More or Less

Hello World,

Well, we've finally gotten far enough along in Lent that this weekend will be Palm Sunday at long last, and if fresh palms aren't enough to make devout Christians out of even the most diabolical cats, then I frankly don't know what it would take. I know our cats look forward to it all year, and I don't dare come home from church without a handful of palms, because I already know they have no intention of sharing, and if there's not plenty to go around, it can easily get pretty ugly in no time. Personally, I think that fighting over palms entirely defeats the purpose of Palm Sunday in the first place, but I'm sure by now everyone knows that I have a long-standing policy against using logic with irrational beings, and when it comes to our cats, I have long since given up the idea of logic in any case. For the sake of the KGB agents who may be monitoring my email, and they're welcome to it, believe me, I point out that Palm Sunday also ushers in Holy Week, which includes Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, and the following Sunday would be Easter, at least in the regular church calendar. Other denominations may celebrate their own Easter either sooner or later, depending on the formula they use to calculate the right date. The one thing I've always wondered, in those areas where they observe Easter on a different Sunday than the rest of the church at large, who contacts the Easter Bunny to let him know when he's supposed to show up with his basket of treats? After all, you can't have all of those marshmallow Peeps going stale while the poor bunny is running around and chasing after wandering hordes of movable feasts.

Speaking of movable feasts, or rather, the irresistible objects of the immovable feast, I admit that I was not prepared for the sight that greeted my eyes on my way to work last week, in spite of believing that I had long since lost all capacity to be astonished by this anymore. Yes, Virginia, it was yet another in what is apparently a series of errant Christmas trees, this one wrapped up in one of those "neat sacks" for tossing out your tree without getting needles everywhere, and very neatly out at the curb along with a motley assortment of other household detritus. My favorite part about this one was that it still had all of its lights on it, and because the trunk was sticking out the end of the bag, it was a simple thing to see that it wasn't any sort of artificial tree, but very much the real deal. At this rate, people will still be throwing out Christmas trees when I'm going on vacation in July, by golly. It occurs to me now that this kind of thing has been happening way too much lately to be a coincidence, and we may need to consider the possibility that there is some sort of reality TV show (for instance, "So You Think the Top Runway Iron Bachelor Idol Chef Can be America's Next Biggest Dance Amazing Survivor Model Race Loser: Last Tree Standing" springs immediately to mind) where people compete to see who can leave their holiday tree up the longest, and it's obviously not over yet. Of course, it would be all too easy for the scoffers to dismiss this idea as fanciful in the extreme, since it certainly doesn't make any sense, but I have never noticed that being a determining factor for TV shows, and of course, we all know about my long-standing policy against using logic in irrational situations.

In other botanical news, there were a couple of warm days last week (in fact, we had a visit at the hospital from a former coworker who had retired to Florida, and he quipped that he came back to New York to warm up!) but the rest of the time, it was blustery and inhospitable, so that a person couldn't help but feel sorry for the spring birds and blooms that were trying to make a go of it under adverse conditions. Nothing stops our crocus, and they came up in droves, well before any blue squill, Glory of the Snow, winter aconite or snowdrops, which the plant catalogs always describe by saying, "Laughs at snow." Not this snow, by golly, not this time, not by a long shot, and that's no laughing matter, I can tell you that. I noticed the forsythia putting a brave face on it, and Bill spotted an early jonquil standing its ground in spite of it all. We also had some daffodils open in different parts of the yard, but even I was not expecting to find what would probably be the earliest hyacinth I have ever seen outdoors in my entire life, and besides that, not in the sunniest part of the yard, which makes even less sense than otherwise. These plucky harbingers of spring serve as a good example of courage in the face of adversity, and give us the strength to carry on, when everything around us seems so bleak. On the other hand, I always say that at least you don't have to shovel bleak, so there's something to be said for that.

And speaking of bleak, our friends at the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations came and went last week at work, turning the hospital topsy-turvy and throwing the entire place into a tailspin, which I suppose has a reassuring sameness about it that we've all come to know and expect. After they left, the hospital management invited us to an ice cream party in the cafeteria, and they said that the survey went very well, and we all had reason to be proud of our own contributions to the overall effort. Of course, it must be said that they wouldn't necessarily tell us if didn't go well, and we'd be the last ones to find out that half of the administration was busy out looking for different jobs, while the other half was being carted off by the FBI in handcuffs for the reckless endangerment of our patients. But they already know that they can tell the staff at the hospital anything at all, as long as they serve ice cream, and while it all may be a pack of lies, I'll take mine with chocolate sprinkles, and thank you very much.

Also on the topic of a pack of lies, I was more surprised than anybody to get a message from our friends at classmates.com, with the screaming subject line: "Don't Miss the First Ever EMHS Reunion!" Inasmuch as I graduated in 1972, and this was 2010, I couldn't help but be somewhat skeptical of this supposed 38th year reunion, when they generally run in increments of fives and tens instead. Besides that, anyone can tell you that I've already been to all of the reunions my class has ever had, beginning with the first one in 1977, then 1982, 1987, 1992, 1997 and finally 2002. If they had one in 2007, I would have been to that one also, so calling this "the first ever" was nothing but a bald-faced lie made up out of whole cloth, with its pants on fire to boot, and I ought to know. It turned out that this was some sort of strange event that was being organized at some place called Duncan's House of Wings in scenic Wantagh, and included graduates of the EMHS classes of 1971-72-73-74-75-76-77-78 at the same time. I found out about it too late, after I already had plans for the day, but I said to Bill that it sounded to me like one of those invitations where they serve you a (bad) dinner and then try to sell you insurance or time-shares or something like that. I probably would have gone anyway, just for the heck of it, because as a 20-year veteran of the hospital, I find that people can sell me just about anything, as long as there's ice cream involved.

And speaking of selling and sales, that reminds me of sails, which brings us to a recent news story about a famous vanishing island, and as Dave Barry always says: "You can't make this stuff up." Our friends at wikipedia had this to say about it -

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Talpatti Island as it was known in Bangladesh, or Purbasha as it was known in India, was a small uninhabited offshore island that emerged in the Bay of Bengal in the aftermath of the Bhola cyclone in 1970 and was dubbed "New Moore Island" by scientists from the School of Oceanographic Studies at the University of Calcutta.
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I have to say that any place that is only forty years old, and already has three names, is obviously in a world of trouble, and controversy is going to be all over it like a bad suit. And that's exactly what happened, according to the crack team at the AOL News desk -

=========================
Disputed isle in Bay of Bengal
disappears into sea

By NIRMALA GEORGE
AP

NEW DELHI - For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island's gone. New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in India. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.
"What these two countries could not achieve from years or talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.
=========================

Well, for a forty-year-old uninhabited rock that was only about five square miles, this triple-named and double-claimed geographic anomaly certainly got more than its fair share of attention, and even more so, now that it's gone. Just like deceased celebrities, we can soon expect to see fan clubs, dedicated web sites, tribute pages on FaceBook, unauthorized biographies, DVD compilations, and of course, rumors of faking its own demise while really being alive and well in Paris. (Although I have to say that even in Paris, they would probably notice a 5-square-mile rock island living incognito in their midst.) Late night host Craig Ferguson had the last laugh about it when he referred to New Moore Island as "No More Island," which sounds a lot funnier with a Scottish accent, believe me. I think the important question is what else will India and Bangladesh find to fight about, now that this dispute has been snatched from their grasp when they were just getting warmed up? Perhaps this would be a good time to book them on Last Tree Standing, for a competition that they can really sink their teeth into, and get their minds off the vanishing island situation. I'd love to help out, but I hear the ice cream truck outside, and I admit that I've been thinking about buying a new time-share.

Elle

Far and Away

Hello World,

Happy Spring! They tell me that Saturday is the first day of Spring, and not a moment too soon for most of us, believe me. The way things had been going around here, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn't welcome the vernal equinox with open arms, and finally kick the winter of our discontent to the curb, as it so richly deserves, once and for all. The weather these last two days has been just glorious, and more than enough to give us all reason to hope for better days ahead, which has been sorely lacking up to this point. Of course, the winter from you-know-where couldn't just pack up its tents and sneak away in the dead of night, as we might have hoped, leaving behind nothing but a bad memory that even copious amounts of therapeutic junk food would never eradicate. Oh no, this winter had to have the last laugh, and tossed one more storm our way last week, with gale force winds and driving rain that wreaked havoc on the region for days on end. Trees fell down in droves, half a million households were without electricity, and the local flooding made even the old-timers shake their heads in wonder. Three days later, many roads were still impassable, and power outages still so widespread, that schools were closed from near and dear, to far and wide, and back again. More than a week later, many thousands were still in the dark, and even road crews working around the clock had made barely a dent in the welter of trees and branches that were tossed everywhere. It's an axiom of folklore that winter comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, but this one seemed to come in like a lion and go out more like one of those three-headed space aliens with metal claws, that shoots laser beams from its eyes and breathes fire, and no thank you so very much not.

On the local front, we didn't have any damage here, and never lost our electricity, which is remarkable for a storm of this magnitude. But it did cause two almost impossible occurrences, which seemed more the work of a playful poltergeist than a nor'easter. The wind was so fierce that I had to pick up one of our trash cans from the far reaches of our yard four different times and put it back on the front porch, finally weighting down with a cement block inside for ballast. In the morning, I noticed that in spite of my efforts, the trash can had been moved from a sheltered nook of the porch, around a corner and 8-feet away, even with the cement block inside, which would seem impossible for wind alone to accomplish. Meanwhile, outside of the living room, the French doors had been ripped open and were flapping in the breeze, in spite of being tied shut from the inside with a hook-and-eye for good measure. How the wind managed that feat, and without opposable thumbs mind you, remains a mystery to me. But we were glad to get the playful poltergeist part of the storm, rather than suffering from the brunt of it, believe me.

There seemed little enough to celebrate last week under the circumstances, but it was still my birthday, ready or not, and a big one for me, since I had always looked forward to turning Sweet 16 at long last. (Hey, that's my story, and I'm sticking with it!) The day started out in fine fashion, since I was off from work, and I always say that any kind of day at home is still far better than being at work, that's for sure. There were also presents, and the birthday elves did their usual commendable job, which as Bill frequently points out, is not easy since our anniversary is the week before. They also threw a party for me at work in the Mail Room, with cake and balloons, and a fine time was had by all, and I ought to know. The Mail Room is about the size of our bathroom, and it's a well-known fact that when it comes to food at the hospital, the employees are nothing so much as a pack of vultures, so it didn't take long for my birthday party to start looking like The Stateroom Scene from A Night at the Opera, and it's a wonder that the Marx Brothers didn't come back from the dead and come crashing right in on top of everybody else in there. Of course, anyone can tell you that in Alabama, the Tuscaloosa.

One thing I did at home on my birthday was set up my new computer on my computer cart, and moving my old computer to a temporary stand nearby. Since both are connected to the wireless network, they can share files from one to the other, and this simplifies the whole process of transferring data from the old one to the new one, without having to copy everything individually and transfer it manually from one to the other. Of course, there's always the usual ups and downs with setting up a new computer, no matter how many times you've done it before, and with all the peripherals involved, the computer cart remains a daunting rat's nest of tangled wires, cables and cords in the back, many of which are no doubt from devices that I don't even use anymore, much less remember what they are. But since the peripherals are all plugged into a separate USB hub, it was actually a simple enough process to just unplug everything else from the old computer, plug the same things into the back of the new computer and slide it into place. Even more remarkable, when I turned it on, everything worked from the start, including the network, which I think is probably a first in my experience with this sort of thing. In retrospect, I'm thinking that I should have realized at the time that this was way too easy, and I'd be paying for it farther down the line at some point.

That point came soon enough at work, when our crack team in the IT department finally brought me a replacement computer for my office, after they discovered that replacing the power supply (twice) and motherboard still didn't solve all of the problems of my old one, so they couldn't give it back to me. They probably went to a lot of trouble to make sure that all of my files and documents were carefully transferred over to the new computer, for which I was deliriously grateful, especially after worrying about them for two weeks. I noticed that two of the programs I need most were no longer included, but I wasn't unduly concerned about it, since I still have the original diskettes for both and could just install them myself. Alas, the joke was really on me this time, when I found out that the Install feature had been disabled by the hospital network, and all of those documents would do me no good without the programs to use them with. In a normal place, the IT department would be happy to install the programs that you need to do your work, but at the hospital, they don't allow people to run disapproved software, even if they've been using it for 10 years, as if someone would really have the time or enthusiasm to re-create every document or form of the last decade in a different program, and thanks so very much not. See if I invite them to my next Mail Room Stateroom Scene Birthday Party, by golly.

In other local news, I was at church during the week, and discovered that someone must have come along and banged out that dent in the gate at the top of the driveway, because the gate was closed and hitched with the chain like it should be, unlike last week when the two parts were far beyond what the chain could span, in spite of all of my efforts. I was impressed with their "take-no-prisoners" mentality in beating the gate back into shape, which must have presented quite a challenge, when the simpler solution might have been to just buy a longer chain and be done with it. Even better, I managed to get in and out of the parking lot without stumbling over any more errant Christmas trees, and the way things had been going lately, that was nothing to take for granted. In fact, we have Bill chiming in on exactly the same subject -

===============
A couple of thoughts about the Christmas tree phenomenon too. First place, I originally thought this year Ash Wednesday that was the 2010 Epiphany, as far as discarding trees is concerned because the apartment building next to the shop sported not one but TWO of them that Friday. But then I walked Up The West last week and there were two more isolated ones sitting at the curb on Union. Pretty amazing. I mean, where WERE they those two months?
===============

Now, I will say that I like Christmas trees as much as the next fellow, but the way people buy them so early nowadays, often on Thanksgiving weekend, the poor tree just about makes it to Christmas in one piece, much less trying to hold onto it until the end of February, for heaven's sake. That's my idea of trying to take biology just a little too far, and don't forget, I'm famous for our rampant alien mutant poison ivy, so I know a thing or two about vegetation run amok. And speaking of agriculture being pushed to the limit, I was out last Saturday and feeding the birds in the teeth of that pulverizing squall, and in spite of it all, I couldn't help but notice that the crocus had indeed come up all across the yard, just as they should, and not letting Mother Nature's fury dictate to them what to do or when to do it. I couldn't help but be impressed with their grit and determination in the face of obstacles, and even being blown sideways did not in any way diminish the jaunty aspect of their purple, gold or white flowers, while standing up to whatever the storm could throw at them. Even though I was drenched and chilled to the bone, I went back outside to take pictures of them, to preserve a record of their heroic efforts that went far above and beyond any fair-weather flora, and deserved to be recognized. I was thinking of throwing a party for them, but unfortunately, the Mail Room was already booked.

Elle

What A Joke

Hello World,

What a week! This was the kind of week that I always say it's a good thing we can't see into the future, because we wouldn't want to know what was just about to jump up and bite us, and that's putting it mildly. So many crazy things happened that you would think it was April first, rather than the second week in March, and from the looks of things, I don't mind saying, it's not about to get much better, and believe me, I can recognize the signs by now.

Of course, it starts with the weather, it always does these days. The previous week, it was so cold that I was scraping ice out of the bird baths, and wearing my winter coat and fuzzy boots to work. And yet on Sunday after worship, I was in the church office filing invoices, and what to my wondering ears should a-peal, but the unmistakable sound of the ice cream truck across the street. And this was March 7th, mind you, when we still had piles of snow everywhere from the last storm, and certainly not looking like the tropical paradise that would make people long for any sort of frosty taste treat like ice cream, that's for sure. But there it was, probably because the Incongruous Police have been disbanded due to budget cuts, but not any the less incongruous for all that. I should have realized right then what kinds of tricks the week had up its sleeve, and just run for the hills when the getting was good, and in fact, after reaching the hills, just kept right on going and not look back.

Sunday was actually nice and sunny, giving rise to a totally unrealistic impression on my part, that I could clear enough snow away from the church driveway, so that the gate would close once again, as it's supposed to during the week when we're not at church. First I got out my gloves and started clawing at the piles of snow with my hands, but I soon realized that greater measures were called for. I had a shovel in my car, so I made use of that, and made some pretty good headway, although there was a lot to do, since the driveway is very wide, and the plow had pushed the snow a good ways past where the gate should have been closed. It ended up taking much more time, and being much more difficult than I anticipated from the start, and it didn't take long to regret ever coming up with this idea in the first place. But I finally cleared enough of the snow from the top of the driveway so that I could push the gates closed from each side, and meet in the middle where the chain holds them together. Alas, the joke was on me when I noticed for the first time that the plow in its zeal, must have pushed so hard against the gate that it actually put a crimp in it, making it about 3 inches shorter on one side, and no amount of clearing snow away from it was going to make it long enough to meet up in the middle with the chain anymore, and that's a fact. As early April first jokes go, the gate fiasco may have lacked finesse, but it certainly hit its target.

Then on Monday morning, I went charging in to work, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as I usually do, and turned on my computer, only to be met by the sounds of deafening silence, not even crickets. There was not a light, not a click, not a fan, not the merest whisper of a hum emanating from the cabinet, it was dark and quiet and forebodingly dead, dead, dead. Zip, zero, zilch, and plenty of it. This surprised me, since it had been working fine when I left on Friday afternoon, and although it wouldn't have been unusual for it to act up, I could not have anticipated any scenario whereby it simply had no power at all. Everything else in the same power strip was working, including the monitor, printer and speakers, so I had no reason to suspect that, and I plugged the computer into a different outlet with the same results. Not knowing what else to do, I called downstairs to our crack IT department to place a service call, and waited for them to rescue me from the black hole of computer failure. (Although in retrospect, what I really needed was Daffy Duck to show up and say, "Shoot me now! Shoot me now!") A mere two hours later, someone did come from downstairs, tried all of the same things I had already tried, and then picked up the recalcitrant machine and took it away for further study. (Actually, "taking the patient for surgery," is how he described it.) He actually came back in short order, announced that he had replaced the power supply, set it back up, and everything worked fine and back to normal. Not so fast! Soon the computer became unresponsive, and when I tried to restart it, the exact same thing happened all over again, no power, just nothing at all. The rest of the day was a dizzying blur of techs in and out of my office, with tools everywhere, spare parts, moving furniture, extension cords, hunting down electrical outlets or network connections, and a resulting effluvium of dust and grit that would make an archaeological excavation look pristine by comparison. In the end, it still didn't work, but at least I had rounded up a spare computer to connect to the hospital network in the meantime. This meant that I could look up purchase orders or invoices, without having to go use someone else's computer, but I had no access to email, or any of the data and documents that were on my computer. I was prepared to take this in stride, figuring the problem would soon be fixed one way or another, but alas, the joke was on me once again, as it stretched through the entire week like that without getting my computer back, and I left on Friday the same way I started on Monday, with a black hole where my computer should have been. With the luxury of hindsight, there are many things that I would have done differently (oh, Daffy!) if I had only known that April first was going to be coming so very early this year.

I'm sure it will come as a surprise to no one that on Computer R.I.P. Monday, I left work and walked to the parking lot, only to find a flat tire on the Escort, thanks not. Actually, I never noticed it in the parking lot, because by then it was dark and on the passenger side besides. It wasn't until I was driving it around the block that I realized that something was very amiss, and since I was already out and driving, I figured I may as well just keep on driving it to my mechanic and leave it there, rather than going back to work with it. They were closed by then, of course, and I had no phone with me, so I had to schlep all the way back up the block to the hospital and call home for a ride. Bill was kind enough to come back out and pick me up, but I don't mind saying that it had turned into a long and difficult day that I would just as soon forget, and that's no joke. And I wasn't the only one, as I found out later that the JCAHO inspection team had turned up at the hospital unexpectedly, and thrown the place into its usual uproar. Every single time the JCAHO shows up, and this is a routine inspection that happens to all hospitals on a regular basis, it's like this has never happened before in anyone's lifetime, and the entire administration goes completely bonkers, as if the place was in the path of an invading zombie horde of apocalyptic proportions, and they were the last hope to save humanity at any cost. (Personally, I have seen numerous JCAHO inspections in my tenure there, but not a single zombie so far, although I'm sure everyone realizes by now that I certainly know better than to try and use logic with irrational people.) It turned out to be a quiet week for the rest of us, as half of the staff was running around trying to dazzle the inspectors with documentation and details, while the other half were in hiding, as not being inspection-worthy, so they didn't dare go near their desks, or any place they could likely be discovered, and spoil the impression that the hospital was trying to create. I know of several people who were told just to stay home, because even hiding out at the hospital was considered too risky, although if the apocalypse zombie horde did indeed show up, these employees would probably have been just as glad to be at home instead.

I thought my computer problems were catching, when a co-worker complained that her mouse was not working, no matter what she did. She called the computer department and asked them to send someone up to look at it, since the cursor didn't move, regardless of what she did with the mouse, and she had tried just about everything. It turned out the joke was on her this time, as we found out later that an errant Post-it note was stuck to the bottom of the mouse, so that wherever you moved it, the optical sensor thought it was still in the same place, since all it could "see" was the Post-it note, which didn't move. I thought that was so funny, and I have to say that as a practical joke for April first, that would be a pretty good one.

Normally, that would be all the Post-it stories to be had in one week, but not so! This has been an unusual week in many ways, so our friends at 3M had one more surprise in their joke bag for me. We had gotten our tax returns back from the accountant's office, with handy Post-it flags pointing to the places on the forms where they needed our signatures. Or did they? One flag pointed exactly in the middle of two signature lines, without indicating which was the right one, while the other flag pointed directly to a signature line that identified the signer as the paid preparer and not the taxpayer. I can't blame 3M for the confusion, but the way they were used, their flags certainly didn't solve any problems, and I had no choice but to call the accountants and ask them where I was supposed to sign, which essentially defeats the purpose of those "sign here" flags in the first place. I suppose there's little enough to laugh about at the accountant's office in March, so perhaps playing jokes on the clients is how they get their jollies, for all I know.

And as if I didn't already have enough technological difficulties in my life as it was, I also got a new computer at home, and while it's always nice to get a new computer, it can also be very disruptive. Of course, you can go right ahead and use a new computer, but it doesn't have any of your programs or documents on it, which you conveniently forget, until you suddenly realize that there's something you need, which should be right there, but naturally isn't, because it's still on your old computer. There's also a new multi-media keyboard, with a different and confusing layout, plus a plethora of extraneous keys for specific media applications that are not on regular keyboards. Somehow they manage to squeeze everything together so that it's even smaller than a regular keyboard, thanks not, and none of the function keys are where you expect them, so the most routine tasks often generate the most alarming results. I'm a fairly good typist, but so unfamiliar with this layout that everything I type ends up looking more like cartoon obscenities than anything I would have intended, and an even bigger concern is that I will finally get used to this keyboard, so that I won't be able to type on any of the other keyboards I use, and the joke will really be on me when I have exactly the same problem in reverse.

Anyway, in a week like this last one, I can tell you about the last thing I wanted was to hear from one of the old hold-overs from Walk Group (gosh, remember them?) who said they were going to start in walking again next week. I had given up walking when I came back from vacation in January, and was so behind on everything that I stopped taking lunch at all, in an effort to catch up. I thought it was probably just as well, with the miserable weather we had all winter, and I'm not one to let weather stand in my way, not by a long shot, but even I would have been daunted at the prospect of walking in the kind of ugly slop that was being tossed our way by the weather trolls, and that's no joke. Also, I had just about gotten my heel spur under control after months of rest, so that I could finally stand without pain, and I can't say that I was looking forward to getting back on that same old track once again, even just for old time's sake. I said I would let them know, but I'm not ready yet to climb aboard that old gray mare again, so they may as well just put that horse back in the stable, and that's really no joke.

And speaking of the same old tired jokes, of course this weekend is the switch back to Daylight Saving Time, so I certainly wish that all of you would get out there and save some daylight, so that we can at least make it all worthwhile. After all, they don't call it Daylight Saving for nothing, so if people aren't doing their part to save daylight, then the whole program would be nothing but a big fat joke, a huge waste of time and energy, and a continuing nightmare of inconvenience and confusion for everybody. I guess that explains why they're doing it now, rather than April first, when the timing would suggest connotations that would be all too unflattering to the DST trolls. In fact, that reminds me of a joke about trolls, where a Priest and a Rabbi walk into a bar ..... oh wait, that's on my other computer.

Elle

Leader of the Pack

Hello World,

Happy March! Although in many ways, it will be sad to leave the eventful February behind us, it can't be denied that we have now entered a special month full of special days for special people, and which February could only dream about. Earlier this week was our anniversary, and if celebrating 27 years of wedded bliss isn't enough, there's always presents, and no one has to ask me twice to show up for that, I can tell you. The anniversary elves did not disappoint, coming across with gifts of apparel, gadgets, jewelry and entertainment, with some practical items tossed in that will come in handy long after the excitement of the occasion has died down to a dull roar. Next week is my birthday, and I admit that it would probably bother me to realize how old I am, except for the fortuitous fact that I never can exactly remember my age, and my math skills are too rusty to be able to figure out the subtraction on my own, which is probably just as well. The week after that will be the annual donnybrook known as St. Patrick's Day, and you can bet that the green beer will be flowing like, well, green beer, I guess. And just when it seems like we would be running out of days, along comes Palm Sunday on the 28th, ushering in Holy Week right along with it, and if nothing else, at least Palm Sunday is special to our cats, for the fresh palms that they look forward to all year long. So here we have a month with a little bit of something for everyone, and sometimes you just have to wonder how they manage to pack it all in.

In other local news, the last snowstorm to hit the area was a doozy (I apologize for throwing all of this technical nomenclature out there) and really got everyone's attention, even winter-weary New Yorkers who thought they were beyond being shocked by the weather anymore. It started early and piled up quickly, with soggy drifts full of heavy wet snow that soon became unmanageable. We tried digging out, but by the time I should have left for work, it was an even bigger mess than when we started, and I figured there was no sense in chancing it. I ended up walking to work instead, which was certainly better than driving, but still no picnic, believe me, especially when I dropped one of my shoes, and had to backtrack six blocks through the drifts and plow tailings to retrieve it, thanks not. Now it's true that I don't have to do brain surgery, and undoubtedly could have stayed home with no discernible impact on the hospital's functionality. But at least I got the payroll done for the six departments in my areas of responsibility, and didn't use the weather as an excuse for not getting it finished on time. Of course, there were no administrators around that day to sign the time cards anyway, and while it may have ended up as an exercise in futility, at least my part of it was punctual. By the time I left around 4:00 PM, the conditions were much improved, and the roads had been cleared for the most part, so Bill had no trouble coming over to pick me up. On the way home, we drove past our usual Friday night diner, only to discover that they hadn't even opened for the day, so we were on our own for dinner and had to make the best of it, but it just wasn't the same thing at all. Personally, I think in bad weather that diners should be legally required to open, for people like us who fought our way into work, or stayed home and shoveled all day, and deserve a nice meal out to reward our industrious spirit and heroic efforts. After all, we already have Snow Emergency Routes, I can't see why we can't also have Snow Emergency Diners.

Meanwhile, in sports news from Spring Training, I stand corrected on my erroneous assertion that they are not playing games yet, as Bill pointed out that there are not only actual pre-season games taking place, but they're actually being televised. Just for the Mets alone, they will be showing 18 games on television in March, which certainly tells you something about how the audience is starved for sports programming at this time of year, right there. The best part is that since the games don't count, it doesn't matter if they win or lose, which is sort of like a non-medal sport in the Olympics, where they just play for the love of the game, and the acclaim of the spectators for their abilities. We've already watched one game, and it was positively delightful, if only for the green grass and sunshine, which I personally would trade the entire team for right now, and consider it a bargain.

We get the following story from Bill, about sending out their sign catalogues at work:

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Anyway, this is glorious in that it manages to be complete jargon gibberish AND ungrammatical at the same time. A true wonder of modern Postalese! (How could anyone wonder why stamps are expensive when these people are minding the store?)

Subject: RE: Forrest Engraving
Since Forrest Engraving is a Flat, it won't go through MERLIN, which would fail it for not being Move Update Compliant. MERLIN would have the same changes as what our software has. Since the file was ran through NCOA, the 3602 has the NCOA box checked but we did not use the NCOA changes. Technically, anything that is suppose to be changed should mail to the original address via First Class, but because the post office still has not responded to the inquiry & some addresses have been verified via phone & google earth, we will mail them Standard.
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Well, I don't see any way of improving upon that, try as I might. And speaking of postage, I ordered stamps recently online, and got a very nice assortment of traditional first-class stamps, as well as some more unusual ones. There was one item that I needed to buy in a larger quantity, and they put all of them together in a plastic bag that they described as a "Value Pack of 5." Now, I don't mind saying that I'm as much in favor of value as the next fellow, but I couldn't help but notice that this so-called "value pack" was exactly the same price as the face value of the stamps to begin with, so I entirely failed to appreciate the "value" aspect of this merchandise. And if they think that packing all of this up in a plastic bag is what adds value to it when the price is exactly the same, then I'm afraid they have sorely misconstrued the whole idea of a value pack, and I despair of them ever actually grasping hold of the concept in any concrete way, that would represent real value, as opposed to a purely hypothetical value like this. Much less Move Update Compliant, for heaven's sake.

And while we're on the subject of packs, everyone knows that they just have to put NEW on something, and you can be sure that Bill will bring it home from the supermarket, and the President's economic advisers couldn't be happier. This time around, it was our friends at Hostess who came out with 100-calorie packs of Twinkie Bites, which are a scaled-down version of their regular Twinkies, with no trans fats for the health-conscious among us. Now here again, I'm as much in favor of good health as the next fellow, but I have to figure that someone who is eating Twinkies in the first place, obviously doesn't give a hoot about calories or trans fats, and in fact, wouldn't care to know how unhealthy Twinkies might be, if they're just going to go right ahead and eat them anyway. The people who care about that stuff are already eating granola bars and organic vegetables, believe me, while the rest of us scarfing down those Twinkies have long since given up caring how bad they might be for us. I will say that the Twinkie Bites don't really taste bad at all, but a 100-calorie pack of them is on the skimpy side, with the probably unintended result that a person who really wanted to have Twinkies would most likely just go ahead and eat the whole box of them in one sitting, and I ought to know. Of course, I have a perfectly good excuse because of the weather, and they were my Snow Emergency Twinkies.

Elle