So, the dog dies and  what does she do next? Three days later she posted on facebook that she got a new puppy. Then she started facebooking about how the dog was wrecking havoc in the house, not trained and generally making her tipping point of lunacy way to close to the line.

I immediately picked up the phone. She, of course was too busy to answer, so I kept redialing until she picked up. It’s an old trick when you really need to talk to someone and they don’t pick up. Generally I find that people always have their phones with them and they are screening calls, so if you just keep calling back they panic thinking something terrible happened and pick up. The only time this doesn’t work is if someone is in the movies, but I knew she was not in the movies.

Sure enough, on the fifth time she picked up.

“OMG, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, but I’m calling to save your life. But before I do, what is wrong with you?! You had to get a dog now? And, you had to get an untrained puppy? Are you truly nuts or what?”

“I know, I know.” She sounded exhausted, deflated, and generally in need of meds.

“Three words. I call with three words to save your life. Doggie Military School.”

“What?”

“Doggie Military School. Send him there right now. Twelve weeks later he comes back in perfect condition minus the uniform. Seriously, that’s the only way I would get a puppy.”

An hour later she called me from the car.

“I’m dropping him off but I feel guilty.”

“Guilt is a fabulous feeling; it means you are doing something for yourself instead of someone elese. I highly recommend it.”

She hung up.

I talked to her a few days ago and she had just gone to visit her dog. They apparently told her it might traumatize him if she saw him, and she stood there for a minute and then told them to get the f)*^#@ing dog. I think it was like in Legally Blond where they go get the manicurist’s dog from the ex boyfriend. They brought the dog out, she saw he was ok, put the guilt on the temporary shelf where it will sit for awhile and then headed out.

It’s eight weeks later and the dog is home, house trained and doing well.

Doggie Military School. I highly recommend it. And, if you know me and I call you, please pick up and save me the hassle of having to call you back.

That said, I love placing blame. I blame my ancestors who came over with strong thighs and severe lips (I’ve seen pictures) for the fact that my mouth now purses in ways that make me look mean. I sometimes sit in meetings either covering my mouth, or worse, practicing half smiles so people won’t think I’m irritated or bored, which I mostly am. So, that’s another issue regarding authenticity which we will not deal with today.

You need to go beneath the surface on things. George Soros was born a Jew in Budapest, Hungary. I remember him telling me that during the war his father told him that nothing is as it appears. If someone told him it was a nice day, you should look up and see if the sky was blue. That’s why his father had the family meet in the baths of Budapest; who would look for jews in the baths of Budapest where risk of circumcised exposure was so great? Safest place in Hungary. And his theories on investing deal with the follow up repercussion for something, not the immediate response to something. He’s a behind the scenes kind of guy.

I remember looking beneath the surface of OJ’s guilt in the trial. Turns out that when he pleaded guilty to abuse years before he killed Nicole, the judge was so enamoured with having him in his courtroom that he waived the mandatory attendance for people pleading guilty to an anger management class. The course supposedly had an 80% success rate. So, actually, we could blame him for Nicole’s demise. And, I guess mandatory means everyone except OJ?

Then there is Judge Robert’s role in Iraq. Making Mr. Bush president when he didn’t win the election put a man in power who started an unnecessary war to prove a point to his father. So if you want to look beneath the surface there, we can wonder how Roberts sleeps at night knowing he set up a son’s need to show daddy how to invade Iraq when the man was never elected. I’m just saying.

So, the convoluted (will I ever be direct?) point is that who the hell cares who’s to blame? I don’t give a good God Damn. The real blame goes back centuries. What I do care about is that it’s still out there. Blaming changes nothing, so can we please move the dialog to something important like the fact that a Senator actually called the warmest June in the history of the world cold, and he will likely get re-elected? Can we please talk about our messed up economy? Can we please fix Afghanistan before I have to go over and do it myself?

And, if the black white thing needs to be fixed, fix it. Quit trying to blame anyone and focus on how to get it done. It’s here. It’s been here for centuries, and we need to stop caring about the color of the skin and go to the content of the character. And, speaking of character, seems like it’s sorely lacking in the media and government. But, that’s another blog. So many blogs, so little time.

“I want one-quarter chicken please. But does it come with that pita bread that my friends told me I have to try, and …”

“Ok, hold on. Focus. I need you to focus on the sides. Don’t worry about anything else, just focus on the sides.”

Huh?

I stopped dead in my tracks. He needs me to focus on the sides. I immediately started focusing on the sides.

“I’d just like the broccoli please.”

“Ok, now …”

The person with me, who works with me, burst out laughing. I’m not known for focusing on the sides apparently, but I really do what I’m told when told by a voice belonging to someone I’ve never seen from out of a squawk box at a drive in window. Stop dead in my tracks and do what I’m told.

I remember being at Disney World when Sarah (the perfect child) was five or six with friends and their children. There was a very long line at the hotel to go to Disney World on the rail tram. There were two lines, one was for the premier guests and one was for the regular (don’t remember what they were called) guests. The regular line had about two hundred people in it. The other line, had maybe five plus us. Our hotel was the last stop on the tram before Disney World, and no one was monitoring the line.

The tram pulled in and the last two cars reserved for premier were empty. The other cars were quite full but the other line filled them up and we stepped toward the empty premier cars. I looked back at the line that had stopped moving.

I got in the car and turned back and called out to the line, “Get in! There are two empty cars here and a few hundred children waiting to get to Disney World. Break the mold. Step into the cars with us! This is the last stop before Disney World!! Save yourselves!!!” (Ok, I might not have said, “Save yourselves!”) No one moved, the car doors closed, and we pulled away. I sat down in the empty car feeling dejected.

It has stuck with me all these years. The sheer “follow like sheep” mentality of all those parents not cutting in line. Now, I know I’m from New York and we don’t follow anyone’s directions except for a Democrat President, and we only do that for five minutes after he’s become president. But these were parents. It was hot. It was going to take them hours to get through the line and two cars for each train were going empty to the next stop which was Disney World. How could they not assess the situation and fill up all the cars going? Not one of them moved to the empty premier line.

Twenty years later. And there I was, stopped dead in my tracks, following the voice out of thin air telling me to focus on the sides. I mean I didn’t stop and consider what he said for one minute. I just did it. Was I proud or what? I realize I like being told what to do.

I was thinking I might make a audio tape and put it in my iPhone that says, “Focus.” I could play it every twenty minutes or so and make sure I’m focusing on what I started and not what distracted me on my way to doing it. Might work.

I saw Lisa Cholodenko on Charlie Rose with Julienne Moore talking about her new film, The Kids are Alright, and thought it was a must see just because Lisa was so articulate and Julienne was so adoring. She went on and on about how much she’d wanted to do a Cholondenko film. I thought I should check it out.

It’s the story of a lesbian couple’s two children, sired by a sperm donor, and their desire to know him and the dynamics of a family in crisis, not because of finding him, but centered around him. I don’t want to give it away, but suffice to say that if you have ever had any issue of any kind in a relationship, or with your family, or with your career, it is touched on in this movie. This is the movie’s greatest strength and greatest weakness. (I have always believed, by the way, that whatever is your greatest strength is most likely also your greatest weakness, or if I am going to be politically correct, greatest challenge. Example: I’m very creative and all over the place. I have moments of greatness because of it and times of failure. And, this parenthesis is off track to prove my point.) Anyway… there is too much going on in the movie. I was exhausted by all the sub-plot drama. Exhausted I tell you.

That said, the director, writer, and producer, Lisa Cholodenko, is clearly a genius. Her dialog is flawless; her close ups are truly the best I’ve seen. You feel the characters because of how close she gets. Normally when someone on the screen is talking, we watch them talk but usually see the person they are speaking to as well and that’s the focus. She just gets in the face of the person speaking, and you are right there. Amazing. Kudos Lisa.

Let’s get to Julienne Moore and Annette Bening. Both are good actors. But I have decided you have to be an amazing actor to change sexual preferences on screen. I know them both too well, and their characters being lesbians didn’t work for me. I have seen them too many damn times as women who love and seduce men to be able to make that transition in the theater. Then I started to think about the really well known actors that have successfully portrayed themselves in different sexual roles and felt that the only one who really nailed it was Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. Remember how great he was? I believed he was gay and maybe I did because he was so subtle. He wasn’t flaming, and if he had been, I wouldn’t have bought him as a gay man dying of AIDS. And, what’s with the nudity? It added nothing Julienne, and while you got in amazing shape for it, it didn’t work.

The kids were great and Mark Ruffalo as the sperm donor, Mr. Cool Dad and one liners filled with wisdom was perfect. I especially liked the gardener. He’s fabulous and talk about expressions. I laughed out loud and his face said so much more than the words ever could.

Back to the exhausting plot. I like that she leaves some things undone at the end. Not sure if they will haunt me, but I can say that twelve hours later, I’m still thinking about whether their son has forgiven him? Go see it and let me know what you think.

All in all, great movie. Casting brilliant except for the starring roles. (You can’t get everything perfect.) Great writing. I am thinking Lisa might be the woman’s version of Woody Allen. Might.

+

Then I saw the following headline yesterday, “Rush to Arrest Russian Spies After Phone Call to Father.” Excuse me? Rush? Twenty years? You can’t make this stuff up. Talk about food for fodder. I’m a registered ADD girl, and I know my attention span is limited, but rushing after twenty years? Not so much.

I keep thinking of the poor schlub who got assigned this duty a few weeks out of the FBI academy. He – or she – thought they were going to be the next Jodi Foster, come in, solve the case in a few months, and then “rise all the way to the top of the F B I.” (Quote is from Silence of the Lambs. Jodi Foster is talking to Hannibal Lecter and he spits it at her.) Twenty years later, those poor people have watched their subjects age and know their every move and nothing, I mean nothing, has come from it. I want to interview one of the agents who spent their entire career following these dangerous spies?

Here is what I think. I think that those on the detail for these ‘spies’ got together and said, “Selves, enough of this ridiculous clandestine following of fools. Let’s ‘rush’ the pick up by making up a phone call between Spy Lady (“Old Lady” by now if you ask me) and her father, and we can get out of this.” Then poof, they would get reassigned to something important. Is it a conspiracy theory by Christine? Why, yes it is. Is it of the caliber of The Pelican Brief? Why, no it’s not, but never underestimate the desperation a person following another person for twenty years feels.

Either way, hail to those that followed this Eastern Block turkeys. Way to hang in there.

I’m just saying.

If a huge house is burning, everyone in the neighborhood becomes a firefighter. They all rush over to the burning building. They help direct traffic, run in if the firefighters haven’t arrived yet to save the children, turn on the hose and point the stream of water onto the flames. They don’t just stand there watching, or head off to their normal jobs driving by the disaster at their sister-home.

“Where is she going with this,” I hear you ask already? Keep your knickers on. I’m getting there.

We leaked oil into the already people-polluted ocean. We have it spreading all over the place. We also have really smart people on the planet. Stephen Hawking comes to mind. All those brain-peeps from NASA. Physicists out the wazoo. Ok, people, it’s all hands on deck. Mars will still be there waiting for you in a year after you fix this burning home sitting right next to you. The black hole can wait another year or so to be explained. Seriously. Everyone needs to try and find a solution. Rome is burning and you’re worrying about black holes? Get a grip people.

We need every smart person to go the gulf, be indoctrinated into the fine workings of what happens to the ocean when oil spews into it, and then everyone needs to go put their thinking caps on to figure out what to do about it. Fix it. Get it outta there.

You think I’m nuts? There is a famous story about how a large eighteen-wheeler truck got stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel in New York. The driver didn’t read the sign that said the height restriction was shorter than his vehicle. All hands were on deck. Fire department. Police. Transit peeps. You get the picture. There was a car stuck behind the truck with a nine year old boy in it. Everyone was out of their cars watching them try and figure out how to get the roof off the truck. The little kid went over to the police officer and said, “Excuse me smart officer. If you let the air out of the tires, I think it will work.” Now, I wasn’t there, and this could be folklore, but either way, shouldn’t everyone be putting on their thinking caps?

I’m a smart person. I have been thinking about this myself. I was thinking about how long it takes olive oil to seep through cheesecloth. It’s a cooking thing. So, make a huge net of cheesecloth, surround one of the moving flotillas of oil and scoop it up and crane it onto a barge. You roll yours eyes? Ok, smarty pants, what did you think of as a solution? At least I’m trying.

This is not rocket science. Or maybe it is, but this is the time when if you have brain power, you need to bring it to the sister-ship. Now.