Scape Goat

Hello World, Hong Kong Bok Choy! The time has finally come when we can wish all of our Asian friends and relatives a very Happy Chinese New Year, with all of the health and prosperity that anyone could ever hope for, and don't spare the San Yang Kai Tai, my good man! (For all of you not from the inscrutable East, this very auspicious dish, which translates roughly to "Three Goats Bring Wealth," is especially popular in 2015 for The Year of the Sheep. A normal person might wonder why goat stew would be appropriate for a year celebrating sheep, but apparently in the mysterious Orient, sheep and goats and rams are blithely interchangeable, and the year is variously attributed to any one of them at any given time, and seemingly with no rhyme or reason. Personally, I'd hate to be the one trying to get wool off of a goat, but then, that's their problem and not mine, by the baa-baa.) Unlike other ethnic observances, such as Ramadan or Samhain, nobody has to tell the Chinese anything about how to have a good time, and they've been tossing this wild and crazy shindig for centuries, all over the place. There's no lack of parades, fireworks, costumes, food, presents, parties, dancing, and good luck charms - plus the Asian equivalent of green beer, in copious quantities, it goes without saying. These folks don't do anything by half-measures, and they keep it up for days on end, so it winds up being like two weeks of Mardi Gras, St. Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo, July 4th, Carnival, and Diwali all rolled into one. I guess it's a lucky thing this only happens once a year, so why don't you go ahead and get your goat on, and party until the sheep come home. Also on the home front, to paraphrase the timeless words of the immortal Bard: "Friends, Romans and Countrymen, lend me your ear muffs!" Now is the winter of our discontent, that is, for anyone who doesn't want to be shoveling snow or chopping ice from their yard on a weekly basis, and sometimes more than once a week. Even without the snowstorms, the temperatures have been so outrageously bone-chilling that every day sets a new low record, since they first started keeping records, and thanks so much not. The Florida Tourism Board would have an easy time selling tickets to frostbitten New Yorkers right about now, I'm thinking, and one-way tickets even more so, I dare say. In any case, the shivering and stubborn remnant have hunkered down here in the frozen north, waiting for Spring to make everything right again. The way things have been going, I can tell you that I intend to greet my rampant alien mutant poison ivy with open arms - not to mention, garden snakes, mosquitoes, dandelions, crab grass, sunburn and humidity - if it ever warms up again around here. It's no wonder that our prehistoric ancestors from every culture celebrated the vernal equinox, to appease the weather gods for a good planting season, and here I'm thinking that sacrifices would not be out of the question either, just in case. And so here on Friday we find ourselves at the last weekend in February, and perched precariously on the very brink of March, since February has only 28 days, and not much wiggle room left, by golly. A lot happened in February, considering it's a short month, and not all of it bad - although with the weather the way it was, I doubt that many people are going to mourn its passing, at least in this area. Apart from the aforementioned St. Patrick's Day, March doesn't really have all that much to offer this time around, and may have to depend on the vagaries of better weather to redeem itself, when Spring finally rolls around in actual fact, and not just hypothetically because the calendar says so. As a result of Ash Wednesday being so late in February, Lent just about runs right out of March, and Easter is pushed all the way back to April instead. And remember, that's not even Greek Orthodox Easter, which will be even farther back, long after the Easter Bunny would have figured to be back home, snug in his burrow with his furry family around him, and not still hippity-hopping down the Bunny Trail tossing out colored eggs and marshmallow Peeps in every direction, and that's not just a basketful of jelly beans, believe me. Speaking of holy days, as opposed to holidays, I was at church last Sunday, when a parishioner collared me and announced that she had spotted me driving along on Route 287, which is far enough away from our home turf to make me wonder what she was doing there herself. I said that I hoped she hadn't noticed me particularly because my driving was so outlandish, such as weaving in and out of traffic, tailgating, flipping the bird or driving on the shoulder, so that I couldn't help but call attention to myself in the most unwelcome manner. Oh no, she assured me, my driving was just fine at the time, and she only recognized my car from the church parking lot, because of my vanity plates, and of course, it's so very vividly red besides, it tends to calls attention to itself without even trying. Now, I will admit that we can't entirely rule out the possibility that she was just trying to make me feel better, but after all, it is Lent and she was actually in the sanctuary when she said this, so I'd like to think that we can fairly assume that she was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me, God. Meanwhile, in the early March Madness department, there's no way of avoiding the giant display for the upcoming basketball tournament in our local Stop-N-Shop supermarket, try as you might. It's at least 12-feet tall, and built out of specially-designed cracker boxes, so that when it's completely assembled, it spells out "2015" across many rows of boxes, and then there's a somewhat jagged basketball, also fabricated across many rows of boxes - one supposes, with the general idea that you would stock up on snacks and catch up on the college hoops action with all of your friends. Unfortunately, when you come into the store from the other door, you are instead confronted (so to speak) with the back of this enormous contraption, and from that side, what it says very plainly is first the picture of the basketball, and then 2105 for all the world to see. You can believe me when I say this, or you can feel free to go right ahead and enter 2015 into a calculator, and then hold it up to a mirror, and you'll see exactly what I mean. I don't mind saying that it makes a lot less sense from the back (and I ought to know) and I'm thinking that probably even in Las Vegas, they won't give you odds on March Madness brackets in 2105 - and which, thanks to seasonal creep, will probably be played in December by then, I shouldn't wonder. I think the lesson to be learned here is that the first of the assembly instructions should have been to set the whole thing up in front of a wall, so the back wasn't exposed to begin with, and you don't look like you're trying to sell snacks for something that's 90 years in the future. Alternatively, they could just serve a whole bunch of Asian green beer, and invite everyone to party like it's 2105 - or at least until the goats come home. Elle