it would cost for the shape or extra weight, so I took it to the Post Office on Tuesday to get the right postage for it. I don't know what I was expecting the nice friendly woman to say about it, but I know I wasn't prepared to hear that it was 80 cents (!!!) because my mouth dropped open when she told me that. Heck, even at today's gas prices, you could drive an awfully long way on 80 cents worth of gas, and drop off the diskette in person, which would make it only highway robbery, rather than a Pony Express hold-up. Although I felt like going home and pulling the covers over my head, instead I made the mistake of going to the supermarket, and walked blithely to the check-out with two bags of Chinese noodles and a package of Dixie cups, and when the cashier said it was $11, I almost fell right over on the spot. If this is part of the government's plan to nickel-and-dime us to death, they certainly got their money's worth out of me on Tuesday, and I've got the skid marks on my wallet to prove it. I realize now it's a lucky thing that we can drive to the gas station to fill up, because if we had to pay for it to come to us through the mail, we'd turn into a nation of pedestrians overnight, and our cars would be nothing more than decorative landscape elements. I don't know about you, but I would hang bunting on mine.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:09 PM
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