Rats!

Hello World, Happy Spring! For those of us in this hemisphere, the vernal equinox arrived right on schedule, this past Monday morning, and while chilly at the time, blossomed into a rather lovely day, in spite of bedraggled piles of snow still scattered about from the unwelcome visit by Winter Storm Stella last week, thanks not. In fact, we've had a refreshing string of clear sunny days in a row in the area, which is not only a nice change of pace, but can't help but give us all hope for better days ahead - and not a moment too soon, I don't mind saying. Of course, there's also several channels on TV where you can watch pre-season baseball in all its glory, and I can assure you that the sights and sounds of robust young men tossing around the old horsehide out in the balmy hinterlands of Florida or Arizona - well, it's certainly a tonic for what ails you, and that's not just a lot of peanuts and Cracker Jacks, believe me. I've lived here long enough to know that all too soon we'll all be complaining about the heat, but right now, it's nice to have something to look forward to. That reminds me when we went to visit my sister on Long Island, we brought along a printout of a cartoon that had been making the rounds in cyberspace lately, and thought that my sister would get a kick out of it as well. She was indeed tickled by its humor, and asked to keep it so she could share it with friends and colleagues here and there, as a break from the routine drudgery of the average day. We were happy to oblige, but I warned her not to be surprised to find out that everyone else she knew, active on social media, had already seen it before on Facebook - or I explained, as they are calling it now, "Facebook minus Diane," since she's the only person in the entire world who still doesn't already have an account. She laughed. And speaking of social media, here is our LOL of the Day, courtesy of Twitter: ===================================== When the man who invented the intermittent windshield wiper died, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Then there was. Then there wasn't. ===================================== Meanwhile, I discovered last week that our friends at www.verizoncustomerservicenumber.com encourage us to "Leave Your Ratting for Verizon Customer Service!" Here I'm thinking, I have to very much doubt that they really want my "ratting" on their customer service, especially after being on hold with their telephone version of tech help (AS IF!) with loud scratchy synthesized music at such length, that I forgot who I had called, and when they did finally pick up, I asked to buy 2 tickets for the O'Jays concert. (Sorry, that was the punch line to a different joke altogether.) What with it being Lent and all, I figured I should refrain from leaving any "ratting" at their web site, but I admit it was a tempting opportunity that was hard to pass up - and that goes double for the rats, I dare say. And while we're on the topic of people not saying what they mean (one hopes!) here's a headline that you wouldn't expect there would be any reason to see, and yet here it was in last week's newspaper, big as life: ================================= Yonkers bans bullets in schools ================================= (I'm going to let that sink in for just a moment.) By golly, the dinosaurs and I can remember a time when the very thought of ammunition in school was so outlandish that there was no need to have a policy about it in the first place. Back in the day, as they say, that would have been like handing out a directive to say, "Until further notice, students and faculty are prohibited from bringing their unicorns onto school property." One might suppose that guns have already been banned by the minions overseeing the Yonkers school system, and bullets are simply following along in their wake of guilt by association, but this is not the case. They modified the Weapons Law [please insert elaborate eye rolling from our old friends the dinosaurs in The Peanut Gallery here] to criminalize bringing explosive devices to school, including bullets, ammunition, grenades, bombs, or fireworks. Well, all I can say is, school has certainly changed since the thousands of centuries since I graduated, and not necessarily for the better, I can tell you that. In other local news, Bill and I were going out to dinner last week when we collided head-on with some sort of police activity (which might have been nothing more than closing streets for a parade or block party, perhaps) and were therefore stymied in our attempts to reach our intended target for the meal of our choice. We were already hungry and getting grumpy, so we turned in the opposite direction to find some other eatery that we could actually reach, and we found ourselves at Pizza Hut, more or less out of the blue. We hadn't been there in years upon years, but we were prepared to give them another shot, on the assumption that things had changed since our last visit, which I believe was in The Paleozoic Era. Like many chains nowadays, they have completely revised their menu to include numerous pub-style options, like wings and sliders, to go along with their signature pizza, and we found their choices wide-ranging and interesting. We took a chance on their cheesy breadsticks, stuffed garlic knots, and French fries - which were not only out of this world, but each one was better than the next. I figured I would like the stuffed garlic knots, with the breadsticks and fries just tossed in for good measure, but they were all outstanding, and each one worth the trip all by itself. The breadsticks were clouds of savory goodness that seemed to simply melt away in your mouth, so that the entire platter was gone before you knew it. In contrast, the French fries were sturdy and deep fried, packing a wallop of hearty potato flavor that you just don't get anymore, and I could have made a meal of just that and been perfectly satisfied. I hate to say that the poor stuffed garlic knots, ostensibly the star of our meal, suffered in comparison to these other surprising treats, and while they were certainly delectable, we didn't rave over them like the others. We went home full and happy, and inordinately grateful to whoever's parade or block party prevented us from having another merely humdrum meal at our original destination, and missing a gastronomic adventure that was well worth the detour. Anyway, it was probably just as well, since the other place was right near a school, and I obviously would have had to ditch my bullets and unicorn first. Elle