Seven Up

Hello World, Happy Ramadan! I admit that I am not a Muslim, and I really have no idea what the occasion entails, but I have the feeling that it is not actually a joyous celebration like Easter or Mardi Gras, but rather more one of those wailing and gnashing of teeth types of religious observances full of repentance and self-reflection, such as Yom Kippur, where people go to great and sacrificial lengths to make themselves miserable, with the goal of trying to improve themselves in the eyes of their supreme being, whomsoever that might be, as it were. Personally, I've always found myself much more improved with chocolate, and plenty of it, and not by making myself miserable, but they say it takes all kinds, and I have no reason to doubt it. Anyway, you're probably not supposed to wish them a happy time of it, by no means, so if you happen across anyone suffering for the duration, please go right ahead and wish them a very Rotten Ramadan for me. Now that we find ourselves on the very brink of July, the warmer temperatures have brought out the garden hot shots, that didn't dare show their faces any earlier, when it was still chilly and dank in these parts, in spite of the calendar. All of our astilbe have taken off like gang-busters in a variety of colors, while the multitudinous day lilies are a veritable riot of hues across the spectrum, and galloping along the driveway like a runaway freight train. We even have what seems to be some sort of dwarf canna in a pinkish red, and while I personally have never heard of dwarf canna, there's no denying that it's right there before our eyes, and welcome nonetheless, however unheralded it might be. (The dinosaurs and I can tell you that it's practically impossible to get good heralds nowadays, heaven knows, and our last two - Gerald Herald and Harold Herald - have obviously fallen down on the job to an alarming extent.) In spite of the excessive heat and wilting humidity, it must be said that our cold weather hold-overs, like pansies and petunias, are still hanging in there to the best of their abilities - although if we don't get better cooperation with a lot more consistency in the rainfall department, I'm afraid that I won't be saying that much longer, and even the heralds won't be able to help much at that point. At one point last week after dinner, I decided to settle in and take a peek at the Miss Marple Mysteries on NetFlix, just to while away some time and take a chance on something different for a change. It seemed interesting enough, and well done, as these British period pieces usually are, and I found myself getting caught up in the age-old mystery of who-dun-it, not to mention, how and why besides. Although I was doing my best to give it my rapt attention throughout, I must have nodded off briefly - probably during a tiresome exposition about how the footman's daughter had run off with the earl's fourth cousin (twice removed) and bound for Australia on a tramp steamer under disreputable circumstances. When I came around with a start, I couldn't help but notice that nobody in the show seemed familiar anymore, and I found myself blurting out: "What the heck is going on here? That major is supposed to be a colonel, the Swedish governess is supposed to be an Irish housekeeper, and the last time I looked, that modest village chapel was a hulking Gothic cathedral." Sure enough, I had evidently fallen asleep long enough for the episode that I had been watching to wrap itself up completely (neatly, no doubt) and for good or bad, one of the features of NetFlix is that unless you tell it otherwise, it just goes ahead and starts the following episode right after that, ready or not. So that explained why nothing seemed to be as I left it, and I was then stuck with two different episodes that I had only seen parts of, so neither of them made any sense whatsoever, and I don't mind saying, in spite of the estimable Miss Marple's most rigorous efforts to the contrary. I'm afraid I'm not going to be much help to Scotland Yard at this rate, although I can't say that I cared for the looks of that Swedish governess all that much, and that's not just the crumpets talking, believe me. In other entertainment news, I must have decided that I was feeling way too competent lately, so I went scouting about for some games that I could play on my phone, most likely with the usual result that they would make me feel like a hopeless booby in no time, thanks not. I admit that I was pleasantly surprised to discover a treasure trove of 7 different games in one combo-pak from our friends at pogo.com - and all for the incredible rock-bottom bargain-basement price of zip, zero, zilch, absolutely free and no strings attached. I snapped it up at once, and downloaded it with no trouble at all, which is not something that I take for granted in this age of digital miracles, where it seems that the only thing you can count on is that you can't count on anything. The assortment includes their own versions of many recognizable games, such as Mah Jong Safari, Phlinx (this is a target game like Zuma Blitz, the frog shooting game, which is to say that you don't shoot frogs, the frog is the shooter that you aim at colored objects in groups of 3 or more), the balloon-bursting Poppit, Solitaire World Class, Sweet Tooth 2 (a candy-matching game), Turbo 21 (blackjack), and my personal favorite, Word Whomp with its goofy gophers that I first played probably 10 years ago online at the pogo web site. Here they present you with a single jumbled word, and you have 2 minutes to make as many words as you can from it, of 3-letters and up to 6-letters, until time runs out - which is not as easy as it sounds, and has the added distraction of the gophers' animated antics and hilarious sound effects to bring your concentration level down to a whole new low, that you never would have believed possible previously. In just a matter of minutes, it can easily make anyone feel like an illiterate imbecile who not only has no grasp of the English language, but a 3-headed polka dot space alien from some far distant galaxy where they don't have any language to start with. You can play this as many times as you like, because the puzzles don't repeat, but I find that the more times I play, the worse I get at it, as counter-intuitive as that might seem - and a rather disconcerting commentary on my last two poor addled brain cells, I dare say. On the other hand, that's taking into account that the game routinely comes up with some pretty questionable words on its own, that I never would have thought of in a million years, like EFT, ROC, PEEN, MOT, NERO, POSY, OBIS, CALK, ENS, PETIG, ERG, AWN, LAC, KENO, SIM, EMS, SEC and OPE, for example. So for anyone with way too much time on their hands, and feeling overly complacent, please feel free to go right ahead and check it out, and they'll be more than happy to take you down a peg or two. I'd love to join you, but the heralds just showed up to announce a 3-headed polka dot space alien, who said his EFT was out of PEEN, and he needed to MOT some more OBIS in his PETIG, or else the ERG would AWN into the KENO, and the SIM and SEC would LAC out of the OPE, and we all know what that's like, heaven help us. Elle