Thanks for the Memories

Hello World, And so here we find ourselves at Holy Week, at least for the non-Orthodox among us, with Easter coming up hard and fast on Sunday already, and Peter Cottontail hippity-hopping down the bunny trail. This will give everyone a chance to parade around in their Easter finery, which around here would necessarily include their prettiest pastel long johns and fanciest furry ear muffs, and plenty of scarves and mittens to go around. I won't say this is the coldest winter I can ever remember, because I would have been wearing my bulky coat and leg warmers the whole time, but it's been consistently colder than normal, every day, and lasting much longer into the year than I can remember in a great big while - and don't forget, the dinosaurs and I can remember a very long time ago, gadzooks. It's true that we've had freak snowstorms in April over the years around here, but it seems like we've always had a few unseasonably warm days along the way in February or March, even the odd one in January here and there - but not this time around, and not by a long shot. We never could get out of Old Man Winter's icy grip for even a day at a time, and even the days that were bright and sunny had a biting edge to them that made you glad for fleece and hot chocolate, and don't spare the mini marshmallows, if you please. A scientific person might scoff at this idea as fanciful. with no independent corroboration to back up this hypothesis, and that the hard cold facts will not bear this out, but I stand firm with all the proof I need - and that is, this is the first time I can remember not hearing the ice cream truck around the hospital at any point from the beginning of the year up to now, when usually any sunny day above freezing is all it takes to get those bells ringing in our neighborhood. It may not be scientific, but I don't need to be hit over the head with a brass band to know when something is inescapably true. Speaking of brass bands and parades, it may seem impossible to believe, but apparently the day honoring the beloved patron saint of Ireland has transmogrified into more of a movable feast than usual, starting in February of all things, and just shooting off in every direction since then, begorrah. You can see in the local newspaper that communities all over the region have been tossing one great big Irish lollapalooza after another, on any old day from the beginning of February all the way up to the middle of April, making the saint of marching multitudes one of the longest-running anything-goes extravaganzas since our family's Christmas caravan, and I ought to know, by jingle. Meanwhile, the venerable St. Patrick's Day parade in New York City celebrated its 252nd cavalcade on Saturday, which was technically March 16 and not the saint's feast day on the 17th. Their official web site at www.nycstpatricksparade.org explains it this way: "The Parade starts at 44th Street at 11 am and is held every March 17th except when March 17th falls on a Sunday; it is celebrated the day before, Saturday the 16th, because of religious observances." In any case, the event went off without a hitch, and was also notably lacking in the annual brouhaha over who can march and who can't, with its attendant legal controversies and political mud-slinging in the press. Although I suppose that under the circumstances, we should call it beer-slinging instead. Green beer, that is. While it may have been too cold to fight over the annual Wearing o' the Green in the Big Apple, there's still plenty of reminders that spring is indeed on its way, however contrary the weather might seem to this immutable truth. They tell me that spring bulbs, birds, shrubs and trees are naturally prompted to prepare for the upcoming season based on length of day, and not temperature, and they just get up and get going at the right time of year, regardless of the weather of the moment. The birds have been singing their hearts out for weeks now, which is a cheerful earful that would be hard to beat, and as welcome as a breath of spring - without the icicles attached, thanks not. Our crocus have finally opened in earnest, with perky splashes of lavender and purple all over the yard, and I even spotted one lonesome blue squill along the driveway, and one orphan Glory of the Snow, the lone survivors of the landscapers and roofers assaulting our property for extended periods at a time, alas. Just now the windflowers and white anemones are starting to gear up and put on a show, and there's even one bright explosion of sunny yellow daffodils against the rock wall, which is a happy prospect that never fails to delight in the bleakest days. So while the thermometer is still stuck in the frostbite range more suited to December's deep freeze, slowly but surely, we can begin to see those hardy harbingers that give us hope for better days ahead. Mind you, that's not just the green beer talking, by all the saints. Last week at work, I went downstairs to report to our crack IT team that I was getting an error message in Outlook, that made it impossible to send or receive any email. Actually, I greeted this development with unbridled euphoria, since business email tends to be an onerous chore that wastes valuable time that could be spent on real work instead, not to mention, playing Minesweeper or checking Lottery results, or so they say. But my emancipation was short-lived, as people in other departments complained that they were unable to reach out to me electronically, and I had no choice but to invite the evil minions from the nether regions in to solve the problem. At the time, my computer was behaving as its usual sluggish self, which I have long since resigned myself to, but was an unwelcome surprise to the tech, who apparently was used to speedier performance from the equipment he comes in contact with. A cursory examination of the configuration proved what he already suspected, that the system was woefully under-powered for what it was being called on to do, and badly needed an upgrade. He said he would come back and bring me more memory for the computer, which would eliminate just about all of its problems at once. Of course, I should have recognized this as good news, and been grateful for the improvement, but I found that the irony was too much to bear. I couldn't help but laugh and point at my head, and I told him that where I actually need more memory is up there instead, way more than whatever the computer may think that it needs, and that's not just the dinosaurs whistling Dixie, believe me. After all, the computer already has many megabytes of memory as it is, while all I can lay claim to are my last two lonely addled brain cells, which I have renamed RAM and ROM for the occasion, whose capacity for remembering anything is not only so volatile in the short term as to be practically useless, but also so sporadic in the long term that it borders on hallucinations of fabricated memories that never really existed in the first place. If anybody needs an upgrade, it's certainly my cranium and not the hospital computer, that's for sure, and as soon as they perfect that process, I'll be the first one on line to sign up - that is, if I can remember what I was there for, and not ask for two tickets to see Justin Bieber instead. Of course, the green beer doesn't help either, but on the other hand, I think in Justin Bieber's case, I would be happy to make an exception. Elle

Mass Transit

Hello World, Happy Spring! All of you Druids and Pharaohs out there (and you know who you are) will be glad to know that the vernal equinox arrived as expected on the 20th, although a stranger to our area could be forgiven for failing to grasp the significance of the day, since it was about 30 degrees and cloudy at the time, and hasn't gotten any better since. Speaking of things that are not getting better, one of my coworkers has been very sick all week, and despite being as good an Irish Catholic as they come, I observed that he had not remembered to wear red in honor of St. Joseph's Day on Tuesday. On the contrary, he replied in an aggrieved manner, his nose was certainly bright red, and that had to count for something. I'm sure St. Joseph would understand. Anyone spending time in the local area lately would notice that it's certainly been colder than usual, and not just in comparison to last year, which set all sorts of records for high temperatures all over the place, giving even global warming a bad name. So it would come as a surprise to most people that we would decide to head far north to the wilds of Massachusetts last weekend, where ski season is still in full swing, and they measure snowfall in feet, rather than inches. Alert readers may recall the Cousins Hootenanny (it was in my note from 9/22/06, if you want to go look it up, I'll wait -- dum dee dum dee dum dum ..... ) In any case, there had since been a plethora of plans launched for a subsequent get-together over the years, but they all seemed to run aground on the rocky shoals of schedule conflicts, medical emergencies, work demands, academic milestones, family obligations, foreign travel, or all of the above at once. A normal person could be forgiven for supposing that getting 2 small and proximate sets of relatives together, shouldn't be on the order of trying to get an audience with the Pope, but unfortunately, that person would be very much mistaken, at least in this case. Despite the most diligent efforts by a varied assortment of kith and kin, the day had never dawned that we could get everyone together at the same time and in the same place, for love or money, and no amount of pleading, cajoling, enticements, guilt, threats or brute force could turn the tide. If this was a well-orchestrated conspiracy on the part of nefarious legions to keep us apart, they were doing a heck of a job at it, I can tell you that. Finally I realized that if something didn't happen soon, we'd all be dead and buried before we ever saw each other again, and that was how I decided to just let them know I was coming, then just go ahead and go, and let the devil take the hindmost. Valiant attempts were made to drag my sister Diane along for the ride, but too many obstacles intervened, and she had to beg off at the last moment. I had been planning to drive, with my eagle-eyed sister as navigator, taking a slower, more scenic route, rather than barreling up the highway at full throttle. Without her as co-pilot, it was an admittedly unappealing prospect for me to go it alone, but fortunately for all concerned, Bill (in full super-hero regalia) stepped into the breach and volunteered to take over the helm and save the day. (Modesty prevents me from attaching a picture, so you will all just have to imagine him in his tights and cape.) The youngest of the cousins had actually proffered a vaguely broad and half-hearted invitation to visit in her Christmas card, so I leaped at it with both feet, and let her know that we would be there on Saturday. Instead of screaming in terror and running in the opposite direction, she insisted that they would be delighted to see us - which only goes to prove that good manners can always come in handy, especially if you can't think up a good excuse fast enough. The weather at home was changeable when we left, and we actually drove into better weather as we went farther and farther north. There wasn't as much snow on the ground as I expected, although it was cold enough for snow-making equipment where necessary, at least until more of the real stuff showed up. My mother's grandmother and multitudinous relatives all used to live on the side of a hill in the Berkshire region, where the hotels come thick and fast these days, to accommodate skiers in the winter and leaf peepers in the fall, not to mention, the Tanglewood performing arts center year-round. We settled on the nearby Comfort Inn, since we always enjoy our stays with them, but this one turned out to be a barracks-looking hostelry with no indoor pool, which belied its origins as part of a lesser-quality chain, and we were very disappointed. But we were only 10 minutes from my cousin, so we hurried over there and they greeted us with open arms, and plenty of hot soup and grilled cheese sandwiches to cheer the weary traveler. Then it was off to the family hillside for old times sake, where we found another one of the cousins, and got to peek at the old houses from childhood memory, some of them now home to younger generations, while others of them are now owned by perfect strangers. (They no doubt wondered why we were taking pictures of their houses, but fortunately, the FBI was too late to catch us in the act.) There is only one road that snakes up the hill, and we discovered that it was way too dangerous for driving, at least in the upper reaches where the snow and ice were deep and treacherous, so we hiked up to the top instead. It's long and steep for walking, and also gets noticeably cold and windy as you go up, but once you get there, by golly, the view is nothing short of spectacular, and you have a panoramic landscape with 5 states in your sights. We were glad to make the trip, and I have the pictures to prove it. Also making the trip, we found out later, bunches of very fresh, large and intimidating animal tracks on the way down, that had crossed ours on the road, in between the time that we went up and then came back down, which we felt was a little too close for comfort, thanks not. The locals will tell you that bears, wolves, coyotes and mountain lions are not uncommon in the area, and we apparently just missed what would have been an uncomfortable encounter with one of them along the way. Back at the house, it was lasagna for dinner, with a vast array of home-made desserts that really hit the spot after a long and busy day. (Although admittedly, it would have been a lot busier if we had to outrun a mountain lion down from the top of the hill, so we were reminded to be grateful for small favors, believe me.) Finally we returned to our barracks - I mean, hotel - and here's where a swim in the pool or a relaxing soak in the hot tub would have been a welcome treat, and we were sorry it was not to be. The mountain lion probably didn't think much of the situation either. In the morning, we availed ourselves of the hotel breakfast, and since we were the only guests there, we made the mistake of thinking that we would have the place to ourselves. Au contraire! (That's French for, "Get your mountain lion out of my barracks!") The staff was so busy cleaning, straightening up, refilling supplies and emptying trash, that it was almost impossible for us to get any food, much less enjoy it in peace and quiet if we did. I will say the hotel had some of the nicest and most solicitous employees we have ever come across in our travels, but the place was simply too dumpy to lure us back. Then it was off to the cousins for lunch, followed by a quick jaunt to the Ioka Valley Farm, with its renowned home-style restaurant (humorously dubbed "The Calf-A" from their previous dairy farming days) and burgeoning maple syrup business. Now, this is no hayseed operation with a spindly tree and a rusty bucket hanging on a spout - this well-oiled family enterprise maintains 9,000 taps in the hill behind them, comprising over 450 miles of tubing that feeds copious amounts of sap into their machinery, where it is filtered, heated, refined and purified into the finest maple syrup, as well as candy, snacks and flavored drinks. (It takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup, so you can imagine the scale of this process.) Please feel free to go right ahead and visit their web site at www.IokaValleyFarm.com and see for yourself. It was a fascinating and entertaining experience, and we were glad we had time to squeeze it in while we were there. All too soon, it was late enough that we had to bid our hosts a reluctant farewell, and hit the road for home. Of course, we couldn't just drive right past that Denny's in Newburgh without stopping for dinner, and this is one of the advantages of travel that never gets old. The rest of the trip home was blissfully uneventful, and even the cats had somehow managed to behave in our absence - or I guess I should say, at least did such a thorough job of covering up their misbehavior, that it wasn't immediately apparent when we walked in the door. Like missing the wild beasts on the hill, this is what we call being grateful for small favors. To paraphrase my note from 2006, "By all accounts, this mini cousins get-together was a rousing success, and might turn into a regular happening, or at least more regular than every seven years." Next time, however, the mountain lions are very much not invited, and I don't mind saying, I am unanimous in that. Elle

Dumb Luck

Hello World, And now the time has well and truly come, when people would be saying, "Beware the Ides of March," and they're not just whistling Dixie, by golly. These are indeed times that we all need to look sharp and be on our toes, and not just let any old thing sneak up on us unawares. For instance, the ill-fated return of nefarious Daylight Saving Time last weekend, which not only robs us of an hour's sleep, but ushers in the Time Wasting Days of resetting clocks on everything around the house, the office, at church, and even in the car, thanks not. (Like I have time for THIS!) Speaking of time, it came to pass that I finally started to get over my cold, and feeling a little better bit by bit, reverting to a creature with many human-like qualities, rather than a bug-infested zombie. When I pointed out to a colleague that everyone seemed to be sick at once, she was quick to lay the blame right at the doorstep of the Russians, who she unflinchingly accused of practicing germ warfare on a grand scale. Perhaps it was my drug-addled state at the time, but I found her logic hard to argue with, comrade. Although I will admit that I found my cold pills made me so groggy, that when a coworker advised me to play dumb on a controversial matter, I assured him that I wasn't playing. These days, I don't really have to play dumb anymore, it just comes naturally. In other local news, in spite of the vigorous efforts of the gardeners, roofers and snow plows, tramping and chewing up all around our property, we have the jolly vista of crocus popping up all over the yard and along the driveway, and a more welcome sight would be hard to come by, believe me. Slowly but surely, the drab winter landscape gives way to the unfolding glories to come, and we can all hope for better days ahead. Unfortunately for our street's seasonal decor, our neighbors across the way took down their centuries-old stately chestnut tree, and we will all surely miss its heavenly cascades of creamy blossoms later in the spring, alas. On the other hand, it will be them answering to the juvenile delinquent squirrels on the prowl for their chestnut fix, and they can't blame this one on me, try as they might. I've long since come to expect their picket signs and protest songs, but if they ask me to sign their petition, I'm planning to play dumb. Of course, it's still the middle of Lent for billions of Christians the world over, giving the rest of the global population reason to be on their guard against chocolate-deprived pilgrims who may be taking out their self-sacrificing frustrations on innocent bystanders and unwary strangers alike. (Personally, I think churches should be required to issue "The Chocolate Patch" prophylactically to their afflicted members, as a public spirited way to protect the rest of us.) Now, I'm thinking that the middle of Lent would be no time for the Pope to suddenly decide to retire, rather than waiting until after Easter at least, especially if this is the first time in history that anyone has ever come up with this idea, when as they say, they usually die in harness instead. So farewell and best wishes to the outgoing Pope Benedict, returning to the peace and quiet of civilian life, and unlike a certain disgruntled Vice President who once famously announced: "You don't have Nixon to kick around anymore," you can be sure that His (former) Eminence really means it, by all the saints. Even more surprising, once the conclave was underway in Rome, it took practically no time at all to elect a successor, unlike many previous occasions, where the process was adversarial and drawn out over a prolonged period - sort of like the annual wrangling over the St. Patrick's Day parade, without all the green beer. (One hopes!) Now we have Pope Francis to look forward to, the first Jesuit and first Latin American to achieve this exalted position, and a popular choice by all accounts. (Although true to form, he is still a white Catholic male, unlike my pope costume for Halloween 2005, when I observed that frumpy Protestant women were woefully under-represented in the annals of popes throughout history, in my opinion.) I would be less than candid if I didn't say that for sheer entertainment value, they could do no better than the colorful Cardinal Dolan of New York, who when asked if he thought he might have a shot at the job, cheerfully replied that he had a better chance of replacing Alex Rodriguez at third base for the Yankees, than being elected Pope. Holy cow, Phil Rizzuto! Meanwhile at work, we broke out the fireworks and confetti, and bid a "hasty lumbago" to the consultants in our midst at long last, as they packed up and flew the coop last week, leaving us in blissful solitude and uncluttered at their departure. They had descended upon us in 2010 like the proverbial plague of locusts, and even though we had long since gotten used to having consultants underfoot at the hospital, these were particularly pernicious and hard to cope with. For starters, they decided to re-arrange all of our furniture for no apparent reason, even throwing out several of our file cabinets in their misguided zeal, along with the files in them, making it impossible to find anything when we needed it - and this was after decades of being the one department that was so well organized that you could count on everything being exactly where it was supposed to be. They even ransacked my hidden stash downstairs in the alcove by the emergency exit, thanks not, and I have no idea how they even found their way down there, since it's well off the beaten track, even for us old timers. It got so bad that I had to hide anything I wanted to keep, secreting things away in my office, which was soon stuffed to the rafters (actually my closet doesn't have rafters) with papers, folders, reports, binders, boxes and assorted whatnot. I can tell you that it's been challenging to work under those conditions, perhaps more for me than my coworkers, and so it was with unbridled euphoria that I wished them a hearty "good riddance," and couldn't break out the champagne and party hats fast enough, not to mention, the locust repellent. Now I can finally relocate all of my stuff back to where it belongs, and start to get the place back to normal once again, after what feels like living in a refugee camp all this time, under hostile occupation forces to boot. Even better, I can also put up the time-honored Christmas tree again, and all of our traditional decorations in their regular places, after 3 years without them, and no more outside interference, bah humbug. Of course, this may just be a temporary reprieve from the consultant-infested workplace we've come to know and loathe, and people may consider me naive for celebrating it with giddy abandon, as if it's going to stay this way from now on, but I'm determined to make the most of it while it lasts, and we all know what they say about how ignorance is bliss. And don't forget, when it comes to dumb, I'm not just playing. Elle

Eye of the Beholder

Hello World, Greetings again from our little corner of paradise, where the weather continues to bedevil us with its contrary ways and vexing inconsistencies. Of course, it does no good to complain about winter weather in New York, heaven knows, and we've all seen worse, and plenty of it. I'm sure we've all lived through record-setting low temperatures before, as well as record-setting high accumulations of snow, and everything in between, so to say that there's nothing new under the sun is merely belaboring the obvious. So far, this winter seems to be notable for nothing in particular, except dreariness, and we've all long since grown tired of that, believe me. It's also been a very bad winter for people being sick, with half of the populace coming down with colds, and the rest, even healthy young people, showing up at the hospital with bronchitis, pneumonia or flu. In situations like that, where everyone is sick, you can be pretty sure that it's just a matter of time before the germ comes along with your name on it, and there's no escaping it, no matter how hard you try. So that was how my week went, falling victim to the same galloping crud that everybody else had around me, and no surprises there. The symptoms weren't terribly severe, as colds go, but certainly wreaked havoc on my last poor addled brain cells (who I have renamed Sleepy and Sneezy for the duration) so that much of what should have been accomplished at the time, was not, and that which was accomplished was done so ineptly as to render it completely worthless, except perhaps for its comedic value. (Well, I'm sure the dinosaurs were laughing, anyway.) I suppose under the circumstances, we should just be glad that the rest of the dwarves didn't show up as well, because it was already bad enough without Dopey and Grumpy added into the mix on top of everything else. In other local news, the month started with a red-letter day in our lives, as our 30th anniversary arrived right on schedule, marking three decades of wedded bliss - or perhaps 10,950 days of torture, depending on who's telling the tale after all. Unfortunately, our big day was another victim of the galloping cruds, as Sleepy and Sneezy were simply not equal to the task of gearing up for the monumental event, and we passed a quiet evening at home instead of tripping the light fantastic in delirious celebration. Anyone who knows us can tell you that we're not easily thwarted, and we steadfastly refuse to surrender the idea of a special anniversary observance, so we are merely postponing it for a more auspicious time - making it a surprise addition to the welter of movable feasts that have proliferated throughout the year, from Martin Luther King to Advent and back again. When the appropriate time comes, I would expect a romantic dinner and presents to be in the offing, and perhaps a movie, although we certainly can't count on Hollywood's cooperation on that score nowadays, heaven knows. So right now, the clock is still at T-minus-30 and holding, while the rest of the world may continue racing around madly in wild abandon, time is standing still for the happy couple until the band strikes up The Anniversary Waltz for us at long last, and I don't mind saying, as long as it takes. Since at least one of us was not well enough to go out for a spree on our anniversary, we had to rely on our very own mini home theater for entertainment options close at hand, that we could enjoy in the privacy of our own home - not to mention, in our pajamas, should we choose to do so. Luckily, we happened to have a Blu-Ray of "Green Hornet" in what they describe as "amazing 3-D," and we were good to go, or rather, stay put. The movie features Seth Rogen, of all people, as the somewhat anti-hero title character, and Jay Chou as his iconic sidekick Kato, with the fetching Cameron Diaz in the role of his no-nonsense assistant. I admit that I have never read the vintage comic books this is based on, so I can't say if it faithfully reflects its origins or not. But I will advise that this is not your typical superhero movie - like X-Men, Fantastic Four, or certainly The Dark Knight - as this one is pretty much played for laughs, with buffoonish villains, outlandish gadgets, and cartoon violence that borders on slapstick. But it's a fun ride throughout, and never gets bogged down in drab realism, while it still has more eye-popping special effects to throw at you. (I'd say that driving around the car that had been cut in half by the elevator is worth it all by itself.) Admittedly, it may not have been the most romantic selection for our anniversary, but hey - there is no 3-D version of "Love Story" where they drive around in half a car, after all. Speaking of laughs (NOT) the time had surely come, in fact, it was very nearly past due, when I had no choice but to renew my drivers license for another term, or face the consequences. Alert readers may recall that this particular document is still emblazoned with the unfortunate picture from 1997, that somehow manages to make me look not only like a Mafia hit man, but a dead Mafia hit man, at that. In fact, it's so awful that when I show it to people to prove the point, rather than waving it away and saying, "Oh, it's not so bad," what happens instead is that they involuntarily gasp and the color drains from their face, like Don Corleone just made them an offer they couldn't refuse, and I ought to know. In their ever-vigilant quest to protect the public, New York requires an eye test for license renewals, so off I went to my nearby eye doctor, in order to obtain his John Hancock on the requisite paperwork, and satisfy the regulations like a good and proper citizen. It may come as a (perhaps unwelcome) surprise to everyone that I could read the eye chart line at 20/40 with no trouble, which is considered adequate to operate a motor vehicle in The Empire State, and I can assure you that all of your protest signs will be of no avail in changing that decision. As long as I was there, the doctor challenged me to try reading the 20/20 line below it, in spite of it being way too small and fuzzy for my tastes, but he urged me to take a shot at it anyway. (I guess he figured as a Mafia hit man, I must be able to shoot something, or waste a lot of bullets.) I started off gamely enough, but soon realized that 2 of the letters both looked like "F," which wouldn't be duplicated in the same line, and at that point stopped short, while Sleepy and Sneezy were trying their best to puzzle this out in their poor addled way. Finally the doctor prodded me back to awareness by exclaiming: "Come on, you can do it - say anything! Guess!" Here I'm thinking, this is probably the last thing that the DMV honchos would want to hear, that potential drivers are guessing at what is printed on the eye chart rather than actually being able to tell what the real letters are. On the other hand, it does go a long way to explaining what is my all-time favorite bumper sticker: "IF YOU DON'T LIKE MY DRIVING, STAY OFF THE SIDEWALK." Elle

Hard To Handle

Hello World, Happy March! It's hard to believe that 2 months of the year are already in the history books so far, and in another couple of weeks, it will officially be spring. Of course, the weather is often at odds with what the calendar is telling us is plainly true, at least in the local area, so we can be sure that spring will arrive at its appointed time, regardless of whether the outdoor conditions seem representative of the occasion, or wildly contradictory to it. For those of us who are already older than dirt, such as the dinosaurs and myself (and oddly enough, it certainly didn't seem any cleaner in the world before dirt, with the unformed land masses in the primordial ooze, so that really has to make you wonder if dirt is actually the culprit) at some point, you realize that you've lived long enough to see it all - and we can all remember weather in March that ranges from blizzards and Nor'easters, to heat waves and hail, plus everything in between. Of course, it does no good to complain, heaven knows, and one can only pity the poor Easter Bunny, who probably needs a veritable trove of trunks to convey all of the different outfits he might require, in order to be prepared for whatever range of conditions that he may be confronted with on his travels, I shouldn't wonder. On the other hand, if he had a trunk, he'd be the Easter Elephant and not the Easter Bunny, and we'd all have baskets filled with peanuts instead of marshmallow Peeps, and then where would we be, I ask you that. And while we're on the subject of Easter, everyone knows that it will be very early this year, on March 31st, which explains why we're already seeing commercials for pastel M&Ms and those yummy Cadbury Creme Eggs. Mind you, Passover doesn't even start until after Palm Sunday, and will still be going on for 2 days after Easter is over and done with, which I don't mind saying is one of the drawbacks, when much of the world switched over to the new calendar, and those darned movable feasts don't line up as they should. This is one of the reasons that the Greek Orthodox church sticks with the old calendar for religious holidays, because otherwise, you run the risk of finding yourself in a situation just like this one, where Easter comes before Passover - a chronological anomaly that certainly would have surprised and perplexed the local citizenry of Jerusalem about 2,000 years ago, and the befuddled Romans wouldn't have known if they were coming or going. I'm afraid even the Easter Elephant wouldn't have been able to help them out with that one, even if there was such a thing, and the Druids would have had the last laugh after all. Meanwhile, in the wonderful world of sports, avid fans could behold the delightful prospect of the first Spring Training games on television last week, and seeing young men playing ball out in the sunshine is always a tonic for what ails you, especially when winter weather is getting you down. There are no surprises in the Yankees camp, where their wily veterans and eager youngsters look forward to another year of dominating the AL East, with their raw power, pitching prowess, and storied tradition of success that speaks for itself, ever so softly, all the while carrying a very big stick. Then there's the junior franchise for the hometown faithful, the New York Wrights - it's true that they used to be called the Mets, but now that David Wright is the only player anybody knows on this team anymore, I figure it makes more sense to name it after him, and cut through all the confusion. When the pundits say you can't tell the players without a scorecard, they're really not kidding this time, by golly. Anyone of any note, who used to make up the heart and soul of the team, has long since retired, been traded, gotten injured, signed with another club, or simply vanished into thin air, never to be heard of again. Every day, the Sports section prints stories from Florida, complete with pictures and featuring the exploits of the players showing off their skills - and there isn't one single solitary soul that you could ever begin to recognize, if you tripped over them on the street. How they ever hope to win anything with this ragtag grab-bag of nobodies is a mystery to me, I'm sure, and even the Herculean efforts of David Wright would be unable to counteract the combined ineptitude of the team-mates he's been saddled with. Come to think of it, I suppose it would make more sense to call them the New York Wrongs, rather than the Wrights, and I'm afraid if the Easter Elephant does show up, all he'll be bringing them is circus peanuts, and plenty of them. And speaking of things that are hard to understand, it probably came as a big surprise to alert readers on the AOL Welcome screen, when they spotted this arresting tidbit: ======================= Marilyn Followed a Bizarre Diet Monroe achieved her enviable figure by following a strange regime ======================= I think not! Unlike the AOL editors, the rest of us understand that a regime is "the period during which a particular ruling system is in power," and we might suppose that the blond bombshell could have been following a totalitarian regime of the day, or one of the venerable regimes of the ancient world, although I tend to doubt it. Of course, the dinosaurs and I understand that there are no standards anymore, heaven knows, and nowadays, people idly toss around the term "regime" willy-nilly, when what they really mean is regimen, or "a regulated course, as of diet or exercise" instead. It's a sad state of affairs when words have lost all their meaning, so as to become completely interchangeable, and if things keep going the way they are, eventually there will be only one word that will mean everything. Honestly, sometimes you just don't know whether to laugh or cry. Where is that Easter Elephant with the circus peanuts when you need him? In other local news, this week we picked ourselves up and went out to see the latest release in the Die Hard series of films, whose actual title is "A Good Day to Die Hard." We started off with our favorite movie treat, warm and savory Freschetta personal pizza, which was just what the doctor ordered after a hard day at work. The movie was showing in regular theaters, but we elected to see it in the IMAX instead, although it must be said that this was pretty intense visually, and the sound was overwhelming. The story stands alone on its own, but admittedly would make more sense to someone who had already seen the previous films in the series, and was familiar with the characters and their situations. It starts off with a bang (literally) and goes charging off from there, dragging you right along with it, from one death-defying escapade to another, and no chance to catch your breath between explosions. It certainly never lags, and the time flies by in a hail of bullets, car chases and helicopter crashes. They leave out nothing, including the kitchen sink (there's a line about Bosco that is worth the price of admission all by itself) and there's so many double-crosses and plot twists that eventually you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys, in spite of the fact that half of them are Russians. (And personally, I think that the movie's tag line, "Yippee-ki-yay, Mother Russia" is a classic of the genre.) Bruce Willis is in fine form as always, and Aussie hunk Jai Courtney provides the requisite eye candy for the younger set. On this particular night, we had the entire IMAX stadium entirely to ourselves, and were all alone throughout - that is, except for 2 other lonesome souls all the way up in the upper row, and we never heard a peep out of them until the closing credits. Speaking of credits, all the way at the very bottom was a paltry list of 4 songs from the movie - and not to quibble, but one of which was only played over the credits, and another of which was the legendary Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, of all things. So it came as a big surprise to find them touting their soundtrack album, like this was the Die Hard version of My Fair Lady, with updated renditions of "I've Grown Accustomed to her Mace," "Get Me to the Bunker on Time," and "I Could Have Detonated All Night." In short, we liked the movie a lot, but will take a pass on the so-called soundtrack album, which seems to be just another case of words having lost all their meaning. Under the circumstances, I guess it's a lucky thing that circus peanuts are kosher for Passover, and that's the kind of regime I can live with, believe me. Elle