10 Things I Learned From “Downton Abbey”

OK, I know this should have been done last week. Just as the Whitney Houston post should have been done the week before.  As you may have noticed, I work at my own speed, not at the speed of the internet society, so I will always be more than a bit behind.

“Downton Abbey”, an ITV Masterpiece mini-series ended its second season on PBS last week. As an American wife of a Brit, I was intrigued by the show, but a little afraid to get into it. Then a nasty cold along with a cough that would just not go away (it is still hanging around like a very unwelcome visitor) I decided to give it a chance. I was able to catch up rather quickly with the show since it is only seven episodes per season. Those British love their short seasons, perhaps just to drive the viewers crazy. It is a period costume soap opera, and I was hooked.

1. Dressing in formal wear for EVERY DINNER is insane but the norm for the super rich back then. I wonder if that is the norm today, but I cannot see Sir Richard Branson getting into a tux and tails just to have a bit of nosh.
   
   
2. The rich can actually be nice to their servants! I am not quite sure that is true, this may just be part of the soap opera and possibly some republican wet dream devised to show that the rich aren't so bad after all. Let's not make them pay their fair share, and with the wonderful Earl of Grantham it all trickles down...
   
   
3. Penmanship must have been quite important back then. Every day letters come for everyone bringing wretched news. But it had to be read, so the penmanship must have been great. Now I know why they kept pushing it on us at school. Though now it might be better to have keyboard typing lessons, or better yet, voice activating lessons. Our kids are so lucky now that they don't have to mind writing their p's and q's so much.
   
   
4. Smokers are evil. The smokers are Thomas and O'Brien, when they meet outside for a smoke, that is when they brew up their little schemes such as to get the new valet fired. I am sure there are many other smokers in that house, but we are not seeing them light up.
   
   
5. Gongs are not just for Asian societies, they can actually tell the rich Brits when to get dressed!
   
   
6. Americans who marry the British Aristocracy and live in the UK may not develop an accent but their method of speaking certainly is “British-like”. Lady Cora Crawley has not developed a Madonna-esque horribly fake accent, but she does speak quite carefully and very rarely in anger. She is definitely not an American anymore.
   
   
7. On average, servants are more conservative than their masters. Really? It seems more logical that that the less conservative servants did not last long at those jobs.

8. There were gay people before 1960. Well, duh. But, it certainly wouldn't have been written about since a love affair between a lord and a maid was the kind of thing that populated fiction in those days. An affair between a Duke and a footman, shhh, that is not spoken of...
   
   
9. Love is only acceptable to a person who is in your caste. OK not caste, class. Even if you are the “acceptable” male-female paring, you also have to be equivalent in the right sort of way or it will be a horrible disgrace on your family. If your foolish daughter still falls for the gorgeous Irish chauffeur, then you say he is political and a journalist – even if he just got that job two days ago.
   
   
10. During the first world war, these great houses became convalescent homes for the war wounded elite. It seems that now, we do not do that much for our veterans. Would Donald Trump or Mark Zuckerberg open their homes today to help a veteran recover? I know there are fewer wounded due to our “modern” and hopefully mustard gas free warfare, but we certainly do not take it as seriously as it was taken during the two world wars.

Rest In Peace, Whitney Houston, You Were So Talented

It is almost always sad when a human being dies. When it is unexpected, that adds to the tragedy. Whitney Houston died last week, unexpectedly. It could have been from drugs, but it could have been from a lot of other possibilities. Any which way it is tragic, for her family, especially her daughter.

For me, the tragedy is that Ms. Houston was so talented. Today, in popular culture, talent actually seems to be a rare thing. You didn't need to hear Simon Cowell tell you how vocally talented she was, you could hear it for yourself. An example from my past was in the late 80's, the television was on to an awards show (I cannot remember – sorry but it was 25 years ago!) and Whitney sang “I'm Saving All My Love For You”. My whole family noticed her voice, it was glorious. My father, who is not into popular music at all and prefers Jazz, said “Wow, she is really good”. If he could notice her talent, the whole world could, and did. Unfortunately, now it seems that talent is a small part of a bigger “package” that producers produce for an audience. Not that I am saying Ms. Houston wasn't the whole package, she was a beautiful woman, but that was secondary to her voice.

Ms. Houston was not a songwriter. She was a vocal stylist and sang songs that others wrote. That is unfortunate, since that means that she did not earn as much money from her work if she was a songwriter and performer. But, I do think she would get a song and could take it to levels that even the songwriter could not imagine. The perfect example of this is her version of “I Will Always Love You”. If you didn't know this little fact, Dolly Parton wrote that song. She is a talented songwriter. If you hear that song, you can know she is a talented writer. But as a performer, for that song at least, she is all wrong, her interpretation was too subtle, but that is because she has a limited voice. Ms. Houston took that song to the highest levels. Ms. Parton's voice works so much better on a song like her “Jolene” (a beautiful and sad song in it's own right), but I think “I Will Always Love You” will be one of Ms. Houston's greatest contributions to popular music.

This was a different blog for me to write. I am sure many people are a bit confused since I usually rant about politics, review other independent books, or discuss writing and PR of my book “The Chronicles of IDIOT”. But the death of Whitney Houston struck me in a way that made me think about talent.

You cannot just be talented and the world will see you for what you are. A person with talent may know they are good at something, but that does not mean they will be successful. My son has a talent for drawing (I think) but he still has a lot of work ahead of him before he could be paid for that talent. Ms. Houston worked hard in her youth, perfecting her craft, singing in her church choir and learning music. There are many children who want to be talented in sports or music and think that will write their ticket to fame and fortune. It may, but that will be for a tiny amount of those children. For a lot of kids they may just want to be talented, but are not and that will be a hard thing to deal with as well. Or they may be talented but just not lucky enough to be recognized. Luck has a lot to do with becoming a success and has much more to do with success than talent.

I would not call myself a talented writer. I do enjoy writing but I am not cranking out thousands of words a day. There are other priorities in my life. But, I find writing fun, and getting my opinions out there in my blog is really fun. That is the last thing I would like to say about talent. You may be very talented at something, but if you don't enjoy it, how can you enjoy life? Andre Agassi is a good example. He is a talented Tennis player, but if you read anything in his biography, you find that he did not enjoy it, his father pushed it on him. I find that very sad. It seemed that Ms. Houston enjoyed singing. That did not make her life perfect, as we all know, since we should all know that success does not bring happiness. Hopefully doing what you love gives you happiness. She had an incredible vocal talent, and I hope she loved what she did and am glad she shared her voice with the world.

A Review of Christopher Godsoe's “Judgment Cove”

Sorry this blog is late today. Since it is the day before Valentine's Day, I was busy with the kids getting all that V Day stuff ready. And by the way, Happy Valentine's Day tomorrow. Share the love by being kind to someone, its free and easy to do!

Now on to the review!

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The story is a twist on the “scared straight” prison model, except with pirates. Steve is an angry teenager, his parents do not understand, and his older brother was killed in Afghanistan jumping on a grenade to save his comrades-in-arms. His parents are frustrated with him, and his tagging the school. He gets into so much trouble that his parents make the decision for him to go to “Judgment Cove” and the charges are dropped. When he gets to this Cove, things are much more different than your standard camp. 

Three-quarters of the way through, I was feeling that this was a supernatural redemption story with some holes. But the ending finishes everything off with a surprise twist that I thought really made the story.

The writing flows nicely and I felt most of the characters (even the pirates) were done fairly realistically, for being a teenage action adventure. The protagonist, Steve, is sympathetic, even at the unrepentant beginning which is hard to achieve. The action is easy to follow and lots of fun to imagine.

Chris Godsoe has got quite an imagination and this is an impressive addition to his growing literary work.

Tina Fey Thinks I'm An Idiot

Let me first say that I love “30 Rock" and Tina Fey. I think she is a brilliant comedian. She was looking for a new friend in one recent episode and I wanted to be in that line. Except that maybe we would not get along, just like she and her clone did not in that episode. Not that I am an absolute clone of Tina Fey. I'm a SAHM (Stay-at-home Mom) and she wrote that SAHM's are idiots on her show's episode “Idiots are People Three”.

Good comedy will offend someone. And I guess I am the offended party here. I am trying not to be because everyone has to make decisions about raising a family and every decision is what works for them at the time. For moms of all stripes, every decision we make we feel guilty for: SAH or working, it really is a no win situation and it seems our kids will hate us no matter what decisions we make.

When adding up what a SAHM like me would make from Salary.com:
(http://swz.salary.com/momsalarywizard/htmls/mswl_momcenter.html),
in Tucson I am worth about $103,600. Dang! If I could only get paid for this job. So, maybe I am an idiot in my own way but it is for my kids.

It is really easy to judge other people and their parenting decisions. SAHM's do it all the time. We can be a rather sanctimonious lot. Some criticize if you do not have your kids potty trained by 3 years old. Not me, potty training is not easy, and the mom who says she had her kid trained by 18 months is a liar. Some criticize if you do not breastfeed. I try not to criticize about that, but think people should at least try it, it does not work for some babies. But, for the moms who say “it is gross” or “unnatural” I say you may be the gross and unnatural one.

So Tina Fey thinks I am an idiot. Here is the quote from the show:

Tracy: “Idiots aren't just strippers, or stay at home moms. Idiots are all around us.”

Yep, it was said in the show by Tracy Jordan who is portrayed by Tracy Morgan. The Tracy Morgan who actually did do a rant during a comedy show that offended most people but especially gay people. This show must be to make up for that rant and show that he is an idiot. I think most people knew that already. The stripper reference does not help either.

I know it was supposed to be a bad joke spoken by a genuine idiot, and maybe Ms. Fey gets a lot of grief because she is a working mom. But, I have a feeling she can afford the best in nannies and nanny-cams. In Tucson, we can afford me being a SAHM by living in a small 2 bedroom house, and only having one car. Well, if we lived in New York there would be no way I could be a SAHM. If and when my hubby moves on from his job we may move somewhere like NY or California where we will have to have two paychecks, and will probably be still just scraping by, so yes, we are idiots because my husband actually enjoys his job now.

So, I guess I am an idiot for staying home, but I'm an idiot with happy kids, and that makes all the difference.

Oh yeah, aren't I also supposed to be an Author? Until I make enough to make one monthly mortgage payment (I am not even close on that one) I really need to say my full time job is being a Mom.