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
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
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:01 PM
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