Go Green

Hello World, It's truly amazing how the month is just charging along, like a baseball player on steroids (oh, hit that easy target) and not a bit of time to stop and take a breath along the way. St. Patrick's Day will be here on Monday with its venerable parade in New York City, creaking along after hundreds of years in the same time-honored traditions of folk music and green beer - although it must be said that it's not always easy being green anymore. It seems that all of the savvy local politicians boycott the parade nowadays, in silent reproach for its exclusionary ways, and instead frequent the all-inclusive, aptly-named St. Pat's For All parade in Sunnyside, Queens, which they describe as "an annual St. Patrick’s Day-themed event organized by gay rights advocates." Actually, anyone without an ax to grind (or who can't get enough of green beer) could attend both parades, since they happen on different days, and be as inclusive or exclusionary as they please. For anyone who doesn't care for either option, there are plenty of other choices all over the map for the occasion - which in spite of the fact that his festal day is supposed to celebrate the birth of the honoree, an observant person can't help but notice that municipalities trot out their parades all the way from March 8 (White Plains) to March 23 (Mamaroneck) which would probably have surprised the heck out of the good saint, and his mother even more so, I shouldn't wonder. In fact, she's probably the one who invented green beer in the first place, and I can't say that I blame the poor woman. Speaking of the time out of joint, it was an extremely befuddled individual (who shall remain nameless, but who looks suspiciously like me) that apparently mislaid the invitation to the neighbor's annual Mardi Gras costume party, which they invariably toss on the Saturday before Shrove Tuesday, and where they not only put on the dog and go whole hog, with enough food and beverages to sink a battleship, but service staff besides (you don't dare put down a crumpled napkin or empty glass, or someone swoops right over and snatches it out from under your hand) and all the zydeco music that anyone could stand in one place, and then some. Bill complained about the noise all night, and I suddenly wondered why I hadn't been invited, since it's become a neighborhood tradition, and it wouldn't be like them to pass up a chance to throw a big blow-out bash, for whatever reason. Sure enough, the invitation did re-surface two weeks later (and no fault of the neighbors, who mailed it in January) under a messy pile of loose papers and bills on my desk, and admirably looking exactly like the party invitation that it was, and not at all like something that should be ignored or misconstrued in any way. I was sorry to miss it, as it's always a whale of a good time, and I found out later they also took the opportunity to combine the festivities with a surprise 50th birthday gala for the host, on top of everything else under the Cajun sun. So that was a very unfortunate result of a severe lack of organization around here, and I can't even blame it on an excess of green beer, try as I might. Also on the local scene, we managed to miss the brunt of the snowstorm that was lumbering in from the mid-west, and for which the National Weather Service issued a "Winter Storm Watch" on Monday afternoon (when it was beautiful and almost 60 degrees) all the way up to Thursday night, supposedly on the theory that folks would have plenty of time to batten down the hatches in preparation, and scour the supermarkets for their emergency supplies of milk, eggs and batteries, as if they were expecting to be house-bound for weeks on end in the aftermath. Actually, it wound up being a pretty nice week, all things considered, with warmer temperatures and more sun than expected, according to the forecasts. In fact, earlier in the week, I noticed that even more melting snow along our driveway uncovered one of the newspapers that we had been missing, from the worst of winter's relentless battering, which turned out to be from the Super Bowl, of all things, so that tells you something right there. It finally became warm enough for the frozen bird baths to thaw, and one day when I was outside feeding the birds, I spotted some unmistakable daffodil shoots in the flower beds and early crocus leaves along the sidewalk. If there's a more welcome sight than that, after all we've been through, I certainly don't know what it would be, by golly. And while we're on the subject of meteorological conditions in the great outdoors, my phone came with a feature that displays the current local information from Yahoo weather, and provides an hour-by-hour and day-by-day forecast of what to expect, in a series of simple tiny pictographs for inquiring minds on the go. It may show a sun, cloud, raindrops or snowflake, depending on what's happening at the time, or even one with a cloud and sun together to indicate partly cloudy - and which any reasonable person would have thought should be sufficient for whatever the weather might bring under ordinary circumstances in the civilized world. Not so fast! Last week, they tossed one out there, among the suns and clouds, that looked like nothing so much as someone throwing rocks, and as hard as I tried, I couldn't find any way to turn that into something else more recognizable that would be apropos to the situation at hand. I admit that I'm not exactly sure what sort of weather conditions that diagram was trying to convey, but I was frankly afraid to get out of bed in the morning, just in case. Personally, I think the weather has been horrendous enough around here, without the editorial comment of people throwing rocks on top of it all. We carved some time out of our busy schedules this week, and went to see the new animated film "Mr. Peabody and Sherman" in 3-D at the movies, which is based on the acclaimed "Peabody and Sherman" television cartoons from days gone by, of the intrepid dog genius Mr. Peabody, and his boy, Sherman. Traditionalists may quibble, but the film is fairly faithful to its roots, and not at all some re-imagined horror that would make Jay Ward fans bolt screaming from the theaters and run for cover. We found it very entertaining and interesting throughout, and it never lags, with enough sight gags and witty asides to keep you on your toes. For myself, I thought it was way too intense for younger children, and it also seemed to me that much of the humor would be lost on them, although there were still plenty of laugh-out-loud moments that would be perfectly understandable at any age. All of the 3-D effects were very impressive, as they are these days, and the first-rate voice cast included Patrick Warburton and Allison Janney doing a fine job all around. As usual, my favorite part was still the personal pan pizza at the concession stand, although it's true that I always say, everything goes better with 3-D. Except when it comes to the weather throwing rocks, which is where I simply have to draw the line, and that's not just the green beer talking, believe me. Elle