Coming to Town

A lot of people must be throwing Holiday parties this week because the Ferry Building was very, very crowded. Lines were long, but people seemed to be having a good time, and I was able to buy some nice things for my foodie friends. Even though a much needed rainstorm is on its way to us tonight, the skies were a beautiful blue and so was the water. When I walked down Market Street, there was a group of about twenty Santas, along with a handful of elves and reindeer, waiting for a bus. I'm not sure what high jinx this group was up to, but they seemed to be having a great time and everyone who passed by broke into a smile. It reminded me of a David Letterman show from years ago where people in bear costumes walked, one by one, into a bagel shop, so that soon the shop was full of people dressed as bears, and the part that struck me the funniest was that the New Yorkers didn't even look up from their snacks. I hoped the Santas would get a bit more of a reaction, though I'm not sure San Franciscans are much different than New Yorkers.

Beneath the Pale Moonlight

This entry is time sensitive.  If you look up in the sky December 1st at around 5 p.m. until around 8 p.m., you will see Venus, Jupiter and the moon all in a line.  Tonight and last night, Venus and Jupiter were aligned.  It is a very pretty sight to see because they are both so bright.  The brighter one on the bottom is Venus.  

I believe those in far northern climates can see it also.

Tag, I'm It

It has been a very long time since I’ve updated. That has a lot to do with being busy with work and very tired when I get home, but it has more to do with the things that occupy my mind when I’m back at work. Does anyone want to read my thoughts on teaching algebra to all eighth graders, or on whether or not the National Board for Professional Teachers is easier for teachers from rich schools to achieve, or should I or should I not get new cabinets for my kitchen (the answer turned out to be that I shouldn’t)? My mind has been much occupied, but not with anything interesting.
PJ sent me a meme in which I was supposed to tell seven things about myself—that’s it. I thought this was what I would start writing about, but even that has taken a long time because it was so open-ended. Most of the people who read this already know me well, so I don’t think I can say anything that people don’t already know, but here goes:

1. I have a horrible fear of slugs. People find this really funny, and so do I, when I’m nowhere near a slug. When I am near a slug, I will scream and run and hyperventilate. If I’m on a hike and I come across one, I will run. You know what’s funnier than this stupid fear? People who feel they can talk me out of it. Fellow science teachers have helpfully said, “But, Vicki, they can’t move faster than you.” Lately, I’ve been able to make some peace with the fear. A fairly large slug comes into my kitchen at night whenever it is warm outside and I have had to learn to go into the kitchen when he/she is there, and I do, though I stay very far away. Also, if I’m pulling weeds and I see one, I will just move far away instead of running back into the house for the rest of the day. Baby steps.

2. Fun with Irony: My favorite place to be is in the California redwoods. I love the smells, the quiet, the filtered light, and the dampness. I love everything about them, except for their most famous denizen. See number 1 above.

3. As much as I fear slugs, I fear losing self-control even more. I fear saying or doing something stupid. When I see movies where the characters decide to take a chance on…whatever, I am filled with awe and envy.

4. I have never been drunk (slightly tipsy twice) and I have never used drugs, even though I went to Berkeley in the ‘70’s. See number 3.

5. My life as a free-range chicken buying, Ferry Building shopping foodie is a fairly recent thing. My children, I’m sure, would gleefully tell you that they were raised on a diet that included Tater Tots, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and canned peas. I saw the light a bit late in life.

6. When I learned to sew in eighth grade, it was as if I’d finally learned the skill I’d been waiting all my life to attain. My parents could tell that sewing had won my heart and they surprised me with a Singer sewing machine for my birthday. That was my one and only machine for the next 30 years, when I bought my beloved Viking machine. But the Singer allowed me to attempt many, many things that I now, on looking back, find pretty funny. Not content to stick with making skirts and aprons when I was 13, I decided to make myself a two-piece suit, complete with skirt and jacket. Where I thought I would be wearing such a thing in eighth grade is beyond me…a job interview? Anyway, never one to have much taste, I went right ahead and made myself a pink stretch polyester suit and, yes, reader, I wore it.

7. I am fascinated by life-changing moments. For example, in 1977, my new friend PJ was sitting in our dorm lounge reading a novel from one of his classes. He was laughing out loud and I wanted to know about this book that he found so funny. I had already noticed that he read at a much higher level than I, but I asked him if he thought I would enjoy the book. He said he thought I definitely would and so I got myself a copy of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. I did love it, and thus began my great love of not just Austen, but Dickens, Trollope, and Burney as well. I’d like to think I would have found my way to these authors by some other path, but I don’t think I would have. That would have definitely been a less fulfilled life for me.

Alas, I have no one to tag, so I'll have to be a dead end.

I am not a demographic; I am a human being!

Today at the Ferry Building, some enthusiastic people were handing out Obama/Biden stickers.  The young man who handed me my sticker said, "Stick it on your bag, so you always have it."  This seemed like sensible advice, so I followed it, which led me to imagine all the people I passed, who must have been thinking, "If that middle aged woman with graying hair and jeans and sandals who has been shopping from local farmers in San Francisco and putting her purchases in canvas bags which tell us that she is a teacher is voting for Obama, maybe I should, too."  Glad I could do my part.

For some reason, this got me to thinking about "San Francisco values."  You know, like tolerance and saving resources for the next generation, which actually are the values of most Americans.  It got me wondering why it's okay to declare I "shop locally," but not that I "buy American."  I'm sure there's some nuance here, but it's just one of those stupid ways we've decided to separate ourselves.

Speaking of tolerance, I can't help but be fascinated by the Sarah Palin hatred (check out factcheck.org for which stories are actually true).  Women I know who have formerly been calm and accepting are just livid.  I know part of it has to do with the insult they feel McCain has laid upon them in thinking that we would just switch our vote because there was a woman on the ticket.  The other part has to do with the idea that this woman who seems like someone down the street who just won the lottery and ended up on television for no other reason than luck, can actually think that she could be the President (and, really, why shouldn't she think that?  Look who is in the office now).  I had to admit that I had my own, very non-PC reason for being bothered that she was running for Vice-President, which I confessed to a friend (whose name I will protect because she felt the same way).  I'm not sure that it's a good idea for a mother of five, including a special needs infant, should have any job other than being a mother (if she can afford it).  I will defend with my life her right to work if she chooses, but it does affect my opinion of her.  But like buy locally, buy American, I suppose you can look at this as naive and old-fashioned or as post-feminism.

Amazing Predictions

I don't have it in print anywhere that I predicted how Harry Potter would end after reading the first book (okay, not everything, but who would end up with whom and who would not be evil after all).  

I also don't have it in print that I predicted, after the pilot episode, that Barney and Robin would end up together on How I Met Your Mother.  They haven't yet, but are moving toward it slowly.

Since I don't talk in movies, no one got to hear me shout out that I figured out the surprise ending in Sixth Sense just a short time into the movie.

So, I'm putting it in print that I think I have figured out who Rex's father is on One Life to Live.  For non-fans, this is one of the great mysteries of the show.  Most fans seem to be torn between Mitch and Bo, but I think it is David Vickers.  Here is my thinking:  Roxy (Rex's mother) is ashamed of who the father is, both David and Roxy have old ties to Atlantic City, Rex is drawn to and loves Bo as if he's his father, David Vickers has Buchanan DNA.  Everyone thinks David is Asa's son, but in the 1968 scenes, Bo slept with David's mother before he went to Viet Nam.  If I'm right, then Bo is Rex's grandfather, which would allow them to continue their nice relationship.  If I'm wrong, then we can blame wishful thinking, because this would put David Vickers back into the show and in a major front burner story.  

Okay, back to important things like grading papers, taking out garbage and doing laundry.  Hmmm...why do I let my mind wander to television show plots?

Summer Resolutions Revisited, Part I

In June, I wrote an entry with my summer resolutions, meaning things I wanted to accomplish over summer break. I had planned to write a quick update, but some of the resolutions deserve a little more time, either because they got done or didn't get done and the story of why and how is interesting to me. Today, I'm tackling #5 and #6: Walk two miles a day and work on strength and balance. This resolution was supposed to be about buying a Wii Fit, but I felt that that was going to be impossible since the Wii and the Wii Fit were nowhere to be found.

So, I'll start with walking two miles a day. I did this with a handful of exceptions. Having dogs to keep healthy makes this one pretty easy. One of the joys of having a dog is how easy it is to make them happy and excited, and all I have to do is get up every morning, throw on some clothes and say, "Let's go for a walk!" and Marcel's tail starts wagging and he starts jumping all over the place. Madeline, being the more sensible of the two, would rather sleep longer, but she comes along anyway. My neighborhood dead ends at a creek, so we walk to the creek and back and that is one mile. We do it in the morning and in the evening and that's my two miles. The nice thing is that a lot of people walk along the same path and I get to know my neighbors (actually my neighbors' dogs--it is a strange phenomenon that dog owners can name most of the dogs in the neighborhood but not their owners). The not so nice thing is that I had fooled myself into thinking that this was making me more fit. About a month ago, my friend D invited me to go along on her dog walk, which is about three quarters of a mile up a hill. I went, feeling that my daily walk surely had prepared me for this. Uphill walking is a whole different thing, it turns out. I was literally gulping for air. I tried again a week later. The next time was easier, and I plan to continue trying.

Thanks to kind friends and family, I did get the Wii Fit. My friend E, who loves shopping as much as I hate shopping, called me from a Walmart in late June. She had just found two Wii's. Walmart would only allow her to buy one, which was for her sister, but she called her son, who kindly drove down and bought the other for me. The Wii has some fun games on it, but it was the Fit software and balance board that I wanted. That's when Cameron went into action. He found a site that tracked where popular electronics could be found. He began checking it every morning until, one morning, in early July, he found one for me and ordered it right away. Soon I was ready to become fit!

When you first turn on the Wii, you are asked to make a Mii. This is an avatar that is supposed to look like you. You work with a menu that offers you many choices in eye types and colors, skin color, face shape, etc. It's kind of creepy how close you can come to making a copy of yourself.  Aging is a problem.  In real life, there are so many indicators of age:  hair loss or loss of hair shininess, loss of skin tone, weight gain, great wisdom.  The Wii has no such indicators, so men can add facial hair, if they have grown any, but women and men without facial hair are stuck adding wrinkles to keep from looking twelve.  You can also change your avatar to reflect changes in you. I cut my hair this summer and I noticed I was depending upon my glasses more and more, so now my avatar has a haircut and wears glasses.  So my Mii ages along with me, which is absolutely delightful.

Imagine getting up in the morning before the sun is up.  Bleary-eyed, you walk down to the room that contains your Wii Fit.  You turn it on and happy music fills the room.  You are told to turn on the Balance Board, which is a white plastic board (about 12 x 18 inches) that remotely talks to the Wii console.  The board's avatar comes on the screen, standing on end and tells you to step on.  You do and the board says, "Oh!"  In English, the word "oh" must have a hundred meanings and we can interpret all of them.  The meaning of this "oh" is quite clear:  I did not expect anything quite this heavy to step on me.  Then music that I can only describe as robot thinking music comes on while the Wii calculates your weight.  Then, in a voice that sounds like Shirley Temple doing an impression of Mickey Mouse, it says, "That's Obese!"  

If your BMI puts you in the obese category, as mine does, it's not a bad thing to face reality, though I wish I could turn off reality every once in awhile.  But, in case, after five minute or so of exercising, you forget you're obese, the Wii kindly helps you out.  As soon as it measures you as obese, it makes your Mii swell up to a larger size.

The activities are fun, and I've been going strong with them for more than 55 days now. I don't think I'd recommend the Wii Fit to someone who already has a workout routine. I don't think it would be challenging enough. In fact, I'm finding the aerobic menu to be kind of easy, but still very enjoyable. But there's also a strength, a balance and a yoga menu and I find all of these still very challenging. I also am guessing that there will soon be a Wii Fit part 2, which I will buy immediately. I love the rhythm boxing option, where I do ten minutes of boxing the air, while my Mii is hitting a bag. It's a great stress reliever. The running in place option is boring because, well, you're running in place, but at least you get to see your Mii run past waterfalls and cliffs. It's also fun that all the other Mii's you've made are running past you, sometimes falling down, other times encouraging you. So, when I'm running in place, I see my mother, Cameron, Marin, Marin's boyfriend, PJ, and Marcel and Madeline.

The funniest one is a balance game in which you suddenly appear on the screen dressed in a penguin outfit while standing on an ice floe.  You need to shift your weight on the balance board to make your Mii slide left and right on its belly.  Why?  Well, so you can watch a copy of yourself in a penguin suit catch fish that are jumping out of the ocean in its mouth.

The best thing is that being able to complete some of the Wii challenges has made me gain confidence in trying other activities. For example, I have started to look for more difficult workouts on the television's On Demand Menu. I look forward to exercising. Eventually the fun of the Fit will probably wear off, but I am hoping that it will be replaced with the fun of other ways of being active.

But I still wake up to the same two words every morning, and changes are slow, but instead of big losses, I have to try to be satisfied with slightly better fitting clothes, and a little more energy.  The other day, I was sitting in a chair that I have sat in often and I went to stand up.  Only after standing did I realize that I had always grabbed the arms of the chair to get up, and I didn't this time.  Small changes, but at least in the right direction.

Thou Hast Thy Music Too

Except for Earth, Wind and Fire's "September," I don't think there are any upbeat songs about autumn. There's September Song, which I hate, and California Dreaming, which I like, but both are pretty depressing, wishing away autumn. Then there's the equally depressing genre of songs about the ending of summer. These, like Boys of Summer and 4th of July, Asbury Park (I know, but read the lyrics) are really about the end of youth, so they tend to be kind of meaty, and I like them a lot. A few years ago, I went to Alaska in early August and it seems that everywhere I went, the residents were talking about autumn coming. It's not a date on the calendar there. You really could feel it in the air, in the angles of the sun, etc. But, for perhaps the first time in my life, I wanted a vacation to last longer and summer in Alaska was so pleasant (beautiful fruits and vegetables, salmon, blue skies, wonderful smells, all without horrible heat or humidity), that I actually felt that end of summer depression.

But Alaska was an anomaly for me. Autumn is by far my favorite season. I love everything about it: the quick change in the length of day, the smells (in my case, the smell I associate most with the start of autumn is the overripe grapes on my grapevine, which is accompanied by the sight of the birds that come for the feast), the colors of the leaves, the end of the last heat waves, and the evening chill. I love that it is also the best time to plant new things in the garden. This is definitely not the end of youth, but the beginning of something.

Autumn is still a few weeks off and we're going through a heat wave, but today at the Farmer's Market, its signs were unmistakably there. I walked over to the corn booth, where the owner told me that this was their last week until next July. I stuff myself with corn every year for two months, so that last week leaves me feeling bittersweet. I bought eight ears and vowed to appreciate every bite. But then, I turned a corner and there were apples! I hadn't seen an apple (a locally grown one) in months. I bought a couple of pounds of them and reminded myself that the foods of autumn are on their way and that peaches and melons and berries will still soon make way for apples and pears and brussels sprouts. One of the great things about September is that you will find all of these things together for a short period.

I'm such a pragmatic person in most ways that it surprises and amuses me (and probably those who know me) that, for me, going to Farmer's Market is not just about getting nutrition so I can live another week. It's more like a religious experience. I feel like I'm doing the right thing shopping there, I enjoy its cyclical nature, and I revel in the smells, the colors, the tastes and the textures of the various foods. One time, PJ saw me choosing some produce and told me that I was putting on my Ina Garten (The Barefoot Contessa) face.

The reader may notice that I did not say that I enjoy the sounds of the Farmer's Market. No, I did not because I do not. A recent trip to the Farmer's Market involved a woman who was getting on in years and a head shorter than me (I'm 5 foot 1 inch) repeatedly asking a vendor where the bananas are in a kind of bullying way. The man clearly didn't speak much English, so I smiled at her and said, "You won't find bananas here. They're not grown in this area." To which she narrowed her eyes and angrily said, "I have bought them here before!" I apparently hadn't made a dent in this woman's resolve because she continued to bother the vendor for a couple more rounds of questions until she gave up and went away. No doubt she's still searching for that papaya, mango, pineapple and banana booth.

I know that in many, many countries people are used to bargaining over prices. I realize that this comes as naturally as breating for the people from these places and that I shouldn't find this behavior as offensive as I do at Farmer's Markets, but it just seems that these farmers aren't exactly getting rich off of their produce and that we should all be happy to help them out. I am trying to get used to people who try to bargain in a non-insulting way, but I really hate it when people insult the produce when they don't get their way: "You are charging two dollars for THIS? Look at it! No good!" And then there are the customers who need to take Economics 101. A couple of years ago, I was waiting my turn at the blueberry booth. For only a handful of Saturdays every summer, these women show up with their mountain blueberries. They are delicious beyond words, and pretty expensive. Right now, they're charging six dollars a pint, but on this day when I was waiting my turn they were four dollars. It was about 10 in the morning and the Farmer's Market still had two hours to go. There were only two pints left and I was standing behind this woman who was rather aggressively trying to get these women to lower their price. She even had them weigh the pint of berries, and when they came in less than a pound, she declared triumphantly that they were charging four dollars for less than a pound. I wanted to scream at this woman. How could it not be obvious that these women were going to be able to sell their blueberries at the price they were asking long before the market ended? I got my turn when the customer gave up in disgust. By the way, I have accidentally found out that there are nice ways to get Farmer's Market bargains. I only bring so much cash, and I will often go to a booth with my last two dollars in hand and say, "Can you give me two dollars' worth of those?" The vendors are often very generous, especially if it is close to closing time.

Back to music. I appreciate artists, really I do. They put themselves out there in a way that I can only dream of. A good singer/musician can even enhance a shopping experience, and I have heard some good ones. I have a friend who has played at our local Farmer's Market to much crowd enjoyment. Recently, I was pleasantly surprised by the talents of a Beatles tribute duo, and found myself reluctant to finish shopping, enjoying the bright sunny day and the boppy tunes that seemed to fit well. Today's experience was more typical, though. There is a woman who has a decent voice who sings mostly covers of Brenda Lee songs. That type of music just doesn't seem to fit a Farmer's Market. She clearly has created an entire lounge show in her head. If you're listening as you shop, before you see her, you imagine that she's wearing a long sequined dress and she's being accompanied by a jazz combo. She does a little talking between songs and in the middle of songs, she'll stop singing and say, "C'mon, play it, boys." When you actually make your way over to where she's singing, you'll see a woman standing alone with a microphone and a boom box. Instead of that sequined dress, she's wearing a pair of polyester pants and an oversized print top and she's saying, "Play it, boys" to a CD. Although, in another setting I might enjoy her show, in this setting I feel uncomfortable as I pass her. But at least she can sing. Sometimes the musicians do not have that talent. The music does not drown out the bargain hunters, but just gives me something that I have to try and filter out along with the voices of the shoppers.

Four out of five senses aren't bad, so I'll keep returning, trying to listen to the sounds in my own head, like the voice that keeps telling me that autumn is coming.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

My summer break has ended, though it never feels totally over until the students show up, and that happens in a few days. Of course, the end of summer break means the beginning of hot weather. We have been told to prepare for 40 students in a classroom this year, as opposed to our usual 32. The idea of 40 adolescents being packed into our rooms (fingers crossed about the air conditioning, which often doesn't work when we first return) on a hot day after they have made it through a day that included P.E....well, you get the picture. In California, we're still waiting for the budget to pass, which means that we can't get things we need, like teachers to relieve the class size problem. In addition to all this, we have no network at our school right now, which means no television, printer or internet. It's hard to feel positive, and yet I know that all of our staff will be welcoming and positive on the first day of school. We realize that it is not the fault of children that California makes such a low priority of meeting their needs.

For those of you who don't live in California, or those of you who do live in California but have not visited a school in a bit, let me take you on a tour of a typical classroom at my school. Let me add that my classroom is, luckily, not typical. A few years ago, there was a plan to bring ninth graders to our school, so money was obtained to build them a beautiful new science building, complete with lab facilities. Never mind why it was not considered necessary to have facilities for sixth to eighth graders. The building was built, and the plan to move ninth grade was nixed for many sensible reasons that should have been obvious on the day the plan was hatched. So, we ended up with the type of room that all children should have for a classroom. But, let's visit a more typical room. It has one door and no windows. That's right. Right here in the Bay Area, near the Hayward fault, which could relieve its pressure at any time, we pack up to 42 people into a classroom that has only one exit. Don't worry, though. Every room has a little crowbar and a single gallon of water in case of emergency. The classrooms were pretty small and crowded with 32 desks, but now there are 36, and teachers are having to arrange these desks so that everyone can see the board. Additionally, all of our new students (one of the middle schools in our district was closed at the end of last year due to shrinking enrollment) have created the realization that sixth graders cannot have lockers this year. So, a sixth grade classroom with one door, no windows, 36 desks, and possibly 40 students, will have 40 backpacks packed with books, binders and other things to add to the fun.

It's hard to say who is to blame for this lack of planning and foresight. Anyone you ask will blame it on someone else. The school board, superintendent, state, Democrats, Republicans, foreclosures. The list goes on.

Our school has only three rules, which we spend the entire first week on:
Be Safe
Be Respectful
Be Responsible
It occurs to me that it may be hard to tell kids to follow these rules when they are forced into a system that does not follow the rules. A crowded school is not safe; the situation shows little respect for teachers and other staff or students. Most importantly, the mess I'm walking into was mostly avoidable. In fact, most people at our school who have little power to make decisions (secretaries, custodians, teachers, technicians) can recall at least one time (for most of us, several times) where we made it clear to someone who could make decisions that we were worried about safety, space, technology. Someone needed to be responsible and make the responsible decision. Instead, we got:
"I know it's difficult, but we know that you can make it work."
"Our hands are tied until the budget passes."
"There's a chain of command in this district. Have you gone through it?"

So, here lies the moral dilemma. Society entrusts us with the important job of educating the next generation of adults. Parents trust us to not only educate their children but to keep them safe. What happens when we feel that we can't do both?

Would You Like to Borrow my Tweezers, Ms. Kahlo?

I had a lovely afternoon in San Francisco today, though it started a little less than lovely. I have been enjoying a very quiet summer in the suburbs and I had forgotten how loud a city can be. The difference was pretty jarring. I felt like an aging Southern Belle who needed her "tonic" to soothe her nerves. It was a reminder that I'd better become accustomed to noise again because in two weeks I'm back to seeing 180 adolescents a day. They have city noise beat by many decibels.

PJ and I had a nice lunch and then he very kindly walked me to the Museum of Modern Art and used his membership to get me in, specifically to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit. I often have a love/hate relationship with modern art. Just when I think that I am really enjoying the pieces I'm looking at, I'll turn the corner and be confronted with a giant canvas covered only in white paint and then, instead of thinking that I don't like it or that I don't find it interesting, I get upset because I feel like I should be "getting" some understanding from the piece. I feel like everyone else in the room is thinking about how the white canvas makes you contemplate only texture without figure and color and if they could read my empty thoughts, they would shake their heads sadly and move on to look at the single black box on the floor. So I was grateful to PJ for this quote in his blog from The Cutting Ball Theater's artistic director. Referring to his avant garde festival, the director, Rob Melrose, wrote in the program: "Sit back, enjoy and let your mind be washed over with these beautiful words and images." I decided I would let the art just wash over me and forgive myself for not understanding.

It turns out that this is a much more enjoyable way to see modern art. Don't like the urinal on a pedestal? That's okay; just move on. Leave it to someone else to contemplate the beauty of this common object. Drawn to the giant curtain made of pieces of silk flowers sewn together in a cascade? Excellent! Do not worry that you do not see how the curtain reminds us that negative space is an important aspect of art, as the card on the wall tells us. (By the way, I loved the silk flower curtain for its gigantic size and because someone actually came up with this insane idea, and made me want to go home and make one).

This does make me wonder about modern art. If much of it is made not to be understood but to just wash over you, that makes it very different from any art that came before, in which the point seems to have been either to communicate or to decorate a practical object. Does that make modern artists more self-centered? Should they care whether or not the viewer understands what they are trying to convey?

I saw much that I liked today. I was mesmerized by an area that was painted to appear to be the light and shadow caused by the sun streaming in a window in autumn. The artist had painted the shadows, but it seemed so real. Three different seasons through the same window were depicted in different rooms of the museum. I also loved that an artist had taken simple white shirts and folded them in several different ways. My favorite piece in the museum's permanent collection is Diego Rivera's The Flower Seller . I love it for its spectacular colors and touching depiction of the two workers who must load and carry the flowers, and because most artists paint a picture and then frame it, but Rivera seems to have decided that he had a canvas in a frame and that the figures in the painting would just have to fold and bend their bodies to fill the frame.

And from Diego Rivera we segue into Frida Kahlo. This is an incredibly popular show. The crowds were large, which is a shame because there is definitely an intimacy to Kahlo's work. In fact, I found myself wondering if she ever meant for thousands of people to have this kind of access into her life. The paintings are almost all autobiographical, which is part of what has been responsible for the cult that has grown up around Kahlo. Many different groups of people who see themselves as underrepresented or underserved have seen a fellow sufferer. Add to this that she was completely overshadowed by her more famous husband (who cheated on her with HER SISTER!!!) and you have a bona fide symbol for many causes. Make no mistake. Frida Kahlo did suffer. She was in pretty constant physical pain, she was disappointed in love, and she longed for a child. And this suffering is made palpable in her paintings. I found the most affecting to be one that she painted after learning of one of her husband's affairs. She is lying naked on a bed, her body covered with stab marks and blood. Her husband, fully dressed, looks on. The blood is even smeared onto the frame of the painting.

I felt almost shamed for looking at the paintings. They seemed way too personal to share. And here I was confronted by the opposite of what makes me uncomfortable about modern art. Here I was, being moved but made uncomfortable for the sake of an artist who is long gone. I found myself wondering if maybe she should have not included herself in the paintings. Couldn't she depict her emotional pain using another subject or some abstract figures? So, I stood there in the museum, realizing that maybe I don't want to know so obviously what the painting is about. Maybe I like and understand those canvases with nothing but squares of different colors better than I thought. Still, the paintings were very, very moving, and in many ways as jarring as the outside noise.

If you go, don't miss the photographs or the short film of Kahlo and Rivera. It became clear to me that my image of Frida Kahlo as a shy, simple woman who quietly painted was very wrong. First of all, she was very attractive by today's standards. Her looks were probably pretty exotic for the 1930's, though. I'm pretty sure she knew exactly what she was doing with her famous elegant peasant look. It suited her looks, it made her stand out, and it was easy to accessorize with great earrings and bracelets, along with flowers for her hair. Okay, she should have plucked her eyebrows, but everything else looked good. After viewing these, I came to the conclusion that she probably would have enjoyed her cult status.

Me? I would have hated it.

I left the museum with my new attitude still intact. I let the outside noise wash over me. Thanks to the strong Euro, I heard many different European languages being spoken by tourists. I looked around me to see what they must be seeing for the first time. San Francisco is a great city for tourists. I walked with the stream of tourists to the ferry building, where I always now feel at home. I bought two chickens and some rustic bread and I went home.

A nice way to almost end my summer vacation.

A Weekend in the Country

When I saw the front porch and the redwoods on the website, I was intrigued, but then I saw the hammock and that was that.

When I was young, a vacation was a given. I was well into my late teens before I realized that not every family took annual vacations. On Mansfield Drive, where I grew up, lots of families did not take annual vacations, but they were living paycheck to paycheck. I did understand that there were things that people couldn't afford, but it came as a surprise that every family that could afford it didn't pile into a car once every year and go somewhere for a few days. My best friend in elementary school, Sandy, lived the most exotic life because she sometimes went to Hawaii to visit relatives. The rest of us, though, went to visit closer relatives or went camping. Because I grew up in the fog belt, it didn't take much travel to get somewhere that felt like it was "away" and vacation-y. If the daily temperature rose past 70 and if swimming was available, we were very happy. Every few years, we would go to Disneyland, which was the most exciting trip of all. One year, we even took a long road trip, driving all the way to the Washington/Oregon border. I was thrilled with Crater Lake, which we saw along the way. We had learned a little about volcanoes in school, and here I was looking into the mouth of an old volcano, which had filled with the bluest water I'd ever seen. I also learned that my family probably wasn't very well suited to taking long road trips.

I mostly loved our vacations, which made me want to give my children annual vacations. I also wanted for all of us to see more. Our annual vacations became pretty interesting trips: Washington D.C., Seattle, Alaska, Yellowstone, London. In addition, there was some camping and, of course, Disneyland. We saw a lot, but it was the trip to Alaska that opened my eyes to what was missing. In Alaska, we did a few days of road trips. It seemed wrong to travel that far to only see the state from the water. I also didn't think I'd really like the cruise part too much. I'm not a cruise person, I told myself. I was very wrong. There is no such thing as a cruise person. The ships are huge and they offer so much that I can't imagine anyone not having a good time. Mostly, you could find me on deck somewhere in a chair, reading. When we pulled into port, we would walk around town for a few hours. The thing was that I wasn't in charge. Someone else was doing all the driving. And it was so quiet out on the ocean. When I came home, I felt more relaxed than I had in my entire adult life.

I understood, for the first time, why people go to places like resorts. I also understood the beauty of my family's close to home camping vacations. Forced relaxation can be a good thing. So, this year, I wanted to go somewhere that smelled of trees, and that was quiet. My brother and sister-in-law and mother joined me for a few days at a house in Cazadero, near the Russian River. It was very nice and, when I came home, I forced myself to slow down my pace. Some of my summer resolutions may not happen and that's okay.

By the way, the little country markets where one buys food....well, let's just say this is not The Waltons. I was hoping for baskets of berries picked that morning by local people which I would cover with lightly sweetened cream that had been milked from a dairy cow that very morning. Instead, I got something akin to an inner city 7-11. But that's another story.

The BS is as High as an Elephant's Eye

Rant alert!

The Corn Refiner's Association is taking out full page ads in many of today's newspapers (thanks, PJ, for the heads-up), running some television commercials, and giving us a website, sweet surprise, to inform us about many different kinds of sweeteners.  Why, you may ask, would a group that makes High Fructose Corn Syrup want you to learn about sugar, honey and aspartame?  This information allows one to create an interesting division between nutritive and non-nutritive sweeteners.  The corn refiners kindly give you information on those non-nutritive (in other words, non-caloric, sweeteners), but one suspects that the real goal is for the reader to lump HFCS, sugar and honey into the same wholesome category.   In this case, nutritive means calories only, not vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, or fiber.

For those who don't already know about this, meaning you haven't had a conversation with me in the last twelve months, high fructose corn syrup is a sweetener that was so inexpensive when it was introduced in a big way in the early 80s, it soon became a major part of most Americans' diets.  After reading about it in The Omnivore's Dilemma, I put myself on a HFCS free diet.  Like many people, I try to eat as many natural, non-processed foods as possible, so it wasn't all that difficult to keep high fructose corn syrup out of my diet in a big way, but it was difficult to keep it out of the shopping cart.  This is because it shows up almost everywhere.  So, while I might be planning a simple meal of barbecued chicken, potatoes and fresh vegetables, I would have to pass on a jar of barbecue sauce and on a premade salad dressing.  Needless to say, most sodas are out of the question.  Now that I've made a concerted effort to not buy anything with HFCS for an entire year, I thought I'd survey my kitchen:

I found it in Honeymade Graham Crackers, Greek Salad Dressing, corn syrup (even though corn syrup is different from HFCS, even corn syrup uses it as a sweetener) and a barbecue sauce.  Check your own kitchen out.  It's amazing where it turns up.  PJ found some in dried fruit!

So, how bad is the website?  I couldn't find any outright lies.  It's kind of the Fox News of websites in that it just leaves out important details that would give you a fair and balanced view of things. Here are some examples:

1. The body metabolizes all sugars the same.  Maybe.  The jury is still kind of out on this one.  Some studies suggest that the higher fructose to sucrose ratio of HFCS causes difficulty for the body when it is processed by the body.  This information is left completely out.
2. High Fructose Corn Syrup won't make you obese.  It is true that if you only ate HFCS and nothing else, you would die before you became obese, but the site fails to mention that there are much better ways to get nutrition, and that this country's obesity problem completely coincides with the introduction of HFCS into our diets.
3. (My favorite)  HFCS is not less natural than sugar and honey because they all need processing.  Yes, they are all processed.  Honey is poured through a filter to remove impurities.  Sugar has some lime (not the fruit) added to the cane or beet juice in order to pull out some impurities and then it is filtered and solidified (this process goes back hundreds of years).  High Fructose Corn Syrup?  Too many steps to write about here, but it involves corn to cornstarch, then treatment with several enzymes, then carbon absorption and several evaporation steps.
4. U.S. Food Manufacturers continued use of HFCS is based on the benefits it provides rather than its price relative to sugar.  Oh my!  This is probably as close as this site comes to a lie.  It is true that HFCS, because it is a liquid does keep foods moister and has some other benefits.  However, this is not why it is used in sodas, for example.  Up until very recently, farmers grew far, far more corn than the world needed.  The government would buy the excess and sometimes just let it rot.  At the same time, the government put tariffs on imported sugar.  So, HFCS was an answer to everyone's prayers.  Ignore the plight of the sugar growers (which is another sad story in itself), ignore that we could have used that excess corn land to grow other things (if you want to get sick, read the part in The Omnivore's Dilemma about how we are forcing the nation's cattle to eat corn when their stomachs are evolved to eat grass).  Ignore what growing nothing but corn in huge quantities does to the nation's farmland.  

Why this ad campaign now?  Well, I'm guessing that the high price of corn due to its use in ethanol is making HFCS rather close to sugar in price.  (And here is our next big ethical dilemma:  do we really want our farmland being used to literally fuel our cars instead of feeding the world?)  This, coupled with consumer interest in getting away from HFCS is probably making a lot of food manufacturers think twice about what they should be using to sweeten their foods, if they need to sweeten them at all.  Do we really need salad dressing to be sweet?  

By the way, lest you feel sympathy for the Corn Refiner's Association:  as far as I can tell, it consists of seven companies, not individuals, and those companies are involved in making cornstarch, dextrose and ethanol along with high fructose corn syrup.  I think if we all stop eating HFCS, they're going to be okay.

If You Can't Stand the Heat

So, my summer resolutions were kind of slowed down by two days of work and a horrible heat wave. I was complaining about the heat to my sister, who asked what the temperature was. I complained, "90s!" This was followed by a moment of silence where I realized that my sister, who lives in St. Louis, was probably less than sympathetic. Seriously, though, it was very uncomfortable and the state is burning up, which it's not supposed to do until September/October. This is going to be a tough year.

Yesterday, I had a day off and I decided to not try and work through the heat. Instead, I spent the entire day reading Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. If you like Hollywood movies from the 1930s (and if you don't, I don't want to hear about it), I think you'll love this book, which reads like a screwball comedy. It was charming and funny and a very quick read. But I think that there's more to it than that, too. I think it was a look into the inner life of a woman who has been invisible her entire life, but who finds that she has skills that give her some power. And though we only see the other main character through Miss Pettigrew's eyes, it was a pleasant surprise to discover that the beautiful blonde young woman with pretty loose morals was actually very intelligent and kind.

This morning when I woke up, it was at least twenty degrees cooler than it had been for several days, meaning that I could get back to my cleaning frenzy. It was time to work on the room I most dreaded...the kitchen. Here is a before and after of the worst cupboard:




A clean cupboard does something to my soul. Sad, but true. There's a sense of peace that comes to me when I look at it, and the hope that I can keep it that neat (though I've had my own kitchen to take care of for twenty-nine years now, so the odds are against me that I will change). Anyway, I can enjoy it for a while, and I can enjoy my orderly kitchen for an even shorter while. If you know my kitchen, you can have fun listing what I changed. And I've been saving for some changes in my kitchen. Feel free to weigh in on what you would change.






Now, back to my cleaning frenzy.

Everything but the Glass Slipper

I haven’t blogged Groomer Has It for a bit, so I have missed telling about the insane and scary and tight skinned dog psychic and the grooming van challenge, in which the groomers were judged on their driving skills and told that a van accident is unacceptable at “this point in the competition.”

We begin with Kathleen’s exit. She did not tell her client about cutting the dog’s nails too short. Jorge really wished for her departure, which could be foreshadowing of what will happen to him this week. This week’s Quick Sniff begins with a message to meet Jai, the host, at the Dog Park. Each groomer is given a booth, which looks hilariously like Lucy’s Psychiatrist Booth in Peanuts. They have to decorate it themselves and prove their business savvy by getting customers and grooming, setting their own prices.

And, as they begin to decorate, their booths look quite a bit more like Lucy’s booth with hand-written signs and prices. Artist’s booth, “Doggie Depo,” is in the worst location, so his strategy is to lure customers over by undercutting Jonathan’s prices, which Jonathan says are “Manhattan prices.” If it was about anything but dogs, I would probably applaud Artist’s business savvy, but I’m not sure that having low, low prices is the right strategy for dog lovers. Why isn’t he undercutting Jorge’s prices? Jorge has no prices. Jorge has a very smart strategy. He tells the clients that it’s a competition and they should pay what they think is right.

Everyone seems to be busy the entire time. At one point, Jorge has a lull, but it doesn’t seem to last long. Jorge’s strategy seems to be working well. We see him getting $20 bills for nail trims, while Jonathan is only charging $4 and Artist, $2. Later, it seems that people are paying less and less. While the suspense builds as we wait to see who has made the most money, Jonathan makes fun of Artist’s sign because it is not centered. He doesn’t mention the spelling of Depo. Artist tells the confessional camera that Jonathan is an “arrogant prick.”

Jonathan ends up winning. He pumps his fists into the air, yelling, “New York prices!” Catchy.

The actual challenge for this week is to hand-strip Wire Haired Terriers. Apparently, Wire Haired Terriers need their hair pulled out by the follicle or else the follicle can become infected.

Artist says that he has never stripped. Jorge hand strips a lot. Jonathan says that hand stripping is one of his favorite things to do.

Artist is at a large disadvantage because he is the only groomer who has never stripped. So, he should be eliminated, but it is starting to look like the producers are turning this show into a Cinderella story, with our guy from the streets being the most deserving winner. The edits are showing Artist as kinder and kinder and his competitors as, well, arrogant pricks.

Though Jonathan is not one of the judges, he tells us that he did an amazing job and that he should win. Jorge, master of stating the obvious, tells us that this could be the grooming that makes you or breaks you. Artist is asked what he could have improved upon and he, following in Jorge’s footsteps, says that he could improve upon his technique.

I realize watching the judges’ discussion that the judges have started to talk about Artist as if he is one of their pets. Xavier says, “He learns quickly, he catches on, and he’s attentive.” I’m surprised they’re not petting him, other than figuratively.

Speaking of which, Artist is named this week’s Best of Show because he did the best job for someone who has never done this job before. Jonathan will compete against him in the finals. Jorge has to take his ego and go home.

Summer Resolutions

It seems fitting to change my blog colors with this post.

I doubt that I'm the only teacher who makes summer resolutions instead of New Year's resolutions. My summer resolutions tend to get done, unlike New Year's resolutions. I think there are several reasons for this. I am just coming down from an exhausting schedule, especially at the end of the year. Teachers, who quickly become accustomed to having more days off than anyone but firefighters, become exhausted by the two long, vacationless periods in the year: from September to November and from Spring Break (which was very early this year) to mid-June. The end of the year involves cleaning and often packing up classrooms, entering final grades, end of the year awards and ceremonies, and goodbyes for students, retirees, and those let go. I have several side jobs, too, and many of them end at the same time as the school year. Paperwork needs to be done, reports filed, letters of recommendation for colleagues written. This is my long-winded way of saying that one of the reasons that summer resolutions get done is that it takes some time to come down from that feeling of constant rushing, so I take advantage of it at first.

There's a weather component, too. Here in San Leandro, near the San Francisco Bay, summers are often mild, causing me to feel like doing things. Those who know me know that as soon as the thermometer hits 80, all bets are off. I am not fit for human company, unless that company doesn't mind spending time with an incoherent, sweaty and miserable lump. But as long as we stay in the 70's (or even better, 60's), I like working. Western culture, with its January 1 New Year, sets us up for failure. Who wants to start exercising or quit bad habits when days are dark and you are feeling like hibernating?

But I think the main reason that summer resolutions can get done is that summer vacation ends, so summer resolutions must end, too. So, the resolutions have to have reachable goals. The typical New Year's resolution is a rest of your life resolution. Too long. Too scary.

This is a rare summer for me, where I'm not spending much of the summer working. So far, I have eleven working days planned. That will increase as we get closer to August 19th, when all of this comes to an end, but for right now, I feel like the possibilities are infinite.

So, here are my summer resolutions. They won't all get done because it isn't possible, but my first summer resolution is to revisit this list of resolutions in late August and blog about how I did (perhaps there will be pictures!)

1. A thorough cleaning of every room in the house (including drawers and closets) along with needed repairs in each room.
2. Start the new school year with a well-tended garden that does not embarrass me.
3. Finish the quilt I've been working on for several years now (there will be a photo if I finish). It has been a long time since I've started a new one, and I'd really like to. And, PJ, I will help you start yours, too.
4. Get my backyard fence rebuilt. Parts of it fell down in a storm this year, mostly because they had rotted.
5. Walk at least two miles every day.
6. Find an activity to do that helps with strength and balance. This was going to say "buy a wii fit," but it appears that the market will keep this from happening. Our sinking economy causes Nintendo to prefer to sell them in Europe instead of here.
7. Paint my bedroom and make it feel less cluttered.
8. Go through my curriculum unit by unit, and attempt to make it more interesting to all my students.
9. Read a lot (this one is purposely left vague because I haven't picked out all my summer books yet, so I haven't decided if I'll spend several weeks on a meaty book, or read shorter books).
10. The one I'm most excited about: Build a Stickley-style trestle coffee table (N, another teacher, is kindly going to help me with this)

We'll see what happens. And I do mean "we" because another resolution is to blog at least twice a week until August 19th.

Won't Get Fooled Again

So, Groomer Has It is down to the final four: Artist, Kathleen, Jonathan and Jorge. So far, this show has not had any big surprises or upsets. If that pattern continues, then Artist should be saying goodbye on today's episode.

The episode begins with Jonathan and Kathleen telling the camera how much they are disliking each other. Perhaps my guess about today's elimination is wrong since every episode tends to begin with foreshadowing about who is being eliminated.

The Quick Sniff takes place at a dog rescue organization, or so we are led to believe. But, surprise, there is no Quick Sniff this week. This is the elimination challenge. Jorge is a bit upset about there being no Quick Sniff because, he tells us, "I was hoping to play with something today." Oh, Jorge. I suppose you can do that later.

So, I'm starting to think that I'm right about either Jonathan or Kathleen going home because there is no formal judging. This week is about that giving back part that was discussed in episode one. Four dogs will be groomed and hopefully adopted. The groomer of the last one to get adopted is the one who will go home.

There are four dogs to choose from. Kathleen, as last week's winner, goes first and falls in love with Teddy, who is the male breeding dog from a puppy mill. He is in the worst shape and was treated horribly. He is so matted that he feels pain when walking. But she doesn't pick him because "it is a competition." Now, readers, remember this moment because it will come back to haunt Kathleen over and over again in the episode. Let's explore this decision: there are only four dogs to choose from. There are four groomers. So, each dog will get special treatment from a groomer who will do his/her best to get the dog adopted. Kathleen didn't choose Teddy, but that doesn't mean that he just received a death sentence.

Artist comes next and picks Teddy, even though he and the other groomers think he just committed competition suicide. And sure enough, Teddy is so matted that he has to be shaved completely, which reveals his sores. It is not a pretty sight. The other groomers are in awe of Artist for making such an unselfish choice, and it seems to bring out the best of some of them. Jorge finishes his dog and Jorge helps Artist with scissoring.

Jonathan has a very pretty black Pomeranian and Kathleen has a white dog that looks like a cockapoo. Jorge has the female breeding dog that was rescued from the puppy mill. All the groomers are shown actually caring that all the dogs, especially Teddy, find homes.

All the groomers are sent out with their newly groomed dogs to try to talk people into attending the adoption fair. Artist seems to be the most charming of the four. People seem to be drawn in by him and his enthusiasm. Teddy, despite being a bit unattractive, is a very friendly dog. Jorge realizes that telling the story of his dog, the breeding female from the puppy mill, draws people in. Plus, the dog is really cuddly. Kathleen is seen trying to steal away Jorge's customers. Jonathan seems to be having no luck getting anyone interested in his dog. He might want to rethink calling potential customers evil. More foreshadowing?

Later, at home, Jonathan says that he will be mad if he gets sent home due to a challenge that has nothing to do with grooming. Can't blame him, but only one of these competitions has been completely fair (the wire dog challenge). They all have had randomness as a factor.

All four groomers are showing their best sides, truly caring about adopting all the dogs. As if Artist wasn't saintly enough in this episode, he actually is responsible for Jorge winning the challenge when a client doesn't want Teddy. Artist realizes that Jorge's dog might be a good match. All of the groomers are in awe of Artist's kindness.

Jonathan is next to adopt his dog out to a cute little girl who keeps saying that she wants to take the dog home.

Now, it's down to Kathleen and Artist, and there really is some suspense. We have Kathleen, who got first choice and who chose what seemed to be an easy to adopt dog, and we have Artist who did the right thing and everyone knows it.

The next client to come in is a guy whose girlfriend sent him because she liked Kathleen's dog. It seems like it'll be a slam-dunk, but the dog doesn't seem to like the guy very much, instead preferring Kathleen. Artist, waiting for clients, looks dejected. Kathleen, at this point, really should have suggested Artist's dog, but she doesn't. The guy signs adoption papers.

I'm feeling pretty bad for Artist, though he did a good thing and should be proud. The judges show up to, I think, say goodbye, but no! Artist is not being sent home after all. I'm pretty sure that the producers of the show decided that they didn't want to receive hate mail the rest of their lives.

So, a kind of sweet episode.

Next week looks funny again. The groomers are paired up and sent out in big grooming vans to make house calls. It looks like lack of driving skill becomes an issue.

Hey! I just realized that they must have planned to not eliminate someone this week all along. Otherwise, they couldn't do the grooming van episode the following week. When will I learn not to trust reality television, even on Animal Planet?

Best Elimination Ever

My next post was supposed to be about Groomer Has It, but I couldn't resist mentioning what I'm watching right now. I just arrived home, zombie-like, from a twelve hour workday. Before getting down to the business of correcting today's tests, I turned on the television, and there was Farmer Wants a Wife, a show that I watched once but rejected because it was really, really boring. I won't describe the show's premise because, well, it's pretty much there in the title. Apparently, the show has embraced its boringness. In tonight's episode, nine young women were told that they were going to find out who was eliminated by watching the local quilting bee lady embroider the eliminated woman's name. Yup. You heard right. They gathered around her on the steps of the house and watched as she slowly hand embroidered one letter at a time. Time moves slow on the farm.

A Truth Universally Acknowledged

When I was a child I came up with The Rule of Television Weddings, which stated: If you see the wedding gown before the wedding takes place, the wedding is not going to happen. Since I was a child when I developed this rule, I assumed that everyone knew this. Also, let's face it, there was no outlet for such preternatural brilliance. You don't exactly share with others that you have already spent so much of your life watching television, and that weddings especially are fascinating to you, that you've noticed something that probably interests no one but you. It was PJ, who many years ago, pointed out to me that not everyone knew this at all. So there you have it in a nutshell: my single contribution to society.

But my rule, which held for years, is not quite true anymore. Let's explore:

Thursday and Friday on All My Children (take note those of you who have spoken of the slow pace of the soap opera): Angie and Jesse can be found at Zach's casino getting ready for their wedding, a very special event in Pine Valley, since the residents all saw Jesse die 20 years ago. Recently, he returned from the dead to resume his life with his family. Meanwhile, ex-FBI agent Rob Gardner, the reason that Jesse was believed to be dead, realizes that the diamond he's been searching for is safely hidden in Angie's daughter's stuffed elephant, which is at the casino, too. Side note: this child has carried the elephant with her everywhere for almost all of her 18 years and the elephant is very soft. The diamond is in its rough form and is the size of my palm. Strange no one ever noticed. Anyway: The wedding guests gather, including the ghost of Dixie, who knows that something terrible is going to happen on this day. Of all the things that might happen on this day, I know that the wedding is, without a doubt going to take place (more about this later). The guests include Tad, Dixie's great love, who is longing to find the five year old daughter that Dixie gave up for adoption without telling Tad. They also include Aidan and Greenlee and Zach and Kendall (the daughter of the famous Erica Kane, played by Susan Lucci). Also there are Colby and JR, the grown children of Adam, who is being haunted by Dixie's ghost. Adam is in a hospital for the mentally ill because he has been talking to Dixie and no one believes him. Dixie is haunting Adam because he is the only living person who knows that five year old Kathy, the adopted daughter of Julia, is actually the daughter that Tad is searching for. As Anna Russell would say, "I'm not making any of this up."

Vows are said, people start dancing, and happiness reigns for a few minutes. Rob Gardner uses his FBI badge to get access to the room where the stuffed elephant can be found. But the diamond is not there because Jesse was one step ahead of him. When Gardner realizes this, Angie just happens to walk into the room, and she becomes Rob Gardner's hostage. Meanwhile, Adam gets out of the hospital and shows up at the wedding ranting and raving about needing to take his children home. The ghost of Dixie keeps saying, "Adam, the future is already in motion. You can't change it." Oddly, Dixie seems able to change things herself. She knocks over chairs to get people to stop walking, which changes their paths, and to some extent, their futures, but she can't change the story from moving along. Adam has one more chance to tell Tad the truth, but doesn't. Rob Gardner and his hostage show up at the wedding reception, where Aidan pulls out his gun. Rob starts shooting and hits a couple of people, including Julia, Kathy's mother. Perhaps Aidan isn't quite as quick on the draw as usual because a few moments before, his fiance, Greenlee, learned that Aidan and her best friend Kendall had had sex the night before Zach and Greenlee were finally rescued from their month of being trapped in an old bomb shelter (they were presumed dead). Aidan and Kendall had given up and turned to each other for comfort on that very night. While they were comforting each other on the hardwood floor, Kendall spotted the map (under the bed, which was unoccupied) that showed the bomb shelter and led to the rescue. Tad had hired a helicopter to whisk Angie and Jesse to their honeymoon. Rob Gardner decides to use the helicopter to escape with the diamond and with Angie. As he is taking off, he shoots and hits Tad. Jesse jumps for the helicopter's runners and the episode ends with Jesse in mid-air. I'm leaving a lot out here, like Rob locking Opal in a supply closet after making her think they were going to have sex in there, or Angie's daughter starting to fall for the federal attorney's son, or Aidan telling Greenlee that he understood that she didn't want to have children, or Tad fighting with his wife over her feelings for Adam, or JR getting shot at and his ex-wife realizing how important JR was to her.

Television weddings are very expensive things, so producers tend to cram a lot of surprises into them. I've seen tornadoes and earthquakes happen during weddings, along with murders and kidnappings. But the most common thing that happens during television weddings is that the wedding is stopped, usually by the man the bride really loves.

I knew that Angie and Jesse were actually going to become man and wife because when Angie went dress shopping, and found the perfect dress, her friends were seen gasping at how great she looked and she was only shown from the neck up. On the morning of the wedding, Angie was only seen in her nightgown, not in the gown. So, even though I had no idea who was going to be shot, taken hostage, etc., I knew absolutely that I do's were going to be said before all of this happened.

When I was young, I absolutely knew that when I saw the dress before the wedding, the wedding would not happen. But in my teens, there was one exception. On the old Rhoda show, Rhoda married Joe in one of the most watched television episodes of the 1970's. The story centered around lots of things going wrong as she tried desperately to get to the wedding. The humor was in the idea that she was running through the streets of New York in a fairy tale type wedding gown. So here is the Rhoda exception: if the story centers around the difficulties of getting to the wedding, the dress can be shown and the wedding will still take place. This rule stood for years. But.

Last week, there was another exception, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

On One Life to Live, which has been really good lately, a wedding was about to take place and I really had no idea if it would happen or not. Up until the wedding day, I did not see the dress. That's a sign that it would take place. The groom, Rex, does not know that his fiance, Adriana, has been scheming to make sure the wedding takes place. Gigi, Rex's first love, has shown up in town with her son, who is the result of a night between Rex and Gigi in high school. Rex left town soon after conceiving the child, and has no idea that he has a son. Meanwhile Adriana, and pretty much anybody who thinks, has figured out that this is the case. Adriana has gone to great lengths to make sure that Rex doesn't know that he has a son, since he seems to have feelings for Gigi and this news would put him over the edge. So, even though we don't see the dress, we do see Rex showing up late to his wedding because he is helping his son, who is at the hospital with an asthma attack and we see Gigi show up at the wedding and announce mid-ceremony that she loves Rex. Here's the strange part: I did see the dress before the wedding. Adriana had it on in the dressing room in the church before she entered the chapel. And, despite everything, the wedding did take place.

What gives? I have four possible explanations. Have weddings become anticlimactic? Couples live together now and a wedding in the old days supposedly meant that the couple was hours away from having sex for the first time, which was a pretty important step. Does the internet mean that it is easy to find out the designer of the wedding dress and that the more time the dress is on the air, the more perks the producers can get? (I can't find the name of the designer on-line, so I think this one might be wrong). Or, have the writers become aware of this television convention after 50 years of television (we can call this a post-Vicki's rule of television weddings world) and are they turning the convention in on itself? Or, if the bride is a liar who doesn't deserve to be married, do we not care about the moment of the reveal? This would add a second exception.

Luckily, I have been educated in the rules of logic, so my rule can be saved. My new rule: If you don't see the dress before the wedding, the wedding will take place. As far as I know, there is no exception to this rule, but there are actually many shows I've never seen, believe it or not, so I'm open to the possibility that there are exceptions out there. Go ahead, ruin my single contribution to the world's great body of knowledge.

Iron Chef, Doggie Style

The title of this week’s entry comes from Jonathan. Not because it made me laugh, which it did, but because he was kind and good humored enough to post a very nice comment last week. I should probably be all nonchalant about it, but I’m actually pretty thrilled by his comment. So, this is for you, Jonathan. (By the way, Jonathan even got a clip on The Soup this week).

This episode begins with most of the groomers being very happy that Malissa is gone. Jessica starts crying because Malissa is “all I had here.” I can’t blame her for crying. It’s pretty clear that they’re all ready to see her follow Malissa out the door. And, well, I’m kind of ready for Jessica’s exit myself. There’s a pretty funny scene of Jessica confiding in Will and being touched at how kind he was to listen to her, followed by Will telling the cameras how much he wants Jessica to go.

The groomers seem exhausted by the show. When the doggie mail arrives, as it does every week, with Nemo dressed up in one of his little doggie outfits, they seem less than thrilled. When they learn that their challenge is to make a treat for a dog, they become even less enthusiastic. Several brag about how they don’t know how to cook (pet peeve of mine—I hate it when people brag that they are incapable of meeting a basic human need).

The groomers are taken to a gourmet dog treat bakery and shown to a table laden with things that dogs like: carob, apples, and many other things. Kathleen’s leg up from winning last week is that she is the only one who can use peanuts.

Noting Kathleen’s good fortune, Jonathan tells all of us that he “goes crazy for nuts.” He adds that this is like “Iron Chef, doggie style.” Suddenly, I’m picturing Emeril and Paula Deen and…oh, make it stop.

The owner of the dog treat shop chooses Jessica the winner for her treat, which he declares to be the only committed treat. This is because she based her cookie on one ingredient instead of a lot of things that dogs like, all mixed together. I guess my cockapoos are indiscriminate eaters because they don’t care if their food is committed or not.

Today’s challenge is to groom a Chow Chow. Kathleen hasn’t groomed one in 15-20 years because she has been attacked by them. Jorge has the same story. Jonathan says that he doesn’t groom them, either. Apparently, Chows become very attached to their owners, and that’s it. But Jasper grooms them a lot, and Artist tells how he can’t afford to be picky about the dog that he grooms. In his job, he needs to groom ten dogs a day to pay his bills.

Most of the dogs turn out to be pretty sweet. Kathleen’s isn’t, but most of the groomers think she made a mistake showing her fear and muzzling her dog. For the first time, I become aware of how dangerous dog grooming can be. After a dog bite, I wouldn’t want to go back again.

Much is made of Artist doing a good job grooming his Chow. The judges are thrilled because they talked to him about his lack of confidence last week. They seem to be taking credit for Artist’s amazing turn-around.

While the groomers wait for the judges to make their decision, the groomers who are usually confident (Jorge, Jonathan, Kathleen) are unusually quiet. They realize that they could go on the chopping block. But they may be safe because Will went crazy with his scissoring, and then tries to cover it by saying that there is no AKC standard for grooming Chows. One of the judges, Xavier, points out that this is not true. Whoops.

Jasper and Artist are the two best groomers this week. Artist wins best in show, maybe because he was the best, or maybe because the judges seem to think that he is their Pygmalion.

Kathleen and Will don’t make the standard this week, for showing fear in one case and for overcutting in the other. Will has to leave the doghouse. Kathleen is told that the “groomer of the year” can’t say, “but I don’t do Chows.” I’m kind of thinking that the groomer of the year can say pretty much anything she wants to say.

Two for the Price of One

You’d think I could, once in two weeks, sit down and write a recap. You’d think. But did I mention that I am a busy educator? So, here’s a mini recap of last week on Groomer Has It and a longer recap of this week’s. I must apologize to my regular readers for not getting the last one in within a decent period of time. I have been taking some time to learn more about you. Here are some statistics about you: 42.9% of you don’t have access to Animal Planet, so you depend upon this site for all of your Groomer news; 14.3% of you are related to one of the groomers; 14.3% of you live in Europe; 14.3% of you have an intense, strange hatred for mayonnaise.

So, last week was fashion show week. Will, who won the leg up, gets to divide the remaining groomers into three teams of three. They will have to design a fashion line and then groom the dogs for Groomer Has It’s first fashion show. The catch is that the losing team will decide which of the three groomers goes home, instead of the judges.

There will be a surprise judge, who is “infamous when it comes to fashion critique.”

All the groomers find it a bit hard to believe that Will chooses Jessica and Amber for his team instead of Jonathan and Kathleen, who probably would have assured him a win. His team does end up losing after Will disses his teammates by claiming it was a bad decision to choose them for his team. And then, they don’t even team up and vote him out. Jessica, who gets the deciding vote, chooses Amber to go home. I guess it was a strategic vote because Amber is the better groomer of the two.

Jonathan, who must always assert himself as the groomer to beat in each episode, tells the camera that he is “tired of being nice for the sake of being nice.” That leaves me wondering what reasons there are for being nice.

I think my favorite moment occurs when Jonathan is feeling very confident about his team not losing and Artist agrees, but mentions, in passing, the possibility that his teammates, realizing that Jonathan is the biggest threat to everyone, could throw the challenge on purpose and then, as the losing team, vote Jonathan out. Jonathan’s face is priceless. It reminds me of the dramatic prarie dog.

Jasper, Jorge and Artist end up winning, much to their surprise. Jasper gets “Best in Show.”

Oh, and the infamous judge? None other than Melissa Rivers. What more could I ask for?

So on to this week:

We begin with Kathleen and Jonathan arguing with Malissa about the last challenge. Malissa wants to talk about how she feels about Kathleen taking away her dog. Malissa, as usual, gives us golden drops of wisdom, “I have a heart, I have a soul, I have a brain, I have a mind,” and “What are the judges going to say? Like I am incompetent of grooming?”

The groomers find out that their quick sniff challenge involves dog CPR. They are to be instructed by a woman named Denise Fleck. Jorge declares himself “super interested.” The groomers then have to give first aid to three stuffed dogs. Malissa lets the viewers know that she knows the difference between a real dog and a stuffed animal. Moments later, she messes up and tells the camera, “I forgot to pretend it was a real dog. My bad.”

Jasper, who seems to be a sweet, big guy, wins the challenge because he remembers that you don’t have to bandage up a hurt leg if an empty toilet paper roll will do. He beat Artist’s time, and Artist seemed genuinely happy for Jasper.

It’s dinner time. Jessica mentions that she misses her cat. Jorge says he doesn’t like cats. Foreshadowing!!! Malissa talks about how Kathleen owes her an apology, and Artist tells the camera that they all have to watch out for Kathleen because the quiet ones are the ones who will put cyanide in your coffee in the morning. The camera cuts to Kathleen, who is sitting in a corner in a pink bathrobe, reading a book.

The groomers are told that their elimination challenge will involve a breed that will be new to them as groomers. One groomer feels that there are few breeds he hasn’t groomed. Malissa hopes for monkeys and Artist hopes for raccoons. But, alas, it is cats. Why are wet cats so hilarious?

In addition to seeing funny wet cats, we get to see funny injured groomers. Artist gets bitten on his knuckles, plus his cat wets itself and “left chocolate truffles on the groomer’s table three times.”

Malissa needs to invoke her seventh sense, but it doesn’t seem to be working the way it has so many times before. Alas, hearing does not seem to be one of her senses because she apparently did not hear that you should not scissor cats’ faces. The other groomers wonder if she scissored the cat’s whiskers, which would be a horrible error. Jonathan says, “I hope she did scissor her cat’s face.” I would comment on the cruelty of that remark, but I was thinking the same thing. I’ve grown weary of Malissa.

It’s time for the judges’ decision, and it is in this scene that I notice that Jorge must have borrowed Jonathan’s white belt. Am I missing some scary new fashion trend?

Kathleen wins because she really seems to know cats and Will is the runner up. The fact that they call it runner up cracks me up. I keep expecting Jai to say, “Will, if Kathleen is unable to fulfill her duties as this week’s winner…” Will was chosen because he was able to deal well with the most matted of the cats. I hope this doesn’t mean we have to listen to information about the cat’s vulva.

Malissa has to leave the doghouse. She is beside herself with grief. Artist tries to calm her, but she’ll have none of it. Later, as she’s packing, she’s calmer. Her parting words: “Eventually someone had to go home and so it was me.” Then she says, “Wait! I think there are only five senses: breathing, seeing, touching, tasting and hearing. I can’t think of the sixth one.” Comedy gold. We’ll miss you, Malissa.

I Should be Correcting Quizzes

My friend PJ (Blogger of Reverberate Hills) sent me a meme, thus teaching me a new fascinating term, along with giving me something to do instead of what I should be doing. A meme is any piece of information that passes through social networks, and is likened to a gene or a virus. I'm all over this, because memes have parallels in microbiology.

For example, many viruses are passed by vectors, such as a mosquito, which can pass viruses and other human pathogens from human to human without becoming infected itself. The internet is an amazing meme vector, which can allow memes to pass around the world in hours. Another interesting thing about viruses is how many of them can mutate quite easily. People wonder why you generally don't catch chicken pox twice, while you can catch the cold over and over. This is because the cold mutates so quickly that, by the time it makes it around the world once, it is mutated enough to infect you again the next year without your antibodies recognizing it. The interesting thing about the internet is that, due to cut and paste, forward and "include message in reply," memes do not mutate anywhere near as quickly as they do when passed verbally.

So, here is the meme in the original form:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

Here's mine, from Earth Science by Tarbuck and Lutgens.

The end moraine marking the farthest advance of the glacier is called the terminal moraine, and those moraines formed as the ice front periodically became stationary during retreat are termed recessional moraines. As the glacier recedes, a layer of till is laid down, forming a gently undulating surface of ground moraine. Ground moraine has a leveling effect, filiing in low spots and clogging old stream channels, often leading to a disruption of drainage.

I am very disappointed in mine, especially after reading PJ's beautiful passages, so like a mad scientist, I'm going to mutate the meme:

Pick up a book that you and many other people have enjoyed:
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Invite readers to guess the book (or at least the author).

So, readers, I invite you to guess the book:

Sabina could not understand why the dead would want to have imitation palaces built over them. The cemetery was vanity transmogrified into stone. Instead of growing more sensible in death, the inhabitants of the cemetery were sillier than they had been in life.

So a Fool Returns to Her Folly

I didn't plan to write about Groomer Has It again, but I enjoyed writing about the first episode so much, and I enjoyed how much people enjoyed it that I decided to continue. Episode 2 was not fun enough for me to write a lot about, but non-viewers need to know these two things: Will had a difficult time combing matting out of his dog's vulva. I know this because he repeated it several times and also because the dog cried in pain while he did this. I also know this because the other thing of note is that Malissa, one of the young blondes, used her seventh sense for the third time in two episodes, and this time it told her that the screaming dog was uncomfortable. Dear reader, you may wonder, as anyone would, what Malissa's sixth sense is. I can tell you that it is not common sense. Other than that, I have no idea. The producers know comedy gold when they hit it and they dare not ask, fearing that Malissa may realize that she has skipped over a sense.

So, on to episode three, which starts with Will returning to the Dog House after almost getting eliminated. The groomers are less than thrilled to see him and Will wonders aloud what they would have done about his dog's matted vulva. The other groomers don't seem to want to discuss it. Jorge says, "I hate to beat a dead dog, but Will has to go."

Next we go to this week's quick sniff challenge. This is a great quick sniff challenge because it allows us to meet people even more strange than our groomers. The groomers are taken to an exclusive doggy daycare place where they are to meet with five very particular clients and try to make these clients choose them as someone they would hire to groom their dogs. And, they are told that one is a celebrity!

Jorge is not intimidated by a celebrity client because, "I consider myself a celebrity. I mean, I have Academy Award winners texting ME because they cannot get an appointment." After seeing him with one of the picky clients, I can see why he's in so much demand. A lady comes in with two Pomeranians, and this causes Jorge to tell the cameras (and the tens of people watching the show), "that lady was funny. Her breasts were twice the size of each one of the dogs." The woman says, "These are my babies. Do you put them in that noose thing to groom them?" It is clear from her tone that she does not want want her babies in the noose. So, Jorge answers, "Of course." Later to the camera, he says, "They were humongous!"

The celebrity is Danny Bonaduce, famous for his arrest for brutally beating a transvestite. I hope everyone got autographs! Artist tells the camera that Mr. Bonaduce is a space cadet from the constellation Qzar.

Jonathan instantly bonded with the woman with the pink dog because he has dyed his Maltese pink, too. He tells the client, "Pink is cotton candy." Hmmm...seems to be a theme. The client says, "Love him!"

One of the picky clients has a fat old dog and he is very particular about the cut. Artist actually did make me laugh, when he tells the camera, "When the older dude came in with the fat mutt, he's actling like this is a best in show breeder's choice and he goes, 'what can you do for my dog,' and I'm like, wash him?"

Will says he has extreme talent with German Shepherds. When the client asks him what he can do for his dog, he says that he would put him in a tub and wash him. Whoa! Sign me up. As if this isn't funny enough, he does all of this in a Southern accent, which was not very apparent before. The show's editors add some country music in the background to go along with this aw shucks accent.

Jonathan wins my heart, almost making up for wearing a white belt last week, by handling Danny Bonaduce's harassment with great intelligence. Danny Bonaduce asks Jonathan questions about whether or not he dresses his dogs. It is quite clear what Mr. Bonaduce is driving at. It reminded me of high school, where there were bully bullies, whom no one liked, and the boys who thought they were oh so clever because they would harass without using labels. They didn't see themselves as bullies, and, now that these boys are in their late 40's/early 50's, I sincerely hope that they have put that bullying behind them. But there are those who never grow up, and Danny Bonaduce is one of them. Anyway, in answer to the question, Jonathan says that he dresses his dogs in plain sweaters. This is clearly not the kind of fun that our celebrity was looking for, and Jonathan further puts him in his place by saying, "poodles' coats don't offer enough protection and they can get very cold in New York winters and they need the extra warmth of a sweater." Later, to the camera, he says, "I just told Danny Bonaduce what he wanted to hear. The truth is my dogs wear fancy sweaters and coats and rhinestone necklaces and I dye my dogs." Yuck! But good for Jonathan.

The lady with the all pink Maltese is dressed all in solid pink (sweater, blouse, pants). Artist, who had no problem sniffing a dog's behind, complains on camera of the lady's bad breath. That ought to bring in the clients.

Everybody loved Jonathan, who wishes to finally win a quick sniff challenge. After all, it is the third episode, and the poor guy has only managed to already win both elimination challenges. But Kathleen, a kind of no nonsense middle aged groomer, ends up winning. I was kind of happy for her because she was sure she would lose this challenge. As she said, "I'm the groomer they send in the back room when the picky clients come in."

The elimination challenge is puppy's first haircut. I, of course, will remain your faithful unemotional reporter, but Oh! They are sooooo cute! Those ears! Those eyes! That fluffy, fluffy fur!

The groomers are told that puppies will be nervous and that their job is to make the puppies and their clients comfortable.

Will makes sure that the camera sees him making out with his puppy constantly. He is never shown grooming the dog. This could be foreshadowing.

Malissa gets too much powder in her dog's ear, blocking the ear canal. I guess when you have seven senses, you can ignore the importance of hearing.

Poor Johnny B, a nice guy who has missed my notice, got a huge fluffy dog instead of the little ones that most other groomers got. He had the same ninety minutes that everyone else got and he had to leave the dog house because there was some hindquarter matting and Johnny seemed really stressed while grooming him (probably because he had ninety minutes to groom a big puppy with matting). The runner up was Malissa, and I'm glad she's staying because I can get to hear more of her wisdom.

Jonathan and Will are this week's top two. I was right about the foreshadowing, but wrong about why. Instead of getting kicked off for not grooming his dog, Will earns "a leg up" in next week's challenge. Get it?

Next week, there is a doggie fashion show in which the groomers must design and make clothes for the dogs that they groom. I'm guessing it will be a Jonathan/Amber (the Paris Hilton of dog groomers) showdown.

Going to the Dogs

Some time ago, I wrote about a hilarious reality show parody, Operation Kitten Calendar. There's a new reality show on Animal Planet called Groomer Has It. It seems to be serious (but without taking itself seriously), but it comes off as a parody of the parody. It is one entertaining hour of television.
There are the usual contestants. In this case they are all dog groomers. There is a woman who suffered from breast cancer and found that dog grooming makes her happy. There's another that calls herself the "Paris Hilton of Dog Groomers." There are two who call themselves "Celebrity Dog Groomers." They don't seem to like each other much. And of course, there is an "urban" groomer, an African American man from South Central L.A., whose dream is to open a grooming school in the 'hood. His name is Artist. Naturally, because he's from the 'hood and African American, his job is to be funny in the confessional interviews. He isn't. But he's keeping it real for us viewers.
Most reality shows that involve "skilled" competitors begin with a short challenge. In this show, it is called the Quick Sniff Challenge. The host, Jai Rodriguez from Queer Eye manages to say this with a straight face. This week's Quick Sniff Challenge involved the contestants being blindfolded and trying to identify the breed of nine different dogs. Artist was having trouble identifying one, so he smelled its hindquarters. He guessed wrong.
Then, we went to the actual challenge. The contestants were surprised that their first challenge did not involve an actual dog, but one made of wire and yarn. Apparently, this is a new thing in the dog grooming world and used as a tool to practice. The contestants were told that, since these medium sized white yarn dogs were not a specific breed, they did not have to conform to any specific kind of cut and that they could create a "creative but functional cut." I was left wondering what exactly a functional cut would be. And what is a non-functional cut?
The judges are introduced. Of course, there are three. One is a nice woman who is the head vet for the Los Angeles SPCA. She said, "I think that the Top Groomer needs to be someone who wants to give back." Give back what? Unless I have missed something, dog grooming isn't exactly a glamorous, lucrative profession. The next judge is a no nonsense middle aged man who looks like he could be part of Tony Soprano's crew. He claims to be the best dog groomer in the world. The third judge is the Simon, because there has to be a Simon. He says useless things like (to a groomer who painted his yarn dog pink), "I don't like color on a dog, but you used an appropriate amount," or, "I think your dog looks horrible."
While the groomers are working on the yarn dogs, we are treated with confessional clips. The ever-witty Artist says, "They are having us groom stuffed animals. If I had known that, I would have just brought a stuffed animal from home!"
One groomer, Jasper, brushed (his claim) or cut his dog's leg off (I am left wondering if a poor camera person lost his job over missing the moment of leg removal), which caused the female judge to say, in a very calm voice, "You cut your dog's leg off and I have a problem with that."
The groomers had to name their yarn dogs before judging. As a particularly funny touch, we were treated to the usual before and after shots of the dogs. All of the befores were exactly the same. The three legged dog was shown lying on its side onthe table.
The moment of truth came. The celebrity dog groomers came in first and second. Jorge, with his yarn dog, Stiffy, was the runner up. A judge said, "I love your relationship with Stiffy." Careful readers will recall that Stiffy was made of wire and yarn.
Jonathan, who seems to see himself as the alpha celebrity dog groomer, seems to be fairly masculine for a dog groomer, but apparently is not because he names his dog, "Jonathan's Candyland Surprise."
Of course, there has to be a loser and a catch phrase for the loser. Lisa, the cancer survivor, is the first to go. The judges did not like her dog, Flower, and his purple and pink painted face. I suspect that the female judge would not have liked Lisa's relationship with Flower, since the style involved spraying paint directly onto the face, which would involve eyes and nose. Jai tells her, "Every dog has his day, and Lisa, today is not your day." Not much of a catch phrase. The runner up gets a better one. The owner of Tripod is told, "You can return to the doghouse with your tail between your legs."
There's the obligatory goodbye confessional with the loser. Lisa tells us, "Some days you get to be the dog and some days, you're the hydrant. Today, I'm the hydrant."
Clips from future shows reveal a somewhat hysterically tearful man saying, "Ninety minutes to groom a dog that has never been groomed before is impossible." The judges are bothered by a contestant brushing a dog's privates with a wire brush. Yow!
I can't wait for the next episode.

P.S. During the show, a commercial break had a car commercial in which a woman with two children tells the factory workers putting her car together that she will be taking her children on an eight hour drive. They suggest that they equip her large SUV with two DVD players. She thinks this would be a good idea. Am I more bothered by people still buying SUVs or by it being okay to buy not one, but two DVD players for your kids? Why in my day, we used to fight with each other on long car journeys, and we liked it!