Live And Let Die

Hello World, Well, it honestly doesn't seem possible that we could be at the last weekend of the month already, ye gods, and that's with there being 5 weekends in August, to boot. The new month will be right on top of us on Tuesday, and not to be an alarmist, but everyone knows that once back-to-school happens, the year is essentially over, and one morning you wake up and suddenly it's New Year's Day. Where does the time go, I ask you that. They weren't just whistling Dixie when they said, "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives." Speaking of days, any social media mavens out there on Facebook last week might have noticed Black Cat Appreciation Day on the 17th, as stout supporters of the feline fraternity's darkest denizens would rally around eagerly leaping to their defense, and attempt to sway public opinion to a more favorable view of these unjustly maligned meowsers. Alert readers may recall that our household currently has 5 black cats, because we already had Charcoal and Inky in place, when Scooter presented us with her 3 tiny black kittens under the front porch last year - and I don't mind saying I have the pictures to prove it and not afraid to use them, by golly. They're all very friendly and affectionate, although BooBoo is still a bit on the skittish side, but you can believe me when I say that they didn't have to invent a special day to make us appreciate our black beauties, that's for sure. In other local news, I was driving to work last week, and found myself stopped at a traffic light behind one of those short school buses, and nothing remarkable about that. But I noticed it particularly because of a good-sized sign that was attached to the back featuring screaming type that was probably 6 inches tall, and could not fail to get your attention, even from a car length behind. Now Bill, who is a sign maven extraordinaire and a legend in his field, will be happy to tell anybody that the one thing that must not be used for lettering on outdoor signs is the color red - due to its propensity to fade away into nothingness after prolonged (and often not so prolonged) exposure to sunlight. In any case, that would go a long way toward explaining the sign on this bus, which took great pains to announce boldly in giant black type: ============= THIS VEHICLE DOES NOT ============= while the white space under that (presumably where the forbidden activity would have been) was completely blank. The funny thing was, this was no antiquated, beat-up rusted hulk of a wreck with an equally ancient sign - the bus was relatively new and shiny, and the sign could not have been any older either. The funniest part was that I found myself the next day behind the very same bus at the very same traffic light, and I ask you - what are the odds, indeed. And speaking of odd things, I'm sure we have all long since learned, often to our chagrin, that technology can be a double-edged sword, and auto-correct can be especially problematic, or alternately, inadvertently comical. I had asked Bill to pick up some odds & ends for me at the supermarket, including the refreshingly cool Dentyne Arctic Chill (courtesy of our friends at Cadbury Adams USA) because as their slogan insists: "Nothing's colder than ice." There were some ups and downs on the shopping front, as is so often the case, and not everything went as planned, in spite of heroic efforts and dogged determination, I can assure you. I heard about the variety of challenges later in a text message from Bill, which concluded with this somewhat ominous comment: "At least I got your gun." Holy hail of bullets, Batman! Even in the most pro-firearms states, I shudder at the idea of grocery stores selling guns, and certainly no one would expect Bill to buy one, even if they did. (Bill subscribes to the Cleveland Amory position of every citizen's right to arm bears.) So in spite of this obviously auto-corrected message, not to mention badly at that, the "get your gun" part of that exchange was nothing more than a rootin'-tootin', double-barrelled, trigger happy misfire that entirely missed the mark - although Bill did say later that he was going to call me "Annie" from now on. (Get it?!) Meanwhile in actual news, we have our friends on the crack staff at The Journal News (their motto: "The Snooze, The Whole Snooze, and Nothing But The Snooze") to thank for the following story about an unidentified body found along Route 133 in Ossining. The writers went on to elaborate on the unfortunate John Doe, apparently without a hint of irony - ================================= Police said he had no identification, but wore jeans, a shirt and sneakers, and that he had been stabbed multiple times. An Ossining village police sergeant said that the man's death was "suspicious." ================================= By golly, you have to get up pretty early in the morning to put anything over on the police in Ossining, where a mystery victim with multiple stab wounds cluttering up the streets is not accepted blithely as a run-of-the-mill occurrence, or even at face value as a possible suicide, and just wash their hands of it. No indeed not, lest there be any misconceptions on the subject, if you intend to lay down and die on the thoroughfares of this rigorous burg, your remains will be subject to the full investigative powers from the long arms of the law, and your attempts to complicate their jobs will not be treated lightly. It's probably just as well that our John Doe wasn't shot instead, or they'd still be out there checking all the grocery stores, I shouldn't wonder. Elle

Heaven Help Us

Hello World, Greetings again from farther along in August, or as we like to think of it (you might want to be sitting down for this part) only 125 shopping days until Christmas, ho ho ho! Speaking of the holliest and jolliest of holly jolly holidays, you know it's not too early -- and 95 degrees and stultifying humidity notwithstanding -- for the welter of Christmas music catalogues to show up at church, as they did last week, thanks not. Mind you, at the time it was probably about 120 degrees in the office where I was compiling the weekly offering worksheet, even with the fans on and the windows open, and I was within mere microns of just taking my dress off and working in my underwear, and Devil take the hindmost -- except for the fact that we have another congregation that uses our building on Sunday afternoons, and I didn't want them to walk in on me accidentally in my undressed state, and no doubt be scarred for life, the poor dears. Honestly, if the heat hadn't completely scrambled my brains by now, it probably would have occurred to me sooner that I should just go ahead and buy a portable air conditioner for the place and be done with it already, rather than taking the moral high ground and suffering to build character like a good Calvinist. I would consider this along the lines of a public service to the community, to protect unwary passersby from the unwelcome sight of me in my underwear, which is not for the faint-hearted, and I ought to know. And speaking of church and clothing, I was at my temporary job in Yonkers when I saw the most amazing sight coming out of the bank, which was a nun in full traditional habit, including wimple and everything else. Now, this was no doddering centenarian in her ancient garb from yesteryear - no, this was a sprightly middle-aged sister with a twinkle in her eye and bounce in her step, navigating the parking lot with ease in spite of her somewhat voluminous outfit. In fact, if it had been any later in the year, I'm sure I would have convinced myself that this was just any old anybody dressed up in a costume for some seasonal party, and not a real nun at all. But I couldn't bring myself to believe something like that in the middle of August during a heat wave, when someone would simply have to be clinically insane to be dressed up as a nun for no good reason. (Under the extreme circumstances, I would consider actually being a nun to be the only valid reason, to be honest.) Just when we thought that the idea of old-fashioned nuns in old-fashioned habits was nothing more than a relic from a bygone era, something like this comes along, big as life and without a hint of irony, casting our minds back to those halcyon days of yore, which the passage of time has dimmed but not erased, by heaven. And while we're on the subject of time, Bill and I had an interesting time last week when we were very unexpectedly invited to a wedding for one of Bill's coworkers. It seems like when you get out of high school, all you do for years and years is go to one wedding after another - until you've done the Macarena and Electric Slide so many times that you can't see straight. But after that, you realize that you don't know anyone else getting married, and decades can go by before you're invited again for any nuptials, usually the children of people whose wedding you went to in the first place, back in the day. The last wedding we went to, instead of the Hokey Pokey, they were doing the Cro-Magnon Shuffle, so that tells you something right there. So we dolled ourselves up, picked up another colleague from work, and hurried over to Mount Vernon at the appointed time (actually a half-hour early, since we misread the invitation) only to find the church locked up tight with all the lights out. This seemed an inauspicious sign to us, that the church would not have been a hotbed of activity where a wedding was about to take place, but we waited patiently and hoped for the best. It turned out to be a long wait, as the bridal party didn't appear until 5:00 for a 3:30 ceremony - although in fairness to them, at 3:30 the only people actually there were the three of us and the minister, so they would have gotten married in an empty building if they had started on time. Once things got underway, it turned out to be a rollicking affair, because these folks came to party, and no mistake. The wedding ceremony was blissfully compact, without all of the superfluous trifles that are tossed in nowadays, and tack on so much extra time to the proceedings, and once again, thanks ever so much not. In no time, we were at the reception, and the small crowd really let their collective hair down and cut loose. We had never been to a Jamaican wedding (which explains how we fell victim to the error of J.I.T. - Jamaican Island Time - and showed up on time, when nobody else did) and didn't know what to expect, so this was all new to us. (I thought the buffet would be all jerk goat and fried plantains, but actually they had a very nice spread including salad, lasagna, fish, fried chicken, ziti, rice, and bunches of fruit.) The DJ was very entertaining, and played all the reggae that anyone could possibly stand, and with the ponderous weight of rhinestones that the ladies were wearing, it's a wonder that the dance floor didn't just collapse under them. They were still going strong at 11:00 PM, which is past our bedtime, so we packed it in and headed for home while we could still keep our eyes open. It's true that we may be old fogies and time has passed us by, but I can tell you that when it comes to Jamaican weddings, we be jammin'! And speaking of jamming, alert readers may recall that we enjoyed a delightfully retro time with our friends at The Midtown Men concert in June at what they are now calling the NYCB Theater at Westbury, instead of the old Westbury Music Fair. The show was a cheery and boisterous affair from beginning to end, and all of us boomers, geezers, oldsters and dinosaurs were really in our element to party like it was 1960. But providing old music for old folks is not all that they do at the NYCB Theater, not by a long shot - they also have comedy, movie matinees for children, poetry and book readings with author Q+A among their other offerings. However, it can't be denied that a cursory look at their schedule of upcoming events does indeed reveal a predominance of "moldy oldies" in the wings - such as The Turtles, The Association, Mark Lindsay, Dion, The Cowsills, Deep Purple, The Grass Roots, Neil Sedaka, The Buckinghams, Eric Burdon & The Animals, Paul Anka, The Monkees, Chubby Checker, Engelbert Humperdinck, and not to mention, Hippiefest and the Doo-Wop Extravaganza. Be still my heart! So for anyone who can't get enough of Gladys Knight, Frankie Valli, Tony Bennett, Smokey Robinson, Rick Springfield, and the Psychedelic Furs, Westbury is obviously the place to be. At least when it comes to being 50 years behind the times, that is. Heck, that's a case of Jamaican Island Time taken to a whole new level, don'cha know! Elle

Loud Mouth

Hello World, Happy August! It certainly seems as if the year just continues charging along, like some hapless commuter chasing after a train about to pull out of the station, and the axiom that time and tide (and trains) wait for no man is ever more keenly felt with each passing day. It seems like I was just getting ready for vacation, and yet here we are now, practically in the middle of August already, and no signs of slowing down, not by any means. For anyone who thinks that there's plenty of summer left, with all of the Dog Days still ahead of us, and lots more time to enjoy the joys of the season, with lemonade and watermelon to spare - well, have I got some very unwelcome news for you. It was on August 9th that the NFL was actually playing football on television, and apparently without irony, in spite of the fact that the fall pennant races in baseball hadn't even started yet. (This would probably go a long way toward explaining about the legendary gridiron great, Frank Gifford, breathing his last over the weekend, muttering something about 90 degrees out and who in their right mind would be playing football at a time like this, but frankly I have no independent corroboration of this, so it might be totally unrelated after all.) In any event, please consider this fair warning that I have sounded the tocsin and thrown down the gauntlet, and if you have any more summertime delights to indulge in, you'd better plan to kick it into a higher gear and get to it while the getting is good. Speaking of time out of mind, we had some visitors at church who were taking in the many fine qualities of the building, and asked when it was built. The cornerstone by the front door clearly says 1909, so there's no sense in prevaricating on that point, try as we might, although I don't mind saying that it's holding up a lot better at 106 years old than I would, and that's a plain fact. Of course, there's much that has been renovated, replaced, or modernized since those early days, with actual electricity, indoor plumbing, telephones, and even - gasp! - gluten-free communion wafers being the norm rather than the exception around the old ecclesiastical stomping grounds, as it were. Now that doesn't mean that absolutely everything is up-to-date, as I happened to notice when I was helping to pack away some electronic equipment after the worship service, and was very surprised to discover that our projector cart was very flagrantly emblazoned with Montgomery Ward's name on every side, so that tells you something right there. (Well, as our old friends the dinosaurs are quick to point out, for people "of a certain age," it tells you something right there, but it's certainly a reference of a bygone era that is lost on young folks nowadays, and there's just no way around it.) Considering that the affectionately known "Monkey Ward" essentially went out of business in 1988, and this particular cart is still puttering around church since then, well, I think we can all agree that extra points are in order for its spirit of endurance, and longevity in the face of obstacles. In fact, it's been at the church even longer than I have, and I hate to admit it, but certainly complains a whole lot less, I can tell you that. And while we're on the subject of complaints, I was out and about last week, driving around here and there, and found myself stopped at a traffic light next to a parked car that seemed very interesting looking, compared to the average run-of-the-mill automobile out there these days. It's true that it was plain silver in color, but it had a more distinctive shape than the routine sedan you see everywhere, and it made me curious about what it could be. I had some time on my hands at the red light, so I leaned over to check it out, and try to spot its name or brand somewhere on the body, and since I was right next to it, I figured it would be (as they used to say in the old days) a lead pipe cinch. Not so fast! Inasmuch as it was wearing a bra and a diaper at the time (not to mention, at the same time, mind you) there was no way to uncover any identifying symbols about its background or trademark, which had apparently all been obliterated by its over-dressed paraphernalia. So that's a mystery which might never be solved, or what I would describe as a classic case of defeating the purpose, where you simultaneously call attention to something, while hiding all clues about it, thanks not. And speaking of cars, my very own Chevy Aveo, which is about as unassuming and circumspect as you can get in a screaming red car, has somehow recently developed a sort of throaty rumble, usually reserved for expensive sports cars, or ancient jalopies with busted mufflers. (And as our old friends the dinosaurs are happy to divulge - in fact, "giddy" might be the better word under the circumstances - don't forget that I started driving in the age of muscle cars, where rugged Trans Am's and GTO's sported hefty 454 cubic inch V8 engines that could be heard from blocks away, even standing still.) Nowadays, modern cars are so quiet that you can't hear them running when you're standing right next to them, and my Chevy is no exception, so when it started making this odd rattling sound, it was much more noticeable than it would have been on an older, noisier car from years gone by. Of course, anyone who knows me can tell you that I was born and raised in a genuine Mr. Goodwrench family, and my father was a legend among mechanics, working on General Motors cars all of his life - so it goes without saying that I know exactly what to do in this type of situation. Whenever I have a car that makes a funny noise, I simply turn the radio louder. Also on the topic of being over-dressed, I admit that I was pulled up short by this caption under a picture-perfect pooch posted on Facebook: ============================= Here is beautiful Petunia modeling her new neckless ============================= No, Petunia pooch was not neckless, in fact, according to the picture, her neck was perfectly fine, and right where it was supposed to be. She was also adorned with a very decorative necklace, which one presumes is what the caption was referring to, rather than neckless, which utterly failed to make any sense under the circumstances. Honestly, sometimes you just don't know whether to laugh or cry. I don't mind saying that between cars and dogs, any normal person would think that was all to be reported on the over-dressed front, but not so! It reminded me of my vacation, and on the Friday before I left, the park was awash with hundreds of new campers, so that there were practically no campsites left open, where the days before the whole place had been pretty much deserted from one end to the other. When I came back up from the beach Friday afternoon, I passed a site on the corner of D Section, across from the Registration Building, and right on the outside circle, so it was just about impossible to miss. Because the site was on a corner, there was a section sign at the site, which the campers there had taken the opportunity to decorate with a giant plastic snowman that they had brought from home, and they topped that off with a wildly colored beach umbrella to go with it. It certainly got my attention as I was going by, and I thought it was cute, and a decidedly jaunty addition to the usual campground accoutrements, I dare say. But it made me think that you really have to want to bring a giant plastic snowman camping with you, on top of everything else that you really need for camping essentials, just to make a fashion statement, however welcome it might be, among your campground compatriots. Personally, I pack two cars full of necessities to survive a week in the wilds, and I couldn't stuff a plastic snowman in there if I tried - and don't forget, I carry a spare tent with me, just in case. I suppose I could strap it down to the roof and hope for the best, but at that point, I'd probably have to turn up the radio so loud that it would blow the speakers right out, I shouldn't wonder. Elle

Learn The Lingo

Greetings, Mr. & Mrs. America and All The Ships At Sea! It was Alice Roosevelt Longworth who once remarked, "If you can't say something good about someone, sit right here by me." (Alice, of course, was the somewhat wayward daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, whose antics as a youngster in the White House so offended a visiting dignitary that he questioned his host's failure to rein in his offspring's shenanigans, which prompted Teddy's famous retort: "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.") In any event, it seems like every week in this space, the curmudgeons, hide-bound traditionalists, and self-appointed experts (who shall remain nameless, but look suspiciously like yours very truly) have their way, complaining in detail and at length, about every mistake, mishap, miscue, misfire or mis-step that has assaulted the Mother Tongue with impunity. Now, complaints about language are certainly nothing new, and we have the legendary Mark Twain, that Curmudgeon Extraordinaire, to thank for the following excerpt concerning 'The Awful German Language' from his delightful book, "A Tramp Abroad" - ======================================= I went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg Castle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. I spoke entirely in that language. He was greatly interested; and after I had talked a while he said my German was very rare, possibly a "unique"; and wanted to add it to his museum. If he had known what it had cost me to acquire my art, he would also have known that it would break any collector to buy it. Harris and I had been hard at work on our German during several weeks at that time, and although we had made good progress, it had been accomplished under great difficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the mean time. A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing language it is. Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp. One is washed about in it, hither and thither, in the most helpless way; and when at last he thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid the general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over the page and reads, "Let the pupil make careful note of the following exceptions." He runs his eye down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule than instances of it. The inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure in complicating it in every way he could think of. For instance, every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print -- I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books: Gretchen: "Wilhelm, where is the turnip?" Wilhelm: "She has gone to the kitchen." Gretchen: "Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?" Wilhelm: "It has gone to the opera." To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female -- tomcats included, of course; a person's mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and not according to the sex of the individual who wears it -- for in Germany all the women have either male heads or sexless ones; a person's nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven't any sex at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay. Now, by the above dissection, the reader will see that in Germany a man may think he is a man, but when he comes to look into the matter closely, he is bound to have his doubts; he finds that in sober truth he is a most ridiculous mixture; and if he ends by trying to comfort himself with the thought that he can at least depend on a third of this mess as being manly and masculine, the humiliating second thought will quickly remind him that in this respect he is no better off than any woman or cow in the land. In the German it is true that by some oversight of the inventor of the language, a Woman is a female; but a Wife (Weib) is not -- which is unfortunate. A Wife, here, has no sex; she is neuter; so, according to the grammar, a fish is he, his scales are she, but a fishwife is neither. To describe a wife as sexless may be called under-description; that is bad enough, but over-description is surely worse. A German speaks of an Englishman as the Engländer; to change the sex, he adds inn, and that stands for Englishwoman -- Engländerinn. That seems descriptive enough, but still it is not exact enough for a German; so he precedes the word with that article which indicates that the creature to follow is feminine, and writes it down thus: "die Engländerinn," -- which means "the she-Englishwoman." I consider that that person is over-described. Well, after the student has learned the sex of a great number of nouns, he is still in a difficulty, because he finds it impossible to persuade his tongue to refer to things as "he" and "she," and "him" and "her," which it has been always accustomed to refer to it as "it." When he even frames a German sentence in his mind, with the hims and hers in the right places, and then works up his courage to the utterance-point, it is no use -- the moment he begins to speak his tongue flies the track and all those labored males and females come out as "its." And even when he is reading German to himself, he always calls those things "it," where as he ought to read in this way: TALE OF THE FISHWIFE AND ITS SAD FATE [ I capitalize the nouns, in the German (and ancient English) fashion. ] It is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he rattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and of the Mud, how deep he is! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got into its Eye, and it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry for Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by the raging of the Storm. And now a Tomcat has got one of the Fishes and she will surely escape with him. No, she bites off a Fin, she holds her in her Mouth -- will she swallow her? No, the Fishwife's brave Mother-dog deserts his Puppies and rescues the Fin -- which he eats, himself, as his Reward. O, horror, the Lightning has struck the Fish-basket; he sets him on Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed Utensil with her red and angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife's Foot -- she burns him up, all but the big Toe, and even she is partly consumed; and still she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys it; she attacks its Hand and destroys her also; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys her also; she attacks its Body and consumes him; she wreathes herself about its Heart and it is consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment she is a Cinder; now she reaches its Neck -- he goes; now its Chin -- it goes; now its Nose -- she goes. In another Moment, except Help come, the Fishwife will be no more. Time presses -- is there none to succor and save? Yes! Joy, joy, with flying Feet the she-Englishwoman comes! But alas, the generous she-Female is too late: where now is the fated Fishwife? It has ceased from its Sufferings, it has gone to a better Land; all that is left of it for its loved Ones to lament over, is this poor smoldering Ash-heap. Ah, woeful, woeful Ash-heap! Let us take him up tenderly, reverently, upon the lowly Shovel, and bear him to his long Rest, with the Prayer that when he rises again it will be a Realm where he will have one good square responsible Sex, and have it all to himself, instead of having a mangy lot of assorted Sexes scattered all over him in Spots. There, now, the reader can see for himself that this pronoun business is a very awkward thing for the unaccustomed tongue. There are people in the world who will take a great deal of trouble to point out the faults in a religion or a language, and then go blandly about their business without suggesting any remedy. I am not that kind of person. I have shown that the German language needs reforming. Very well, I am ready to reform it. At least I am ready to make the proper suggestions. Such a course as this might be immodest in another; but I have devoted upward of nine full weeks, first and last, to a careful and critical study of this tongue, and thus have acquired a confidence in my ability to reform it which no mere superficial culture could have conferred upon me. In the first place, I would reorganizes the sexes, and distribute them accordingly to the will of The Creator. This as a tribute of respect, if nothing else.