Heat Wave
Hello World,
Normally, this is where I would be apologizing for the recent horrible weather in the local area, with temperatures plunging below freezing, and howling winds making it feel even colder. This is not necessarily exceptional weather for the middle of December in these parts, but it had been so warm for so long that the sudden cold snap has hit us all like a kick in the teeth and just about as unwelcome, I don't mind saying. But at least my conscience is clear, and the frigid conditions cannot be laid at my doorstep, try as they might. Unlike other years when I have forgotten the bird bath heaters until way after they were needed, and our feathered friends were using the bird baths as a skating rink rather than a drinking fountain, this time around, I got the heaters plugged in and set in place well ahead of any freezing temperatures. This came as a surprise not only to me, since my track record in this event has been woeful over the years, but certainly all of the wildlife in our neighborhood, and apparently even the weather gods were stunned beyond all recovery. In fact, usually putting the heaters in the bird baths is all that it takes to usher in weeks of balmy temperatures, so that I have no way of knowing if the heaters are working or not, and this has become such an established fact of the regional climate that people routinely plan their mid-winter picnics around it. So you can imagine that I was not expecting to put in the heaters one day, and then have the temperature plummet 30 degrees overnight, which is basically what happened, so that everything around them froze, and they were still cooking. I don't think that has ever happened in all the years that I've had heaters for the bird baths, and I don't know who's responsible for the screw-up, but I do know that I'm certainly not taking the fall for it this time, by golly.
Speaking of temperatures, I happened to bump into two ladies from Finance in the hallway of my building, and at first I thought they were just standing around and talking, but then I realized that one was trying to help the other with the zipper of her coat, which was apparently stuck with her inside. This was one of those days in our old rattle-trap of a building when the indoor conditions were at a steamy 150 degrees or so, although it was freezing outside, and she would have literally dropped dead if she couldn't get out of her coat pretty darned quick. I thought they had everything under control, until I heard them say they were going to get scissors and cut the zipper to get her out. At that point, I stepped in to see if there was anything I could do, and once I moved her into better light, it was easy enough to unsnarl the offending fabric that was caught in the zipper pull, and after that, it unzipped with ease all the way down. She then turned to her ostensible helper and barked: "You're useless!" and we all laughed. "Well, in fairness," I had to say, "I'm used to breaking into things -- family business, you know." To which the other lady retorted: "Yeah, only this time, you did it without a gun!" Hey, I've got a drivers license picture that makes me look like a dead Mafia hitman, I don't need a gun.
Also at work, our courtyard has a fenced-in area that we laughingly refer to as the "temporary boiler house," since it has been there the better part of a decade already, and no end in sight. In fact, they covered the anchor fence with green vinyl pseudo-shrubbery to make it look more decorative, since it was obviously going to be taking up residence in the courtyard over the long haul, and not temporarily in the sense that term is usually employed. We're all used to it by now, and it has long since lost its power to excite or surprise us, or so we thought. I wasn't expecting to come into the courtyard and find a large sign attached to the fence that said NO PARKING ANY TIME. Inasmuch as the sign is over the sidewalk, in front of a flower bed and across from the steps into our building, without a road anywhere in sight, I'd say that parking in front of the fence would be the least of their problems. Of course, it is a hospital, so they might be alerting people that they are not allowed to park their wheelchairs there, but it certainly made me wonder.
Also making me wonder, I couldn't help but notice in the Wheels Extra section of our local newspaper, their big splashy cover story on the 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback, with a screaming headline that describes the vehicle as "A spirited compact that can haul more than just people and cargo." Now, anyone can call me a nitpicking linguistic stickler (they'd better not!) but honestly, what else would there be besides people and cargo? I simply can't come up with something that you could put in a car that isn't people, and yet couldn't be described as cargo. Fire? Gamma rays? Gravity? I admit that I'm totally stumped and have no idea what they're trying to convey with this mismatched metaphor, whose time may not have come, and in a perfect world, would never come, if that's the best they can do. If ever something was begging to be sent back to the drawing board and start all over again, this would be it in spades, although nowadays, I despair of the ad designers coming up with any kind of improvement on their own, in fact, it would probably get even worse, I'm thinking.
While we're on the subject of linguistic stickler nitpicking, here's one of my pet peeves directly from an actual food label, and suffering from the new militant anti-punctuation ideology which is so rampant nowadays:
FOR BEST WHEN USED BY INFORMATION
PLEASE SEE DATE PRINTED ON PACKAGE
Now, the dinosaurs and I can remember a time when someone putting that sort of gobbledygook on a label would be laughed out of the package design business altogether, and have to get a job working with their hands, since their brain was obviously not up to the task. Mind you, this is exactly the sort of thing that they now have committees of people to come up with, and this is the best they can do, for heaven's sake. The only way to decode this gibberish is to recognize that "best when used by [date]" is a complete phrase, and needs to be treated as a single thought, and not just thrown to the wolves piecemeal the way it is here, so that each separate word makes the meaning ever less and less comprehensible as it goes along. Back in those halcyon days of yore, when the dinosaurs and I roamed the vast unformed land masses, and the Syntax Police kept us all on the straight and narrow, this sort of sloppy construction would never have been tolerated, it would have been rooted out and demolished as it so richly deserves. Even in recent times, a simple solution would be to set the phrase apart with quotation marks, which would have at least rescued the meaning from oblivion, if nothing else, but with the current craze of anti-punctuationism, even that avenue has been closed to us, alas. The dinosaurs would say that an even better solution would be for labels like this to have been tossed into the tar pits instead of them, and I can't say that I blame them one bit.
Also on the topic of food, we have Bill to thank for the following from a neighborhood delicatessen:
===========================
In other news, a couple of Battaglia Brothers' own Daily Specials were too good not to pass along (they're still valiantly faxing their menus on a daily basis.) Today for your culinary enjoyment you can order:
Chicken cautlts parm. . .
Pasta w spinace
Raastedchicken
potatoeroquet
chicken salada
string bean salada
minestroniso
stuffit mushrooms
[and my personal favorite]
Rise Pudding
Hope I didn't make you hungry!
===========================
Hmmm, it sounds like it's back to the drawing board on that as well, and we can't even blame it on Mitsubishi, try as we might. And just when you think that things can't possibly get any more ridiculous in food, along comes this story from the AOL Welcome Screen:
=======================================
Marshmallow Madness - Peeps to Open First Store
Peeps aren't just for Easter anymore; starting Thursday they'll have their own store. The incandescent yellow marshmallow candy that was first introduced in the 1950s has opened its first retail shop, located near Washington D.C. at the National Harbor.
The store, which beckons Peeps fans from outside with bright yellow awnings and chick-shaped door handles, sells more than just candy creations. Visitors will find approximately 850 Peeps-themed items ranging from oversized plush toys shaped like the candy, to more refined items—like one-of-a-kind Peeps-themed artwork and china made by the 130-year-old tableware maker, Lenox. And, of course, there will be candy. Each of the candies made by the Bethlehem, Pa. based company Just Born—including Peeps, Hot Tamales, Mike and Ike and Peanut Chews—will have their own designated sections in the permanent store. The store will also feature seasonal candies, like the Valentine candy hearts and candy Christmas trees. To the more than 100,000 people belonging to the official Peeps fan club and the thousands of others who cherish the candy, the store could become more than just a place to stock up on sweets. ===================================
I'll admit that I'm no fan of the sweet treats, but for their legions of admirers, or Peep-sters, as I guess we would call them, this would be the marshmallow mecca of their dreams. Of course at our house, we file this kind of story under the category of "This Is Why The Terrorists Hate Us," and with good reason. It also serves as one more indication, if any were needed, that this is indeed the end of the world as we know it, and a very sorry state of the world it is, too. On the other hand, everyone knows that Peeps are indestructible, so they will still be here long after all the rest of us are gone, and the joke will be on us when the dinosaurs have the last laugh after all. Or I guess at that point, we would have to call them Peep-osaurs instead.
Meanwhile on the local scene, alert readers might remember that our music director at church retired at the end of last year, and all attempts to replace the position have so far been unsuccessful, so people might be wondering what is to become of Lessons & Carols, that beloved holiday tradition of lore and legend? We've been lucky to find a fill-in organist who has been with us for several weeks, and he has agreed to help us put on a scaled-down version of the annual event, with the congregation singing most of the hymns, plus a few special pieces thrown in from professional musician soloists, or congregation members teaming up on favorite duets. Without an actual choir, some things will simply have to be scrapped from the program, such as the final anthem we would do right at the end, and was usually some complicated choral piece from centuries ago that would resist all of our efforts to come together as a cohesive whole, no matter how much time and effort we threw at the thing, it was simply beyond our abilities. So for what it's worth, this will be the first time in recent memory that we will not be torturing some composer's great work, like For Unto Us A Child Is Born, and the poor beleaguered spirit of Georg Friedrich Handel can be happy and rest in peace for a change. As a matter of fact, there is a growing suspicion among the congregation that it must have been the unquiet ghost of Handel that enticed our music director into retirement in the first place, if only for the sake of preserving his own sanity. It must be said that this theory has a certain perverse logic to it which can't be ignored, but as for myself, well, you won't hear a peep out of me.
Elle
Normally, this is where I would be apologizing for the recent horrible weather in the local area, with temperatures plunging below freezing, and howling winds making it feel even colder. This is not necessarily exceptional weather for the middle of December in these parts, but it had been so warm for so long that the sudden cold snap has hit us all like a kick in the teeth and just about as unwelcome, I don't mind saying. But at least my conscience is clear, and the frigid conditions cannot be laid at my doorstep, try as they might. Unlike other years when I have forgotten the bird bath heaters until way after they were needed, and our feathered friends were using the bird baths as a skating rink rather than a drinking fountain, this time around, I got the heaters plugged in and set in place well ahead of any freezing temperatures. This came as a surprise not only to me, since my track record in this event has been woeful over the years, but certainly all of the wildlife in our neighborhood, and apparently even the weather gods were stunned beyond all recovery. In fact, usually putting the heaters in the bird baths is all that it takes to usher in weeks of balmy temperatures, so that I have no way of knowing if the heaters are working or not, and this has become such an established fact of the regional climate that people routinely plan their mid-winter picnics around it. So you can imagine that I was not expecting to put in the heaters one day, and then have the temperature plummet 30 degrees overnight, which is basically what happened, so that everything around them froze, and they were still cooking. I don't think that has ever happened in all the years that I've had heaters for the bird baths, and I don't know who's responsible for the screw-up, but I do know that I'm certainly not taking the fall for it this time, by golly.
Speaking of temperatures, I happened to bump into two ladies from Finance in the hallway of my building, and at first I thought they were just standing around and talking, but then I realized that one was trying to help the other with the zipper of her coat, which was apparently stuck with her inside. This was one of those days in our old rattle-trap of a building when the indoor conditions were at a steamy 150 degrees or so, although it was freezing outside, and she would have literally dropped dead if she couldn't get out of her coat pretty darned quick. I thought they had everything under control, until I heard them say they were going to get scissors and cut the zipper to get her out. At that point, I stepped in to see if there was anything I could do, and once I moved her into better light, it was easy enough to unsnarl the offending fabric that was caught in the zipper pull, and after that, it unzipped with ease all the way down. She then turned to her ostensible helper and barked: "You're useless!" and we all laughed. "Well, in fairness," I had to say, "I'm used to breaking into things -- family business, you know." To which the other lady retorted: "Yeah, only this time, you did it without a gun!" Hey, I've got a drivers license picture that makes me look like a dead Mafia hitman, I don't need a gun.
Also at work, our courtyard has a fenced-in area that we laughingly refer to as the "temporary boiler house," since it has been there the better part of a decade already, and no end in sight. In fact, they covered the anchor fence with green vinyl pseudo-shrubbery to make it look more decorative, since it was obviously going to be taking up residence in the courtyard over the long haul, and not temporarily in the sense that term is usually employed. We're all used to it by now, and it has long since lost its power to excite or surprise us, or so we thought. I wasn't expecting to come into the courtyard and find a large sign attached to the fence that said NO PARKING ANY TIME. Inasmuch as the sign is over the sidewalk, in front of a flower bed and across from the steps into our building, without a road anywhere in sight, I'd say that parking in front of the fence would be the least of their problems. Of course, it is a hospital, so they might be alerting people that they are not allowed to park their wheelchairs there, but it certainly made me wonder.
Also making me wonder, I couldn't help but notice in the Wheels Extra section of our local newspaper, their big splashy cover story on the 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback, with a screaming headline that describes the vehicle as "A spirited compact that can haul more than just people and cargo." Now, anyone can call me a nitpicking linguistic stickler (they'd better not!) but honestly, what else would there be besides people and cargo? I simply can't come up with something that you could put in a car that isn't people, and yet couldn't be described as cargo. Fire? Gamma rays? Gravity? I admit that I'm totally stumped and have no idea what they're trying to convey with this mismatched metaphor, whose time may not have come, and in a perfect world, would never come, if that's the best they can do. If ever something was begging to be sent back to the drawing board and start all over again, this would be it in spades, although nowadays, I despair of the ad designers coming up with any kind of improvement on their own, in fact, it would probably get even worse, I'm thinking.
While we're on the subject of linguistic stickler nitpicking, here's one of my pet peeves directly from an actual food label, and suffering from the new militant anti-punctuation ideology which is so rampant nowadays:
FOR BEST WHEN USED BY INFORMATION
PLEASE SEE DATE PRINTED ON PACKAGE
Now, the dinosaurs and I can remember a time when someone putting that sort of gobbledygook on a label would be laughed out of the package design business altogether, and have to get a job working with their hands, since their brain was obviously not up to the task. Mind you, this is exactly the sort of thing that they now have committees of people to come up with, and this is the best they can do, for heaven's sake. The only way to decode this gibberish is to recognize that "best when used by [date]" is a complete phrase, and needs to be treated as a single thought, and not just thrown to the wolves piecemeal the way it is here, so that each separate word makes the meaning ever less and less comprehensible as it goes along. Back in those halcyon days of yore, when the dinosaurs and I roamed the vast unformed land masses, and the Syntax Police kept us all on the straight and narrow, this sort of sloppy construction would never have been tolerated, it would have been rooted out and demolished as it so richly deserves. Even in recent times, a simple solution would be to set the phrase apart with quotation marks, which would have at least rescued the meaning from oblivion, if nothing else, but with the current craze of anti-punctuationism, even that avenue has been closed to us, alas. The dinosaurs would say that an even better solution would be for labels like this to have been tossed into the tar pits instead of them, and I can't say that I blame them one bit.
Also on the topic of food, we have Bill to thank for the following from a neighborhood delicatessen:
===========================
In other news, a couple of Battaglia Brothers' own Daily Specials were too good not to pass along (they're still valiantly faxing their menus on a daily basis.) Today for your culinary enjoyment you can order:
Chicken cautlts parm. . .
Pasta w spinace
Raastedchicken
potatoeroquet
chicken salada
string bean salada
minestroniso
stuffit mushrooms
[and my personal favorite]
Rise Pudding
Hope I didn't make you hungry!
===========================
Hmmm, it sounds like it's back to the drawing board on that as well, and we can't even blame it on Mitsubishi, try as we might. And just when you think that things can't possibly get any more ridiculous in food, along comes this story from the AOL Welcome Screen:
=======================================
Marshmallow Madness - Peeps to Open First Store
Peeps aren't just for Easter anymore; starting Thursday they'll have their own store. The incandescent yellow marshmallow candy that was first introduced in the 1950s has opened its first retail shop, located near Washington D.C. at the National Harbor.
The store, which beckons Peeps fans from outside with bright yellow awnings and chick-shaped door handles, sells more than just candy creations. Visitors will find approximately 850 Peeps-themed items ranging from oversized plush toys shaped like the candy, to more refined items—like one-of-a-kind Peeps-themed artwork and china made by the 130-year-old tableware maker, Lenox. And, of course, there will be candy. Each of the candies made by the Bethlehem, Pa. based company Just Born—including Peeps, Hot Tamales, Mike and Ike and Peanut Chews—will have their own designated sections in the permanent store. The store will also feature seasonal candies, like the Valentine candy hearts and candy Christmas trees. To the more than 100,000 people belonging to the official Peeps fan club and the thousands of others who cherish the candy, the store could become more than just a place to stock up on sweets. ===================================
I'll admit that I'm no fan of the sweet treats, but for their legions of admirers, or Peep-sters, as I guess we would call them, this would be the marshmallow mecca of their dreams. Of course at our house, we file this kind of story under the category of "This Is Why The Terrorists Hate Us," and with good reason. It also serves as one more indication, if any were needed, that this is indeed the end of the world as we know it, and a very sorry state of the world it is, too. On the other hand, everyone knows that Peeps are indestructible, so they will still be here long after all the rest of us are gone, and the joke will be on us when the dinosaurs have the last laugh after all. Or I guess at that point, we would have to call them Peep-osaurs instead.
Meanwhile on the local scene, alert readers might remember that our music director at church retired at the end of last year, and all attempts to replace the position have so far been unsuccessful, so people might be wondering what is to become of Lessons & Carols, that beloved holiday tradition of lore and legend? We've been lucky to find a fill-in organist who has been with us for several weeks, and he has agreed to help us put on a scaled-down version of the annual event, with the congregation singing most of the hymns, plus a few special pieces thrown in from professional musician soloists, or congregation members teaming up on favorite duets. Without an actual choir, some things will simply have to be scrapped from the program, such as the final anthem we would do right at the end, and was usually some complicated choral piece from centuries ago that would resist all of our efforts to come together as a cohesive whole, no matter how much time and effort we threw at the thing, it was simply beyond our abilities. So for what it's worth, this will be the first time in recent memory that we will not be torturing some composer's great work, like For Unto Us A Child Is Born, and the poor beleaguered spirit of Georg Friedrich Handel can be happy and rest in peace for a change. As a matter of fact, there is a growing suspicion among the congregation that it must have been the unquiet ghost of Handel that enticed our music director into retirement in the first place, if only for the sake of preserving his own sanity. It must be said that this theory has a certain perverse logic to it which can't be ignored, but as for myself, well, you won't hear a peep out of me.
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 9:11 PM
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