Big Deal

Hello World,

Greetings from the weekend that is not Labor Day weekend, although it certainly feels like it should be. This late in August, you would think that the time had long since come that Labor Day would be right around the corner, but not so. Monday is August 31st and not the first Monday in September, making Labor Day about a whole week later than usual, and I don't mind saying, confusing the heck out of people trying to make plans around the holiday. By the time Labor Day does actually roll around, people will have lost interest in it at this rate, and like the Stanley Cup playoffs, will be greeted with bored indifference and deafening silence. This is the speedy modern age, and people nowadays don't have the time or the patience to loll around waiting for things to happen in their good old sweet time anymore, not like the dinosaurs, who figured that they had nothing but time. (At least that was true until the cavemen came along, which plays a big part in explaining the famous dinosaur proverb: "Well, there goes the neighborhood!") It's a good thing the dinosaurs lived when they did, and we reap the benefits of that period, because I can tell you that the way modern people live nowadays, they move too fast to ever leave fossils behind, much less decompose into fossil fuels. And then where would we be, I ask you that.

Speaking of modern times, just when you think that there couldn't possibly be yet another reason for the terrorists to hate us, along comes Maybelline in a big way, with a new mascara that actually includes a tiny motor to separate the lashes and apply the mascara evenly. I've seen commercials for this product, which can only be described as an outrage against humanity, even in these outrageous times when there are no standards, heaven knows. You would think it would be impossible for anyone to come up with an idea this terrible, and yet here it is on television, and apparently without irony, not that the terrorists would appreciate irony if they tripped over it. In the future, scientists will regard this Age of Mechanized Make-up as the downfall of civilization, I shouldn't wonder, and the dinosaurs will have the last laugh after all.

Also in a big fat hurry, I got a call at work from a frantic woman in our Radiology department who was filling in for someone who was on vacation, and having trouble ordering a product that they needed so desperately that she was practically in tears. She explained that their requisition for the product had been returned by Purchasing for having the wrong catalog number, and so she was calling me to get the right catalog number. I bit back my initial response, which would be to say that if Purchasing sent back the requisition because of the wrong catalog number, there was no point calling me in Purchasing to ask what the right number was, because obviously we didn't know. I did say that if they had never ordered it before, we wouldn't be able to check through their usage on the computer and find the right number from a previous order, which is usually the first thing we try. At a loss, all I could think of was to give her the vendor's phone number, and she could ask them what the product was that she was looking for, and the right catalog number so we could order it. I read the phone number to her twice, and although I had my doubts that this was going to work, even I wasn't prepared for what happened next. I got a call from the director of the department, who said that when they called the number I gave them, they ended up at a dating service instead. Personally, I say don't look a gift horse in the mouth, but the director was not of that same mind on the subject. I checked the computer again, and gave him the two numbers that were listed, and it turned out, as I suspected, that the overwrought woman had simply written the number down wrong in the first place. On the other hand, I figure in these tough economic times, especially in healthcare, adding some "extra services" to the medical supply business could be a positive boon for the bottom line, and that's not just the mascara talking, believe me.

Last Saturday, we were invited to the 49th Long Island Scottish Games, presented by Clan McDuff and held at the lovely and scenic Old Westbury Gardens, which is worth the trip all by itself. Since we go to the Round Hill Scottish Games in Connecticut every year, we thought it would be interesting to see another version of the same thing some place else, and see in what ways they were the same or different. Just like the CT games, there was shuttle bus service, this time from the local high school, which seemed to drop us off in the middle of nowhere, and we were at loose ends until we found our way to the booth where they were selling programs that included a map of the grounds. (The property is 160 acres, so wandering around lost would be no joke.) The program included a raffle ticket for a trip for two to Scotland, which is a novelty that has yet to catch on at Round Hill, and not likely to at this rate. Not only is the venue much bigger than the CT games, but it is also overwhelmingly larger in terms of vendor booths, clan tents, food choices, and the sheer number of people attending, even in the horrible hot and humid conditions that we endured. We arrived in time for the opening ceremonies, which shared some characteristics in common with the CT games, such as speeches, an invocation, and a procession of pipe bands and color guard, but were also notably different in many ways. We also discovered a display of exquisite antique foreign cars in front of the manor house, and a string quartet entertaining guests on the verandah. Making our way over to what they described as the food court, we were thrilled with the variety of enticing options before us, unlike the paltry and unappetizing choices we usually face. But the joke was on us when we narrowed down our selection to cheese fries and lemonade, only to find the lemonade lackluster, and the cheese fries bland and tasteless. Oh well, it can't be said that anyone goes to Scotland for the food, that's for sure.

One thing not to be missed was a dog agility event, presented by an animal rescue organization, who were training rescued dogs in agility tests, such as jumping over a bar, climbing a teeter-totter, weaving through poles, running through a tunnel and climbing over a bridge. The expert dogs were a joy to watch, and you couldn't help but be impressed with their intelligence and athleticism. The trainee dogs were another matter altogether, each one more comical than the last, as they invariably ran the wrong way, missed the jumps, got lost in the tunnel, spooked on the teeter-totter, fell off the bridge, and spent most of their time socializing with the crowds along the fence, rather than performing their agility routines. Each one got a big hand regardless, for making up in enthusiasm what they lacked in ability, and well deserved at that. Finishing up at the podium, you could tell they were feeling like the king of the world, and you never saw happier dogs in your whole life. It was really adorable.

It was on the way back from there that it finally dawned on us what was the big difference in the two different games, namely that what they were having at Old Westbury Gardens was not technically games at all, but a festival. There were no competitions for bagpipes, drummers, dancing, bands or heavy-weight sports like tossing the caber. What they had instead were demonstrations or performances that people could enjoy in neat compartmentalized increments. So there were two or three bagpipe bands that played a bit here and there to impart that Scottish flavor to the proceedings, as well as musical performances by groups such as Highland Heartbeat and Two Men in Kilts. Way off to the side in the woods was a small tent where you could watch a demonstration of highland dancing by students at a local dance academy. There was a very small field behind the food vendors where you could see people explaining how to toss the caber, do the stone put or the sheaf toss, and they seemed to be having a whale of a time, since it was all in fun and nothing to be gained or lost. Even the dogs, after all, were not Scottish working dogs competing at herding sheep, but a ragtag bunch of rescued mutts putting on a show of good or woeful agility, to no particular purpose. This reminded us more of a county fair than the Scottish games that we're used to, and while it was entertaining in its own way, it was certainly nobody's idea of "games" and that's all there is to it. I realize there are no standards anymore, heaven knows, but this was my idea of false advertising at its worst and I was having none of it, wondering how they ever came to call it Scottish games in the first place.

Not so fast! I went back to their web site (and you can go right ahead to www.liscots.org and see for yourself) and checked on the results from prior games, since I couldn't help but wonder what kind of results they could have if they weren't having competitions. Well, here is where in the potboiler mysteries, they always say, "the plot thickens," and that's not just the haggis, believe me. Here is what the results look like for the most recent games, with winners listed in different categories:

2008:
Caber toss
Stone put
Sheaf toss
Arm wrestling
Shortbread recipes
Photography contest

2007:
Shortbread recipes
Photography contest

2006:
Canceled due to dangerous weather

2005:
Caber toss
Stone put
Sheaf toss
Arm wrestling
Individual piping
Highland dancing
Shortbread recipes
Photography contest

2004:
Arm wrestling
Pipe bands
Drum majors
Individual piping
Individual drumming
Highland dancing
Shortbread recipes
Photography contest

Well, it seems that these Old Westbury events have had more incarnations than the Mickey Mouse Club, and you don't know what to expect from one year to the next. It appears that up until 2005, there were competitions in music and dancing, just like our regular games that we go to, and not just an ethnic free-for-all to entertain the tourists. Even last year, they had actual sports competitions (including mens and ladies arm wrestling, for professionals and amateurs alike) which we saw none of this time around, so it made us wonder if this year was an aberration, or if this is the non-competitive direction they're going in. It did turn into a kind of a long hot day all around, but it was interesting to do something different, although in all fairness, the best part of the day was something that was not at all different, and as welcome as a breath of fresh air.

We were delighted to find our very favorite Celtic fusion band, Mac Talla M'or, was playing at these games, giving us another chance to see them after the Round Hill games in late June, and we made the most of it. Instead of a tent, Old Westbury provides a portable band shell with a little stage attached to the front, which we discovered, has the odd effect of focusing the amplified sound in such a way that if you sit anywhere directly in front of it, all of the molecules in your body vibrate apart until you disintegrate on the spot. Sensible people stayed off to the sides, and left the middle area open for the unwary or thrill-seekers. It was great to see them again, and I must say that the Old Westbury crowd greeted them with appreciation and enthusiasm that I would not have expected from what seemed like such a touristy bunch. We enjoyed both shows, and Bill even bought one of their hats. But even that wasn't the big news of the day.

It all started just after the opening ceremonies, when out of the blue, we happened to bump into Patty, the matriarch of the band (which includes her and four of her children) and had the opportunity to tell her in person how much we love the band and getting a chance to see them at different festivals. She was very gracious, and seemed pleasantly surprised at being accosted by two fans in the middle of a field. (Of course, she might have thought we were a couple of nuts, but at least we resisted the example from the movie That Thing You Do, where the awestruck musician announces to his idol: "You are my biggest fan!") Later, we toured the expansive gardens behind the house, and ended up staying way after the closing ceremonies, when nearly everyone else had left, and mostly everything was packed up and gone. We were watching the crew breaking down the band shell and folding it back into the truck, when Ilana, the lead singer of the band, came over to throw stuff in a nearby trash can. It would be unseemly to say that we pounced on her like a rat after cheese, but here again, we had to tell her how great she was, and the rest of the wonderful group. She couldn't have been nicer, even after I complained that we already have all of their CDs and still waiting for a new one, plus my favorite song of their live shows, their electrifying version of Scotland the Brave, doesn't appear on any of them. She also might have thought we were a couple of nuts, but she seemed so friendly and down to earth that we just couldn't get over it, since as I pointed out to Bill, these are probably the most famous people that I'm ever likely to meet. So it certainly turned out to be a big day for us, and unexpectedly so, as we got to actually meet some of the performers that we truly enjoy and admire. At least I hope they didn't take a page out of the dinosaur's book, when they got back to the rest of the family and say: "Well, there goes the neighborhood!"

Elle

Stop Making Sense

Hello World,

Well, it wasn't that long ago that everyone in the local area was complaining about how cold and nasty it was around here, but for the last two weeks, we've certainly had as much hot and humid weather as anybody could want, that is, if they were some sort of tropical jungle creature that thrived in those conditions. As for the rest of us, it's been taking its toll, in a variety of noticeable ways. Our cats get more lethargic and lose their appetites, so that even their favorite treats don't tempt them to eat. At work, everyone else gave up on the whole idea of Walk Group, so that now the "group" consists of me and Marathon Margie, and on the days when she's at another facility, it's just me by myself, and no group about it. At night, when Bill leaves me a glass of ice water for after my shower, by the time I get out of the bathroom, there's no ice left in the glass at all, no matter how much ice it started with. This is the kind of August weather that public health officials warn us about, and no joke. Personally, and although everyone knows how I hate to hit an easy target, I blame Hurricane Bill, which seems to have stalled offshore, and all the weather systems have stopped right behind it, so that the fronts can't move through and bring us some needed relief. And I need hardly point out that we're not even supposed to have hurricanes in August in the first place, because hurricane season starts in September, but everybody knows there are no standards anymore, heaven knows.

Speaking of standards, when I got to work this morning, it seemed that every spot in the stupid little lot where I park was already taken, which has never happened since I've been in that lot. I had to parallel park in between two cars along the guard rail, which is something that I hate doing, and I'm also terrible at it, so it takes a very long time for me to stop the car in the right place, I finally squeezed in between the two cars, and when I got out, I noticed that I was parked half in one space and half in another, which you can't help but notice, because the spaces have big numbers in front of them, that are right in the middle, where your doors should be. Of course, I didn't feel negligent for parking so ineptly, since I was just parking in between the two cars that were already there, and they were the ones that parked badly in the first place, leaving me no choice but to park the way I did. But I still walked away embarrassed, and annoyed at the people who were there before me, and put me in that position, although I shouldn't take their behavior as any reflection on me. It goes without saying that when I came back out to the parking lot after work, both of those other cars had left, leaving mine all by itself along the guard rail, and inexplicably half in one space and half in another space, looking for all the world as if the idiot driver had never parked a car in their entire life, thanks not. Oh well, I don't call it the stupid lot for no reason.

Late yesterday, I was in the ladies room at work and the lights were out, so the only light was coming in through the windows. I made a comment about "mood lighting," and the senior bookkeeper who was in there with me said that she always thought she looked better with the lights out. It reminded me of a hotel that Bill and I stayed at once, and when I stepped out of the bathtub and caught sight of myself unwittingly in the horrible gigantic bathroom mirrors, with the disgusting and sickly bathroom lighting they have in hotels, which made me look even worse than I do in person, I shook my head and thought that it's no wonder that so many people commit suicide in hotels, and the hotels have no one to blame but themselves. I told Jean that story, and she had to agree with me. And the worst of it, I pointed out, is that I have very bad eyesight, and if I look this bad to me, can you imagine how awful I look to people who can see well, talk about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune! She laughed.

Last week was the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Arts & Music Festival held at Yasgur's Farm in Bethel, New York, which started out in an ordinary way but then unaccountably turned into a cultural event with far-reaching implications that are still being felt today. Of course, the media was awash with Woodstock-ian reports and programming, all day long and all night long, so that a space alien, landing here from a far distant solar system, couldn't help but think that it was actually 1969 at the moment, instead of a full forty years later. Even the usually staid and reserved History channel got in on the action, throwing their documentarians into the counter culture phenomenon with gusto. Our local newspaper was not to be left out, running long-winded and hackneyed articles all over the different sections, day after day. There was a commemorative concert in Bethel with some of the original performers, and a few people who had attended the original event in 1969, plus the anniversary concert, were featured in the news coverage. It seemed that there was no getting away from Beyond the Return of Beneath the Revenge of the 40th Anniversary of the Age of Peace, Love and Understanding Aquarius, no matter how you tried to avoid it. I figured that I could put a stop to all that, and my solution was to go outside and feed the birds in peace, not to mention, love and understanding.

Not so fast! It turns out that even our fair city was swept up in the hippie-dippie free-for-all, and from the band shell at nearby Hudson Park, anyone could hear the unmistakable sounds of Woodstock all over again, whether they wanted to or not. I didn't really notice it at first, although I was surprised to hear anybody playing Delta Lady, not the most popular choice at community concerts. After that, they did a long set of Credence Clearwater Revival, including the justifiably obscure Suzie Q, which I'm thinking that even CCR tribute bands wouldn't do. When they launched into a bunch of Crosby, Stills and Nash, the light finally went on even in my poor addled head, especially since I had just seen in the newspaper the entire list of performers at Woodstock, and all of the songs that they did there, so it was fresh in my mind. I admit that I wasn't expecting the city planners to jump on the Woodstock 40th anniversary bandwagon, and put on their own flower-power commemorative concert right in our neighborhood, but that's exactly what happened, and I'm not just whistling the I Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die Rag, by golly.

Meanwhile at church, we have an interim pastor who has been filling in while our call committee searches for a permanent replacement, after our previous pastor followed his wife and her job to Lebanon in July. (That thudding noise you hear is the sound of people falling down asleep all over the Middle East, whenever the pastor opens his mouth to speak, which is to say, whenever he's awake, and sometimes even when he's not.) The interim pastor is an affable gentleman going into the ministry as a second career, with no illusions or starry-eyed idealism of fledgling seminarians. Somehow he manages to deliver sermons that are interesting and punchy, that make a point and get to it directly, that are concise and engaging, with firm scriptural foundations while still being relevant. It's been a real wake-up call for our members who are used to sleeping during the interminably boring sermons we used to get, or people like me, who would bring magazines to read instead. The best part is that rather than being stuck at church all day, not just for worship but working in the office afterward, now we can all get out at a reasonable time and get on with our lives, if there are other things we need to get done, like errands. I took the opportunity to run some errands last Sunday after church, which turned into more of a hit-or-miss proposition than I was expecting. One place that I went was the supermarket, where I was expecting to get a few things, but only found one item that I was looking for. The self-checkout lines were just as long as any other, so I stood on one of the regular lines and just patiently waited my turn, after all, it was still early and I had no place else I needed to go, except home to do yard work, which was not a great incentive to hurry. Just as the family in front of me reached the cashier and started loading their groceries on the belt, I heard a great commotion behind me, and people were pointing me toward the customer service desk, which had apparently been trying to get my attention, although I had no idea what for. In utter confusion, I walked over to the customer service desk, where the young lady announced in an aggrieved manner, "We opened 6 for you, but you didn't listen." Now I feel like I should apologize to her, as if this is somehow my fault, that their well-meaning intentions were in vain because I failed to heed their exertions on my behalf. Not wanting to add insult to injury, I duly take my place at the end of line 6, which now is longer than the line I was originally on when I first started, and don't forget, I had gotten all the way up to the belt before being hijacked for this supposed advantage they had prepared for me. So thanks to the ever-vigilant and accommodating staff at Stop-N-Shop, I spent twice as long on line as I would have on my own, to buy one item that I could have picked up at the Sunoco station convenience store and been out of there in a flash, without all of this hullabaloo, and thanks so very much not. I keep saying that this new economy is not all it's cracked up to be, and believe me, that's not just a lot of tie-dyed, peace-symbol, love-beads anti-disestablishmentarianism, by golly. Say, who is that whistling the I Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die Rag?

Elle

You Are What You Eat

Hello World,

I know that you won't believe this any more than I do, but from where I'm sitting, it looks like the month is half over already, and summer right along with it, by golly. We've finally started having some weather that would remind us oldsters of those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, just in time to walk into any store and trip over their back-to-school displays, and all the catalogs are full of winter coats and fleece-lined boots. This long-awaited weather is a classic case of "too little, too late" if I've ever seen one, so we'd all better hurry out and enjoy the last seasonal treats that summer has to offer, at least before school starts up again in just scant weeks from now. It doesn't give us much time, so if we're going to kick back and relax, we're going to have to do it pretty darned quick. This may be the shortest summer on record, but that doesn't mean that we can't get our money's worth out of it, or know the reason why.

Speaking of money, here's a story from Bill about a co-worker asking for his help in finding a replacement battery for a cell phone:

==============================
I did a normal Google product search and the model turned up all over. When that happens, they give you a page of results and ask if you want to compare prices. So here, verbatim, is the description of one set of hits:
motorola br50 battery
$4 new, $5 usedfrom 38 sellers
Accepts Google Checkout
Please note that not only are they selling your favorite -- used batteries -- they are selling them for MORE than the new ones. Oh, the feeling of a comfortably worn battery! Like slipping into your good ol' slippers after a long day on the street corner in high heels (and I should know!) Anyway, that was my funny of the day.
==============================

Well, like used shampoo and used calendars, I have to say that the idea of used batteries doesn't really hold a lot of appeal for me, even if they weren't more expensive than the new ones. It may be that the "new economy," just like New Math, simply doesn't add up, because it certainly seems like the same bad old "voodoo economics" from yesteryear, and no thanks so very much not.

Meanwhile at work, I was sitting at my desk recently and minding my own business, when I heard what sounded like someone slamming a door in the hallway, and I wondered idly which of our resident prima donna's (and their name is legion) was having a hissy-fit and slamming doors. A few moments later, one of our buyers walked into my office from down the hall and asked if I was aware that the bulletin board had fallen off the wall. Sure enough, after 100 years in the same spot, the bulletin board succumbed to the relentless pull of gravity, and there it was, on the floor, with the wall anchors pulled right out of the plaster and everything. We were very surprised, not only because it had been there for 100 years or so, but because it didn't start to loosen up and get wobbly first, it just all of a sudden leaped off the wall with no warning. Luckily there was nothing underneath it to get damaged, which was a good thing, because as heavy as this old bulletin board is, it would have smashed anything in its path to smithereens and then some. It didn't take long for the rest of our hall-mates to notice its absence, after we moved it out of the hallway for safekeeping, and even infrequent visitors to our building recognized that something was missing. I never heard one person wonder how we were going to keep up with the latest developments in fire safety, hand washing and flu vaccines, which was mostly what was posted on the bulletin board all these years. No, pretty much everyone said the same thing, and I heard it over and over and over again: "If anything was going to fall off the wall, why couldn't it be that horrible fun house mirror that everyone hates, instead of the bulletin board?" I was not actually one of the people who said that, but even I thought the same thing, I have to admit. We did call Engineering and asked them to send someone to hang it back up on the wall (which should probably only take about another 100 years, the way things happen at the hospital) but I'm thinking that the popular thing would be to ask them to hang it up in front of the mirror this time.

In my continuing efforts to find something fruity that I can enjoy at work, I can recommend Betty Crocker's Fruit Gushers, which are actually very tasty and fun to eat. And I feel beholden to point out that since I've been removing the plastic from their Fruit Roll-Ups before eating them, I find them very delicious, not to mention, nice and soft. And in what is apparently a surprise to no one, when I would share that story with others, I found that the inadvertent consumption of packaging material is so wide-spread as to be common-place, and it seems that everyone you meet has their own tale to tell about the very same experience, usually related with great hilarity and descriptive hand gestures. Here's a perfect example of this, courtesy of one of our many far-flung alert readers:

==================================
I used to send plastic sealed knishes in Jenny's lunch that she could zap in the cafeteria microwave and eat warm. The first time I did this she did not notice the little circle of cardboard under the knish until she had eaten halfway through what she had thought was a very tough crusted knish. After that she removed the circle before eating!
==================================

Now, that may be just a little more fiber than a person needs in the average diet, and although fiber is good for you, this might be considered too much of a good thing. That reminds me of an interview we saw on a talk show, where a woman was explaining how she had gone to a fancy luncheon, but couldn't stay, so the hostess sent her home with a goodie bag full of treats that included some of the exquisitely decorative finger sandwiches that looked almost too good to eat. It had been a long and hectic day, and she was famished, so while she was driving home, she reached into the bag, snatched a sandwich and bit it in half, only to discover the ornamental ribbon that it was tied with, trailing down her chin. Not to be outdone, Bill has his own story to share:

=======================================
And I also loved your John Valle moment with the fruit rollup. (Just in case you don't remember -- and how could you not, as often as I tell this story? -- John paid his mother $5 a week for sandwiches to take to work. She made all the sandwiches on the weekend and froze them, so every day at 11:45 he would get his sandwich out of the shop refrigerator and leave it on the counter to thaw. Anyway, she was not the most careful of cuisinettes. One day, he took a bite out of his sandwich and as he pulled the bread away, he was left with the sandwich's cheese, dangling from his mouth. She had forgotten to take the plastic liner off the cheese and it slid right out. )
=======================================

So, far from being all alone and outstanding in the field of munching inedibles, it seems that I have a lot of company, and to say that our name is legion would not be overstating the case. In fact, it might be time to expand the dietary guidelines to include a fifth basic food group, to include plastic, cardboard and fabric, as long as people are out there eating it anyway. After all, it's a well-known fact that people will buy anything, heaven knows, so nutrition-less food products could easily be the next big thing. Used batteries, anyone?

Elle

Long Ago And Far Away

Hello World,

Happy August! Of course, this is the time that, back in the day, the dinosaurs and I would be wishing each other a Happy Sextilius instead, which was what it was called before the Romans decided to rename it in honor of Caesar Augustus, and the rest, as they say, is history, and I ought to know. In the local area, this is the first week that it actually felt like summer around here, with a couple of sultry days that were hot and humid, interspersed of course, with the inevitable thunderstorms and drenching downpours that have been the hallmark of the season to this point. They actually said on the news that as cold and wet as it has been up until now, they expect August to be very hot and very dry, but I said I would believe that when I see it, and I'm not packing away my galoshes just yet. By golly, if these are the "dog days" of summer, that dog sure better know how to swim, and that's not just a lot of bow-wow-wow, believe me.

Speaking of days gone by, I found myself poking around in the desk drawers at the church office, and buried deep in the back of a drawer that was stuck so that I had to pry it open with a screwdriver, I came across a little plastic cube that people use to store rolls of stamps. Sure enough, it had stamps in it, and I thought to myself, I should move this to some place more convenient for anyone looking for stamps, so they wouldn't have to go digging for it and break out their screwdriver besides. When I moved it, I noticed that what we had here was a plastic cube full of a roll of 33 cent stamps, which even in this economy, isn't going to get you far when it costs 44 cents to mail anything these days. So that was an unexpected stroll down Memory Lane in the church office, and a stark reminder, if any was needed, of how times have changed. Gosh, I really miss the Reagan administration, don't you?

It happened that what I was poking around in the office for was a spare box of offering envelopes, which we use at church for a variety of purposes. I don't like to use the regular ones that we give to our members, because they're the more expensive ones, with the date printed on them and all. When I didn't find any, I thought I would take a trip to the local religious supply store, handily located around the corner from the Sunoco station, and pick up a box there. Not so fast! When I got to the shopping area where the Good News store should have been, it had apparently long since gone out of business, and was now a barbershop, of all things, complete with spinning barber pole outside. Right next to it was a brand new Subway snack shop, so there had obviously been a lot of changes in that block of stores since the last time I looked. (Which, I don't mind saying, was only as long ago as April, when I went to the nearby Carvel on Secretary's Day, so it all had to have happened since then.) I was very surprised, but I won't say discouraged, because everyone knows that I'm made of sterner stuff.

I did a search for "offering envelopes" online, and came up with a wide array of commercial printers, church supply dealers and specialty stationers. That seemed too much of a bother for me, since I didn't have other items that I needed to buy along those same lines. Later when I was at amazon.com, I figured if I was going to buy stuff anyway, I may as well check and see if they had anything like offering envelopes, even though they didn't come up in the search results when I looked originally. Sure enough, there was quite a selection of offering envelopes in a variety of designs to suit most any purpose, and some of which, I couldn't even figure out what the purpose was supposed to be. My favorite part was where they said that the envelopes were available from different sellers, and I had the option of buying them "new or used." Here I'm thinking that used offering envelopes would not be at the top of my list of things that I would find most useful, after all, we probably already have years worth of used offering envelopes already upstairs in the balcony of our church as it is. I thought that was so funny.

For alert readers who may be wondering about news on the fence front, I did bump into Regina, the nice new neighbor next door, and show her my pictures of the fence being installed in 1993, and she was suitably impressed, and I guess by that, I mean embarrassed at the realization that they were the proud owners of the ratty and falling down fence, and not us. We had a nice long chat on a wide range of topics, and it would come as a surprise to no one (it certainly didn't to me) that she is from Long Island, because I find that no matter where you go in this world, you always meet people from Long Island. It really doesn't matter where you go, it's the same everywhere, every time. I call it the launching pad of the universe, because the island natives have been flung far and wide to every place you can think of, or even places you can't, and it's amazing to me that there's anyone left still there at all. It's one of the reasons that space travel holds no allure for me, because I'm sure the same thing would happen even in the far reaches of the most distant galaxies, and frankly, I've already met all the people from Massapequa, Hicksville and Franklin Square that I care to, thanks so very much not. Anyway, Regina is a nice enough girl from my old stomping grounds, and my favorite part was when she commented that even though I was from Long Island, I didn't have an accent. I said, "Of course I don't have an accent ..... TO YOU ..... because you're from Long Island, and you think everyone sounds like this!" She laughed.

In other local news, I did actually plow through all of my camping laundry, get it dry and folded, and repacked it back with my camping supplies in the attic, and that was no job for sissies, I can tell you, as hot as it was up there. Even the tent and tarps and beach chairs and fire bucket got packed up and put away on the shelves in the garage, rather than just laying around underfoot for a year until I go camping again. It seems like every year that I go, I end up taking more stuff with me, which would seem impossible for one person staying alone in the woods, but that's the way it happens. (In my more lucid moments, even I would admit that I don't technically need to take 4 chairs and a cot, or 5 different beach shelters, but I will say that the Twinkies are non-negotiable and that's all there is to it.) But even still, I managed to assemble everything into a small corner of the attic, where it can be out of the way, but also ready at a moment's notice, for any emergency camping needs that may arise at any time. You never know when a beach is suddenly going to need sheltering, but I'll be ready, by golly.

Speaking of beach shelters, I have a variety of them that each do one thing well, as a result of my efforts to discover one that does all those things well, which I have yet to find. One that I had high hopes for, and Bill was kind enough to splurge on it for me, is a large mesh structure with a zippered door, that pops open using that new-fangled memory wire, and then folds back up into its carry case for easy travel. Well, that's the theory anyway, but I have never found that it lived up to its potential, right from the start. What I liked about it was that it was big enough for me and my beach chair, and tall enough to stand up in. Having a door is very handy, but without a floor, it was not as stable or bug-free as it might have been. The first day that I opened it up at home, it took me 45 minutes of wrestling with it in the living room to fold it back up again and put it away in the carry case. After that, I found that every time was a hit-or-miss proposition as far as taking it down, where sometimes it would fold right up, and other times, it would just be impossible. Also, even when it was folded up and in the carry case, it was still large and unwieldy, as well as being very heavy, so carrying it was a chore, especially all the way to the beach and back by myself. But I really wanted to like it and didn't want to give up on it, in spite of what were turning out to be its numerous drawbacks. This year, I took it to the beach on Tuesday and didn't have much trouble with setting it up, but putting it away was one of those knock-down-drag-out affairs that turned this thing into a nightmare. I used a different shelter on Wednesday, and when I tried it again on Thursday, I noticed that in putting it away on Tuesday, I had snagged part of the mesh screen into the zipper of the carry case, so when I tried to open the zipper, I not only ripped off the handle, but tore a big hole in the screen, making it even less bug-free than it already was without a floor. When I set it up at the beach, the memory wire had developed some sort of kink in it, so that it wanted to keep collapsing on me instead of standing up straight, and it was only lucky that it couldn't collapse all the way since my beach chair was in the way, because I was already annoyed at it, without getting any worse. This was also when I noticed that the memory wire had worn right through the fabric seams in spots, which really surprised me, since this was only the second year that I was using it, and had probably not set it up and taken it down more than 10 times since I got it, which was hardly the sort of endurance that I would expect from something in that price range. Thursday happened to be a very quiet day at the beach, and not a breath of wind, so the flies were unusually aggressive, which is exactly the reason that I take a shelter with me in the first place. But it was such a bad day that when I opened the zipper to go in, the flies came right in with me, and the ones that didn't, came in through the hole in the screen anyway, and instead of relaxing, I spent most of my time trying to chase flies out of what was supposed to be my bug-free sanctuary, thanks not. It was at just this moment, of all times, that some stranger approached me with something like reverence in his eyes, and asked me where in the world I had found this marvelous shelter, so he could get one for his own family to enjoy. Mind you, this was with the flies inside, and the roof collapsing on top of my chair the whole time, not exactly the rousing endorsement that the company might have hoped for, I'm sure. I did tell him, and wished him luck with it, although I did point out that nowadays, sun shelters are all the rage and can be had in all different shapes and sizes, not just this one. He doesn't realize how lucky he is, because my first thought was to just give him the darned thing on the spot, and be done with it, but I couldn't let myself foist this wreck on some unsuspecting stranger with the broken handle, the hole in the screen, the torn seams, and the amnesiac memory wire that had forgotten how to hold itself upright. After all, I certainly don't want to get on the wrong side of a fellow Long Island native, because with my luck, I'll just bump into him again, at some point way in the future, in some far distant solar system, with nowhere to hide. In fact, I won't even be able to hide behind my accent, because as Regina will tell you, I don't have one, and she ought to know.

Elle