April Day

Azaleas perform a riot of color, the dogwoods balancing with their delicate blood-of-the-savior blossoms blushing in shame. Plentiful rain over the last week, sunshine dotted with puffy clouds today. Spring has discovered Virginia.

Now, if I could get the azaleas and other plants to behave properly in my landscaping. We inherited dead and dying cedar bushes infested with bagworms and whatever. The soil is sour; we need help.

Topic Two

I receive a daily email from Tablet Magazine, a publication by and for Jews. It deals with religious, political and cultural items of interest to Jews worldwide. Today they quoted an old joke that could be adapted to a lot of us:

How can you tell you are on a Jewish deserted island? There are two occupants and three synagogues: mine, his and the one nobody sets foot in.

Topic Three

Does anyone else have vivid, detailed memories of long ago? I don't think I am unique in that regard, nor do I think I am too unusual when I can't remember what I had for breakfast. Last night, I stepped out, looked at the moon and remembered when I first came to recognize a factoid about our atmosphere--it was 1959, I was 14 years old and I had just "auditioned" for the high school band. Which is kind of a joke in itself as that band needed all it could get. The high school music teacher had been a WWII fighter pilot (remember, just 14 years after the end of that war!) and when we walked out of the building, he looked up and remarked about how cold it was "up there."

Yep, 30 below or whatever. Maybe that recognition was heightened by the news about Nepal and Mt. Everest because, after all, at 29,029 feet, it is at the altitude of commercial jets. We wondered over the weekend if it "grew," since I believe it continues to do so...in geological time, of course.

While on this topic, does anyone else have a concern for the amount of human waste and detritus that is being deposited and simply left on that mountain?

And, another thing. I saw a headline, "Experts Had Warned Nepal Ripe for Disaster." Well, duh. How do you think those mountains got there? Plus, even Californians know that it is bad juju to live in a multi-story mud hut in an earthquake zone.

Topic Four

You thought you were going to get away without a comment on baseball? The Royals' balloon is floating back to a more realistic level. Detroit is accumulating some losses, too. But how 'bout them Mets??