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