Circle Line

Hello World, Strange days indeed! This week started off with a bang, featuring what I can only consider an ironic blanket of snow on the first day of Spring (haha) (NOT) to really send some mixed messages for the occasion, I dare say. Then out of nowhere, hard on the heels of our early crocus, suddenly the yard was over-run with windflowers everywhere, which seemed way too early to me, but there was no arguing with their delightful lavender, periwinkle, and creamy white blossoms brightening up the shady spots in front and back. Speaking of early, two weeks ago I was coming home from work and got stuck in a traffic circle (living up to its name, one supposes, since it was full of traffic at the time) and glanced over to see what could be described poetically as "a field of golden daffodils." In fact, William Wordsworth did just that a century ago with his lovely poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" in 1807 - and taking nothing away from Wordsworth, it must be said that it's much more famous (or perhaps infamous) recited to humorous effect by Bullwinkle Moose in the "Rocky and Bullwinkle" cartoons. Speaking of daffodils, alert readers may also recall at the very beginning of the month when I mentioned early shoots and buds of daffodils in our flowerbeds, but asserted that it would be several more weeks before they actually opened. Don't you believe it! They summarily popped open right after that (before the last snow, and I have snow-covered daffodil pictures to prove it) lending a blaze of sunny yellow cheerfulness all over the yard. These also seem exceptionally early to me, although it has been relatively mild, and that might have made all the difference. Around the house, the fresh palms from Sunday were a huge hit among the feline novices and the old-timers alike, and they needed no prompting to snag them off the coffee table and start attacking them all over the living room - so that the whole place ended up looking like a crime scene just before the forensics team shows up. Of course, Holy Week wraps up with Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, made even more special by having the day off from my temporary job, and unexpectedly so, since they didn't close for Martin Luther King or Presidents Day. As I said, strange days indeed, to bring it all back around full circle, as it were. On the subject of cats and crime scenes, it reminds me of an incident last week when our little mischievous Miss Mittens decided to launch a broadside against a CVS plastic shopping bag in the bedroom, and scattered all of the contents from one end of the room to the other, and doing her best to thrash them into an unrecognizable pulp along her merry way. Mind you, this bag was full of nothing but packets of cough drops and throat lozenges, which you would expect to have no appeal to cats whatsoever, but young Mittens has yet to outgrow the "everything is a toy" phase of her upbringing, so it goes without saying that nothing is safe. (In fact, I finally had to hide my computer mouse when I wasn't using it, because otherwise, I had to go looking for it under the furniture, behind the radiator, or any other darned place when they got finished playing with it, thanks not.) The Sucrets in the small metal tins came out unscathed, but the little paper or plastic packages were no match for this onslaught from the mighty jungle beast (in her own mind) and were very much the worse for wear when I finally wrested them from her clutches. At least I know she won't be coughing for a while anyway. In other wild and woolly news, after spending $300 million to construct a state-of-the-art polar research vessel, the UK's National Environment Research Council figured it was only fair to give the public a chance to name the hulking behemoth of the seas, on its way to scientific discoveries great and small. Of course, like any massive undertaking, there are bound to be those unanticipated glitches that crop up, hither and yon, and this was no different. Our friends at www.nbcnews.com describe it this way: ================================================ 'Boaty McBoatface' Dominates Poll to Name Polar Research Ship by ALEXANDER SMITH When scientists in the U.K. asked the public to name their new $290 million polar research ship, they expected the name of an explorer such as Sir Ernest Shackleton or a naturalist like David Attenborough to eventually be emblazoned across the vessel's bow. However, they didn't factor in the Brits' oddball sense of humor. By 9 a.m. Monday, more than 27,000 people had voted to name the ship "RRS Boaty McBoatface," almost 10 times the votes of any other name. The web site had been crashing over the weekend under the weight of the unexpected increase in traffic. When contacted by NBC News early Monday, a staffer at the research council said no public affairs officials were available to speak because they were all in a "crisis meeting." =================================================== [ DUH! ] With typical British understatement, Lord West, a former British sea lord in charge of the U.K.'s navy, said the organizers had set up the voting system expecting voters to be "mainly marine research fans" who would come up with more serious names. (Personally, I can't imagine why anyone would possibly think that, especially in these lunatic times of social media run amok nowadays, heaven knows.) Also attempting to be the wet blanket and busily throwing cold water all over this public relations inferno, NERC Director of Corporate Affairs Alison Robinson said in an emailed statement: "We are very much enjoying hearing everyone's ideas." But she pointed out that the poll was not binding, with the research council reserving the right to have the final say on naming the vessel. Spoil sports! I don't mind saying that my vote goes to the indomitable Boaty McBoatface, from sea to shining sea, and not to mention, the gem of the ocean. Ahoy! And speaking of technology, I was out in the street when I spotted a tiny curious device, that even after I picked it up and examined it, I still had no idea in the world what it could possibly be. It plainly said VISTO on one side, but that was all I could determine about it. A cursory online search revealed it to be something along the lines of a Visto Safety Light, which for me, begged more questions than it answered. It features a very small flexible rubber strap (so narrow that you could only fit about 3 fingers inside) and I can't for the life of me imagine anything else that you could possibly do with this tiny (not to say impractical) strap, since it would never fit on your wrist or ankle, or anything else that I would be able to come up with. It has a bright red LED light that you can activate in two modes, either solid light or blinking, and even the poor cast-off from the street was still working when I picked it up. I wish I could tell you exactly what you would do with this handy technological wonder, but unfortunately, it appears to have already been discontinued by our friends at Visto, and you can't find any information about it, no matter how hard you look, and I ought to know. (Visto also makes a variety of other safety products - such as lights for bicycles and shoes - to presumably protect the users in dark conditions.) So now I find myself the proud (if unwilling) owner of a strange electronic gadget, which even though working perfectly, still manages to defy explanation and seems to have no purpose that I can ascertain. Of course, it goes without saying that abandoned strays are always welcome here, and I'm prepared to give it a good home in spite of its rather questionable past. I'm thinking of calling it Boaty McBoatface. Elle

Older Than Dirt

Hello World, Happy days! SO much going on in a short period, it's hard to know where to begin. First we slogged through the switch-over back to the dratted Daylight Saving Time once again - or as one wag in the newspaper put it on Saturday, "Tomorrow night, 2 becomes the new 3." On social media, a cartoon decried the spring-ahead loss of an hour with the wistful (if half-hearted) announcement: "Dang, that was when I was planning to exercise!" (Yes, indeed!) Almost a week later, we're still in the process of updating our voluminous quantity of clocks and myriad other devices that keep time - such as the microwave, answering machine, and MP3 player - one of the most annoying and counter-productive disadvantages to the whole DST nonsense to start with. I'm not too embarrassed to admit that some of these so-called time-keepers will undoubtedly stay set just where they are now, until the return of Standard Time in November, when they will suddenly and miraculously - and with a complete lack of intervention on our part - revert to being the right time once again. Frankly, I can't say that I would like this darned time switch any better if it included parades and green beer, but it couldn't hurt. Speaking of which, of course, Thursday was the time for everyone to get their green on, and celebrate the patron saint of Ireland with all the trimmings, and don't spare the shamrocks, my good man! It was a beautiful morning for a parade, and the venerable march in New York City came and went without a hitch, in contrast to previous years when protests, lawsuits, riots, and controversy were the order of the day. I said all along that fighting over the St. Patrick's Day Parade was simply a dehydration problem that could be solved with copious amounts of green beer ahead of time, and if anyone has invented green chocolate for the occasion, that couldn't hurt either. Hard on the heels of the saint's smiling Irish eyes (somehow, that is a mixed metaphor that really doesn't want to hold together, and I'm afraid that no amount of green beer is going to salvage it) will be Palm Sunday, also known as the cats' favorite day in the entire church year, and I ought to know. Personally, I have to feel sorry for people who attend those crowded mega-churches, where they probably only give each person one measly little palm to call their own, if that, compared with our tiny church, where a person can pretty much just grab as many as they want - and with a house full of cats to please, that makes a big difference, believe me. Now, everyone except the godless Communists and KGB agents monitoring my email (and whose name is legion, heaven knows) is aware that Palm Sunday ushers in Holy Week, with Maundy Thursday and Good Friday leading up to Easter next week. Except for our Eastern Orthodox kindred, when it will be (let's see now ..... if the sun rises in the east ..... divide by the hypotenuse ..... any month without a "Y" ..... then carry the 1 ..... turn counter-clockwise ..... times velocity squared ..... plus compound interest at 5.25% ..... stir to combine and shake until frothy) 5:00 in the afternoon on July 4, 1776. Oh, for heaven's sake, that's when the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence all over again.) So it's certainly eventful days, fore and aft, with something for everyone, and plenty of it. Garcon, more green beer for the time-shifting foxes in charge of the chronology hen house, if you please! Thanks to social media, a person has no place to hide when the time rolls around for their birthday, that's for sure, and everyone who's anyone crawls out of the woodwork tossing off good wishes in a scattershot manner - from the closest family members and intimate sweethearts, to the most far-flung Norwegian Strangers who are only "friends" for the purposes of playing FarmVille, Sim City, or World of Warcraft. So it's obviously no secret that it was my birthday last week, on top of everything else, and it would be clearly impossible to pretend otherwise, even if I wanted to - and I don't deny that the thought had crossed my mind, and not just once, by golly. I don't mind saying that this has not in any way been helped along by our old friends the dinosaurs, snickering in The Peanut Gallery, and asking me once again to regale them with the timeless tale about the invention of dirt, since they are firmly of the opinion that I am older than that particular material, and which I find petty and captious, given their geological history, I dare say. Of course, Bill is always one to be counted on to rise to the occasion, and he presented me with a lovely angel food cake (a childhood favorite of mine) with extra special Cool Whip frosting and sprinkles, which amazingly, tasted even better than it looked. Our schedule last week was too busy, but we are planning a foray to Pizzeria Uno in Yonkers as a special, if belated, birthday treat, which I'm sure I will enjoy just as much as if it had been on the actual day itself. I suppose that just like the variety of inaptly named St. Patrick's "Day" parades, that run the gamut from February all the way through April around here, my birthday can become a movable feast all its own, and the heck with The Holiday Police. We also have social media to thank for the following, which is as welcome as it was unexpected, cropping up last week like a bolt out of the proverbial blue, where the fun and furry meets the wide world of sports. Our friends at the Animal Lovers page on Facebook posted a note that the 2016 Brazil Open Tennis Tournament would feature "ball dogs," instead of the more traditional ball boys, for the purpose of retrieving loose tennis balls on the courts during the matches, and keeping them safely out of the way for all concerned. How genius is that! The primary reason behind the idea is to promote the adoption of shelter animals, but you have to wonder how nobody ever thought of this before, and much, much sooner - since the combination of dogs and tennis balls and fetch training make this such a naturally perfect fit. [Please feel free to go right ahead and check out the videos on YouTube, to see the adorable results of this experiment, and their spiffy outfits as well.] I personally think it's a brilliant idea, and one whose time has not only come, but is way past when it should have already come - and in fact, I would go so far as to say that ball dogs should be required at all tennis matches from now on, giving them a chance to shine at what they do best, and let the ball boys do something else like providing cold drinks or clean towels instead. (Actually, I think the dogs would do a better job of that as well, but let's face it, we can't just take all of the ball boys and toss them out on their collective ears, after all.) So we finally have something that I think we can all rally around and give a 21-paw salute, with plenty of tails wagging, and sloppy wet kisses on all sides. Now if only they could come up with anything productive that cats could be trained to do, that would be actually useful, and not just sleeping or chasing catnip mice - because if that's all they have going for them, they might as well be in Congress. (Oh, hit that easy target!) Meanwhile in local news, there are apparently new neighbors looming on the horizon at the zombie house next door, which has been vacant and essentially abandoned for the last several years, and while I wouldn't call it exactly derelict at this point, it was certainly not improved by this period of emptiness and neglect, I shouldn't wonder. I had this to say about it in October 2012: =========================== Without a word of warning, our next-door neighbors moved away, right out from under our noses, and took all of their various brood of pets right along with them. (That would be 2 dogs, 4 cats, 2 boys, and who knows what all else - which I would think would be quite an undertaking, when you're essentially packing up your tents and sneaking off in the dead of night.) ============================ Alert readers may recall this as the former home of the irrepressible Cinna-Mooch, Cooper, SugarFoot and Squeaky (at least 3 of those were our made-up names for them, not what the family called their own pets) plus two giant dogs (I want to call them Sparky & Chester, but here again, I'm afraid that second one is something that I made up by myself and not the pooch's actual name) and a couple of rambunctious youngsters for good measure. Rounding out the thundering herd was our adorable Flopsie, whom we basically cat-napped right out from under them, and he was a joy beyond words. Leaving for work last week, I was accosted in the street by a very friendly young man named Jason, who introduced himself as the new homeowner, and also mentioned his wife and three daughters, although no pets, which admittedly is reason to give one pause, I don't mind saying. Jason and his cohorts (although perhaps they might be his Argonauts instead of his cohorts, for all I know) are busy every day doing work in the house to get it back up to habitable shape, and the Dumpster in the driveway offers a mute testament to all of their hard work and heroic efforts over the course of time. We have yet to clap eyes on the rest of the family, but naturally we wish them every happiness in their new abode, and hope to enjoy many years of neighborliness with them at our side, as it were. Of course, anyone who lives anywhere can tell you that neighbors can be a mixed bag (I don't mind saying that the revolving door over there has seen its share of the good, the bad, and the ugly, in more ways than one) and oftentimes, a quiet vacant house can be the best neighbor that anyone could ever hope for. And as for the zombies, I'm not really worried. There's an impregnable patch of rampant alien mutant poison ivy between us and them, and frankly, I don't think the zombies stand a chance, Argonauts or not. Elle

Same Difference

Hello World, Well, I don't know about where you are, but around these parts, March has given us no reason for complaints so far, and in fact, one might say, has even been a breath of fresh air, and a welcome improvement over February, by all accounts. (That is, except for the Presidential campaigns, which are more hot air than fresh air, with enough mud slinging to usher in a whole new period in paleontology, and which I am calling The Slopozoic Era, as we sink further and further into the morass, thanks not.) For the most part, the weather has been refreshingly mild, and sometimes positively balmy, for instance on Wednesday, with record-setting temperatures in the 70's throughout the region for a delightful change of pace. Of course, warmer weather can't help but turn our thoughts to brighter days ahead in spring, spurred along with early flowers in the yard, some hardy honeybees, and even robins on the wing, looking less and less out of place for this time of year. On the sports scene, you know it's getting far along in Spring Training when the teams have started playing actual games, rather than just drills and practices in the glorious sunshine. We already had the Yankees and Mets meet on the diamond - where they played to a 4-4 standoff, believe that or not - and which would certainly wreak havoc with the standings during the regular season, so it's just as well that these games don't count. This storied rivalry has enough of a draw that it lured Chris Christie to the ballpark for the event, although disgruntled New Jersey citizens might well have wondered what their governor was doing in Florida at the time. It won't be long before Opening Day is well and truly upon us, although it must be said that trying to play baseball in the more northerly climes in April has always been a dicey proposition at best, and a frost-bitten horror show at worst. In cities like Chicago and Detroit, I expect them to offer their patrons hot mulled cider and hearty stews in the place of the usual frosty cold beer, cotton candy, and ice cream of yore - and not to mention, stadium blankets and ear muffs instead of caps and tank tops. Garcon, more mini marshmallows in my hot chocolate, if you please! Last week also saw us observing yet another year of wedded bliss around the old homestead, which according to my calculations, brings us now up to (let's see now ..... if the sun rises in the east ..... divide by the hypotenuse ..... any month without a "Y" ..... then carry the 1 ..... turn counter-clockwise ..... times velocity squared ..... plus compound interest at 5.25% ..... stir to combine and shake until frothy) 5:00 in the afternoon on July 4, 1776. Oh, for heaven's sake, that's when the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence all over again.) In any case, we celebrated the occasion by going out to dinner at one of our favorite little hideaways, the cozy Mexican Corner Restaurant on Main Street, where everything is muy delicioso, and that's not just La Cucaracha talking, believe me. Their burrito con huevo y queso with papas fritas is a personal favorite of mine, and Bill is a fan of their rice and beans (hold the plantains) and we both love their luscious copa cabana fruit smoothies to round things out. The place is admittedly chilly in the winter, and way too hot in the summer, with only about 8 tables in the entire tiny space, and no room for bulky outerwear, much less a baby stroller, heaven forbid. But it features authentic ethnic cuisine, and plenty of it, not some bogus revisionist concoction that would be unrecognizable to anyone below the Rio Grande. Or perhaps it just seems that way to a gringo like me, who wouldn't know a chimichanga from a chalupa if I tripped over it - which would probably only happen if I was trying to do The Mexican Hat Dance at the same time. Senor, more cotija for my tortilla, por favor! The night was still young, so we went home and followed that up with a movie on our big screen TV in our recliners, with junk food at the ready, and if there's any way to improve upon that, well, I just don't know what it would take, by golly. We had previously seen "Monsters Inc.," a somewhat whimsical animated feature that we really liked, and so we figured we could give its subsequent prequel a try to see how it measured up - and that was how we wound up watching "Monsters University" on DVD, and finding much to like about it as well. Plus, we had the best seats in the house, and the snacks were exactly what we wanted, and even better, the price was certainly right - all of which cannot be said of the local neighborhood multi-plex, that's for sure. On the other hand, the multi-plex doesn't have cats walking on the table in front of the screen, so everything is a trade-off, I suppose. Meanwhile at church, we had a first for choir (which you would think would be virtually impossible for a congregation that's been in business since 1899) and which managed to be both unexpected and inadvertently comical at the same time, by all the saints. During Sunday worship, at the time of the Offering, the choir duly straggled up to the chancel steps to sing the Anthem, and much to the surprise of everyone present, somehow managed to launch into the piece by singing 2 different verses at the same time, and to the betterment of neither verse, I don't mind saying. In fact, I would go so far as to say that as a musical experiment, this had nothing to recommend it, and would have to be considered an utter failure, not only as an idea whose time had not come, but at this rate, will never come, and thankfully so, I dare say. It's unfortunately true that our current choir consists of only us 5 little old ladies, so it was extremely (one might say, jarringly) noticeable that we were not all singing the same words, as would be expected, and there was no place to hide, once we got off on the wrong foot, musically speaking. For some reason, the left half of the group started in by singing the second verse by mistake, while the right half of us were singing the first verse - and the poor alto in the middle didn't have any idea what to do with herself, and probably just stopped singing altogether, and who could blame her. The obvious solution would be choir anthems with only one verse, but on the other hand, why take all the fun out of something that doesn't have a whole lot of fun built into it in the first place. Now then, ladies, once more with feeling! And speaking of different, alert readers on social media may have been amused to see the recent post asking the musical question TURN BACK TIME, with a request to please "Cher" with others. (This only makes sense for those of us oldsters who remember the popular song from 1989, and understand the play on words behind the seemingly helpful post about the upcoming switch-over to Daylight Saving Time.) In any case, don't you believe it! Remember this weekend is the time to "spring ahead," rather than "fall back" by an hour, Cher or no Cher, or you would wake up to find yourself on Sunday already behind schedule by two hours, with the result that you'd be even worse off than if you had done nothing at all. Under the circumstances, if you feel you must take your time-setting cues from musical icons, you might consider Van Halen's "Jump," or some other forward-looking song that gives the impression of leaping ahead, rather than a wistful look back in nostalgia to a previous time. Ordinarily I would say that Facebook has put the time-shifting foxes in charge of the chronology hen house once again, but frankly, there seems to be nobody at all in charge of the Facebook frontier - it appears to be a wild and woolly outpost of unbridled license, where anything goes, and the normal rules of social interaction have ceased to apply. Sort of like the Presidential campaigns, only with less hot air and better cartoons. Or in the immortal words of Herman's Hermits, "Second verse, same as the first!" (NOT!!!) Elle

March of Time

Hello World, Happy March! I expect that not everybody will shed a tear to see the tail-end of February, and I doubt we'll be seeing people lining up to start its fan club, I dare say - especially in those locales hit with extreme weather conditions from blizzards to earthquakes, to mud slides, tornadoes, wild fires, floods, and everything in between, including some only mentioned in The Bible. But February is finally over at long last, and we've managed to kick it to the curb, however reluctant it may have gone, and be able to get on with our lives with a fresh and brand new month stretching out before us. Around here, the weather in February was unremarkable for the most part, and we dodged most of the meteorological tricks that Old Man Winter had up his sleeve, unlike some neighboring areas that weren't so lucky. It's still cold and blustery much of the time (or perhaps it just seems that way for the winter-weary among us) as it should be this time of year, but seeing the days getting longer is a welcome trend, and last week I spotted our first early crocus in the front yard, looking as jaunty as ever in purple clusters here and there. There's even about 4 inches of daffodil shoots starting to sprout up in the sunnier spots, some with buds already, like they just can't wait to burst forth in golden yellow exuberance. They're still weeks away from actually blooming, but a sight for sore eyes in the barren flowerbeds, promising hope for brighter days ahead. Say, where did that plague of locusts come from? Of course, everyone knows that it took longer to get out of February than usual, thanks to the extra day tacked on at the end, also known as Sadie Hawkins Day, traditionally accepted in folklore as a day when single women - even in olden times - could propose to the bachelor of their choice, and he would oblige, or pay a penalty for refusing. Alert readers may be wondering (and well may they wonder, indeed) why it is called Leap Year, since we don't leap over a day, we add a day. A cursory online search yields this relevant information: ====================================================== Going from one non-leap year (or "common year") to the next, the same day of the year will advance by one day of the week. But when the leap year day is added on Feb. 29, that same day of the year will advance by 2 days of the week. (June 10 was on a Tuesday in 2014, then on a Wednesday in 2015, but will be on a Friday in 2016, leaping over the Thursday.) ======================================================= "But wait," as they always say in late-night infomercials, "that's not all!" I don't know if they were leaping in ancient Rome, when this whole business started, but according to our friends at Workman Publishing and their very informative Word-A-Day calendar, it is properly referred to as a "bissextile year" instead. Here's how they describe it: ======================================================== When Julius Caesar reformed the calendar in 45 B.C., he stipulated that an extra day be added to February every four years. But the Romans didn't add the extra day at the end of the month; they inserted it after the 24th day of the month. The Romans reckoned days near the end of a month by counting backward from the first of the following month. Since February 24 is six days before March 1 (the Roman method of counting days included both the beginning day and the ending day), it was known as the sextus, or "sixth day." Caesar's extra day became a second sextus, or bissextus. English speakers adopted bissextile to refer to that extra day, even though its placement in the modern calendar makes that term a misnomer. ========================================================== So that's the scoop, the whole scoop, and nothing but the scoop, calendar fans, and we can't even blame it on the time-shifting foxes being put in charge of the chronology hen house once again, heaven knows, because Julius Caesar would have had that chicken coop running like a fine Swiss watch, and giving the over-matched foxes no chance to toss a monkey wrench into the works. Let's face it, 2061 years later, it's still holding up - although to say that it stands the test of time would not only be a very poor excuse for a pun, but also an understatement of epic proportions. E tu, Longines Wittnauer? And just when you think that the time could not get any more out of joint, or wonder if time is on my side, or the times they are a-changing, so we should let the good times roll - then along comes the dratted Daylight Saving Time next week on Sunday the 13th, where we spring ahead, lose an hour, and devil take the hind-most, thanks not. Actually, springing ahead fits right in with our timely theme of the moment, and just in time for Spring to appear the following Sunday on March 20th (which also happens to be Palm Sunday, of all things) and right on time - and not to mention, the Emperor Julius, the Druids and I ought to know. So next week at this time, when it's 8:00 in the morning, because of the inaptly named Daylight Saving Time, it will presumably be (let's see now ..... if the sun rises in the east ..... divide by the hypotenuse ..... any month without a "Y" ..... then carry the 1 ..... turn counter-clockwise ..... times velocity squared ..... plus compound interest at 5.25% ..... stir to combine and shake until frothy) 5:00 in the afternoon on July 4, 1776. Wait a minute, that can't be right, that's when the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. Oh well, it's something like that anyway, I never could figure this stuff out, with the time skittering all over the place like a drunken sailor on a 3-day pass. It's a good thing that modern technological devices all pretty much adjust for DST entirely on their own, or we'd all end up late to church on the 13th, or way too early, or on the wrong day completely, or back in the Continental Congress all over again, by George. Come to think of it, I have the feeling that you're supposed to take the square root of the thing, rather than divide by the hypotenuse after all. And while we're having the time of our lives, marking time, wasting time, or perhaps buying time, it certainly feels like we've all been doing some time travel lately, and looks a lot like the 1970's all over again - at least as far as gas prices are concerned. For those of us "of a certain age," who lived through the OPEC oil embargo and ensuing energy crisis of 1979, there's no way to forget the harrowing experience of odd-even gas rationing, long lines at the pump, and the entirely incomprehensible notion of prices going over $1.00 per gallon for the first time in history. (By contrast, when I started driving in 1973, regular gas was 25 cents a gallon, and people would routinely drive around scouting for an off-brand station to get it for 23 cents instead - ah, those were the days!) Oddly enough, it doesn't seem that long ago that gas prices were nipping at the heels of $5.00 per gallon, and people were spending more to fill up their cars, than a week's worth of grocery shopping - and even worse was the effect on airline tickets, home heating oil, and just about anything delivered by truck. At this point, nobody would ever imagine we'd live to see the day that gas prices would actually come DOWN again, and yet miraculously, that day has indeed dawned, and then some. A survey of local prices would find them dropping into the low $1.70's, believe it or not, and even the big brand names like Sunoco and Gulf are below $1.90, which would have seemed inconceivable just a couple of years ago. Why, next thing you know, it will be bell-bottoms, Pet Rocks, and disco music all over again, and don't spare the Bartles & Jaymes, my good man! In any event, there's a wealth of stuff that I don't miss from 1979, but frankly, I'm pretty sure that lower gas prices are something that we can all rally around, and that's not just a lot of Super Shell with Platformate, believe me. (The dinosaurs and I can assure you that young whipper-snappers today would fall over laughing if you tried to explain those old Platformate commercials to them nowadays, I dare say.) Personally, I'd love to stay here and enjoy the 1970's again as much as the next fellow, but unfortunately, it's time that I was getting back to the Continental Congress. Elle