Sit On It
Hello World,
And so we come at last to the end of yet another in a long series of weeks, and I don't mind saying, with no end in sight. At this rate, we'll be out of August before we've really gotten started. Of course, things can always be worse, or perhaps it just seems that way. We were watching the replay of a Mets game from the last week in July, and Keith Hernandez, who is a former Mets player turned announcer (and please do visit the web page of the broadcasting team at www.garykeithandron.com and see for yourself) was explaining that one of the key players for the Florida Marlins was having an off-year. He claimed this player started out well in April and May, then cooled off in June and July, and had been up-and-down all through August. Since this game was played at least a week before August even started, Bill and I figured that it would probably be discouraging news to that poor player to find out that Keith had already decided that he was going to have an up-and-down month ahead. I always say, there are some things you're just better off not knowing.
That reminds me that this time of year, it's common for us to have one or more large spiders taking up residence on our front porch, and terrorizing visitors and delivery people alike with their wide-ranging webs and menacing habits. I thought it was unusual that I hadn't seen any up to now, thinking it was late in the season to still be waiting for our first porch spider, when I happened to step outside late tonight and almost bumped right into it. It was a good thing I didn't, because it was about the size of my fist, and had a look on its face like a Mafia hit man about to plug somebody full of holes, and I say that as someone for whom spiders hold no dread. Honestly, every year we have large spiders on the porch, which we usually refer to as The Jumbotron, but I don't seriously think that I have ever set eyes on a spider of this enormity in my entire life. At least I don't have to worry that he will go to the store and buy a handgun, because they would take one look at him and refuse to do business with him, since he's obviously a Mafia hit man. The best part of all is that our house has more than one door, so I can just avoid the front porch from now until the cold weather sets in, when he will most likely head south for the warmer climate in Florida, and from then on it will be their problem and not mine. Those crazy people down there would probably sell him a handgun anyway, even if he is a Mafia hit man, because heaven knows, there's no standards anymore.
In other news of native species, I have consulted with my botanical expert, my sister Diane, who assures me that the mystery vine taking over our ivy patch from the resident Thorndale ivy (the stuff with the round leaves, so I know it's not porcelain berry) is Bittersweet, which is another foreign invasive that people spend a lot of time and effort to eradicate out of their yards. Our local newspaper ran a story recently on these types of pests and vines, along with helpful hints to combat their spread. You'll be glad to learn that their number one tip for invasive weeds is "Don't plant them in your yard." (DUH!) Gosh, I wish I had read that story BEFORE I planted all of that poison ivy everywhere! (NOT) The other mystery was some lovely bright yellow flowers in our backyard that had been given to us years and years ago by a neighbor, who told us what they were at the time, but which we had long since forgotten. What with the miracle of the information super-highway nowadays, I thought it would be a cinch to find out what these were, because they had enough distinctive characteristics to make them easily identifiable. Not so fast! Apparently all of the comprehensive databases for plants require you to know the name of the thing you're looking for, while the regular gardening sites where you can look things up by their color, don't have every plant that you might be interested in. So I spent a long and frustrating time searching but not finding what I wanted, and wasting a lot of effort for no results. Every yellow flower I looked up either had too many or too few petals, or the leaves were round instead of pointed, or it grew too tall or too short, or turned out to be something that was only found in New Mexico. Finally, after church on Sunday, I just drove to our local nursery and decided to wander through the aisles of their capacious perennial displays, and hope to spot anything resembling it on my travels. Incredibly, it turned up in the second row of plants that I came to, and I knew it was just what I was looking for, because it looked exactly like what I had at home, with the same exact flowers and the same exact leaves. Even though I already had some at home, I bought one from the nursery anyway, so I would have the botanical information that went with it. It turned out to be Evening Primrose, which is something that I had found in my online searches, but one that I eliminated for having the wrong number of petals or wrong-shaped leaves, and yet, here it was in person, exactly the right thing. I'm sure there's a moral in here somewhere --something about persistence, and the old ways are best, and technology is no substitute for hands-on experience -- but I'm just glad to get to the bottom of this floral mystery at last.
As long as we're being grateful for small favors, this was another week that made me glad I went on vacation when I did, because the weather was unpredictable at best, and very bad at its worst. Because of an unstable weather system that had stalled over us, it seemed that every day, there was also a curious feature of threatening thunderstorms, but not raining, and then after all the noise stopped, and the sun came out, then it would rain. It certainly didn't have a lot to recommend it, except perhaps in the novelty department, and that's the kind of thing that only goes so far. But it was such a glorious day on Friday that I was out walking around the hospital campus in the afternoon, and thinking to myself, by golly, if they could bottle this ..... well, I don't exactly know what the upshot of that would be, but I can tell you that San Diego would be in big trouble.
Speaking of trouble, I will not go so far as to say that my life is spiraling out of control, because that would not be the case. But I am a busy person, and don't have time to fritter away on trivialities. So it happened that I got one of those tell-tale envelopes in the mail that obviously has a new credit card in it, and nowadays, you can't just put it in your wallet and get on with your life, because you first have to call the darned place to activate it, even if you've had the same account since you were in high school, no thank you so very much not. I don't even mind calling them so much, because I'm on board with the idea of tighter security on credit cards, but then you have to listen to them try to sell you credit card protection, and life insurance, and don't forget those bonus points and special discounts and extra rewards, until it's like a full-time job just to get your own credit card up and running. So it arrived before my vacation, and you have to imagine that this is me, sort of waving at it and going, "yeah, yeah, later for that" and leaving it on my desk to take care of at another time. (Like I have time for THIS!) Mind you, I have a wallet full of various cards, not just credit and debit and ATM cards from the bank, but also department stores and gas stations and whatever else, so it basically could have been anything from anybody. Most of them, I don't use very often, so I figured I had plenty of time to take care of it whenever I got around to it. Then on Saturday, when I was on my way to pick up my sister at the train station, I stopped at Sunoco to get gas, inserted my card into the pump like I always do, only to have the card rejected for being expired. Well, I guess we just figured out which credit card that was that had come in the mail!
Of course, I had no one to blame but myself, for ignoring the envelope with the new credit card the whole time, but I was annoyed for a couple of reasons. First of all, I was already late to pick up my sister, and this was only going to make me later. But the other thing was that during the week as I drove past the Sunoco station on my way home from work, I noticed the price of gasoline creeping down from about $4.35/gal to where it was $4.17/gal by the beginning of last week. By the time I got there on Saturday, it had inched even lower to $4.13/gal, and I was raring to get at that bargain price while the getting was good, and feel like a real sharp customer. But it was not to be, and with no time to waste, I jumped back in the car and drove a mile out of my way to the Exxon station, where I supposed that my credit was still good, and pulled in there. You can imagine my surprise at finding the price there was only $4.09/gal, and you can believe that I filled it up right to the top and felt like John D. Rockefeller himself.
Also feeling pretty good these days, I hadn't been to church for three weeks in July because of my vacation, and when I finally got back there, I joined the rest of the happy throng in welcoming the return of the errant pew cushions at long last. (And here, I mean "errant" in the sense of wandering, and not moral deviation, which is a fault that I would never ascribe to our upstanding cushions.) In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that we fell all over them like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son, and jumped into our seats like a drowning man on a life preserver, and glad of it. You can be sure that never was heard a discouraging word, and there's nothing like a few weeks on hard wooden benches to make you really appreciate that soft cushiony velvet when you get a chance to sit on it again. I wouldn't say that our worship was more inspired, or that we sang any better, or even that we sat up straighter and paid more attention to the sermon, but I do believe that everyone would agree this was a big improvement, and not something to be taken for granted. After all, if the absence of a loved one makes the heart grow fonder, as the proverb goes, then it stands to reason that the absence of a cushion makes the backside grow flatter, and heaven knows, you can't have holy rollers that are flat on the bottom, by golly. So the return of the pew cushions was a good thing, as it has been throughout all of church history, at least I think that's what John Milton was referring to when he penned his classic, "Paradise Restored."
And so we come at last to the end of yet another in a long series of weeks, and I don't mind saying, with no end in sight. At this rate, we'll be out of August before we've really gotten started. Of course, things can always be worse, or perhaps it just seems that way. We were watching the replay of a Mets game from the last week in July, and Keith Hernandez, who is a former Mets player turned announcer (and please do visit the web page of the broadcasting team at www.garykeithandron.com and see for yourself) was explaining that one of the key players for the Florida Marlins was having an off-year. He claimed this player started out well in April and May, then cooled off in June and July, and had been up-and-down all through August. Since this game was played at least a week before August even started, Bill and I figured that it would probably be discouraging news to that poor player to find out that Keith had already decided that he was going to have an up-and-down month ahead. I always say, there are some things you're just better off not knowing.
That reminds me that this time of year, it's common for us to have one or more large spiders taking up residence on our front porch, and terrorizing visitors and delivery people alike with their wide-ranging webs and menacing habits. I thought it was unusual that I hadn't seen any up to now, thinking it was late in the season to still be waiting for our first porch spider, when I happened to step outside late tonight and almost bumped right into it. It was a good thing I didn't, because it was about the size of my fist, and had a look on its face like a Mafia hit man about to plug somebody full of holes, and I say that as someone for whom spiders hold no dread. Honestly, every year we have large spiders on the porch, which we usually refer to as The Jumbotron, but I don't seriously think that I have ever set eyes on a spider of this enormity in my entire life. At least I don't have to worry that he will go to the store and buy a handgun, because they would take one look at him and refuse to do business with him, since he's obviously a Mafia hit man. The best part of all is that our house has more than one door, so I can just avoid the front porch from now until the cold weather sets in, when he will most likely head south for the warmer climate in Florida, and from then on it will be their problem and not mine. Those crazy people down there would probably sell him a handgun anyway, even if he is a Mafia hit man, because heaven knows, there's no standards anymore.
In other news of native species, I have consulted with my botanical expert, my sister Diane, who assures me that the mystery vine taking over our ivy patch from the resident Thorndale ivy (the stuff with the round leaves, so I know it's not porcelain berry) is Bittersweet, which is another foreign invasive that people spend a lot of time and effort to eradicate out of their yards. Our local newspaper ran a story recently on these types of pests and vines, along with helpful hints to combat their spread. You'll be glad to learn that their number one tip for invasive weeds is "Don't plant them in your yard." (DUH!) Gosh, I wish I had read that story BEFORE I planted all of that poison ivy everywhere! (NOT) The other mystery was some lovely bright yellow flowers in our backyard that had been given to us years and years ago by a neighbor, who told us what they were at the time, but which we had long since forgotten. What with the miracle of the information super-highway nowadays, I thought it would be a cinch to find out what these were, because they had enough distinctive characteristics to make them easily identifiable. Not so fast! Apparently all of the comprehensive databases for plants require you to know the name of the thing you're looking for, while the regular gardening sites where you can look things up by their color, don't have every plant that you might be interested in. So I spent a long and frustrating time searching but not finding what I wanted, and wasting a lot of effort for no results. Every yellow flower I looked up either had too many or too few petals, or the leaves were round instead of pointed, or it grew too tall or too short, or turned out to be something that was only found in New Mexico. Finally, after church on Sunday, I just drove to our local nursery and decided to wander through the aisles of their capacious perennial displays, and hope to spot anything resembling it on my travels. Incredibly, it turned up in the second row of plants that I came to, and I knew it was just what I was looking for, because it looked exactly like what I had at home, with the same exact flowers and the same exact leaves. Even though I already had some at home, I bought one from the nursery anyway, so I would have the botanical information that went with it. It turned out to be Evening Primrose, which is something that I had found in my online searches, but one that I eliminated for having the wrong number of petals or wrong-shaped leaves, and yet, here it was in person, exactly the right thing. I'm sure there's a moral in here somewhere --something about persistence, and the old ways are best, and technology is no substitute for hands-on experience -- but I'm just glad to get to the bottom of this floral mystery at last.
As long as we're being grateful for small favors, this was another week that made me glad I went on vacation when I did, because the weather was unpredictable at best, and very bad at its worst. Because of an unstable weather system that had stalled over us, it seemed that every day, there was also a curious feature of threatening thunderstorms, but not raining, and then after all the noise stopped, and the sun came out, then it would rain. It certainly didn't have a lot to recommend it, except perhaps in the novelty department, and that's the kind of thing that only goes so far. But it was such a glorious day on Friday that I was out walking around the hospital campus in the afternoon, and thinking to myself, by golly, if they could bottle this ..... well, I don't exactly know what the upshot of that would be, but I can tell you that San Diego would be in big trouble.
Speaking of trouble, I will not go so far as to say that my life is spiraling out of control, because that would not be the case. But I am a busy person, and don't have time to fritter away on trivialities. So it happened that I got one of those tell-tale envelopes in the mail that obviously has a new credit card in it, and nowadays, you can't just put it in your wallet and get on with your life, because you first have to call the darned place to activate it, even if you've had the same account since you were in high school, no thank you so very much not. I don't even mind calling them so much, because I'm on board with the idea of tighter security on credit cards, but then you have to listen to them try to sell you credit card protection, and life insurance, and don't forget those bonus points and special discounts and extra rewards, until it's like a full-time job just to get your own credit card up and running. So it arrived before my vacation, and you have to imagine that this is me, sort of waving at it and going, "yeah, yeah, later for that" and leaving it on my desk to take care of at another time. (Like I have time for THIS!) Mind you, I have a wallet full of various cards, not just credit and debit and ATM cards from the bank, but also department stores and gas stations and whatever else, so it basically could have been anything from anybody. Most of them, I don't use very often, so I figured I had plenty of time to take care of it whenever I got around to it. Then on Saturday, when I was on my way to pick up my sister at the train station, I stopped at Sunoco to get gas, inserted my card into the pump like I always do, only to have the card rejected for being expired. Well, I guess we just figured out which credit card that was that had come in the mail!
Of course, I had no one to blame but myself, for ignoring the envelope with the new credit card the whole time, but I was annoyed for a couple of reasons. First of all, I was already late to pick up my sister, and this was only going to make me later. But the other thing was that during the week as I drove past the Sunoco station on my way home from work, I noticed the price of gasoline creeping down from about $4.35/gal to where it was $4.17/gal by the beginning of last week. By the time I got there on Saturday, it had inched even lower to $4.13/gal, and I was raring to get at that bargain price while the getting was good, and feel like a real sharp customer. But it was not to be, and with no time to waste, I jumped back in the car and drove a mile out of my way to the Exxon station, where I supposed that my credit was still good, and pulled in there. You can imagine my surprise at finding the price there was only $4.09/gal, and you can believe that I filled it up right to the top and felt like John D. Rockefeller himself.
Also feeling pretty good these days, I hadn't been to church for three weeks in July because of my vacation, and when I finally got back there, I joined the rest of the happy throng in welcoming the return of the errant pew cushions at long last. (And here, I mean "errant" in the sense of wandering, and not moral deviation, which is a fault that I would never ascribe to our upstanding cushions.) In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that we fell all over them like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son, and jumped into our seats like a drowning man on a life preserver, and glad of it. You can be sure that never was heard a discouraging word, and there's nothing like a few weeks on hard wooden benches to make you really appreciate that soft cushiony velvet when you get a chance to sit on it again. I wouldn't say that our worship was more inspired, or that we sang any better, or even that we sat up straighter and paid more attention to the sermon, but I do believe that everyone would agree this was a big improvement, and not something to be taken for granted. After all, if the absence of a loved one makes the heart grow fonder, as the proverb goes, then it stands to reason that the absence of a cushion makes the backside grow flatter, and heaven knows, you can't have holy rollers that are flat on the bottom, by golly. So the return of the pew cushions was a good thing, as it has been throughout all of church history, at least I think that's what John Milton was referring to when he penned his classic, "Paradise Restored."
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 9:35 PM
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