doodledee

April is sometimes known as the cruelest month, and most years I'd tend to agree with that assertion. After all, April is traditionally the month that teases us with promises of early season softball games and big tax refunds. But somehow, instead of playing ball and waiting for direct deposits, most years you have to stay home writing checks and praying that it gets warm enough to melt the snow off the infield before next week's game. If that ain't cruel, I don't know what is.

Well, my friends, 2005 has been different. It's been unseasonably warm and gorgeous out and everything is nice and dry and even almost kinda green. And for the first time I can remember in 18 years of playing CSC softball, we actually played our season opener as scheduled. Ho-lee crap. And yes, we won, thanks for asking. And yes, I batted 1.000, thanks for asking. And yes, I had to write big checks to the government anyway, thanks for asking.

In celebration of the first good April in recorded history, I'm trying out some new designations for the month.

• April could be National Vest Month - I'm a big fan of vests. (The jacket kind, not the 3-piece suit kind.) You put on a vest on a cool spring day and your body stays all warm and toasty while your arms are free to wave about and do all kinds of fun stuff. I accidentally left my lightweight spring jacket at my sister's house over easter and it forced me into my vest a few weeks ahead of schedule. I was worried at first, but I gotta admit it's been a real pleasure.
• April could be National Stop Calling Everything 'Artisan' Month - Seriously, what the hell is up with every product in every store having to be labeled as 'artisan'? Bread, cheese, beer, jelly, it's ridiculous. Do you grocery people seriously think we're too stupid to notice that you don't even have *flour* behind the counter in the "bakery", much less a bunch of highly skilled artisan bakers cranking out hand-crafted loafs of delicious, crusty bread? Well we're not. So here's the deal: I'll keep letting you charge me $2.99 for a fake baguette if you stop trying to convince everyone that the par-baked crap you slap a fancy label on is somehow 'artisan'. Shake. Spit. Done.
• April could be Math Awareness Month - Oh wait, it already is. Scratch that one, then.
• April could be TV on Demand Still Sucks Month - We sat down to watch a show off the fake tivo the other night and it turned out that the show we recorded was originally aired during big thunderstorm or something. So we sat there watching, like a week later, having to put up with the giant weather themed CNBC-wannabe screen layout, complete with blinking mini-maps, a scrolling weather ticker, and a bunch of pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one. It was a joke. WHEN is somebody going to figure out content on demand for real? Why can't I just click a button and watch what I want, when I want? It's not for technical reasons, that's for sure. It just seems silly that it's not here yet.

So those are the nominees. (And yes, most of them are just little things I've been meaning to write about but hadn't gotten around to yet, thanks for asking.)

I'd probably go with the vest one this year. And I'll probably be back to 'cruelest' next year. Stupid April.