Pot Luck

Hello World,

Happy Spring! It's really true that Sunday, March 20, was the official first day of spring according to the calendar, although it seems that someone forgot to tell the weather trolls, because we had more snow the very next day on Monday, which was about as welcome as you would expect after the kind of winter that we've just had around here. And just when we thought we were finally out of the proverbial woods, and going in the right direction, on Wednesday we got hit with yet another storm that they described as "wintry mix," but which instead ended up as regular snow, with actual accumulations, and thanks so very much not. And since it started as freezing rain and sleet, by the time I got outside to clean off my car in the morning to go to work, it was about two inches of icy slush stuck onto the windows, and getting that to budge was no joke. Speaking of jokes, later that same day, the sun came out and it turned into a beautiful day, which was really just a cruel prank by the weather trolls toying with us on top of everything else. I may as well say right now that if the poll takers come around asking for my opinion of the weather trolls, I've got some news for them, and it won't be good, believe me.

Speaking of news, I would be remiss if I didn't mention [and here for the sake of public safety, I must point out that sensitive readers should be sitting down for this] that we've had actual dial tone and telephone service at our house for two weeks in a row now, as impossible as that might seem. After wrestling with Verizon since December, and having literally hordes of repair people in and out of the house week in and week out to no avail, we are finally back in contact with the rest of the world, through the miracle of copper wire technology, a mere one hundred years after the invention of the acoustic communications device that has been taken for granted by generations all this time. Not by us, by golly, not after this, I can tell you that. Everyone who came here said the wiring in the house was fine, but the wire out of the house was bad, the wire on the pole was no better, and the wires at the cross-box were even worse, so even after they fixed the immediate failure, it was just a matter of time before something else went wrong. The last guy finally decided to just re-route our entire house connection to a different pole with a new wire, thus eliminating all of those other bad connections at a stroke. Of course, at first we didn't believe it, because nothing ever seemed to work for more than two days at a time, but now it seems like this might really have solved the problems once and for all. And that sound you don't hear is the aggrieved Alexander Graham Bell, who is not spinning in his grave, after his namesake minions have finally restored us to the ranks of humanity who are enjoying his crowning achievement of the 19th century, which has given us so much trouble for the last four months, and through no fault of the late inventor, I'm sure.

In other local news, the home-town fans were understandably elated to welcome Carmelo Anthony to the New York Knicks, along with his teammate Chauncey Billups from the Denver Nuggets, in a just-under-the-wire deal at the trading deadline that gave their perennially disappointed faithful reason to hope in the future. Now with two genuine marquee players, the Knicks are suddenly being considered as legitimate playoff contenders, although like the first day of spring, apparently no one told the rest of the league, as the current line-up has continued to play like the .500 team they have been all along, thanks not. However, I'm sure we all want to believe that a new day has dawned for the storied franchise, with the promise of a return to the glory days of Willis Reed and Walt Frazier, although even by today's standards, I'd say that these young men have some pretty big shoes to fill, Clyde.

On the home front, we bid a sad farewell to our beloved princess, the redoubtable GingerSnap, who spent
nearly 13 years as part of our family, since first showing up in our driveway one day in 1998. She had a lovely personality, which was sweetly docile without being timid, and although she wasn't the type to pick a fight, she also wouldn't back down from anybody, from the smallest to the biggest. Over the years, she saw them come and go, and she just kept on going, in spite of some significant health issues that may have slowed her down, but never kept her down. Bill looked through the chronology of our cats, and calculated that GingerSnap lived with, through, around and concurrent with 27 other cats in our household, which we figure is some kind of a record that has not been matched before or since, and at this rate, never will be. So now we find ourselves down to our last female in the entire family, who also happens to be the very last survivor of the Invisible Cats, the Little Miss Invisible Potfourri her own self, and I don't mind saying, she's also got some pretty big shoes to fill, by golly.

Meanwhile at church, the powers-that-be sent out a notice about a special congregational meeting to be held next month, to discuss important matters that could not be put off until the next regular congregational meeting in January. My personal feeling was that it would give us a chance to brush up on our chair-throwing and name-calling skills, since we never get to use them any more at the annual meetings, where peace and harmony prevail, and I haven't slugged anyone with a hymnal in so long that I can't even remember anymore if the green one or the red one packs more of a wallop. We'll have to wait until next month to find out what the actual purpose of the meeting is, because all the letter reveals is "to hold a discussion and create any resolutions" in response to a statement from the Lutheran hierarchy, and long may they wave. I know that people think church meetings are hopelessly boring, but this is the part that really got my attention: "A pot lunch will be served." Hey, far out, man - it's the hippy-dippy flower children tripping down the path of enlightenment, to turn on, tune in and drop out just like the good old days! I say let's go totally psychedelic and break out the hashish brownies, hemp tea and space cakes, so we can party like it's 1967, and I'll bring the black light if you'll bring the incense. (I'll repeat that for those of you on drugs: "Incense and peppermints, meaningless nouns, turn on, turn in, turn your eyes around.") In the interests of proper church probity, it must be said that what they probably meant was "a pot-luck luncheon" which is something else altogether, and not nearly as interesting, but I'm not giving up on the MaryJane aspect of this meeting, which might just turn out to be a blast from the past in more ways than one.

And while we're on the subject of things that make your head spin, I was on the phone with one of the hospital vendors who was spelling out a catalog number for me, and actually used the expression: "That's 'K' as in 'candy cane'," and apparently without irony. Of course, everyone knows that I'm too polite to laugh, but I admit that this was one of those moments where I just held the phone away from me and stared at it, as if daring it to make some sense of this, by sheer force of will if necessary. I mean, it's one thing to say "K like cat," instead of kitten, but to come up with two separate words, neither of which has a K anywhere to be seen, that takes a special kind of - well, I don't know what it takes exactly, but frankly, I wouldn't rule out hashish brownies, that's for sure. Also at work, there was a novice orthopedic sales rep who had somehow managed to get on the wrong side of one of our administrative heavyweights, the imposing Katherine Monahan, who chewed her out loud and long, and basically banned her from the premises for the rest of her natural life, as well as whatever after-life she might have had in front of her. I got a phone call later from the territory manager, who assured me that everything was going to be straightened out, and he was going to come in and "smooth things over with Ms. Moynihan." Now, I'll admit that I like a practical joke as much as the next fellow, but I had to tell him flat-out that if his plan was to smooth things over, the most important thing was for him not to call her Moynihan when her name is Monahan, believe me. After raking the new sales rep over the coals, I'd hate to think what she would have in store for this poor schnook, after calling her by the wrong name, but if I was him, I'd be on the lookout for flying hymnals, and plenty of them. And whatever you do, don't eat the brownies.

Elle

Hand Jive

Hello World,

And so here we find ourselves on the other side of Daylight Saving Time, and lived to tell the tale, and even St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, with all of its anachronistic parades and various panoply along with it, not to mention, green beer. Last Friday, I took the day off from work for my birthday, and it was a lovely and peaceful day, where I had a chance to relax and enjoy myself, and then we went out to dinner, which is always a treat. After that, it was presents, and there were no complaints on that score, I can tell you that. Although possibly my favorite part of the day was an electronic birthday greeting from a colleague who sincerely wished me a very "Happy 29th," and right about now, I'm thinking that has a pretty nice ring to it.

Meanwhile, back at the employer of last resort in our fair city, one of our departments organized a bridal shower for their secretary who is getting married next month, and many of us were glad to be invited to join in the festivities. I found out later this was supposed to be a surprise, which certainly made us old-timers roar with laughter, because the one thing that has never been able to survive in the hospital environment, for as long as we've all been there, is a secret. I said flat-out that a surprise shower would be absolutely impossible, in spite of voluminous HIPAA regulations and decades' worth of educational training on confidentiality and privacy policies. Or as the director of Practice Management famously quipped: "People here know things about me that my own family doesn't even know."

Speaking of things we might be better off not knowing, we have the following unsolicited (one supposes) testimonials from patient families, about the quality care they received from our medical professionals, or at least, that's what I think they're trying to tell us:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Once I arrived, I was surrounded by the most caring ER staff,
who immediately comforted me and made me fell "right at home"
until my family arrived.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Personally, I'm hoping that no one made this person fell, in spite of what it says, because that would probably be of no help at all, and would be unlikely to induce anyone to write us a nice letter afterward. Obviously, this is one of those cases where the spell-checker is not going to help you avoid using the word "fell" instead of "feel," either the person who originally wrote the note, or the secretary retyping it for distribution. The next one certainly had room for improvement:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
During my Mother's stay, both she and our family members
have had with the nurses and aides have been exceptional.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Well, sometimes you just don't even know where to begin. You can read that sentence numerous times, over and over again, and find that there is no increase in comprehension at any point, no matter how many times you do that, I promise. I can't even tell if they left out a word, or what went wrong for the meaning to get so lost that it never showed up again. And in fairness to the writer, once again the error could have been on the part of the person transcribing the message for distribution, but even here, I can't figure out what they did to foul it up so completely. At our house, we would blame this kind of thing on the horoscope computer, but HIPAA regulations prevent me from checking the hospital census to see if the horoscope computer's mother was one of our patients.

On the other hand, things in the local newspaper have fared no better, starting with a couple from the Sports section, where they were just a little too eager to get their ideas across, and perhaps as a result, their brains (such as they are) were moving too fast for their fingers to keep up:

====================
Raymond Felton had
17 points and 15 assists
in the Knicks' win over the
Wizards, who have yet win
a game on the road.
====================

Well, the spell-checker is really not going to help you if you just plain leave a word out, unless "yet win" is a newly accepted construction nowadays. And we all know what I always say about going back and looking over what you've written (what a concept!) or God forbid, having actual editors whose job it is to catch these blatant kinds of routine lapses. The next one suffers the same sort of problem, but as routine lapses go, at least adds an element of entertainment, however inadvertent:

====================
In a league known for its trash-talking, even the NFL has
gotten of hand, so says Ray Anderson, the vice president of
football operations ...
====================

I'm certainly hoping that our pal Ray did not really say "gotten of hand," which not only doesn't mean anything, but even if it did, doesn't sound like it would have meant what he wanted to convey anyway. In fact, if they were trying to rein in trash-talk, that might very well be one of the expressions that would not make the cut, I'm thinking, and poor old Ray would find himself sitting on the wrong side of the trash-talking fence this time around, and no one to blame but himself.

Going in a different, but no better, direction is a recent front page story about local flooding, with this inapt quote from AccuWeather meteorologist Mike Pigott:

======================
"This storm will certainly
exasperate flooding problems ... "
======================

Well, you don't even know if you should laugh or cry sometimes, and gnashing of teeth might not be out of order either. Here again, you have no way of knowing if the speaker simply misused the term "exasperate" when he meant "exacerbate" (one hopes) or whether it was the newspaper that printed it incorrectly, but you wouldn't think in this day and age, that it would be beyond the possibilities that someone would catch this error before the newspaper was actually out on the streets, and spoiling everyone's breakfast with its shoddy grammar. I don't know if the flooding problems were exasperated, but I can tell you for sure that I certainly was exasperated, and that's putting it mildly. Ah, for those halcyon days of yore, before the mass extinction of the editors, when newspapers didn't just print any old word they felt like, as long as it was close enough to the word it was supposed to be, alas.

They were having their own problems in the Life & Style section, first with this feature story about the Academy Awards, which began by throwing statistics at us in a headlong fashion:

=======================
More than 37.6 million viewers
watched with baited breath ...
=======================

Now, I never do understand why people insist on using phrases that they obviously don't understand, such as "bated breath," and then don't bother to look them up to make sure that they aren't making a grammatical fool of themselves, until you're up to your eyebrows in plucky stars described as "troopers," or someone whose interest has been "peaked," or telling someone else to go "pedal" their papers elsewhere. After a while, it's homophones run amuck - excuse me, I mean, amok - and devil take the hindmost. Our friends at enotes.com, in an explanation of the "bated breath" phrase used in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice," were having none of it, and although identified it as a "much misunderstood phrase," nonetheless never mention the word "bait" at any point in their commentary. So for all of you anglers out there, aiming to reel in the Bard on this one, I'm afraid you're on your own.

I find that the other one makes even less sense, but for a different reason, in an article about cleaning stains off of clothing and shoes:

=======================
Dip a clean, soft rag, ring out
most of the excess moisture, and
wipe off salt stains. Repeat as needed,
and let leather fully dry before wearing.
Products are also available,
including follow-up leather conditioner.
=======================

Yes, they really did use the term "ring out" in place of "wring out," and for heaven's sake, you shouldn't even need the spell-checker to keep from making an elementary mistake that even the most backward schoolchild would be able to avoid. It's enough to make us language purists ring our hands, and feel like we've been put through the ringer, at least in the "Holiday For W's" version of this column. But besides all that, I'm afraid I'm not really in the ballpark with them on the part about "products are also available." By giving the hypothetical products no modifiers of any kind - such as "specialty," "shoe care," "related," or even "commercial" - the whole sentence stops short of having any meaning whatsoever, as it sinks under the weight of every miscellaneous product in the entire world that might be available. At our house, we would say that the cock-eyed horoscope computer churned that one out, after coming back from visiting its mother in the hospital, but unfortunately, HIPAA regulations prevent me from compromising the privacy of our patients. However, if its mother was having a bridal shower at the hospital, well then, all bets would be off, and as Ray Anderson can tell you, it wouldn't take long before this sort of thing had completely gotten of hand, by golly.

Elle

Crack of Dawn

Hello World,

Well, people should probably fasten their seat belts, because we may be in for a bumpy ride ahead, I'm thinking. In the first place, this weekend would be the switch-over back to Daylight Saving Time, so let that be a lesson to all of you wastrels who have been out there wasting daylight for the last four months, because that gravy train has pulled out of the station at last, and left you up in the air without a paddle, lying in the gutter along the boulevard of broken dreams, as it were. Saturday night would be the time to "spring ahead" an hour, and if you're planning to go to church in the morning (which I hope you do) you'd better step lively if your church, like mine, only has one service, thus giving you only one chance to be there at the right time. Of course, earlier in the week was Shrove Tuesday, followed by Ash Wednesday, formally ushering in the season of Lent, which will continue until Easter on April 24, and it goes without saying, everyone should be on the lookout for grouchy Christians who have given up chocolate for the duration. (Personally, I think they should have to wear signs.) So this has already been an eventful week, but that's not all. I think it would be safe to say that I was more surprised than anybody when I came home from work Wednesday and found that the city had sent its minions around to scoop up last year's leaves, which had been conglomerating all over the streets since December, and at this point, to say "at long last" would be way more than an understatement of epic proportion, and that's putting it mildly. For months, the ill-fated leaves had been buried in snow, frozen with ice, manhandled hither and thither by snowplows attempting to clear the roads, and finally, pummeled by rain coming down in sheets, until they were a slovenly and bedraggled mish-mash of their former windrows. As I said, I believe this had more of an impact on me than anybody else, because one such conglomeration was right in front of my car on the street, so every time I wanted to go anywhere, I first had to back up away from the pile, and then drive around it, which managed to be even more annoying than it sounds, on the morning that I backed up into the container full of recycling, and then had to spend the next 15 minutes picking up cans and bottles that had been scattered all over the street in every direction, and thanks oh so very much not. Now suddenly it looks like an actual street again, where actual people live and conduct their busy lives, and not some hillbilly backwater, where the treacherous roads are designed with deliberate obstacles to keep "them gol-dang revenooers" from destroying the family's clandestine moonshine still, by cracky. It was certainly a red-letter day around here, and even more welcome for being so utterly unexpected, and we probably would have hightailed it down to the still and broken out the moonshine to celebrate, that is, except for it being Ash Wednesday and all.

But even that's not all, believe it or not, and as incredible as it might seem, there's even more yet still. (No, I don't mean the moonshine still that we're hiding from the revenuers, this is a different kind of still altogether, believe me.) It dawned gray and dreary on Monday, March 7, after an entire night of drenching rain that caused massive flooding all over the region, with the ensuing accidents, power outages and emergencies that were to be expected under those conditions. It was still drizzling as I was getting ready to go to work, but lightly enough that there didn't seem to be anything at all alarming about it. And then I happened to glance out the window and noticed that it was in fact SNOWING, which somehow managed to be even more unwelcome than the pelting rain that we had all night, and you can believe me when I say, thanks oh so very much not. Later in the day when I was at work, suddenly the sun came out, of all things, which was about the last thing I would have expected on a day that started out the way it did. And then the world went completely nuts and the planets blasted out of their orbits, because the next thing I heard was the unmistakable sounds of the ice cream truck under my window, and at that point, well, you could have knocked me right over, and no amount of backwoods hooch would have brought me around again. Inasmuch as it was a bracing 40 degrees in our fair city at the time, I must say that it did not strike me as the most auspicious moment for this purveyor of frozen treats to be peddling his wares on the street, but there he was nonetheless. Personally, I'm thinking that selling moonshine out of a truck would have made more sense at that temperature, but there's probably a reason that they don't let people do that, I suppose.

It was the very next day - March 8th - which represented the first day that I was able to wear sneakers to work so far in all of 2011, and not have to wear boots because of all of the snow, ice, rain and other perils underfoot that made it impossible to go anywhere in sneakers since the end of last year. I can't ever remember that happening, where the conditions were so bad for so long that I literally could not leave the house in sneakers, not even once, for weeks on end, or risk taking my life in my hands at every step. So this was my idea of a milestone on our long-awaited journey into Spring, and all harbingers along the way are more than welcome. In fact, I noticed that we already had crocus open in our yard, and their jaunty purple flowers are a sight to see, not to mention, a tonic for what ails you. It's our very own vernal moonshine, and the revenuers can't do anything about that, by cracky, try as they might.

Speaking of weather, we had yet another torrential downpour on Thursday night, where it rained cats and dogs all night, and somewhere between the pooches and the kitties, one of our circuit breakers tripped in the basement, throwing one entire electric zone in our house into utter blackness, without a clock, night-light, electric blanket or answering machine left performing its central purpose for love or money. When we got up in the morning and flipped it back on again, it wouldn't stay, and tripped over once more, so it was clearly having more problems than just the obvious one. I decided to try unplugging the GFI outlet that was on that circuit, in case there was some trouble with the bird bath heaters outside that was causing it to trip. That seemed to solve the problem at least temporarily, so I left the heaters unplugged so as not to tempt fate. Later I realized that if I wasn't going to plug them back in, I may as well put them away, and not leave them and the extension cords out in the wet and cold if I wasn't going to use them. So I dried them off and packed them away, and now I feel that it is incumbent upon me to announce to everyone in the local area that they should be prepared for an unprecedented wave of frigid temperatures and arctic conditions, the likes of which have never been seen in this geologic era, and to one and all, please accept my heartfelt apologies, and don't spare the long underwear.

I know this will sound silly for something that is not what I would consider a movable feast, but the reality of it is that St. Patrick's Day will be next week on Thursday, in spite of the fact that the newspaper has been rife with pictures and stories galore of what they always refer to as St. Patrick's DAY parades, starting as early as two weeks ago (which was still technically February, mind you) and going for the next two weeks, which will be a whole week after the sainted saint's saintly day of sainthood recognition, I don't mind saying. Now to be honest, I really don't care when various people, organizations or municipalities want to have their parades and observances, and I'm always the first to say that there's no wrong way to celebrate a holiday, and this is no exception. But for heaven's sake, please don't call them St. Patrick's DAY parades, when they are plainly NOT on St. Patrick's Day, or sometimes even close to it, and could just as easily be called a St. Patrick's Parade, while making no reference to whatever any old day you care to have it on. After all, the leprechauns will be just as jolly, the shamrocks will be just as green, and the green beer will be just as, well, whatever it is, without perpetuating a linguistic anachronism that is not only erroneous, but unnecessarily annoying to the language purists out there, and believe me, we know who we are. I'll be the one wearing the green long underwear, with a jug full of XXX green moonshine, by cracky.

Well, here is a horse that I was never expecting to ride around the barnyard again, and that's not just a bunch of buffalo nickels, believe me. Of course, many of us are "of a certain age" and remember when the "wheat" pennies were the common currency, and it is not beyond memory since they were replaced in 1959 by the newer pennies with the Lincoln Memorial on the back, and so they have stayed all these decades later. And everyone knows that they've been saying for all these decades that the federal government is going to do away with pennies, because they cost more to make than their face value is worth, and yet they just keep churning them out anyway. And for the benefit of collectors, our friends at the U.S. Mint created all those fancy new state quarters, and all the new dollar and two dollar coins that nobody uses, they just keep them in a drawer at home. And they also came up with redesigned nickels in honor of the anniversary of the Lewis & Clark expedition, which were interesting and educational, and unlike the stupid state quarters, still managed to look like real money instead of Monopoly money. And then the Mint went out of its collective mind, and redesigned the penny, of all things, still with Lincoln on the front, but with a new and more decorative shield on the back, instead of the Lincoln Memorial, but which at a quick glance was so reminiscent of the Memorial that people wouldn't even realize that they had them in their pockets all along. And so you would think, as I did, that would be the end of it, and surely the coinage horse would be put back in the currency barn, and nobody would be riding it around the barnyard once more, and we could all get on with our lives. Not so fast! A coworker was collecting money in her piggy bank for church members making a humanitarian trip to Haiti, and I emptied my desk drawer of loose change that I had found in the street, or that people had given me in exchange for postage stamps. And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but some newfangled penny that I had never seen before in all my born days. Once again, it has the same old portrait of President Lincoln on the front (that guy's got some union, by golly) while the back, according to our friends at about.com, represents Lincoln's professional life in Illinois (1830-1861) and shows a young Lincoln newly nominated for the U.S. Senate standing in front of the old capitol building in Springfield, Illinois. And that's not all - it turns out that this is not some numismatic aberration by some kook at the Mint, there's actually a series of 4 different designs, including one with the legendary log cabin of his birth, one with him splitting logs, and another has the U.S. Capitol building at the time of his inauguration, with the famous dome still under construction, including scaffolding and mechanical cranes in profusion. Mind you, the one I found by accident has a mint date of 2009, so they are obviously not the newest thing under the sun, and in fact, predates the "shield" penny, which was released in 2010. But it certainly came as a surprise to me that anybody would wait 50 years to redesign the lowly penny, and then come up with 5 different designs in two years, like this was some meteoric Hollywood starlet with a new line of designer clothing, for heaven's sake. Personally, I think they should send the revenuers out to the U.S. Mint to smash up their moonshine still before they come up with any more harebrained schemes to waste the taxpayers' money, by cracky, and that's not just the green beer talking, believe me.

Elle

Do The Doo

Hello World,

Happy March! In the local area, it's almost time to start believing in the month that comes in like a lion, but will actually turn into a lamb before it leaves, and what a welcome transition that will be, after the remorseless cold and snow of the winter we've just been through. Just this week, I noticed the first of the early spring bulbs already pushing their pointy green tips through the ground, with the promise of colorful flowers not far behind. With the cheery sunshine and warmer temperatures lately, the snow finally melted out of our yard at long last, receding along the culvert, and exposing the casualties of damage done by the landscaping crew in their over-enthusiastic plowing of our driveway - the forlorn wreckage of busted yard lights, mangled bushes, the tattered remains of our address sign - the full extent of which had been hidden under a deep white winter blanket until now. No doubt about it, we've either got to get smaller landscapers or a bigger driveway, because otherwise, it's going to cost us a fortune in replacement yard lights, bushes and signs every winter, I can tell you that.

Of course, everyone knows how I hate to be an alarmist, but I will admit that I have been remiss in not noticing that there has been an insidious trend taking place over the last little while, and in many ways, right under our very noses. It was Thursday morning when I was heading to work, and going past the Sunoco station around the block, and couldn't help but notice that the price of regular was a whopping $3.76 per gallon, with the premium at an astronomical $4.15, which would seem impossible except that I saw it with my very own eyes. It seems that the last time I looked, or actually got gas myself, the price was not anything like that, because it certainly got my attention in a big fat hurry on Thursday. Why, I'm sure that I'm not the only old-timer who can remember back in the day when I first started driving, and gas was 25 cents a gallon, the idea of ordinary gasoline for cars being over a dollar would have seemed laughable, and even in the oil shortage days of the 1970's, when gas did finally get over a dollar, you can believe me when I say that people back then would never stand still for these kinds of outrageous gas prices, it would have been simply unthinkable. There would not have been ink enough in the entire world for all of the incendiary letters that people would have written to their representatives, and the wholesale riots would have been epic in proportion. Nowadays, people don't even notice, and whatever the going rate is at the pump, they pay it with a shrug, and probably just as glad that it's not even higher, for heaven's sake. If only our old friends the dinosaurs had known back then how much more valuable their remains would have become in this day and age, they probably would have held out for better royalties, by golly.

Alert readers may recall that two weeks ago, we were surprised to find that there was dial tone once again on our phone, which used to be routine at our house, but since the beginning of December, well, not so much. In fact, at that point, it was so far from being routine that we were flabbergasted at this turn of events, as a technological innovation that we would have taken for granted just months earlier. At the time, however, I refused to get all starry-eyed about it, since there had been other occasions when we had dial tone for a day or two, before losing service once again. Alas, this turned out to be another one of those cases where we did have actual dial tone for three days, only to discover later that we were suddenly right back where we started, when it was replaced by the sounds of utter nothingness and plenty of it. And unlike last time, when they at least provided us with an inadvertently amusing repair message for people to enjoy if they tried to reach us, this time the result was nothing but an annoying "fast busy" signal that was neither helpful nor entertaining in any way, and thanks so very much not. And so the evil minions at Verizon have accomplished what his arch-rival Elisha Gray never could, by keeping the brilliant invention of Alexander Graham Bell from becoming a reality, at least in our house. I'm sure the dinosaurs know exactly how he feels.

And while we're on the subject of sounds of silence and otherwise, I found myself the recipient of an inadvertently melodic message at work last week. I had gotten a frantic phone call (in Purchasing, there is very rarely any other kind than frantic, although interestingly enough, it never seems to be about medical supplies, this type of hysteria is usually reserved for a lack of copy paper, inter-office envelopes, paper clips, business cards and Post-it notes) from the Radiology department about a refrigerator that they had sent a requisition for, and wanted to find out when it would be coming. I had to tell the over-wrought young woman that the requisition had been sent to Finance for signatures, and hadn't been returned yet, and we couldn't place the order until the paperwork came back downstairs. At the time, she seemed to take this in stride, but it wasn't long after that I received a copy of her panicky email to the department supervisor, in a tone of desperation which declared: "According to Purchasing, the refrigerator PO has not being singed!" Personally, I don't know if they sing at the requisitions in Finance, or just sign them instead with no musical accompaniment, but I did my part by giving out with a rousing version of "Camptown Ladies" that would have made Stephen Foster sit up and take notice, even all these years later, rest his soul, and that's not just a lot of doo-dah doo-dah, believe me.

Last week on Thursday was our anniversary, as we prepared to celebrate 28 years of wedded bliss, although I forgot that I had a meeting at church that evening, so we ended up celebrating on Friday instead. We had dinner at the diner, which is always a treat for us, regardless of whether there's an occasion or not, and then came home to find the anniversary bandits had left presents for us as well. We set right to it, and unwrapped gifts of apparel, snacks (organic, if you please) entertainment and handy household items that were just what the doctor ordered for those chores around the house. I also took a giant leap into the cutting edge of fashion, as Bill presented me with a beautiful silver Pandora bracelet (and you can feel free to go right ahead and visit their web site at http://www.pandora.net/ and see for yourself) with little silver hearts and cat charms to go along with it. Apparently these are all the rage nowadays among the fashionable elite, so now I can count myself among their number, and take my place in the fashionista ranks with the best of them. Although I'm afraid the farting bedroom slippers are going to have to go, and as Stephen Foster can tell you, that's also not just a lot of doo-dah doo-dah, believe me.

And speaking of wedding bells, it was many years ago when we were first married that we had a very special cat in our lives, the irreplaceable Mimi, our superstar Persian, who has no equal and never will. One of his less popular habits was that he would practically climb inside your mouth to see what you were eating, because he was sure that it was something that he was desperate to have, and right that instant.
Mimi was very highly intelligent, so I would always find that I was using logic with him, and point out what I considered the obvious flaw in his reasoning - for instance, saying things like "cats don't eat Twinkies," or "cats don't drink iced tea," or "you wouldn't even like blueberry muffins." But no matter what it was, and no matter how carefully I explained that he didn't want it, he would hound me for a taste, and invariably would scarf it down and ask for more, even the aforementioned iced tea, which I'm sure he only did out of pure orneriness. He didn't want to miss a chance at anything, whether it was butterscotch pudding, potato chips, cinnamon buns, pizza, corn muffins or whatever, he wanted his shot at it, and you can be sure that he wouldn't give up until he got it. Well, now it seems that one of our new additions, Flopsie, has taken a page out of that old book, as I found myself fending him off last week when I was trying to eat a quick meal in peace. I was in a hurry and just heated something up from a can, and although he's not as sharp mentally as Mimi, I still patiently explained to him that he really didn't want this item that he was pestering me for, and I could give it to him only to have him turn up his nose at it and walk away from it, so it would have been all a lot of aggravation for nothing. But I finally gave in and let him have the last of it at the bottom of the bowl, whereupon he polished off the final portion of my Spaghettio's in short order, and apparently would have been just as happy if I opened up another can just for him. Of course, we love Flopsie in a very special way, but you can bet that I'm going to think twice before trying to eat any blueberry muffins around him, that's for sure. Oh, and if Elisha Gray shows up with my dial tone, please ask him to go peddle his patents elsewhere, and take his doo-dah with him.

Elle