Boys of Summer
Hello World,
Of course, everyone knows how I hate to be an alarmist, but I feel it's only fair to point out that we've arrived at the very last Friday in June, because next Friday will be July 1st, believe it or not. By golly, the year is half over already, and if you're anything like me, you've certainly got nothing to show for it, and that's putting it mildly. The first six months have just flown by in a blur of missed opportunities, dashed hopes, broken dreams and more wasted time than you could shake a stick at. And I don't mind saying, if shaking sticks at things is not a textbook example of wasting time, then I'll eat my proverbial hat, and toss in the rest of the proverbs right along with it. I can tell you that things are going to shape up around here, and pretty darned quick, or I'll know the reason why, and the rest of the year is not going to be a pitiful repeat of the first half, not by a long shot. The scoffers and nay-sayers can think what they like, and please disregard the derisive howls of laughter from our old friends the dinosaurs, who claim to have heard the same thing from me at least once a year, since the time we first roamed the vast unformed land masses amidst the primordial ooze, and down through every subsequent geologic era thereafter. Personally, I think there's something to be said for the hobgoblin of little minds, and here I'm not just talking through my proverbial hat, believe me.
In the local area, it seems our old nemesis Comrade Mischka is up to his old tricks with the Kremlin's infernal weather machine, and you not only don't know what to expect from day to day, but even more often, during the same day, from one moment to the next. People leave the house in the morning in their boots and raincoats, and by the middle of the day, they're out in tank tops and flip-flops, only to be scurrying for cover when bands of thunderstorms suddenly blow in out of nowhere. A person could be forgiven for thinking that we had all been mysteriously transported to Chicago, where the weather is so famously unpredictable that the local slogan is, "Don't like the weather? Wait twenty minutes." I will say that at the times that it was nice, it was beautiful, and when the poets wondered, "What is so rare as a day in June" (if only they had) it was with good reason. But it was interspersed with so much rain, and cold, and fog, and hail, and flooding, and high winds, and lightning, and every other darned thing, that it was impossible to enjoy. It's at times like this, when I'm shivering in my office and wearing socks to bed, that I always find myself bewildered at the idea that I'll be camping in three weeks, and pondering ways to squeeze more long-johns into my luggage. Right now, leaving the tank tops and flip-flops home sounds like a pretty good start.
If we've gotten this far into June, it stands to reason that Father's Day has also come and gone, and indeed it has. Last Sunday was the time to honor the contributions of dear old dad, and all of the father figures in our lives, and give them the recognition that they so richly deserve. The tattered remnant of our cats did not shrink from the challenge, and showered Bill with some practical household items, entertainment and technology, with not a catnip mouse in sight - although I will say that the vote on that was very close and contentious, believe me. The weather was surprisingly nice, so anyone with outdoor plans for the holiday could make the most of it, and treating The King of The Castle to a special day worth remembering. Not so fast! I was off from work on Monday, and all day long, noticed the same pop-up ad showing up on my computer, everywhere I went from morning to night. It was animated, so a person couldn't help but notice it, and it had a cartoon picture identified as Dad, with this arresting announcement:
==========================
Father's Day is Sunday, June 21
SEND YOUR DAD A FREE ECARD
from myfuncards.com
==========================
Now, this is where I simply have to join in with Dave Barry, and say, you just can't make this stuff up. Here it is, the Monday after Father's Day, and these people are trying to convince everyone that the holiday is still in front of us, and the day after Monday the 20th is somehow going to turn into Sunday the 21st. This sounds to me like the imaginary Comrade Mischka's even more illusory cousin, the nefarious Comrade Sergei and his dastardly date machine, trying to throw a Russian monkey wrench into the clock-work chronology of the month that had been running like a fine Swiss watch up to now. Or perhaps he was planning to use his Way-Back Machine to bring us all back to 2009, when Father's Day actually was on Sunday, June 21, or even more interestingly, racing ahead into the future to 2015, or whenever the next time is that Father's Day will once again be on Sunday, June 21. The one thing I do know is that it isn't this year, in spite of what our friends at myfuncards.com want us to believe, and you can tell Comrade Sergei that I said so.
Speaking of notable dates, far from being the repeat of Father's Day from 2009, Tuesday was actually The First Day of Summer, although since it was a bracing 50 degrees and raining at the time, a person could be forgiven for overlooking the occasion. So now we have officially entered that glorious season of hammocks and lemonade, watermelon and barbecues, swimming and soaking up rays. And so what may be new and exciting in the wide world of outdoor furniture and accessories, you may be wondering, and well may you wonder. Luckily, I have the Spring/Summer 2011 catalogue from our friends at Kirby Built Quality Products, and you can feel free to go right ahead and visit their web site at http://www.kirbybuilt.com/ and see for yourself. They offer a wide variety of items including benches and tables, message centers, shelters, signs, trash receptacles, and what they refer to as "Site Amenities," in a vast array of styles and colors to suit the most discriminating tastes. Well, that is to say, if your discriminating tastes are in the market for what they describe as products "Made From The Highest Quality of Recycled Plastic Lumber." Excuse me??? If that's not a red-letter, brass-plated, double-barrel oxymoron, well then, the oxies and morons and the dinosaurs and I simply don't know what it would take, because that's a whopper if ever there was one. I mean, if I was making plastic furniture, I certainly wouldn't blare it across the front of my catalogue to begin with, for all the world to see, as if this was some kind of unique luxury that humanity was clamoring for. But the very last thing I would do would be to call it "plastic lumber," which is criminal misuse of a perfectly good word that already describes what it's made out of. You may as well say, "cement lumber," or "steel lumber," or "seaweed lumber," for all the sense it makes to modify a word for wood with a different substance altogether. Of course, the dinosaurs and I realize that there are no standards anymore, heaven knows, and I don't mind saying (with apologies to Joyce Kilmer) here we thought that only God can make a tree.
Elle
Of course, everyone knows how I hate to be an alarmist, but I feel it's only fair to point out that we've arrived at the very last Friday in June, because next Friday will be July 1st, believe it or not. By golly, the year is half over already, and if you're anything like me, you've certainly got nothing to show for it, and that's putting it mildly. The first six months have just flown by in a blur of missed opportunities, dashed hopes, broken dreams and more wasted time than you could shake a stick at. And I don't mind saying, if shaking sticks at things is not a textbook example of wasting time, then I'll eat my proverbial hat, and toss in the rest of the proverbs right along with it. I can tell you that things are going to shape up around here, and pretty darned quick, or I'll know the reason why, and the rest of the year is not going to be a pitiful repeat of the first half, not by a long shot. The scoffers and nay-sayers can think what they like, and please disregard the derisive howls of laughter from our old friends the dinosaurs, who claim to have heard the same thing from me at least once a year, since the time we first roamed the vast unformed land masses amidst the primordial ooze, and down through every subsequent geologic era thereafter. Personally, I think there's something to be said for the hobgoblin of little minds, and here I'm not just talking through my proverbial hat, believe me.
In the local area, it seems our old nemesis Comrade Mischka is up to his old tricks with the Kremlin's infernal weather machine, and you not only don't know what to expect from day to day, but even more often, during the same day, from one moment to the next. People leave the house in the morning in their boots and raincoats, and by the middle of the day, they're out in tank tops and flip-flops, only to be scurrying for cover when bands of thunderstorms suddenly blow in out of nowhere. A person could be forgiven for thinking that we had all been mysteriously transported to Chicago, where the weather is so famously unpredictable that the local slogan is, "Don't like the weather? Wait twenty minutes." I will say that at the times that it was nice, it was beautiful, and when the poets wondered, "What is so rare as a day in June" (if only they had) it was with good reason. But it was interspersed with so much rain, and cold, and fog, and hail, and flooding, and high winds, and lightning, and every other darned thing, that it was impossible to enjoy. It's at times like this, when I'm shivering in my office and wearing socks to bed, that I always find myself bewildered at the idea that I'll be camping in three weeks, and pondering ways to squeeze more long-johns into my luggage. Right now, leaving the tank tops and flip-flops home sounds like a pretty good start.
If we've gotten this far into June, it stands to reason that Father's Day has also come and gone, and indeed it has. Last Sunday was the time to honor the contributions of dear old dad, and all of the father figures in our lives, and give them the recognition that they so richly deserve. The tattered remnant of our cats did not shrink from the challenge, and showered Bill with some practical household items, entertainment and technology, with not a catnip mouse in sight - although I will say that the vote on that was very close and contentious, believe me. The weather was surprisingly nice, so anyone with outdoor plans for the holiday could make the most of it, and treating The King of The Castle to a special day worth remembering. Not so fast! I was off from work on Monday, and all day long, noticed the same pop-up ad showing up on my computer, everywhere I went from morning to night. It was animated, so a person couldn't help but notice it, and it had a cartoon picture identified as Dad, with this arresting announcement:
==========================
Father's Day is Sunday, June 21
SEND YOUR DAD A FREE ECARD
from myfuncards.com
==========================
Now, this is where I simply have to join in with Dave Barry, and say, you just can't make this stuff up. Here it is, the Monday after Father's Day, and these people are trying to convince everyone that the holiday is still in front of us, and the day after Monday the 20th is somehow going to turn into Sunday the 21st. This sounds to me like the imaginary Comrade Mischka's even more illusory cousin, the nefarious Comrade Sergei and his dastardly date machine, trying to throw a Russian monkey wrench into the clock-work chronology of the month that had been running like a fine Swiss watch up to now. Or perhaps he was planning to use his Way-Back Machine to bring us all back to 2009, when Father's Day actually was on Sunday, June 21, or even more interestingly, racing ahead into the future to 2015, or whenever the next time is that Father's Day will once again be on Sunday, June 21. The one thing I do know is that it isn't this year, in spite of what our friends at myfuncards.com want us to believe, and you can tell Comrade Sergei that I said so.
Speaking of notable dates, far from being the repeat of Father's Day from 2009, Tuesday was actually The First Day of Summer, although since it was a bracing 50 degrees and raining at the time, a person could be forgiven for overlooking the occasion. So now we have officially entered that glorious season of hammocks and lemonade, watermelon and barbecues, swimming and soaking up rays. And so what may be new and exciting in the wide world of outdoor furniture and accessories, you may be wondering, and well may you wonder. Luckily, I have the Spring/Summer 2011 catalogue from our friends at Kirby Built Quality Products, and you can feel free to go right ahead and visit their web site at http://www.kirbybuilt.com/ and see for yourself. They offer a wide variety of items including benches and tables, message centers, shelters, signs, trash receptacles, and what they refer to as "Site Amenities," in a vast array of styles and colors to suit the most discriminating tastes. Well, that is to say, if your discriminating tastes are in the market for what they describe as products "Made From The Highest Quality of Recycled Plastic Lumber." Excuse me??? If that's not a red-letter, brass-plated, double-barrel oxymoron, well then, the oxies and morons and the dinosaurs and I simply don't know what it would take, because that's a whopper if ever there was one. I mean, if I was making plastic furniture, I certainly wouldn't blare it across the front of my catalogue to begin with, for all the world to see, as if this was some kind of unique luxury that humanity was clamoring for. But the very last thing I would do would be to call it "plastic lumber," which is criminal misuse of a perfectly good word that already describes what it's made out of. You may as well say, "cement lumber," or "steel lumber," or "seaweed lumber," for all the sense it makes to modify a word for wood with a different substance altogether. Of course, the dinosaurs and I realize that there are no standards anymore, heaven knows, and I don't mind saying (with apologies to Joyce Kilmer) here we thought that only God can make a tree.
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 3:21 PM
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