Merry Go Round
Hello World,
It may seem impossible to believe, but we find ourselves already just about at the middle of the merry, merry month of May, beloved throughout history by poets and minstrels alike, not to mention, the flowers for which we endured the April showers, which now seems like a trade-off worth making. In our yard, the English wood hyacinths and buttercups have put on their usual display in the front yard, while the flowering almond, allium and Star of Bethlehem have rounded out the perimeter, and even some early roses have popped out here and there. The neighborhood has no lack of stately old chestnut trees, and this is the time for them to shine, with copious blooms of creamy white flowers, making the entire tree look like a lovely wedding cake full of perfect bouquets, just ripe for the plucking. Another May arrival has been the unexpected appearance of cowbirds, which are not particularly uncommon birds, but new to this neighborhood, or at least in our yard, as we don't recall ever seeing them here before. They have a very distinctive song that is noticeably different from our regular birds, so we would have previously noticed the sound of them, even if we hadn't seen them in person, or rather, in their full-feathered regalia that distinguishes them from their more ordinary counterparts in these environs. I don't know how the local birds feel about these sudden interlopers in their midst, but we're just as glad to see them. After all, it is the merry, merry month of May, so the more, the merrier, is the way I look at it.
It's true that this would be the merry, merry month of May all over the world, near and far, far and wide, wide and long, and everywhere in between, no matter where you look. Well, except in my office at work, that is, where I just noticed that the wall calendar is already on the jolly, jolly month of June for some reason, skipping ahead of the rest of humanity by several weeks, like a rush-hour commuter with a train to catch and no time to shilly-shally. I realized only much later that I must have inadvertently flipped forward two months when I changed it at the end of April, and missed May completely. The odd part is that this is exactly the same calendar that we have in three separate offices in our department, because we got it as a promotion from our forms management company, so you'd think that I would have noticed at some point before now, that it had an entirely different picture from the other two calendars that I see every single day. Obviously, I'm not the person that they invented the Witness Protection Program for, because it's clear that I simply don't notice things that are right in front of my own face, and the witnesses would have no need to be protected from me recognizing them, that's for sure.
And speaking of charging along in May, this Saturday will see the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico, where media darling Calvin Borel will try to ride the favorite Super Saver to another win, in a bid to capture horse racing's elusive top prize, the coveted Triple Crown. The favorite of the Kentucky Derby, Lookin At Lucky, is the second favorite in the Preakness, and in another turn-around, they're expecting the track to be fast and dry, compared to the soggy slop at Churchill Downs. As for myself, if Super Saver does win, I refuse to get all worked up about it. (Ask me about War Emblem - go ahead, just ask me, I dare you!) The Derby and Preakness have a number of similarities, so that it's not extraordinary for a horse to win both races. It's on the treacherous shoals of the remorseless Belmont Stakes that untold Triple Crown hopes have been dashed, and lost to the swirling maelstrom of posterity, where close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, but not at the track. The same jockeys on the same horses doing exactly the same things will all too often be their very undoing in the dissimilar conditions of the Belmont, which favor different tactics and training than the previous two races. In fact, if the Belmont came first, the whole idea of the Triple Crown would probably not ever have taken hold, because it's winning the Belmont and any other race that's the challenge, not winning two other races that are similar, or we'd have numerous Double Crown winners through the years, if only there was such a thing. So while I wish Calvin Borel and Super Saver all the luck in the world, even if they do win both races, it's still not a shoo-in for the Triple Crown, and history will bear me out on this, so please don't go ahead and print up those T-shirts and bumper stickers just yet. Because there's a reason why they call it the Triple Crown, and not the best two out of three, since we all know there is no such thing as the Double Crown, like it or not.
Of course, last Sunday was Mother's Day, when we honor all of the mothers and important maternal figures in our lives, for all they do to make the world a better place, and us right along with it. Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day in this area, as the weather could not have been more conducive to whatever plans might have been afoot for Merrie Olde Mom, indoors or out, and all around the town. Although at least around here, the one thing I would never recommend is trying to take your mom out to eat on Mother's Day, because every place that serves food is a madhouse for the day, from the cheesiest dive to the poshest 5-star hot spot, turning what should be a delightful interlude of precious family time into more of a marathon endurance challenge and battle of wills that is not for the faint-hearted. At our house, the cats always come through with presents for the occasion, thanks to their Daddy-Cat, who is a prince among men, and this time no different, with an inviting selection of gifts that included music, apparel, jewelry, shoes, books, collectible items, and even donuts, courtesy of a brand new donut shop that just opened nearby. Having breakfast donuts in bed would be one of my favorite ways to start any day, so this was a special treat with its very own sugar-coated, creme-filled, rainbow-sprinkled goodness about it, and I ought to know.
Meanwhile at work, we were invited to attend a cocktail party on Thursday evening, which was being hosted by the Finance department on behalf of the team of well-known auditors, who had been reviewing our economic situation for the last few months, and which is also not for the faint-hearted, believe me. I suppose they wanted to celebrate the fact that not all of them had gone insane, pulled out all of their hair, jumped out of windows or otherwise succumbed to the desperation that has been inherent in the quagmire of hospital finances from time immemorial. In fact, we were told that there was good news in the offing, although I have to admit that it doesn't take much enticement to get us to attend a party, regardless of the reason for it. So we bolted out of work early on Thursday, and clambered into cars with our colleagues in Finance, Personnel, the computer department, Patient Billing, Credit, Payroll and Medical Records, and headed for the historic Olde Stone Mill in Tuckahoe, which turned out to be a lovely place, set in a quiet enclave away from the hubbub of the business district. They escorted us to an outdoor patio with tables and chairs and colorful umbrellas, where they served what seemed like a never-ending supply of drinks and hors d'oeuvres, from friendly and attentive waiters. At that point, the auditors became easily identifiable as behaving like normal people from the real world, while the hospital staff (or vultures) were true to form, pouncing on every platter as if they hadn't seen any food in a month, and eating anything that stopped moving long enough for them to catch it, with not a morsel left standing. The CFO stood up and thanked everyone for coming, and for all of their hard work that made it possible for the auditors to report many positive improvements, besides not jumping out of windows, which not only takes a lot of cleaning up, but then you're stuck filling out all of those forms for the Police, and who has time for that. We had been led to expect that there would be other announcements of a more momentous nature, but that never seemed to materialize, and although a merry time was had by all, we were left with a somewhat foreboding sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop, which may or may not actually be the case. At the hospital, it's easy to get used to the idea that the auditors are always there like the furniture, as one group of them or another seems to come and never leave, but this was the first time we ever got invited to a party with them, which I don't mind saying, is the kind of economic revolution that I can live with.
In other timely news, I suppose it should not have come as a surprise to discover the problem with my new watch was exactly the same problem as my old watch, and I probably should have thought of it sooner. These watches (which I consider sensible Timex models, not some schlocky fly-by-night gimcrack) have a couple of functions, in addition to telling the time, such as a backlight or date. In what I consider a significant design flaw, the engineers at Timex decided against adding extra buttons around the face for these functions, and instead, built all of them into the poor overworked watch stem, which is probably the flimsiest part of the entire apparatus. They came up with the plan to use the watch stem not only to set the time, but also turn on the backlight and set the date, with the idea that each function would be performed by pulling out the stem to a different depth for each one, plus an extra one when the watch is running normally. The problems start when you think that the stem is in the default position of running normally, and the watch thinks the stem is in one of the other positions, where the time stops running while you use the stem to set the other functions. Even worse, the default position of running normally isn't when the stem is pushed all the way in, which makes it harder to judge when it's in the right place to keep on running, except for the handy feature that it stops keeping time, so you suddenly notice that you're out of step with the rest of humanity, and thanks so very much not. It's at that point you figure that the battery is dead, until you pull the stem all the way out, and push it part-way back in, and just like magic, it starts running again just like nothing ever happened. Forty years ago, you could take your watch to a jeweler, and if the stem had gotten worn or loose over the ordinary course of events, they would be happy to replace it or tighten it up for you (and polish your watch besides) so that it would run like new once again. Nowadays, you not only can't get a jeweler to look at your watch, but even Timex doesn't want to know you when you want your watch repaired, and if you send it to them, they turn around and send you any old watch that they decide is comparable to yours, and call it a day. I'll be the first to admit that I have a well-deserved reputation as a wristwatch graveyard, but by golly, all of this cannot be laid at my doorstep this time around, because the real culprit is not in my house, but on the drawing board. The old-timers among us can remember when John Cameron Swayze would say that a Timex would take a licking and keep on ticking, and nowadays, I can't even get it to keep on ticking when I'm just wearing it around the house. If this is the Timex concept of progress, I'd like to invite the engineers to the hospital, because now that the auditors have left, there's plenty of windows that I could throw my watch out of, and they could just jump right out after it, and see who's still ticking after that.
Elle
It may seem impossible to believe, but we find ourselves already just about at the middle of the merry, merry month of May, beloved throughout history by poets and minstrels alike, not to mention, the flowers for which we endured the April showers, which now seems like a trade-off worth making. In our yard, the English wood hyacinths and buttercups have put on their usual display in the front yard, while the flowering almond, allium and Star of Bethlehem have rounded out the perimeter, and even some early roses have popped out here and there. The neighborhood has no lack of stately old chestnut trees, and this is the time for them to shine, with copious blooms of creamy white flowers, making the entire tree look like a lovely wedding cake full of perfect bouquets, just ripe for the plucking. Another May arrival has been the unexpected appearance of cowbirds, which are not particularly uncommon birds, but new to this neighborhood, or at least in our yard, as we don't recall ever seeing them here before. They have a very distinctive song that is noticeably different from our regular birds, so we would have previously noticed the sound of them, even if we hadn't seen them in person, or rather, in their full-feathered regalia that distinguishes them from their more ordinary counterparts in these environs. I don't know how the local birds feel about these sudden interlopers in their midst, but we're just as glad to see them. After all, it is the merry, merry month of May, so the more, the merrier, is the way I look at it.
It's true that this would be the merry, merry month of May all over the world, near and far, far and wide, wide and long, and everywhere in between, no matter where you look. Well, except in my office at work, that is, where I just noticed that the wall calendar is already on the jolly, jolly month of June for some reason, skipping ahead of the rest of humanity by several weeks, like a rush-hour commuter with a train to catch and no time to shilly-shally. I realized only much later that I must have inadvertently flipped forward two months when I changed it at the end of April, and missed May completely. The odd part is that this is exactly the same calendar that we have in three separate offices in our department, because we got it as a promotion from our forms management company, so you'd think that I would have noticed at some point before now, that it had an entirely different picture from the other two calendars that I see every single day. Obviously, I'm not the person that they invented the Witness Protection Program for, because it's clear that I simply don't notice things that are right in front of my own face, and the witnesses would have no need to be protected from me recognizing them, that's for sure.
And speaking of charging along in May, this Saturday will see the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico, where media darling Calvin Borel will try to ride the favorite Super Saver to another win, in a bid to capture horse racing's elusive top prize, the coveted Triple Crown. The favorite of the Kentucky Derby, Lookin At Lucky, is the second favorite in the Preakness, and in another turn-around, they're expecting the track to be fast and dry, compared to the soggy slop at Churchill Downs. As for myself, if Super Saver does win, I refuse to get all worked up about it. (Ask me about War Emblem - go ahead, just ask me, I dare you!) The Derby and Preakness have a number of similarities, so that it's not extraordinary for a horse to win both races. It's on the treacherous shoals of the remorseless Belmont Stakes that untold Triple Crown hopes have been dashed, and lost to the swirling maelstrom of posterity, where close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, but not at the track. The same jockeys on the same horses doing exactly the same things will all too often be their very undoing in the dissimilar conditions of the Belmont, which favor different tactics and training than the previous two races. In fact, if the Belmont came first, the whole idea of the Triple Crown would probably not ever have taken hold, because it's winning the Belmont and any other race that's the challenge, not winning two other races that are similar, or we'd have numerous Double Crown winners through the years, if only there was such a thing. So while I wish Calvin Borel and Super Saver all the luck in the world, even if they do win both races, it's still not a shoo-in for the Triple Crown, and history will bear me out on this, so please don't go ahead and print up those T-shirts and bumper stickers just yet. Because there's a reason why they call it the Triple Crown, and not the best two out of three, since we all know there is no such thing as the Double Crown, like it or not.
Of course, last Sunday was Mother's Day, when we honor all of the mothers and important maternal figures in our lives, for all they do to make the world a better place, and us right along with it. Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day in this area, as the weather could not have been more conducive to whatever plans might have been afoot for Merrie Olde Mom, indoors or out, and all around the town. Although at least around here, the one thing I would never recommend is trying to take your mom out to eat on Mother's Day, because every place that serves food is a madhouse for the day, from the cheesiest dive to the poshest 5-star hot spot, turning what should be a delightful interlude of precious family time into more of a marathon endurance challenge and battle of wills that is not for the faint-hearted. At our house, the cats always come through with presents for the occasion, thanks to their Daddy-Cat, who is a prince among men, and this time no different, with an inviting selection of gifts that included music, apparel, jewelry, shoes, books, collectible items, and even donuts, courtesy of a brand new donut shop that just opened nearby. Having breakfast donuts in bed would be one of my favorite ways to start any day, so this was a special treat with its very own sugar-coated, creme-filled, rainbow-sprinkled goodness about it, and I ought to know.
Meanwhile at work, we were invited to attend a cocktail party on Thursday evening, which was being hosted by the Finance department on behalf of the team of well-known auditors, who had been reviewing our economic situation for the last few months, and which is also not for the faint-hearted, believe me. I suppose they wanted to celebrate the fact that not all of them had gone insane, pulled out all of their hair, jumped out of windows or otherwise succumbed to the desperation that has been inherent in the quagmire of hospital finances from time immemorial. In fact, we were told that there was good news in the offing, although I have to admit that it doesn't take much enticement to get us to attend a party, regardless of the reason for it. So we bolted out of work early on Thursday, and clambered into cars with our colleagues in Finance, Personnel, the computer department, Patient Billing, Credit, Payroll and Medical Records, and headed for the historic Olde Stone Mill in Tuckahoe, which turned out to be a lovely place, set in a quiet enclave away from the hubbub of the business district. They escorted us to an outdoor patio with tables and chairs and colorful umbrellas, where they served what seemed like a never-ending supply of drinks and hors d'oeuvres, from friendly and attentive waiters. At that point, the auditors became easily identifiable as behaving like normal people from the real world, while the hospital staff (or vultures) were true to form, pouncing on every platter as if they hadn't seen any food in a month, and eating anything that stopped moving long enough for them to catch it, with not a morsel left standing. The CFO stood up and thanked everyone for coming, and for all of their hard work that made it possible for the auditors to report many positive improvements, besides not jumping out of windows, which not only takes a lot of cleaning up, but then you're stuck filling out all of those forms for the Police, and who has time for that. We had been led to expect that there would be other announcements of a more momentous nature, but that never seemed to materialize, and although a merry time was had by all, we were left with a somewhat foreboding sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop, which may or may not actually be the case. At the hospital, it's easy to get used to the idea that the auditors are always there like the furniture, as one group of them or another seems to come and never leave, but this was the first time we ever got invited to a party with them, which I don't mind saying, is the kind of economic revolution that I can live with.
In other timely news, I suppose it should not have come as a surprise to discover the problem with my new watch was exactly the same problem as my old watch, and I probably should have thought of it sooner. These watches (which I consider sensible Timex models, not some schlocky fly-by-night gimcrack) have a couple of functions, in addition to telling the time, such as a backlight or date. In what I consider a significant design flaw, the engineers at Timex decided against adding extra buttons around the face for these functions, and instead, built all of them into the poor overworked watch stem, which is probably the flimsiest part of the entire apparatus. They came up with the plan to use the watch stem not only to set the time, but also turn on the backlight and set the date, with the idea that each function would be performed by pulling out the stem to a different depth for each one, plus an extra one when the watch is running normally. The problems start when you think that the stem is in the default position of running normally, and the watch thinks the stem is in one of the other positions, where the time stops running while you use the stem to set the other functions. Even worse, the default position of running normally isn't when the stem is pushed all the way in, which makes it harder to judge when it's in the right place to keep on running, except for the handy feature that it stops keeping time, so you suddenly notice that you're out of step with the rest of humanity, and thanks so very much not. It's at that point you figure that the battery is dead, until you pull the stem all the way out, and push it part-way back in, and just like magic, it starts running again just like nothing ever happened. Forty years ago, you could take your watch to a jeweler, and if the stem had gotten worn or loose over the ordinary course of events, they would be happy to replace it or tighten it up for you (and polish your watch besides) so that it would run like new once again. Nowadays, you not only can't get a jeweler to look at your watch, but even Timex doesn't want to know you when you want your watch repaired, and if you send it to them, they turn around and send you any old watch that they decide is comparable to yours, and call it a day. I'll be the first to admit that I have a well-deserved reputation as a wristwatch graveyard, but by golly, all of this cannot be laid at my doorstep this time around, because the real culprit is not in my house, but on the drawing board. The old-timers among us can remember when John Cameron Swayze would say that a Timex would take a licking and keep on ticking, and nowadays, I can't even get it to keep on ticking when I'm just wearing it around the house. If this is the Timex concept of progress, I'd like to invite the engineers to the hospital, because now that the auditors have left, there's plenty of windows that I could throw my watch out of, and they could just jump right out after it, and see who's still ticking after that.
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 6:56 PM
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