"Beware the Ides of March" (Shakespeare)

     Well, the Ides of March has come around again.  In 44BC it came around for Julius Caesar, but it wasn't a very nice day for him.  His "Congress" was meeting that day and his wife's premonition caused her to beg him not to go.  And again, just before he went into the Chamber, a blind seer told him to beware of the Ides of March.  But did he listen to them?  No, he didn't because he thought perhaps the Senators would offer him a crown to become a King instead of just a plain old Emperor. It so happened that he refused the crown three times, but that was probably just a ruse while he waited for them to make him King one more time so that they could let the thousands of Romans know by lofting the white smoke from the chimney--excuse me, that's done only for a new Pontiff's election.  Anyway, even every schoolboy knows what happened next.  He was shot to death while watching a play--excuse me, he was stabbed to death on the Capitol steps. Even by his good friend, Brutus.  Every schoolboy knows that when that happened, Caesar said, "Et tu Brute" which in Latin means "And you, too Brutus!"  This lesson to be learned is, don't trust even your best friend.  Especially not on March 15.

 

     Bad things have led up to this day in 2013, let alone two-thousand and fifty-seven years ago.  When daylight savings time ended, our kitchen clock stopped working.  We bought a new one from Walmart, but we couldn't get the battery in so we had to return it.  It was made in China and they obviously know very little about batteries.  We also bought a new TV from Walmart but it was impossible to attach the stand to the TV monitor with the screws that came in the box, so we had to return it.  Next, we bought a beauty of a TV from Target; the clerk told us that all we had to do in order to get channels to work was to just plug it into a wall socket--which we did--and, of course we got nothing. Comcast is coming next week and for $30 they will install a cable box for us so that RH+ can watch TV in the kitchen while she is eating breakfast.  We will buy nothing else until this day passes.  After all, Passover is coming next Monday and we didn't want to put an Ides curse on the Manishevitz wine.  How full of briers is this workaday world.