A Peeve

I've been in a tiny minority for the last decade or so, namely the folks who believe that the names of the years of this decade should be pronounced "twenty-oh-one", etc. But I've more or less become resigned to the fact that very few people agree with me.

But lately, I've been pretty consistently hearing people on radio and TV calling the upcoming year "two thousand ten", and even the year five years from now "two thousand fourteen". This is just wrong. It must be stopped. Now.

Unfortunate timing

We have a not-particularly-elaborate sprinkler system for the garden that we set up in June. This year, of course, we've hardly had to use it at all.

But the recent (and continuing) hot and rainless weather has us thinking that a bunch of things could use some watering. We started thinking about this over the weekend, figuring we would water once or twice this week.

But then the Gloucester water treatment plant developed some kind of problem, and while they were able to get water temporarily from neighboring communities (and, we are assured, the tap water was never unsafe to drink), and have since put in some repairs, they have put a ban on outside water use (garden hoses, sprinklers, car-washing, etc.) until their supplies are properly replenished. the reports in the local paper have been increasingly vague about how long this is likely to take.

There's theoretically supposed to be some rain over the next few days, but I've heard that song before. If it doesn't rain, we're probably going to have to cheat, at least to keep our tomatoes (which have only just started producing) alive.