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
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
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 1:27 PM
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