dangerous when wet

I can't believe the number of people (numbskulls?) walking around with no umbrella, wearing only hoodies or less. Does no one listen to the weather report? Or at least take a look at the sky? All you have to do is look up at the Hirshhorn or Air and Space and see that the buildings are soaked, too.


I can see getting caught in a surprise shower - it can happen to anyone. But it has been raining steadily, and these are folks visiting the National Mall, where its museums are happy to sell rain gear. Just one more thing I just don't get about crazy humans.

aaarrrggghhh

No, I'm not a pirate.

But I am extremely frustrated these days and sounding like one is my only defense/recourse.

At least I am trying to go for the "aarrgghh," as opposed to the obscenity.

But I make no promises.

buon giorno signore, come sta?

Good day, sir, how are you?

Excuse me, Would you please direct me to the library?

May I please have another cup of coffee?

Pardon me miss, how far is it from here to the station?

When a person is learning a foreign language, or a few helpful phrases before going on vacation to a foreign country, they generally learn sentences like the ones listed above. Polite phrases. If you are a stranger in a strange land and are not a master of the native tongue the least you can do is give it a try in the most polite way possible. But is it just traveler's Italian, French, Spanish, etc. that urges politesse? These conversational preambles also exist in English. Or should I say, "American." So why don't we use them anymore?

Buenos dias.

Donde esta Susana?

Esta en la cocina?

I can't tell you the number of times that folks have come up to me while I am on the phone, or in conversation with someone else, and just launched into whatever is on their mind or about something they want, blah, blah, whatever.

Que voulez-vous?

Laissez-moi tranquille.

Is everyone in such a hurry? I thought we were south of the Mason-Dixon line in D.C. Take a breath and wait your turn. I wonder if I would have noticed this conversational erosion as much if I didn't have a five-year-old who does the same thing. But I can say to her that she needs to slow down and wait until it's her turn and Mommy is done talking. What do I say to the grown-ups?

Mi scusi.

Mi potrebbe dare alcune informazione?

Con molto piacere.

I really want to know when the baby boomers decided that being polite, even civil, was for the birds. My generation has its conversational issues, but even a "Hey dude," while heavy on the Keanu, is an acceptable preamble. Especially when compared to busting in mid-conversation to inanely ask about those TPS reports.

So what's a dude who hungers for a little polite conversation to do? Try to be polite, I guess and hope some bounces back.

Hello there. How are you? Very well, thanks, and you?

How was your weekend? Do you know the way to the dog races?

I think Susanna is in the kitchen.

my mom's purse...

...is full of all sorts of things, most of them hard to get a hold of. Her credit cards are kept in a plastic sleeve secured by a rubber band. Her too-small wallet is separate, with a change purse that is difficult to get into. Today at Target we bought her a new wallet, with places for cash, cards, and coins, all in one convenient package. We'll see how it flies.

My mom's brain these days is a bit like her purse. A word that she knows is there, can sometimes be difficult to access. I don't think Target has anything for this. We'll see how it goes.

I hope our new Prez is ready and able to deal with this aging boomer population, each with his or her unique long-term care needs.

A great movie that deals with aging parents is Albert Brooks's Mother. Four words: Cheese in the Freezer. Brilliant.

Author's note: November was NaBloPoMo, national blog posting month, and I made it (after starting on 11/2)! My own additional challenge, if you were following, was to include Obama in some way in each post. I'm not sure I will be able to keep up with the daily posting, but I'll sure try.

the artist formerly known as prince

Last night we were watching the American Music Awards on television. My daughter enjoyed bouncing around to the mostly insipid performances, while I struggled with having to accept that what was on display was the current state of music. Except it wasn't.

Most of the performances were lame Madonna-MTV-video-staged rip-offs. And either the sound system was completely out of wack, or most of the performers couldn't sing in tune live, from Coldplay to the Disney Jonas brats. I'm afraid I tend towards the latter, as Miley Cyrus and Beyonce sounded fine.

But when the Pussycat Dolls hit the stage all I could think of was Prince and his revolving door of babes through the years that sang or danced their way through his performances and videos. At least the Prince girls were trashy and fun. The Dolls were neither dolls nor fun. Just loud, fast and trashy.

And what ever happened to the Purple One? Well, appparently he has ditched Minneappolis for L.A. and is proseltyzing door-to-door. A recent interview with The New Yorker proves that Prince is just as strange and mysterious as always. But not necessarily in a good, crazy rock star way. The description of his "pad" versus the religiosity of his sound bytes doesn't mesh at all. I'm not sure our new president (or anyone in Washington, Democrat or Republican) would understand Prince's take on politics. Sigh.



At least we'll always have Raspberry Beret (insert you favorite tune here.) I'm not sure how he reconciles songs like Gett Off or Cream with his belief system. Of course he does have purple thrones, platform flip flops and a hot tub. God bless him, he's a dinosaur.

the myth of the supermom

Women can do it all, right? That's what I was brought up to believe. And technically, I guess, every day I prove the point. But does anyone talk about what doesn't get done? What gets lost?

I'm not talking about seeing new releases weeks (or years) after everyone else has. That's nothing.

If mom is busy all day at work and busy at home later trying to feed you, bathe you, hold down the fort, etc., what is getting missed (besides hours of sleep)? Does the kid really get the amount of attention it needs and deserves? Does the mom get to spend any quality time with family, friends, love of her life? What about herself? What about trying to feed her mental and emotional needs? Or updating her blog?

The fast-paced world we live in can be quite exciting, but exhausting too. To me the most interesting thing about recent political events and the anti-Hillary is wondering why anyone, but especially a mom, would want to spread herself even thinner than she is already.

I'm not politically conservative, but I find it oxymoronic that a so-called social conservative isn't being lambasted yet by the family values groups. Is it good for a special-needs (or any) newborn to have a mom who wants to take a new 24-hour-on-call job? With a major stress level? In the most formative years of a child's life?

Just askin'...



All people are born alike - except Republicans and Democrats.
Groucho Marx

a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse...

You know how sometimes once you get interested in one thing, you become of aware of a whole lot of other related things? They may have been there all the time. Or you might just be dipping into the shared unconscious. Who knows?

I've always been interested in history, through art. Hated art history at school, which was mostly about dates, something my brain refuses to process. But I love reading about the folks in the paintings and their life, their world.

Watching The Tudors got me into well, the Tudors, and that lead to reading about the French court of Francois Premier (who was a huge fan and patron of Leonardo [back to art again]) and then backwards in time about Richard III. Then all of a sudden I found a great book, The Sunne in Splendour, by Sharon Kay Penman, about Richard and his brother, Edward the IV, and the other night Looking for Richard, starring and directed by Al Pacino was on. Finger on the pulse?
Pacino obviously understands evil schemers. And I'll hand it to him, he wasn't Michael Corleone with a hunchback. But for me, he can be really awful or really good. Sometimes, just distracted. So his improv-like take on Shakespeare's poetic vilification of Richard was at times really hard to take. Also his choice of collaborators was odd. Some of the choices were great - Kevin Spacey, of course. Some of them - Winona Ryder - huh? A great scene in the play where Richard seduces Lady Anne, over her dead husband's coffin ran sort of like this:

Pacino : Iambic pentameter without an accent, but giving it a good shot.
Ryder: Duh?

I'm not a Ricardist - one of those folks who think Richard was robbed by history. I also don't believe everything I read, so the truth is probably somewhere between Shakespeare's monster and Penman's hero. But another recent read, Alison Weir's The Princes in the Tower seems just like a load. A historian (but now also novelist) firmly in the Tudor camp, she is completely unable to be objective, spinning her "facts" to suit popular interpretations. The only thing she concedes is Richard may not have had a hunchback. Many other theories abound, and another popular book, and a great read, Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time clears Richard of the murders.

What is so fascinating about history and art is the folks who inspire it and make it. And the endless interpretations that it can take. Which is why someone like Richard III or Anne Boleyn and their hard-to-understand behavior can still seem so interesting today. Because don't we try to understand (mostly unsuccessfully) behavior of folks we know, actions that make no sense at all, every day?