Open And Shut

Hello World,

Well, and so here we find ourselves, perched right on the very brink of February, as impossible as that might seem, because it will be right with us on Monday and no way around it. It's gotten bitterly cold, in spite of the fact that both of my bird bath heaters are still working fine, with howling winds that make it seem even colder, and that's during the day, while the overnight temperatures are almost unimaginable. Yesterday, we were expecting what all of the weather forecasters described as "snow flurries," but unfortunately the storm had other ideas, and instead turned into a messy squall that dumped snow everywhere and made a nightmare out of the morning commute. I could tell that it certainly wasn't my idea of "flurries" when I had to get out there and shovel, and thank you so very much not. It stopped in the afternoon, and didn't amount to much in the way of accumulation after all, which in a perverse way, might explain the disproportionate number of traffic accidents, since people were perhaps not as cautious as they might have been in deeper snow. Later that same day, it actually warmed up and the sun came out, with brilliant blue skies and streaming sunshine everywhere, and not a snowflake to be found, making us all wonder if we had just hallucinated the whole sordid episode in the morning. Of course, for the tens of thousands of utility customers without electricity in some of the most inhospitable conditions, they knew it was all too real, and I for one don't envy them trying to stay warm under those circumstances. Fortunately, the power outages didn't affect us at the hospital, because in the old rattle-trap of a building where I work, it always seems to be about 150 degrees every day, and everyone has to keep their air conditioners running full tilt all winter long just to survive in their office. That might seem impractical or even wasteful, especially in challenging economic times such as these, but luckily hospitals like mine have very deep pockets. They should, after all, they're yours.

Of course, the weather wasn't all that the local population had to complain about lately, as the landscape of the professional sports scene left much to be desired, and that's putting it mildly. Alas, there is no joy in Mudville, as the fairytale Jets, after a strong finish to an improbable season, were eliminated from the playoffs by the dratted Colts, heaping more disappointment upon their perennially disappointed legion of fans. Now, it's true that they did get much farther into the playoffs than anyone had any right to hope, and also way better than the darned Giants, whose disappointed legion of fans have every reason to expect better results from their team than this uncharacteristically inept off-year. At this time of year, there's little enough to cheer in local sports, with the Rangers playing hockey like a .500 team and looking even worse, and even the early off-season news about the Mets is alternately depressing or alarming. I suppose it's times like this that make people want to take up drinking in earnest, or resign themselves to setting their sights much lower. I hear the local elementary school's girls basketball team is doing really well.

In other sports news, it's true that last week was not Super Bowl Sunday, as it would have been years ago, but at church, we decided to go ahead and hold our annual meeting just as if it was. For decades, the annual congregational meeting was scheduled to coincide with the Super Bowl, as a means to encourage people to stick to business and get everything wrapped up early, so they could all go home in plenty of time to enjoy the game. We stuck with the NFL when they moved to the last Sunday in January, but once they shifted their pigskin extravaganza to February, we threw in the towel and cut our ties with the event that was turning into more of a movable feast than we were prepared for. I mean, if we wanted our meeting to chase around after something, we could have scheduled it for Ramadan or Hanukkah or Chinese New Year, for heaven's sake, and not some fly-by-night upstart like the Super Bowl, where you would expect the NFL to have a little more respect for tradition. In any case, the meeting went off without a hitch, and even though it included a lengthy presentation by a lawyer who was advising us on protecting our property rights, it still managed to wrap up at a reasonable time, and anyone with a hypothetical Super Bowl game to watch afterward would not have been disaccommodated. This was a standout year in my memory for harmony and collaboration among the congregation, compared to so many meetings in the past that were marked with shouting, name calling, and throwing chairs, and that was just for the Flower Committee report, mind you. The year-end financial report was greeted with polite attention, rather than the wailing and gnashing of teeth that we've come to expect. The proposed budget was discussed and revised in a civilized manner that would have made us old-timers wonder if we had somehow wandered into the wrong church by mistake, without all of the usual acrimony and recriminations coming back to haunt us. Even the pot-luck lunch was a rousing success, and the fact that everyone was still talking to each other after it was over, is nothing short of miraculous, and obviously Divine Intervention cannot be ruled out. The NFL might have let us down on the date, but I don't think there is anything that they could have done to make this Sunday any more Super than it was for us, and that's no hogwash.

It would be all too easy to expect from this point, normally that would be more than enough meetings for any one person in a week, but not so! Our neighborhood association had its annual meeting on Tuesday night, with representatives from 40 households all gathering at the President's home, or in cases of unavoidable absence, sending in their proxies to be their representatives for them. I usually attend, although not always, but I wanted to make sure I was there this time, because I knew there would be some very important topics to be discussed. Of course, there's always repairs to be made on the Boat House, and other suggestions for sprucing up the neighborhood or improving security. But the hot button issues this year would be on-street parking (eliminating invaders without inconveniencing the residents) and the potential designation of the neighborhood as a historic district, since the first houses are now more than a century old, including ours. The two issues turned out to be more alike than I would have expected, and that is to say, both are something of a double-edged sword, which seem to have an equal amount of advantages and disadvantages, and no real middle ground where people can find consensus. The historic designation is the really contentious question for the area, with strong feelings on both sharply-divided sides, and people not shy about sharing their highly polarized opinions, usually at full volume. In fact, it started to remind me so much of the bad old annual church meetings, that I was surprised to realize that I had picked up a chair that I was going to throw across the room, without even being aware of it. In any case, cooler heads prevailed and both subjects were referred to separate committees to work out the details and report back to the whole association at a later time. The rest of the meeting was amicable, almost to the point of borderline infatuation. I said to Bill that I was accosted by so many people who seemed to be complete strangers to me, who all called me by name and fell all over me like I was a long-lost relative just returned from years in exile, or maybe the reincarnation of Ed McMahon showing up with that big cardboard check. I got kissed by so many people, I felt like Charles de Gaulle, but frankly, I thought the autograph seekers were a little too much. But all in all, it was a great neighborhood meeting, and I was glad I went, although I despair of ever getting the tune of "Mademoiselle from Armentieres" out of my head at this rate.

There was one inadvertently funny moment at the annual church meeting, during an otherwise serious discussion about plans for the ministry in the upcoming year. The new pastor is with us on an interim basis, and a question was raised as to what responsibilities that entails, besides leading Sunday worship services and Bible Study classes. He explained that he also intends to do evangelism, as well as visiting the sick and home-bound for companionship and pastoral care. At this point, the Council President jumped in to say that in order to make arrangements to go visiting, they had contacted the shut-ins, who all insisted that they were much too busy to meet with the new pastor, and it would have to wait for a more auspicious time. The whole congregation was taken aback at this turn of events, belying as it does, the image of the poor and neglected invalid, moping around in seclusion, and starved for any spark of human interaction that is all but lacking in their lonely lives. Apparently that's not the case at all, and here I'm thinking that things have certainly changed with shut-ins since the last time I looked. If Hallmark wanted to make a TV movie about it, they'd have to call it something like, "The Wandering Shut-In: The Adventures of Old Folks on the Loose," and would hardly be the pathetic tear-jerker that they might have been aiming at. It's a brave new world out there, heaven knows, and it might be time to look at this situation in a whole new light. I guess the first order of business would be to change their name, so that rather being called shut-ins, from now on they would be known as shut-outs instead. Then we could send them over to the local elementary school's girls basketball team, where having lots of shut-outs would be a good thing, and finally the local sports scene would have something to cheer about once again. This may not sound like it makes a lot of sense, but personally, I think it's an open and shut case, and hinky-dinky parlez-vous.

Elle

My Fair Lady

Hello World,

And here it is, Super Bowl Sunday already, by golly, where does the time go? That is, it would have been Super Bowl Sunday years ago, back when there used to be standards, and not like now, heaven knows, when they don't get around to playing the big game until the middle of February. So far, the end of the regular season and the beginning of the playoffs have been anything but routine, so it looks like it's shaping up for some interesting times ahead on the old gridiron, which should certainly crank up demand for big screen televisions, and give the President's economic advisers something to cheer about for a change. Speaking of football, because the Jets beat the Chargers, and the Colts also eliminated their first-round rival, they will be facing each other in the next round of the playoffs before the Super Bowl. This prompted Bill to wonder how the Jets and Colts could be playing each other in the playoffs, when anyone "of a certain age" couldn't help but remember their classic match-up in Super Bowl III, made historically famous when Joe Namath guaranteed that the underdog Jets of the AFL would defeat the mighty Colts of the NFL, and in fact, they did. Bill was of the opinion that under the new configuration, the Jets should be in the AFC and the Colts in the NFC, and they shouldn't meet in the playoffs before the Super Bowl. Looking at the situation logically, I suggested that it might have been true when the Colts were in Baltimore, but perhaps when they moved the team to Indianapolis, it entered the league in the AFC, while their original home city remained in the NFC for any new team that might come along. This seemed perfectly plausible to me, until I noticed who the Colts had beaten to advance to the next round, and sure enough, it was the Baltimore Ravens, apparently also now in the AFC along with the Jets and Colts. At that point, I just had to throw my hands up in the air and give the whole thing up as a lost cause, because logic obviously didn't stand a chance.

Of course, everyone knows that I was off from work for two weeks at the end of the year, but that wasn't the end of it, not by a long shot. The first week of the new year, I took a day off to attend the jolly Irish funeral, which was not only 40 miles away, but ended up taking most of the day and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. The week after that, I took off Friday because we were planning to go away for the weekend, and then this week, we all had Monday off in honor of the late and lamented Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. So what with one thing and another, I came back from vacation to have three four-day weeks in a row, and I can tell you right now that I am never going to catch up at this rate, by golly. I have always said that when I take a day off, it takes me a week to catch up; when I take a week off, it takes me a month to catch up; and if I ever took two weeks off, I'd have to quit my job, and I'm starting to think that might be the case. Now that I'm back, I don't dare take lunch, and in fact, I'm afraid to leave my desk, out of fear that the tottering piles of paperwork around my office will succumb to the inevitable pull of gravity, and I'll come back to find a stationery (not stationary) glacier has engulfed my office beyond all recognition or reclamation efforts, and I'm not taking any chances.

It may have wreaked havoc with my workload, but it was still great to get away for the long MLK weekend and visit our friends in the Albany area for a late mini-Christmas, as we do every year. We made reservations to stay at La Quinta hotel in Latham, and our friends decided to stay there right along with us, as a sort of mini-vacation for them, even though they live nearby. We got up early on Friday and were all packed and ready to leave by noon, with better lists this time, so that we didn't leave things home, like last month's trip. When we left here, it was a beautiful sunny day, but by the time we got to La Quinta, our beautiful day had been replaced with sullen skies and blustery winds that made it feel even colder than it was. We checked in and were soon joined by our friends, and since we hadn't seen each other in several months, we had plenty to catch up on. Pretty soon it was time for dinner, so we headed to the 76 Diner, where we usually eat when we're there, in spite of them posting our pictures in the lobby so the staff will keep us out. The daughter of one couple asked if she could join us, because her kitchen was being remodeled, and we were happy to oblige, although I'm not so sure that the feeling was mutual. Of course, she was much too polite to complain, but her sighs and eye-rolling were eloquent all on their own. Honestly, you'd think she'd never seen six people play "Lady of Spain" with their armpits before.

Two of our friends live in Latham, so after dinner we went back to their house to see their Christmas decorations and meet their new kittens, Zoe and Pumpkin, who happen to be sister and brother, in spite of one being gray and the other orange. There's nothing like kittens as a tonic to a long cold day, and their antics were just what the doctor ordered to revive our spirits and put a spring in our step. In fact, I pointed out that our friends were all so alert that I had no choice but to show them our Christmas video, and even though we've been making them for years, this one somehow managed to reach a new low that was almost comically bad. (At our house, there's something about a video camera that makes all of the cats get up and show you their backsides, which we now have preserved on videotape, and thanks so very much not.) Our friends' daughter left while the getting was good, but the others were resigned to their fate and accepted it with good grace, although the neighbors did call to complain when the snoring got really out of hand. Once we roused everyone again, we went back to the hotel for a late swim in the pool and a relaxing soak in the hot tub, and if that's not a perfect recipe to cure all ills, I don't know what is. At the hospital, a coworker had sent me a fruit basket by Edible Arrangements as a belated Merry Christmas gift, and we brought it along to share, so it became an ideal nightcap to a long and eventful day.

We had stayed at La Quinta before, and so we knew we could avail ourselves of their breakfast in the morning, which is always a nice way to start the day, without having to get dressed and go out, or bring along your own snacks when you travel. After we had our fill there, we drove to where our other friends live around Kinderhook, because they also had a new feline addition to their family, a more sedate orange tabby named Max-a-million, and he certainly was. They had also left up their Christmas decorations for us to enjoy, and we were glad of it, and took the opportunity to play Christmas carols and exchange gifts, just like it was December 25th all over again. We had a busy day ahead of us, so we grabbed a quick lunch at the nearby Kinderhook Diner, where we had never been before in all the years that our friends have lived in the area, and once again, I have the feeling that our six-part rendition of "Lady of Spain" will compel them to hang our pictures in their lobby as a barrier against our return at any time. I'm sure they must have been kidding about the barbed wire, though.

What happened next was a revelation to us. For years, there had been a very large Grand Union supermarket on the main drag, but it had closed recently and was replaced by something called Ocean State Job Lot, and what a place this is! It's like an enormous old 5-and-10 cent store of days gone by, where you can buy just about anything and everything, and at the most ridiculous prices, so that you end up buying stuff that you don't even need, just because it's such an irresistible bargain. The store just goes on forever in every direction, and not only has everything you can think of, but clothes and food besides. It was a real challenge for me and Bill not to go totally nuts, and just grab stuff with both hands in every aisle, because the variety is endless and everything is so cheap. We did end up buying a lot of stuff there, but it was all very particular things that we were specifically looking for, and not just every doo-dad that caught our fancy. I said to Bill that if they ever opened one near us, they'd have to set up cots for us, because we would just have to move right in there.

After an exhausting round of shopping, it was time for a musical interlude, so it was back to Latham, where our friends have the new Beatles video game for their Xbox, and while it's true that we had a lot of fun with it, I would have to say that Paul and Ringo will not be calling us any time soon about a reunion tour with us filling out the group, and that's without them even hearing us do Lady of Spain, mind you. Then we hurried back to the hotel for dinner, and since La Quinta doesn't have a restaurant, we brought our own pizza and salad and calzone to enjoy in our room, and it was delicious and relaxing, and a nice change from eating out. We had plenty of time to get back into the pool, and the hot tub, which is always a special treat. In fact, La Quinta has hot tubs right in many of their guest rooms, so we wouldn't even have to go to the swimming pool at all, but then we wouldn't be able to see the horror-stricken faces of the poor innocent bystanders around us, and what would be the point of that? We wrapped up the evening with more fruit basket nightcap, and played around with some trivia cards where you had to figure out well-known idioms from clues, or name all of the Great Lakes, Ten Commandments or Santa's reindeers. It was very entertaining, but it must be said that Paul and Ringo won't be calling us for that either, believe me.

After another nice breakfast, we packed up and checked out in the morning, and since we were right in the vicinity, we went to snatch up some seasonal bargains at the Hewitt's garden center there, instead of the one we usually patronize farther away, which our friends had warned us was in a very bad state of disrepair and might fall right down on our heads. The other Hewitt's was in fine shape, and we especially loved the resident feline floor walker, who kept his or her eye on us the whole time we were there, either to make sure we didn't shoplift, or perhaps on the off-chance that we might be carrying some tuna fish with us. It's possible the better Hewitt's might have attracted more after-Christmas customers than our usual spot, because the place was pretty much picked clean, and we found almost nothing to buy there, in spite of the steep discounts, while we usually walk off with bags and bags full of stuff at the regular place. We didn't pout, but headed straight to Denny's for lunch, and that always puts a smile on our tummies that makes the whole world look better from the inside out. Even better, they had my all-time favorite dessert, their scrumptious coconut cream pie which is not available at every Denny's, so that was heaven on earth for me right there. Next door is Cracker Barrel, and we didn't leave there disappointed either, finding snacks and souvenirs that were right up our alley, and then some. Our friends needed to make another stop, which was certainly understandable, because there was apparently a cat toy emergency, where all of their new felines only had a whole room full of toys, but still insisted that they were hopelessly bored and needed more. Fortunately, Wal*Mart came to the rescue and disaster was averted, so our friends could return home to happy kitties.

By then it was getting late and we all had to go in different directions, so we bid our fond farewells in the parking lot, much to the consternation of drivers waiting for parking spaces, while we were carrying on like the last act of a Greek tragedy. Up until that point, the weather had been a lot better than expected, but we drove home in pouring rain all the way, which is about our least favorite way to travel, although marginally better than snow, I guess. We hadn't brought home any cat toys from Wal*Mart, so our cats greeted our return with icy glares of thinly veiled contempt, and just like the Christmas video, all showed us their backsides in a manner that made their meaning perfectly clear. So now we have reached that point where Christmas is well and truly over for another year, and nothing but our fond memories to console us, plus presents and bags full of souvenirs. Of course, I don't have time to sit around and complain, because we'll probably be seeing our friends again in a few months, and I have got to practice. Lady of Spain, anyone?

Elle

King For A Day

Hello World,
If you're in a locality that celebrates this as a long holiday weekend, I wish you all the very best, to enjoy in the peace-loving and tolerant spirit of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in whose memory many dozens of otherwise hard-working people will have the day off, and glad of it. Unlike poor Columbus Day and Armistice Day, which in their heyday were considered equals with the big and important holidays, the day to commemorate Dr. King has never really caught on in a substantial way all over the country, and so you can never be sure where it is likely to be observed, or not, in different places. As a result, it finds itself in the unenviable position of being relegated to the second tier of lesser festivals, like the aforementioned pair, without ever having hit the big time in the first place, sort of like Arbor Day or Groundhog Day, except without all the media attention. In fact, next to a news article about how a local community center would be observing Monday with speeches and essays, there was a much bigger story about Groundhog Day, which is not even for another two and a half weeks yet. So it would appear that Dr. King is falling victim to the same “what have you done for us lately” syndrome as poor old Christopher Columbus, and doesn't even get the chance to be King for a Day on his very own day.
Speaking of things going in the wrong direction, I'm as willing as the next fellow to give this brand shiny new year some time to get its sea legs, as it were, and shake the kinks out before writing it off as a lost cause, especially since it would almost have to be an improvement over last year, no matter what. But I feel that it’s only fair to point out that I've already attended two funerals so far this year, which for all intents and purposes, seems like nothing so much as a bad continuation of last year, and not anyone’s idea of a change for the better, thanks not. Of course, it must be said that one of those funerals was a big Irish one, and to say that it was very jolly would be an understatement of epic proportions, in fact if it had gotten any jollier, the police would have carted everyone away in wagons, believe me. And while I'm as much in favor of jollity as the next fellow, and probably more than most, I still would prefer a significant reduction in the amount of funerals compared to last year, and that’s not just a lot of green beer and shamrocks talking, believe me.
Well, the scoffers may, well, scoff all they like, but I am happy to report that the Christmas Un-Decorating Team at work did actually put away all of the decorations in the department, including the tree, rolling cart and all of the ornaments. And I don't mean tossed unceremoniously into a trash bag and stuffed in a corner, but properly put away in their own little packages, even the tablecloth and door cover folded up nice and neat and wrapped in plastic for next year. Being that this was only the second week in January (and a scant 5 days after Epiphany, or Festival of the Three Kings) it constitutes a remarkable achievement for the Christmas Un-Decorating Team around here, if not positively record-breaking, at least in recent memory for this event. So take that, you scoffers, and I'm sure you know who you are.
We also took the opportunity for un-decorating at home while the time was ripe, and we soon had the lights, wreaths and cat stockings packed up and back where they belong for the next Visit From St. Nicholas. Even the tree made the annual journey from the living room out to the backyard, because of course, everyone knows that Bill is king of his castle and not one to be daunted by any old 10-foot behemoth, and weighing in at hundreds of pounds is no proof against his determination. He even swept up all of the thousands of needles that are routinely exploded off of the tree while trying to manhandle it back through the front door, which is not for the faint-hearted, and I ought to know, so he deserves extra credit for that. And while it may be 345 days until Christmas, I always say that it’s never too early to start getting on the good side of the jolly old elf himself, so Bill has already taken steps to keep himself on that Nice List for good girls and boys, and not that it counts for anything, but he’s certainly got my vote, that’s for sure.
Normally, that would be all the news in the realm of Christmas trees in our lives, and more than usual, I don't mind saying, but not this time around. In what I consider an odd twist, and as unwelcome as it was unexpected, when I left church on Sunday, I couldn't help but notice that someone had tossed a small tabletop tree into the parking lot and just left it there abandoned, without a second thought. I'm thinking that it must have occurred to them that the errant tree, no matter how little, was not going to somehow magically find its own way to the curb to be picked up by the city, and they can't have left it outside with the expectation that it would be adopted by some generous family who would give it a good home. Frankly, I consider it a puzzling development that anyone would dump a used tree in our parking lot, and just satisfy themselves with the idea that it was now the church’s problem and that we would take care of cleaning up after them. Perhaps they think that churches subscribe to some sort of ecclesiastical chipping service, that comes around and chops up the unwanted effluvium from the property, using the resulting mulch to grow Easter lilies and Christmas poinsettias, and in a perfect world, I suppose that might be true. However, it’s not true at our church, and so I found myself carrying yet another tree home and putting it in the backyard with the rest of them, which is turning into quite a crowd back there at this point. I mean, I always say that there’s no such thing as too much firewood, but this is starting to get to be a little too much of a good thing, even for me, and don't forget, I have very low standards.
Meanwhile at work, I was in the ladies room washing my hands and was thrilled to find actual hot water coming out of the faucet, which hasn't happened in at least 18 months there, that I can remember. This was a such a luxury for us in this old rattle-trap of a building, especially on a day that was chilly, because usually the place is so over-heated that you wouldn't want hot water even if there was any. I was thinking that it’s pathetic how the little things make us happy, as I observed to the inimitable Jean our Bookkeeper, like hot water in the bathroom. "Well, at work, anyway,” she mused, “I mean, I hope you have it at home.” Of course, I pointed out, because unlike this old flea-bag of a joint, our house is only 105 years old, and actually comes complete with all of the modern conveniences like hot water. Well, that is to say, all of the modern conveniences that were considered necessary for homes being designed for the discriminating buyer at the turn of the 19th century anyway.
And while we're on the topic of discrimination, I bumped into an ad on the AOL Welcome screen last week, where they were eager to offer me the opportunity to complete my degree in what they described as “Frensics” in only one year, imagine that! Personally, I have no idea what “Frensics” could be, or why I would want a degree in it, but taking a wild stab at it, I would guess that it would be the study of why people are sick of the French, or alternately, what it is about French food that makes people sick. I wouldn't actually think that there would be a big call for any studies of this nature, but then, I've been wrong before, and the dinosaurs will be happy to tell you that I'm no expert on human behavior. In fact, they would be the first to say that they've never seen me exhibit any particular skill beyond the art or study of argumentative discourse, but in the peace-loving and tolerant spirit of the late Dr. King, I am prepared to let that slide.

Elle

Year In And Year Out

Hello World,

Greetings of the season to you, and hopefully the bright and shiny new year of 2010 is treating you a whole lot better than what was happening in 2009, and by a wide margin, that's for sure. New Year's Eve in these parts was bitterly cold, and all of those tourists who flocked to Times Square to watch the ball drop really earned it this time, because it must have been excruciating out there on the street all day and all night. We did the sensible thing and stayed home, where the most precarious thing we have to cope with is the appallingly bad television programming at the time. Every year, it continues to amaze me that the New Year's Eve shows can run the gamut from bad to worse, to outrageously abysmal, without ever reaching a level that could be described as even mediocre, much less good in any way. Fifty years after Guy Lombardo was hooted off the airwaves for being old-fashioned and boring, they still haven't come up with anything that is interesting to watch and competently presented. I always say, it can't possibly be as bad as last year, and yet somehow it always manages to be even worse, and don't forget, we've got 100 cable channels, so we are not limited to just a few choices, even in different languages. It's stupefying to me that after all these years, no one has come along to rescue New Year's Eve television from the schlock-meisters that seem to have a stranglehold on it now. Our usual defensive strategy is to watch a movie of our own, that we've been meaning to see but haven't gotten around to, and only switch to live TV at the big moment just to watch the ball drop, and then skip around a bit to see which channels are doing what, and where. The results are usually so awful, and so quickly, that we're soon ready to pack it in and give it up as a lost cause, and hope perhaps in vain, that next year will miraculously be better, although that part has yet to happen. But we got a chance to see "Die Hard With a Vengeance," which we had been looking forward to, so the whole evening was not a total loss after all. And if anyone in the scientific community wants my opinion, instead of wasting taxpayer money on whether Pluto is a planet or not, they should be inventing a way to bring Guy Lombardo back from the dead, and I personally would be happy to give them a couple of those funky new Sacajawea dollar coins to get them started.

Even though I was on vacation the week after Christmas (HOORAY!!!) I still went in to work in the afternoon of New Year's Eve, because I was waiting for a form that I needed to fax before the end of the year. It was only about 3:00 PM when I got there, and thought I could wish a Happy New Year to my coworkers before it was too late, but I found the entire building was deserted, with not a soul in the place except for my little old oh, lonesome me. I also needed to stop off and pick up some papers at church, and it came as an unpleasant surprise, after it had snowed the night before, that the part-time maintenance person hadn't cleared the sidewalk in front of the church, or the steps. (By golly, $100 a week doesn't get you much these days!) Then I remembered that I still had the snow shovel in the car from Lessons & Carols, so I decided to take some time and make a stab at it, but it was back-breaking work. The snow wasn't deep at all, but by then it had all been trampled down and froze to the sidewalk, so that the poor shovel just couldn't budge it. I did the best job I could under the circumstances, and then tossed around some salt to hopefully make some inroads where the shovel had failed, but it would be no one's idea of their finest hour in public works administration, and not by a long shot, believe me.

While we're in the holiday mood, if even Epiphany has come and gone, which indeed it has, I guess everyone knows that can mean only one thing, and that is that it's time once again for the wandering Christmas tree at work. Every year, I mark a date on my calendar to put away the tree and decorations in our department, and with the best intentions of sticking to it, but it seems like it's always too hectic and disorganized at the time to really give this project the effort and attention that it requires. As a result, I usually end up grabbing at the decorations with both hands and yanking them off whatever they're attached to, then throwing everything willy-nilly into a pile in my office until I have more time to deal with it properly. The tree itself is on a rolling cart covered with a festive tablecloth, and it's all too tempting to just roll it out of the hallway, still decorated with all of its holiday finery, and put it somewhere out of sight for the time being. We don't have as many of those "out of sight" places as we used to in our area, so right now it's in the back of my office, while all the jumbled decorations are tossed in a heap on the credenza. I guess the best that can be said about it is that at least Phase I of the undecorating process has been completed, and we've paved the way for the eventual implementation of Phase II, and hopefully sooner rather than later, although I'm not promising anything, you understand.

Speaking of Christmas trees, I recently found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time, with inadvertent consequences. Last Sunday at church, the congregation was encouraged to take home any unclaimed poinsettias that had graced the chancel with their lively color during Advent, and after those were cleared out, the rest of the decorations soon followed along right after them. Most were carefully packed away and put safely in the balcony for another year, but the Christmas tree is live, so it had to be put outside at the curb, theoretically to be picked up by one of the city agencies empowered with that authority. Apparently everyone involved in the process of lugging the tree outside either lived in a different part of town, or else didn't have a holiday tree of their own, because when the question was raised about when the city comes around to pick trees up, everyone looked at me. I immediately piped up and said I had no idea when trees were picked up, because we always put our trees out in the backyard and I cut them up for firewood, which in retrospect, was probably a big mistake, because suddenly everyone was clamoring for me to take the church's tree home for firewood as well. Not being able to come up with a graceful way to extricate myself from the situation on short notice, I agreed to take it home, and here was one of those instances where what seemed like a nice manageable sized tree in the sanctuary, inexplicably transformed itself into a great hulking mass when we tried to stuff it into the poor Escort, which may never be the same, although I have to say that it smells great.

In other mobility news, we get the following story from Bill

=====================
I just remembered the Welcome Screen headline I wanted to pass along:

->^..^<- ->^..^<- ->^..^<- ->^..^<- ->^..^<-

All-Electric Cars Will Soon Be RealitySee 6 That Promise 100 MPG or More

->^..^<- ->^..^<- ->^..^<- ->^..^<- ->^..^<-

-- I thought charging them up might be a problem
but not if AOL is going to sell electricity by the gallon!
=====================

I'm thinking this is an innovation in energy transactions that Con Edison has never considered, and frankly, I don't even mind buying my electricity by the gallon, but it better be the good stuff, by golly. Meanwhile, I wound up at the end of the year with enough unused vacation time left-over, and the hospital doesn't let you carry it over, that I was able to take off most of the last two weeks of December, and not return to work until January. I didn't even have to go in as I usually do for payroll, since my time off fell in between pay periods, so that was even better. Unfortunately, by the time I did get back to my office, it looked like an explosion at a paper mill, and I had to wade through stacks of documents just to find my desk, which basically needed to be shoveled off before I could even start to dig down to the surface. Since the previous Friday was a holiday, when we normally would have done time cards, by the time I got in on Monday, it was already a day late and I needed to get the ball rolling on this process, and no excuses. For no discernible reason, everyone seemed to get out of the time card habit in the two weeks that I was off, and as I went around to gather up the cards, the people that I asked for them would stare at me with their mouths hanging open, and an utter lack of comprehension in their expression that was as mystifying as it was unwelcome. It was as if we hadn't all been doing time cards every other week for at least the 20 years that I have worked there, and probably 100 years that the hospital has been there, and yet, everyone was looking at me as if I was a three-headed polka dot space alien asking them for dilithium crystals to power my rocket ship or something equally arcane. I always say that my taking time off from work is what we consider a "mental health day" for everyone else there, but this time around, they seemed to take advantage of my absence to enjoy some "mental derelict time" and conveniently forget everything they were supposed to know how to do when I got back. It turned into something of an unexpectedly long and frustrating day, and if I really was a three-headed polka dot space alien with a rocket ship, that would have been the time that I certainly would have been happy to hop in and take off for distant galaxies, believe me. Of course, I first would have had to stop and fill up with a few gallons of electricity, because after all, there's really no such thing as dilithium crystals.

Elle

Better Late Than Never

Hello World,

Happy New Year! I'm thinking this would be as good a time as any to wish you and your family all the best for 2010, and better days ahead, that's for sure. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it would be impossible for 2010 not to be an improvement over 2009, in just about every way, because the alternative would be unthinkable. I guess we can all agree that 2009 wasn't going to win any popularity contests, and 2010 won't have to work very hard to be a better year all around, and like a nice refreshing drink, help wash away the bad taste of 2009 right out of our mouths and good riddance. Of course, there's the usual debate about whether the new decade begins in 2010 or 2011, just like the Y2K controversy for the new millennium, but all of that doesn't matter much to me, as long as we can finally put 2009 behind us once and for all, and be done with it at long last. As a matter of fact, like the National Hurricane Center retires names of storms that caused such horrific damage that the name can't be used again, I believe that 2009 should also be permanently retired so that it can't come back to haunt future generations, and I personally would vote for it being stricken from the annals altogether and replaced with an asterisk. Or maybe something a little more like *&%@!#*

In other holiday news, last Friday was Christmas for many people, including here at our house too, and it must be said that Santa and his elves did their usual masterful job under our tree, and no complaints were heard throughout. I got a new Sony Walkman with built-in speakers, and a little photo frame for showing pictures, plus a Roku for online video content, as well as other technology gear for my laptop, plus DVDs and music CDs that I had been hankering for. In the "What Will They Think of Next" category came another practical gift that was a new digital scale, with a remote readout so that you can put it some place where you can actually see it, rather than trying to read it on the floor between your feet. Bill got a new TV-DVD player with the picture-in-picture feature that is so handy, plus a Wii Fit, a mini camcorder, and other gifts of apparel, technology, books and personal coziness. He still has one more late gadget to look forward to, that did not arrive in time for the holiday, and may never arrive at this rate, but one can only hope that it will be worth the wait, if and when it finally does get here. My advice to Santa would be to retire the elves that were in charge of this particular item, like the hurricane names and 2009, and good riddance.

In an unexpected twist, the TV-DVD that I was expecting to be more or less a regular 15" television set, instead turned out to be a sort of mini home theater system that came in so many different little pieces that I despaired of it ever getting assembled into a workable form, but Bill was more than equal to the challenge, and soon had it playing DVDs like it was supposed to. Because we hadn't gotten up early (we've been known to start opening presents before 6AM around here, but not this time) and had a lot of things to play with, it seemed to get late sooner than we expected, and suddenly it was dinner time before we knew what hit us. We had laid in supplies for a special meal, and all in all, we enjoyed a nice and relaxing day at home on Christmas, which was a first for us since we've been married. In every other year except this one, we would get up early and tear through our presents, then throw everything in a room away from the cats, hop in the car and drive to relatives for the day instead of being at home. This time around, we ran into the same situation as Thanksgiving, where the holiday bus schedule for my sister was inconvenient, so we decided to observe Christmas a day late on Saturday with family, and it left us at loose ends and on our own for the actual holiday on Friday. On the other hand, as I pointed out to Bill, at least when we would spend Christmas on Long Island, we didn't have to pack, which was an unwelcome consequence of our plans to stay overnight in Newburgh, especially for those of us who didn't start soon enough and were still running around at the last minute, and I ought to know.

In fact, Saturday was so hectic and disorganized that even though we packed the car to the rafters, we still managed to leave many important items at home, which was probably just as well, because otherwise, we would have had to tie my sister to the roof after we picked her up at the bus station. Somehow we managed to cram her in the back seat, along with her presents, and head upstate for another rendezvous at the log cabin, this time full of holly and jolly and lots of ho-ho-ho. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate, and it rained the whole time we were driving, although there was no traffic to speak of, so that was one good thing about it. We had arranged to meet with other relatives at Denny's in Newburgh, and no one has to ask us twice to go there, that's for sure, so it was no surprise that we showed up an hour early. Since we had time to kill, we decided to go find our hotel, since we decided to stay some place different than our previous visits to the area, which was the Comfort Inn on the other side of the airport. We happened to bump into it by accident, when we were trying to turn around and go in the opposite direction, and even though it was much too early for check-in, the nice front desk staff let us check in anyway, and that was a big help, so we could figure out where we were and get some things out of the car. By the time we got back to Denny's, everyone else was already there, and I don't mind saying, all in their holiday finery besides. After a wonderful meal, we elected to forgo desert there, so we could indulge in some home-made treats with our relatives in nearby Montgomery instead, and we hurried over there eagerly. The weather couldn't dampen our spirits, and the company was as convivial as if it had actually been Christmas itself, and not a late version of the holiday that we were celebrating on Boxing Day instead. In spite of the Holiday Police, I maintain that there is no wrong way to celebrate Boxing Day, so I don't expect that our impromptu version will have to be retired permanently to protect future generations.

From there, it was off to the log cabin, and in spite of it being dark and rainy, we were greeted with a warm fire, charming decorations, and traditional holiday treats like red and green M&Ms, which are just as tasty, whether it's too early or too late. There was plenty of eggnog and seasonal music to get us in the holiday mood, and the Christmas tree was a sight to behold, full of carefully hand-crafted ornaments that our cats would have long since shredded years ago, or batted behind the radiators so that no one would ever find them again. My sister's cat is too well-behaved for any of those shenanigans, so the tree was as pristine then as when it was first decorated, which must be a nice - if boring - approach to Christmas that is denied to those of us with juvenile delinquent pets, and I'm sure you know who you are. This was the first we noticed the missing items that were supposed to be in the car, but had been left at home instead, which all but eliminated any show-and-tell opportunities, plus a few other things that were supposed to be part of the festivities. With nothing else to do, we opened presents instead, and unwrapped a bounty of clothes, books, snacks, slippers, gourmet chocolates, games, gadgets and gift cards, as well as home-made date-nut bread, and even treats for the aforementioned juvenile delinquent cats at home, and the birds and squirrels in the yard. I would describe it as an embarrassment of riches, but fortunately we're not easily embarrassed, so that never entered into it at all.

There was one very special and unexpected element to our celebration this year, from the daughter of our computer supplier, and she has her own web site, which I invite you to go right ahead and visit at www.kraftsbykarin.com and see for yourself. Karin is a young and very talented artist who crafts a variety of personalized objects, such as greeting cards, jewelry, vases and ornaments. I had ordered two of her necklaces for my sisters, and they were outstanding, plus I sent her a picture of me and Bill which she painted on a Christmas ornament that came out better than the original, believe me. The big surprise was when her father asked her to paint another ornament for us, featuring our cat Zanzibar from this year's Christmas card, and we were both stunned beyond words. So this turned out to be more of a Merry Karin Christmas than we anticipated, and a memorable one that we will long cherish.

Marathon present opening is hungry work, but my sister was more than ready for us, with lasagna and garlic bread that soon restored our flagging spirits. There was also no lack of desserts, and would have been even more, except that we forgot the pastries that were in the refrigerator, and of course, the cookies that were still at home. Just like Christmas, somehow the day suddenly got away from us and it was after midnight, and we were still 30 miles from our hotel, so we had to pack up in a hurry and hit the road. It was still drizzling, but not cold, so it wasn't really icy, but the fog was so thick that it looked more like a bad horror movie or music video than a winter wonderland, that's for sure. We crept along the highway at a snail's pace to the hotel, but we made it safe and sound, which was a Christmas miracle all on its own. The hotel provides a breakfast buffet in the morning, and there's also a diner right in front of it, but we didn't really have enough time to spend there to see what the place was really like, which was too bad, because it seemed nice enough for the price. My sister had spent the night at the cabin, so they dropped her off in the morning, but everyone had other plans on Sunday, so we couldn't do any sightseeing. We brought my sister to Connecticut to run some errands, which gave us an opportunity to have lunch at Denny's in Danbury, which managed to be even better than lunch on Saturday, since this Denny's had my favorite dessert, their justly famous coconut custard pie, yum! Unlike the day before, Sunday was beautiful with not a cloud in the sky, and once again there was no traffic to speak of, so we made it home with no trouble and in plenty of time to meet the bus. We even managed to get my sister packed up with all of her presents and still fit on the bus, which is one good thing about gift cards for people who have to travel for the holidays. The cats greeted our return with their usual pointed disinterest, but everything was just as we left it, so at least they didn't take out their boredom on our decorations. All in all, for an experimental Christmas where many things could have gone wrong, it actually turned out better than we expected, and although it may have been too late, it certainly was not too little, and I think even the Holiday Police can agree on that, by golly.

Elle

Short Cuts

Hello World,

Happy Winter Solstice! It's true that this is not the same big blowout of an event that it was back in the days of the Druids, and the dinosaurs and I ought to know, believe me, back when they really knew how to throw a party, and don't spare the grog! It may not have the same significance to people nowadays, but for anyone in the market for some good news, and looking for the silver lining in these dark days, this is one of them. Because the winter solstice represents the shortest day of the year (actually, all days are exactly the same length, but this is the measure of time between sunrise and sunset only) from this point forward, the days begin getting incrementally longer all the time, and that's about the best news we can have in the winter around here. Apart from Pitchers & Catchers, that is.

Obviously, no report concerning the local weather would be complete without a mention of last weekend's Nor'easter that blew up the coast after wreaking havoc in the mid-Atlantic states, dumping snow in double digits everywhere, with gusty winds that piled it into towering drifts, and plummeting temperatures that meant that it wasn't going to melt. We were luckier than many other localities, with accumulations around 4-6" for the most part. I won't complain about the plows, because I had no trouble getting the Escort to church on Sunday, and that's no snow bunny, not by a long shot. There was more snow at church than at home, and I brought my snow shovel to help dig out, since we needed the property all cleared out in time for Lessons & Carols in the afternoon. With a bunch of people pitching in, it soon looked ship-shape, and once the sun came out, everything seemed much more encouraging than it had earlier. In fact, there was one inadvertently funny moment that really pointed out the blizzard-like conditions of the storm in a nutshell, when I went to retrieve the mail, which is in a wooden box below a hinged door in the vestibule, and found it was entirely full of snow. In fact, the wind was so strong even in that sheltered area, that the snow in the mail box had drifted higher on one side. I certainly wasn't expecting that, and I can tell you that the mail didn't think much of the idea either, believe me.

Speaking of Lessons & Carols, it turned out to be lovely all around, in spite of being more ad hoc than usual, without a full-time music director to start pulling it all together earlier in the year. Our substitute organist was a big help, providing a seasonal prelude and postlude, and playing along with the hymns like he had been doing it all along. He also arranged for a cellist to join us, and she played along with the hymns, and also performed a few solo pieces, so that was very special for us. The congregation teamed up for a couple of duets, although one of them turned out to be only half a duet, since one half was unavoidably absent, so the other half had to carry on alone. But the long and short of it was that everything came off without a hitch, and it turned out more entertaining than any of us expected, and if the weather had been better, probably even more people would have shown up. There was the ;usual potluck afterward, with festive red tablecloths and poinsettias to brighten up the place, and the usual Lutheran practice of attempting to serve twice as much food to half as many people, like it or not. So although the program was not the grandiose and epic extravaganza of years gone by, at least we kept the tradition alive and everyone had a good time.

It had started out as a rather inauspicious sort of day, when Bill went to create his usual gingerbread house masterpiece for the holiday season, only to find that there was no frosting in the house to hold the walls and roof together. I left church in the morning in my efforts to hurry home to get ready for Lessons & Carols later, and ran into a snag when I realized the battery in the Escort was totally dead and there was no reviving it, so I had to walk home instead, thanks not. Even worse, we came home from Lessons & Carols to find the house full of smoke, and ran around in circles looking for whatever was causing it, while trying not to do anything that would cause a spark and possibly have the house blow up right out from under us. It turned out to be a likely short in an ancient malfunctioning appliance that had been smoldering long enough that it had managed to scorch the rug under it, and a scarf that was on top of it, both of which were artificial materials that made the house smell like a tire fire. It was a lucky thing that we came home when we did, because that could have been a serious disaster, if it had continued unchecked, and so when everything else seemed to be going wrong, this was one early Christmas miracle that came along just when we needed it. However, for the most part the day was so inauspicious that we never got around to lighting the last candle on the Advent wreath on Sunday, and had our own little unique event the next day, which we like to call Advent Monday, and no less welcome for being a day late, believe me.

And what may be new and exciting in the wonderful world of pharmaceuticals, you may be wondering, and well may you wonder. I couldn't help but notice on the MSN home page, a story with the arresting headline: "Cipro - Tendon Rutpures." Hmmm, it certainly got my attention, that's for sure. I did remember that Cipro had been all the rage in the news some time ago, during the anthrax scare as I recall, but I had no idea what "rutpures" were, and thought it would be interesting to find out more about it. Well, it turned out that the joke was on me, when I read the sub-head to the story, which stated that use of Cipro had been linked to ruptures of the tendons, a previously undiscovered side effect of the drug. I don't mind saying that the dinosaurs and I can remember a time when there were actual standards, not like now, heaven knows, when you wouldn't find a headline using the term "rutpures" when they meant "ruptures" instead. Alas, for those halcyon days of yore, when professional people paid attention to what they were doing, or at the very least, had rudimentary software to correct egregious errors like that one.

In other news, I was involved in a project at work that entailed form letters being mailed to some of the hospital vendors, and which I would be happy to divulge the contents of, and confidentiality be hanged, except that it was all so boring that I kept nodding off in the middle of it. In any case, I was surprised to see that one of the vendors had the unlikely address of Commerce Drive in E Riverhead on Long Island. Now, I will have you know that I have been in Riverhead numerous times, and it is basically located between its own self on one side, and smack up against the Great Peconic Bay on the other side, and nowhere else to go, so I'm wondering just how much more east can East Riverhead possibly be without being underwater? I was thinking of stopping in to check it out next July when I'm on vacation in the area, but when I called them on the phone for directions, all they said was, "Glub ... glub ... glub ... "

Speaking of not saying what they mean, once again we have the crack automotive journalism team at the Wheels Extra section of our local newspaper, with their recent story about the 2010 Volkswagen Golf. They described VW's design revision of the new model as "slight of hand" and I will admit that I have no idea what that could possibly mean. Obviously it could not be the magician's friend, sleight of hand, or they would have used the right word for that instead, and not just something that was similar enough in sound and spelling. Now I'm thinking it's too bad that they don't have access to that so-called Internet thingy, so they could go ahead and really check their facts beforehand, and not have something actually printed in the newspaper that makes them look like they have no idea what they're doing. Of course, we can't ignore the possibility that they've been taking Cipro and having rutpures, or worse, working at that company in East Riverhead underwater, which could easily explain a lack of attention to detail. Around here, we call that being a few ants short of a picnic, and I ought to know. Hey, that sounds like a bunch of ants saying, "Glub ... glub ... glub," but I'm sure I must be mistaken.

Elle