Get Out And Stay Out

Hello World, Happy May! Anyone can tell that we're well on our way through Spring, when the newspaper circulars are chockfull of gift suggestions for moms and dads, brides and grads, and prom season is in full swing to boot. Everywhere you look, flower beds are a veritable paroxysm of vibrant colors, while the flowering trees and shrubs are all decked out in their showiest blossoms. Intermittent warmer temperatures have been a welcome relief from the long-entrenched harsh wintry conditions, and the local flora and fauna have responded with unbridled enthusiasm, from one end of creation to the other, and all the way around Robin Hood's proverbial barn besides, I shouldn't wonder. In fact, last week, Bill and I spotted two enormous bright green parrots in the sycamore, which certainly lent some unexpectedly vivid hues to our landscape that we don't normally see in these parts, that's for sure. (Although I didn't get a very good look at them, and they may well have been a pair of Monk Parakeets, which we've had show up here once before, and I certainly have the pictures to prove it, by golly - or I guess I should say, by Polly.) Weather improvements have been a nice change of pace, but clawing our way out of winter's icy grip has been no mean feat, and even sunny days would make no one reach for their tank tops and flip-flops around here, and you can believe me when I say that we're still wearing our coats and long johns at church, and that's not just a lot of "Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear," I can assure you. But in spite of it all, hope springs eternal, and it was at the Maundy Thursday service (which was still in the middle of April, mind you) when we all heard the unmistakable sounds of the ice cream truck across the street from church, when it was not only a bracing 40 degrees outside (and even colder in church) but also 9:00 at night and pitch black out there, for pity's sake. I certainly did not succumb to what would have been a rather less than irresistible temptation, and not just because my spare change was in my other long johns, believe me. Of course, May Day has come and gone, and whatever all it's famous for, right along with it, so we're already looking at that in the rear-view mirror at this point. Still in front of us is Cinco de Mayo on Monday, when we celebrate with our Mexican brothers and sisters, or just anybody who likes a good party for no particular reason, and after all, who doesn't? For their part, the media has made a colossal kerfuffle (please excuse the technical terminology there) out of the terrible shortage of fresh limes, with its disastrous consequences for tequila drinkers everywhere - or as the dinosaurs and I would say, "Napoleon's revenge." Also this weekend is the 140th running of the venerable Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, with a field of hopeful 3-year-olds trying their luck against a 36-year-old curse that has yet to be broken - although admittedly, even I'm having trouble blaming the lime shortage on the evil spirit of Affirmed at this point, try as I might. Of course, we wish the ponies well in their endeavors, but frankly, I would keep looking over my shoulder, if I was them. On the hoops front, the playoffs had just barely gotten underway without the Knicks when new President Phil Jackson summarily fired all the coaches, from the top guy all the way down to the lowly underlings, without so much as a by-your-leave. This is usually an indication that the front office would much rather fire all of the under-performing and overpaid players instead, but are unhappily prevented from doing so for contractual reasons, and subsequently take out their frustrations on the other nearest likely targets that present themselves at the time. As the Vancouver Canucks learned to their dismay, after a dismal 36-46 season, replacing the coach is often not the solution to the problem, when it's the players who have to actually play the games, and not the coaches, however gifted or inept they might be. The Canucks also lost no time in cutting loose their coaching staff, after only the first year of multi-year contracts, as well as the General Manager, so that tells you something right there about the "What have you done for us lately" school of thought in Vancouver at the moment. Frankly, this smacks a bit more of Affirmed's handiwork behind the scenes than the lime shortage, but I still have the feeling that somewhere off in the great beyond, Napoleon is having a big fat laugh. In other sports news, the plucky Rangers somehow managed to make it out of first round of the playoffs past the pesky Flyers, and actually won the first game of the series against Pittsburgh, in the face of virtually insurmountable odds, so we can't count on much more of that from this point forward, I can tell you that. Meanwhile, Boston is having a time of it against Montreal, taking 2 overtime periods to squeak out a win in their first game together, and promising to be a bruising series for this Original Six match-up. Out in the great outdoors and in an odd twist for the Boys of Summer, the Mets and Yankees have the same record at this point, but Da Bombers are in first place in their division, while the Amazin's are in 3rd place in theirs, so that's about all you need to know about how the other teams around them are playing, and when it comes to the standings, it's not necessarily how you play, but where you play, that counts. Of course, things can always be worse, and probably will be, and the obvious solution is to come up with drink choices that don't rely on limes, for heaven's sake. At the old homestead, I had occasion to pull the drawers out of the desk in the living room, because I could hear loose crumpled papers that had fallen out behind them, and I was resolved to put things back into their rightful places, or know the reason why. Unaccountably, I stumbled across something in the very back of the bottom drawer, that I had been searching for high and low for months on end, and finally gave up and ordered replacements for, after having exhausted all other options, even though I knew it had to be around here somewhere. I said to Bill later that the lesson to be learned from all this is that I should probably plan to clean out my desk at least once every 10 years, whether it needs it or not. ("These are the jokes, son!") Speaking of jokes, that was exactly what I thought when I happened across a sale circular for Jennifer Convertible, attempting to entice me into their showrooms to examine their wide selection of what they took pains to describe, apparently without irony, as "stationary sofas." It made me realize that this was yet another case where modern developments had forced a new back-formation into existence (like acoustic guitar, rotary telephone, conventional oven) because of a newer invention that had rendered the original language obsolete or misleading. Nowadays in these casual and sedentary times, just about all seating combinations have power reclining features or zero-gravity modules built right in, so for a couch that just sits there and does nothing, the manufacturers have no choice but to identify it - and somewhat disparagingly, I might add - as a stationary sofa. Talk about a couch potato, Ethan Allen! This is verily the couch potato's couch potato, and if they decided to chow down on some spuds while they were there, it would really come full circle, and maybe even more so, although my math is a little bit shaky on that part. Of course, the dinosaurs and I can remember a time, not all that long ago, when furniture that would stay put was considered a perfectly acceptable norm and had no stigma attached to it in any way, in fact, the alternative would have been unthinkable. In these haphazard times, where you can't count on anything to stay put, heaven knows, if the Knicks and Canucks had been on the sofa together, I have no doubt that the management would have thrown out the couches right along with the coaches, stationary or not. You mark my words, somewhere Napoleon and Affirmed are having a great big laugh right about now, and a whole pile of limes, I dare say. I'll have mine with a margarita, por favor. Elle