Happy National Shredded Wheat Day

Every day is National Something-or-Other Day.

Most of these days are not exactly celebrated. 

For instance, February 17th is National Cabbage Day. 

Now I like cole slaw. I like stuffed cabbage. I like colcannon with cabbage shredded in it. But, except for the boiled potatoes with lots of butter and salt, and using the corned beef the next day for hash, I hate boiled dinner, which features cabbage. And don't get me going on sauerkraut. So I'm mixed on cabbage. But I can't imagine actually celebrating National Cabbage Day. Who does, other than maybe cabbage growers and sauerkraut canners.

June 25th is National Parchment Day.

Is this for those inscribing great thoughts on parchment, or cooking with it? Fifty+ years ago, when my friend Joyce and I drove cross country, we mostly cooked over our little Coleman cook stove. But we had a big splash meal at Antoine's in New
Orleans, and I ordered Pompano en Papillote. Which was delish, but not enought to get me to celebrate National Parchment Day. 

November 8th can't decide what it is.

It's National Dunce Day AND National STEM Day. 

Huh?

Today, July 31st, has a lot of things going for it, national-day-wise:

• Cotton Candy Day 
• Jump for Jelly Beans Day 
• Mutt's Day 
• National Avocado Day 
• National Chili Dog Day - July 31, 2025 (Last Thursday in July)
• National Intern Day - July 31, 2025 (Last Thursday in July)
• Uncommon Instruments Awareness Day 
• World Ranger Day 

Cotton Candy is pretty vile, so blech to that celebration. I could Jump for Jelly Beans, but how does this differ from regular old National Jelly Beans Day (April 22nd)? Mutt's Day: Every day should be Mutt's Day. Go, mutts! 

National Avocado Day? National Chili Dog Day? Okay, I'm down with both avocados and chili dogs, but I don't exactly jump for them. 

National Intern Day celebrates college students getting work experience via internships, not Dr. Kildare interns curing patients at Blair General Hospital. Not all internships are paid, so I'd be all for National Intern Day if it advocated for interns to make money while interning so that kids who actually needed to earn a wage for their work because they're working their way through college could have those vaunted professional internship experiences, and not be forced to wait tables. (Not that there's anything wrong with waiting tables, which was how I spent my college summers back in the days when internships didn't exist and ain't no one I know who'd have worked for free.)

I suppose that Uncommon Instruments Awareness Day is worthy. I mean, we all know the piano, the violin, the flute, the snare drum, humble recorder, the even humbler kazoo. So why not celebrate the Maui Xaphoon, a handmade bamboo sax invented in 1972?

At some point today, I'll probably be walking in the Boston Public Garden, where sometimes I see Boston park rangers. In celebration of National Ranger Day, I'll try to remember to tip my cap to them.  

But the one July 31st National-Whatever-Day I can get down with is National Shredded Wheat Day.

I don't eat cold cereal all the time, and if I'm eating cereal, it's more apt to be oatmeal. 

But I like Cheerios. I like Quaker Puffed Wheat and Quaker Puffed Rice. I like Rice Krispies. I like Cornflakes.

As a kid, I ate cold cereal regularly, and I leaned towards the sugary ones. I loved Sugar Crisp, one of the first "pre-sweetened" cereals, which was actually advertised as both a cereal and a candy. I'm surprised my mother bought it, as - other than for candy-related holidays like Halloween and Easter - we never had candy in the house.

Ditto for something called Sugar Jets, which I always loved. (I'm hungry, I'm hungry, for good food to eat. For Sugar Jets, Sugar Jets, candied and sweet.) You could almost feel the Sugar Jets boring a hole through your teeth.

But my cold cereal of choice is Shredded Wheat.

Large or mini, as long as it's NOT frosted, I love Shredded Wheat. 

I don't care if some folks consider it the equivalent of eating a brillo pad, I say YUM! 

Add milk, add fruit (blueberries, strawberries, peaches, even raisins in a pinch).

Today I am most definitely observing this joyful day.

And Happy National Shredded Wheat Day to those who celebrate it!

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Info Source: Holidays & Observances

Image Source: Wikipedia

Habemus papam

When the white smoke belched out of the Vatican, and we knew that habemus papam, I was curious about what direction the Roman Catholic Church would take. Would the new pope continue in the shoes of Pope Francis - imperfect, of course, but more open to change and certainly more liberal than his immediate predecessors? Or would he be one of the arch-conservatives who wants to drag the Church back into the dark ages?

Should have known that, with so many of the voting cardinals appointed by Francis, the new man would lean at least a tiny big progressive on some issues. 

Anyway, when they announced that the new pope was an American, my first thought was that my mother would be over the moon. My mother, a liberal who wanted a modernized Church: women priests, etc., would have loved Pope Francis. But she was not a fan of John Paul II and, although JPII's successor, Benedict XVI, was - like my mother - a German, my mother would not have liked him in the least. 

She would have welcomed an American-born pope, and have been optimistic about the direction the new guy would take.

And the fact that Pope Leo XIV had been born Robert Prevost in my mother's hometown of Chicago...Well, Liz would have been even more over the moon.

When I saw that Bob Prevost had grown up on the South Side, my ears really pricked up.

My mother was a North Sider, but my Aunt Mary and Uncle Ted had moved to the South Side in the early 1950's because of Ted's work. (If I've got this right, Ted worked for the B.T. Babbitt Company, makers of Bab-O, a powdered Comet-like cleanser that was pretty popular when I was a kid.)  Anyway, the South Side is where the Dineen kids grew up. 

Pope Leo XIV, South Sider? Could he have gone to Bede the Venerable Grammar School with all my Dineen cousins? Could he have gone to St. Lawrence, the South Chicago Catholic high school where the Dinnen boys - Tim and Mike - had gone? I saw that the pope was born in 1955. Same as Mike. Could they have been classmates?

Alas, I quickly found that the new pope hadn't grown up in Bede's. And he'd gone to a seminary high school, not a normie high school like St. Lawrence.

But still pretty close. I'm guessing that my Dineen cousins aren't all that many degrees of separation from Robert Prevost.

So this was pretty exciting. 

And to find that he's a pretty good guy - willing (as Francis had been) to criticize the bogusity of so-called Catholic J.D. Vance; willing to challenge the rancid treatment of immigrants; willing to call out the cockamamy attack on Iran - makes me happy.

I also like that he's a baseball fan. (Chicago White Sox.) And I almost like the fact that one of his brothers is a loud-mouthed MAGA. 

No, I don't expect that Pope Leo XIV will be any super-liberal. I understand that he's theologically pretty status quo. So no women priests. No normalizing gay marriage. Etc.

Still, I'm kinda liking this guy.

Even though it really doesn't matter to me.

I'm a cultural Catholic, not a believer. I'm one of those baptized a Catholic but born an atheist types.

But I'm a strong cultural Catholic. 

How could I not be?

My parents were both very religious, absolutely stalware Catholics, and our family life revolved around the parish: church and school. My father was a member of the Holy Name Society and the St. Vincent dePaul Society. 

I went to Catholic schools for 16 years. My mother served as president of both my grammar school Mothers' Club, and the snootier, fancier Mothers' Guild of my high school. She taught CCD. 

Other than a Hummel Madonna on the fireplace mantel, we didn't - to my childhood dismay - have a lot of statuary. I really, really, really wanted one of those snappy Infant of Prague statues that came with costume changes to observe the different seasons. And I wouldn't have minded having a bathtub Madonna like the Fitzgibbons. 

But there was a crucifix in every bedroom, and the main "artwork" in the living room was a painting of Christ (the one where it looks like he has a chalice in his hair).

Unlike my friend Susan's family, we didn't say the nightly rosary. (Thank God.) But we all prayed. And a high point of the year was Good Friday, when we traipsed around the Diocese of Worcester to visit three churches we hadn't been to, which I believe earned us all plenary indulgences. (Just in case, I hope they're still in force.)

Anyway, throughout my chidhood, I walked the Catholic walk, talked the Catholic talk. And then, I reached my personal age of reason...

But there is no escaping the strong pull of Catholicism, and I guess you can say that watching the Church is something of a hobby.

Thus, I keep an eye on things RCC-ish with keen interest.

And so far, I'm kinda liking this Pope.

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Image Source: Wikipedia

I'm not usually the jealous type, but...

A flat in Galway. A flat in Dublin. 

Sure, I have my fantasies about living in Ireland. As someone whose great-grandparents emigrated, I can't do the grandparent-born-there citizenship thing. But maybe I could go for extended stays. Maybe I could have a pied a terre to flee to if things get super ugly here. (Or super uglier.)

Is an Irish home-away what I'm going to spend my retirement savings on?

Probably not.

But if I won a place - a well-located city flat, or even a wee cottage somewhere - well, I wouldn't say no.

So while I'm usually not the jealous type, I'm feeling a bit green-eyed monstrous when I saw an article on an American woman who'd just won a cottage in the sweet County Leitrim. Sweet! (This isn't the cottage, but close enough...)

Anyway, Kathleen Spangler is the lucky colleen who's now the proud owner of a little bit o' heaven. Make that an updated little bit o' heaven, as the owner had recently swanked up her 2 BR cottage. (New kitchen, etc.)

Spangler had recently secured her Irish citizenship, thanks to a County Mayo grandmother. (Damn! Why couldn't County Mayo's Margaret Joyce have been my grandmother, not my great-grandmother. She was poking around Irish real estate sites and came across a raffle that looked interesting. She's not a gambler, but took a flyer and bought $12.67 worth of tickets. One of those tickets was the winner.

Spangler is not in danger of decamping to Ireland any time soon. She's so incredibly busy, I'm exhausted just reading about it.

She's a Marine Corps officer and mother of three, two toddlers and an infant. She and her husband (also a Marine officer) recently transferred to a new post, where they'll both be pursuing graduate degrees in engineering. Yikes!

Still, Spangler likes the idea of having the new place.

“My husband and I have talked about someday, when we are out of the military, getting property overseas and splitting time between the United States,” she said. “But that was obviously a future goal.” (Source: NY Times)

Mission accomplished! Good on yez, Kathleen and Michael Spangler.

And good for Monica Collins, who raffled the house to fund a move to Italy. 

Her deal with Raffall, the British raffle site Collins worked through, was that she would sell 150,000 tickets.

But in the end, Ms. Collins said, 206,815 tickets were sold, grossing 1,034,705 pounds (about $1.4 million). Besides the 10 percent to Raffall, she has about 2,600 euros to pay in affiliate fees, plus a 33 percent capital gains tax, 1 percent of the value of the house for stamp duty, and fees for her lawyers and the Spanglers’ lawyers.

Fair play, Monica Collins!

Personally, I wouldn't want to be in the back arse of Leitrim, even if the cottage is only 12 miles from Sligo Town. Sligo isn't my favorite place in Ireland, but it does have critical mass in terms of stores, restaurants, pubs. And just outside of town, there's Rosses Point which to me is the most beautiful place in Ireland. 

But I may start meandering around Irish real estate sites and see what's up for raffle grabs. You never know. Maybe I'll have the luck of the (partial) American Irish. 

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Image Source: Irish American Mom

There's more to local murder history (female edition) than Lizzie Borden

You couldn't grow up in Massachusetts without knowing about Fall River's own Lizzie Borden. 

You know, Lizzie Borden, as in:

Lizzie Broden took an axe,
Gave her mother 40 whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father 41. 

And then there was the Chad Mitchell Trio tune. The Chad Mitchell Trio was a commercial folkie group popular in the 1960s. They weren't purists like Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Pete Seeger, Tom Rush, and Bob Dylan. They were more akin to the Kingston Trio. But I liked them just fine, especially in my snobby pre-purist days. (As I did the Kingston Trio.) I had something of a crush on Chad Mitchell, the lead guy and a cutie (IMHO). Anyway, they had a song about Lizzie Borden that had this as the chorus:

Cause you can't chop your poppa up in Massachusetts
Not even if it's planned as a surprise (A surprise)
No, you can't chop your poppa up in Massachusetts
You know how neighbors love to criticize

What you don't grow up knowing is that a) it was Lizzie's stepmother; and b) she was acquitted of their murder. For Lizzie, the jury is still quasi out, but most of history comes in with a verdict of she did it. And got away with it because she was a woman from a well-to-do WASP family, when killers were thought to be men from poor immigranty communities. (Sound familiar?)

Anyway, statistically, even if Lizzie was guilty as sin, more men than women are murderers by a long shot. Or a short shot. Or a stabbing. Or a strangulation. Etc.

And that goes for serial killers as well.

But there are female serial killers. Sure, there are lot fewer of them. And they also differ from male serial killers in that females tend to kill people they know, often the elderly, often by poisoning, often for financial gain. But they are out there. (Source: New-Medical)

One female serial killer I'd never heard of - until I saw a Blue Sky mention from Boston's West End Museum - was Jane Toppan who, largely in her capacity as a nurse, poisoned at least 31 people during a spree that took place between 1895 and 1901. What she lacked mostly was a financial motive. 

Toppan, who admitted to have committed the murders to satisfy a sexual fetish, was quoted as saying that her ambition was "to have killed more people—helpless people—than any other man or woman who ever lived." (Source for this and all other info on Toppan (including her picture): Wikipedia)

Yikes! "Sexual fetish." (She supposedly would fondle her victims while they were dying.) And wanting to kill more than anyone else? Sounds more like a guy thing, but whatever. She was quite the psycho, with quite the history. 

Jane Toppan - nickname Jolly Jane; ho-ho - wasn't born Jane Toppan. Rather, she was born in Boston in 1854 as Honora Kelley, daughter of Irish immigrants who, given the timing, likely fled the famine to make their life in Amerikay. 

Kelley's mother died of TB when Honora was young, and her father was apparently an alcoholic and batshit crazy. (His nickname wasn't jolly anything. It was Kelley the Crack, for crackpot.)

In later years, Kelley was said to have sewn his own eyelids closed while working as a tailor.

That sure sounds sane.

Anyway, at a young age, Honora and one of her sisters were sent to an orphanage. After a couple of years, Honora (now age 8) became an indentured servant in the Toppan home in Lowell. She took on their last name, and started calling herself Jane Toppan. 

It looks like Jane Toppan had an opportunity for decency and normalcy. (One of her sisters became a prostitute, the other was - not surprisingly - committed to an insane asylum.) She had the chance to become a nurse, training at Cambridge Hospital.

Unlike her early years, where she was described as brilliant and terrible, at the hospital she was well-liked, bright, and friendly, earning her the nickname "Jolly Jane". Once she became close with the patients, she picked her favorite ones, who were normally elderly and very sick. During her residency, Toppan used her patients as guinea pigs in experiments with morphine and atropine; she altered their prescribed dosages to see what it did to their nervous systems. However, she spent considerable time alone with patients, making up fake charts, medicating them to drift in and out of consciousness, and even getting into bed with them. 

How Dr. Mengele of her. Kinda sorta.

From Cambridge Hospital, she moved on to Mass General. "My" hospital. Shudder, shudder. But they apparently sussed something out, and after a couple of years she was fired. After returning to Cambridge, she "was soon dismissed for administering opiates recklessly." 

On to private duty nursing, where her killing spree really took off. She killed not only the people she was taking care of, but their family members as well. Eventually, the authorities figured out that Jane Toppan wasn't exactly Clara Barton or Florence Nightengale. 

Kelley/Toppan ended up spending the rest of what turned out to be a long life - she died in 1938, age 81 - in an insane asylum.

Toppan is often considered an "angel of mercy", a type of serial killer who takes on a caretaker role and attacks the vulnerable and dependent, though she also murdered for seemingly more personal reasons...She later described her motivation as a paralysis of thought and reason, a strong urge to poison.

That strong urge got her to, among other whack acts, poison "herself to evoke the sympathy of men who courted her." I'd say those fellows caught a lucky break when they broke up.

This is just such a weird and interesting story. You never know what you're gonna learn when something pops up on your timeline. Guess there's more to local murder history (female edition) than Lizzie Borden.

I can think of a lot worse ways to go

Last month, a small plane crashed near the Sugar Valley Airport in NC. The pilot and one passenger were killed. Another passenger was seriously injured. 

Small plane crashes are nothing new or rare. In late June, there was a particularly sad one in Beverly, Mass, when a 30 year old pilot - an aeronautical engineering PhD whose wife is expecting their first child in the fall - was killed when his plane crashed shortly after takeoff. 

Earlier in the year, a Massachusetts family was wiped out in another horrific small plane crash in Upstate NY. Two surgeon parents, their two young adult children, and the about-to-be-engaged partners of those children. 

Then there was the June Sugar Valley accident, which occurred because the pilot: 

...had lifted a wheel after landing to spare a turtle on the runway, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report. (Source: NY Times)

A communications officer at the airport had let the pilot know that there was a turtle on the runway as the plane was preparing to land. 

The pilot landed but then lifted the Universal Stinson 108 plane’s right wheel to avoid the turtle.

The pilot then hit the throttle and try to take off again, but the take off was rocky. Just off the runway, the plane crashed and burned.

It was unclear whether the pilot’s decision to lift the tire to avoid the turtle caused the crash.

It sure sounds like things gang agley because the pilot was trying not to hit the turtle. 

Sure, the pilot could have been trying to avoid the turtle because he thought hitting it would knock his plane around. Or maybe, as I like to think, he didn't want to kill the poor creature. I like to think that his last act of life was one of sweetness, a split-second kindness that went wrong.

When those piloting small planes die, I tend to think that they died doing something they loved. Because anyone I've ever known who flies small planes - and I've known a few - absolutely loves flying. And there are worse ways to go than doing something you love. (Or course, this doesn't extend to the passengers who are just along for the ride.)

So sure, it may have been stupid to take a risk to spare a turtle who couldn't move fast enough to get out of the way, but I'm going to go with the pilot died doing something he loved - flying - and while trying to save the life of an animal.

I can think of a lot worse ways to go.

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Maybe they were just "work spouses," but it sure didn't look that way

Like a lot of folks, throughout my career I always had a "work spouse." Nothing romantic, let alone romantic+. Just someone I regularly had lunch with, gossiped with, shot the general shit with, bitched about senior management with (even when that "work husband" was senior management). Most of my WH's were straight, but I had a gay WH for a number of years. 

I tended to be someone who got to work early, and one of my guys used to call me every morning while he was driving into work and we would have a 45 minute gab fest, mostly focusing on what if anything we could do to 'save the company' from itself. One morning, I got a call that I found odd, as he had let me know the night before that his wife had gone into labor. He was calling from the delivery room, where his wife was laboring away. Needless to say, I told him he was nuts and hung up on him. (They ended up divorced; we're still friends.)

Anyway, it's certainly possible that the CEO of Astronomer (a NY-based data analytics company) and the company's Chief People Officer (a.k.a., head of HR?) are just work husband and wife. But they sure looked like they were canoodling on the Gillette Stadium kiss-cam while attending a Coldplay concert last week. And the video screen at Gillette is gigantic, so the couple's reaction was up there in all its jumbrotron glory. 

Likely nothing would have come from it if not for that reaction. Rather than just grin and bear the embarrassment of being caught on the kiss cam, the couple tried to duck and cover, causing the crowd to yuck it up. To make matters worse, Coldplay's frontman, Chris Martin, hadn't commented "Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy." Anyway, thinking it was interesting, a fan took a video of the reaction and went and posted it.

I have no idea how the video went from kind of interesting to viral sensation. And how it went from viral sensation to outing the couple as Astronomer's Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot - both married. They're not exactly household names, familiar faces. But the Internet always does its thing, so...

The Internet being the Internet, another woman in the frame was misidentified - and named - as a fellow Astronomer employee who reports to Cabot. So her name was flying all over the world, too. (One number I saw said that the video has been viewed over 100 million times.)

Anyway, once the 'net did its thing, the regular old media jumped in. I saw mentions on CNN, on Yahoo, on AP, in Newsweek, The Boston Globe, and in the Worcester Telegram, of all places. Because there is, of course, a Worcester connection. Byron and his wife own property in Central Mass, and his wife had/has a position at a fancy Worcester private school.

Not going to comment on the damage this may be doing to the two marriages involved. (Probably nothing good...) And you have to feel sorry for Byron's wife. Last week, she was a private person, just going about her life, now she's been thrust into the digital wack-world, with all sorts of randos (guess that inclues me) and outlets speculating about her, including the Hindustan Times. Ditto sympathy for their kids. 

But from a professional point of view: this sure doesn't look good for the boss and one of his direct reports - which I'm assuming she is - to be carrying on. 

And it doesn't just not look good. It's just plain no good, at least for Byron.

“Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability,” the company said via LinkedIn Friday.

“The Board of Directors has initiated a formal investigation into this matter and we will have additional details to share very shortly.” (Source: not surprisingly, the NY Post's notorious Page Six gossip page, which has been all over this saga, with multiple stories.)

As I said. NOT GOOD.

Look, people are allowed to have personal lives. And one of the likeliest places to find someone to have a personal life with is at work.

But many (most?) companies have rules about personal lives that involve lines of authority. And no company wants to get embarrassed like this. What company wants their CEO and Chief People Officer (CPO? What a bouncy old title that is!) to become fodder for Page Six? 

Wouldn't want to be in the shoes of Andy Byron (or Kristin Cabot). Maybe they are just work spouses caught in an exuberant Coldplay moment. Maybe they're more than work spouses. It happens. But whatever it is, maybe they should have kept it in the office. 

P.S. This was written on Friday. By Saturday, Andy Byron had resigned as CEO of Astronomer.

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Image Source: IMGflip

Claire McCardell: thanks for at least trying to give women's clothing pockets

Of all the corporate trainings I went through/endured during my corporate career, by far the best was a presentation skills class I took in the 1980's. I believe it was called the Mitlinger Method, and the inventor/instructor was Kim Mitlinger. 

I've gone to the Google, and I can find no trace of the Mitlinger Method, but this course was way back in the technology dark ages. It may even have been pre-PowerPoint.

Anyway, I came away with a number of tips which I used whenever I gave presentations. Which I did all the time. One was to rehearse out loud, in front a mirror, the night before, and go through every point you were trying to make. Take no shortcuts. Go through everything out loud. No, you're not going to give the presentation verbatim the next day. But you would have thought through every one of your points. And don't just do it in your head. In your head, you skip over things, telling yourself 'I've got this one.' No, you don't. Saying things out loud forces you to really think them through.

There were other tips on how to stand, etc., that were also useful. They video'd us for a before and after and I volunteered to go first. My posture was ridiculous: I was leaning backward, hands folded in front of my crotch. There was a name for it that I can't recall, but had something to do with "fig leaf." It looked terrible.

But the main takeaway from the Mitlinger Method course may have been to make sure that you have pockets in your skirts (or pants, although back then, us professional gals were wearing skirt suits, not pant suits). You needed a pocket in your skirt because standing with one hand in your pocket while using the other to gesture is an engaging and relaxed way to present. (It actually does work. A far better look than the "fig leaf.")

Anyway, at the time, I had a collection of very expensive wool menswear skirt suits. In my mind's eye, I can still picture some of the very beautiful fabrics of those suits. There was one medium blue with very faint teal and violet striping. (Sounds awful: it was gorgeous.) Another of my favorites was a very dark charcoal with a hot pink windowpane plaid. (Sounds awful: it was gorgeous.) These suits, by the way, were mostly worn with silk blouses with pussy bows, or with Brooks Brothers men's look-a-like shirts and floppy bow ties. (Sounds awful: it was.)

The suits were fabulous, however. Wore like iron. Traveled like a dream. For a while after they went out of style, I hung on. Sometimes I wore the skirts with sweaters, the jackets with pants. Sometimes even for non-work cas, I wore the jackets with jeans. (Now that was a look!) 

The suits are long gone, but after I took the Mitlinger Method Presentation Skills Class, I can guarantee you that every one of those pocketless menswear skirts had pockets in them. (My local tailor definitely cleaned up when I came in with an armful of skirts that needed doctoring.) 

But as anyone who wears women's clothing knows, pockets remain problematic.

Sometimes the pockets are mingy. I have a pair of Levis that I love, but you can just about get a piece of Kleenex into the front pocket. Forget about your phone or keys.

Sometimes the pockets are non-existent. My go-to pants suit (black; very nice) lacks pockets. As do all of my Eileen Fisher pants.

I haven't bothered to have pockets installed because I'm no longer out there giving presentations, so don't really need to put one hand in my pocket. And jackets generally do have some sort of pocket for putting something in, so there's that. 

But who decided that women don't need pockets? 

Apparently not "American fashion icon Claire McCardell."

I'd never heard of "American fashion icon Claire McCardell" until I read Kate Bolick's review of Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson’s eponymous biography of Clarie McCardell, “Claire McCardell."

As Bolick writes, "functional pockets are scarce in women’s clothing because they “ruin the silhouette,” or so I’d heard."

I'd heard that, too. Stuff and nonsense!

Nearly a century ago, McCardell (who died in the late 1950's, while in her early fifties) pretty much began inventing the concept of American sportswear:

Many of McCardell’s contributions to women’s ready-to-wear clothing remain in circulation — including ballet flats, leggings, hoodies and spaghetti straps. But vanishingly few of the designers who’ve come after embody her driving ethos: Women’s clothes can be practical, comfortable, stylish and affordable. And have pockets.

As Dickinson writes, “Stitching Claire McCardell’s name back onto the apparel she pioneered is not merely a history lesson in provenance; it is a vital and timely reminder of a designer, and a movement, that was always about far more than clothes.”

In McCardell’s own words: “Men are free of the clothes problem — why shouldn’t I follow their example?” (Source: NY Times)

Point of interest: she got Capezio to manufacture ballet flats during World War II in response to the leather shortage. Not much to those ballet flats. (I always liked the look. Who doesn't want to be Audrey Hepburn? But they never gave this flat-footed gal enough support.)

McCardell also pioneered the wrap dress - hers had a big old patch pocket on it. (Like Bolick, I would have credited Diane von Furstenberg with inventing the wrap dress back in the 1970s. Wish I still had my two von Furstenbergs. Wish I could still fit into my two von Furstenbergs. If I ever buy another dress, it will be a DVF. But I don't remember that they had pockets. I'm pretty sure they didn't.)

Anyway, it was interesting to "discover" Claire McCardell.

Thanks for the pockets, Claire. Wish more designers had listened to you.

Image Source: Living, Learning, Getting Older

Sure The Royals are preposterous, but what a source of entertainment!

ME: The very idea of the British Royal Family in a modern context is utterly ridiculous.

Also ME: The British Royal Family is an endless source of fascination.

I'm not going to lie about having no idea how this dumb-ass article on Camilla appeared to me. I know exactly why the royals keep showing up as suggested content. It's because, as often as not, I'll click through the dumb-ass headline that shows up as suggested content, and read the entire dumb-ass article about why Zara Tindall didn't want her kids to have titles. Why Wills won't invite Harry to his coronation, if and when the day comes. How Andrew is once again demonstrating that he's a meretricious buffoon. 

I lapped up The Crown. And the more-facts/less-conjecture The Royal House of Windsor on Netflix, even though it was less juicy and enthralling than The Crown.

Prince George's nickname. Click. Through.

Wallis Simpson as fashion icon. Click. Through.

I do NOT seek out stories on the royals. But when they come my way, this Irish-American girl, raised to scorn the Brits and the entire royal apparatus, will click right on through.

So of course I was going to go for it when this headline and subhead appeared right before my wondering eyes: 

Queen Camilla improperly overtakes King Charles III in act seen as breach of protocol during public greeting

Royal watchers left stunned after blink-and-you-miss-it moment sparks fresh chatter

As a character, Camilla is, of course, hard to resist. The earthy, horsey, royal-ajacent gal that Charles shoulda/woulda/coulda married if only she'd been a virgin. The ever-present third party to the marriage of Chuck and Di. The late in life romance that finally got to play out.

And here she was, unconsciously or deliberately spitting in the face of royal protocol during what should have been a routine walkabout to meet and greet the common folk.

As the King paused to greet the crowd with his usual gentlemanly grace, Camilla casually picked up the pace and, in full view, overtook him. It may have lasted just a few seconds, but the implications landed with a thud.

Royal etiquette isn't just old-fashioned-it's the monarchy's playbook

For a family that thrives on symbolism and precise protocol, who walks in front of whom is no small matter. In this case, Queen Camilla's brief overstep broke with the deeply rooted rule that the monarch always leads. (Source: Marca)

Queen - or is it still Queen Consort - wrong foots it in the public eye, jumping ahead of the ultimate liege lord. Heaven forfend! (I've always wanted to say 'heaven forfend.')

I don't think that this is quite on the same level as when, during his first reign of terror, our Boor-in-Chief walked in front of Queen Elizabeth, nearly body blocking her so he could be right up front. Never mind royal protocol. Americans really don't have to observe it, do we? Not yet, anyway. But here was Good Queen E, old enough to be Trump's mother. At min, he should have walked beside her. But no...

Royal watchers were quite quick to point out that King Charles - and it still takes some getting used to "King Charles" being anything other than a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel - with his characteristic "royal grace"... "clearly aware, handled it with polished charm, subtly catching up to retake his place."

Royal watchers have pretty much warmed to Charles, even though his mother was a tough act to follow. But they have not wholeheartedly warmed to Camilla

And moments like this don't help. Some say it's her relaxed, almost carefree style-others think there's a more ambitious streak behind that easygoing front. Whether intentional or accidental, overtaking the King in public sends a loud message: one that doesn't sit well with traditionalists who believe in the order and structure the monarchy represents.

Tut-tut-tutty-tut-tut.

I find all the who-curtsies-to-whom, who's entitled (literally) to use which royal style, who gets to okay the bride or the groom (that would be the reigning monarch) nonsensical. Fascinating nonsense, but nonsense none the less. 

Yet it's all so Duke of Earl...

At some point, the Brits will likely join that other European nations in jettisoning more of the trappings of royalty - including official authority over some matters -  and use the Royal Family for (less costly) symbolic and touristic purposes only. 

Until then, they remain quite the source of entertainment.

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Image Source: CNN

Sometimes it really does seem that they'd like to kill us all

Two years ago, I lost a very old and very dear friend. She died at the age of 74 from complications of a lot of pretty rotten things, but many of the complications were rooted in her having survived mesothelioma, which she had when in her fifties. The treatment was intense and horrific. You name it, she endured it. One of her physicians at Sloan-Kettering, where she was treated, told her that the severity of her case was the equivalent of what they would generally see in someone who'd worked in an asbestos mine.

It will not surprise you to learn that my friend Mary Beth hadn't worked in an asbestos mine. No, she was a librarian who specialized in computerized library systems. So she spent a lot of time working in old library buildings (Cambridge Public, Brooklyn Public) where the computers were in the basement. Where there were asbestos-laden ceiling tiles, piping, boilers. 

So...

MB "survived" mesothelioma (made all the worse by having developed a companion cancer about the same time), but the trade-off was a ton of health problems. The last few years of her life she was largely bed-ridden. The last 9 months of her life she was 100% bed-ridden. 

Asbestos was pretty prevalent back in the day. It was cheap. It was fire resistant. It was strong. My husband grew up in Vermont, dirt poor, in a house with Tilo siding. Asbestos. I'll bet the tile flooring in my childhood family room was made with asbestos, and likely the ceiling tiles were as well. The furnaces at my grandmother's, where we lived until I was six, were insulated with asbestos padding.

We all grew up with a lot of asbestos exposure. Maybe just not at the level that Mary Beth had in those old library basements.

Asbestos is no longer as widely used in the US as it once was, but it's still around. Most types of asbestos have been banned here, and US production was halted over 20 years ago. No more asbestos miners to contract mesothelioma! Which is a good thing...

In the final year of the Biden administration, the EPA put a ban on something called chrysotile asbestos. 

Known as “white” asbestos, chrysotile asbestos is banned in more than 50 countries for its link to lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer that forms in the lining of internal organs. White asbestos, however, has been imported for use in the United States for roofing materials, textiles and cement as well as gaskets, clutches, brake pads and other automotive parts. It is also used in chlorine manufacturing. (Source: NY Times)

That ban was not going into effect overnight. Manufacturers were granted 12 years to figure out alternative materials. But that 12 year stay wasn't good enough for the Trump administration, and their industry buddies, who are all hell bent on getting rid of any and all regulations that protect us from poisoned air, poisoned water, poisoned soil, poisoned food, poisoned products. No, the Trump EPA - which might as well be renamed the Wink-Wink-Nudge-Nudge-"Environmental-Protection"-Agency - has made a court filing to reconsider the ban. (Remember: anything Biden, anything Obama, is BAD and must be done away with.)

The move, which could halt enforcement of the ban for several years during the reconsideration, is a major blow to a decades-long battle by health advocates to prohibit the carcinogenic mineral in all its forms.

The EPA's motion to delay will be challenged by those who believe that asbestos is bad for living creatures, and that there's no need adding to the estimated 40,000 annual deaths attributed to it. In 2023, that would have included my friend Mary Beth. 

Despite the gruesome treatment she went through, despite the eventual deterioration of her health that the gruesome treatment brought with it, MB was happy to have survived mesothelioma. She had a pretty good decade or so during which she was able to work and travel, and lead a pretty good life. But once things began to go to hell, things really began to go to hell. 

She had tremendous mobility issues, and for many years was house-bound. (Things being things, things got worse in 2019 when her husband - and caregiver - dropped dead of a heart-attack.) The final years of her life, Mary Beth was bedbound, in and out of hospitals and rehab facilities. Able to stay home in the final months of her life with 24/7 live-in help. (And the most incredibly kind and generous friends and neighbors a girl could want: Deb, Lori, and Andrew. Believe me, they were saints on earth.)

While the last few years of Mary Beth's life were pretty awful - she was always a great reader, and I realized that she was beginning her actively dying phase when she was no longer asking me to order her books from Amazon - she retained her sense of humor up until the end.

I visited her in Long Island a few days before she died. We talked about how ironic it was that the hospice she was working with was Catholic. Like me, MB was an atheist who'd grown up in a super-Catholic family and had spent 16 years in Catholic schools. We'd met in college. 

In commenting on the Catholic hospice, MB told me that it was a good thing she wasn't going to need an abortion.

This was two or three days before she died.

Honestly, maybe there are too many regulations. Maybe we don't need to save the snail darter. But we really should be trying to make sure that life-saving protections are put in place, and enforced, where they can be.

Sometimes, it really does seem that they'd like to kill us all, doesn't it?

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Image Source: NY Times

Take a puff? Nah, take a sip. It's a fridge cigarette.

I was never much of a smoker, but when I worked as a waitress at the Union Oyster House and at Durgin-Park, in the early 1970's, I took up the habit. Almost all the "gals" smoked, and stepping off the floor for a three-minute cigarette break was a thing. The head waitress would come looking for you, and you'd hold your cigarette up and say "lemme just finish my fucking cigarette."

I waitressed at these two spots with my friend Joyce, and we'd buy communal packs - Newports, I think, but maybe Marlboros - with another pair of friends, Marilyn and Pamwho'd worked alongside us at Oyster and later, coinceidentally, at Durgin. (Like us, they were waitressing to save up to travel.) We'd keep our shared pack in a cubbyhole just off the kitchen, and grab a smoke when we needed a breather. (Hard to believe that smoking was once considered a breather, but there you have it.) We lit our smokes with matches, probably house matches as packs of matches were given out by most restaurants and bars. People collected them, just as they collected swizel sticks. 

But by 1973, we were using cheap, colorful, disposable Bic lighters that cost about a buck and a half, and were sold at convenience stores. We kept our individual Bics in the pockets of our white nylon waitress dresses, which would have turned into mini-Towering Infernos if the Bic had gotten accidentally flicked. 

Fast forward a half a century plus, and working folks still deserve to take an occasional break. But with fewer people smoking, the break method of choice has become slugging down a soda. So I give you Diet Coke, the "fridge cigarette."

New Yorker Rachel Reno recently posted a TikTok of herself enjoying a Diet Coke, dubbed a fridge cig, and as of a few weeks ago, she'd gotten 3 million views (and 300K likes). 

She first heard the alternative name for a can of diet soda from a co-worker at her previous job at an advertising agency. Those who get it know that “the crack of the can is like the spark of a lighter,” she said. Then comes the sparkly sound of fizzing bubbles and the mouthfeel of that first hit, and suddenly “all the worries and cares in the world go away.”

Crucially, having a soda is the equivalent of stepping outside for a few minutes for a smoke break. It’s an excuse to “take a moment,” Ms. Reno said. (Source: NY Times)

Reno, who is a freelance creative director, has been expanding on her TikTok notoriety.  

In a follow-up video, Ms. Reno took the fridge cigarette analogy further. Cans of Diet Coke, she said, are like Parliament cigarettes, whereas regular Coke gives off Marlboro Red energy. Regular coke in a glass bottle, though? That’s a cigar, the ultimate vice.

“When you see that bottle,” she said, “it’s like, ‘Oh, this is an event.’”

Good luck to Rachel with her freelance career. I hope this gets her a lot of professional opportunities. Maybe she'll be the "Hawk Tuah Girl" of 2025, only cleaner, more professional, and unlikely to get caught up in a crypto scheme. 

Right now, I'm thirsty. I should just refill my water bottle. But, but, but...

I don't drink a ton of soda, but there are some mini-cans of Diet Coke in my fridge. Think I'll take me a fridge cig break.

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Image Source - Union Oyster House matchbook: Ebay

Image Source - Diet Coke: Wikipedia

Dubbing? Why is it so awful?

A few weeks ago, I binge watched Secrets We Keep on Netflix. The series got pretty good reviews, and I like a good mystery (and a good binge watch), so I tuned in. The premise was reasonably interesting: the disappearance of the Filipino nanny of a super-rich Copenhagen family. And the questions it raised about the exploitation of the nanny cadre, the secret lives of early-adolescent boys, and the life-

styles of the uber-rich were provocative enough. (Talk about house porn: the two key families lived in unimaginablly super-designed and curated modern splendor. Of course, the only rooms that held any warmth or personality, any indication that a real person lived there, were those where the nannies lived.)

Despite the pretty rave-ish reviews I saw, I thought the plot was largely meh. But my big problem with the show was the dubbing.

Why is it that the dubbed voices always sound so fake and unreal? It really doesn't bother me that the lip movements may be a little off. It's that the voices never seem to match what you'd expect to come out of the mouth of the actor being dubbed. And the acting always seems just awful. 

I'd prefer subtitles any old day, even though you have to pay more attention and can't get lost in Sudoku or doomscrolling. You really have to look at the screen and follow along with the non-bouncing non-ball.

It isn't just Secrets We Keeped. 

Earlier this year, it was Just One Look, a Polish series based on a Harlan Coben novel. As with Secrets, the plot was interesting enough, as was the depiction of middle-class Polish life and Polish policing. But the dubbing drove me to distraction!

Dubbing always sounds to me like the "acting" in Clutch Cargo, or one of the other cheesy cartoon action shows of yesteryear. 

How is it that the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Yogi Bear sound real, while the voices of human cartoon characters are always so stilted and fake? Ditto for dubbed shows with real humans. Just awful.

The worst case of dubbing I remember was from my wayback.

Over New Year's 1989-1990, my husband and I were in Berlin to see The Wall fall. One day, after an exhausting visit to East Berlin, when you still had to go through Checkpoint Charlie, we got back to our (West Berlin) hotel late afternoon and just collapsed. For some reason, I told Jim that I could really go for an episode of The Streets of San Francisco. In an unbelievably weird bit of timing, Jim turned the TV on and what to our wondering eyes did appear but an episode of Die Strassen von San Francisco.

It was a truly excellent espisode - the one in which Rick Nelson plays a washed up rock star turned murdering pimp - and one we were familiar enough with that we didn't actually need the subtitles to follow the plot. (My husband did have some German, but it was scientific not conversational, so he didn't know the words for key things like flute-player and teen prostitution ring.) 

Anyway, the dubbing was beyond outrageously bad, probably made all the more so in that we were familiar with the voices of stars Karl Malden and Michael Douglas, not to mention Rick Nelson, whose California-dude, still vaguely adenoidal voice we'd been hearing since he was Ricky Nelson on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. 

So, dubbing: yech!

Fast forward a few years, and I had a business meeting in Amsterdam with my company's Dutch partners. When we were out to dinner, I asked them how they had acquired such wonderful English, right down to perfect accents, the idiomatic Americanisms, and the latest slang. They told me that, unlike American TV shows in Germany, American TV series were subtitled, not dubbed. So they could actually hear how Americans spoke. (At the time, they were picking up cop slang from NYPD Blue. So they knew what skells were.)

Another advantage of subtitling over dubbing!

Not sure what I'm going to do when something else I want to watch turns out to be dubbed. Turn the sound off and the closed captioning on? Maybe. All I know is that dubbing is just plain awful. And it'll no doubt get worse once AI gets a hold of it. 

Sigh...

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Image source: Rotten Tomatoes

Tell me a StoryFile.

One of the corniest things I've ever seen in my life was the Talking Mr. Lincoln exhibit at Disneyland. This was more than 50 years ago, so I'm a little vague on the details, but I do remember thinking it was a bit ridiculous and a bit embarrassing. (Not as ridiculous and embarrassing as It's a Small World, but still, it was no Matterhorn, no Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, no Mad Tea Party.)

I believe that Abe is still out there in Anaheim talking up a storm, but the current version is more teched up and "realistic" than the weird thing I saw way back in 1972. 

I hadn't thought of Talking Mr. Lincoln in a while, but he (it?) came to mind when I saw an article in the NY Times on Story File, a company that's part of the emerging grief tech industry. (The grief tech industry? Man, if that's not a topic for another day.)

StoryFile: Authentic Interactions is "an AI-powered video platform that allows users to create and train conversational AI interactions, making AI conversations feel more human."

Well, I'd say "authentic interactions" is a bit of a stretch, but what Story File does is create an avatar that you can make eye contact with and ask questions of.

The Times article focused on the Listro family of NYC. Peter Listro is 80, and he's dying. His wife Joan and son Matt, who's 39, got Peter to agree to be videod answering questions about his life. One of the reasons Matt wanted this done is so that his future children - Peter's hypothetical grandkids - would get to know something about their grandad.

The family was taking advantage of one offering in a growing field known as Grief Tech, which ranges from chatbots trained on the communications of a person who has died to a program that uses virtual reality to create a 3-D avatar of a deceased loved one — a remarkably lifelike presence. The Listros decided on something in between: StoryFile would create an avatar of Peter that could converse through a video screen, as if his family were reaching him by Zoom. (Source: NY Times)

Matt came up with the list of questions about his father's childhood; building his business success; what advice he would offer Matt on the day he introduced his husband to his father; what he would say to those twinkle in god's eye grandkids. There was also advice for Joan to move on through her grief. Peter spoke about how he wanted to be remembered.

In addition to the questions Matt asked, they had Peter say "Hello," "Hi," "I love you, too," "Bye." They also had him record the response "I don't have an answer for that right now." That answer would be used it someone asks AI video Peter a question that he hadn't recorded an answer to. Because the Listros had opted for real - authentic as it were - responses that Peter had given. A more advanced Story File option lets the avatar go freelance. It combs through a person's social media, emails, and any other background content, so that the loved one's avatar will supply an answer to a question that the person behind the avatar hadn't actually answered in real life. 

Look, I'd give anything to have a video of my father answering questions we had for him. Would that this had been a thing when he was sick and dying. But that was in the dark ages, grief tech wise. My father died in January 1971 (a year and a half before I saw the Talking Mr. Lincoln). I believe that my sibs and I would all get a kick out of hearing what my father had to say, as would his granddaughters. 

But I have such vivid memories of my father, that I really don't need a video. It would just be a nice to have. 

It would also be nice to have a video of my mother answering questions. To have a video of my husband.

Maybe because I had the two of them for so much longer, it's my father whose video I'd most like to see. 

Sigh...

But making eye contact and pretending it was an actual convo - as opposed to just a video recording of an interview - is to me a step too far.

Not that I blame the Listros. If this helps them work through their grief - and lets Matt introduce Peter Listro to those grandkids-to-come - I'm all for it. Whatever gets you through the night. And the days...

Having the avatar answer questions that weren't asked, however, is a bridge too far to me. Too creepy. Too weird.

As someone who - I'm sorry to admit - occasionally looks at AI generated answers, I know that AI doesn't always get it right. The information that comes back is out of date, misleading, contradictory, stupid, or just plain wrong.

Imagine asking the avatar of a late loved one about something and getting an answer that makes you feel terrible, that has you questioning that late loved one and your relationship with them. 

"I would have voted for Trump....If you'd brought a Black woman home, I would have disowned you...You sound like a moron...I always liked your brother better..." 

Be careful what you wish for when you're asking questions that the late lamented can't actually answer, and can't explain. That you can't do any follow up on.

A bit ridiculous, a bit embarrassing. And just plain god-awful.

A canned video is one thing. (Yay!) An AI'd up video that you can make eye conact with. (Not for me, but yay!) A freelance avatar. (NFW!) Seems to me that this use of grief tech can definitely cause more grief.

At some point, can we make the Fourth of July great again?

Last year, in the quasi midst of the presidential election, I wrote about the rough shape the country was in, thanks to the malign presence of Candidate Trump. Here's some of what I had to say:

And WE ARE NOT OK.

We'll all be spending the next x months watching him trash our country and its institutions. Trash anyone he doesn't like, or has the audacity to say they don't like him. Lie like there's no tomorrow - which, come to think of it, there may well not be. Spew gibberish, physically and mentally deteriorating before our very eyes - a deterioration seemingly beneath the notice of the press that's too focused on Joe Biden's gingerly shuffling along in the orthopedic sneakers he wears to help with his peripheral neuropathy. (Note to readers: I, too, wear orthopedic, orthotically-enhanced sneakers to help me cope with my peripheral neuropathy.)

Little did I know then just what horrors we were in for once the lying, narcissistic, thoroughly despicable, malign, vengeful, corrupt, nasty, ignorant, self-dealing, nasty, moronic, petulant, venal, etc. (words fail me) won the election and took office. Without the offset of a handful of decent, reasonable "guardrails" (Kelly, Millley, Coates, Tillerson et a few other als) he had around him during his first term. Only to replace them with a cadre of incompetent, equally lying, equally despicable, equally malign enabling suckups who are hell bent on destroying the country, and maybe even the world while they're at it.

At least destroying the country we used to have. 

You know, the country where masked, no-name thugs didn't kidnap people off the street and squirrel them away without due process. You know, the country where competent women, POC, LBGTQ, etc. could succeed in positions once occupied exclusively by white men. You know, the country that was a bastion of rule of law and individual freedom. You know, the country that led the world in scientific discovery. You know, the country that once welcomed immigrants (including my mother, thank you). You know, the country that wanted people to vote in elections. You know, the country that helped rebuild Europe and Japan after WWII. You know, the country that was at least occasionally, and often kicking and screaming, capable of admitting some not-so-glorious elements of its history - and learning from them.

Etc. Make that a big ETC. There has been, and can continue to be, a whole lot of good about the USA. Imperfect, surely, but a whole lot of good, too.

JFC, I really do want to get back to a Fourth of July when I can enjoy the cornball patriotic sing-alongs. The flag waving. The chest-thumping. The fireworks. The reading of the Declaration of Independence. Cupcakes with red-white-and-blue sprinkles on the frosting. Sparklers. 

This year, I just want to sit in bed with the covers over my head and cry.

I'm in the early stages of planning where to spend the Fourth next year so that I do not have to watch Trump preside over the 250th anniversary of what has often been a grand and glorious experiment in democracy, but which has rapidly developed into an authoritarian, militaristic, nihilistic shambles. 

Ireland, maybe. That's always good. Iceland. I've never been. O, Canada. If they'll let us in. 

Last year, we were so not OK. This year, it's orders of magnitude worse. 

What's the quote from Albert Camus?

Oh, yeah, here's the one:

And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. 

Me, too. 

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Image Source: Newsweek