Fish And Game

Hello World, Happy May! Ready or not, the new month will start on Monday, although I admit that it doesn't seem remotely possible, since it feels like it was just Valentines Day about 15 minutes ago. Of course, May Day has been celebrated by just about everybody there ever was, since just about the beginning of time, for just about every purpose under the sun, and no signs of letting up yet. Our friends at Info Please (and please feel free to go right ahead and visit their web site at www.infoplease.com and see for yourself) have this to say about it: ================================ May 1st, often called May Day, just might have more holidays than any other day of the year. It's a celebration of Spring. It's a day of political protests. It's a neo-pagan festival, a saint's feast day, and a day for organized labor. In many countries, it is a national holiday. ================================ They go on to explain that the ancient Druids were already celebrating spring with the revelries of Beltane, when the Romans came to town with their own spring festival known as Floralia, and eventually elements of the two events became intermingled over the course of time. Other early civilizations, such as in India and Egypt, held fertility festivals on the day, while in 8th century Germany, they honored an early Christian apostle, St. Walburga, with Walburgisnacht, where the faithful would engage in rituals to drive out the witches and demons among them. It was in medieval England that they began the tradition of dressing up in colorful flowers and ribbons, elaborate dancing around the Maypole, and the crowning of a May Queen. By the late 1800's, labor unions all over the world were fighting for the 8-hour day, and May 1st became known as Labor Day in several countries following the Haymarket Riots of 1886 in Chicago - although ironically, not here in this country, where it all started. In the 1950's, trying to distance themselves from the communist implications of the workers revolting, the Pope designated May 1 as the Feast of St. Joseph, while President Eisenhower declared it Loyalty Day instead. As if all this wasn't enough, on May 1 2006, protesters once again took to the streets across America with rallies, strikes, and consumer boycotts in support of immigration reform. Whew! Like the World Meteorological Organization retiring hurricane names once they create too much damage, I truly believe that The Holiday Police need to step in here and permanently close May 1st for any other purposes that people want to pile on top of it, since it's obviously already doing more than its fair share of the heavy lifting for a plethora of ideologies as it is. And for all of you Druids out there (and you know who you are) I don't want to hear any backtalk, believe me. A spate of chilly and wet weather recently has in no way slowed down the burgeoning progression of spring flowers on all sides, and their cheerful disregard of the cold and damp gives us courage to face the inclement weather with the same resolve. The bleeding heart is already a picture in pink, and we only have one checkered lily, but it's blooming its little heart out, believe me. The lamium has just started to put forth its sunny yellow flowers, but it won't be long before whole swaths of our yard are a sweeping sea of golden delight. Our doggedly resilient lily of the valley, which we have given up for dead many times, is holding its own in the flower beds against some pretty stiff competition. We also have a small and sturdy ground cover in the back yard, which I'm sure is widely recognized with horror as a pest by botanists everywhere, but we appreciate its jolly purple flowers, and applaud its stamina in the face of obstacles. And speaking of invasive interlopers, the dreaded garlic-mustard is already knee high, and to say that it's running amok throughout the property unchecked would be an understatement of epic proportions, I can assure you. Oh well, it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who once famously observed, “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” I would have to say there's no arguing with that. On the frozen front, the Rangers did somehow manage to boot the Canadiens out of the playoffs in 6 games, and advanced to the second round against the Ottawa Senators. The tattered remnant of first-round survivors is down to Anaheim, Edmonton, Nashville, New York, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Washington DC at this point. In those two-sport cities, the hockey teams from Boston, Chicago, and Toronto have already been eliminated, and one of those cities was doomed to double failure in basketball as well, since Boston and Chicago played each other in the first round, unfortunately. All hopes were resting on the Wizards to hold off the Hawks, for a chance at both of the teams representing the nation's capital to make it into their respective second rounds. For the purposes of the playoffs, success in the NHL is measured in points, not necessarily the won-loss record, and over the course of 82 games, the conventional wisdom holds that a team must have at least 100 points to qualify for post-season play. In the regular season, it was the Capitals who ran away with it, compiling an impressive 55-19-8 record and racking up a whopping 118 points. On the other hand, Nashville squeaked into the playoffs with a mere 94 points, and promptly swept Chicago (109 points) right out on their backsides with impunity, and several other high-point clubs - Columbus (108), Minnesota (108), Montreal (103), and San Jose (99) - also failed to make it out of the first round. On the hoops side of things, the second round will be starting off with the likes of Boston, Cleveland, Golden State, Houston, San Antonio, Toronto, and Washington DC, plus the winner between the Clippers and Jazz, the only series to go the full 7 games. It was novelist Herman Melville who dreamed up the idea of a "Cinderella team," an unheralded underdog that enjoys on an unlikely winning streak in the championships, although ultimately losing to the powerhouse favorite at the end, alas. But if this was Hollywood writing the scripts, they couldn't do better than both Washington DC teams winning at the same time in two different sports. Besides, if it doesn't happen, we can chalk it up to the Curse of Hillary Clinton. In other sports news, such as it is, I admit to a life-long aversion to golf, as a boring waste of time, not only playing it (Mark Twain waggishly described the game as "a good walk spoiled") but also watching on television in the old days, I would liken it to watching paint dry. But like so many things from the past, golf has really changed over the years, and now, a robust crop of younger players use all manner of technology to enhance their game, and the broadcasters bring an equal amount of digital wizardry to their coverage, so it's really nothing like the hushed and stultifying snooze-fest of yesteryear, by any means. On our cable system, we have The Golf Channel as one of our hi-def choices, and after happening upon it, I found their broadcasts deceptively seductive. First of all, wherever the tournament is coming from, the scenery is outstanding, with lush green rolling courses, snow white sand, and all the beckoning blue water that anyone could ever hope for, all in one place. In between shots, the cameras pan lovingly over arrays of exquisite flowers, or interesting local wildlife enjoying the bounties of nature, such as pelicans, herons, rabbits, ducks, cranes, hawks, otters, owls, and egrets, for instance. They also don't show the play in order, but rotate between different players at different holes, which is a surprisingly effective tactic. It's nice to see the seasoned veteran sink a birdie putt to take the lead, or the dogged amateur battle out of trouble to save par, but I invariably find myself wondering, "Yeah, but whatever happened to that guy whose tee shot sailed over the crowd, hit a tree, bounced over the cart path, and wound up in the parking lot?" And then I just keep watching until they show me his second shot - but after that, I'm left with the mystery of the other fellow who artfully chipped out of a sand trap on one side of the green, only to roll into a water hazard on the other side, for heaven's sake. Interestingly (well, only to us, probably) since I've been watching, one of our cats, who previously showed no interest in the big-screen TV in the slightest, has become mesmerized with golf, and he will sit and watch it as long as it's on. He loves to see the little white balls roll along the green turf, and he often reaches out to bat at them as they go by. We used to have a cat that liked to watch hockey, but not since then have any of our resident felines taken up a sport with the fascination that Domino has for golf. Actually, what I find most amazing about it above all, is that at this time of year, when most of the play comes from clubs in the south or southwest, that each and every one of them appears to be primarily a resort for wayward alligators, which you would think would be considered terrifying by even the loosest standards. In fact, the lumbering creatures seem to make themselves right at home on the course, and even tournament staff trying to fend them off with brooms or rakes barely get their attention, much less make them move to any degree at all. Apparently, everyone accepts this "amphibian hazard" as "par for the course," as it were, and even the announcers rarely make mention of it, unless the gators are genuinely interfering with play - at which point, they send the poor caddy over to shoo it off. (AS IF!) It's a wonder to me that you don't hear more about golfers being chomped on by marauding alligators, although it's possible that instead of stringing up fences to keep the giant beasts off the links, the management just plies them with enough fish to keep them fat and happy, rather than seeing the players as their next meal. Well, all I can say is that as much as I want to believe that the alligator feeding crew is conscientious about their jobs, I have the feeling that the only way they're going to get me on a golf course at this point is in a suit of armor, thank you very much. And the Druids can just keep their snarky comments to themselves, if you please. Elle

On Thin Ice

Hello World, Happy Earth Day! Saturday would be the time to do your ecologically-correct part for the environment, show Planet Earth some much needed love, and generally treat Mother Nature with the same care and respect as you would for your very own mother, as we all should, I dare say. After all, she has certainly pulled out all the stops so far when it comes to spring flowers, and everywhere you look, you see her busy hands at work in painterly landscapes that cannot fail to delight all of our senses. Our white anemone and creeping phlox have clothed the ratty driveway in floral splendor, while the grape hyacinths and money plants have joined the profusion of violets in turning the lawn into a veritable purple paradise. Early tulips have popped open, cheery star flowers have brightened up even the dreariest corners, and overhead, the stately magnolia is showering us with its creamy pink and white blossoms. And yes, not to mention, sunny dandelions all over the yard, giving our resident bees something to buzz about, and glad of it. You've got to give the old gal credit, she's still got it, in spades - especially considering that she is, I hate to point out, older than dirt, and I ought to know. Meanwhile, the playoffs continue apace for hoops and hockey fans alike, tantalizing their followers in more than two dozen cities across the hemisphere as diverse as Atlanta, Calgary, Cleveland, Edmonton, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Memphis, Milwaukee, Montreal, New York, Oklahoma City, Portland, San Antonio, San Jose, and St. Louis, or their environs. Since the hockey playoffs started first, a few teams who swept their hapless opponents out of the first round (the Ducks of Anaheim, Nashville Predators, and Pittsburgh Penguins) have already advanced to the second round, and just waiting for the rest of the first-round contests to be decided. Mind you, it must be said that there are some unlucky fans in two-sport cities - such as Boston, Chicago, Toronto, and even Washington DC - who could potentially see both of their teams lose, on two different types of surfaces, basically at the same time, alas. All that matters in our house is that the Rangers squeaked into the playoffs with no room to spare, and are so far holding their own against the Canadiens, but as they say, "It ain't over 'til it's over," so it remains to be seen if they can pull it off in the end. The second round would bring them up against either Ottawa or Boston, and that would be no walk in the park either, I can tell you that. Where, oh where, is the darned Curse of Affirmed when you really need it? Of course, last Sunday was Easter for the Christian community all over the world, and as usual, the Easter Bunny had his hands full, hopping down the bunny trail and filling jaunty baskets with candy and treats for the young and young-at-heart everywhere. On the home front, we've made a concerted effort to cut down on junk food and trinkets, so the floppy-eared gadabout brought us some lovely plants in their place, and our yard will be improved with some beautiful tulips, more hyacinths (there's no such thing as too many hyacinths, by golly) and a very colorful hydrangea to replace the venerable specimen of Bill's parents, which has since gone the way of all flesh, as it were. We also took the opportunity to visit my sister on Long Island, where lunch at Denny's is always a treat, and this no different. Thus fortified, we set out on what turned into a marathon shopping spree, trying to track down the perfect keyboard for a new computer that was not only an unwelcome surprise at her workplace, but came saddled with an obsolete clunky keyboard that even Thak, before he invented the wheel, would have rejected out of hand. It was interesting going to a variety of electronics stores we had never been to before, as well as retail hubs like Roosevelt Field, which over the course of many decades, has now become completely unrecognizable from my childhood memories of the place, I can tell you that. After hours on the go, we were glad to finally settle down with some pizza for dinner, and there were even some seasonal confections thoughtfully provided by the Easter Bunny that my sister was kind enough to share with us, for all of our efforts on her behalf. We even squeezed in a trip to our old junior high school (they call them "middle" schools now) and a phalanx of officials didn't come flying out to seize us forcibly, so I guess that only goes to prove that their facial-recognition software is on the fritz, and a lucky thing, too. As the immortal Shakespeare derided the engineer who was "hoist with his own petard" in Hamlet, I must admit that I am always quick to poke fun at others for their mixed metaphors and linguistic mis-steps, but it's true that I am also not immune to the occasional faux pas, much as I would prefer to believe otherwise. I actually found myself saying this at work last week, when we were discussing a construction job that was not progressing as smoothly as might be hoped. "Well, anybody could see the handwriting on the wall with this project, and you could tell that was just the tip of the iceberg." (???) Now, I'm happy to report that the person I work with was too polite to laugh, but I could literally hear the elaborate eye rolling from our old friends the dinosaurs in The Peanut Gallery without even trying, not to mention their ill-mannered snickering on top of it all, thanks not. Oh well, I always say, "This is how we know we haven't all died and gone to Heaven, because things are not perfect." In fact, if things were perfect, it would spell the end of my weekly contribution to Internet clutter, because there would be nothing left to say that would be of any interest to anybody - and what our old friends the dinosaurs, the KGB agents monitoring my email, and the evil spirit of Affirmed would find to do with themselves after that, well, I simply have no idea, I'm sure. In any case, I just heard that my junior high school has summoned Thak to come over and fix their facial-recognition software, so I figure that I'd better make myself scarce before he grabs his keyboard and rolls right on over there. Let's face it, there's a reason why people always say, "No good can come of this," and they're usually right. Elle

Say It With Flowers

Hello World, April greetings to one and all! We've had some nasty and blustery weather in our area lately, but we've also been treated to some glorious balmy days that can't help but make a person believe in better days ahead, by Jove. But rain or shine, it hasn't stopped the spring flowers from busting out all over, and a more welcome sight would be hard to beat, I can tell you that. There's still hardy crocus peppered throughout the yard, joined now by early hyacinths lending their heavenly fragrance to the environs. The usually vibrant daffodils suffered mightily at the hands of Winter Storm Stella, leaving only bedraggled remnants behind, alas. But the explosion of wind flowers and glory-of-the-snow has turned the front yard into a veritable carpet of periwinkle and white, with the neighbors' forsythia sprinkling their golden yellow cheer around the perimeter. Even the creeping phlox has popped up already, and around town, the flowering trees and shrubs are just about ready to show off their colorful charms. Coming home from work last week, I noticed the highway ramp was a sea of sunny buttercups, and I also spotted a parking lot with what appeared to be lavender azaleas, although that seems way too early for me. Can dandelions be far behind? I think not! In other news, this has turned into an eventful week, with a confluence of notable occasion and occurrences that we don't often find all cobbled together like this - not only bookended with Palm Sunday on one side and Easter on the other, but Passover in the middle besides. We are also sharing Easter Sunday with our Eastern Orthodox kindred, which rarely happens, since they are usually lagging behind the rest of Christendom by at least a week. Apparently, local schools are closed for some sort of seasonal break as well, which these days could be for just about any old reason they can think of, or no particular reason whatsoever. (Although it must be said that the dinosaurs and I can't help but wonder how youngsters can be expected to learn anything nowadays, when schools seem to close up shop at the drop of a hat - unlike the ancient days when we trudged to class regardless of weather, or weather forecast, and there was no such thing as spring break, teachers conferences, winter recess, or any other such newfangled malarkey, believe me.) Also on tap this week, the start of the NHL playoffs, which seems completely astonishing to me this early in April, since the coveted Stanley Cup isn't even awarded to anybody until June, for heaven's sake. On a positive note, beleaguered taxpayers get a reprieve from the dreaded April 15th deadline this year, as the filing date has been changed to the 18th in 2017 because the 15th is a Saturday, and the following Monday is observed as a holiday in the District of Columbia. Well, if that's not enough bunnies, monies, school books, and hockey pucks for everybody, I just don't know that it would take, by golly. Speaking of Palm Sunday, everyone knows by now that this is the highlight of the church year, at least for our cats, that is. I always make sure to bring home a whole handful of them, and they pounce on them like a drowning man on a life preserver. They will still play with them when they've dried out and gotten crispy, but there's nothing like fresh palms to wind them up and get them cavorting around like a bunch of kittens in a yarn factory. It's a lucky thing that early Christians invented Palm Sunday, rather than Millstone Sunday or Chariot Sunday, to give the cats something to look forward to, even thousands of years later. Of course, the kitties will tell you that space visitors from The Cat Planet came here to help ancient civilizations build the pyramids, Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, and (obviously) Easter Island, so I guess it's no wonder that they tossed in a special day into the church calendar just for their own entertainment. Remember, you heard it here first, folks. In other astonishing news, alert readers may have noticed this startling tidbit on the AOL Welcome screen earlier in the week: ===================================== Kylie Jenner looks totally different without makeup The reality star is known for her makeup kits and painstaking beauty regiment ===================================== Excuse me??? Now, I realize that her only job in life is to look good in public, but do they honestly want us to believe that she actually has an entire regiment devoted to this? (Mind you, our friends at Merriam-Webster define a regiment as "a permanent unit of an army typically commanded by a colonel and divided into several companies, squadrons, or batteries and often into two battalions." Frankly, even for a world-wide celebrity who may actually look homely without her cosmetics, that seems like an epic amount of overkill, and I have to believe that the colonel would agree with me on this, I dare say. Surely this so-called beauty regiment could have been reduced to a mere troop, unit, or patrol, and left the regiment to handle more important problems around the globe. I guess this explains why they have the famous saying, "War is heck." And while we're on the topic of vive la guerre (youngsters, you can go ahead and ask your grandparents about that one) we get the following from Bill, regarding an old acquaintance from the neighborhood, who has since relocated to France: ============================================ Since Sophie Dillard and I became friends on Facebook, I get a lot of French posts. Didn't understand this one, so I finally acknowledged my ignorance and clicked on the translation button. Thank heavens I have that, or I'd be completely in the dark about what that said. Vladimir Livran: "Comme diez Picasso Je suis a cote watteau le Gilles sublimes comment oublier le recontre. Le Louvre depuis la naissance du monde." Translation: "Like Diez Picasso I'm next to watteau the gilles sublime how can I forget the encounter. The Louvre since the birth of the world." {Automatically Translated} ============================================== Ah, next to watteau the gilles sublime, indeed! How fortunate for us all to live in this day and age of modern technology, where automatic translation can clear up these language mysteries, and bring welcome comprehension out of confusion at the click of a button. Well, at least the Louvre since the birth of the world, anyway. Personally, it sounds like ancient aliens from The Cat Planet got mixed up in this somehow, and let's face it, how could they possible forget the encounter, I ask you that. Now, I'd love to just keep on blathering on and on and on, but I'm afraid I have to wrap this up - the colonel is here with the rest of my beauty regiment, and I hate to keep those battalions waiting. Elle

Off The Wagon

Hello World, And so here we are, just getting around to wishing everyone a very happy April, and it's already time for Palm Sunday on top of everything else. Of course, as everyone knows, except the godless Communists and KGB agents monitoring my email (whose name is legion, heaven knows) Palm Sunday wraps up the season of Lent in a big way, and ushers in Holy Week with Maundy Thursday and Good Friday riding its proverbial coat-tails to boot. Easter is right around the corner - although it seems impossible to believe that now, with stores awash with bunnies, eggs, and baskets since January, after all. Also hard on the heels of Palm Sunday is Passover beginning on Monday, another slippery character among movable feasts that you can never be sure where it's going to turn up next. Earlier in this week, diehard fans in the throes of winter-weary doldrums were finally greeted with all the pomp and ceremony of Opening Day festivities in major league cities all across the country, and while half of them were disappointed at the outcome, there's still plenty of baseball ahead for everyone to enjoy. The teams have only been playing since Sunday, and so far the Orioles have been running away with it in the AL East, going 4-0 to start with. I just love first-week results, if only for their entertainment value in comparison to the standings later in the year over the course of more games played. It should remind us all to be wary of statistics based on a tiny sample size, because there's a good chance it won't prove to be a representative example over the long haul. Of course, the possibility exists that Baltimore will go undefeated this year, and wind up the season at a perfect 162-0, and for anyone who believes that, please contact me right away, because I have a bridge for sale that would be right up your alley, by George. In other local news, I'm happy to report that I was able to get an appointment from the cornea center for the laser treatment last week on my other eye, and I don't mind saying, better late than never. Unlike the first time around, this whole process had more bumps in the road that I was expecting based on past experience - especially in terms of pain and swelling, and was in no way an improvement over the first one, I can tell you that. But little by little, the drawbacks are subsiding and the advantages are pulling to the forefront, so I'm looking forward to a positive and steady recovery, and a nicely enhanced outcome when all is said and done. Having worn glasses for distance since I was 8 years old, it's really going to be a brave new world out there, all these decades later, actually being able to see clearly through both eyes at the same time, basically for the first time in my life. Frankly, at this point, I don't want to be disappointed, so everybody out there in the wide world had better spruce up and look their best, thank you very much. Speaking of things you don't necessarily expect to see, I found myself coming home from work last week behind what appeared to be a standard-looking Mercedes Benz, all solid black, shiny and new. Because we were stopped at a traffic light, I looked at it more closely, and found myself remarking involuntarily, "They can't possibly be calling that thing a BRABUS." (???) (!!!) BRABUS??? How do you sell a car in this country and call it a BRABUS? What's next - the PANTYVAN? The GIRDLECOUPE?? The BOXERWAGON??? I mean, really, folks. Here's what our friends at wikipedia have to say about it ========================== BRABUS GmbH, founded 1977 by Bodo Buschmann and Klaus Brackman in Bottrop (Ruhr Area), Germany, is a high-performance aftermarket tuning company which specializes in Mercedes-Benz, Smart, and Maybach vehicles. Brabus became the largest Mercedes tuner, other than Mercedes-AMG which became a DaimlerChrysler affiliate in the 1990s. ========================== Well, now, that's just about as clear as mud, thanks not, and certainly does nothing to address the question of cars driving around named after underwear for all the world to see. Hey, I didn't get my eyes fixed for this, you know. A normal person would be forgiven for presuming that would be all of our vehicular news for the week and leave it at that. Not so fast! Recently, some of the neighbors banded together in support of a parochial school project collecting non-perishable groceries for the local food pantry, and they sent out a broadcast email asking the rest of us for our contributions of additional help, canned goods, and little red wagons to carry them off with. Based on the voluminous replies among the residents, it would appear that every single household in the entire neighborhood, ours included, has a little red wagon in their possession - which in this day and age has to tell you something right there, and probably sets some kind of record for vintage appurtenances from a bygone era, I dare say. Meanwhile, in more contemporary news, alert readers may have noticed reports on Facebook about a new robot that has been developed which can mow the lawn, rake leaves, and shovel snow - rather than just performing parlor tricks like climbing stairs or serving a cold brewski to your friends. Well, all I have to say about that is, sign me up! Our friends at www.forbes.com, not in the least deterred by the $4,000.00 price tag, explain it this way: =========================== If mowing the grass, raking the leaves and especially shoveling snow aren't leisure-time activities you look forward to, relief is on the horizon. A robot named Kobi will do all of these things for you because yard work is so last year. Kobi is an autonomous electric-powered robot (like a Roomba) that comes with attachments for grass cutting, leaf blowing and snow shoveling. The robot is equipped with what the manufacturer calls a high-end GPS and several positioning sensors that feed it information about where it is, obstacles in its path and the height of the ground under the unit. You walk it around the perimeter of your yard so it can learn the boundaries of your property, guide it around permanent obstacles like trees, and show it where to dump leaves and grass. Kobi has bluetooth, WiFi and mobile data connectivity. You communicate with it through a mobile phone app that allows you to set times when it can and can't work. Because Kobi receives weather reports, it gets to work when the snow starts and continually clears your driveway while it's snowing rather than waiting until a large amount of snow has accumulated. =========================== Also climbing on board the Kobi bandwagon, the folks at www.money.cnn.com hasten to assure us that once the robot has been programmed to recognize "the perimeter of the lawn, it won't accidentally destroy someone's prized rose bush or start roaming the neighborhood." Obviously these people have not seen enough sci-fi movies of robots running amok and taking over the world, or they would realize that the bigger concern would be if the Kobi can use all of its various mobile connectivity to put it in touch with those parlor trick robots to bring over a bunch of beers, so they can all hang out and get hammered, rather than doing any actual work. After that, it's just a matter of time before they call Mercedes Benz and request a PANTYVAN, and by that point, well, all bets are off. Elle