All Wet
Hello World,
Happy November! I certainly hope that every little thing is fine with you, out there in your little corner of Paradise, where never is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day, amen. It will come as a surprise to no one in the local area that it was reported on the news that last month was the warmest October on record, since the time that they started keeping records of the weather, back when the dinosaurs were roaming the vast unformed land masses and prehistoric folks were living in caves. (And I don't mind saying, that for people who hadn't even invented the wheel yet, trying to carve the dew-point index or wind chill factor into cave walls was no mean feat.) Well, actually the records don't go back all that far, but they do go back a good long way in any case, so for this to be the warmest October, there was certainly a lot of competition to overcome. Of course, it would be all too easy to blame our old pal Comrade Mischka and the Kremlin's infernal weather machine, but after hundreds of years of keeping meteorological records, well, I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
I don't know if I can blame this on the weather or not, but it seems that lots of little odd quirks have been cropping up lately, or perhaps it's just that I've been noticing them more. For instance, I admit that I did not expect to see this arresting headline in the local newspaper last week, in screaming 2-inch type that blared: "NO EVIDENCE OF PARKWAY GUNFIRE." Frankly, I would expect to be living some place safe enough that a lack of highway violence would not be a front page story, but there you have it. I suppose it just goes to prove that one man's news is another man's snooze, and I guess the moral of this story is that a day without shots ringing out on the parkway is not a thing to be taken for granted anymore. Then I went to drop something off at work on Sunday after church, and found the street behind the parking lot was closed for some sort of block party, replete with food, games and neighborhood folks having a good time. At least, it appeared from a distance to be a block party, except that I couldn't help but notice the unmistakable sounds of a marching band at full throttle, which as block parties go, would be an innovation that I'm not familiar with. Rather than your standard marches or school songs, this band elected to play the high volume version of El Condor Pasa, which I suppose had the advantage of novelty, if nothing else. Later at home, I happened to be doing some online shopping with our friends at amazon.com, and for anything you look up on their web site, they helpfully provide options to purchase it from them new, or used from one of their affiliates. Since I was in the market for shampoo at the time, I will admit that the idea of used shampoo did not appeal to me in the least. No thanks very much not!
In other local news, it certainly didn't take long for the New York Yankees former manager, Joe Torre, to find another job, in fact, the body wasn't hardly even cold, as we used to say back in the day, although that is no doubt an expression that is lost on young people nowadays. He signed on as skipper to right the ship of the foundering Los Angeles Dodgers, and shanghaied Don Mattingly along with him, not only leaving the rudderless Yankees high and dry, but also up a creek without a paddle, and other nautical metaphors of that salt, I mean, sort. For their part, the Yankees wasted no time in hiring Joe Girardi to fill the void, and how these things will turn out, one can only hope for the best. At least we learned a lesson from the pennant race collapse of the New York Mets, and even though it's early in the season for the New York Rangers, we don't take any chances by watching the games live, but rather, have our helpful TiVo record them for us. Then we only watch the games that the Rangers end up winning, so as far as we're concerned, the Broadway Blueshirts are undefeated so far this year, and we couldn't be happier with this new and improved arrangement. The fact that the Rangers' record is actually under .500 for the season, and they're languishing around the bottom of the standings, in no way diminishes our enjoyment of the hypothetical undefeated Rangers that we have come to know and love. People may call us front runners (don't you dare!) although in our defense, it's hard to be front runners for a last place team. That would be sort of like locking the barn door after the ship has sunk, which may be a sports metaphor whose time has not yet come, and I ought to know.
Meanwhile at work, the powers-that-be decided in their infinite wisdom to follow up the carpeting of the hallways in our building, with carpeting of the individual offices besides, which is only about as disruptive as having an enemy occupation force in your town with foreign soldiers billeted in your house. We have ten small offices in Purchasing, and spent long weeks moving everything from one room to another, one step ahead of the carpeters, and then moving it all back again afterward. This by itself would be bad enough, but trying to also do any work while all this was going on, was just more than we could handle. On any given day, no one knew where anything was, and making arrangements to disconnect, relocate and reconnect all of the computers, printers, fax machines and telephones brought our productivity to new lows, even for the hospital's lackadaisical standards. It was during this period that I found myself driving to work in the cold, and reaching for my fuzzy blue gloves in the car, could only find one of them, which was about half as much coziness as I would have preferred. I looked for my errant glove all over our department, and hoped that it hadn't gotten thrown out with the old carpet. I had no luck with it at work, and was surprised that it also didn't turn up in the car, even though I looked all over the floor and under the seats, front and back. Then when I pulled out of my parking space, I looked back and said, "What's that blue thing on the ground?" And sure enough, it was my missing glove, which must have been laying around in the parking lot since at least the week before, and I only happened to spot it there the day that I noticed it was missing. So that turned out to be a lucky coincidence, or as we used to say back in the old days, ya gotta glove it.
It might have been that same day at work that I leaned over to pick up something off the floor in the ladies room, and my pen fell in the toilet. Oh, thanks so very much not! I was reminded that in the ladies room at church, we have a handy sign posted that requests people to not put inappropriate articles, such as disposable diapers, in what the sign refers to as the "toliet." Whenever I see that, it makes me think of an old Steve Goodman song called "Lincoln Park Pirates" about the rogue tow trucks that operate in the Lincoln Park neighborhood outside of Chicago, in which he claims:
All our drivers are friendly and courteous
Their good manners, you always will get
For they all are recent graduates
Of the charm school in Joliet!
Of course, it stands to reason that peculiar things have been happening around here lately, since we just did our biannual Waltz of the Clocks with the end of Daylight Saving Time last weekend. Here we have another example of something that is only about as disruptive as having an enemy occupation force in your town with foreign soldiers billeted in your house, except that you also have no idea what time it is. And once again, thanks so very much not. This is even worse at work, where my computer is attached to the hospital network running Windows 2000NT, which still resets the system time based on the OLD schedule for DST in April and October, not the way it is now, and so for weeks on end, you're confronted with the wrong time in your face all day long, and all you can do is wait until enough time passes that the network finally catches up to the rest of the world, or at least that beleaguered part that observes DST. Those of us saddled with Windows 2000NT are beleaguered as well as belated, which is a bad combination that I can't even blame on Comrade Sergei and his confounded Russian date machine, try as I might.
Speaking of belated, here's a few extra notes about Halloween in these environs. Every year, whoever is in charge of these things (and I'd better not find out who this is) makes arrangements for a gigantic spider to take up residence on our front porch and assemble an enormous web right over our front door, from which to terrorize the local population by dropping on top of them unawares. We usually call it The Jumbotron, and it has no trouble living up to its name. This year we had the usual spider, about the size of your average full-grown crab, and just as ugly, but for some reason, built its web off to the side of the porch by the railing, so our unwary trick-or-treaters were in no danger of being sucked into its menacing clutches. That was one less thing to worry about for the holiday, and I was just as glad. And when I was coming home from work, and still in my Uncle Sam costume, as I was stopped at a traffic light, walking right in front of me was a pretty young woman dressed up as an elaborate witch in full regalia, out in broad daylight on the streets, which at least had the effect of making me feel like I was not the only nut in town. Earlier this week, I got an irate phone call from a co-worker who had seen a picture of my costume in someone else's office, and was very upset with me. "You didn't come to see me on Halloween," she fumed. "Everyone else saw your costume and I didn't. You're a bad girl and I'm mad at you." I apologized, as a matter of course, but then I wondered how I could have missed her, since I had made a special trip to the Nursing office, and thought I saw everyone who was there. "Oh that's right," she admitted, "I forgot I was off on Wednesday." Here's where I felt that I really deserved special recognition for not going right upstairs and slapping her silly, after she gave me such a hard time for ignoring her when she wasn't even here. Perhaps she expected me to go to work the next day also in my costume, just for the benefit of people who didn't see me on Halloween? I think not! I mean, I'm as big a fan of Halloween as the next fellow, and truth to tell, more than most, but one day is plenty even for me. And I mean that in real time, not Comrade Sergei and Windows 2000NT messed-up DST whackadoo screwy time, when nobody knows what day it is, and a fine kettle of fish that would be. In fact, while you're at it, why don't you just take that fine kettle of fish to the New York Rangers, and tell them that Joe Torre sent you.
Happy November! I certainly hope that every little thing is fine with you, out there in your little corner of Paradise, where never is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day, amen. It will come as a surprise to no one in the local area that it was reported on the news that last month was the warmest October on record, since the time that they started keeping records of the weather, back when the dinosaurs were roaming the vast unformed land masses and prehistoric folks were living in caves. (And I don't mind saying, that for people who hadn't even invented the wheel yet, trying to carve the dew-point index or wind chill factor into cave walls was no mean feat.) Well, actually the records don't go back all that far, but they do go back a good long way in any case, so for this to be the warmest October, there was certainly a lot of competition to overcome. Of course, it would be all too easy to blame our old pal Comrade Mischka and the Kremlin's infernal weather machine, but after hundreds of years of keeping meteorological records, well, I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
I don't know if I can blame this on the weather or not, but it seems that lots of little odd quirks have been cropping up lately, or perhaps it's just that I've been noticing them more. For instance, I admit that I did not expect to see this arresting headline in the local newspaper last week, in screaming 2-inch type that blared: "NO EVIDENCE OF PARKWAY GUNFIRE." Frankly, I would expect to be living some place safe enough that a lack of highway violence would not be a front page story, but there you have it. I suppose it just goes to prove that one man's news is another man's snooze, and I guess the moral of this story is that a day without shots ringing out on the parkway is not a thing to be taken for granted anymore. Then I went to drop something off at work on Sunday after church, and found the street behind the parking lot was closed for some sort of block party, replete with food, games and neighborhood folks having a good time. At least, it appeared from a distance to be a block party, except that I couldn't help but notice the unmistakable sounds of a marching band at full throttle, which as block parties go, would be an innovation that I'm not familiar with. Rather than your standard marches or school songs, this band elected to play the high volume version of El Condor Pasa, which I suppose had the advantage of novelty, if nothing else. Later at home, I happened to be doing some online shopping with our friends at amazon.com, and for anything you look up on their web site, they helpfully provide options to purchase it from them new, or used from one of their affiliates. Since I was in the market for shampoo at the time, I will admit that the idea of used shampoo did not appeal to me in the least. No thanks very much not!
In other local news, it certainly didn't take long for the New York Yankees former manager, Joe Torre, to find another job, in fact, the body wasn't hardly even cold, as we used to say back in the day, although that is no doubt an expression that is lost on young people nowadays. He signed on as skipper to right the ship of the foundering Los Angeles Dodgers, and shanghaied Don Mattingly along with him, not only leaving the rudderless Yankees high and dry, but also up a creek without a paddle, and other nautical metaphors of that salt, I mean, sort. For their part, the Yankees wasted no time in hiring Joe Girardi to fill the void, and how these things will turn out, one can only hope for the best. At least we learned a lesson from the pennant race collapse of the New York Mets, and even though it's early in the season for the New York Rangers, we don't take any chances by watching the games live, but rather, have our helpful TiVo record them for us. Then we only watch the games that the Rangers end up winning, so as far as we're concerned, the Broadway Blueshirts are undefeated so far this year, and we couldn't be happier with this new and improved arrangement. The fact that the Rangers' record is actually under .500 for the season, and they're languishing around the bottom of the standings, in no way diminishes our enjoyment of the hypothetical undefeated Rangers that we have come to know and love. People may call us front runners (don't you dare!) although in our defense, it's hard to be front runners for a last place team. That would be sort of like locking the barn door after the ship has sunk, which may be a sports metaphor whose time has not yet come, and I ought to know.
Meanwhile at work, the powers-that-be decided in their infinite wisdom to follow up the carpeting of the hallways in our building, with carpeting of the individual offices besides, which is only about as disruptive as having an enemy occupation force in your town with foreign soldiers billeted in your house. We have ten small offices in Purchasing, and spent long weeks moving everything from one room to another, one step ahead of the carpeters, and then moving it all back again afterward. This by itself would be bad enough, but trying to also do any work while all this was going on, was just more than we could handle. On any given day, no one knew where anything was, and making arrangements to disconnect, relocate and reconnect all of the computers, printers, fax machines and telephones brought our productivity to new lows, even for the hospital's lackadaisical standards. It was during this period that I found myself driving to work in the cold, and reaching for my fuzzy blue gloves in the car, could only find one of them, which was about half as much coziness as I would have preferred. I looked for my errant glove all over our department, and hoped that it hadn't gotten thrown out with the old carpet. I had no luck with it at work, and was surprised that it also didn't turn up in the car, even though I looked all over the floor and under the seats, front and back. Then when I pulled out of my parking space, I looked back and said, "What's that blue thing on the ground?" And sure enough, it was my missing glove, which must have been laying around in the parking lot since at least the week before, and I only happened to spot it there the day that I noticed it was missing. So that turned out to be a lucky coincidence, or as we used to say back in the old days, ya gotta glove it.
It might have been that same day at work that I leaned over to pick up something off the floor in the ladies room, and my pen fell in the toilet. Oh, thanks so very much not! I was reminded that in the ladies room at church, we have a handy sign posted that requests people to not put inappropriate articles, such as disposable diapers, in what the sign refers to as the "toliet." Whenever I see that, it makes me think of an old Steve Goodman song called "Lincoln Park Pirates" about the rogue tow trucks that operate in the Lincoln Park neighborhood outside of Chicago, in which he claims:
All our drivers are friendly and courteous
Their good manners, you always will get
For they all are recent graduates
Of the charm school in Joliet!
Of course, it stands to reason that peculiar things have been happening around here lately, since we just did our biannual Waltz of the Clocks with the end of Daylight Saving Time last weekend. Here we have another example of something that is only about as disruptive as having an enemy occupation force in your town with foreign soldiers billeted in your house, except that you also have no idea what time it is. And once again, thanks so very much not. This is even worse at work, where my computer is attached to the hospital network running Windows 2000NT, which still resets the system time based on the OLD schedule for DST in April and October, not the way it is now, and so for weeks on end, you're confronted with the wrong time in your face all day long, and all you can do is wait until enough time passes that the network finally catches up to the rest of the world, or at least that beleaguered part that observes DST. Those of us saddled with Windows 2000NT are beleaguered as well as belated, which is a bad combination that I can't even blame on Comrade Sergei and his confounded Russian date machine, try as I might.
Speaking of belated, here's a few extra notes about Halloween in these environs. Every year, whoever is in charge of these things (and I'd better not find out who this is) makes arrangements for a gigantic spider to take up residence on our front porch and assemble an enormous web right over our front door, from which to terrorize the local population by dropping on top of them unawares. We usually call it The Jumbotron, and it has no trouble living up to its name. This year we had the usual spider, about the size of your average full-grown crab, and just as ugly, but for some reason, built its web off to the side of the porch by the railing, so our unwary trick-or-treaters were in no danger of being sucked into its menacing clutches. That was one less thing to worry about for the holiday, and I was just as glad. And when I was coming home from work, and still in my Uncle Sam costume, as I was stopped at a traffic light, walking right in front of me was a pretty young woman dressed up as an elaborate witch in full regalia, out in broad daylight on the streets, which at least had the effect of making me feel like I was not the only nut in town. Earlier this week, I got an irate phone call from a co-worker who had seen a picture of my costume in someone else's office, and was very upset with me. "You didn't come to see me on Halloween," she fumed. "Everyone else saw your costume and I didn't. You're a bad girl and I'm mad at you." I apologized, as a matter of course, but then I wondered how I could have missed her, since I had made a special trip to the Nursing office, and thought I saw everyone who was there. "Oh that's right," she admitted, "I forgot I was off on Wednesday." Here's where I felt that I really deserved special recognition for not going right upstairs and slapping her silly, after she gave me such a hard time for ignoring her when she wasn't even here. Perhaps she expected me to go to work the next day also in my costume, just for the benefit of people who didn't see me on Halloween? I think not! I mean, I'm as big a fan of Halloween as the next fellow, and truth to tell, more than most, but one day is plenty even for me. And I mean that in real time, not Comrade Sergei and Windows 2000NT messed-up DST whackadoo screwy time, when nobody knows what day it is, and a fine kettle of fish that would be. In fact, while you're at it, why don't you just take that fine kettle of fish to the New York Rangers, and tell them that Joe Torre sent you.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 6:43 PM
1 Comments:
At 7:21 PM,
Clay Eals said…
Good to see your post referencing "Lincoln Park Pirates" by Steve Goodman. He often doesn't get his due. You might be interested in an eight-year project of mine that has come to fruition -- an 800-page biography of Goodman published in May, "Steve Goodman: Facing the Music." The book delves deeply into the origin of "Lincoln Park Pirates" and his many other songs. Please check my Internet site below for more info on the book. Just trying to spread the word. Feel free to do the same!
Clay Eals
1728 California Ave. S.W. #301
Seattle, WA 98116-1958
(206) 935-7515
(206) 484-8008
ceals@comcast.net
http://www.clayeals.com
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