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."