Don’t cry for me, Perón’s bathrobe

I will admit that I have plenty of odd-ball junk hanging around.  I have the collar (with tags) of a my late, lamented pooch Grimbald – dead, now, for nearly 30 years. Squirreled away in my mother’s hope chest, I have my father’s bathrobe and the Pendleton shirt I gave him for Christmas right before he died. I have one grandmother’s cookie jar, and the other grandmother’s sampler (which she did as a 12 year old, so there’s really no excuse why the alphabet is in a weird order, is there?) I have the steer horns that hung in my grandfather Rogers’ saloon, which went out with Prohibition. I still have my beloved stuffed dog, Sniffy, who I got for my 4th birthday. (My husband recently offered Sniffy to our dog-nephew as a plaything, before I snatched him – Sniffy, not my husband -  from Jack’s jaws. Sniffy? A plaything for a toy-gnawing lab? I. DON’T. THINK. SO.)

Just looking around me, I can spy with my little eye all sorts of weird little things.

On one book shelf alone, there’s a bit of pre-Columbian stone carving sitting in front of a bendable Bullwinkle, that’s leaning up against a clay pig one of my sister Trish’s college roommates sculpted. The pig appears to be charging a nice little sandalwood box on which a mini-sock monkey is perched.

I forgot to mention the tiny Cloisonné vase, the toy London bus, and the praying hands pencil sharpener that are also on this particular shelf.  Plus a couple of family pictures. (And a bunch of knickknackery left out for the sake of brevity. You’re welcome.)

All arrayed in front of the Irish lit section of my library.

The whole thing looks like it sprung from the mind of James Joyce, so I’m sure the old Jimbo wouldn’t mind the rubber squirt turtle in front of Ulysses.

Okay, okay.

I could sorely use a dumpster. And I’m quite certain that a lot of my stuff will end up there, tossed in what I hope is the distant future by my nieces, who will be asking each other ‘what was she thinking?’

But all of the junk I have is, more of less, personal. It all came from and/or is related to my life, my family, my friends, my travels, my jobs.

Sure, there are a few antiquish things that I picked up in junk antique stores, but, once I paid for them, they became my personal junk.

Anyway, I get why people accumulate “stuff.”

But I really don’t understand the thrill of accumulating stuff that belonged to “famous” people, unless, of course, they gave it to you as a gift. (The closest I come to near greatness is an autographed photo-portrait of Cardinal Richard Cushing that The Cush gave to my father.)

And I really don’t get the thrill of accumulating stuff that belonged to infamous people.

Yet it doesn’t take much sleuthing to find all sorts of things for sale. A few years ago, you could bid for Hitler’s typewriter on eBay.

And now, if you’re looking for objects that belonged to Juan Perón, you may be in luck. (I know, I know. Juan P is not exactly in the same league as Hitler, however many Nazis he welcomed to his country after WWII.)

I saw an article in a recent Economist about one Mario Rotundo, a friend of the late Argentine strongman, who was left Perón’s personal belongings. He’s already offloaded some of what he was left, and used the $500K he’s raised to  - via Perón’s instructions - “fund good works.” Which is I guess what Juan and Evita were known for. Or am I confusing them with good workin’ Madonna? Not that I ever saw the movie, mind you. Still, the tune rattles around in my fevered little brain….

Anyway, 14,000 items are on the block.

They include the green silk dressing ground that Juan donned the day he died. (Shudder, shudder.) The gravestone of his dog, Canela. (“The best and most faithful of friends.” True dat, I’m sure.) And a Limoges box that Josephine Baker had given Juan. (Do all famous people know each other or what?)

The auction hopes to raise $20M for worthy causes.

No mention of the one item – or two, depending how you count – that might be of the most interest.

Apparently in1987, when I must have been paying attention to other things:

… his tomb was desecrated, and his hands and some personal effects, including his sword, were stolen. Perón's hands were cut off with a chainsaw. A ransom letter asking for $8 million dollars was sent to some Peronist members of Congress. (Source: Wikipedia.)

Live by the sword, perish by the chainsaw, I guess.

Think I’d rather have the dog gravestone, by the way. Although I probably won’t be bidding on anything.

I’ve got plenty enough junk around here already.

Time to retire (Helen Thomas, not me)

By now, even the most casual of news readers has no doubt heard about Helen Thomas’ unfortunate comment about Jews “get[ting] the hell out of Palestine” and heading back to Germany or Poland.

Well, you don’t have to be a member of AIPAC to find yourself having a wee bit of a problem with that comment.

Come on, Helen, if you’d said “maybe we’d all be better off if Israel had re-lo’d somewhere else” -  as in Michael Chabon’s wonderful novel, “The Yiddish Police Force,” which is set in the Jewish protectorate of Sitka Alaska – that would have been one thing.

But the suggestion that Israeli Jews head on back to Germany and Poland.

Distasteful doesn’t begin to describe this tainted remark.

Especially from someone who was a news reporter during WW II. Although as a “news gal” of that era, she no doubt covered as much fluff as substance, she was certainly in a better position than most to learn early rather than later exactly what being a Jew in Germany or Poland meant. You don’t have to have sonar for anti-Semitic remarks to extend the ellipsis on hers to “and don’t let the door of the gas chamber hit your ass on the way in.”

Anyway, in the wake of her remark, Helen was dumped by her speakers’ bureau (a.m.), and decided to resign from her position as a reporter for Hearst News (p.m.). And from the front-row perch she’s sat in for years at presidential news conferences. She’s been covering those press conferences since Kennedy was elected – nearly 50 years.

I’m actually not here to vilify Helen Thomas, or to heap any more opprobrium on her weary and ancient shoulders.

In fact, I’d rather focus on the good long run she had as a working journalist since the early 1940’s.  She’ll be 90 in a couple of months, and, while I’m quite sure she’d prefer to have died with her pumps on, and her notebook and pen in hand, she certainly enjoyed a lengthier tenure than most of us.

But when is enough enough?

It’s conceivable that I’ll live to be 90. And I hope to be, like Helen, still going strong and, even, shooting my mouth off (although not so outrageously).

But do I want to be working?

And at what?

I suppose if you love, love, LOVE, what you do, you might as well keep on keepin’ on.

I don’t exactly love, love, LOVE my work. Rather, I like, like, LIKE it. Or even love, love, LIKE it. Or some combo of love-like that varies over time, depending on the mix of clients and projects.

Still, I like-love it well enough to keep at it for the foreseeable future. And, if and when my career earth turns out to be flat, and I sail over the edge – or, better yet, when I win big bucks in Powerball – I will find something else to do.

I will pay more attention to rewriting Pink Slip (the book).  I’ll pay more attention to growing Pink Slip (the blog). I’ll work on one of the novels that’s been rattling around in my head for the last couple of years. I’ll restart the writers group I ran a while back at St. Francis House (New England’s largest day shelter for the poor and homeless).

I’ll figure something out.

Because, I’m guessing that I’ve got a bit of Helen Thomas in me, in that while I may not always be enamored of the work I do, I actually like to work. 

Even when I was waiting tables and working in a boot factory, my work has always provided challenge, interest, companionship, and, of course, income (oh, that).

I probably need it more than it needs me.

As for Helen Thomas, I wouldn’t want to be her when she wakes up tomorrow morning with no place to go for the first time in nearly 70 years.  Which may be a counter-argument to making work so central to your life.

Still, it got me thinking about whether I’d want to be working at the age of 90.

My immediate response is, “of course not.”

But come to think about it, that response kinda-sorta turns into “why not?”

Sure, there’ll be days when I look out the ice-encrusted window, feel an ache in my hip and a crick in my neck, and decide to get back into bed and pull the covers up over my head. (Come to think of it, I’ve been having days like that for years.)

And, sure, there’s the need for us oldsters to get out of the way so the young folk can have our jobs. (Not that there’ll be all that many of them clamoring for mine. The marketing folks will want to focus on more hip and happenin’ work than market research  - other than via Tweet-examination – and product positioning. The writers will want to be doing the creative, feed-the-soul writing that got them into their MFA program, not the not-so-creative, feed-the-body writing that us MBA-types do.)

Anyway, so long, Helen Thomas. It really was time for you to go.

Pass the basket: just remember that you’re supposed to be putting in, not taking out

One of the many jobs I had along the way was counting the collection money at church, which I did every Sunday throughout high school.

I say “job”, even though we weren’t paid very much. I think by my senior year, we were making about $3 for about 5 - 6 hours of work – even in those long-gone days, this was substantially under minimum wage. But the job had a lot of side benefits, most notably a number of my friends were in the “counting house” with me – all gabbing away. Plus, in addition to getting paid, we got breakfast – either at the White House Restaurant in Webster Square, or with junk food bought at Cumberland Farms. 

Other than having to get up for the 6:30 a.m. Mass so we could be at our post when the 7 a.m. take came in, the job was pretty easy-peasy. For one thing, there was a lot of downtime between when the ushers delivered the collection proceeds, and when we finished processing them. In nice weather, we could sit out on the porch in rocking chairs. In not so nice weather, we could watch TV (not that there was much on on a Sunday morning in those b&w days).  Or – if all the priests, plus the housekeeper were away – we could nose around in the rectory –someone keeping watch so we wouldn’t get nabbed. (We didn’t do this very often: it was just too scary.)

Mid-way through my career as a counter, the pastor of our church died. The priest who replaced him brought with him two elderly spinster sisters – Rose and Ida – as his housekeepers. Rose and Ida were pack rats, and they took over our counting room with boxes full of floor to ceiling junk that would have done the Collyer brothers proud.

Although we were relegated to a smaller ante-room in which to do our work, we could poke around the stacks of Rose and Ida junk, which included all kinds of ancient gifts. My favorite was cartons full of what appeared to be 20 year old, still-in-cellophane, holiday boxes of chocolates.

The actual task of counting was hardly onerous. We opened the kiddy envelopes, using a paper cutter; shook out the coins; and discarded the little envies. We kept the fact that kids donations weren’t recorded from the kiddies – why not let them think that Sister Superior knew whether they’d put an empty envelope in the collection basket, rather than spending the dime on penny candy at Carrera’s Spa.

For the adult envelopes, we opened them up, wrote down the donation amount (this was pretty much all cash), and sorted the envelopes by number. The actual transcription of who-gave-what was left to a pair of elderly spinster sisters (not Rose and Ida), who matched the numbers printed on the envelopes to the names or parishioners that they kept in their secret books.

At the end of the day, we put the bills, sorted by denomination, in packs of twenty-five; threw all the change in the coin counter; and toted everything up.

At some point, the younger, “cool” priest would put in an appearance, joke around with us, and raffle off the Kennedy half-dollars that showed up. Even if the younger, “cool” priest didn’t drop by, I will confess that we began to raffle off the Kennedy half-dollars, anyway, which usually added $.50 to our take-home. (We stopped doing this when they raised our wages to $3, by the way. At first when I had the job, we were paid $1.00 for those 5-6 hours. Way worse than babysitting (even when your regular babysitting job was 7 boys), which paid $.50 hour).

Raffling off those Kennedy halfs was about as dishonest as it got, and I can honestly say that it wouldn’t have occurred to me in a billion years to pocket any of the collection money.

I hadn’t thought about that job in years. Then I read an article in The Boston Globe about a local woman, Donna Rood (surely not to be confused with Donna Reed), who was just busted for skimming over $100K from the collections at St. Mary Magdalen in Tyngsboro over the past few years.

St. Mary Magdalen! Could there have been a better church name -  other than St. Dismas, the Good Thief – for one involved in a crime? Of course, this was a crime of the pocketbook, not the flesh. Still…

Anyway, Ms. Rood was in charge of counting the collections at St. MM from 2003 until midway through last year.  By the parish reckoning, she light-fingered about $16K a year, or about $300 a week. That’s a lot of Kennedy half dollars.

The theft was uncovered after a priest got to wondering why, on the Sundays when he did the counting, the church cleared a lot more.

Ms. Rood – who is 47 – is now facing arraignment. Not to mention the colossal humiliation of being found to have cadged donation money from a church. Oh, the infamy!

My high school – Notre Dame Academy in Worcester – has a sister school in Tyngsboro.

My advice to the folks at St. Mary Magdalen is that they get a handful of NDA girls from their parish to do the counting for them.

No, it’s not a glamorous, high-paying, career-enhancing job. But my guess is that teenage girls still wouldn’t mind sitting around gossiping and eating M&M for a few hours on Sunday morning, counting the weekend’s take.

Up periscope

In general, I’m an anti-claustrophobe.

Having designed it many times in my head (since I was about 6 years old), I could probably live in reasonable comfort in a 200 square foot “home.” Maybe even 100 square feet.

Still, I don’t like the idea of being cooped up in a submarine.

Maybe it’s the lack of privacy. I’ve toured the captured U-Boat in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, and as much as I admired those perky blue-checked sheets, I don’t think I would have enjoyed spending much time down U.

I don’t imagine I would like never being able to step outside and enjoy the elements. No sticking out your tongue to catch a snowflake. No spotting the first robin red-breast. No stopping to smell the roses. No window shopping. No shopping, period.

Also, there’s the thought that the air might not be the freshest of the fresh. Especially because everyone couldn’t take a nice, long shower every time they wanted to – another problem I’d have with submarine life. Not to mention that if you’re at sea, make that under sea, for long periods of time, the food might not be the freshest of the fresh. We all know from The Caine Mutiny – yes, I know, that was a ship, not a submarine – that canned strawberries can be yummy. But I bet after a month in a sub, I’d have some powerful hankering for mixed greens.

But that was then – World War II – and this is now.

The submarines – like the one in The Hunt for the Red October - are more capacious than the tin cans of WWII vintage. Plus the sailors don’t look as scruffy, so maybe the showering’s better, too. The chow’s probably okay, what with frozen food improvements. Maybe with hydroponics and grow lights, you can even get a tomato.

Submarine life, however, has been a mystery to American women – even those in the U.S. Navy.

But that’s about to change.

Eleven new Annapolis grads are going snorkeling. They’ve been commissioned, and will be serving:

…in the deeply fraternal, claustrophobic confines of a nuclear submarine.

Two of these young ensigns are from Massachusetts – Elizabeth Hudson and Rachel Lessard – and the pair was written up in The Boston Globe the other day.

For Hudson, being a submariner is “being among the elite,” and that’s what she’s looking for. But, because submarine service is one of the last, male military bastions to fall, the decision to let women in is not without controversy.

… there is also resistance among submarine veterans to allowing women in the “Silent Service,’’ where deployments can last two months or more, quarters are severely tight, and men do not see their wives or girlfriends until each long patrol is finished.

Some critics are claiming that the radiation on the submarines can pose a risk to women’s reproductive systems. (If so, it probably can’t be doing men’s systems any good, either.)

One person who opposes the new policy, Elaine Donnelly, takes it a step further:

“There are health risks to women with emergency pregnancies,’’ such as ectopic pregnancies in which a fertilized egg is attached outside the womb, Donnelly said. Medical resources on submarines would be insufficient to treat such emergencies, she said, and captains would be placed in the difficult position of altering a mission to ensure the woman received treatment elsewhere.

Now, I don’t know whether there’s a doctor in the house on an average submarine, but it seems to me that a woman having an ectopic pregnancy while at sea, while surely demanding non-routine treatment, would be as common as a male sailor finding, say, a major lump on his privates. Or any sailor suffering from some other sort of medical emergency. So this “ectopic pregnancy” argument doesn’t really hold water.

The decision to allow women to serve on submarines was made after a task force, headed by an admiral who runs a sub base, made the recommendation to do so.

Some disgruntled vets (and some currently serving) claim that it just flat out “won’t work.”

Whether it will or not remains to be seen. And, while I find the idea of wanting to serve on a submarine unfathomable, I’m betting that it will – even though there may be new tensions introduced to what is already a fairly tense environment. (Also note that these are officers. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for enlisted female sailors to hop aboard a submarine any time soon.)

If you’re wondering what the digs are like:

Initially, two female ensigns and one supply officer will be assigned to each of two alternating crews for four submarines. While on board, they will be part of the 15 officers and 140 enlisted men who serve on the 560-foot-long vessels. The three women will be berthed together, and a Velcro sign will be flipped from “Men’’ to “Women’’ when they need to use the stalls in the single officers’ head.

Thank goodness for that Velcro sign. Wouldn’t want some guy in the next stall playing footsie with me.

No significant changes were necessary to accommodate women aboard the big submarines. In the Navy’s smaller attack submarines, any introduction of women might require some structural modifications.

Attack sub. Those must be the ones like the U-Boat I toured. If that’s the case, forget about structural modifications. Unless they make them bigger, I say, abandon all hope, ye women who enter here.

Lessard and Hudson are downplaying the concerns.

“That’s really not anything I’m not used to,’’ said Lessard, who cited her experience of three weeks on the ocean aboard a mixed-gender sailboat. “That’s way, way closer quarters than any submarine.’’

They’re also pooh-poohing the notion that they’re anything special.

“We’ve been called trailblazers, but to me it’s a coincidence more than anything,’’ said Hudson.

Lessard echoed that sentiment. “I didn’t do this to be the first person,’’ she said. “It was bound to happen.’’

The two won’t be ship-ahoying until 2012, as they have additional training to go through.

Good luck to both of them.

Up periscope.  Prepare to dive. Away all boats.

You load 16 credits, what do you get? Another day older and a-deeper in debt…

Subprime lending crisis?

That is so 2008.

The next big bubble burst is supposedly going to occur when all those folks who took out mega-loans to finance their education start defaulting.

Not that it’s easy to get out of paying back those student loans. It’s not like walking out the front door, throwing away the keys, and saying ‘let the bank deal with it.’  Apparently, having student debt is like owing your soul to the company store.  You’re stuck with it until it’s paid off, or until death do you part.

Anyway, there was an interesting article in The New York Times the other day on a young woman who racked up nearly $100K in loans to finance her undergraduate education at NYU – some of it through NYU, and some of it through Citi.

Now, it might have made some financial sense if the woman profiled had majored in engineering or business or computer science or something  where one might reasonably expect to get a decent-paying job. Sure, nobody wants to write that a big fat check to payback your loan every month for a zillion years. But if you start out making a good salary, and have solid long run prospects (assuming that everything isn’t so globalized over the next 20 years that we’re all competing to make a $1 an hour to write code), it’s doable – even if it puts a crimp in things like buying a house, starting a family, buying a car, taking a vacation. (Oh, that.)

But Cortney Munna, the young woman in the article, acquired a less practical “interdisciplinary degree in religious and women’s studies.”  She’s now working as a photographer making $22 an hour. Which is not terrible-terrible, until you translate it into $2.3K take home per month – and a looming, still-deferred $700 a month in loan repayment schedule. Which stands to increase if interest rates go up.

Grim.

Ms. Munna and her mother (both interviewed for The Times article) do not sound in the least like jerks. They sound like genuinely decent people. Just woefully naive – and swept into a system where it was, apparently, in no one’s interest to explain the facts of economic life to a teenager who was more than willing to sign on the dotted line for $40K that Citi was dangling before her so that she could stay in the school of her dreams.

Which is turning into the school of Munna’s nightmares, now that she’s staring down years of indenture.

Cortney’s mother, Cathryn, a widow who runs a B&B in upstate NY, seems to feel immense guilt over her role in not helping her child figure out that all that debt wasn’t a good idea.

“All I could see was college, and a good college and how proud I was of her,” Cathryn said. “All we needed to do was get this education and get the good job. This is the thing that eats away at me, the naïveté on my part.”

Cathryn wishes that NYU had slapped them both up and down the side of the head and told them that they just couldn’t afford the education.  But colleges aren’t in the business of telling qualified students that they can’t come, even when they don’t have the endowment chops (which only a few schools do) to offer everyone the financial assistance they need.

If you’re good enough to get into Harvard, you’re golden. If you’re not quite good enough, and you ‘only’ get into NYU, you’re fools gold, and pretty much on your own to figure out how you’re going to pay.

Sallie Mae shut the Munnas off, and, instead of taking this as a dragons-be-here warning sign, they heeded NYU’s advice that they look into a loan from Citi. Citi was happy to oblige the Munnas:

But what was Citi thinking, handing over $40,000 to an undergraduate who had already amassed debt well into the five figures? This was, in effect, a “no doc” or at least a “low doc” subprime mortgage loan.

Things have now tightened up a bit, and today the Munnas might not qualify for a loan of this magnitude.

But that’s a day late, and about a dollar – actually forty-thousand dollars – long.

There are hundreds of thousands of young folks like Cortney Munna who’ve taking on heavy debt to finance their education.

For a lot of them (especially, I suspect the religious and women’s studies majors), it just won’t be worth it. And we’ll all have to deal with the repercussions of having those hundreds of thousands of young folks start out life – already one full of professional and economic insecurity beyond anything that us Baby Boomers faced at that age – with a college loan millstone around their necks.

Depressing.

(‘Saint Peter don’t you call me, ‘cause I can’t go. I owe my soul to the company store.’)

It’s only natural: the National Wildlife Property Repository auction

Looking for a coat made out of Siberian weasel?

Sure, weasel doesn’t sound as warm and inviting as ermine, but on a cold winter’s night, a fur coat’s a fur coat, no?

Anyway, sorry to have gotten your hopes up, but the Siberian weasel coats are gone, to the highest bidder, who picked up the lot (12 coats) for $4,450.  Thus reporteth the Wall Street Journal, in an article on the U.S. Wildlife Service’s rolling auction, in which they’re selling off hundreds of thousands of articles of clothing, furniture, and knick-knacks that were confiscated because they violate regulations governing international trade in things wildlife.

They’re running the auction to make some room in their warehouse, and to raise some money to fund conservation programs.

The “goods” in the warehouse include a “beribboned walrus penis.”

Frankly, I’m surprised there’s a market for that item. Come on, who doesn’t already have a beribboned walrus penis? (Well, maybe not beribboned…)

And just because it’s in the warehouse, doesn’t mean it’s going to make it to the auction block.

Much of the booty is sent  “to schools, zoos and museums for exhibits.” Some of it gets junked (medicinal potions, which may suggest the fate of the beribboned walrus penis).  If something contains an endangered species, it can’t go on the auction block. And some of it is deemed too “crass” for sale:

That includes a belt made from the spotted fur of a Margay, a South American jungle cat. The unlucky creature's head, stuffed and glassy-eyed, is still attached, whiskers and all. It serves as the buckle.

Also on the crass list:

…a handbag made from a whole toad—tanned and shellacked, with a zipper down its belly. And … a knickknack made from a crocodilian reptile known as a caiman, posed with a pipe in its mouth and an ashtray in its claws.

Gosh, whatever happened to a monkey made out of coconut shell? (Oh, I remember, someone ‘won’ it at Christmas Eve Yankee swap a few years ago. They probably tossed it out.)

The sale is in the hands of Lone Star Auction, and, sorely disappointed at the thought of missing out on a Siberian weasel coat, I headed on over to see whether there’s any good stuff for sale.

Mostly it’s python pocketbooks and ostrich boots.

There are lots of lots of 10 of Marc Jacobs snake-skin handbags, and the bidding’s up over $1K. (These, and other lots, typically make their way on to eBay.)

A Ballantyne men’s striped shirt had been confiscated because it had shell buttons. Mother of pearl, that’s harsh.

I mean, a shell?

Wasn’t the clam, like, eaten? Chopped up and put in a can of Snow’s chowder?

There were other shell-based goods for sale, including a set of 459, 3-inch shell curios. 

I get the ostrich-lizard-python-cobra bans. But what am I missing with the shells? Are they supposed to stay in-country to prevent beach erosion? Do we want to protect our home-grown shell-curio industry? Or do we need to keep shells in their country of origin so that natives can use them to “pave” their driveways, as they do on The Cape. (By the way, those driveways are ouchy to walk on if you’re barefoot. Better to crunch down on those shells in a pair of ostrich boots. If you were so lucky as to purchase them at auction.)

Is there are People for the Ethical Treatment of Shells group that I don’t know about?

Perhaps they could explain why shell curios are unwanted on our shores.

And too bad the bidding’s gone wild – up to $135 when I checked – those 459 shell curios would make a mighty fine Yankee swap gift.

Meanwhile, if you’re still annoyed that you missed out on the Siberian weasel coat, you can try for a Siberian weasel hat.

Supposedly Chanel, but the Wildlife folks can’t vet the authenticity of the brand. Sure looks like the real deal to me. 

Castle keep. (Hey, it’s a job.)

I’ve been in a few castles in my day, and, for the most part, found them damp and drafty. I don’t imagine they would have been much fun to live in. Sure, it probably beat living in the alternative – a mud and wattle hut - and the improvements were more than marginal.

If nothing else, if you were in a castle there was less chance that a horde of invaders would stomp on your head in the middle of the night. No, you would have seen them coming, and had plenty of time to watch them rev up the old catapult and battering ram. On second thought, it might have been easier to just have them stomp on your head in the middle of the night and put you out of your misery. 

In any case, I have no doubt that I would have been living in the mud and wattle hut, and not in the crenellated, moted castle – other than as a servant girl.

Still, who doesn’t like the idea of a castle?

Not Michel Guyot, that’s for sure.

And M. Guyot is not just your every day idea man, dreaming of castles in the sky. (Source: Wall Street Journal.)

Nope.

He started building a repro castle in the Guédelon forest in France a while back, and to finance construction, he opened it up as a tourist site.

The Guédelon castle, which is about halfway built, has drawn visitors from around the world, including Jean-Marc Miret, a French expatriate living in the Ozarks. He was so taken with the concept, he urged Mr. Guyot to build an American version on his estate in Boone County, Ark.

Okay.

The first question is just how Jean-Marc Miret found his way to an estate in Boone County, Arkansas.

I suspect the trek to Arkansas isn’t the norm for most French ex-pats. (Hmmmmm. I could live in France, home of the baguette, champagne, and the Musée D’Orsay. Or I could move to Boone County, Arkansas, where I’m an hour’s drive from Branson, Missouri. So much for the myth of the culturally imperious French, non?) Maybe M. Miret came for the quiet and the fishing. Boone County is in the Ozarks, which is a very pretty area. Just not all that, well, cosmopolitan. (Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with not being all that cosmo…)

Anyway, a medieval castle’s now going up in Lead Hill, Boone County, Arkansas, and M. Cuyot is hoping to follow the same path as he took for his castle in France by having tourists fund the development. These tourists would come not just to check out another construction site. But to see something authentic in action. As you approach the site:

You can hear the plink of chisels, the creak of wooden carts, and the grunts of local laborers who are building the massive fortress by hand, using only tools available in the 13th century.

While M. Guyot and his wife weren’t all that familiar with Arkansas when M. Miret floated his idea to them:

"We went on the Internet to check, where was this Arkansas?" says Noémi Brunet, Mr. Guyot's wife and business partner. Her conclusion? "It was the middle of nowhere."

It was also irresistible. Mr. Guyot and Ms. Brunet visited and fell in love with the remote county, best known for its annual crawdad festival. "It's green and lovely, very authentic, very pure," Ms. Brunet says.

Very authentic, very pure.

Well worth the $1.5M that M. Guyot raised to buy the property (presumably from M. Miret) on which to build his second castle.

And, while I’m sure that the area is pristine (i.e., underdeveloped), I’m also sure it’s not exactly crawling with authentic, 13-century artisans. Is it just me, or is it more likely that the average hammer-swinger in Arkansas drives a Ford F-150 to Home Depot for a new chain saw, wears jeans and work boots, and watches NASCAR on a flat screen on weekends?

Still, a job’s a job – especially in this economy.

Not only do the folks doing the construction have to rely on 13th- century tools, they have to work in 13th-century garb (other than workplace safety requirements for steel-toed boots and safety goggles. Oh, those regulating-happy feds: they ruin everything.)

I was going to speculate how these costumes go over in the local tavern, only to find out that Boone County’s dry.

However they have to costumer themselves, I’m sure that these folks are happy to have the work, which pays $12 – 20 an hour. (By the way, there’s an opening for a basket weaver. Recent college grads with BA’s in art history, take heed.)

Muscles straining as he hoists and splits 50-pound stones to set into the castle's outer wall, mason Brad Fire Cloud says he dreams of power tools with shock-absorbent grips. "That crosses my mind all day long," he says.

The workers aren’t allowed to listen to music on the site, either, although I suppose it would be okay to hum a madrigal or bust out in some Gregorian chant. They also have to hide their modern food and bev – for Mr. Fire Cloud, that means Dr. Pepper – in burlap sacks. No BPJ or Yodels back in days of yore.

But those who can make it are happy for the stead work. Work on the castle is expected to take 20 years.

To cover its costs, the castle needs to bring in 150,000 paying visitors each year. The draw, so far, is a lot less. But they only need a small percent of Branson visitors to head down to Lead Hill, in between shows yucking it up with the Baldknobbers. (Come to think of it, those Baldknobbers look a tad bit medieval, no? Click through on the link for a clearer, and far scarier look. And while they may look medieval, they sure have enough techno-savvy to keep me from cutting and pasting the image I wanted off of their site. Maybe if I’d made a purchase in their online gift store…)

While the castle is attracting some Branson tourists, it’s running into a bit of resistance, as some of the visitors have found that getting around the castle site on shank’s mare is too onerous.

…several tourists have suggested a golf cart be deployed to haul the tired and the sweaty to their cars.

Well, maybe not a golf cart. But perhaps a sedan chair. Of some type of stone-wheeled dray. Carrying the sedan chair, hauling the dray: more jobs for the locals. (I wonder whether they tipped in the 13th century?)

Hey, it beats the faux “castle” experience at Disneyland.

And you can bet that, eight centuries from now, no one will be replicating (most) 21st century construction in authentic garb. (“Here’s how we staple-gunned the sheetrock…”)

Memorial Day, 2010

Can’t add much to what I’ve had to say on Memorial Days past:

Memorial Day, 2009

Six Degrees of Separation from the Military

Decoration Day

Other than to note that, last week – on a heat record breaking day – my cousin Barbara and I made our annual geranium-planting visit to the family cemeteries. Not only was it broiling, sunbakingly hot when we were doing our gardening – like mad dogs and Englishmen, we were out in the noon-day sun - but I was attacked by horse flies, and have numerous very itchy welts on my arms. (And I absolutely don’t want to think about what those horse flies were feasting on – other than my arms – that made them so plump. Surely, vaults and coffins not only keep the dead in but also keep the flies out…)

Naturally, “our” graves are in a shade-free part of the cemetery, and as we weeded and dug, we cast envious glances towards the cool and shady lane where our great-grandparents and a bunch of other sensible relatives are buried. Next time, we said, we’ll do our burying under the trees.

After we had finished planting, we strolled around the graveyard, which is small (it’s a parish, not a diocesan, cemetery) and, in our case, quite family oriented. We walked by the graves of lots of friends and relatives – close cousins we knew, distance relations we knew of, the family who lived in my grandmother’s decker – and noted how many of the graves were – this being Decoration Day – decorated with flags, put out by the American Legion or the VFW, in holders that indicate the war that someone served in.

We weren’t looking all that hard, but we found a Civil War vet, and veterans of the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II (including my father), Korea and Vietnam. No Afghanistan-Iraq vets that we saw, but fewer young folks go to war these days.  Unless you’re in them, they don’t make wars like they used to.

So here’s a nod to our veterans, and to those who are now in the service.

 

This is a shot of the hillside coming down from the Civil War monument in Boston Common. Some veterans group placed thousands of flags out, and the effect is quite beautiful. Needless to say, my B-berry shot doesn’t do it much justice, but I wanted to post it, anyway.

Happy Memorial Day!

Coin-op

When I was a kid, I was completely intrigued by the idea of eating in an automat. There was something magical about the concept of plugging a nickel in the slot, opening up the little door, and removing a bowl of mac and cheese, or a slide of cherry pie.

Alas, they had pretty much died out by the time I had a nickel in hand,  so I had to settle for the more pedestrian snack machine,. Where it’s so darned easy to drop in some coin and press a couple of buttons and find that what’s dropped down is B3 – a KitKat – and not C3, the M&M’s you really wanted.

Even if you get the M&M’s, it’s not quite the high romance of the automat.

So I’m all for buying stuff out of vending machines.

But I don’t know how much coin I’ll be dropping into the new age and/or ultra-pricey vend-o-matics that are coming into use. (Info source: NY Times.)

Fortunately, I’m not a smoker, but I would definitely be weirded out by the Japanese cigarette machines that have “have electronic eyes that evaluate customers’ skin and wrinkles to determine whether they are old enough to buy tobacco.” As someone on the other side of the Great Divide in terms of being carded, I now make occasional inquiries about the age when “senior discount” kicks in, and am supremely gratified when someone evaluates my skin and wrinkles and thinks I’m too young.

The Times article mentions nightclubs with “vending machines with flat irons” for hair defrizzing. I was picturing someone swiping their credit card, buying a flat iron, then trying to figure out how to iron their hair on the ladies’ room sink. Not to mention what do you do with the flat iron once you’re done? It wouldn’t exactly fit in a nightclub type of handbag. But, in fact, my further research (going to the google) helped me find out that the hair defrizzers are wall-mounted coin-ops. You put your money in, the defrizzer’s freed up, and you get to defrizz away. (I won’t bother to be on the lookout, as I can honestly say that defrizzing my hair hasn’t exactly been anything I’ve had to contend with in my long life.)

Defrizzing aside, in Abu Dhabi, you can use a vending machine to purchase gold bars for over $1K/ounce.

Think of all the times you had to gob-smack a candy or cigarette machine because you lost a few quarters. Imagine the kind of attack you’d mount if you plugged in $1K, only to see the gold bar dangling half way out of its coil, but not quite dropping.

That would be my worry if I wanted to make an impulse buy of a gold bar instead of a Heath Bar. But losing $1K in a rogue vending machine is, apparently, a misplaced fear.

Today’s super-duper vending machines:

…have touch screens instead of buttons, facades that glow and pulse, and technology designed to stop vending machine rage. Sensors ensure that your credit card is not charged unless the selected item has dropped.

Thank god for those fail-safe sensors! Wouldn’t want a sheikh to have to give the vending machine a shake-down.

And nice to learn that the old job-of-last-resort standby, working retail, may be going the way of the buggy whip maker and the Pittsburgh steelworker.

As Gower Smith, whose company, ZoomSystems, has created about 1,000 automated kiosks called ZoomShops, put it, “A ZoomShop costs less than an employee.”

The Body Shop, Best Buy, Sephra, Apple – they all sell products through vending machines (which have been rebranded as “automated retail stores”).

I don’t suppose that making returns is a trip to the beach.

In a brick and mortar, you can walk it in; in online, you can just put “it” back in the package it came in and send “it” on its way.

Well, I’m sure they’ll figure it out without me.

I guess it’s all part of our wonderful trend toward self-service everything. The Times article cites a 2008 study done by NCR in which 86% of North Americans surveyed “were more likely to do business with companies offering some sort of self-service.”

(Yes and no, from my point of view. I do buy a lot online, but I also like to go to my local hardware and drugstores, and find a pleasant, smiling person – or even a snarling grump -  willing to direct me or even walk me to whatever it is I’m looking for.)

The economics sure seem to support the automated retail store juggernaut.

Not only do they have a wonderfully economical form-factor that lets them ring up an order of magnitude (at least) more in sales per square foot than a boring old mall store. There’s the bennie that if they don’t perform, you don’t  have to close the store. You just unplug it, put it on a cart, and roll it someplace else. And there’s less “shrinkage” due to shoplifting and employees taking 5-finger discounts.

Meanwhile, the old standbys of the vending biz – snacks and the like – are going buggy whip:

… because of trends toward more healthful eating, increased cigarette regulation, declining industrial work forces and more competition from fast-food restaurants and convenience stores open late or 24 hours.

Sniff, sniff. Sort of makes me want to go find a vending machine and by a pack of trail mix.

And I don’t suppose that any of this means that the Horn & Hardart Automat will be making a comeback any time soon?

Not worth spit

I must admit, I have little experience with spit in the workplace.

Sure, there was that time at Wang when I encountered a major hawked up loogie in the stairwell.

And when she got laid off there, my colleague and friend Cathy rolled down her car window and spit at the Wang Towers as she left the parking lot for the last time.

While I don’t think back on the former spit-related incident with much other than a shudder of disgust, the thought of Cathy, in her smart business dress and pumps – she always looked great – spitting at Wang still makes me laugh, even after 20+ years.

But there was, of course, no one in her line of fire.

Other than that, my career has been more or less spit free.

Which is not to say that I haven’t encountered hostility, with plenty of times when people metaphorically spitting up, on, and at me and my ideas.

But actually being spit on.

Nada.

Nor have I been spit on in my personal life, other than an occasional accidental saliva misting from an overexcited friend.

So I really don’t know what it’s like to be a NYC bus driver – and, according to The New York Times, last year there were at least 51 of them - who’s gotten spit on by an irate passenger.

I imagine it’s disgusting, and that you feel at least moderately, if benignly, assaulted. It probably takes more than one shower – even if you use Lava, followed up by a good scrub-down with a cotton ball soaked in isopropyl alcohol – before you stop thinking that – ugh! – there could still be some residual spit on you.  Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!  Far worse than dog lips touched mine, I’d say.

Plus there’s the anger behind that spit, the hostility. That’s gotta take a few minutes/hours/days, even, to get over.

Still, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal that you’d actually have to take much paid leave to get over it, does it?

But for the 51 spittees – fully one third of the bus drivers who took post-assault paid leave last year -

…the encounters, while distressing, appeared to take a surprisingly severe toll: the 51 drivers who went on paid leave after a spitting incident took, on average, 64 days off work — the equivalent of three months with pay. One driver, who was not identified by the authority, spent 191 days on paid leave.

Okay, maybe people need more time than it takes to whip out a Kleenex and a bottle of Purell and give themselves a bit of a mop up. After all, if the situation had gotten to the point where someone actually spit, I’m sure that the bus driver may have been experienced a bit of gut tightening and heart palpitation.  And if a small-sized driver was spit on by an agitated gigunta, that must be out and out scary.

But an average of 64 days?

Ah, that does seem a bit extreme, unless the driver was experiencing other mental health issues, and the bit o’ spit just pushed them right over whatever edge they were teetering on.

Of course, once someone takes 191 days to get over being spit at, those taking a mere 10, 20, 30, 40, 64 days no doubt feel justified.

Still, this seems to be just a little feather-bedding-ish, a little ‘because I can’, doesn’t it?  Over 80 drivers overall “reported being spat upon in the last year,” so some folks are apparently robust enough to just shake it off.

It’s apparently a tough offense to prosecute, but the way. A cop has to see the spitter in action before he can issue a summons.

London and other cities have found a novel solution: collecting the DNA of the offending spitters.

One driver who, having been spit on by someone who didn’t want to pay his fare, just cleaned himself up at a Mickey D’s and completed his appointed rounds, doesn’t, however, look down on those who take time off.

[Raul] Morales said it did not occur to him to take an extended absence to recover. “Everybody has their own tolerance to these things,” he said.

I would hope that I would have a Moralesian, keep calm and carry on response to being spit on, but you never know.

Things in New York may be getting worse, as most of the upcoming public transpo service cuts are to buses, rather than subways.

Hot town, summer in the city, back of my neck gettin’ dirty and gritty.

Ugh! That might not be dirt and grit on the back of the necks of all those Ralph Kramdens out there.

Ugh!

Noblesse oblige

In 1976, when Boston celebrated the country’s bicentennial, I caught a glimpse of Queen Elizabeth, giving the royal wave (to me, personally, congratulating me, personally, on 200 years of the American way of life) through the closed window of her limo.

A few years later, in that brief interlude between B-school and job-starts-here, I watched QE’s son Charles marry Lady Di on the telly.

A few years after that, my husband and I were taking a walk one evening in London, when we came across a crowd forming outside Prince Albert Hall. What’s going on, we asked one of the fluttering, middle aged, Barbara Pym ladies standing about.

Royalty, we were told, would be arriving shortly.

Sure enough, a black Rolls Royce with some type of crown on top rolled up.

Expecting to see The Queen. Or the Queen Mum. Or Prince Phillip. Or Charles. Or Anne. Or someone that we’d recognize – even Princess Michael of Kent, whom we knew from watching Wimbledon.

Alas, the couple emerging from the limo drew a blank for us.

Who-dat? We politely inquired.

Why the Duke of Gloucester, of course.

Of course.

Naturally, I would have preferred the Duke of Windsor, but he was dead by that point. Or even the Duchess of Windsor, although I don’t think she spent a whole lot of time hanging around England hoping that ga-ga crowds would fawn over her. (I suspect there were more than a few grudge-holders among the group oohing and aahing over Gloucester.)

Other than viewing the occasional trash-ography about Charles and Di, and watching the excellent movie, The Queen, when it comes to The Royal Family, that’s about the sum of it.

It will get more interesting to me when the Brits decide they’ve had enough of The Royal We. This will likely happen after the current incumbent passes on to the great Balmoral in the sky. But I can’t help but believe that the current contretemps involving Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York and ex-wife of Prince Andrew,  may accelerate England’s (inevitable) decision to back-bench The Royal Family a bit.

I’ve always had a certain amount (say, a scintilla) of sympathy, perhaps even affection, for Fergie.

I don’t imagine that The Royals were all that much fun to marry into, even if you do come from some kind of quasi royalty (as in, descended on the bastard side from kings of yore) on your own.

I liked that she was zaftig, mouthy, and a bit blowsy – despite the posh background, more Eliza Doolittle than Eliza Regina.

And I liked the fact that she set off on her own, regularly coming to the States and making her living shilling for Weight Watchers.

Alas, poor Sarah never learned much about money management, and all those millions she made talking weight loss have, apparently, poured out of her coffers. It’s hard to keep up royal appearances on alimony of £15,000 a year, even if a lot of your expenses are taken care of for you.

Now, as she confessed on camera,

"Do you understand that I absolutely have not a pot to piss in?"

That was part of what was caught during a tawdry exchange with an undercover “journalist” parading as a businessman willing to give Fergie a lot more than £15,000 for arranging to have him meet Prince Andrew.

This was all part of a sting operation by a muckraking news outlet (owned by Rupert Murdoch, also owner of the WSJ) during which Fergie is shown scooping up the £40,000 down payment, and negotiating for an overall payout of £500,000.

Shaking hands, she says in the video: "That opens up everything you would ever wish for. And I can open any door you want." (Source: Wall Street Journal.)

Not clear exactly what Sarah Ferguson was offering up.

At one point, as I recall from having seen the video replayed on the news a couple of times, she is heard saying that Andrew had advised her to ask for the £500K in exchange for the introduction. Later, however, she claims that Andrew is completed above board, “whiter than white.” Andrew has some sort of role as an international trade ambassador, swanning around the world making nice for British business and trying to attract investment to the home shores. Could he possibly have been in cahoots with Fergie here? By all reports, they’ve remained chummy, and he may well have been counseling her on how she could make a buck or two. (Beats paying alimony.) And if he wasn’t actually going to do anything other than shake hands and make small talk, he well may have been thinking, what the heck. (I don’t imagine he’s any more of a great thinker than Fergie is.)

Fergie has apologized for her “’serious lapse in judgment.’” (I’ll say.) And has chalked it up to her strained finances.

She [also] said her former husband "was not aware or involved in any of the discussions that occurred."

Needless to say, “we” are not amused:

Buckingham Palace said the prince "categorically denies any knowledge of any meeting or any conversation between the Duchess of York and the News of the World journalist."

"Since 2001 he has carried out his role as special representative in complete and absolute propriety and integrity," the palace added.

It will no doubt come out whether Fergie was purely set up here, or whether she had put word out on the street that access was for sale.

I don’t know exactly what she thought access would get anyone.

Sure, some folks just like to rub elbows with royalty, but five-hundred thousand pounds is a lot of elbow rubbing. Do The Royals have much influence in Britain’s business affairs? It’s hard to imagine 10 Downing greasing contract skids on the behest of Buckingham Palace.

Anyway, I’m feeling a bit bad for Sarah Ferguson. Raised to be a nice posh girl who’ll marry well and happily ever after, it’s likely been a challenge for her to figure out how to make a living.

And naive, greedy, silly, and frivolous as she may well be, I don’t imagine that she imagined this sort of outcome when she strolled down the aisle of Westminster Abbey.

I’m sure that the Queen didn’t either.

Wouldn’t mind having been a flea on the back of one of her Corgis when an aide stepped in to brief her and Prince Philip on the latest royal outrage.

Here, here! Bristol Palin hits the speakers’ circuit

Certainly, a single mom’s got to find a way to make a living.

But is there really an organization – other than one who might want to suck up to her mother, so that answers my question – who would pay Bristol Palin between 15 and 30 grand to talk about teen pregnancy, as well as:

… her experiences on the campaign trail and in the media spotlight; her parenting approach; and her outlook on life.

Now, I believe that Ms. Palin could be as effective as the next oops-there’s-a-baby teenager in talking to youth groups about the difficulties of trying to complete an education, find work, and take care of the little one – although I don’t imagine that Bristol faces the same financial hurdles that most teenaged moms do. Sure, she “works in a physician's office”, but I’m guessing, that since her mother broadened the family’s economic horizons, Bristol’s not exactly leading a hard-scrabble life for herself.

Still, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, so Bristol signed up with Single Source Speakers. She’s now:

… listed on the speaking group's website as available for conferences, fundraisers, special events and holidays, as well as women's, youth, abstinence and "pro-life" programs.

It’s not that she’s speaking at conferences, etc., that I question. (By the way, what holidays call for guest speakers?) Who better to talk abstinence than someone who got caught not abstaining? Although I’m guessing that, to many in her audience, she’s going to look like a glamour-gal rather than an object lesson.

But 15 to 30 LARGE? Wow!

Would sentient adults want to write a fund-raising check if they knew that $30K of the proceeds was going to a 19 year old so that she could share her, like, perspective on life? Would a grownup pay to hear her talk about her “parenting approach.”

I suppose she’ll “write” a book, if she hasn’t already.

And she’s certainly entitled to do the American thing, and cash in on her mother’s celebrity and her own personal (if ephemeral) notoriety.

But am I the only one who finds this a bit sad in terms of what’s ahead for this young woman?

Wouldn’t she be better off if she just kept juggling her work in the physician’s office with finishing up her education with changing Tripp’s diapers with trying to have a social life with volunteering to tell a cautionary tale to those in her immediate community?

Is it just me? Am I the only one who thinks that Bristol Palin might have more to say about her “parenting approach and outlook on life” in another ten years or so?

By then she might actually have a perspective on parenting, life, and celebrity that was worth listening to.

Not that ‘the young folks’ don’t have an outlook on life – or even one that deserves airing. But 19 year olds are supposed to blah-di-blah about their outlook on life while lounging on their dorm beds, or avoiding the drill sergeant in the barracks. Not at the podium for $30K an outlook on life pop.

And not that there are some people who don’t have plenty of brilliantly mature things to say at a young age. James Joyce wrote ‘The Dead’ when he was 22.

But Joyce was a genius and, while I don’t know for a fact that Bristol Palin isn’t, I’m just guessing. (Bristol, honey, you’re in good company. Including me.)

Remains to be seen who’ll fork over $15K (let alone $30K) to listen to her speak, unless it’s part of a two-fer with her mother.

The exact fee, by the way,

…will depend on factors such as which group she's addressing and what she must to do prepare.

What preparation might that be? It’s not like anyone’s going to ask her to brush up on Waziristan. Of course, they could throw in a trick question and ask her what newspapers she reads, or which of the Founding Fathers she admires the most. (All of them.) It might be easier to prepare if she were asked about Famous Single Mothers. I’m sure that Bristol Palin wouldn’t have to brush all that much up on her knowledge of Jamie Spears.

Okay. I’ve ranted enough. It’s not like I’m ever going to have to listen to Bristol Palin speak. I’ll probably be dead and gone by the time she runs for president on the Real Celebrity ticket.

And, hey, despite all that rampant socialism going on, we’re still a capitalist country. If someone’s willing to pay Bristol Palin $30K to talk about her outlook on life, then I guess I’ll have to admit that she’s worth it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Source: Boston.com

It’s a Way of Life (vote for my Aunt Mary for ultimate Chicago Cubs fan)

Those of us who have suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous Red Sox teams over the years, only to have the dark night of the soul lightened up a bit in 2004 and 2007 with World Series wins, sometimes forget that there are longer-suffering (and equally deserving) baseball brethren just 1,000 miles down I-90.

I speak, of course, of those who love the Chicago Cubs.

I am the daughter of one of them.

My mother, however, married into what we now know as Red Sox Nation, where her children and grandchildren are native born citizens. (Attention birthers: we have proof.)

But she left behind a family of Chicago Cubs fans.

My aunt, Mary Wolf Dineen, is one of them.

Red Sox fans used to piss and moan about all those seven game the near misses. 1946, 1967, 1975, 1978 (when ‘we’ didn’t even make it to the World Services, thanks to ‘Bucky f-in Dent’), 1986…

How’d you like to root for a team that hasn’t been to “the show” since 1945? And hasn’t won it all since 1908.

That would be the heartbreakingly hapless Chicago Cubs.

In 2003, it actually looked like there might be a Red Sox-Cubs World Series, a television dream scenario if ever.

The Cubs remained true to form, and the Red Sox reverted to form, and The Miracle of the Two Ancient Ballparks never happened. After our teams went down, I called my Aunt Mary to commiserate. Mudville One calling Mudville Two, I greeted her.

Anyway, Aunt Mary is one of 10 finalists in the Cubs “It’s a Way of Life” essay contest. If she wins, she’s going to get to throw out the ball at a Cubs game.

She’s been a Cubs fan for all of her 85 years. And she needs your vote. Even though fan votes only count for 20% of the Cubs decision.

In other words, rather than leave it up to whichever finalist had the best viral voting apparatus, they’re going to make a decision in the best interests of baseball Cubs’ marketing. This will be a tough one. In addition to my aunt, there’s another older-gen fan. Then there’s the young woman who named her kids Wrigley and Addison (the street that Wrigley Park is located on).

Hmmmm.

Do the Cubbies go with sentiment? Trust me, I know how these Olde Towne Teams crank up ye olde history. (Johnny Pesky Day, anyone? And OMG, what we’re going to have to go through in 2012 when Fenway Park turns 100.)

But smart marketers – and Major League Baseball is full of them - also want to make sure they appeal to the rising generation of fans. You know , the kind that will name their kids Addison and Wrigley.

Not that I know about these other candidates by listening to their pitches or reading their essays on the Cubs site. No, in keeping with an almost unbroken tradition, I decide early on who I’m voting for, and read the news and watch the debates only to make sure that “my” candidate doesn’t blow it. And I’m almost strictly a party line voter. So, since there’s no way I’m going to vote for the other guy, why should I listen to his platform? What I know of the Cubbie competition comes from my cousin Ellen, who was with her mother when they went to Wrigley on the day the essay finalists were filmed.

I ask you to do the same thing I did and ignore those other candidates.

Just head to the polls and vote for Mary D. (Who, by the way, looks exactly like my mother and who also looks a good 10 years younger than her 85 years. Mary is what we all want to be at 85: active, engaged, vigorous, alert, opinionated, and still watching baseball.) My aunt’s a bit nervous in the video – in real life, Mary would never say talk about “her children” – she’d say “my kids”.

Listening to Mary talk about being a Cubs fans reminds me of the role that baseball – more than any other sport – has played in the Americanization of immigrants and their children.

My aunt talks about scoring games she listened to on the radio, and mentions that she doesn’t know how she learned that a “K” was a strike. Probably not from her parents,  German immigrants who stepped off the boat – my mother in tow - a couple of years before Mary was born, and struggling to build their life in the New World. What would they know about how to score Tinkers to Evers to Chance. My grandfather, though, did become a baseball fan along with becoming an American citizen.

It’s interesting to note that, while she was born a North Sider, my aunt moved after her marriage to the South Side (White Sox territory) closer to where my uncle Ted (also a native North Sider) worked. Her kids and grandkids are a mix of Cubs and White Sox fans, which is the way the world works.

But Mary’s a Cubbies girl all the way. It’s been her way of life for a good many years – and, we’re all hoping, a good many more.

You can vote until noon (Chicago time) on June 2nd.  What are you waiting for?

VOTE MARY D!

UPDATE – JUNE  6

No info yet on the Cubs web site, but it was announced during this afternoon’s game that my aunt won the contest.  I just got off the phone with Mary, and she is thrilled.

Fantastic Voyage (I know, I know: TMI)

Years ago, when I was visiting my mother, she got a call from my Aunt Mary in Chicago. Their topic: my mother’s vaginal dryness.

Now I’m not in the least opposed to an occasional stirring conversation about vaginal dryness. But in this case, I had already heard the story both first hand – directly from my mother’s lips to my ear; and second hand, as she recounted it to her stalwart BFF’s Lucille and Ethel. So  - aside from the fact that I was wondering what the big deal about vaginal dryness was for a set of women well into their seventies who were all averaging about 20 years of (chaste) widowhood – I had had it up to my eyeballs and earlobes with my mother’s close encounter with vaginal dryness.

So, I politely took the phone out of my mother’s hand and informed my aunt that they needed to change the topic.

This is by way of introducing the fact that, by the time you get to a certain age, the conversation does tend to drift to things medical.

Which this post is about to do.

Today, I am participating in that swell post-50 ritual: the colonoscopy.

This will be my third. (Oh, how the years fly by between colonoscopies…)

For the first, I refused all but the mildest sedative.

I wanted to be fully alert so that I could watch the fantastic voyage through my colon.

What was I thinking? Did I expect to see a cool little submarine manned by Steven Boyd and Raquel Welch wending its way around my thoroughly cleansed intestine.? (Not that I’d want any movie stars wending their way around my guts – although, if I did have to pick someone, it would be George Clooney, who seems like he’d have a good sense of humor about it. But now that I think of it, the very thought of anyone roaming in my gloaming puts me too, too much in mind of Prince Charles’ wish that he could be Camilla Parker-Bowles tampon. Who said romance and poetry are dead and all that, but ix-nay to any fantastic voyages in my backyard.)

Anyway, about two-thirds through watching the not-so fantastic voyage through my innards – dull, dull, dull; black and white; an almost anesthetizing sameness (kind of like bad performance art) – I realized that I was in far greater pain (both physical and existential) than I had experienced during my mother’s vagina monolog.

So I asked the doctor how much longer I was going to have to endure what had become quite a bit of pain.

He assured me it was not going to take much longer, but that if I wanted some relief, I needed to say but the word. Stoic that I am, I soldiered on. After the procedure was completely, the doctor gave me a clean bill of intestinal health, high marks for intestinal fortitude, and the information that I had an exceedingly kinked and circuitous inner passage that had made my particular procedure take longer than the norm.

Next time out – can it be five years ago already – I requested the full dope-a-rama, and had a pleasant doze during my colonoscopy. (Trust me: this is not a flick you need to see twice. Maybe if there’s some horrible growth in there it gets more interesting, but, in truth, I’d just as soon be out of it when the doctor lets out a gasp. The horror. The horror.)

Today, having subsisted for 24 hours on chicken broth, apple juice, and peach sorbet, I’m off for what I hope (and assume) will be a routine colonoscopy.

With luck, there’ll be nothing to report on Monday.

The butler inherited it. (Indra Tamang at The Dakota)

My day dreams - generally conducted sometime during the fifteen minutes that follow the purchase of a Power Ball quick-pick, when the jackpot is sufficiently large that I can make not only myself happy, but those around me happy as well – often involve a pied a terre in New York City.

Sometimes that pied a terre is in the West Village. Sometimes it’s in Murray Hill, or Brooklyn Heights. And sometimes it’s in the West Side, occasionally in The Dakota.

Now, I am not a particular star-hound, so I am not drawn to The Dakota because it’s been the home of Lauren Bacall, Paul Simon, Leonard Bernstein, Judy Garland, Boris Karloff, and Connie Chung. Nor, creepily, by the fact that Rosemary’s Baby (a work by the yeccchhh director, Roman Polanski) and John Lennon were both shot there. No, I like it because it’s an outrageously interesting and funky old building (in a fab location on West 72nd and Central Park West).

I’m quite sure that even the meanest of flats there – something in the coal cellar, or under the eaves - would set you back plenty. Plus, you have to be vetted by the co-op board, something which (or so I heard) Melanie Griffith, Gene Simmons, and Billy Joel weren’t able to do. (Now I get the Gene Simmons thing. Who’d want to encounter that first thing in the morning when you’re putting the recycle out. But compare and contrast: Paul Simon and Billy Joel. Who decides these things?)

Anyway, now there’s speculation about whether a long term Dakota denizen, and more recent owner, is going to be allowed to stay.

As The WSJ reported, Indra Tamang was the long-term butler and caretaker to Dakotans Charles Henri Ford and his sister Ruth Ford, who moved on last year – at age 98 – to the Big Dakota in the Sky.

She bequeathed Tamang two apartments in the Dakota, one of which he’d like to sell, the other of which he’d like keep. He lives in Queens, and he wants to hang on to a studio apartment as his – ta-da – pied a terre. (Interesting that you can inherit an apartment in a co-op, but you still have to apply to live there. Hmmmmm.)

The co-op board is pooh-poohing the notion that they’d reject a humble manservant. And, frankly, if I were to win that Power Ball drawing, I’d rather have Indra Tamang as a neighbor than, say, Gene Simmons. (I don’t imagine that Mr. Tamang would be wearing kabuki make-up or sticking his tongue out at me.)

"We at The Dakota are proud that for many years ours has been an extraordinarily diverse community of residents," the statement said.

Wonder whether that extraordinary diversity ever included a common workingman like Mr. Tamang. After all, they don’t just reject celebs, they apparently looked down their nose at some guy who’d made his fortune in the cardboard box industry.

It noted that Mr. Tamang, who has worked at the Dakota for decades beginning in the 1970s, "is held in high esteem by those in the building who know him."

If I were to place a bet here, I’d guess that The Dakotans will vote Mr. Tamang in, all the while congratulating themselves on the “extraordinarily diverse community of residents” they have there.

Knowing that  a former butler has taken up permanent, permitted residency in the Dakotas would, I think, please John Lennon.

And, New York being New York, and America being America, there’s more to Indra Tamang.

Indra Tamang was born in a mud huthouse in Nepal. The first person he met upon leaving was Man Ray. Indra is probably best known for his collaboration with Charles Henri Ford [one of the employers who left him a fortune], but that's not all. He makes delicious tea and lets his big, pokerfaced tortoise swim in the bathtub. (Source: Goodie Magazine.)

Best not let the co-op board hear about that pokerfaced tortoise swimming in the bathtub.

That aside, is this a great story or what?

Meet me in Saint-Looey, Looey. (Or in Shanghai)

When I was a kid, I wanted nothing better than to go to a World’s Fair.

Ideally, it would have been via way-back machine. This would have enabled me to see the Crystal Palace, built for the first world’s fair, in London in 1851.

More important, a way-back machine would have let me attend the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904, perhaps the most important fair of all time, given that it gave us the ice cream cone. Not to mention that it spawned Meet Me In St. Louis, one the favorite movies of my childhood (as seen in B&W on Boston Movietime – I was not yet on the scene in 1944 when the movie came out).

I saw that movie several times when I was a kid, and I wanted to move right in with the Smith Family of St. Louis, the apotheosis of everything I craved in a family during my haute-WASP envy period. I wanted the nice, comfy house – as a child, I thought all Protestants lived in two-story, upper middle class homes, while Catholics were more likely to be relegated to three-deckers or modest single-family houses. I wanted the big brother, the blustering father, the wise-cracking housekeeper. I wanted my sister Judy Garland to sing to me, and I wanted Margaret O’Brien – the essence of cutie-pie kid – to be me. (Or, rather, I wanted to be Margaret O’Brien: darling, cute, and the family dote.)

And I really wanted to meet somebody, anybody, at the St. Louis World’s Fair, as, god knows, no World’s Fair was going to be caught dead in Worcester, Massachusetts – which is the only way in which I would have been able to get to one.

I envied my mother, who got to go to the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago. And I would have loved, loved, loved to have seen the pylon, or the krylon, or the trylon, or whatever they called the symbols of the New York World’s Fair of 1939. In fact, I have a pin made out of this very stamp. That’s how much I love, love, love the pylon, or the krylon, or the trylon, or whatever you call it.

Alas, all those World’s Fairs were before my time.

Then there were the ones during my time….

My parents had some friends whose son was stationed in Europe in the service during the late 1950’s, and he brought back slides from the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. Now, there’s a running joke about how boring it is to watch films of someone else’s vacation, but in a kinder, gentler time, we were just delighted to see pictures of someplace more exciting than Worcester, Massachusetts, or even Chicago, Illinois, the only other place I’d ever been. Needless to say, the Brussels World’s Fair was way in the outer limits – it might as well have been held on Jupiter.

New York City is closer, however.

And I was envious of my friends who, a few years later, got to go to the New York World’s Fair (Queens, 1964-1965). I’m still a bit wistful whenever I fly into NYC and see the Unisphere. Sigh. Queens, NY. Only 180 miles from Worcester, Massachusetts. So near and yet so far. By the mid-1960’s, our family travel horizons had expanded to a couple of weeks on the Cape each summer. But New York City to see the World’s Fair? It might as well have been held in St. Louis or Brussels. Or on Jupiter.

In truth, the closest I’ve gotten to anything World’s Fair-ish – other than a glimpse of the Unisphere out of a cab window – is the Seattle Space Needle (World’s Fair, 1962), which I went up in during a business trip a while back. It was weird, and I didn’t feel entirely secure on its tilting floor.

Somewhere along the line, as everything got more pumped up, heightened, and extreme, World’s Fairs morphed into World Expo’s.

There’s one on in Shanghai now.

Truly, in this day and age, the World’s Fair/Expo seems like such an anachronism.

Unlike in 1851, when most world travel was done by immigrants fleeing to America, it was probably pretty darned exciting to see exhibits of what was out there in the big, wide world. Ooo. Aaah.

Same goes for St. Louis.

By 1904 you had stereopticons, so you could look at postcard images of far away places. But motion pictures were just getting going. Not to mention that most world travel was still being done by immigrants fleeing to America. Again: Ooo. Aaah. (Plus the ice cream cone….)

But now, in our incredibly shrinking world chocked full of globalization and telepresence, it just seems like a colossal waste of time, money, and jet fuel to hold a World’s Fair.

Sure, China wants to show off – but didn’t they just do that during the Beijing Olympics? And doesn’t everybody in possession of a flat panel TV, computer, or Barbie doll have at least an inkling about what China can produce?

Deals seem to be getting done. What’s going to happen at the World Expo that wouldn’t happen anyway?

Okay, a World’s Fair does provide opportunities for face-to-face encounters. And maybe strolling around the Finish or Kuwaiti or Brazilian pavilion will provide some fresh understanding of other cultures that can’t be gotten through reading, films, the ‘net, shopping at Sharper Image, or regular old travel. And why do I think those experiences will be filtered – bier garten at Busch Gardens is not quite the same as seeing where Hitler ran his beer hall putsch.

I dunno. Just sounds like a big trade show to me.  And while I do enjoy a trade show every once in a while, someone will have to convince me that World’s Fairs contribute to world peace, or even whirled peas, rather than just providing an opportunity for gawking (on the part of most of the hundreds of millions of visitors), or hawking (which would probably happen, anyway).

Of course, the US has a presence, with the theme “Rise to the Challenge.” (Gulp.) This was paid for by corporate donations – so it’s at least not taxpayers money leaching out here. (Or course, there is an argument that World’s Fairs are a diplomatic outreach and, thus, should be tax-payer supported.)

Anyway, my days of wanting to attend a World’s Fair are long passed, and now they seem like a colossal and foolish waste of time and money. But I’m sure it wouldn’t have been particularly good for Sino-US relations if we had dissed Shanghai and not shown up. We are, after all, somewhat in debt to them for all those flat panel TVs, computers, and Barbie dolls.

So I won’t be attending.

If someone has slides they want to show at my house, just let me know. (You’ll need to bring your own Bell & Howell projector.)

Meanwhile, there’s a nifty site I found devoted to the history of the World’s Fair: The Expo Museum.

Like all good museums – virtual or not – this one has a curator.

In keeping with the commercial underpinnings of World’s Fairs, The Expo Museum’s curator is Urso Chappell, a designer who specializes in these types of events.

Where am I? (Pray for the geographically impaired.)

A few weeks back, the day before my husband and I were leaving on vacation, there was a “catastrophic” pipe break that affected the water supply of a good slug of eastern Massachusetts.

Because the water authority had to switch to a less clean and pure reservoir source (Canada geese could be crapping in there….), a “boil order” was declared. I.e., we were told that we needed to boil the water we use to drink, cook, brush our teeth, and wash our dishes (unless we wanted to rinse those dishes in a bleach solution). Showering’s okay, as long as you don’t open your mouth.

I bought a couple of liters of water for us, and a few more for an elderly neighbor. (Talk about plague of locusts. The local stores were almost stripped clean.  I saw a woman interviewed on TV who’d just purchased $150 worth of bottled water. Huh? Did she not get the part about “you can boil it and make it okay”? Fights reported broke out in some stores. Gosh, what would people do if there were a real emergency?)

Anyway, we had our modest amount of bottled, and we boiled up about 5 gallons to tide us over until we got to Paris where the water would, presumably, be potable.

But before we left, I went online to see if I could find info on washing clothing, and general ‘wazzup’ on the broken pipe, the boil order, and the communities affected by it.

There was no info on laundry in the article, but I threw a load in anyway.

I figured that using water that a Canada goose might had gone in was really just the equivalent of swimming in a lake. And, as a child having bathed and splashed in a lake that was septic system fed rather than spring fed, I knew that if I could survive, then some sheets and towels could.

No, I wouldn’t have made baby formula or frozen lemonade with the hot and cold running Canada geese tap, but throwing my final pre-trip load in the washer seemed safe enough.

As I am known to do, I have digressed.

While on line, I read the comments made on an article on the broken pipe, the boil order, and the communities affected by it.

Boston was one of the communities.

In one of the earliest comments, Wannamker said,

I live in Allston... Am I not affected? I don't know if "Boston" includes Allston/Brighton or not.

MikeWa helpfully answered:

YES I THINK SO!! Allston/Brighton is part of Boston i think...do you have Boston Police/Fire?-could be a good hint? Better safe than sorry, boil anyway

Wannamaker, perhaps a recent blow-in from Philadelphia, given the nom de comment, came back to thank MikeWa for his boil anyway suggestion. Then returned to add:

And actually MikeWa, we have Brighton Police Department, and Brighton Fire... You're right about better safe than sorry though. No sense in risking it.

Several people jumped in to point out that there’s no such thing as the Brighton Police and Brighton Fire Departments, including dollylou:

HELLO! Multiple people don't know where the heck they live?? Yes, Allston/Brighton are neighborhoods of Boston. Sheesh! Get with the program.

Wannamaker shot back, pretty snidely, I’d say, for someone who doesn’t know where he or she lives:

Thanks dollylou. I guess we're not all as smart as you. Glad you are so mature about it.

I hate to tell you Wannamaker, but, at least when it comes to knowing where you live, dollylou is smarter than you.

Commenters continued to weigh in. GOP wrote:

I live in Allston/Brighton not Boston. Don't you think I know where I live. Shheeshhh!

Well, GOP, not to single you out, but it’s possible to live in Allston/Brighton and in Boston at the same time. It’s the miracle of named neighborhoods. Yes, in the way, way, way back, they were separately incorporated towns, but they’ve been part of Boston for, like, what, a kazillion years. Well before Wannamaker and GOP were born, I suspect.

rickterp did single GOP out:

You live in the City of Boston and specifically the neighborhood of Allston/Brighton. It's really not rocket science.

hubanero, meanwhile, delivered a haymaker to Wannamaker:

Wannamaker: No offense, but if you really don't know that you live in the city of Boston, and you think you've seen "Brighton Police" cars, I don't just think it's intelligence that's at issue.

hubanero may be right here.  It’s either hallucination or complete and utter lack of attention to what’s on the side of a patrol car.

The comments went on, including those from a couple of folks who sprung to Wannamaker’s defense, pointing out that they lived in Charlestown, which is on the map of Boston, but which is really not part of Boston…

Only it is.

The comments continued, interspersed with consistent opinions on laundry (okay) and inconsistent views on dishes (yes, no, maybe).

The comments ran on for page upon page, but I gave up at page 4. With respect to the ‘where am I’ comments, I’ll end with my favorite, this hilarious note from movingtarget2:

It says Medford is affected? I live in Medford. Does anybody know if Medford is in Medford? Do I live in Massachusetts?

Thank you,  movingtarget2.

So, here’s my question:

How can you be a sentient adult, aware enough of the world outside of yourself to make comments in online forums, and not know where you live?

I realize that Boston has distinctive neighborhoods, and things can get confusing.

There are multiple Beacon Streets, for example, so you really do need to know your neighborhood (or at least your zip code).

But it stuns me that someone wouldn’t know what city they live in.

Apparently, just seeing police cars and fire engines aren’t enough to clue someone in. I know, you don’t see property  taxes unless you’re an owner. (God, I do hope that people who own property know where they live.) Obviously, the folks who don’t know where they live don’t have kids in the Boston Public Schools.

And – most obviously and discouraging – they clearly don’t know or care about where they live. The clearly don’t know who the mayor of this city is. Or how the city is run. They clearly haven’t registered to vote. (Maybe that’s a good thing….)

Am I missing something here, or is someone knowing where they live a minimal expectation or not?

Don’t it make my blue eyes brown

In some high school yearbooks, they used to put little phrases, separated by ellipses, next to every student’s picture. These little phrases were usually some combination of commentary on your academic achievements, athletic prowess, favorite music, personal quirks, social life, zany exploits, school activities, and good looks. Often there were little in-jokes and asides. The yearbook staff was responsible for writing these driblets, and it was torture coming up with enough to fill the white space for their not particularly smart/attractive/active/popular/well-known classmates. (“All those aprons sewn in home ec…Nickels in her penny loafers…Good posture….Still waters run deep.”)

For whatever reason, two phrases that appeared in yearbooks during my high school years, both, I believe written about girls who were seniors when I was a freshman, continue to stand out in my mind. One was ‘Who’s a mentie-retard?” (Nice, that one.) The other was “enviable eyelashes,” written, as I recall, about a pretty, popular, well-to-do girl. In a small school, I knew who she was, but never got close enough to see for myself whether those eyelashes were, indeed, enviable.

Not that I would have known one way or another.

“Enviable eyelashes…”

I don’t suppose I have them, but mine aren’t terrible-terrible. When I wear mascara, which I do once every 4 to 5 years, they, admittedly, look better. But mascara makes my eyes itch, and who cares anyway.

Enviable eyelashes are right up there on my personal list of ‘why bothers’.

So I was understandably intrigued by an article in The NY Times a short while back on the risks of using Latisse to plump your eyelashes into the enviable category.

Latisse – which Brooke Shields plumps for in the TV ads - is the miracle drug, or non-drug, or whatever it is, that turns limp, thin, pale lashes into veritable Fuller Brushes.

It’s supposed to require a doctor’s prescription, although wouldn’t you feel kind of like a superficial jerk if you asked your physician to prescribe something to give you thicker lashes. I sure would. And if being prescribed means that it’s covered by insurance, then all I can say is it’s no wonder that health care costs have spun out of control.

Latisse is one of those accidental, Eureka! types of finds – sort of like when Borden’s was experimenting with canned milk products and came up with Glue-All. Latisse came about when it was observed that patients using another Allergan product (eye drops for glaucoma) were growing thicker lashes.

You can’t hold a good product idea down, especially when it comes to vanity. (Remember when people were using Preparation-H to eliminate facial wrinkles?)

So Allergan unleashed – or is it unlashed? – Latisse, and hopes to do $140 million in sales this year.

Talk about enviable eyelashes.

Latisse is supposed to be by prescription-only, but – wink, wink – it’s apparently easy enough to get in beauty salons, or online, sometimes through sites run by Latisse-dispensing physicians. (In some states, it’s legal to prescribe something without seeing the patients.)

For most Latisse-ists, the product works just fine.

But, just like the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead, when it is good it is very, very good, and when it is bad it is horrid.

…the drug can cause redness, itchiness and irritation, which go away if use is discontinued. Less common is eyelid discoloration, which Allergan, the manufacturer, says “may be reversible.” A rare side effect that has captured the most attention is the chance that one’s hazel or blue eyes could turn brown — forever.

Say what?

If I wanted to turn my blue eyes brown, I’d get colored contact lenses, thank you.

Blue eyes, genetically speaking, are on something of a death spiral on their own. I read somewhere that, unless you start tinkering with DNA, they’ll be extinct in another hundred years ago. Do we really need to nudge the disappearance of baby blues along?

I know that there’s no risk without reward, but are “enviable eyelashes” really worth altering your eye color?

Just because it hasn’t happened to Brooke Shields (yet) doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen to you.