Pay The Piper
Hello World,
Of course, everyone knows how I hate to be an alarmist, but the 12th will be the third Sunday in Advent already, as impossible as that might appear to believe at this point, with Christmas itself still seemingly weeks away yet, and plenty of candles remaining to go in Advent. The problem is that Christmas is on a Saturday this year, so there is actually a whole week left after the fourth Sunday in Advent before Christmas ever gets here, and so Advent seems to have started way too early, while that is not actually the case. Depending on whether the 25th falls on a Saturday, Sunday or Monday, November 27th is the earliest that you can have the first Sunday in Advent, and December 3rd is the latest it can happen. This time around, it was November 28th, which is pretty darned early, and seems like we're going to have to break out the wreath stretcher to make Advent last all the way until Christmas finally gets around to being here. I'm thinking that Santa's got to have some juice in that sleigh to pull this one off, or everyone's going to be standing around on Christmas morning and wondering where it all went wrong. Personally, I'd be checking the Advent schedulers to see if they got into the holiday eggnog a little too early this year.
Speaking of holiday cheer, it was at work earlier this week when I happened to overhear the Vice President of Finance apparently giving a pep talk to a vendor who had come to the hospital to complain about not being paid. The VP didn't want the poor man to feel singled out in this manner, and must have thought it would cheer him up to know that he was in the same boat as numerous other creditors all anxiously waiting for their money, and hopefully not in vain. "Don't worry!" he exclaimed, clapping the fellow on the back jovially, "It's the same way for everyone else too. It's not just you, we haven't been paying anybody. I've been telling everybody that we're like crime, and you know, crime doesn't pay." I actually thought that was a pretty funny line for what is essentially a glorified bean counter at the hospital, although perhaps not exactly the moral high road that we might have been aiming for.
In the realm of technology news, we inadvertently found a way to save a lot of money, which should come in handy these days with the economy the way it is, and we weren't even trying at the time. We have a very old hand-made four-poster bed, and unlike modern beds, has plenty of room underneath - perhaps in the event, 150 years ago, that someone needed to suddenly hide from marauding bandits, there would be someplace right at hand for this purpose. With both the mattress and box spring, the surface of the bed is almost 36 inches above the floor, and having something to step up on is more a necessity than a luxury. In fact, there are some days when the thought of a step ladder doesn't seem like such a bad idea after all. In any case, having so much room under the bed makes it an ideal place to store off-season clothes or blankets, or other bulky items that simply have no place else to be stored. I have some zippered garment bags that I use for sheets, bedspreads, sweaters and the like, to keep them out of sight while still being close at hand. We noticed recently that one of our cats has taken to sleeping on top of the storage bags under the bed, and not limiting her options, moved from one to another, perhaps to find just the right fit. As a result, we discovered that we didn't need to buy any of those fancy expensive vacuum storage bags that they sell in late-night infomercials on TV, because she had managed to flatten everything inside the bags to a single dense layer, and squeeze all of the air out of the bags until they were perfectly flat, like the top of a picnic table, if it had been made out of fabric. So for a mere ten pounds' worth of cat, you can achieve the same effect, and I pass this along as a household tip for anybody, and not just the VP of Finance, who may be looking to save a buck or two.
In other animal news, we have this entry from Monday's newspaper in the Best Bets section of the TV listings:
=========================
"Rules of Engagement"
Audrey has a mentee who wants
to learn about publishing.
=========================
I have to say that I reject out of hand the idea that someone with a mentor is a "mentee," and that's all there is to it. Personally, I think it's a stupid word that sounds like some sort of ridiculous mythological creature from medieval days, when strolling troubadours carried the epic tales of giants, spirits and sea monsters like the fearsome Mentee, rising up out of the deep with eyes of fire and razor-sharp talons. ("Thar she blows, my lads," the captain did cry; "Steer clear of her tail or we'll all surely die.") Incredibly, it was the very next day that we watched an episode of 30 Rock where Jack was trying to find a worthy candidate to bestow his abundant mentoring skills upon, and used the term "mentee" repeatedly to describe this hypothetical individual. Inasmuch as I had never heard the term before, I thought it was more than a strange coincidence that it turned up twice in two days. And people can call me a hidebound traditionalist (they'd better not!) but I really don't have problems with similar words of this ilk, such as payee or attendee or designee - but when it comes to mentee, I just can't countenance this wholesale invention of frivolous sounds masquerading as real words, and that's not just the Mentos talking, believe me.
Meanwhile, in the spirit of the season, I was tossing together a holiday-themed newsletter last week, and was inspired to include the story behind the hymn "Silent Night," which I'm sure is well known to all, and beloved by everyone alike from the youngest school children to venerable oldsters, and anyone in between. It all began at a little church in Germany, just before their jubilant Christmas Eve service, when they discover to their horror that the organ bellows have been chewed through by mice, so the organ doesn't work, and they suddenly have to find some seasonal music that can be played in church without an organ, which at that time was such a radical concept as to be unthinkable. Luckily, local schoolteacher Franz Gruber springs to the rescue with his guitar, and at the eleventh hour, writes "Silent Night" on the back of a shovel with a piece of charcoal (here, the dinosaurs are trying to convince me that was Abraham Lincoln, but this is my story, and I'll tell it my way, thanks so very much not) and the rest, as they say, is history. Not so fast! As much as I hate to spoil a classic holiday legend for everyone, apparently the reality in the mice-chewing-the-bellows story is, well, not so much. Which is to say, the entire story is a complete and utter fabrication from whole cloth, with not a stitch of truth in it, from one end to the other, through and through, and no matter how you slice it. I have it on good authority from the official Silent Night web site (and you're welcome to go right ahead and visit http://www.silentnight/web.za and see for yourself) where they celebrate the simple yet touching story of Pastor Joseph Mohr, who took his poem "Stille Nacht" to his colleague Franz Gruber, who set it to music, whereupon it was sung at the Christmas Eve service in the Austrian village of Obendorf in 1818, and quickly became a runaway sensation, spreading like wildfire through the royal courts of Europe and far-flung churches the world over. That's the whole sum total of the tale, with nary a mouse to be seen, and I can't say that it's much of an improvement in any way, over the more colorful version that everyone knows and loves, and that's not just a load of charcoal, believe me. Obviously our official friends at the official site know nothing about marketing, and even more so, have learned nothing from the John Ford cinema classic "Liberty Valance," where the canny newspaperman, after being apprised of the actual story behind the famous event, rightly yields to the inevitable conclusion: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." They may say that truth is stranger than fiction, but it's usually a whole lot less interesting, and what I say is, give me mice chewing bellows any day. So here's a big fat holiday raspberry to the evil minions at the official Silent Night web site, for destroying centuries' worth of a perfectly fine holiday fable, and leaving us instead with a non-story that may as well be the history of an Austrian folk song about three goats and a milkmaid, for heaven's sake. No one's ever going to get rich with this measly and boring non-fiction, which I think is a crime, and after all, everyone knows that crime doesn't pay.
Elle
Of course, everyone knows how I hate to be an alarmist, but the 12th will be the third Sunday in Advent already, as impossible as that might appear to believe at this point, with Christmas itself still seemingly weeks away yet, and plenty of candles remaining to go in Advent. The problem is that Christmas is on a Saturday this year, so there is actually a whole week left after the fourth Sunday in Advent before Christmas ever gets here, and so Advent seems to have started way too early, while that is not actually the case. Depending on whether the 25th falls on a Saturday, Sunday or Monday, November 27th is the earliest that you can have the first Sunday in Advent, and December 3rd is the latest it can happen. This time around, it was November 28th, which is pretty darned early, and seems like we're going to have to break out the wreath stretcher to make Advent last all the way until Christmas finally gets around to being here. I'm thinking that Santa's got to have some juice in that sleigh to pull this one off, or everyone's going to be standing around on Christmas morning and wondering where it all went wrong. Personally, I'd be checking the Advent schedulers to see if they got into the holiday eggnog a little too early this year.
Speaking of holiday cheer, it was at work earlier this week when I happened to overhear the Vice President of Finance apparently giving a pep talk to a vendor who had come to the hospital to complain about not being paid. The VP didn't want the poor man to feel singled out in this manner, and must have thought it would cheer him up to know that he was in the same boat as numerous other creditors all anxiously waiting for their money, and hopefully not in vain. "Don't worry!" he exclaimed, clapping the fellow on the back jovially, "It's the same way for everyone else too. It's not just you, we haven't been paying anybody. I've been telling everybody that we're like crime, and you know, crime doesn't pay." I actually thought that was a pretty funny line for what is essentially a glorified bean counter at the hospital, although perhaps not exactly the moral high road that we might have been aiming for.
In the realm of technology news, we inadvertently found a way to save a lot of money, which should come in handy these days with the economy the way it is, and we weren't even trying at the time. We have a very old hand-made four-poster bed, and unlike modern beds, has plenty of room underneath - perhaps in the event, 150 years ago, that someone needed to suddenly hide from marauding bandits, there would be someplace right at hand for this purpose. With both the mattress and box spring, the surface of the bed is almost 36 inches above the floor, and having something to step up on is more a necessity than a luxury. In fact, there are some days when the thought of a step ladder doesn't seem like such a bad idea after all. In any case, having so much room under the bed makes it an ideal place to store off-season clothes or blankets, or other bulky items that simply have no place else to be stored. I have some zippered garment bags that I use for sheets, bedspreads, sweaters and the like, to keep them out of sight while still being close at hand. We noticed recently that one of our cats has taken to sleeping on top of the storage bags under the bed, and not limiting her options, moved from one to another, perhaps to find just the right fit. As a result, we discovered that we didn't need to buy any of those fancy expensive vacuum storage bags that they sell in late-night infomercials on TV, because she had managed to flatten everything inside the bags to a single dense layer, and squeeze all of the air out of the bags until they were perfectly flat, like the top of a picnic table, if it had been made out of fabric. So for a mere ten pounds' worth of cat, you can achieve the same effect, and I pass this along as a household tip for anybody, and not just the VP of Finance, who may be looking to save a buck or two.
In other animal news, we have this entry from Monday's newspaper in the Best Bets section of the TV listings:
=========================
"Rules of Engagement"
Audrey has a mentee who wants
to learn about publishing.
=========================
I have to say that I reject out of hand the idea that someone with a mentor is a "mentee," and that's all there is to it. Personally, I think it's a stupid word that sounds like some sort of ridiculous mythological creature from medieval days, when strolling troubadours carried the epic tales of giants, spirits and sea monsters like the fearsome Mentee, rising up out of the deep with eyes of fire and razor-sharp talons. ("Thar she blows, my lads," the captain did cry; "Steer clear of her tail or we'll all surely die.") Incredibly, it was the very next day that we watched an episode of 30 Rock where Jack was trying to find a worthy candidate to bestow his abundant mentoring skills upon, and used the term "mentee" repeatedly to describe this hypothetical individual. Inasmuch as I had never heard the term before, I thought it was more than a strange coincidence that it turned up twice in two days. And people can call me a hidebound traditionalist (they'd better not!) but I really don't have problems with similar words of this ilk, such as payee or attendee or designee - but when it comes to mentee, I just can't countenance this wholesale invention of frivolous sounds masquerading as real words, and that's not just the Mentos talking, believe me.
Meanwhile, in the spirit of the season, I was tossing together a holiday-themed newsletter last week, and was inspired to include the story behind the hymn "Silent Night," which I'm sure is well known to all, and beloved by everyone alike from the youngest school children to venerable oldsters, and anyone in between. It all began at a little church in Germany, just before their jubilant Christmas Eve service, when they discover to their horror that the organ bellows have been chewed through by mice, so the organ doesn't work, and they suddenly have to find some seasonal music that can be played in church without an organ, which at that time was such a radical concept as to be unthinkable. Luckily, local schoolteacher Franz Gruber springs to the rescue with his guitar, and at the eleventh hour, writes "Silent Night" on the back of a shovel with a piece of charcoal (here, the dinosaurs are trying to convince me that was Abraham Lincoln, but this is my story, and I'll tell it my way, thanks so very much not) and the rest, as they say, is history. Not so fast! As much as I hate to spoil a classic holiday legend for everyone, apparently the reality in the mice-chewing-the-bellows story is, well, not so much. Which is to say, the entire story is a complete and utter fabrication from whole cloth, with not a stitch of truth in it, from one end to the other, through and through, and no matter how you slice it. I have it on good authority from the official Silent Night web site (and you're welcome to go right ahead and visit http://www.silentnight/web.za and see for yourself) where they celebrate the simple yet touching story of Pastor Joseph Mohr, who took his poem "Stille Nacht" to his colleague Franz Gruber, who set it to music, whereupon it was sung at the Christmas Eve service in the Austrian village of Obendorf in 1818, and quickly became a runaway sensation, spreading like wildfire through the royal courts of Europe and far-flung churches the world over. That's the whole sum total of the tale, with nary a mouse to be seen, and I can't say that it's much of an improvement in any way, over the more colorful version that everyone knows and loves, and that's not just a load of charcoal, believe me. Obviously our official friends at the official site know nothing about marketing, and even more so, have learned nothing from the John Ford cinema classic "Liberty Valance," where the canny newspaperman, after being apprised of the actual story behind the famous event, rightly yields to the inevitable conclusion: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." They may say that truth is stranger than fiction, but it's usually a whole lot less interesting, and what I say is, give me mice chewing bellows any day. So here's a big fat holiday raspberry to the evil minions at the official Silent Night web site, for destroying centuries' worth of a perfectly fine holiday fable, and leaving us instead with a non-story that may as well be the history of an Austrian folk song about three goats and a milkmaid, for heaven's sake. No one's ever going to get rich with this measly and boring non-fiction, which I think is a crime, and after all, everyone knows that crime doesn't pay.
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:51 PM
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