Thanks A Million

Hello World, Happy April! It finally looks as if spring has really sprung in these parts, and the early spring flowers are a joy to behold, especially after wrestling with Old Man Winter all this time, and I don't mind saying, good riddance. The crocus were open two weeks ago when it was still snowing, but now we have very early daffodils and jonquils in the sunnier areas, as sunny and yellow as anyone could hope for. I see now that the scilla and blue squill have also popped open, with the white anemone and blue windflowers not far behind, and always a treat to find them scattered about in wild profusion, brightening up even the shadiest recesses, however remote. In the backyard, I actually spotted a hyacinth, which I think is much too early, even by early standards, but there was no disguising its cheery pink petals and heavenly fragrance, that's for sure. And while it might be rushing the season, we couldn't resist adding a splash of color to our front porch with pots of pansies, whose cheerful faces can't help but bring a smile to the most winter-weary among us. At work, even the forsythia has busted out all over, and a more welcome sight would be hard to come by. We even have our very own forsythia in our front yard, courtesy of the previous neighbors, who put up a decorative ersatz fence along their driveway, in between their yard and their own forsythia, so that's how it ended up in our yard instead - and not like we kidnapped it out from under their noses, like one of their cats. Meanwhile at church, the multi-hued carpet of crocus has given way to the riotous golden explosion of creeping ranunculus everywhere, front to back and side to side, like a thousand little rays of sunshine all came to play in the same meadow, and spreading joy far and wide. So there are certainly encouraging signs and harbingers of better days ahead, everywhere you look, and Old Man Winter can just head right on out of here and keep going. Or as they used to say in the old TV Westerns, "There's a train leaving town today at noon - be under it." Although the new month has only just started, April Fools Day has already come and gone, although I find that it almost never takes all the fools away with it, more's the pity, and we're still stuck with them, like it or not. For many cities, the first day of the month also brought the Opening Day of baseball season, which as harbingers of better days ahead would be hard to beat. It came as a surprise to nobody that the fabled New York Yankees won their opener, as their opening day record is an impressive 65-45 going back to 1901, which is almost a .600 winning percentage that is not to be scoffed at. On the other hand, it came as an unpleasant surprise to me that the junior franchise in the city lost its opening game, because their opening day record up to last year was an amazing 31-17, or a .646 winning percentage, in spite of many long years languishing in the basement of the standings. One good thing about being in the basement is there's no place to go but up, that is, unless you're the heroine in a horror movie, in which case, you would be down there in your skimpy lingerie with a broken flashlight, of course. In other sports news, they're finally wrapping up March Madness, now that it's April, and apparently the NCAA hasn't invented the "month stretcher" so that their signature tournament finishes in the month that it was named after. They tell me in the NHL that there are only four games left to play - with the plucky Rangers holding onto a playoff spot by the very skin of their teeth, and frankly, they don't have that many teeth for this to be the most effective strategy - in spite of the fact that we won't be seeing the Stanley Cup finals until June, believe that or don't. The same is true in the NBA, where the season is winding down, and teams are jockeying for playoff spots like Dennis Rodman going after a rebound, and while it's true that both Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell have more than twice as many career rebounds, it's the rabid Rodman contingent who insist their man is the Rebound King of all time. (That reminds me of a funny story about a vintage NBA playoff game, where the young announcer has gone totally bonkers over a perfect shot that he claimed could not have been blocked by anybody in the history of the game, and he just kept going on and on, and gushing over it, and finally said to his partner, "Bill, I don't think even Wilt Chamberlain could have blocked that shot, do you?" And the legendary Bill Russell, who was acting as a guest commentator in the booth at the time, deftly delivered a knock-out punch with his withering observation: "Only if he was here." Ya gotta love it!) Despite the propitious acquisition of Carmelo Anthony, the hapless Knicks continue to squander their chances in these last games, until their playoff hopes are fading faster than a Michael Jordan fade-away shot, although here again, he'd have to fight off the Kobe Bryant loyalists as to who deserves that title, and personally, I wouldn't turn my back on the Dennis Rodman faithful either. Meanwhile on the economic front, it can't come as good news to find out that the US Postal Service is raising their postage rates once again, although at least the one-ounce first-class rate remains the same (outrageous) 44c as before, with only the second-ounce rate increasing from 17c to 20c thereafter. Postcards will change from a ridiculous 28c to an even more ridiculous 29c, which is an exorbitant affront to society that would have made our proud forebears howl in derision, and who would have considered a penny postcard an extravagance not to be indulged in. According to a USPS announcement, beginning in 2011 "all first-class mail one-ounce rate stamps will be issued as forever stamps," which is to say that they will be non-denominated, with no amount printed on them, and sold at whatever is the first-class rate at the time. (Personally, I think that being non-denominated sounds like what happened to Gen. Leonard Wood, who lost the nomination to Warren Harding in the much maligned "smoke-filled room" convention of 1920, a victim of political shenanigans that were scandalous even by the lax standards of the day.) Taking matters into their own hands for financial stimulation, I was approached by a coworker from upstairs who asked if I wanted to join in on their lottery ticket for the upcoming Mega Millions Jackpot for a mere $5 investment, against potential winnings of, well, many mega of millions, I guess. I had to turn him down, on the unassailable grounds that I didn't have $5 to my name at the time he asked me, which is a pretty sad state of affairs, or as Bert Lahr once famously quipped in a movie: "I'd have to float a loan to weigh myself." It seems that everybody else upstairs and down the hall went in on the venture, and while I'm happy to wish them well and good luck, it must be said that if they win, our entire Finance department is suddenly going to become a ghost town. Speaking of work, even the most oblivious individual couldn't help but notice that things have gotten a lot less temporary in the temporary replacement boiler situation in our employee courtyard lately. Alert readers will recall the ill-fated day in October 2010 when I was off, and the temporary boilers (which had been taking up space in our courtyard since 2001) suddenly erupted in flames and took out everything in their path, including the cavernous boiler house that had been built around them, and had just recently enjoyed its own renovation project, alas. The very next day, speedy crews from the boiler maintenance company cleaned up the danger zone to a fare-thee-well, with only the rusted empty hulks of burnt-out temporary boilers as evidence of the recent catastrophe. Immediately after that, another temporary boiler was hauled in on a trailer, and hooked up so we were once again provided with all the heat and hot water that we could ever want, which I don't mind saying, in that old rattle-trap of a flea-bag building where I work, is often what can only be described as too much of a good thing. The new temporary boiler required longer connecting pipes and hoses to do its job, since the original temporary boilers were still in the way of moving the new one closer to the building, but that never slowed them down, although it must be said that it added considerably to the unsightly aspect of the situation. Perhaps a more gullible person might suppose that the eventual plan would be to dis-assemble the rusted empty hulks of burnt-out temporary boilers and remove the debris, to make it possible to maneuver the new temporary boiler into the same original position, where it might not be more decorative necessarily, but much less of an inconvenience in the courtyard. As for the rest of us, we saw the handwriting on the wall when we noticed that the trailer under the new temporary boiler was now sitting flat on the ground, and no longer exhibited any wheels by which it could be moved. It also sported its own chain-link fence, with no-nonsense posts that had been drilled right into the concrete foundation of the courtyard, not just propped up on the surface for show. Yes, dear friends, that's yet a third temporary boiler in our courtyard that's not going anywhere, by golly, and it can't be long now before the plywood shows up for another temporary boiler house, so that we will end up not only right back where we started, but even worse. Frankly, I think that's the kind of rebound that even the mighty Shaquille O'Neal couldn't pull off, but for all of the Dennis Rodman fanatics out there, you didn't hear that from me. Elle