Past Imperfect

Hello World, Happy May! It seems like the month has just started, and yet here we are, almost at the halfway mark already. It's easy enough to complain about the weather, heaven knows, which has been chilly and raining the entire month so far, but with the way things are going elsewhere, I have a whole new standard of climate criteria, and now I figure that any week without tornados is a good one in my book. On the local scene, at last the stately chestnuts have burst into bloom, with their lovely cascades of creamy white blossoms, and always a special treat that is far too brief. Now we can't help but wonder, can the mountain laurel be far behind, its tender pink buds popping open like tiny delicate parachutes in profusion, and as welcome as the very breath of spring that they represent. Speaking of new, with the completion of the porch project, and its stout and sturdy underpinnings, we figured that we could remove the barricades from in front of the French doors in the living room, that heretofore would have prevented any unwary wanderer from venturing out onto the old sagging porch, where the relentless pull of gravity would not have been their friend, and they might have suddenly found themselves buried in the labyrinths of the crawl space underneath, and none too happy about it, I can assure you. Now the unobstructed view of the shiny new porch is a sight to behold, and endlessly appealing to those of us who remember the old ratty porch all too well. But we were surprised to find it even more popular among the household felines who had never seen out those doors before, and were now glued to its diamond-shaped panes by the steady stream of visiting cats, birds, squirrels, dogs, raccoons, possums, or skunks parading by at all hours across the porch in their travels. Of course, we already have Bird TV where the feeders hang in the garden, so we call this The Porch Channel. In sports news, the plucky Knicks were eliminated in the first round by the Miami Heat as expected, but at least they weren't swept out in four games, and managed to win one to salvage some of their dignity. Hopeful fans look forward to brighter days ahead, as the team continues to build on its success from this season and into the future. And at least they fared better than the hapless Dallas Mavericks, unceremoniously swept out of the way by the Oklahoma City Thunder, making this one of the worst title defense seasons in NBA history, as the Mavs squeaked into the playoffs at 7th seed, with a woeful 36-34 record, and were no match for the mighty Thunder at 51-19. Heck, even the Knicks did better than that, finishing the regular season at 37-33, and won a playoff game at home to thrill their legion of faithful fans at the world's most famous arena. So it's "wait until next year" in the world of local hoops, which should give everyone plenty of time to come up with a whole new collection of atrocious puns based on Jeremy Lin's last name. Honestly, you'd think he was the only player on the entire team - but of course, that would make it a "Lin-opoly," after all. Meanwhile in hockey, what a topsy-turvy playoff picture this has developed into. In the first round, where the top teams play the bottom teams, and the results should be predictably easy, all the series seemed to drag on for 7 grueling games, with plenty of overtime all around. The second round, where the survivors are more evenly matched, and should be long and arduous, instead turned out to be practically all blowouts, with one 4-game sweep, and two others went a mere 5 games each. Only the Rangers and Capitals slugged it out for 7 full games, which is about the last thing you would expect from the number one seed in the playoffs. But this has really not been your grandfather's playoffs, not by any means, and right from the start. The surprise of the West, the 8th place Los Angeles Kings handily knocked off the #1 Vancouver Canucks and #2 St. Louis Blues in decisive fashion - a feat that had never been accomplished before in playoff history, while the dratted Capitals are threatening to do the same in the East. If the regular season proved anything, it proved that the regular season means nothing once the playoffs start, and if the playoffs prove anything, I have yet to figure that one out. So the chase for Lord Stanley's Cup might quickly become a thing of the past around here, and we might all be sitting around and watching The Porch Channel a lot sooner than we expected. Obviously we can't wrap up our sports report without a nod to I'll Have Another, the upset winner of the 138th Kentucky Derby, and as Cinderella stories go, this one certainly qualifies. The unsung colt, with jockey Mario Gutierrez in his rookie season, went off at 15-1 odds from Position 19, where no horse has ever won the Derby in its entire history until now. At the end, he easily outran the favorite Bodemeister to win by 1-1/2 lengths - in spite of the pedigree behind the favorite, being trained by Derby darling Bob Baffert, and ridden by previous Derby winner Mike Smith. So here's a mint julep toast for I'll Have Another, and now it's off to Maryland for the Preakness in the next leg of the journey to the Triple Crown, where I wish him every success. He may as well enjoy it while he can, because as we all know, it won't be long before the malevolent ghost of Affirmed once again rears his ugly head from the beyond, to make sure nobody wins the Triple Crown again. You can just go right ahead and ask War Emblem if you don't believe me. Speaking of a blast from the past, last week an affronted coworker stomped into my office, spluttering in consternation, and demanded to know when the yellow blinking light had been removed from the intersection by the Emergency Room, without his being aware of it, or apparently without his permission. He obviously considered this a brazen act of underhanded skullduggery, and had worked himself up to a state of rare high dudgeon, even for his own self - and you can believe me when I say that his dudgeon is usually pretty high to start with. Faced with his apoplectic opinion on the subject, I sidestepped the issue as diplomatically as possible, and was certainly not going to tell him everything I knew, but allowed that he had every reason to take umbrage at this cruel twist of fate that was perpetrated behind his back. He went on and on at length in an aggrieved manner, and I tried my best to be empathetic and suitably aghast at this turn of events. Of course, the joke was on him, although I doubt if he would have appreciated it at the time. Alert readers may recall my note from the dusty archives of September 17, 2010 (you can go right ahead and look that up, I'll wait ..... doo-bee-doo-bee-doo ..... dum-dee-dum-dee-dum ..... fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la ..... ) or just about a full 21 months ago, when I was flummoxed by the same exact situation: =========================== Speaking of airborne elements, at an intersection near the hospital, there has historically been a blinking yellow traffic light, on the road that leads to the Emergency Room, presumably to clear the way for emergency vehicles racing to our doors on their life-saving missions of mercy, although I personally have to say that I have never seen anyone pay the slightest bit of attention to it in all the years that it has been there, blinking happily away in its unsung safety efforts nonetheless. I have always found this light to be very helpful, not necessarily from a traffic standpoint, but in terms of giving directions to visitors trying to find the hospital ..... In fact, I was still doing that recently, when Jean, our irrepressible bookkeeper - with unassailable proof of just how true it is that no one pays any attention to that light - pointed out to me that there is no longer any blinking light in that intersection, and in fact, there hasn't been one for over a year. I found that a little hard to swallow, until I went back outside and verified for myself that not only is there no blinking light there anymore, but there aren't even any poles or wires to hang one on, even if they wanted to. =========================== So, to say that my disgruntled coworker was behind the times on this matter, would be putting it mildly, since according to our colleague's reckoning, it had been gone since 2009 at least, and along with the poles and wires for it to boot. Frankly, it was a little hard for me to get all worked up about this a second time, especially almost two years after I first found out about it, which itself was over a year since the actual disappearance of the signal. But I will admit, if somewhat guiltily, that I had a good laugh about it at my coworker's expense, although of necessity, in the privacy of my own closet, so as not to expose the secret. And the next time I need an instant update on a situation that is two years old, I certainly know where to turn for the latest developments from the old and moldy distant past, thanks to our news-hound "Scoop," always last with the story. Once again, the time had rolled around for the Open Days program sponsored by the Garden Conservancy, where exclusive private estates are opened to the public, to view their beautiful gardens and spacious grounds. We had been last year at this same time, since Bill had been invited as a reward for his conscientious work at engraving plant identification tags by the hundreds, and at a gallop, just barely in time for last year's event. We were so overwhelmed at the landscaping marvel of this lavish 55-acre retreat, that we were looking forward to visiting again when Open Days had their fall series in November. Not so fast! What happened instead was that freak Halloween snowstorm, which caused so much damage all across the estate, that they reluctantly shelved the whole idea, and spent months of rigorous effort getting the place in shape for the spring. So we were glad for a chance to go back there, although we found that having it on Sunday rather than Saturday was less convenient for us, and the weather was somewhat glowering and dank. But it must be said that it never slowed down the hordes of people who showed up in veritable droves, possibly three times as many as last year, including infants in arms and more strollers than you could shake a garden stake at. We discovered that even though the date was exactly the same as last year, unfortunately the hot weather in March worked against us this time, because all the specimens that had thrilled us so last year were now past flowering, and the late bloomers like roses, gladiolus and daylilies, hadn't started yet. As a result, the overall effect was much more subdued than previously, and the added crowds did nothing to enhance our experience, by golly. Of course, the exotic animals are always fascinating, and we got our fill of everything from antelopes to zebras, and more pink flamingos than you would see in an entire 1950's suburban neighborhood. They also have barns, which are not open to the public, so we couldn't see if they have horses or not, which was probably just as well. After all, we wouldn't want to summon the ghost of Affirmed, that's for sure. Elle