Another week has passed and today is Sunday, March 2.  It’s March already!  And we are still getting snow! There are only 270 days until Thanksgiving, so if you start thawing the bird now you should be able to get that bag of innards out of the turkey in time to cook it.  Today we recognize the birthdays of Ludovico Spontoni, Leon Jongen and Witold Szalonec.  On this day in 1498, Vasco da Gama’s fleet visited Mozambique Island, in 1836 the Republic of Texas declared independence from Mexico and in 1983 compact disc recordings developed by Phillips and Sony were introduced.  It is Peasant’s Day in Burma, Battle of Aduwa Day in Ethiopia and Independence Day in Texas.

I think it is safe to say that I am becoming somewhat addled.  The other day I was ironing some shirts and I was having a problem with one of them.  There was a wrinkle in it that I could not get rid of.  I gave it several shots of extra steam, I turned the heat up on the iron, I sprayed it with water, all to no effect.  Finally, in a fit of pique (I am using some of these words to prove that I am not as far gone as you might think), I picked the shirt up to look at it closely to see if I could figure out what the problem was.  Miraculously, the wrinkle went away.  I put it back on the ironing board and the wrinkle was back.  I only had to pick it up and put it down one more time to realize that there was no wrinkle.  I was trying to iron out a part of the design in the ironing board cover that showed through the shirt.

Three things came to me immediately.  One is that I need to get better lighting when I am ironing, two is that I need to be more aware of what I am doing when I iron and three is that our next board cover should not have any designs.  If it does, the lines should say “this is not a wrinkle” all over.

There are other things that concern me as I get older.  One is caused partly by my being alone during the day.  I find that I talk to myself a lot.  Some of it is to remind me of the things I have to do during the day.  Some of it is to remind me that I have just completed a project or chore.  Some of it is to just hear a voice.  As much as it pains me to say this, I can be boring when I talk to myself.  I find that I talk about things that I have just done or plan to do.  Since I already know about these things, none of it is new and refreshing.

The lovely Elaine has made it official.  She is retiring from teaching, after 40 some years, at the end of this school year.  HOORAY!!!!  It will be nice to have someone else to talk to, although I fear she will be as bored as I am.  She claims that I will have to get a part-time job or a hobby that takes me out of the house because she will need her alone time.  Trust me.  After the first year or so, that will get old (I hope). 

In any event, I am looking forward to her retiring.  Almost everyone we see that has retired looks 10 years younger.  When that happens, I will have to start referring to her as the lovelier Elaine.  It will also be nice to wake up, decide it is a nice day and just take off and go somewhere.  It will also be good to be able to go to the places we like to visit in the middle of the week when the hotel rates are lower and it is easier to get a room.  All in all, there is a lot to be said for her retiring, my need for a part-time job or hobby not-withstanding. 

On another tack, I was watching TV recently and noticed something else that I thought was odd.  I realized that there were two different ways that people approaching a door are handled.  If the person who is the focal point of the story is inside the house, you usually hear a doorbell ring.  If the person is outside, for example a detective or federal agent, they always knock on the door.  The doorbell is there, you can see the button, but they knock.  I wonder why that is.  Are law enforcement people trained to knock as a means of causing fear in the people inside?  Are they so intent on what they are about to do that they don’t see the doorbell and just knock?  Or is the person writing the script sitting at home by himself all the time and just forgets that there is a doorbell?

Another question is why is the doorbell rung when the person is inside?  I would think that the effect would be more startling if there was a knock.  Picture this – Jack and Jill have just come home after tumbling down the hill.  They are sitting in their living room, still damp from the water spilling out of the pail, and Jill is applying an ice pack to Jack’s crown.  They are hoping that the injury is not serious because they do not want to go to a hospital.  The accident would have to be reported and they were trespassing on federal land and stealing the water.  Suddenly there is a knock on the door.  Startled, Jill drops the ice pack in Jack’s lap, causing another injury that, fortunately, the ice pack will help.  

“Holy S---!” Jacks yelps.  “Is that the feds?  Why don’t they just ring the bell like a normal person?”

It turns out to be two young men in white shirts and ties, carrying briefcases, who ask her if she has found Jesus.  Jill tells them she didn’t even know he was missing, slams the door in their faces and goes back to tending to Jack.  I think that is a better explanation of knocking versus doorbell ringing, don’t you?

This week our fact tells us that a cheetah can reach a top speed approaching 70 mph.  That means that if I ever go to Africa, I had better be able to reach 71 mph.  On my last job I saw people go faster than that when free food was put out.  

Hey, have a good week!