Guilty Pleasures

Last night, Pat and Ariel sat me down to watch the DVD of Mamma Mia. This movie could just as well be titled Chick Flick for all of the singing, dancing, and utterly outrageous story, all tenuously held together by the music of ABBA. It is a remake of Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell, a 1968 tearjerker starring Gina Lollobrigida. Mamma Mia has a star-studded cast, great actors all, but unfortunately, not a singer amongst them. The sole exception is Christine Baranski, a veteran Broadway actress, who knows how to play to the balcony.

ABBA, as we all know, was a Swedish pop group who blended disco and pop to produce total schlock. Schlock sells and for a time, ABBA was the number one money-maker from Sweden, bringing in more money than Volvo.

Lord help me, I actually enjoyed the film. I don’t know if it was Meryl Streep singing her way through “Dancing Queen”, or the guy who played the dead pirate with barnacles on his face in Pirates of the Caribbean, or Colin Firth playing a totally befuddled second male lead (“where am I? and what is this terrible movie I’m in?”). Actually the best part was listening to Pierce Brosnan (“Bond, James Bond”) singing. At last, I have found someone who has a worse voice than I do! He not only misses the key, he misses the door, the building, and the whole damn zip code.

When the three males leads come on for the final big production number, it is worth sitting through the first couple of days of the film. No human male should have to wear what they had on. They forfeit all of their guy rights for the next 10 years for that one.

I guess I have company, Mamma Mia is the highest grossing movie musical in history. The National Movie Awards gave it Best Musical, with Streep winning Best Actress and Brosnan getting a nomination for Best Actor. The Golden Globes nominated it for Best Picture, and Best Actress. There is even talk of a sequel, apparently there are a lot of unused ABBA songs left to go.

I think I’ll skip the sequel, but at least I know I can sing better than James Bond.

The Wreaths of Old Town

Last Saturday we went to the Scottish Walk parade in Old Town, Alexandria. The Scottish Walk is an old local tradition, celebrating Alexandria’s Scots heritage. Pipe bands, politicians, Scottish clan societies, and hordes of Scottish dog breeds march over a round-about course for a dozen or so blocks. Our son, Alec, was a drummer for the City of Alexandria Pipes and Drums Band and we have been attending the Walk ever since.


An extra added treat is walking down the quieter streets and looking at the Christmas wreaths on the doors. Some are plain, others beautiful in their intricacy. The wreaths are entries in an informal contest, one that has been going on for over 35 years. Organized and judged by the Old Town Walled Garden Club, winners are announced in the Alexandria Gazette Packet newspaper. They receive a small prize (usually a gift certificate to a local restaurant) and bragging rights for the year.



The rules are simple: residents must decorate their own wreaths and use only natural materials (except ribbon), no lights, and no professional florists. Judges drive all 40 miles of Old Town's streets, coming to a consensus by the end of the day.



Door owners in Old Town take the "only natural materials (except ribbon)" rule to extremes. Wreaths run the gamut from plain pine and cedar with ribbon, to flowers, or seed pods, or whole oranges studded with cloves, or anything else from the fruit and vegetable bin.





Some wreaths are made from tropical fruit, complete with pineapples. Pineapples are a colonial symbol of welcome, dating from long sea voyages to the Indies. Upon return, the sea captain would display a pineapple to show he was home and receiving visitors.





There are wreaths made of ribbon, taking the "except ribbon" clause to the edge.


More than one wreath is made with feathers.


Wreaths with artichokes and other assorted veggies,


Wreaths made from tree bark,


One made from pears,


One made from seashells,


And even one made from red potatoes.


I don’t know who will take home the gift certificate, but if these photos are any example, the judges will be hard put to declare a winner. I guess the non-winners eat the tasty parts of their wreath.

Time Flies Like an Arrow; Face Flies Like Cows

When I was in grad school, I worked for the USDA as an integrated pest management field technician. My job consisted of traipsing out to various beef and dairy farms in Howard County, Maryland, to monitor face flies. Face flies are an imported livestock pest, originally from the Old World. They breed in cow dung and feed on cattles' nasal and eye secretions. While they don’t bite, they can become so annoying to the animal that milk production and weight gain suffer, causing monetary loss to the farmer.

In the late spring, I was part of a team setting up face fly monitoring stations. We would pull up to a farm and go into the pasture, first checking for bulls (dairy bulls are mean as snake spit). We set up tiny corrals of about 50 square feet, using three metal fence posts and barbed wire. Into each enclosure, we placed three fly traps made of plywood and painted white (Glidden’s semi-gloss exterior). The trap's shape, combined with the UV reflectance of the paint, presented the flies with the model of a bovine face; flies key in on angle and UV. We used a hand-held post driver (a short length of steel pipe plugged with concrete) and plenty of wire; enough to spiral around the enclosure three times. It was hard, dirty work and we averaged two farms a day, with two or more corrals per farm.

One day, we decided to go to McDonald’s for lunch. The team consisted of a PhD entomologist (later to become the chief entomologist of Guam), a PhD candidate, and an Master's candidate—me. Among the three of us, we totaled close to a half-century of education. We were tired, cold, and filthy from the work—we had discovered a dairy bull, a Holstein the size of a Cadillac and close to six feet tall at the shoulders—and had spent an eventful morning alternately working and running for our lives to get over the pasture fence.

Behind us in line were a father and his small son. “Daddy,” the kid asked, “why are those men so dirty?” I overheard the reply, sotto voce, “That’s why you need to work hard in school; otherwise you’ll wind up like them.”

White Cats for Obama

We were watching a rerun of Jon Stuart and the Daily Show the other night. Stuart was interviewing Barrak Obama, then just a candidate. When the camera isolated on Obama, Flint, our male white Maine coon cat, perked up his ears and trotted to the screen. He sat down in front of the tube and watched Obama, devoting his complete attention to the screen. When the camera cut back to Stuart, Flint blinked and turned away as if to leave. But Obama came back on and Flint was once again enraptured. He jumped up on the TV table and began pawing at the screen, nuzzling and purring loud enough to be heard from several feet away. As long as the President-elect was on TV, Flint was riveted. As soon as the interview ended, he jumped down and resumed his previous activities: washing and begging for food.

Huh.

Neither cat has ever shown any interest in television, even during the wildlife programs. I guess cats are natural born Democrats.