Tag Life

Everyone Happens for a Reason

Michael 2 Comments

Buried under all the recent CoViD-19 news, a variety of natural disasters, and a couple of mass shootings, the really big news was pretty much missed. Last week the 2021 Oscar nominations were finally announced!

I’ve checked out all the entertainment news outlets and I haven’t seen one yet this year but soon, because there is at least one every year, soon there will be an article about some actor who had turned down one of the nominated roles. “I coulda been a contender!”

The saying is “everything happens for a reason.” Maybe it should be. or at least be augmented with, “everyone happens for a reason.” Everyone does you know.  We all have our purpose and that purpose is ours alone. We’ll not do anything just like anybody else and whyever the genes mixed however they mixed when they were mixing to make one of us, there was going to be only one of us. (Thoughts on identical twins still pending.)

The good actors, that is to say the actors who happen to be good people (they are a few) will joke about missing out on a possible award winning role and say, “Oh yeah that could have been me. As the line goes, ‘I coulda been a contender,‘ but I’d not have been half as good.” The rest of them are not so magnanimous. Surely they would have given not just nominated performances but certain award winning performances just because they are they. They are them? It is unthinkable that the hard work and superior skill of anybody else might have actually contributed to one’s nomination.

Bad actors aren’t the only bad actors in the world. We may all have had some moment in life where we made a decision to do or not to do and had we instead not done or done, life may have been significantly different. We fell victim to the shoulda, coulda, woulda syndrome. If I had gone to school, if I had taken that job, if I had played that game, if I had married that person I would be the one with the book deal, the corner office, the vacation home, or the beautiful children. Of course it wasn’t the school or the job or the partner that made any of those things happen. It was the effort of the one in those positions. In truth, when we made those decisions to do or not to do we already set into motion something significant. If our effort would have been great enough to be of value going down one path it also would have been going down another.

DirectionYears ago I saw a poster I shoulda bought. I’m sure it woulda made all the difference. I coulda had it on the wall always to remind me to take the right path, which woulda been remarkable because in truth it said I shoulda not take any path. Of course you coulda figured it out by now. It was Emerson’s quote, “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Even without the poster (which woulda likely gotten lost by now anyway) I think I figured out that it’s not the role that makes me me. It’s how I fill it.

I’m not a contender. I’m already a winner.

A Tale of One City

Michael 2 Comments

It was the best of times, it was the worst … no, wait, that’s taken. That’s two cities anyway. How about: it was the best of intentions, it was the worst of intentions. The one city is here, the time was Saturday.

20210321_200444Saturday afternoon might have been one of the better times for this fair city as a small group peacefully assembled with speakers in support of the “Stop Asian Hate” movement, supporting the local and national Asian communities. The diverse group was mostly college aged people with some families and one celebrity who was in town filming a movie. The rally started at a corner a little bit out of the downtown district and after the speakers spoke they move to a nearby park and held a moment of silence for the those slain in Atlanta. It was a good, positive time, Definitely one of the better times. But then again . . .

Earlier Saturday a group of a few hundred gathered at the baseball stadium and accompanied by motorcycle mounted police, they march across a bridge, through town, then to the large state  park that dominates the focal point of downtown. There celebrities, local and state politicians, and candidates for upcoming races assembled to make speeches opposing the ongoing state mask mandate and protesting the results of the 2020 Presidential election. Still. One of the participants spoke about the danger of the right to bear arms “being taken away.” One of the speakers referred to Donald Trump as “the real President of the United States” from the podium. One of the marchers said “freedom is tenuous” when asked about his opposition to the mask mandate.

There is a local TV reporter who each morning posts an inspirational message to her social media accounts. Sunday’s was “Don’t wait for things to get simpler, easier, better. Life will always be complicated. Learn to be happy right now. Otherwise you’ll run out of time.” it’s a great message. The people at the small “Stop Asian Hate” rally would get that. The people at the whatever it was supposed to be rally never could understand that and probably wouldn’t bother to try. Yet those are the people who if they did try and then stopped trying to make everything “better” by their own definition and just be happy that they have the opportunities so many other people around the world do not, there wouldn’t be a danger of not having enough time for happiness. There might be an overabundance of happiness because the rest of the world, the majority of the world I am certain, wouldn’t have to spend so much time protecting themselves from the ones who are never happy.

It’s sad that a small but so loud group of people so desperately clinging to a fantasy still garner so much attention and cause such an extreme amount of hate that a peaceful group of people, ones of all ages, colors and ethnicities, are held hostage by the fear that that desperate ones might any moment mutate into desperados.

I was right the first time I thought about it. Saturday afternoon indeed represented a better of times in my one fair city. Let’s just leave it at that.

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Shades of Black and White

Michael 5 Comments
I’m usually as upbeat as possible for a person who legitimately should have died 3 or 4 times over the last twenty years. I think my posts reflect that I can be at the same time serious about life, enjoying life, and making fun of life and life’s attempts to abandon me. But the past week has taken a toll on me. I haven’t found a lot to keep my spirits up without working really really hard at it myself.
 
Every day brings new opportunities for honesty, understanding, and collaboration. These are the things that make the world a reasonable place for such a diverse group of people to share. It used to be that only the nuts with an antisocial media account would be telling you that their way is the only way, they are right and everybody else is wrong. But now normally rational people have hopped onto the “I am right, you are wrong and never the twain shall meet” bandwagon. Every day brings new opportunities for mankind to demonstrates how little tolerance we actually have for, well, for just about everything.
 
Here are some certainties that aren’t. In truth not all cops are killers, not all protesters are anarchists. At the same time it is also true that not all cops are blameless and not all protesters are righteous. Wait. What? How can this be?! Yes, it is true, not everybody in a group as a profession, or party, or country, or race, or those with exactly the same length of their left thumbs share 100% all the attributes of every single other person of the same grouping. Our pea sized brains surely will not explode if we do not lump all of a type into a single category.
 
PSX_20200928_101907There are no absolutes in the world. Even the adage nothing is certain except death and taxes isn’t so. Taxes are easily avoided if you’re willing to do some work. If you don’t think you should have to pay income tax on your new fall outfit you can buy it in a state that doesn’t tax clothes. If you feel you are paying too much income tax, move to a country where taxes are not levied against your earnings. Don’t want to pay the transfer tax on a the purchase new house? Remodel the old instead. Death is a little trickier. Eventually all of us will succumb to something but it’s pretty certain that with proper care and again a little work on our parts, we can extend our time here. Cancer, organ failure, and rare diseases are no longer the harbinger of inevitable demise they were. I present me as Exhibit A. If we can avoid or at least mitigate the dynamic duo of death and taxes, we can certainly learn to recognize gray areas in other aspects of life and live with them comfortably.
 
Consider this. Not all mushrooms are poisonous, some are tasty, some of the tasty ones are poisonous. You don’t have freakishly superhuman intelligence to accept these somewhat contradictory thoughts can be simultaneously true. You may “like mushrooms to death” but you also know that certain mushrooms can lead to actual death. Those you learn not to eat. You can determine which are good to eat and which are not either by completing an intense focused education including identification of natural toxins and become a mushroom expert or you trust experts to do this for you and buy what has been proven safe for human consumption. The key is the work behind the expertise and trust in the process.
 
There is no single facet of life that is an absolute this or that, right or wrong. Except for the fact of life that there is no facet of life that is an absolute this or that, right or wrong. Go ahead, I dare you to prove me wrong. Or right. That should keep some people busy!
 
Ah, now I feel better. 
 
 
 
 

The Things you See

Michael 2 Comments
Every now and then I’ll pass a car on the road or in a parking lot with a dash cam. A car that is not a police vehicle. I’ve often thought why does ordinary Joe Driver need a dash cam.  I don’t know how Joe thinks but I think I figured out why I should get one. Your car is still the one place you can be and say “the things you see when you don’t have a camera.” Even with an ever present cell phone with 5 lenses and auto-zoom you miss that shot you need to prove “No, I’m not making this up!” In just one week I saw a custom license plate celebrating greed, a bumper sticker proclaiming selfishness and stupidity all in one, and evidence that apes can drive. Fortunately before I got home I also saw proof that there still is hope for humanity.
 
I did a whole post devoted to the state issued vanity plate experience. That was 8 years ago and the thought process people have behind their licences plate requests hasn’t changed much. Almost universally with custom plates one is convincing letters and numbers to approximate the word he or she wants. “IM L8” might explain why that car sped past you in the no passing zone. In that earlier post I mentioned one plate I saw that was an honest to gosh English word, ALIMONY. At the time I wrote, “Although it was on a fairly pricey vehicle it wasn’t on a true luxury car so maybe the owner could have worked out a still better deal.”  Perhaps somebody read that and got the idea from me. If so I would like to extend apologies to the payor whose support clearly is responsible for the Audi S6 with the plate ALEMONY. Apparently the previous plate is still in use and not available but as long as you’re soaking the ex, don’t let a little thing like spelling spoil the opportunity to rub it in at the same time.
 
Also affixed to the back of a vehicle, this one stuck to a slightly older crossover (is it a van, SUV, or station wagon?) idling ahead of me at a traffic light, was the bumper sticker demonstrating a while new level of selfishness, even for America. “I wouldn’t wear a mask if you were the last person on Earth” A most interesting sentiment. It went along with the other bumper stickers “I’d Rather Be At The Range” and “My kid can beat up your honor roll student” although the ones providing evidence that vehicle made it to “Sunny Florida 🌴” and “Walt Disney World” made for an interesting contrast. I had to think the “mask” sticker was a custom job because if it was mass produced, who ever was responsible wouldn’t have been that stupid. If “you” are the “last person on Earth” what does that say about the person who is not wearing the mask?
 
20200914_082114A dash cam might not have even picked up the evidence that not all drivers have evolved equally. This was the pick-up truck with the spiked wheels that pulled up beside me. Not spokes but spikes. Six inch long, tapered, metallic looking pointed spikes where each lug nut would be. My first thought was of the hot rods of the 1950s and the chopped roof and flame paintjob driven by the stereotypical bad boy but this was no throwback. This was a basic newer American made full size pick up truck but with weaponized wheels. I had to go in the Internet in search of a picture of something similar and actually found the very wheel although not the very truck. And that can only mean they are organizing. 
 
But the week ended on a more positive note, still one many people probably won’t believe without proof. I can tell you I saw it and I believe. There is still love in the world. While I turned into the drive of my complex I had to slow to allow the couple walking the road in front of me move off to the side. They weren’t youngsters these two, just entering a life together, nor were they an older couple who had been through decades of life side by side. They were approaching middle age, not quite there, often an age of some insecurity when questions of what’s next don’t always have clear answers. This couple was making it clear that whatever was next for them they were facing it together. In that day, at 11 something on a Saturday morning, these two 40-somethings representing the best of mankind were out taking a walk in public for all the world to see – and doing it hand in hand. 
 
Oh yes, the things you see…
 
 
 

Singing the Goat Song

Michael 4 Comments
The other day I saw an old Peanuts cartoon. Its panels told the tale that if Charlie Brown catches the ball he’s the hero but if he misses it he will be the goat. Charlie “The Goat” Brown. Today Charlie Brown would never be the goat. Well, maybe the goat but he would never be the GOAT. Somehow we’ve managed to screw up the English language yet again.
 
Back in the days when Charles Schulz was drawing the Peanuts gang a goat was the worst thing you could be on the baseball field. In fact, to be a goat anywhere in life was the worst. The goat was the loser. Not only the loser, the goat was the reason for the loss regardless of the reason for the loss. It was always his fault, absolving all others from blame for the failure. He was the scapegoat and it was not a good thing to be the goat.
 
How did we ever work this into our vocabulary? Historically, the scapegoat was one of two goats religious leaders would sacrifice for atonement. One goat was offered as a blood sacrifice and the other, the scapegoat, was removed from the herd and set off into the desert carrying the sins of the people. Most often associate with ancient Judaism, similar rituals were performed by other religions and societies. Ancient Greeks actually used humans, often criminals or slaves, as scapegoats. It was not a good thing to be the goat back then either. 
 
Or was it? Sticking with those old Greeks, according to myth and legend the ancient Greeks’ ancient Greeks’ scapegoat was someone of importance who would be recognized and accepted by the gods, receiving him among them and honoring their request to grant favor upon the mortals. It was a honored role and one only those of the highest status in society could fill. In time when real people took the place of the legends, the people of importance were not so keen on being exiled and left to die to bring about drought relief or for whatever the townsfolk were currently praying. They would find one from the dregs of society and make him appear important by lavishing him with fine clothes and jewels before being driven into the wilderness. Often a tragedy was performed in recognition of the sacrifice. Not a play but more of an opera. The modern word tragedy comes from the ancient Greeks and literally means “Goat Song.” Was that a lament because they were sad that a person was being sacrificed or was it a celebration of the ritual and they were entertaining the gods? That’s the trouble with things that happened over 2500 years ago. Who can say for sure? There just aren’t any good records.
 
And now we have the newest goat, not a scapegoat, the antithesis of the hero, but the GOAT, even better than a hero. GOAT, The Greatest Of All Time. When I look at some of the people who have been declared the GOAT, often by themselves, I wonder if we might not be better off setting them loose in the wilds without their entourages and the fawning public celebrating one whose greatest claim to fame is playing a child’s game better than all the other kids who never grew up. To them the wilderness might be what the rest of us deal with every day in our real lives without entourages, carrying our own sins and asking atonement of our own accord.
 
Maybe the goat, the scapegoat goat is the real hero. Imagine the courage it must take to know you are leaving all alone, you won’t be coming back, and you won’t ever see anybody ever again, but on your shoulders you carry away all the bad of society and those left behind reap the benefit from your action. We need more goats. The goats are the heroes and thanks to Charlie Brown we know it is better to strive to be the hero than claim to be the GOAT.
 
DffxL3hX4AI-HEn
 
 

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

Michael 6 Comments
My exile from WordPress Comment Land (Wopecommelandia) continues. There’s been so much on so many blogs so worthy of comments but all I can do is “like.” I thought about writing a post of all the comments I have written that were suck into Wopecommelandia’s atmosphere but couldn’t come up with an effective way of keeping context. So instead I decided to comment on life. Or death.

The paper here ran this headline Tuesday.
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Death of Woman Whose Body was Found Stuffed Into Refrigerator Ruled Homicide
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It did what headlines are supposed to do and piqued my interest. Sometime in the early 1980s the New York Post ran a headline that has become legendary among tabloid headlines. “Headless Body in Topless Bar” made it clear that was no accident. I shouldn’t have had to read the local article to be as convinced this was not an accident either but I pushed on. The first sentence certainly convinced me. The woman “whose body was found partially dismembered inside an abandoned refrigerator left in the hallway of an apartment building in May, has been ruled a homicide.” I wonder if it was the partial dismemberment that convinced them. And it only took 2 months.
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Maybe those headlines stirred something in my memory. I did a little digging and found it!
Man’s Death During Sex Ruled ‘Workplace Accident’
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The article sourcing a BBC report of a Times of London story about a French railway technician for TSO Rail while in Meung-sur-Loire France died of cardiac arrest while having sex with a woman he had just met. The company’s lawyers argued it was not liable because the accident occurred not while he was engaged in a work related activity. The court ruled that French workers on business trips are “entitled to their employer’s protection for the duration of their mission … whether or not the accident takes place as part of a professional activity or as an act of normal life” and sex is an act of normal life.  So the widow (yes, he was married), gets 80% of his salary until he would have retired and then an unspecified portion of his pension. Better than alimony.
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Since deaths, and now death headlines, come in three, this is a good place to stop. Feel free to comment. If you can. Darn Wopecommelandia!
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landscape-1433884622-headlessbody

Embrace The Middle

Michael 8 Comments
Are things becoming less restrictive where you are? There are not yet here but I have read there is some movement toward more recognizable routines we had been used to in some locales. Now that would be some movement toward something approaching what we used to think of as normal for some activities in some areas. Not the whole world is back to what we want it do tomorrow.
 
When things do lososen up, I don’t know that I’ll be thinking that’s the right choice or not. Here’s what I believe and I believe I’ll say it. Or write it. I believe we are approaching a whole different “normal” that’s going to be the norm for yet some more time and that new normal isn’t quite what most of us remember as the old normal at all. Whether we want it or not, whether we accept it or not, or whether we get used to it or not, it’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen slowly. And people are going to just beat the crap out of that “Love your neighbor” thing we had going.
 
We aren’t going turn a switch and all the stores and restaurants and schools and churches will open, sports arena will be standing room only and theaters will have the hottest ticket in town, air travel will return with too tight seating and cruise ships will be packed to the deck rails, and spas and salons will be cutting hair, painting nails, and massaging under worked and over appreciated muscles overnight. 
 
When it starts it is going to be a slow start, an adventure of misstarts, missteps, and probably a retreat or two. It will be gradual and will take more patience than it takes now when we are waiting. And here’s the thing – write this down – we don’t wait well, and it will be worse when we get just a taste of life without waiting.
 
Humans aren’t designed to go slow. Patience is such a virtue because because nobody has it! We want to go. We are okay staying still. But getting from stop to full speed is not man’s strong point. We aren’t good in the middle.
 
Think of all the middles out there and then honestly think is that where you want to be. The middle seat. Middle management. Middle age. Middle of nowhere!
 
It’s coming. It’s going be bad. Almost everybody is going to say it’s too soon to reopen the world or we’ve been closed off for too long. Nobody is going to say well at least there is a little more I can do today and I’m thankful for that. 
 
When the transition begins be thankful for the little changes, know they are the first steps to bigger changes, remember you didn’t get to where you are today overnight, and embrace the middle. 
 
ROCKANDHARD-PLACE
 
 
 

What’s in a (Nick)Name

Michael 1 Comment
As we move deeper and deeper into our isolation it’s becoming harder and harder to find an article, post, blog, podcast, phone call (!) that doesn’t reference COVID-19. But I think I’ve finally found something I can write about where the virus isn’t right up there in the first paragraph. Ooops.
 
Anyway… how about death? Actually death notices – you know, obits, necrologies, life tributes, obituaries. I’ve noticed something about them, oh yes I have indeed. And not just that there are getting to be a lot of them out there nor that I haven’t shown up in one yet. I’m seeing that a lot of people don’t seem to know their own name. I’m guessing here.
 
Just recently there have been a lot of obituaries in the paper for people with multiple names. I don’t mean the deceased married woman who is listed with both her married and maiden names. I mean people with 2, sometimes 3 given names. I saw one just this morning (real name changed to protect his guardian angel from being teased by the other guardian angels): Joseph “JB” “Joey,” “Scooter” Brown. Ummmm. Really? Are there people reading the obituaries coming across Joey’s name and aren’t sure if they only saw Joseph listed that they could not be sure if that was the same Joey who was their friend? And those who didn’t know him as anything but Scooter, what are the chances they even know Scooter Who?
 
I saw a lot of them over the past few days, and some pretty colorful monikers too. Stucky, Gar Gar, Dickie Lou, Butch, Baby, Babe, Mac (whose last name did not start Mc or Mac), Birdie, and Stitch to name several more than a few.
 
I remember the gang my father hung out with. Nobody had a real name. Actually they all did but they didn’t Anglicize their names so they used nicknames to make calling them easier. Among them were Bunny, Ninny, Patsy, Mare, Jojo, and Tuner. These were all guys by the way. But the obituary didn’t read John “Bunny” Doe. It was just John Doe and everybody knew that was Bunny. No, multiple choice names weren’t necessary and they still got good send offs. Mostly because everybody knew everybody then and the crowd at the funeral home was already spilling out to the parking lot before the obituary was even published. I can’t imagine the funeral director would even put an order through for Ninny to be printed on the prayer cards. Some of the other names might even make a prayer card spontaneously combust! 
 
I can’t imagine my obituary reading anything but the name I have on my driver’s license. And I’m not so sure about this trend of putting pictures in obituaries either. You look at some of them, “John Doe, 93, died in his sleep after a long, long, long illness,” and there’s a picture of some young guy in full hiking regalia climbing out of a canoe. If it gets to where they insist on a picture then I guess if they’re going to use my driver’s license name they might as well use that picture too. And I already have the plaque for the drawer preordered and that has the name from the check I sent them to pay for the engraving. Just fill in the end date. 
 
Hmm, you know, I wonder what’s on Scooter’s headstone.
 
 
20200430_164951

Calling All Comments

Michael Leave a comment
 
I swear I’m being singled out for some punishment for an infraction I am unaware of. Either that or I (more likely) have done something to my WordPress account without realizing it. You probably wouldn’t have noticed because I’m not a terribly often commentor although when I do I tend to be a verbose commentor, but now I’ve become a non-commentor. Actually I was made a non-commentor but I don’t know who did the making although something tells me it could have been me.
 
I think this might have started around Christmas. I commented on somebody’s post and I would typically get some reaction but I didn’t. I’m sure I didn’t think much about that because it was the holidays and everybody’s life gets a little busier then. It was probably a couple weeks after that I did again and again I didn’t and then I thought “hmmm.” Then yet again and again not and then for sure I thought “well isn’t that the darnedest thing.” 
 
So I explored and discovered the comment I thought with which I commented wasn’t there. And it wasn’t here either. I reentered it carefully making certain to not inadvertently use any forbidden language, the hit the proper keys, then hit the proper keys properly, and then again. . . not there.
 
I was recieving comments. I could respond to comments I received. But I couldn’t and as of yesterday still can’t leave comments. I can live with that as long as you can but it is curious.
 
Now this all has more than just something to do with my inability to express my sentiments over your writing within the WordPress World. (Of course it does.) I was thinking how nice it would be if 99% of the people who comment to news articles in the various interwebs would also have their comments disappear into the miasma. 
 
QuillYou know I prefer printed newspapers over their electronic counterparts but many printed papers aren’t printing either because of limited advertising revenue or limited staffing during the pandemic or just because they don’t want to any more. The thing with the old fashioned printed papers, if you wanted to expand or expound, to clarify or question, or to take umbrage or offense with an article or editorial (back when they were different), you had to pull out the pen and paper or typewriter (Google it) or the word processor and printer, formulate your thoughts, convert your thoughts to writing, consider what you wrote, decide it was worth the price of postage, then put it in an envelope and mail it. Thus a letter to the editor. Typically a well thought, well worded, intelligent letter to the editor.
 
Today, any idiot with a phone, and today every idiot has a phone, can spout out whatever drivel it feels like spouting and “comment” on articles long before it starts thinking. Then some other jackass starts commenting on the comments and then were off to the races. It used to be a source of amusement reading the churlish ramblings of people who clearly failed blocks in kindergarten and hadn’t progressed much since, trying to make what I’m sure they feel are intelligent arguments. Or at least arguments. Today it’s just mean name calling and demonstrations of hatred. 
 
I wish news outlets would do away with the comment option but then some new idiot would say that’s infringing on the freedom of speech. So I am exercising my freedom to not listen and I’m not reading them. I’ve found as a result that I’m happier, my stomach doesn’t get so easily upset, my gums aren’t bleeding, and I swear my hair is coming back. 
 
And to keep things fair, I won’t be writing any comments myself. At least I won’t to any papers using WordPress for their distribution.
 
 
 
 
 

Extra! Extra!

Michael 3 Comments
What are your plans for Saturday? You remember Saturday? February 29, our quadrennial reminder that in the struggle between man and nature man is lucky to struggle into second place.
 
We (that’s the big “we” and that means you too), we so arrogantly preen and posture and spends oh so much energy saving the planet for future generations that we completely miss that we know so little about our planet.  We can’t even tell how long it takes to get around the sun.
 
Years, months, days, hours, minutes. All man made methods of marking time. We (the big “we”) came up with these. They weren’t forced upon us. We defined them as we chose. Can you hear the discussion? “I know, let’s make a ‘year’ our standard.” Great! What’s that? “The length of time it takes to go around the sun.” Wonderful! How long is that? “Heck if I know.” And in the true sense of being human in a world where being human was seemingly an afterthought, and an arrogant one at that, we picked 365 days. ish. Hmm. What’s a day? 
 
And so, because somebody didn’t take the time to measure twice, declare once, we get an extra day every 4 years. ish. Every couple of years, nothing specific mind you, an extra second gets added in order for man to keep up with nature and the natural order of things. Somebody decides when to insert these “leap seconds” by probably following some multi-page calculation harkening as many laws of physics as possible in a single formula. Probably the same people deride poor Punxsutawney Phil as an inaccurate teller of things to come. 
 
We absolutely must do our best to preserve the resources nature let’s us borrow, but we should also take heed that we are not in charge. Long before the first underarm deodorant was sprayed the glaciers began receding to carve out the Great Lakes and the Liddar Valley. Long before the first well was drilled the great land mass began separating into a handful of continental chunks. It’s not done. Long after man leaves Earth nature will continue its ongoing process of global renewal. 
 
It’s good we screwed up measuring time. Now at least once every four years we get to remind ourselves that we aren’t all that after all. To be honest, I’m surprised somebody hasn’t worked in a drinking holiday or appliance sale around Leap Day. I suppose it’s only a matter of time.
 
 
Feb29