Retro Fisher Price

When I was a kid, I had the coolest Fisher Price toys! Remember the telephone with the moving eyes? Or the FP house with working "doorbell"? How about the FP farm, complete with cow, sheep and horse with plastic mane and tail that looked like thin licorice? I almost forgot - I also had the FP school, complete with swing set -- this was back when kids were still allowed to have recess.
I've seen the new FP people and they are cute and chunky, but I liked my choking hazard FP people - the kid with the baseball cap, and the teacher who put you in mind of what Mrs. Brady would probably look like if she was a Fisher Price person (and had a bun on top of her head). Besides, I probably wouldn't buy them for my kid until she was about 2 so she should know better than to try to eat them. Who am I kidding? I'd buy them and just play with them myself until she was ready to use them.

I mentioned the wonders of FP to my husband, who had no idea what I was talking about -- come on. Your parents didn't even get you the rolling, popping vacuum cleaner type thingy? What's up?

Even if you didn't have them at home, pediatrician's offices across the country kept kids in line with those toys in the waiting area. I know they are probably a playground for germs in public places, but it's better than the same stale video of Beauty and the Beast that I see every time I go to Kaiser.

Overheard on Project Runway

"Do you have the kitty cat inside you?" - Heidi to model Matar on why Epperson's dress was described as Romantic Tiger Punk. I love Heidi. So much that comes out of her mouth is classic, but you have to hear HER say it to get the full hilarity of it.

For more PR season 6, ep. 4, (and pics of the romantic tiger punk dress) see here.

Crazy People!

Working in a town known for having a number of residents (or visitors that never left) with a, shall we say, tenuous grip on reality, I've had my share of run-in's with some mentally incapacitated folk.

One woman scared most people on the street with her constant loud ranting and screaming of filth. Maybe I'm just ultra-sensitive, but it seemed that she saved her most vulgar invective for me. Whenever I would pass by she would look right at me and loudly call me a dirty bitch, or the n-word, or the four letter c-word, or all three, causing me to cringe and whomever happened to be close by to thank God that she wasn't singling them out today. Finally, she caught me on the wrong day. I was having just a bad enough morning that I didn't care about physical harm and when she started her shit and started to follow me with it, I turned around and yelled that I wasn't talking to her or bothering her. It shocked me and her enough that she turned around and walked away. Funny enough, the same thing once happened to me when a dog tried to attack my mom and I. I stepped in front of my mother and yelled at it to stop and go away, and it went away, seemingly stunned that I wasn't afraid. There's something about me, I guess, that makes people think that I won't fight back, and I guess usually that's the case. But not always.

Anyway, to make a long story even longer, I was at work minding my business when I woman came up to the children's reference desk and started to tell me about how the air quality in the library was so poor. I don't think she was wrong, necessarily, and I tried to tell her that our maintenance staff was aware that we had a problem with our HVAC and that might possibly account for the physical reaction that she assured me she was having to the air circulation in the building. That in and of itself wasn't the problem. it's that even after I told her that I would relay her concerns to maintenance, she continued, and went on, and on, and on, and on.

She talked about how people thought that those who were sensitive to off-gassing of various chemicals were crazy, but that now it's been proven that it affects even those of us who are not as super sensitive as she is. She talked about how she moved to be closer to the library so she could spend more time in the library and how now, after 20 minutes in the Children's Department, she feels so ill that she has to leave (of course she's spent about 10 minutes talking to me and an undisclosed amount of time in the rest of the library), and then when I told her she could fill out a suggestion form she seemed to imply that I needed to turn her complaint into my personal crusade. I needed to talk to the architects (!) and make sure they didn't do this in any other of their buildings. This even though the building was renovated over 6 years ago and I've only been working there 4 years, so even if I knew who the architects were, they've been long gone. I love (read my sarcasm) it when people want to tell you how that THEIR problem should become your life's work. Don't get me wrong, I'm not insensitive. But I had already promised her that I was going to do that which I was actually able to do. My idea to tell maintenance would probably be more effective at solving this lady's immediate problem than tracking down some architects who've long since ceased to care, if they ever did. Big sigh.

She whispered in such a soft voice I wasn't sure if the headache I was starting to get was from straining so hard to hear her or if her suggestion that the air quality was poor was starting to affect me. For the last two minutes of her complaint, another person was standing behind her waiting with a question. I repeatedly made eye contact with this other person and said, "I'll be right with you" but this woman was so into her own agenda that she never noticed and I had the hardest time cutting in to get her to STOP TALKING! After trying unsuccessfully to cut in, I finally just interrupted and said, "This young man is waiting to ask a question." To which she said, "Oh! You should have told me." (Watch me slam my head against the wall.)

Now, I'm not saying what she had to say was crazy, but her insistence that I talk to the architects (!) to fix it and prevent this from ever happening again, and her self-important self-absorption in going on and on when I told her I'd tell someone was at the very least, extremely annoying. Maybe I should have yelled STOP! GO AWAY!

Happy Birthday, Michael

Let The Work I've Done Speak For Me

Maybe it is because I am African American, and his family has historically meant a lot to African Americans. Maybe it is because I'm from New England, with family from Boston. Maybe it's because I've lost family members to cancer. Maybe it's because I am an unashamed liberal. Probably because of all of those things, I mourn the death of Senator Ted Kennedy.

I wanted to list some of the bills that he authored and helped pass, but on his senate website, the PDF listing his accomplishments was 54 pages long. While I'd like to say that I'll read it, I know I probably won't get to it soon enough to post this in a timely manner. What I saw was that he authored over 2,500 bills, hundreds of which became law. When the honors and accolades die down over the next few weeks or months, and scandalous memories are dragged out of dusty corners, his legacy as the "liberal lion of the senate" will live on. Hopefully, his dream of universal health care will not die with him.

On the cover of a local newspaper a few weeks ago was a white woman whose health problems led to her losing her job, her health coverage, and her home. I mention that she was white because, unfortunately, the general public sometimes has less sympathy for a person of color in the same situation. The attitude when you don't want to relate to someone else's plight is often: "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps; no one helped me." As untrue and callous as those statements are, the real point here is that so many of us are one serious illness, one major uncovered procedure, one disability away from the same predicament facing the woman in that article.

Peace Day, August 6

Hiroshima Peace Memorial, seen in the light of lanterns lit to honor those who died during the bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945.

Top 10 Reality Show Quotes

In honor of the return of Project Runway, here are my favorite top ten reality show quotes of all time (so far).

And don't ask me what seasons these were from. What do you think, I have nothing better to do than watch TV?

10. The Oh, No, He Didn't award: "I'm not your bitch, bitch!" (Top Chef)

9. The Where's Mrs. Garrett award: " There's entirely too much tootie." (Project Runway)

8. The Biracial Butterfly award: Just about any stupidity to come out of Jade Cole's mouth. (America's Next Top Model)

7. The Oh So True/Sense Confusion award: "Whenever I'm near Jade, all I smell is - bitch." (America's Next Top Model)

6. The Where Did That Come From award: "This is not a butt-rubbing contest." (Top Chef)

5. The Repressed Sexuality award: Little girl: "I just love boobies. I love touchin' 'em, and..." Mom: (interrupting) "Stop, that's nasty." (Toddlers and Tiaras)

4. The Heidi award: "Oh. That's Baaad. But true!" (Project Runway)

3. The Do They Use Ultrabright award: "How do the letters on the Hollywood sign stay white?" (The Millionaire Matchmaker)

2. The I'll Use It When It's Convenient award: Gina saying she's in the competition to represent Asian models and then saying she doesn't date Asian men. (America's Next Top Model)

1. The Needs No Intro award: "Make it Work!" (Project Runway)