Suzy Says

Why are most women’s clothes so utterly free of pockets?

Almost every day this week, I have wished for pockets, so I could just put my keys and money in them and wander the streets freely, like men get to do every day of their lives while merrily making more money than we do. Is it some kind of conspiracy on the part of fashion designers to keep us pocketless? After all, most of the great designers are men (though not all). Like chefs. I wonder why that is, when cooking and fashion are generally both perceived to be feminine?

Being pocketless, however, does give a girl an excuse to buy handbags. And I have almost as many as I have pairs of shoes. I even bought a new one to carry to my father’s memorial service, so not even death and despair can stop my accessorizing. Call me an accessories slut. And one who yearns for the freedom of pockets.

Be proud of me. Be very, very proud.

I have just written and mailed more than 60 Christmas cards. This staggering total does not include the ones going in packages of presents to be mailed, some of which I still have to wrap and then package up, much as I hate it. You can always tell when I don’t like doing things, because I put them off as much as possible. I am terrible at wrapping gifts and hate doing it. Maybe it’s your basic cause and effect.

Anyway, I feel that Christmas cards should not be pre-printed or include generic newsletters sent to all and sundry. I have the radical opinion that they should be written by hand TO the person in question, and include thoughts, sentiments and/or family news of interest to that particular person. Which makes it a very time consuming process, so I have to do it in batches over several days.

I write so little by hand now (despite the fact that I do not know how to type properly, but only in a style uniquely my own) that my handwriting has degenerated considerably from lack of use. It’s odd enough to begin with, but now it looks like an unravelled thread or the tracks of a mad spider who somehow got her legs dipped in ink. Also I get writer’s cramp almost immediately now, as my atrophied writing muscles join in a concerted complaint on being woken up from their sleep, so that makes the batches smaller, too. It seems positively old fashioned, doesn’t it? But that’s what’s good about it.

When I was in England in September, my stepmother surprised me by asking me to sort through and take with me as much of Dad’s remaining things as I could. So I did. The one thing I could not pack up and carry away or mail to myself was the grandfather clock, which has been in the family since it was made, 250 years ago. After I got home, I started looking for shipping firms. These inquiries made me realize that I needed someone to appraise the clock so I could insure it so it could be shipped. So the whole thing kind of snowballed.

I located a gentleman who was willing to pick up the clock, repair it (it stopped running when my father died), appraise it, build a case for it (to which he refers as a “coffin”, and said that such cases had actually been used as such in the past), and ship it, using a specialist firm he had used before with good results. After the fiasco of my mother’s move, for which we are still trying to exact vengeance, this seemed particularly important. So the clock was picked up on Friday while I was in Mendocino, and by the time I got home and checked my email, the clock fixer had already sent me a detailed report on my clock, including an estimate for repairing it.

The clock was made around 1750, but at some point during its long life, most likely in the Victorian era, it suffered various indignities, including being cut down by about a foot and having its melodious bell replaced with a horrible gong. I am definitely having everything fixed and replaced as suggested, but the big question is: should we restore the lost foot of height and have it returned to its original splendor? If we do, it will look something like this.

Restoring the height will cost around $1,000, but it’s already costing me a fortune to have it fixed and shipped (the report you saw didn’t include any of the shipping, insurance, coffin building, etc.). Part of me feels that I’m already spending so damn much I might as well go all the way and do it right. If I restore it completely, the value will triple, which is both a good thing and a bad thing, since I will have to spend more for insurance and worry more about its well-being. But it will be historically accurate. The other part of me says, well, my grandparents never saw it in its original condition, and I suspect my great-grandfather, who lived over his butcher shop, may have cut down the clock to fit it upstairs. So it’s not like I’d be putting it back the way they knew it.

I’ll ask my brother and sisters, but in the meantime, I’m taking a poll. Should I go all the way or not?

When you ask a question like that, you just expect trouble.

I took a break from the drudgery of work today and slipped out to Stacey’s bookstore, where I picked up the following:

• Stephen King’s From a Buick 8.
  
• Eyewitness Guide to Chicago (so I can learn something about it before I go there in January).
  
• Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s Spyhole Secrets.
  
• Lemony Snicket’s Carnivorous Carnival, the latest installment in the terrible (mis)adventures of the Baudelaire orphans, to which I am hopelessly addicted.
  
• So I bought the Unauthorized Biography of Lemony Snicket to tide me over until the Slippery Slope, the next book in the series, is published. Since “Carnival” came out less than a month ago, I fear the waiting time for the next one more than its terrifying contents. Yes, my impatience is legendary.
  

So there I was with my bag of goodies, on my way back to dreary work, when I noticed a demonstration outside the very ugly E*Trade building. I went over to see what it was all about, and learned something more horrifying than anything that ever entered the imaginations of Mssrs. King and Snicket. Worst of all, this was real.

E*Trade is partially financed by the monsters and criminals at Huntingdon Life Sciences, a laboratory which cruelly abuses animals on a daily basis. 500 of them die every single day at Huntingdon’s facilities, located in England and in New Jersey. They have been repeatedly caught violating the Good Laboratory Practice laws, but refuse to stop the needless pain and horrendous suffering, even after being exposed by TV reporters beating beagle puppies and dissecting a live monkey.

So if you invest with E*Trade, you are supporting this. Many brokerage firms, including international giants Charles Schwab and Paragon, refuse to trade in Huntingdon’s stock because they are so appalled by their business practices. I took a handful of fliers and gave them to everyone I work with, since many of them invest with E*Trade. I posted the flyer in our lunch room and mailed one to my vegetarian niece in England. I faxed the CEO at E*Trade:

Please take a few minutes to do the same. For more information, please visit the official Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty site.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

I have nothing better to do while I’m waiting for my roots to complete the enhancing process (my hair color is brought to you by the folks at Wella (an American Classic, just like me), than tell you what I did on Saturday.

It was a piquant mixture of duty and pleasure. Started the day off by going up to my Mom ‘s place in Petaluma, about 35 miles away. We brought the Beaujolais Nouveau for Thanksgiving dinner; the heavy object I’m giving my bro for Christmas (so I don’t have to mail it at vast expense and annoyance); and two pies. We traded all these for what was behind Door Number Two: an antique clock in desperate need of repair. I spent most of last week locating someone in England to repair, appraise and ship the 250+ year old grandfather clock I inherited, so now all I have to do is find someone in San Francisco to do the same for this one, which should be quite easy in comparison. Maybe I am developing a new talent.

I have discovered the key to dealing with my mother: bring John with me. She is much less likely to put me down or insult me or yell at me or complain or similar if he is there. So I brought him and voil&agrave! No yelling. However, we did have to move around most of her furniture so we ended up sweaty and dusty. But she was very grateful and couldn’t have done it herself, so she was Nice Mom, which was great.

After doing all this, we headed home, fed the cats, and then went out to the nearby Metro, a charming Art Deco theater serving the neighborhood since 1924, to see The Ring. We were both annoyed by the ads that preceded the movie – for cars, etc., not just for popcorn or even telling us to hush up and behave; when did this horrifying trend start? – and by the fact that the art of the trailer seems to be lost. They are now like Cliffs Notes for movies – you already know everything that happens in the movie, so why bother to go? The single exception was the trailer for Dreamcatcher, which was what it should be: just enough to get you interested.

But The Ring was worth the wait, and about a thousand times better than I expected. The premise is essentially that if you watch a certain videotape, you will die within a week. Sounds lame, but it was fantastic. Stylish, spooky, suspenseful, unpredictable, and I don’t know what was better: the beautiful photography, the excEt writing (no dead space here), or the story. Even the fact that the lead actress bore an unsettling resemblance to the toxic Jeri Ryan (currently destroying Boston Public) could ruin the movie. Also, this girl could actually act, unlike the talent-free Ryan, who runs the gamut of emotion from A to A (to paraphrase Dorothy Parker) and whose idea of acting is to stare vapidly into the camera. But I digress. In short, it’s a small jewel, a minor masterpiece. Go see it. And I’ll try not to think about how I, too, have seen the fatal tape.

Jed the Wonder Dog’s recent accident seems to have made me more aware of news with canine content. Either that, or the entire world shares my concern, which is the way it should be, of course.

I love it when scientists spend a boatload of time and money to come to a conclusion that anyone with any sense could have told them was the case. The latest example is the one that shows that dogs and human have a special bond and ability to communicate with each other that is greater even than our close relative, the chimpanzee. Anyone who has seen my brother and Jed together, or has had a dog of their own, knows that. Ginger, the dog we had when I was a girl, saved my brother more than once in true Lassie style, including the time when Jonathan fell deep inside a snow bank and Ginger went and got Dad immediately, barking and fussing until Dad rescued Ginger’s charge. No-one trained him to be that way, he just was. There was a real bond between that boy and his dog. And it only took 15,000 years or so to get that way.

The London Times is my start page. All the news from everywhere at a glance, unlike our local paper, in which anything outside California simply doesn’t exist. There is, of course, coverage of the ongoing soap opera provided by the Windsor family, including Princess Anne’s day in court after her dog bit a couple of kids. I think that Anne should get credit for going to court at all, since she could have easily weaseled her way out of it, and being fined like anyone else. I also think it’s great that she is taking her dog to obedience boot camp instead of killing it.

I recently came across this fascinating article in the Times, (inspired by the Anne d&eacuteb?cle), and learned a few things about dogs that I hadn’t known before, including the derivation of the word “feisty” (it’s not what you think). The scientists (and you) should definitely check it out.

Love/hate for Friday, November 22, 2002
Long Movies

Note: we’re planning to skip Love/hate next Friday, in honor of Thanksgiving and overall laziness. But tune in the following week for your regularly scheduled programming. Oh, and if you have some hot topics to suggest, email me at suzy @ suzysays.net and I’ll see if I can make your wish come true. Since it’s close the holidays and all.

End of Note.

You had to see this one coming, after my rant earlier this week about Lord of the Rings. The truth is, despite my advanced age, my attention span never grew up, remaining at approximately three year old levels since I was, well, three years old. I honestly think that this is why I can happily watch six episodes of Sex & the City, equalling approximately three hours of viewing time, whereas I have to be cajoled and bribed into watching a movie that is more than two hours long.

It’s just like how I hoard six weeks’ worth of The New Yorker before every trip involving a plane. My post-valium and vodka ritual is to read the New Yorker with all available attention during take-off, not taking my eyes from the page until we are level enough to get more alcohol. I can read dozens, or possibly hundreds of articles, with greater ease and enjoyment on a plane than a very long novel, even though you’d only need one very long novel. Having said that, though, on my last trip to London (11 fun-filled hours each way), I brought the entire third season of Sex & the City, two 400+ page novels, and 8 New Yorkers, just in case.

If that doesn’t tell you how much I fear boredom, nothing does. It rates as #2 on my fear list, right after Death, which is permanently #1 (and not in a Lynda Barry way). And boredom seems to be the inevitable consequence of movies more than two hours long. All I really require of movies, besides a humane running time, is that they distract me from the horror of life (I really, really don’t need to be more depressed, thanks anyway), preferably be amusing and/or thought-provoking, be well-written, be set somewhere nice to look at and be populated by people who are nice to look at. Life and ordinary fucking people, to quote Harry Dean Stanton in the perfection of Repo Man (a perfect 92 minutes long), are ugly enough. Oh, yeah, and I am always and completely bored by the crazy (you would be, too, if you had my under-medicated mother) and the noble terminally ill, particularly children. And since I already made everyone hate me, I might as well just admit right here that I don’t know what I hated more: the actual movie the English Patient (die, already!) or the way everyone pronounces it, with the emphasis on English, like there were patients of French, Russian, and other nationalities in the movie.

However, since it’s me, there are always exceptions, and they are embarrassing in their girlie-ness. I’m sorry to say that I love the following three very long movies (in alphabetical order; and, as it happens, in declining running time order):

1. Cleopatra, starring the breath-taking Elizabeth Taylor. 246 minutes (It’s like parents telling you their kids’ ages in months, telling you the running time in minutes. They know it would be far too appalling in hours)!

2. Gone with the Wind, starring the breath-taking Vivien Leigh. 233 minutes!

3. Titanic, starring the equally breath-taking Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio. A mere 194 minutes.

Note the similarities:

Gorgeous cast; gorgeous settings; [melo]dramatic; romantic; and the history is just background. All fluff, amusement and all about the pretty. The way it should be.

I gave in to my inner francophile in honor of Beaujolais Nouveau Day, and had all-French shopping experiences on the way home today.

First, I stopped off to get a carton of cigarettes for John, because they were on sale at $32 a carton (excluding tax, of course). I realize that this probably doesn’t add to my wifely cred, because I should be nagging him about quitting instead of buying it for him, but there you are. That’s the kind of girl I am.

Next stop was William Cross Wine Merchant’s on Polk Street, where there were only two kinds of Beaujolais Nouveau to taste this year: Domaine Piron (which I had bought last year), and Georges du Boeuf, which I had rejected last year in favor of Domaine Dupeuble. So I ended up with mostly Piron and one bottle of the du Boeuf, though I think the finish is a little acidic. It is, however, very fruity and lighter than the Piron, so we’ll have a contrast for Thanksgiving dinner. Having BN for Thanksgiving dinner is our family tradition, and a rather pleasant one. Unaccustomed wine drinking in the afternoon, and on an empty stomach, too! I’ll probably end up with a hangover in the line of duty. It’s just the sort of thing that would happen.

Last stop, the gorgeous French lingerie store, which is conveniently located between my house and the wine merchant’s, and which was also having a 50% off sale day, so I was unable to resist adding to my collection of fripperies. Not that I tried very hard. I have to say, no-one makes lingerie like the French, which may be one of the reasons it’s called by a French name. Victoria’s Secret is utter crap in comparison, in style and workmanship and endurance. Though filmy, the real French stuff is beautifully made and lasts for years, and are beautiful with it.

Here are 10 Facts you need to know about Beaujolais Nouveau. Sant&eacute!

John finally persuaded me to watch Lord of the Rings on Saturday. I had read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy when I was about 12, and never read it again, though I am an inveterate re-reader. I re-read all of Jane Austen’s novels around once a year, and I can’t remember a Christmas when I didn’t read The Box of Delights (the best children’s book ever) or have it read to me by my father.

So I should have realized that the books weren’t really for me, given that I never wanted to read them again. I have always found adults who create incredibly detailed alternate universes, down to geography, history, and mythology quite unsettling, as are the afficiandos of those books. It’s as if they are too busy living in the fantasy world to live their real life, which is all too short though obviously less controllable than the alternate universe. In the fantasy universe, they probably are remotely attractive and have actual sex lives and so on, unlike the real world. I’m sorry, but the gorgeous rarely invent fantasy worlds, especially incredibly detailed ones, because they don’t have to. Look at the attendees of any Star Trek convention on the planet, and you’ll see what I mean.

And I know women have been bemoaning this since time immemorial, but John totally lied to me about how long it is. It’s like 3 & 1/2 hours long. Had I known this important fact, I would have remained in blissful ignorance, but by the time we switched to the second disc (always a bad sign), we’d already invested more than 2 hours in it. Movies should be less than two hours, just like songs should rarely venture past the 4 minute mark, or I’ll get bored. And boredom is my greatest fear after Death itself.

The first part of the movie was definitely the most fun for me. I lovedlovedloved Bilbo’s house (and I seem to recall that my 12 year old self liked The Hobbit the best of the books, too) – it is gorgeous – and the fireworks were fantastic. But the second half, with those stupid Elves and all those boring battles, just bored the daylights out of me. I hate battle scenes and sex scenes in movies. I just want to them to be over with so I know who wins and the story can move on. Also the slime monsters looked like something out of the first season of Buffy. And there was no-one worth looking at in the cast, with its breathtakingly effete male stars (that Frodo! He’s the Castro poster child. And those pink cheeks!) and overrated and dull girls (the ubiquitous Liv Tyler and equally u. Cate Blanchett: the ubiquitous twins from each side of the Pond).

I will utter the final heresy before changing my name and going to live in obscurity forever (I am completely resigned to being burned in effigy in the alternate universe of the fantasy geeks), having bitterly offended the planet by disliking this movie so much. I didn’t care at all when Gandalf died.

How’s that for unrepentant?

Love/hate for Friday, November 15, 2002
Snow

I think snow is like a beauty treatment for the landscape, covering everything with a layer of sparkling white and cloaking the flaws. And since I love the pretty, I also love snow, especially this time of year.

Getting older does seem to make a girl nostalgic. As the holidays approach, my thoughts turn back to my childhood. We lived in upstate New York, on 5 acres of land not far from Cornell, where my father was then working. The land we lived on included a pine forest, so we cut our own Christmas tree each year. In my memory, there was always snow at Christmas, and after we cut the tree, we’d pull it home across the snow, the sharp scent of pine sap mingling with the crisp snow.

We’d often go to my mother’s parents for Christmas. My grandparents lived in a big Victorian house with a double parlor divided by pocket doors. They would keep the doors closed until Christmas morning, when they would be thrown open to reveal the tree (and presents!) in all its glory. From the front door, which was only used by company, you could look down the street to the town square, where the village Christmas tree was all lit up. It was magic.

So even though I have lived in California for many years, and would never even consider living anywhere else, I miss snow at the holidays. It just doesn’t seem like Christmas without snow. But one of the great things about living in San Francisco is that all you have to do is drive for a couple of hours and voil&agrave! Snow! But you don’t have to deal with it day after day, all winter. Just when you feel like it. Why does anyone live anywhere else?

Will I ever learn?

It’s pouring with rain this morning (the storm door being open and all), so I decided to take the bus to work instead of walking. So I waited half an hour and the bus didn’t show up. I went back home and called a cab, which is what I should have done in the first place, but am soaked – including hair and new boots – and sweaty and enraged, and it’s barely 6 am. I’m really feeling the hate right about now.

Love/hate for Friday, November 8, 2002
TV Details

Though I do tend to focus on the petty things in life (the nice way of putting this is “detail oriented”) and always notice how things look (the truthful way of putting this is “shallow”), for some reason, I never really notice what the TV picture looks like. As long as I can see it, it’s fine with me. Maybe it’s because I grew up watching a tiny black and white TV set, usually quite snowy no matter what the outside weather, because we lived in the country, and TV was as carefully rationed as prescription drugs, so my expectations are low. Or maybe I just don’t care.

John, on the hand, feels the need to adjust the tracking, the brightness, the sharpness, the orangeness, and every other possible-ness, whether he is actually watching the TV show or not. If I am indulging my fondness for WB programming meant for people half my age, he cannot resist fixing the picture, even while critiquing the appearance of the characters and the story line, all while preparing to flee its mundaneness the second the adjustments are complete. There is no reason for him to care about it, but he just can’t leave it alone.

And if it’s a show we are watching together (you will be amazed to hear that despite the fact that we have no fewer than 4 VCR’s and tape something every day of the week, we only watch about an hour of TV a day), you can just picture the fussing over the picture. Yet the fussing always has to take place while something is happening on the show, rather than, say, during the credits.

I guess I’m just a TV slacker. The same thing that makes me just watch whatever picture the cable guy gave us that day makes me idly watch parts of movies which we already have on DVD, something which baffles John no end. He can’t understand why I don’t just get the DVD and watch it from start to finish, as nature intended. I can’t understand why he can’t understand that I am perfectly happy watching some of it now, and – gasp! – not even finishing it. Opposites really do attract.

San Francisco is noted for many things, but dullness isn’t one of them. Except in one particular: San Francisco must be one of the most boring places on earth to be a weatherman (or I suppose I should say, weather person, or possibly meteorologist). The temperature range is rarely more than 40&deg (40 being the coldest and 80 the hottest). The default weather is between 65&deg and 70&deg and sunny, with optional fog, mostly in the summer. The weather is pretty much uneventful, except for the occasional earthquake, though that isn’t really weather.

So it makes sense that the meteorologists get all excited when the winter rains start up (it almost never rains any other time of the year), as they did last night. It’s front page news in what passes for the local paper. But what drives me crazy is how on every single local TV station every single weatherperson says, “The storm door is open”. Not, “It’s really coming down out there” or “Expect storms over the next 48 hours” or anything like that. No, it’s always the damned storm door. I have come to the conclusion that it’s some kind of secret weather porn catchphrase that gives every meteorologist, regardless of gender, some kind of cheap weather thrill just to say it, or even think it. They probably look forward to it all year long. So have it, weather people, and I’ll just avoid the local news until the sun comes back, as I know it will, and enjoy wearing my cute new boots in the rain.

Here’s your Halloween frisson of horror: The venerable Samaritaine in Paris has started charging for access to its roof, which has a panoramic view of Paris. I personally prefer the Samaritaine to dealing with the horrors of waiting in line at the Eiffel Tower and the slight yet terrifying sway of the tower, not to mention the overly close proximity to other tourists. Also, La Samaritaine has what the Eiffel Tower never has, and never will: shopping.

It seems ironic that a store named Samaritan (as in Good) is behaving as its antithesis. Unless you spend 30 Euros or more, and then roof access is included.

And now, a Halloween memory.

In the long-ago days of my childhood, back when England still used shillings and sixpences and there were no Euros, the rule in my family was that you couldn’t go trick or treating until you were 5. I don’t know how my parents arrived at this edict; many, if not most, parental edicts have a very arbitrary quality about them.

Anyway, my brother, who is three years younger than I am, was dying to go trick or treating. Just imagine the hell this boy was in: his two older sisters, besides being bossy and worst of all, girls, got to go out and get free candy while he had to stay home. Unbelievable. I think there’s something like that in Dante’s Purgatory somewhere.

The year my brother was four years old, we all went to a Halloween party at the house of our friends, the Cades (digression: Tom Cade, the host of this party, is the founder of The Peregrine Fund). At that time, they lived in a wonderful Victorian mansion perched on top of a hill. The house had its own graveyard, which was not unusual for a house in the country built so long ago, but you can imagine how fascinating that was to those of us who lived in houses with cemetery-free backyards, and also made it the perfect setting for a Halloween party.

The plan was that after the party, the parents would take the kids into the village to go trick or treating. My brother saw his chance and piled into someone else’s car, along with a bunch of other kids. By the time my parents realized what was going on, it was too late (this feeling became increasingly familiar to them as my brother grew up). I will never forget seeing my brother running down the sidewalk of the first house he visited with his bag of candy, calling out joyfully, “It works! It works!” He just couldn’t get over the fact that one day a year, all you had to do was say the magic words and you’d actually get candy.

At least one a day a year should definitely be magic.

…a few days can make. Since I last checked in with you:

• Senator Wellstone, his wife, and daughter were killed in a plane crash along with some of their loyal staff. Just heartbreaking. In death they were not divided.
  
• 118 hostages died tragically and senselessly in Moscow.
  
• The wonderful actor Richard Harris left us, and left the world wondering who can possibly play Albus Dumbledore in the remaining Harry Potter movies series. Harris was so perfect for that part, it could have been written for him.
  
• I missed the fabulous Candi’s birthday (though I did send her a card and a presentette before I left town last week).
  
• Stupid, stupid daylight savings time started up again. Or ended. Or whatever. It’s all retarded.
  
• The San Francisco Giants lost the World Series to goddamn Anaheim. A place that has Disney in it. A place that is located in Southern California (and everyone knows civilization stops at Santa Barbara). I would rather have lost to a different state, even one of the square ones.
  
• I actually had to wear a coat this morning, because it’s 57&deg and as everyone knows, that equals freezing on the Suzy scale.
  
• I got home late last night, and have failed to unpack or wash my hair or anything, so I’m kind of fran?aise at the moment, with my hair all smelling like cigarette smoke (but at least not Gitanes or Gauloises).
  

But on the bright side:

• It’s sunny.
  
• I’m back home in the most beautiful city in the entire USA in my opinion.
  
• I’m still alive.
  
• No crises occurred while I was away, or at least none that have been drawn to my attention, so that means they didn’t happen as far as I’m concerned.
  
• The boys I work with (I’m the only female analyst in our office) left a bunch of daisies in my office with a pencilled note saying they missed me. Awww. And amazing because they are still riding the bummer about the Giants and it’s so bad that not even Krispy Kremes can cheer them up. They’ll just have to wait for Time, the great healer, to work its magic, even though Time is an unbelievable slacker.

Love/hate for Friday, October 25, 2002
Junk Food

Once again, I’m interrupting your main feature with a newsreelette. Unlike when you’re actually at the movies, though, you can skip to the main feature if you want. Oh, the dizzying freedom!

I’ll be away from home all weekend, back on Monday night. So I won’t be updating until Tuesday at the earliest, and maybe not even then, because all I will have to report will almost certainly be deeply dull. I don’t want to say where I’m going, in case one of you lives there and then I’d have to break my self-imposed rule (the most important kind) of the weekend, which is: see no-one except the Room Service waiter/waitress, and do nothing but try to recuperate from the Baudelaire-orphan-like life I’ve had recently.

And now, the main feature. At least you were spared animated dancing candy and soda and nannyreels telling you to hush up and behave.

Much as I hate to admit it, I think we do eventually return to the way we were raised. No matter how hard you may rebel against it, it seems that breeding tells. In some ways, at least.

When I was a child, we lived in the country in upstate New York. We had five acres to play on, and these five acres included a forest of pine trees and a creek. In the summer, we went to Maine, where we had a cottage on a pond and access to beaches and sailboats. So we played outside all year round and rarely, if ever, watched television. In Maine, we didn’t have a TV or a phone in the cottage, just the radio, and we never felt deprived.

Besides all this healthy playing outside, we also ate pretty healthy. Dad made dinner every night, and he was a great cook. In Maine, lobster, fish, and other seafood was cheaper than beef, so we ate seafood most of the summer. We had whole wheat bread. Edible oil products were unknown in our kitchen. We actually had to eat Brussels sprouts (to which I still refer as “poison balls”) and spinach. We never had soda and rarely had junk food in the house, though there were of course the occasional bags of potato chips and so on, but these were unusual and therefore really treats.

So when I was at my friends’ houses, and they got to eat Kraft dinner and Wonder bread and things like that, I was filled with envy and wished that I, too, could eat such delights. But alas, my parents persisted in their healthy regime, and I secretly vowed to eat nothing but crap when I grew up.

I never really grew up, and I’m still eating healthy. I have taken it a few steps further over the past few years, buying organic wherever possible, and we haven’t eaten cows or pigs in over a decade. Now you couldn’t pay me to eat the junk food I envied as a kid, so I am forced to conclude that my parents triumphed over their willful daughter in the end. In this one area, anyway.

Not that I never eat junk food. John always has a huge stash of it, and I have been known to partake of it (earlier this week, I ate an entire bag of Cracker Jack without his knowledge, and he came home looking forward to it to find that it had vanished. He took it well, but has bought half a dozen bags since then just in case), but I don’t buy it. I wouldn’t even think about it if it weren’t for John’s taste for junk food and how he has to have a wide variety of it on hand at all times, since you never know what you’ll have a craving for.

P.S. Has anyone else noticed that the so-called “prizes” now in Cracker Jack are complete crap and not even worthy of the name? You used to get little compasses that really worked, or yoyos, or secret decoder rings, or toy cars with wheels that moved, and now you just get stupid stickers.

I have put up all the pictures I brought home with me from England. Well, there were only two, so perhaps it’s not such a great accomplishment after all. But one of them had the glass broken on the flight home from London, so I had to get that replaced. I fell and scraped the hell out of my knee on the way to the framing store and I’m still recovering. The picture, however, is fine. In fact, it never looked better (unlike my knee).

It now has new glass, UV proofed just in case, and the part of the frame which was slightly separated has been fixed. The old backing, which was ill-fitting wood veneer hammered in with miscellaneous nails, has been replaced by foam core and covered with clean brown paper. The old and knotted string it hung by has been replaced by picture wire. I have to admit that I feel a slight pang at losing the messed up original state of it, since Dad either got it that way or made it that way, but if I’m going to take proper care of it, it had to be done. The framer told me that the painting, a watercolor of a Scottish stream, is actually glued to the mat. Dad bought it when he was 12 or 13 (in 1943 or 1944) and it cost a shilling. I have always loved it, but all the same, I wish I didn’t have it. It should be still hanging in Dad’s study in Wimbledon, where he should be busily working or watching birds in the garden.

The framer also said that she often finds odd things when she opens up pictures like that. She has found dead bugs (some so old that they fell to powder when they fell out); letters; newspaper clippings; and even photographs. Sometimes there are other pictures on the back of the framed one.

The other picture is one we bought at auction together. It is supposed to be an etching by Manet. I can’t remember what he paid for it, but it was definitely more than a shilling. It says in French, “Painted and engraved by Manet” and has a signature in the corner. I have no idea what, if anything, it’s worth, but I just like it. It’s an old man wearing an elegant tie, or possibly cravat, and I find both the man and the tie charming.

When the 250 year old grandfather clocks arrives here, I’ll get it appraised, and I’ll have them look at the other things which may be valuable, like the Manet etching, the Wedgwood, and the Royal Doulton vase dedicated to Lord Nelson which says, “England expects every man to do his duty.” Part of me hopes that they are worth something so I can get all excited in an Antiques Roadshow kind of way, and part of me hopes they won’t, because then the cost of insurance will go up. But the monetary value of these objects isn’t what really matters. What really matters is that they belonged to my father, who loved them, and who loved me.

As I mentioned yesterday, children’s books are the closest I ever want to get to actual children. They are too short, have very limited conversational powers, and look terrible in evening clothes. In addition, there is always something coming out of them from somewhere: screaming, crying, pooping, peeing, vomiting. You name the vile bodily fluid, they’ll share it. So imagine my surprise and horror when confronted with full frontal Beastly Baby yesterday.

One of my co-workers was unwise enough to have a baby this summer when she was aged 45 (she still is), and felt we’d like to see the fruit of her labors. I freely admit that I was one of the world’s ugliest babies (even my loving father felt a pang of pity for me at being so ugly. After all, to quote Marilyn, “Don’t you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You might not fall in love with a girl just because she’s pretty, but goodness, doesn’t it help?”), but this one looked like an old man without the wrinkles, in the manner popularized by Jesus in Renaissance paintings (this one by the great Piero della Francesca, she added educationally). He also has an oversized head of cartoon-like proportions, which flopped about alarmingly on his stalk-like neck like a bobblehead in a hurricane.

When faced with a co-worker’s progeny, you are supposed to say something nice, especially if you are a girl, because you are supposed to love babies and have all them maternal instincts. I’m a really good liar and pretty good at small talk, but this kid floored me. I was reduced to “He has your eyes” and “He seems a lot bigger than his brother was at that age”, which seemed to go over OK. The Chinese have a saying: “There is only one beautiful baby, and every mother has it.” Or thinks she does.

It’s only fair to note that babies seem to be on to me. They are probably much closer to their instincts than we adults, faux or otherwise, and can probably sense in an animal-esque manner when they are unappreciated, since most of them scream when I hold them unless they’re asleep. I have the requisite boobage and then some, but they are purely form and not function and don’t deceive babies for a minute. So it was with this guy. Within seconds of holding him, he started howling and had to be removed, to the relief of all concerned. If you don’t got it, you don’t got it.

It seems to be acceptable to say you are a collector of children’s literature. The phrase sounds quaintly eccentric and rather esoteric, and I love that. Over the years, I have amassed quite the collection, which I’m planning on leaving to the Nation, since reading children’s books is as close as I want to get to actual children. The truth is, I have never outgrown my love of children’s books. It may be because I never really grew up, or because I have such a short attention span, or because with age comes a certain amount of nostalgia. Or maybe it’s because they’re fun to read.

My latest addiction is courtesy of John, who picked up the first three volumes of Lemony Snicket’s oeuvre at a great little store on Polk Street and surprised me with them.

Number one, they are unbelievably charming to look at. Aesthetics are important to me. Call me shallow, but whatever it is, I like it pretty. The books are a pleasure to look at, each volume a small, beautifully illustrated hardcover book with delicious endpapers (when’s the last time you even saw endpapers?). And who could resist a series of books called “A Series of Unfortunate Events”, starting with (what else?) The Bad Beginning? Now, there’s a title I can relate to.

Number two, no-one knows anything about Lemony Snicket. Also, Lemony Snicket is such a great name, and incredibly fun to say. Try it.

Number three, they are wonderfully written and incredibly entertaining. They have caused me to stay in the bath for over an hour reading them, putting in more and more hot water until I am in danger of becoming prune-like and only the previously mentioned aesthetic sense makes me leap out just in time to resume the dreary tasks of the day.

Parents should love their kids reading these books, because it will improve their vocabulary no end. Sprinkled throughout each book are explanations of long words, such as “…had been a catastrophe, a word which here means “an utter disaster involving tragedy, deception, and Count Olaf.” [Count Olaf is the bad guy in all the books.]

And finally…I love it that each and every volume warns you of the horrors within. The books concern three children who are orphaned in the first book, and spend the rest of the series trying to escape the evil Count Olaf, who wants their enormous fortune. And what I like best about the Baudelaire orphans is that their lives are worse than mine. It’s the same thing that makes people watch Jerry Springer and soap operas: at least my life isn’t as screwed up as theirs. Even if they’re fictional. Maybe they’d have to be.

Love/hate for Friday, October 18, 2002
Being on time

Much important than today’s love/hate is that today is Jed the wonder dog’s birthday! Not that she is allowed to get any older, since we want her around forever. I have never met another dog like her: not just cute as a button, but smart, lovable, and impeccably behaved at all times, much better than the average human being. No wonder she is my brother’s best friend!

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

I have already admitted to the horrible truth of being a morning person, so it probably won’t appall you much further to learn that I love to be on time, too. I am always on time unless circumstances over which I have no control (earthquakes; road works; anything to do with my mother) detain me (and you can imagine that I don’t respond well to delay, being both a control freak and terminally impatient at the best of times).

Either that, or early, which is how I end up killing two hours in the Red Carpet Lounge whenever I fly anywhere. But that does give me time to consume the essential pre-flight drugs and alcohol. And I’d rather have that than be running to the gate because I’m late and the flight is boarding. There are far better reasons for sweating and heart-pounding than getting to the airport late and reaping the unpleasant consequences. So despite my fear and loathing of boredom, I’d rather be on time or early.

I think it’s rude to be late when meeting a friend or keeping an appointment. It suggests that your time is more valuable than the other person’s, and they can just wait for you to show up when you’re good and ready. Even at work, I like to get in a few minutes before I’m due to start, so I can get spring water and a cup of green tea and get settled before the phone starts ringing. I know they say “Better late than never”, but I think, “Better to never be late.”

Not that I’m superstitious or anything, but…

Today marks the unlucky 13th anniversary of the unlucky 1989 earthquake, or the Loma Prieta Quake, as we call it around here (Loma Prieta being the fault line which kindly brought us this natural disaster). It measured 6.7 on the Richter Scale (for comparison purposes, the 1906 quake, which is still the one to beat, clocked in at 8.25).

And when did the 1989 quake strike? Yes, during the World Series. And yes, this was the last time two California teams were in the world series. Coincidence?

Before you start thinking this was written by an imposter and I’m really being held hostage somewhere, it’s pretty much impossible even for those of us who live a sports-free life not to know that the Giants are in the World Series, especially when you are the only girl working with three boys and all they can talk about is how the Giants are in the World Series.

I just realized that the ’06 quake was around 5 in the morning, and the ’89 around 5 in the afternoon. Hmmm. Not that it means anything, of course. But I’m glad we have all that water and canned food and an earthquake plan, anyway. If you don’t have one, and might need one (we San Franciscans all pretty much accept that it’s a case of when, not if), here’s some useful info.