Smooth Sailing

Hello World,

Well, what hasn't been going on around here lately, it's been a veritable whirlwind of activity in our environs, what with one thing and another, I tell you, we're just beside ourselves. And I don't mind saying, even with the four of us, there's still plenty to go around, and that's not just my evil twin speaking, believe me. Of course, Monday was Presidents Day, and our department in the hospital was closed, which is always nice, and in a smooth move I made it even nicer by taking off the Friday before, so I not only had a 4-day weekend, but two weeks in a row that I only had to work four days each, and that was a real treat. We took the opportunity to accept my sister's invitation to meet them at one of our favorite places, the Eveready Diner in Hyde Park for brunch, and unlike other time-challenged people that we try to rendezvous with, we all managed to get there at the same time. We had a wonderful meal, which is no surprise, and then headed up the road to introduce them to another favorite attraction, the Hyde Park Antiques Center, which is way more interesting and enticing than it sounds. And not just to crazy people like me who collect salt and pepper shakers, although I suppose that doesn't hurt.

Alert readers may remember the new invisible fence on one side of the hospital campus, where the original old chain link fence had been removed so that only the empty posts were left standing. This was exactly the opposite of what I expected from the representatives of Premier Fence Installations, and I said so at the time. It turned out later that they did in fact install a new fence there, and it didn't turn out to be invisible after all. On a subsequent trip around the campus two weeks later, I noticed new green metal fence posts, set about a foot farther back from the original posts and closer to the sidewalk, plus bright shiny and new green chain link fence attached to them and looking very secure and neat. So now we know the whole story of the fence saga, and the world is once again safe from any cars being driven out of the doctors parking lot and over the sidewalk, in the hands of dazed and confused medical professionals, and a good thing, too.

Also on the inside looking out, we had the same sort of situation on our upstairs porch recently, when I opened the door to look for something, and couldn't help but notice an errant chickadee flying around in there. I closed the door and summoned Bill, who is not widely recognized for having been born with super-human powers, far above those of mere mortals, but should be, and he was quick to pitch in. (Actually, his first words were, "How did he get in?" as if by explaining to the chickadee to go out the same way he came in would do the trick, but everyone knows that I have a long-standing policy against using logic with irrational beings, so I refused to try that.) It was obvious from the way the chickadee was flapping around in an agitated manner, and banging into the windows, that he had no idea how to get out of our porch, and in fact, probably wondered what he was thinking when he came in there in the first place. We knew we would not be equal to the task of catching this smooth operator on the fly, so finally we just moved a bunch of stuff out of the way and opened one of the windows, and then contrived through an awkward series of acrobatic maneuvers, to direct the intruder to fly out the open window, which he finally did. We were glad to see the tail-end of him in our porch, and I'm sure that goes double for our little feathered friend. Frankly, I never realized that chickadees even knew those sorts of hand gestures.

Bill had this to say about our friends at infoplease.com and their explanation of Chinese New Year:

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I had a serious question about this Year of the Rat thing. You said:

Those born in Rat years tend to be leaders, pioneers, and conquerors. They are charming, passionate, charismatic, practical and hardworking. Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Affleck, Samuel L. Jackson, William Shakespeare, and Mozart

The obvious question is, just where HAS Gwyneth Paltrow led us? Kidding aside, not only are there no leaders, pioneers or conquerors on the list (I suppose Mozart could be considered a pioneer of sorts, but not in any real, Kentuckian sense), but the worst part is -- there are no CHINESE people on the list! How good is this Rat stuff as a predictor if they don't mention Mao or even Chiang Kai Shek? In fact, that's a lot of Rat years for a country with half the world's population in it to come up with just two known leaders (if you don't count the Ming guys with the vases.) Just thought that was a little bizarre. But then, I'm a follower of Gwyneth Paltrow.
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Well, I can't say that I disagree with any of that, and while I don't expect every one of them to be a leader or pioneer, I personally think it violates some kind of law to mention Ben Affleck and "charismatic" in the same sentence. And don't even get me started on Samuel L. Jackson and "charm," for heaven's sake.

Of course, everyone knows if it's February, there is at least one thing for certain in this uncertain world, and that is that I will be out in the backyard cutting firewood for camping, and they'd be right. We always have plenty of firewood in our yard, in the form of fallen branches, plus whatever I pick up in my travels around town or in the neighborhood, as well as years' worth of previous Christmas trees. In fact, I was probably more surprised than anyone when I went to cut the branches off last year's Christmas tree, and found the previous year's tree still lounging around in the corner of the yard with all its branches still attached. I would have sworn that I had already clipped that one smooth and left it on the log pile to dry out so I could cut it up for camping, and not left it for a whole year just laying about in the same spot. But the inescapable fact is that either I completely neglected to take care of that old tree when I should have, or I suppose one of the neighbors could have snuck their old Christmas tree into our backyard instead of putting it out at the curb. In any case, I cut the branches off both trees and put the trunks on the log pile to dry out, which certainly explains the subsequent rain, snow storms, etc, etc. Like the Christmas trees, much of the firewood that I have at my disposal is much too long to burn, so I have to cut it into shorter lengths, which I do in the winter when it's cooler and there are no bugs. The wood that is too big or damp to cut, I leave to dry on the log pile, and sometimes I leave things there so long that by the time I get around to sawing them into pieces, they've turned into nothing but sawdust with bark around it. I made some pretty good progress on my camping firewood by cutting up the smallest and driest stuff first, and made quite a stack of sure-fire tinder that should burn great. Then I decided to pull some of the wider pieces off the bottom of the firewood rack, with the idea that I could split them and they would dry out faster in the garage. I moved all the wood that was on top of them, and that was no picnic, believe me, only to find that all of the pieces on the very bottom were frozen to the frame of the rack, and there was no budging them. Well, that is one of the drawbacks of trying to gather firewood in the middle of the winter, and don't think that the irony is lost on me, because even at this early date, I can recognize the camping gods toying with me when I see it.

Speaking of early dates, the ticker tape from the Giants parade was hardly cleared off the streets in the Canyon of Heroes in the city, when the local sports world was rocked with the announcement that the Mets had signed pitching ace Johan Santana away from Minnesota, to don the fabled pinstripes of our very own Amazin's in the heart of Queens. This was big news indeed, especially for a franchise that missed the playoffs last year by one game, and whose pitching during that time lurched from the unpredictably bad to worse all season long. This is the kind of "hot stove" report that makes life worth living again, and it seemed to be one particularly dark and dreary day when someone mentioned that it was only two weeks to Pitchers and Catchers, which is a rejuvenating elixir that the legendary Fountain of Youth could only aspire to. Since then, the newspapers have been full of pictures of limber young men in warm weather, gearing up for the upcoming season, bright with promise and teeming with great expectations which no dread foreboding can dim. There's nothing like it to warm up those cold winter days, and give us all reason to wish for spring, where hope reigns and every team is a contender. It's finally close enough that looking forward in the TV listings, our TiVo wondered if we would like it to record the first few Mets pre-season games being broadcast, and we jumped at the chance. So here in February, life is good, and baseball is better. Or in the immortal words of Johan Santana (actually, I think it was Carlos Santana) who said, "Smooth!"