Belly Flop

Hello World,

Of course, everyone knows how I hate to be an alarmist, so I feel it's only fair to warn all of you to be sitting down before you read this, because apparently the world as we know it has ceased to exist, and will never be the same again. Perhaps Time magazine said it best:

=============================
On January 13, 2011, just two weeks before Saturn turned retrograde in Libra, humans in the Western world woke to the disruptive report that their star sign had changed. Or rather that their star sign was probably never the one they thought it was. The response was astronomical, even though many Americans think about the zodiac only when reaching for conversation with models and hunky yoga teachers. Apparently, the best way to get folks to care about their star sign was to try to change it. "Despite not really believing in astrology, I hereby insist on remaining an Aries," said TV host Rachel Maddow, echoing the prevailing sentiment.
=============================

Apparently all the hubbub started when someone from the Minnesota Planetarium Society, with the unlikely name of Parke Kunkle, observed to a local newspaper that "because of the idiosyncrasies of the earth's orbit around the sun, the stars do not match up with their allotted zodiac months ..... and it hasn't for hundreds of years. Moreover, there's an additional constellation that the sun passes through in December known as Ophiuchus, which never made it into the zodiac we thought we knew ..... signified by a guy holding a snake, whose members had no idea how they were supposed to behave." Well, you can only imagine the hue and cry this is going to set off, near and far, far and wide, from pillar to post, and all the way around Robin Hood's proverbial barn and back again. Not so fast! It turns out that Western astrology is not based on the movement of the sun in relation to the constellations anyway, but rather on the movement of the sun and planets through the seasons of the year, which means that in the northern hemisphere, the zodiac signs haven't really changed. "The stars are irrelevant to the zodiac," notes astrologer Rick Levine. "We could call it planetology, but that would be stupid." Oh, THAT would be stupid! Frankly, I can't think of anything to add to that which would be an improvement to letting it stand on its own merits. But at least now we all know what will be the new pick-up line in bars: "So, what sign did you used to be?"

In other news, alas, there is no joy in Mudville, as the Jets' improbable run in the playoffs came to a woeful end in Pittsburgh, when the region's beloved Gang Green slammed headlong into the fearsome Steel Curtain, and it turned out to be the final curtain for their legions of disappointed home-town fans. But it was fun while it lasted, and they still did better than many people expected, and way better than their room-mates at the as-yet-untitled new Meadowlands Stadium, the stinky Giants, so that's something anyway. Even better, the management took the opportunity to make no announcement about the coaching staff, one way or another, which is the kind of management style that I can live with. After all, this isn't planetology, for heaven's sake.

Meanwhile at work, I happened to be downstairs in our old rattle-trap of a building when I bumped into the director of Telecommunications in the hallway going into the computer department, and even through the slightly opened door, I could see that all heck had broken loose inside, compared to the last time I was in there, which was fairly recently. Apparently they made the mistake of complaining about the heat, or perhaps it was the cold (that building only has the two extremes, there's no happy medium) which sent the evil minions from the Engineering department scurrying over to cause trouble. They explained that in order to reach the radiators along the wall, it was necessary for the computer department to disassemble and relocate all of the cubicles in the area (this must have seemed like a hilarious practical joke at the time, that they're probably still laughing about in Engineering) thus displacing the six people who are supposed to be working in there, to keep our computers and telephones up and running on a 24/7 basis that is no joke in a hospital setting. This is just like moving, because you have to disconnect everything, pack it up and push it somewhere else, and tear everything up so nobody can get any work done. It's enormously disruptive to everybody, and obviously productivity goes right through the floor, which would not be hard to do in that building, with the floors being what they are, heaven knows. I told him that he had my full sympathy, because this was actually the worst of both worlds, where it's just as much trouble and aggravation as really moving, but in the end, you wind up staying in the same crappy place you were to start with. Sort of like the new zodiac signs.

Here's a story from the past, as this all started in the weeks before Christmas, which seems like a very long time ago now. It seems that the DSL service was acting up at home, and finally became so sporadic that we threw in the towel and called Verizon to come over and see what they could do about it. They sent a man over who installed a splitter outside the house, to separate the regular telephone service from the DSL, so a problem with one would not affect the other. It worked great for two days, and the service never sounded better on the phones all over the house. Then Bill needed to make a call one day, and found no dial tone, which surprised us because that was not part of our original complaint. We have a testable junction box in the basement, so he trotted down there only to find no service there either, and thanks so very much not. So we called them back, and they sent somebody else who said the problem was on the pole behind our house, and he would put in a service request for the "pole guy." So then they sent the pole person who said it wasn't our pole, or even the pole out on the main street, but the cross-box around the block, and he put in a service request for the "box guy." So then they sent the cross-box person who finally fixed it, and once again, the service never sounded better throughout the house. Two days later, I needed to make a phone call, and (this is so not a surprise that it can't be considered the punch line of the story) there was no dial tone at the phone or the testable junction box in the basement, thanks again not. So just about two months later, we still have no phone service that we can count on, which is amazing to me, especially after the telephone has been invented over 100 years ago, and in almost 30 years of living here, we've never had this problem before, and suddenly they can't get the thing to work more than two days in a row. It's only a lucky thing that we're such unimportant non-entities in the larger scheme of things that nobody ever needs to reach us, or this would be pretty darned inconvenient. Personally, I can't wait for them to send us a bill for December and January, because we're going to have a great big laugh over that, I can tell you. On the other hand, I think they're still doing better than at church, where they honestly believed they could install a special box on the wall of our boiler room next to the alarm panel somehow by remote control from the central station without coming to the church at all, which would have been worth the price of admission, if they could have pulled that one off, by golly.

Also on the local scene, it was another one of the neighborhood cats that was coming around at all hours of the day and night for a hand-out, and seemed much too timid and delicate to be out in all sorts of conditions like any old beat-up alley cat, and our hearts went out to the poor thing. We couldn't help but wonder if he had been truly abandoned, or was so neglected by his owners that they didn't care if he was out in the elements all on his lonesome. I called him Flopsie, because he had long white silky hair like a bunny rabbit, with black-brownish parts on his head and down his back, and the most adorable pink nose that I've ever seen on something that doesn't hop. He had a good appetite, and didn't look as scruffy as some strays we've seen, but he had a bad limp which made us worry for his safety in the great outdoors. So one day, I gave him a plate of food and left the front door open, and he trotted right in. We put him in the kitchen with Rusty, and they seemed to get along fairly well, although Rusty is young enough that he's a bit more boisterous and assertive than Flopsie would probably prefer. We figured that if he really did belong to anyone, eventually people would come around looking for him, and then we'd know. Weeks went by without a word from anyone, and each day we were more and more amazed that this lovely and docile animal could have been abandoned by anybody, he was just the sweetest and dearest thing in the world. Finally, one day when I was staying at home and waiting for the Verizon guy (again!) the woman next door (not the people with the ratty fence, but the ostensible owners of the notorious Cinnamon and also Squeaky, who Bill is convinced are in the Federal Witness Protection Program and were given cats as part of their cover) asked me if we knew anything about one of their cats, which they hadn't seen in several weeks. Now, we were still feeding a variety of cats outside, so I asked her to describe the missing cat in question, and at this point, she managed to describe it so badly that if I didn't already have her cat in my kitchen, I would have had no idea what she was talking about. She said he was a shaggy gray tabby with white feet, and white under his chin, which is so far from what he actually looks like that I almost laughed. I said I didn't think so, but we would be on the lookout for it, and when she said he was declawed, I bit back the thought that sprang into my mind of what the heck were they letting him out for in the first place. Her description was so unlike Flopsie that I really wasn't sure, but when I checked him more carefully later and found that he had no claws, my heart sank. We really had mixed feelings about giving him back to the neighbors, since we felt that he should not be outside on his own, but on the other hand, we couldn't in good conscience keep a cat that belonged to someone else, especially after they asked us about him. So it was with a heavy heart that I went back to her and admitted that we had their cat, but I had to say that with that bad limp and no claws, for heaven's sake, he really shouldn't be outdoors where anything could happen to him, and we would be worried sick about him, especially in bad weather - and then I found myself saying, "I can't understand how the heck you ever got him to go outside in the first place, since he's been in our house, all he does is sleep on the stove, and he never looks at a door." Maybe it was something about my fierce protective instinct for this beautiful creature, but all at once she said, "Why don't you keep him? He doesn't like our other cats, and he's afraid of the dogs, so he'd probably be happier with you anyway." So rather than losing this treasure that we had acquired under false pretenses, we were able to welcome him into our home with open arms and a clear conscience after all. Of course, this does nothing to refute our reputation as cat-nappers, heaven knows, and I would be glad to blame it on planetology, but frankly, that would be stupid.

Elle

On The Right Track

Hello World,

Well, the new year is really chugging right along, and doesn't seem to slow down for complaints or criticism, and you can believe it, because I've tried plenty of both so far to no avail. I suppose we have our old nemesis Comrade Mischka to thank for the sub-Siberian temperatures that have been unleashed on us lately, and thank you so very much not, from all of us except the utility companies and the Burlington Coat Factory. Every week there seems to be another bunch of snow dumped on us, sometimes more and sometimes less, but always a nuisance, especially on top of the snow that is already here and hasn't melted yet because it's been too cold. All of the cats are hunkered down on the radiators, or cosseted under the blankets on the beds, but when they called up to order a bunch of those handmade Amish electric portable fireplaces, I thought that was just way too much.

So far, the cold appears to have no effect on the football juggernaut that is the New York Jets, as Gang Green has rolled over the most unlikely of opponents, in unlikely fashion, the last two weeks, to the surprise of just about everyone, and that sound you hear is the multitude of bookies and odds-makers jumping out of windows all over the country. Incredibly, they demolished the mighty Indianapolis Colts and then the vaunted New England Patriots one after another, and now find themselves one game away from a return to the Super Bowl for the first time in decades. Rex Ryan may be no Broadway Joe as a media darling, but he's certainly got everyone's attention, and gave the home-town faithful something to cheer about, long after all hope is usually gone. Next up is the Pittsburgh Steelers, and they predict the game-time temperatures will be negative numbers usually reserved for the likes of liquid nitrogen. I understand the Jets front office called our cats to borrow some of those handmade Amish electric portable fireplaces, but of course, our dastardly felines pretended that they couldn't understand English. They may be disloyal, but they're not stupid.

Speaking of stupid, fans of the other football franchise in the local area had to be wondering what was going through the minds of the New York Giants management, after their miserable season limped to a close, and with nothing to show for it once again. Except for the New York Yankees, it is generally understood that the same team doesn't win all of the time, and fans usually appreciate a sincere effort, even if the results fall short of the top prize. But for the second year in a row, the Giants had a good start, followed by a late-season collapse that was painful to live through and ugly to watch, being eliminated from the playoffs almost ridiculously early in inverse proportion to the size of their enormous payroll, thanks not. All of this is bad enough, heaven knows, but on the very day that their playoff hopes are unceremoniously scuttled, and the body isn't even cold yet as they say in political circles, along trots the ownership with the announcement that they are going to keep the same coach for the next year. Now, I'm not blaming the coach for the team stinking up the joint, but at that particular moment, it's no kind of time to be making that announcement, because it just makes the fans even madder than just losing, which they just did. You don't have to fire the coach, and you don't even have to say that you're thinking of firing the coach - at a highly-charged, emotional time like that, you don't have to say anything about the coach whatsoever, and let the media pundits wonder what they will. What the ownership doesn't understand (and believe me, the New York Mets are the poster child of this) is that when the playoff dreams of the fans have just been dashed, is not the time to champion the status quo, because right at that moment, the average fan thinks the status quo is about the biggest disaster that has ever happened in the history of sports. After a suitable period, when the wailing and gnashing of teeth has died down, there's plenty of time to give a vote of confidence to the coach, without being offensive or insensitive to the fans' feelings. After all, if the fans wanted to be insulted, they would be following the Islanders instead, for heaven's sake.

Of course, last weekend was the time to honor the memory and contributions of the great civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which makes for a handy three-day weekend in places where it is celebrated as a holiday. Bill and I always take the opportunity to visit our friends around Albany, only this time around, we found a way to toss a new wrinkle into the proceedings. As much as we love the Buick, and wouldn't want to replace it, the fact is that it's now 25 years old, and some parts of it are showing their age, notably the transmission. We thought this might be a good time for it to skip driving 200 miles north in the dead of winter, and back again, and Bill could use a break too, although he's never one to complain. So we scouted about for someone else to take us all the way to Albany on Friday and then back again on Sunday, and discovered that Amtrak was more than able to fit the bill. We have Amtrak service right here in New Rochelle, which unfortunately skirts the coast going eastward and on to Boston, far away from our destination. So it was necessary for us to first drive to Yonkers, and avail ourselves of their municipal parking garage near the train station, in order to board the Amtrak Empire Service that hugs the Hudson River all the way up to Albany and beyond. This was actually a big challenge for us, since we usually bring everything we own, everywhere we go, and packing light is not something that comes naturally. But we somehow managed to narrow it down to a manageable amount, and headed off on the first leg of our adventure. We found out later that after the snowstorm on Tuesday, there was no Amtrak service on Wednesday or Thursday, which may have accounted for the crowded conditions on the Friday train coming out of Penn Station, and we were lucky to get two seats together when we got on at Yonkers, although as Bill likes to point out, we had to walk the train all the way from Yonkers to Croton-Harmon to get to them. The train also stops in Rhinecliff and Hudson before pulling into Albany in a scant two hours, which were not only smooth and comfortable but scenic as well. What they call the Albany train station is actually across the river in Rensselaer, and we hopped in a cab that took us to the Comfort Inn at East Greenbush, where we have stayed before, rather than staying at an unfamiliar hotel in the city, just for the sake of their shuttle service to the train station. It wasn't long before we were joined by our friends at the hotel, and on our way to dinner at the nearby Schodack Diner, where I can recommend the fried ravioli very highly. Fortunately, this diner is new, and had no reason to have our pictures posted in the lobby to prevent us from entering, although they might have reconsidered after our six-part impromptu rendition of "Schodack," which we just made up on the spot, but sounded suspiciously like George Gershwin's "Swanee" (with apologies to Stephen Foster and the old folks at home) although not an imrprovement, I can tell you that.

In the morning, we helped ourselves to the complimentary breakfast buffet at the hotel, and glad of it, since we didn't carry any food with us from home like we normally would. Then it was time for a late mini-Christmas with our friends, which we considered a great success, because the presents actually made it through the 2-hour train ride in one piece and none the worse for wear, especially for being stuffed in a duffel bag the whole way. Next it was off to our other friends, who have a new high-definition 3-D television, and we had some entertaining times watching all the things that it can do. Our next stop would have been Hewitt's, but they were already closed, so we headed instead to Cracker Barrel, where they had so many trinkets we wanted to buy, but didn't because we couldn't fit them in our luggage. As it was, we had to leave some of our bulkier treasures with our friends to bring down on our next get-together, or they never would have let us back on the train to go home. Another disadvantage of the train scenario is that we can't stop at Denny's on the way home as we like to, so we made sure to get to Denny's while we were there, and it did not disappoint. We thought we were too full for dessert, but decided to take a drive to check out O'Kenny's Express and have ice cream, in spite of the fact that it was frigid and snowing at the time. We had never been there before, but apparently they are locally famous for their garage full of vintage cars, all beautifully restored, and it was a real treat that even the cold couldn't spoil. We capped off the evening with a swim in the hotel pool, and a soak in the hot tub, and after a long and busy day, looked forward to a good night's sleep.

Not so fast! Some revelers from a shindig at the hotel were having a boisterous time of it in our hallway, making sleep impossible, in spite of the late hour and calls to the front desk for help. The security guards were no match for them, and eventually the State troopers showed up to get things under control. And I know what everyone is thinking, because usually it's the six of us who cause a ruckus at the hotels, but our friends were staying at home, and it was just the two of us trying to sleep this time around, so we had nothing to do with the brouhaha in question. In the morning, we discovered the hotel had given us a discount "due to noise," which is a polite way to describe what was basically a riot that needed the troopers to come out and quell. But the breakfast buffet was just as good, even if we were a little bleary-eyed by then, and we headed out early to Hewitt's and Ocean State Job Lot, and snapped up some great bargains, most of which we were able to stuff into our luggage. It turned out that Hewitt's was conveniently close to the train station, so we got there way ahead of time, giving us a chance to have some lunch in the cafe and print our tickets for the ride home. Once again, the train was right on time, smooth and comfortable, and got us back to Yonkers right on the dot. We had no trouble springing the Buick from the parking garage after two days, and just like always, the cats greeted our return with their signature disdain, so at least we knew we were in the right house. As an experiment, we thought the whole trip was very successful, and had a lot of advantages, and we were glad we tried it. As another stop on the Christmas caravan, it would be hard to beat, and that's not just a lot of Swanee River, believe me.

Elle

Route 66

Hello World,

I know it doesn't seem possible that it could be halfway into the middle of January already, but there it is, believe it or don't. It's certainly been chilly enough to remind us all that it's January, with frigid temperatures and howling winds that make it seem even colder. In fact, it's enough to make any rational person believe that the bird bath heaters can't possibly still be working in our bird baths, but au contraire! (That's French for "rusted empty hulks of burnt-out temporary boilers covered with snow.") The heaters have been doing an epic job of keeping the bird baths from icing over, in spite of the brutal conditions, and providing the local wildlife with some much-needed water at a time, as it says in the hymn: "in the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone." In fact, I happened to spot the neighbor's cat, the legendary Cinna-mooch, stopping by for a drink, although with her, we can't rule out the possibility that she was just standing there with her mouth open, and hoping that any thirsty birds coming over to the bird bath would just jump right inside and save her the trouble of having to catch them on the wing instead.

I don't know about where you are, but here it seems that there has been a tremendous rash lately of people not saying what they mean (one hopes) or saying it so badly that it may as well not be what they mean after all. Most recently, we got a copy of a letter at work that had been sent by a patient's relative to our Nursing department, and praised the hospital staff overall, plus one nurse in particular.

==============================
She treated my dad like he was part of her family, and me as well.
She never made us feel like we were bothering her and always offered her help.
Joy and I actually "welded up" when I was taking my dad home.
==============================

Gee, I certainly hope not. I'm thinking that it's hard enough to be a nurse, without being welded to anyone, and going home with the patient's family. Heck, with friends like this, you don't even need the federal government to come in and mess everything up.

Then there was a front-page story from the local newspaper on January 3, which the Fashion Police obviously did not get their claws into -

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1989 Bride In Search Of Her Lost Gown

The 50's-era dress, a chapel-train lace
gown with a scooped neck, a fitted bodice
and a flaired skirt, was a sentimental heirloom
=================

I can understand that they didn't want to get any highway flares near her precious wedding dress, but it shouldn't take an emergency crew to figure out that "flaired" is certainly not a word, and even if it were, would still not be the word they were searching for, apparently in vain.

Also coming up short in the homophone department, we get this sports report from the AOL Welcome Screen on January 9, where you think they would know better, but is very rarely the case.

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Ravens Roll Over Chiefs in Kansas City

Baltimore's defense overwhelmed
the Chiefs to the tune of 5 turnovers
on the way to a 30-7 route
===========================

It's certainly true that "rout" and "route" can sound exactly alike, but they are two different words and spelled two different ways for a reason, which has obviously been lost on the Welcome editors, or perhaps they were just "en route" from Happy Hour when they came up with that.

Going in a different direction, but not necessarily a better one, the local newspaper came up with this headline for the front page of their December 29 edition:

=======================
Suspect Arrested In
Slaying Of Woman
Found In Suitcase
=======================

Without any punctuation to help, anyone who hadn't read the original story would have wondered if the police had perhaps conveniently found the suspect in a suitcase, which would be an innovation in law enforcement that they would probably be pretty enthusiastic about, I'm thinking.

Having that same problem with misplaced modifiers on the front of the Sound Shore Sunday Express for November 14, we get this unfortunate head-scratcher:

=========================
Tree Helps Grieving
Parents Be Inspired

France Tucker and Dawn Moriwaki
hold an annual ceremony for children
who have died at the Remembrance Tree
in Larchmont
=========================

I know it wasn't their intention to imply that all the children died at the same tree, but for heaven's sake, you've got to send that whole caption back to the drawing board once it becomes so confusing that it's almost inadvertently funny.

They did no better on the main front page that same day, tossing out this curious tidbit with no further information or a picture to help it along:

========================
Soldier Story

Troops keep
visiting senators
safe in Iraq
========================

I read that three times, and couldn't help but wonder what was so fascinating about the senator's safe that the troops kept going to visit it while they were in Iraq.

This last one actually happened to me in person, as I needed to place a service call with Verizon for some work that had to be done at church. When we upgraded the church's alarm system, we were told that the phone company would have to come to install this RJ31X box to be tied into the alarm control panel, so I called them to make an appointment. It turned out to be scheduled for Wednesday, December 29, which was two days after the blizzard, and conditions were better than they were on that Monday, but still pretty ugly out there. I got to church early in the morning to find that the driveway had not been plowed by the people who plow the parking lot behind us, so I had no place to put myself or the Verizon truck when they showed up. I told the parking attendant that since they hadn't plowed the driveway, I had no choice but to park in the lot itself, and Verizon right along with me, and they could lump it. There also was no path shoveled out of the lot, so anyone wanting to go to the church had to jump through the drifts in order to reach the sidewalk. Fortunately, the electricians were also scheduled to do work that day, and they pitched right in and cleared a trail from the lot right to the door, and couldn't have been nicer about it. As soon as I got inside the building, I called Verizon so they could be alerted ahead of time that the truck would have to park in the lot behind the church and not in the driveway, because I didn't want them driving around the block in circles and not know where to go. It turned out that I needn't have worried. I spent two hours in the phone, and pretty much wasted the entire day waiting, only to find out that they weren't going to be coming anyway. When I finally reached someone who understood what was going on, she explained to me that the order had not been put in as a dispatch call, but rather a central station call, which meant that no one was going to be coming out to the site to do any work there. By that point, I was cold and tired and annoyed, so I couldn't help but ask the woman how exactly they thought that they were going to actually install the RJ31X box on the wall of our boiler room next to the alarm panel, from the central station and without really being on the premises - by holographic remote control perhaps? Frankly, I was prepared to get all welded up if she was able to help me out of this route, but I guess she could tell that my nostrils were flaired, and I suspect that our next service request will be found in a suitcase with the rest of the victims at the Remembrance Tree.

Elle

Good Golly, Miss Molly

Hello World,

Happy Epiphany! You know that the Christmas season is well on its way into the history books when even the Feast of the Three Kings has come and gone, as indeed it has, since Epiphany was on Thursday. I didn't happen to see any Wise Men on their special day, although I certainly wouldn't expect to at the hospital where I work, which is known far and wide as "the employer of last resort," and for good reason. I do hope that everyone made a determined effort to celebrate the holiday in appropriate style, wearing their specific Epiphany costumes, singing the traditional Epiphany songs, savoring the beloved Epiphany snacks, and of course, playing the age-old Epiphany games like Pin the Tail on the Magi. Ah, those were the good old days indeed. Epiphanopoly, anyone?

On the local scene, I finally went back to work after two weeks off, and while I always enjoy having time off around the holidays, getting back to my office after a lengthy lay-off is always a daunting prospect. The tottering piles of paperwork are bad enough, and there's also dozens of voice mail and email messages to slog through besides. In spite of it all, I try to keep a cool head about me, and realize that as a secretary, my job is only paperwork and not patient care, so no one is going to die as a result of what I do or don't do. There would be no need for my Evil Twin to show up, or to avail myself of that padded room they're holding for me in the Mental Health department, however tempting it may be. There certainly should be no cause for people to run screaming from the sight of me, and while I can understand my co-workers circulating a petition to prevent me from taking off two weeks at a time, frankly I thought the candlelight vigil was just a little too much.

Going back to work a week after the December blizzard was better than trying to drive through it at the time, but only marginally. The stupid little lot where I park was partially cleared, but still very challenging to get in and out of, and treacherous underfoot. The sidewalks were not bad, and for once, they also cleared a path from the sidewalk to the street, so a person could actually get to the pedestrian crosswalk without having to jump through plow tailings at the curb. The employee courtyard is closed to traffic, and looked like a frosty winter scene from a holiday postcard, and in fact, reminded me a lot of that classic Christmas carol "Mistletoe and Holly," where the lyrics say something like:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Oh, by gosh, by golly
It's time for mistletoe and holly
Fancy ties and Granny's pies
And rusted empty hulks of burnt-out temporary boilers covered with snow
~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I will say that there's not much that would improve the appearance of two gigantic rusted empty hulks of burnt-out temporary boilers in the courtyard, but the snow made a valiant attempt at it, I'll give it that. And while Bill always says, "It's nothing that can't be fixed with a coat of fire," let's face it, they already tried that once, and here is the result. So I wouldn't recommend to American Greetings that they hurry right over and use this landscape on their new line of Christmas cards, and that's not just a lot of oh by gosh, by golly, believe me.

Also at work, I'm sure the scoffers and nay-sayers will be surprised to hear that I already took down the little tabletop tree and all of the various decorations in our department, from one end to the other, and everything in between. Mind you, this was not the usual wandering Christmas tree scenario, where I roll the tree on its seasonally-decorative bedside cabinet into a spare office down the hallway and then just leave it there still fully decorated, until some hypothetical future date when I would supposedly have more time to deal with it. No, no, this time around I actually took all the decorations off of it, and put them away in their assorted bags and boxes, and put the whole shebang back in the closet, up on the shelves where it all belongs. Plus, I even took the tree back home already, and put it back in the attic, where if the varmints chew on it, they're going to have to answer to a ho-ho-higher authority. And that's also not just a lot of oh by gosh, by golly.

In other seasonal news, some of the family was away for the holidays, so it was just last weekend that we were able to get together for a late Christmas II The Sequel At The Log Cabin, and don't spare the sugar plums and mistletoe-ho-ho. Saturday was a lovely day, and even warmer than it had been, which made ideal conditions for travel and we were glad of it, since we had far to go. We figure that people must have really painted the town red for New Year's Eve, because the next morning, there was absolutely nobody on the roads with us; the entire way, including commercial trucks and tour buses, which are usually out in force on the highways. In fact, when we pulled into a rest area along the way, Bill took a picture of the parking lot, because it was completely empty, which we have never seen in all of our travels upstate, at any hour of the day or night. We were greeted warmly by our hosts and served hot fresh cinnamon buns, plus an assortment of home-made cookies that tasted as good as they looked, and they looked pretty darned good, I can tell you that. Next, we headed to the nearby Ashokan Reservoir to enjoy a stroll on the pedestrian causeway, which we had also done when we were there for Thanksgiving, and at that time, spotted two bald eagles. This time around, the eagles were elsewhere, leaving the field wide open for one of the local hawks instead, and he was keeping a close watch on us to make sure we didn't carry off any of the mice or chipmunks he was considering part of his menu options. Of course, we didn't have to bother snacking on rodents, because when we got back to the cabin, there was lasagna and garlic bread, plus more desserts, including baklava, which Bill made with his very own two hands, in spite of having no Greek heritage anywhere in the family. After stuffing ourselves to the gills, it was time to open presents, including apparel, gourmet treats, and even cat toys that were appreciated by one and all. Of course, we left much later than we had planned, which was too bad because we couldn't pay a visit to Denny's on the way home as we like to do, although they would have had to pump out our stomachs first, after all that lasagna, if we were going to stop and have another meal at Denny's. We arrived home tired but happy, and without incident, and also carrying copious amounts of left-overs, which was the best part of all. So even turning Christmas into a movable feast, there was still plenty of oh by gosh, by golly to make it all worthwhile.

Of course, Friday was New Year's Eve, and we saw the ball drop with Dick Clark as usual, ushering in 2011 in typical fashion, and like just about everyone else, hoping for better days ahead. We didn't have a chance to stay up late after midnight, since we were planning to get an early start in the morning, which I suppose had the advantage that we missed all of the horrible holiday programming that they have for New Year's nowadays, and good riddance. I have no idea what all the rich and famous do for New Year's Eve, because all of the people that they have on television at that time are nothing but boring non-entities that nobody wants to see, or worse, mediocre musical acts doing a bad job of lip-synching to songs that no one wants to hear. As long as we have to watch people we don't know, I can't understand why someone hasn't come up with the idea of the New Year's Eve lingerie contest from Hooters, also featuring the Chippendale dancers, which I figure would have a little bit of something for everyone. Heck, they could run that at midnight in every single time zone for the entire day, and it would just never get old. Why is it that I have to come up with these brainstorms, instead of the network executives who are supposed to develop the brilliant concepts that rescue television from the vast wasteland that it would be otherwise? Oh well, there's always next year, or as it says in the song: "And may all your rusted empty hulks of burnt-out temporary boilers be white."

Elle

Open Me First

Hello World,

Happy New Year! And so here we find ourselves with a bright and shiny new year stretching out before us, brimming with promise and the hope of happier days ahead, and with any luck, all of that will come true. Many of us who had issues with 2010 will not be sad to see the tail-end of that year, believe me, which in so many ways did not live up to the expectations of unalloyed joy and wonderfulness that we might have hoped for after the debacle of 2009. So with renewed hope, we look forward to 2011 with as much unbridled optimism as we can muster, and the eager anticipation of good times, precious memories and sweet dreams to keep us going. And if all else fails, there's always junk food with its many therapeutic qualities, which is a New Year's resolution that I can live with. Everyone knows I always say there's no such thing as too much chocolate, and so I can sincerely wish you a very brown New Year, and mean every bit of it, yum!

Of course, it would not have been the dastardly 2010 without one last trick up its sleeve, and it certainly decided to go out with a bang. There was less than a week left to go before the new year, when the skies opened up and dumped the Blizzard of 2010 all over us, with gale force winds and bitter cold to make things even worse, especially for those thousands of households who lost their electricity in the bargain. It snowed all of Sunday and into Monday, with accumulations of 12 inches and more, far and wide. The howling winds made clearing roads and sidewalks almost impossible, and the drifts were more than man or machine could handle in many cases. I considered myself lucky to be off from work, so it wasn't necessary for me to try and fight my way through it, and Bill also took the prudent course and stayed home, and the heck with name pins for the duration. The peppy landscaping crew, that was so industrious that they chucked out my camping firewood, came back and did only a half-hearted job of plowing out the driveway, going part-way up to the garage and then calling it quits, as well as leaving both cars plowed in at the curb, thanks not. Exacerbating the situation, the city had never gotten around to picking up the last of the leaves that were still in the street, so now we had piles of leaves covered with plow tailings, creating a parking nightmare that was intractable on an epic scale. Fortunately, Bill who has the strength of ten because his heart is pure, was more than equal to the challenge, and soon had both cars dug out and the sidewalks cleared, and lived to tell the tale, which was the most important part. I suppose we should be glad that 2010 didn't decide to hit us with a plague of locusts or raining frogs instead, but hey - at least you don't have to shovel locusts or frogs, after all.

After what seemed like a very mild autumn, with balmy temperatures right up until the beginning of December, we were suddenly plunged into a cold snap of frigid temperatures in the single digits all over the area, that clamped everything in an icy fist and showed no signs of abating any time soon. Alert readers may recall that I had to disconnect the bird bath heaters last year, because the old and beat-up extension cord they were plugged into outside had become so frayed that it was a danger to the local wildlife and the community at large, although frankly I thought the protest marches by our juvenile delinquent squirrels were completely uncalled for. I was supposed to replace it over the summer so it would be ready in plenty of time for the cold weather, but of course anyone who knows me would know that was never going to happen, in spite of my best intentions. I admit that I quailed at the prospect of insinuating a new cord in the place of the old one, through the flower beds, behind all of the thorn bushes, under the crawl space, around the banister, beneath the floorboards, in back of the down-spout, then poked through a crevice in the baseboard of the porch, snaking behind the patio furniture and radiator, and finally squeezed below the French doors into the living room where it's plugged in. But with the abominable weather (and some welcome time off from work) I felt I really owed it to our feathered friends to make the effort, and convert what had become the bird bath skating rink into an actual bird bath with drinking water. Once my resolve was in place, a funny thing happened. It dawned on me that the terrible wind storm we recently had, which was the ruin of our neighbors' dogwood and our vintage wind chimes, also left us with an open window frame on the porch, right next to the French doors, which seemed a big inconvenience at the time, but now appeared in a more fortuitous light. "Why," I found this tantalizing idea popping unbidden into my head, "if I had another extension cord, I could just throw it right through the window and plug it right in from there, and skip the whole flower bed and crawl space part of the scenario at a stroke." Then I remembered that I did in fact have another outdoor extension cord, so I leaped up and grabbed it, threw it out the window, actually found where I put the bird bath heater from last year, pried the ice out of the bird bath with a crowbar, anchored the heater with a brick, and plugged the cord into the living room. It was all done in a trice, or at least a fraction of the time and headache it would have been replacing the cord in the exact same layout as the old one, and all with the same end result when everything was said and done. Of course, everyone already knows the punch line to this age-old story by now, as we have no way of knowing if the bird bath heater is actually working, since the weather has warmed up by nearly 30 degrees after that, as indeed, we all would have expected it to do. So my apologies to all of the ski resorts and ice rinks, for ushering in a sudden heat wave in the middle of the winter in this region, ruining their business and other frosty delights of the season for winter revelers everywhere. While I was at it, I also put new flannel sheets and the heating blanket on the bed, which will probably be the start of a whole new Paleolithic era for the planet, and the dinosaurs will have the last laugh after all.

Speaking of unexpected openings, we had a plumbing pipe that developed a drip, so we cut a hole in the ceiling to gain access to it and called on the restorative powers of epoxy to solve the problem. We left it that way for a while to monitor the effectiveness of the repair, by whether it continued to drip through the hole, or if we could count on the epoxy to do the trick. It really wasn't as unsightly as it might sound, as the 10-foot ceiling makes the hole seem very far away, and it was located in between two decorative beams besides, further camouflaging its presence, so that it would be hardly noticeable to anyone. Not so fast! I happened to be in that area by the front door, when the mailman, the FedEx fellow and the UPS guy all came calling at the exact same moment, which so spooked our little invisible calico, Potfourri, that she took it into her head to jump from the radiator right into the hole in the ceiling, and disappeared from sight. After everyone left, the full impact of the disaster started to gnaw at me, as I realized that there was nothing that would bring her back down, and we might never see her again, which I already knew as far as she was concerned, would suit her just fine. She'd be perfectly content to spend the rest of her life wandering the eaves and rafters of this old joint, eating bugs and varmints, and if there was any loose board or shingle leading to the outdoors, that would be the end of it. She was afraid of us, avoided all of the other cats except Max, and was never very food-oriented, so I despaired of coming up with anything that we could use to entice her back out of the hole to rejoin the family, if indeed, she hadn't already gotten outside and vanished. It was also impractical to contemplate tearing apart the walls and floors all over the house, and somehow capture her by force, and here again, not knowing if she had already gotten out, and all of our efforts would have been in vain. After losing the other four invisible cats in a year, the prospect of having the very last one of the tribe escape right out from under our noses, or rather, over our heads, was too much to take, and I could feel myself giving way to panic. I found myself running around in circles like a lunatic, trying to figure out what to do first, and thinking of how I could find out how far she could actually go from that part of the ceiling. I shooed each of the other cats into a separate room and closed the door, to eliminate the possibility that this crazy idea would occur to anyone else at the same time, and then went around one more time to tally up tails again to make sure that everyone else was accounted for. It was during this period of charging about in a dither that I stepped in some poop, which had been handily left on the floor immediately on the inside of a door by one of our prized pussies, and thank you so very much not. At that point, I took off my sneaker and hopped outside to clean it off, which did nothing to improve my mood, I can tell you that, and anybody not already familiar with my Evil Twin would have been extremely surprised at the language they would have heard, by golly. When I was finished with that unpleasantness, and just about on the verge of falling completely to pieces, I came back inside, and here was Potfourri sitting calmly on the radiator as if nothing had happened. I stared at her dumbstruck, and mere words would be woefully inadequate to describe what I was feeling at that moment. But you can be sure that we wasted no time in closing up her escape hatch, and grateful for a second chance to be the guardians who care for her, if necessary in spite of herself, and now especially with her safety foremost in our minds. So that was the story of our very own Christmas mini miracle, which came along just at the right time, even without the herald angels and shepherds. Although I have to say that The Wise Men could have come in handy, that's for sure.

And while we're on the subject of Christmas, the big day was last week, and the jolly old man in the red suit did his usual fine job here in our little corner of Paradise, so we have no cause for complaint. The day was lovely, and we even got up at a reasonable time, unlike previous years when we're already up and opening presents in the pre-dawn darkness. There were the usual gifts of apparel and practical items, and not the less appreciated for their utilitarian properties, as well as novelties and entertainment, plus the latest and greatest gadgets to come along lately, or rather, some that hadn't even been invented yet. We had breakfast sitting on furniture like civilized people, instead of scarfing down junk food from our stockings while sprawled on the floor in front of the tree. We enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing, and then had a special dinner by candlelight that capped off a wonderful day. And even though my family is smaller in number than it used to be, it still wasn't possible to get everyone together at the same time in the same place to celebrate the holiday, so we still have that to look forward to, as we make arrangements to get together as a group or in sections, for as long as it takes. Around here, the Christmas Caravan will continue until the last ho has been ho'd, the last cane has been candied, the last egg has been nogged, and don't spare the reindeer. Although if there's going to be plagues of locusts and raining frogs, I have to say all bets are off.

Elle