Washington's Birthday

Happy Washington's Birthday, an official federal holiday rather unintuitively celebrating two early United States presidents. Of course, you might live in one of the dozen or so US States which actually legally renamed today's holiday "Presidents Day" to stem Lincoln’s exclusion; or you may live somewhere on the remaining fifty-five 56ths of this globe, where today was just another Monday. Presidents Day is always the third Monday of Black History Month. Washington's Birthday is actually the twenty-second of February, although he was born on the eleventh. It's confusing. Also, there's a statistical likelihood you don't care unless you're a US government employee. Today, Sunshine and I waited for maintenance to replace our loaner refrigerator and blasted modem. Actually, I didn't wait: I headed on downstairs to use the free wireless on the first floor. The elevator system in this building is wonky. The left hand car is for the exclusive use of tenets whereas building staff are to use the one on the right. Of course, when I press the down button, either elevator on the system may respond. There's a special staff button for calling the rightmost elevator. I can still get on either elevator that arrives, of course; but one will stop at every floor as it descends, opening to ladder-carrying maintenance men or cart-pushing housekeepers who've pressed their special button. None of these people will actually ride the elevator with me. They're too polite. I stand there grinning, waiting for the doors to shut again, waiting to repeat this action ten more times to the lounge, eleven times back. Invariably, the right hand elevator opens when I press any button. This happens up and down the building regularly. Back upstairs today, I learned maintenance had come and gone already and everything was working properly again. [Cavin]