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