Trowel in hand

This past Saturday was simply a picture-perfect autumn day for yard work. I spent the afternoon cleaning up the vegetable garden, pulling up the dead zinnias, salvia, sunflowers and gomphrena. I'm always astonished to think how tiny they were when I planted them. A few snapdragons are still in bloom, and I harvested them -- that is, once I found the garden shears that had slipped out of my jacket pocket and hidden under some leaves.

Then I finished planting tulip bulbs (100 this year) and carefully dug up the Peruvian daffodil (Hymenocallis) bulbs pictured here. I didn't know what to expect when Leo and Helen Daiuta kindly gave me a few of these last fall, but they turned out to be a marvelous addition to the garden: spectacular white, fragrant flowers on tall, leafless green stalks. I'll let the bulbs dry a bit, and then they'll spend the winter in the dark laundry room, along with the basket of gladiolus corms I lifted a few weeks back.

Jargon

What is the dividing line between saying "subs" versus "hoagies"?
I think it's probably West Chester. The closer you get to Philadelphia, everyone says "hoagies," but by the time you hit Cochranville it's pretty much all "subs."
And what about the Pennsylvania Dutch usage "it needs done" (e.g., "the kitchen needs cleaned")? You rarely hear that in Unionville or east, but west of Coatesville, and of course into Lancaster County, it's common.  

Health care

I went for a routine scan at Jennersville Regional Hospital first thing this morning, and my visit was an impressive one for a lot of reasons.
On my way in, I saw a confused-looking man staring at a directory of physicians posted on the corridor wall. A member of the housekeeping staff took the time to stop her cleaning cart and asked if she could help. Then she patiently gave him directions to the office he wanted.

In the registration office -- no waiting! -- the clerk fastened an ID band around my wrist. On my way to the radiology department, I noticed that although the name on the band was correct (imagine! two Tilda's), I was certainly not born in 1977 and I had never heard of the doctor whose name was listed. I pointed this out to the radiology tech, imagining that nightmarish paperwork complications were going to ensue.
Not at all.
"We know," she said, removing the band. "We're all over it." She said she'd immediately spotted the inconsistency with my paperwork and had already notified the registration office.
She did my scan painlessly and efficiently and I was out the door and on my way to Starbucks by 8:20 a.m.
Well done.

BYOB: Bring your own baccalaureate!

This is a little depressing. A well-known, top-of-the-line local catering firm is looking for waitstaff, bartenders and the like, and its ad reads, "Recent college graduates welcome." That must warm the hearts of destitute parents and loan-saddled students everywhere. Imagine slogging through (and paying for) four years of college only to spend your evenings asking party guests if they'd like freshly ground cracked pepper on their food.

Unionville is an island, part XVI

I received a local candidate's political mailing this afternoon (sent at his own expense, not ours, I was pleased to note) and at a glance I could identify the two people posing as "average, everyday citizens" listening attentively to the candidate -- even though only the backs of their heads were shown.

Exterminate!

I know, it's not on a par with seeing, say, Hugh Grant's limo at the Whip, but I just saw a pest-management van parked in front of the long-vacant Red Rose Inn. And a man in work clothes and a clipboard seemed to be poking around on the north side of the historic but increasingly dilapidated brick structure. Maybe something's happening?
(By the way, Hugh Grant has never visited the Whip, to my knowledge. But there's always hope.)

Cosmology

A scientist friend sent me this amazing photograph of the Horsehead Nebula (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100513.html ), providing evidence that, as he put it, "Clearly the horse came first, then the universe followed."

Bearable lightness

We've all been warned that electric rates are going to go up next year, so I went to PECO's website to see if there were any changes I could make to reduce my electric usage.
Naturally, they urge us to replace standard incandescent bulbs with those new curly "compact fluorescent light bulbs" (CFLs), but I was startled to read that you're not supposed to turn them on and off too often:

"Turning a CFL on and off frequently can shorten its life. To take full advantage of the energy savings and long life of ENERGY STAR qualified CFLs, it is best to use them in light fixtures you use the most and leave on for at least 15 minutes at a time. Good locations include outdoor light fixtures, indoor fixtures in the living room, family room, kitchen, bedroom, recreation room, etc. This is not to say you should leave your lights on all day if you use ENERGY STAR qualified CFLs. It is still a good habit to turn the lights off when you leave the room for an extended period."  

Wow, this is not how I was brought up. I can remember my father constantly telling us to turn the lights off every single time we left a room -- and conversely, to turn the lights on when we were reading. "Put some light on the subject," he'd quip, reaching over to turn on a lamp.
Of course, with today's CFLs, it would take a minute to warm up ("slow starting," they call it). Kind of like the TV set we had back then!

Shelf possessed

While collecting bittersweet on one of my favorite gravel roads I came across this really cool shelf fungus.
At least, I hope it's a shelf fungus. I know there are a lot of expert mycologists out there just waiting to correct me if it's not.

You Send Me

Did you know that return addresses are required on packages?
I was at the Unionville post office today mailing a package and was told that for security reasons they couldn't accept it unless I wrote my return address on it. Apparently this rule has been in place since after Sept. 11, 2001.
Here are the USPS rules: http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/602.htm