Let It All Hang Out

Hello World, And so here we find ourselves once again, at the end of another week, already more than halfway through the month, and coming up fast on the time that ghouls and goblins will be prowling the streets and looking for treats of all sorts. This should be a real wake-up call for anyone whose costume is not completely ready for the big day yet, and I don't have to mention any names, because you surely know who you are - and I don't mind saying that around here, they look suspiciously like me. This will be the third year in a row that I'm trying to assemble the same costume (the first time I gave up and switched to The Cat in The Hat instead, and last year I gave up again and went as Mr. Monopoly) so I'm really hoping that three's a charm this time around. At this point, I have to figure that if there's no last-minute costume crisis replete with scrambling around and aggravation, it's not really Halloween. Well, what hasn't been happening in baseball these days, as the playoffs have dashed the dreams of post-season glory for disappointed fans in both leagues without partiality, from the redwood forests to the gulf-stream waters, and from sea to shining sea, alas. Many teams already lucky enough to make the playoffs to start with, have since joined their lesser cohorts who missed the playoffs in the first place, sitting out the off-season around the hot stove of commiseration, and certainly much sooner than they might have hoped - or, in the immortal words of the one and only Yogi Berra, "It gets late early out there." But we all know what they say about how hope springs eternal (and I have the annual costume crisis stories to prove it, by golly) and so we can look forward with confidence to that most wonderful time of the year: Pitchers & Catchers report for Spring Training on February 13, 2013, which will be here before we know it, and a good thing, too. Alert readers will be relieved, I'm sure, to hear that the crack Engineering team at the hospital did actually return to our building earlier in the week and reset the errant time clock back to the correct time after all. It had gone badly off the track last Wednesday on the 10th, and the repair person showed up, Johnny-on-the-spot, at the stroke of this Tuesday the 16th, late in the afternoon, and thanks ever so. In a normal place with around-the-clock Engineering staff, you might not expect it to take 6 full days to adjust the hour on a time clock, but here at the employer of last resort, it's just another day (or six) at the office, as it were. Anyway, I shouldn't complain, because when they finally reset the time, it was so immediately up to the very second, that you had to make sure to step lively in order to punch in and out on time, and not shilly-shally in the hallways like there was time to spare. After all, you know what they say about time and tide ..... um ..... something about gathering no moss, I'm pretty sure, and don't spare the Jumping Jack Flash. In other hospital news, because it was Materials Management Week, everybody from the Central Supply, Mail Room, Print Shop, Purchasing, and Storeroom departments had been invited to a brunch in the private dining room in the main building, and you can bet that we all flew up there with wings on our heels, believe me. There are not so many advantages to working there that we would blithely pass up one like this, and while I won't say that we descended on the repast like a flock of vultures, I can assure you that nobody had to ask us twice, that's for sure. They started us off with coffee and juice, plus fruit, mini muffins and mini Danish arranged on a tray in a decorative manner. Then the best part was that they gave us $10 vouchers for the cafeteria, where we could go and pick out whatever we wanted - so instead of facing a limited selection of items at the brunch, we had literally the entire abundance of the cafeteria at our disposal, and we made good use of it, I can tell you that. There's always plenty of quick pick-me-up treats like rolls, bagels, donuts and cupcakes galore, plus salads, sandwiches, cereal and yogurt, in endless variety. Those interested in heartier fare will find no lack of hot choices like scrambled eggs, oatmeal, hash, sausages, and waffles, plus there's the grill where they will cook something to your order. So this was a red-letter occasion for the likes of us cluster of nobodies, and even better, the big-wigs who showed up didn't even abuse us with their patented long and boring speeches. Talk about gathering no moss, Mick Jagger! In even more local news, it was decades ago that new neighbors on our southerly side tore down the hedges along our driveway to make room for a new installation of what I would refer to as a landscape element. Actually, it was fence-like in nature, but I hesitate to describe it as a fence, since it utterly failed the first test of a fence, which is to fence anything in, or keep things out. It ran along our driveway to the sidewalk, and had another shorter piece with a decorative arbor that connected to the wrap-around porch. It connected with nothing else on the other three sides of the property, leaving them wide open, and the porch also had nothing to keep anything out, or in, for that matter. So all it did was essentially stand in the place of the original hedges as a barrier against our property line, and served no other purpose that could be ascertained. At the time, I didn't object to that part as much as the fact that the "fence" was installed backward, so that we had to look at the ugly inside of it, which we thought was particularly un-neighborly under the circumstances. On top of all that, they then had the front side painted a screaming white, so that the whole thing leaped out at you from the street as you drove past, like a giant lizard-like billboard slithering up the embankment in a menacing fashion that did nothing to enhance the ambience of the neighborhood, and that's putting it mildly. There followed a series of new neighbors after that, all of whom pointedly ignored the hideous eyesore in our midst, like the proverbial red-haired freckle-faced orphan that nobody wanted to lay claim to. This pattern continued with our most recent neighbors, with one significant difference: when the derelict fence finally started its inexorable decline into collapse, casting off its ratty slats in all directions in a slovenly manner - our new neighbors very carefully collected them and piled them neatly in our yard, as if it was our fence all along, thanks not. We actually had quite a chuckle over that - although we certainly didn't want the red-haired freckle-faced orphan either - but I would be less than candid if I didn't admit we were tempted to just have the whole thing ripped right out, since they seemed to think it was our fence anyway. Instead, we stuck to the moral high ground, and explained to them in a gentle way that the rattle-trap fence was part of their property and not ours, and they were suitably aghast at this unwelcome news, I can tell you that. At the time, they assured us that they would take steps to correct the situation, and we left it at that. Lo and behold, this week both the tree service and the fence company showed up, and summarily chopped down all of the old trees, tore out the tottering fence, and installed a brand new one in its place. One advantage to the new model is that is has no "back" side to torment us with, and also that it's a soft natural wood color, rather than the glaring white of yesteryear. So the giant reptile billboard is no more, and while this is still no "fence" in the classic sense, at least the previous hideous eyesore is finally a thing of the past, which is exactly where it belongs. Speaking of new and improved things, it certainly came as a surprise to me how times have changed in the wide world of intimate apparel since the last time I looked. I recently placed an order for some dresses and blouses, and tossed in a couple of dainty "unmentionables" while I was at it. The dresses and blouses soon arrived in a box, but since the undergarments were not included, I assumed that they would show up separately in a tiny jet bag, which is how they ship small and flexible items nowadays. So I was understandably confused when a large shipping bag turned up later, and was clearly not soft like underwear, but had plenty of hard edges and framework-like structure, plainly obvious right through the bag. I couldn't think of anything I had ordered that would exhibit these sorts of characteristics, and I peeked into the bag with trepidation, wondering what manner of erroneous provisions had befallen me. Well, it certainly came as news to me that our friends at Bali will be more than happy to sell you a bra, and send it to you carefully attached to its own little hanger, believe it or not. I pulled both bra hangers out of the bag in wide-eyed wonder, and I admit that my mouth was opening and closing, but no words would come out. I don't dare suppose that the Bali brain trust presumes we live in a society where ladies actually keep their foundation garments on hangers, neatly arranged on their closet rods, with all their lace and frills in perfect order. But otherwise, I can formulate no reason why they would send me a bra on a hanger, since it serves no purpose during shipping, unless they thought I would require its services afterward - and apparently, folding up the bra and stuffing it in a drawer would be out of the question, heaven forbid. So this was certainly a new, and I don't mind saying, unimproved direction for lingerie to be going in these days, and at this rate, it won't be long before I have amassed quite a collection of bra hangers to be cluttering up the joint. Then next thing we know, they'll start gathering moss, and after that, all bets are off - and that's not just the Brown Sugar talking, believe me. Elle