Reading Report: After Claude

Written by Iris Owens
New York Review Books, 2010; 216 pages
Originally published 1973

This review refers to an advance uncorrected proof of the reissued novel.

Description from the publisher:

Harriet has left her boyfriend Claude, “the French rat.” At least that is how she prefers to frame the matter. In fact, after yet one more argument, Claude has just instructed Harriet to move out of his Greenwich Village apartment—not that she has any intention of doing so. To the contrary, she will stay and exact her vengeance—or such is her intention until Claude has her unceremoniously evicted. Still, though moved out, Harriet is not about to move on. Not in any way. Girlfriends circle around to give advice, but Harriet only takes offense, and you can understand why. Because mad and maddening as she may be, Harriet sees past the polite platitudes that everyone else is content to spout and live by. She is an unblinkered, unbuttoned, unrelenting, and above all bitingly funny prophetess of all that is wrong with women’s lives and hearts—until, in a surprise twist, she finds a savior in a dark room at the Chelsea Hotel.

About the Author:

Iris Owens [born 1929] moved from Greenwich Village to Paris at the age of twenty after her first marriage failed. She wrote numerous wildly popular and regularly banned erotic novels for the Traveller's Companion series of Olympia Press under the pseudonym Harriet Daimler. Under her own name, she published After Claude and Hope Diamond Refuses. She died in 2008.

My Thoughts:

Iris Owens' 1973 novel After Claude is an odd little portrait of a woman going off the rails. At times funny, at times very sad, it's a fascinating character study and an interesting early attempt at creating a female anti-hero. It was very well received at the time of its original publication; Owens was hailed as a fresh new voice in the throng of women novelists, and her book was even compared to Erica Jong's Fear of Flying. Understandable, I suppose, because Iris Owens writes like a dream – too bad she wasn't more prolific (I'm not likely to seek out any of the pornographic stuff she wrote under her Harriet Daimler pseudonym).

But while Jong's heroine is just as free-wheeling and libidinous as Owens' Harriet, Fear of Flying is a much richer and more thoughtful book, and its central character much more sympathetic. In the end, there's really not much that's admirable about Harriet – she's profane and profligate, opinionated and egotistical. She claims to be sensitive and caring; in reality she's selfish and dependent. She spends most of the book trying to trick or harangue the various male characters into taking care of her so she won't have to work for her living. And she takes an instantaneous dislike to every female she sees.

All of which makes me almost embarrassed to say I ended up enjoying this book much more than I thought I would when I started it. After the first few pages of Harriet's "mad and maddening" narration, I was almost ready to abandon the book. The experience was a little like being trapped in a dark, messy room and being forced to listen to Joan Rivers standup routines for forty-eight hours without let-up. But listening to Harriet is also like viewing the proverbial train wreck – it's horrendous, and yet you can't look away.

Even though I never really thought of myself as a feminist, I believe I probably would have liked this book a lot more if I'd read it when it first appeared in the early '70s. Back then I would most likely have seen the work as funny, edgy, and iconoclastic. But it hasn't aged well. Or maybe that's just me who hasn't aged well.

I should mention that the advance copy I read lacked the introduction by Emily Prager, which I'd like to take a look at. I do applaud NYRB for their courage in reissuing this work, since it's probably not going to be a huge seller. Worth reading, I think, but definitely not for everyone.

[Note: I received the advance reading copy of this novel free of charge from the publisher, through Library Thing's Early Reviewer program. No other form of compensation was offered or accepted, and no one attempted to influence my opinion of the book.]

Review: Summer Reading

Written by Hilma Wolitzer
Published by Ballantine Books, 2007; 251 pages

I was a little suspicious of Hilma Wolitzer’s novel Summer Reading when I first read the plot summary. A book about a group of women getting together to read books, and how that activity affected their lives outside the group, sounded an awful lot like The Jane Austen Book Club. And while I enjoyed that earlier work, I wasn’t eager to read a carbon copy. So when I put Wolitzer’s book on my reading list for this past summer, I had some misgivings. After all, a book called Summer Reading just couldn’t really turn out to be a great summer read, could it?

Well, as it happens, it most certainly could! And I needn’t have worried about it being a carbon copy. It definitely is not that. Wolitzer’s novel is original and very readable, with well-developed characters, a lot of humor, and a few surprises thrown in along the way.

Basically, it’s the story of three very different women – how they interact, and how reading (or not reading, at times) affects their lives. Lissy Snyder, the wealthy “trophy wife” of a Wall Street type, is the originator of a reading group (called the Page Turners) that meets twice a month at her summer place in the Hamptons. Michelle Cutty, Lissy’s hired help, is younger than Lissy and a permanent resident of the beach community – as opposed to the “summer people” who invade the place during the tourist season. And Angela Graves, a retired English professor who lives in a tiny book-filled cottage by the sea, has been engaged by Lissy to lead the discussion at the group’s meetings.

Angela guides the Page Turners through five books in the course of the novel: Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope, Villette by Charlotte Brontë, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell, and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. And these works, each in its own way an exploration of male-female relationships, cause each woman to reexamine how her own past actions and decisions have shaped her life.

All of the characters were intriguing – even the minor ones like Michelle’s mother Jo Ann and April, the first wife of Michelle’s boyfriend Hank. But I think my favorite was Angela. I’m always looking for books with interesting older women in leading roles – they’re not easy to find. I liked her because she was a book lover, and something of a loner. And the back story of her affair with a married colleague – an interlude from many years ago that has shaped the whole of her life since then – was touching and sad and also a little exasperating. She just seemed very human.

The only quibble I have with the book (and it’s really a minor one) is the slightly surprising ending to Lissy’s story. It involves a coincidence of fairly epic proportions (well, epic to Lissy, anyway), and isn’t quite as believable as the rest of the book. But it does provide a very satisfying, if not terribly realistic wrap-up to an otherwise entirely appealing read.

Review: American Wife

Written by Curtis Sittenfeld
Published by Random House, 2008, 550+ pages
This review refers to an Advance Reader’s Edition of the book

It’s taken me a long time to get this book read. By now, I suppose everybody knows the story. So here’s the shortest synopsis I can come up with: Mild-mannered school librarian (who is not Laura Welch Bush) marries scion of a prominent political family, who turns out to be a future President of the United States (and who is not George Walker Bush), in spite of major social, philosophical and political differences, while at the same time wrestling with the emotional toll of past trauma and indiscretions. A little like a train wreck – it’s disturbing, but you can’t look away. Much too long and rambling, but overall I think it’s an interesting book.

I suppose I should start off by ‘fessing up – I came to this book with a real chip on my shoulder. Well, two chips, actually. First of all there’s the whole George/Laura Bush thing. And then there’s the generation gap thing. OK, three chips – there was also the name thing.

I’ll start with the name thing because that was the most ridiculous and the most quickly remedied. Curtis Sittenfeld. What kind of a name is that for a nice young female author? I was amazed to find that CS was a woman – I’d never heard of her earlier works (I mostly dozed through the early years of this century), so I was all set to read a book written by a male author. Not that I’ve got anything against female authors. Hey, two of my favorite writers are Barbara Pym and Muriel Spark and you can’t get much more female than those two. So, after I got over the initial surprise and feeling slightly deceived, I was able to move on.

For me, the George Bush connection was an enormous problem right at first (not that this is a book about George and Laura Bush, you understand – of course not). I’m probably Dubya’s biggest non-fan. Even before he became our fearless leader and the Decider and all that, the very mention of his name could set me off in an eruption of mindless rants and ravings (my husband said it made me foam at the mouth, but I don’t think that’s literally true). George Bush, after all, represents everything I was glad to leave behind when I migrated away from my home state. And the man isn’t even a real Texan – he was born in Connecticut, for heaven’s sake! See – there I go.

The generation problem was more serious (if not any less idiotic) than the first two hang-ups. Once I found out a little about Sittenfeld and realized she was in her early thirties, I again felt a bit deceived and discomfited. How could someone barely past adolescence presume to write about someone of my generation? To understand and portray what it’s like to have come of age during the turbulence of the sixties and seventies? To say anything meaningful about the doubts and problems of age now facing us Baby Boomers? Or the compromises and adjustments necessary to maintain a marriage over several decades? Authors many years older than Sittenfeld have failed miserably at the task. Who was she to expect to succeed? The hubris of the chick!

Well, after reading American Wife, I have to say I think she did a pretty good job. I felt the book was about a third longer than it really needed to be, but it held my interest all the way through (OK, I skimmed a few sections, but not many). She took a big risk, writing about such a recent period of history, not having lived through it herself. And she mostly got it right. Mostly. A few of the details are a little off – for instance, if I’d showed up at my high school in 1963 (or anywhere, for that matter), wearing a felt skirt or saddle oxfords, I’d have been stripped of my membership in the Youthquake Generation. But these slip-ups are few and far between and wouldn’t really rate a mention, if the book didn’t depend so heavily on a build-up of such period detail.

What she doesn’t do quite so well is persuade me that the Alice/Laura character could be (and remain) so attracted to and sympathetic with the Charlie/George character. From the beginning, they seem to have nothing in common. She’s well-mannered, self-effacing, bookish, and genteel. He’s arrogant, nearly illiterate, boorish, and crude. She’s working class and socially liberal; he’s old-money conservative. I know opposites are supposed to attract (especially in literature), but their relationship really does require a massive suspension of disbelief. I mean, the man has the brain power of a sand dollar, and yet she gives up her career for him! And abandons her best friend to marry him! And stays married to him for thirty years – and bears him a child! Oops, there I go – foaming at the mouth again.

Random Photo Monday: Oceanids

One more photo from last summer's beach week.
This time – water nymphs with cameras.

Booking Through Thursday: Heroine

This week's BTT topic:
Who is your favorite female lead character? And why? (And yes, of course, you can name more than one . . . I always have trouble narrowing down these things to one name, why should I force you to?)

Looks like I'm a bit late, as usual. And this is a really tough question. I guess my absolute favorite female heroine would have to be Alice from the Lewis Carroll books – she was a very early literary love, and I still re-read those books frequently. I also enjoy Barbara Pym's women; but in her case, it's the type of heroine I'm responding to, rather than any single character. And Miss Marple will always be a favorite, too – I love the way she's always not what she seems.

I'm beginning to appreciate Elizabeth Bennet more now, after seeing the mini-series on PBS - in fact, that show has inspired me to re-read the novel. I like her sense of humor and the way she stands by her family even though they don't always seem to deserve such loyalty. Have to say, when I first read Pride and Prejudice in high school, I thought Lizzie and Darcy both were boring beyond belief. Interesting what a difference a few decades can make! And recently I've discovered a new favorite in Nancy Clark's The Hills At Home – its main character Lily Hill seems a bit like a modern Lizzie who's grown old and never got to marry her Mr. Darcy.

But I suppose my earliest favorite "literary" chick was Lulu Moppet. She's funny, resourceful, courageous, honest, and loyal, has lots of exciting adventures, and her hair is never out of place. Hate to admit that my love of reading was sparked in large part by a comic book character, but it is the truth. And the fact that I have a large Little Lulu collection squirreled away must mean that she still has a place in my heart.

Review: Crewel World

Written by Monica Ferris
Published by Berkley Prime Crime Books, 1999, 243 pp.

If she could get into the rhythm of the needlework, she would find peace. That's why she loved needlepoint – it worked like meditation. It was better than meditation, actually, because after a while you found you had both peace of mind and a work of art. [Chapter 9, p. 116]

In addition to the "formal" reading challenges I have going this year, I've set up a personal challenge for myself to complete the series of Betsy Devonshire mysteries by Monica Ferris.

Now in theory, I believe you should always start out with the first book in a series. But somehow I usually manage to jump right into the middle somewhere. Thus, I started Ferris's "Needlework" series with the fifth title, A Murderous Yarn, and followed that with the fourth book, Unraveled Sleeve. Not very organized, I know – but I loved the series and knew I wanted to read them all. So I figured it was time to knuckle down and read the opener.

Crewel World introduces us to Betsy Devonshire and her younger sister Margot Berglund. In California, Betsy's marriage to a philandering college professor has just broken up; so Margot invites her for an extended visit in Excelsior, Minnesota, where Margot owns and operates a needlework shop, the "Crewel World" of the title. The two sisters haven't seen each other for years when the story begins, and they both enjoy the reunion – in fact, Margot encourages Betsy to make Excelsior her new home and even gives her a job in the shop. The small town is friendly and Betsy is settling in comfortably when disaster strikes – Margot is found murdered, and Betsy is drawn into the search for her killer.

Having already read a couple of the later books, I missed out on a good deal of the mystery in this one – I knew that several of the suspects were innocent and would return as regulars in the later novels. But that certainly didn't spoil the enjoyment. And although I sussed out the culprit pretty early on, watching Betsy develop both her sleuthing and needlework skills was lots of fun (if murder can ever be considered fun).

Of course one of the main attractions of the books, for me anyway, is their emphasis on the "needle arts" – I've always been an admirer if not much of a practitioner. And they're definitely cozy mysteries – set in a small town with a lot of interesting characters and day-to-day detail, and not a lot of gore or mayhem – another reason to keep me reading.

But I think the main thing I like about the books is Betsy herself. Already 55 when the series begins, she's not quite sure where life is leading her:

Betsy remembered reading somewhere that while men are scared of birthdays ending in zero, women are frightened by birthdays ending in five. Certainly Betsy was. Fifty-five is no longer young, even when considered while you were in good spirits. Fifty-five can see old age rushing toward it like a mighty tree axed at the root. All too soon it would be crash: sixty! [Chapter 1, p. 10]

Betsy Devonshire is someone a reader of a certain age can really identify with.

(Each book in this series includes a free needlework pattern. In this first book, the pattern is a magnificent Chinese horse, adapted from a T'ang Dynasty sculpture – a tie-in with the book's plot, and much too ambitious for the inexperienced needle-worker. I believe the patterns in most of the later books have been a bit less intricate. You can learn more about the Betsy Devonshire books and their author by visiting the Monica Ferris web site.)

The Horse Race and The Dog Show

So I guess things didn't turn out exactly the way I would have liked in the Virginia and Maryland primaries yesterday. But I'm not despairing – the race is still pretty much neck and neck, and we've still got Texas and Ohio to look forward to.

One nice development was that M decided to back Hill, too – at least that's what he's telling me. For a while it looked like we'd cancel each other out, since he was leaning toward Obama.

But even though the election contest might not be going my way, I finally managed to pick a winner at Westminster. Uno the Beagle won Best in Show last night and saved the day from being a total washout. Finally a beagle in the spotlight – take that, you nasty poodles!

Our Own Super Tuesday

Finally it's our turn - "Potomac Primary" time tomorrow. I'll be out bright and early, and I'm really hoping for a little warmer weather because I'll be walking over to vote.

So, if you live in Virginia or Maryland, go vote! And may the best woman win!

Review: Civil To Strangers

Written by Barbara Pym
Published by E.P. Dutton, 1987
Edited by Hazel Holt

I first learned about Barbara Pym back in the early 1980s, probably not long after she died. In those days, it was still rather difficult to find her books in this country. But M. and I spent the summer of 1982 in England, and I picked up a couple of her novels at Blackwell's in Oxford - I believe they were Some Tame Gazelle and Jane and Prudence. And from the opening sentence of that first book ("The new curate seemed quite a nice young man, but what a pity it was that his combinations showed, tucked carelessly into his socks, when he sat down."), I was hooked.

As rapidly as possible, I acquired and devoured all the novels then in print. I became a Pym fanatic, even going so far as to execute my own Pym pilgrimage on a later England trip – visiting places she'd lived and her old college in Oxford (St. Hilda's). It helped that M. had become almost equally enthusiastic about her books, and indulged my whim. In fact, we liked the books so much, we started forcing them on friends and colleagues – sort of forming our own little Barbara Pym fan club for a time.

While I was reading the novels, I discovered A Very Private Eye, the "Autobiography in Diaries and Letters," edited by her sister Hilary Pym and Barbara's friend and literary executor, Hazel Holt. It was a wonderful, fascinating look at the woman behind the novels – I read it quickly and have re-read it many times since.

And after that, the darkness. Or so it appeared for a time, anyway. I'd read all the novels and the autobiography, and it seemed like that was all there was to be. Barbara Pym had died in 1980 – I would just have to content myself with re-reading her ten wonderful books (sniff).

Well, I needn't have felt so bereft – there were more works to appear, posthumously: the novels Crampton Hodnet and An Academic Question, and then a collection of pieces, including the novel Civil to Strangers. And of course, I gobbled them all up immediately – all of them, that is, except Civil To Strangers. For some reason, I was keeping that one in reserve. Saving it up – like a fine wine or the last bon-bon in the box. Just knowing that there was one more Pym out there to be discovered gave me a nice comforting, hopeful feeling.

And then the Winter Reading Challenge came along, and I said, "why not?" and pulled out my last Pym. Dear Barbara.

Although not published until after her death, Civil To Strangers was actually the second novel Barbara Pym wrote – in 1936 when she was twenty-three, after the first version of Some Tame Gazelle was rejected by several publishers. And as Hazel Holt says in her introduction, it has "all the confidence of youth."

The novel is the story of Cassandra Marsh-Gibbon and her novelist husband Adam who live in the Shropshire village of Up Callow; and as the dust jacket says, "both the village and Cassandra's marriage are thrown into upheaval when a mysterious Hungarian moves into town." And I'm not going to give away much more than that. But the story of Cassandra and Stefan Tilos, and whether they will or won't (or have or haven't) run off to Budapest together, is just the central narrative around which a number of other tales are woven. And all the familiar Pym character types are represented – the Rector and his family; Mr. Paladin the very eligible young curate; the aging bachelor Mr. Gay and his spinster niece Angela, who are "still hoping that there was a rich woman or an eligible husband in the town whom they had somehow missed in their search."

Barbara Pym has often been compared to Jane Austen (unfair, I think, to both authors), and this is probably the most Austen-like of all her books. In fact, I was a little surprised at first at how little it seemed to resemble the later novels. But after a few chapters, the familiar Pym voice started to emerge and I realized that it's actually one of her most comic works. Only Barbara Pym could have written lines like these:

"Holmwood is let," said Mrs Gower in tones of satisfaction, "and to a foreigner!"
"Oh!" Mrs Wilmot gasped. "Are you sure it's true?"
"Oh yes," Mrs Gower replied. "I saw him coming down the drive. Quite dark and wearing a black hat."
"Really . . . " mused Mrs Wilmot, a smile stealing over her eager little face. After the black hat there could of course be no doubt. [Chapter 5, p. 43]

or,

"I daresay he is going to Birmingham," said Mrs Gower, still on the subject of Mr Tilos.
"Yes, perhaps he is," said Mr Gay lazily. "Let us be thankful that we are not going there." [Chapter 18, p. 121]

or,

"Science is weaker than Nature," said Adam positively. He looked as if he were about to quote Wordsworth, but Cassandra stopped him in time. [Chapter 25, p. 169]

And the whole of Chapter 14, where all the characters come together for a bridge party and get to know their newly arrived foreign neighbor for the first time, is absolutely perfect Pym. Hardly anything happens, but it's quietly hilarious just the same.

The novel is included in a collection (under the title Civil To Strangers and Other Writings) along with several more works also unpublished at the time of Pym's death. They're all worth reading, of course; and the final piece, "Finding a Voice," is especially interesting to those of us who are under the Pym-ish spell. It's a transcription of a radio program she did for the BBC in 1978, part of a series by well-known writers speaking about how they found their own personal writing styles.

In her introduction to the collection, Hazel Holt says Pym was "pleased to be asked to contribute [to the program], since it was a confirmation at last of her position as a professional writer." In the BBC talk, Pym asks if it's enough just to write for oneself if nobody else is going to read it. And she comes to the conclusion that, though she might not go on writing if absolutely no one were reading, so long as a few people are there "to spur me on," she'll go on: "So I try to write what pleases and amuses me in the hope that a few others will like it, too."

And I'm so glad she did go on. But what am I going to do now that I've read my last Pym? Start at the beginning and read them all again, I suppose. Because there's no one quite like her.

Dear Barbara.

(For an introduction to Barbara Pym and her work, you can visit the "Official Web Site" of the Barbara Pym Society at http://www.barbara-pym.org/.)

Winter Reading Challenge 2008

I'm Not Very Political, But...

Woke up to great news today. Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire Democratic primary. I was surprised at how happy that made me. Guess I didn't realize how much I wanted her to win until it looked like she would lose!

Not that I'm a huge Hillary fan – in fact, I'd really be an Edwards supporter, if I thought he had any chance of winning. I don't dislike her in the way M. seems to, but I have my own problems with her policies and with her personality. However, I think I agree with a comment on last night's evening news – one woman voter said she didn't want to look back, ten years from now, and have to say she didn't vote for the first female president.

Well, that may be a slightly ditzy remark, but I think I know what she meant. And that's sort of the way I feel – men have been screwing things up for centuries now. Maybe it's time they gave us little ladies a chance.

Also, I was really put off by the reactions to her "emotional breakdown" the other day. Both the press and the other candidates were like sharks who'd tasted blood. I was especially disappointed in John Edwards' remark about the U.S. needing a strong leader. Where the heck is it written that a person can't show a little emotion and still be a strong leader? Mothers have been doing that since the beginning of time.

So now it's on to Michigan and Nevada and South Carolina. Go, Hillary!

Gall Stones, Gidget, and Other Matters

Recently I spent a week in the hospital, having my gall bladder and a bunch of stones ripped out. Actually, they didn't do any ripping – the surgery was laparoscopic. But a week in the hospital is never a load of fun. I couldn't move around much. The light wasn't good for reading. And my roommate spent the week entertaining and being entertained by a constant flow of enormous crowds of friends and relatives, who spoke beautiful Spanish which I could ALMOST but not quite understand. So I watched a lot of TV. A LOT of TV. And, since the channel lineup was limited to the major networks and news channels, I ended up watching a lot of TV programs I wouldn't normally watch. And one of those programs was Madonna's extravaganza of a stage show – her "Confessions Tour" concert.

Now ordinarily, I wouldn't even know that Madonna was still around. I'm not a celebrity watcher – for the longest time, I thought Jessica Simpson was one of Homer's daughters. And I've only recently figured out who "Jen" is. I think. But, as I said, hospital TV is a great eye-opener. And when you're flat on your back in a hospital bed, and it's Thanksgiving time, too, you grab all the distraction you can latch onto. So I watched a bit of her show. Not the whole thing – I was already in quite a lot of pain – but enough to make a few observations.

First off, she still looks great. Well, that's a "natch," right? I mean if you've got a massive staff of hair dressers, makeup artists, fashion police, fitness trainers, personal assistants, maids, butlers, drivers, hot-and-cold running nannies and the like, following you around 24 hours a day, looking your best must be like falling off a log. So she's not hard to look at.

And obviously, she can still pull a crowd. She's very energetic. She was always a pretty good dancer, of course, and she's kept in shape (again, see above paragraph). She does a lot of running and jumping around, and gives a lot of spectacle bang for your concert buck – especially if you're watching her perform for free on TV.

But the routines are pretty much the same old stuff, and though it's meant to be edgy and sexy, it sort of comes across as a little bit silly and, finally, more than a little bit disturbing.

When Madonna burst upon the scene back in the 1980s, her woman-as-unmade-bed persona was different and strangely appealing. Like Cyndi Lauper, she was so unusual. She was funny and kitschy and, yes, sexy, and the music was bouncy and hum-able and you could dance to it (I'd give it an 84). And the videos – "Borderline," "Like a Virgin," "Papa Don't Preach" and the rest – were fresh and entertaining.

Well, now we're twenty years further along. Even given the fact that La Madonna was only in her twenties back in the MTV era, she's forty-something now. Pushing 50, I'd say. And the concept of a middle-aged woman writhing around on nationwide TV, bumping and grinding and being pawed by a bunch of chorus boys, while she's grabbing and stroking her private parts, isn't really sexy so much as it is just kind of sad.

It's tough to get old. Well, oldER. And I know it must be VERY tough for entertainers. Especially entertainers who've built their careers on youthful rebellion and "attitude." It's hard to be rebellious and iconoclastic when you've got so much personal material baggage to maintain. So I can see that someone like Madonna would occasionally get an itch to step back in time and show the world she can still kick up her heels a bit (as it were). But it's an itch that really shouldn't be scratched in public. And definitely not in front of a public made up of the world's adolescents. So I have some simple advice. Get yourself some Vagisil, sweetie, and GROW UP!

One more observation about the amazing things you can see on TV. Sally Field is doing commercials for Boniva, a drug to slow bone-loss in women with osteoporosis. I've always kind of liked Sally Field – she's cute and funny and reminds me of my Aunt Betty Jean. And I was a big "Gidget" fan back in the 60s. Well, Sally still looks pretty good, and still seems cute and funny and appealing in a loopy sort of way – a little like "Gidget Grows Up and Turns into a Ditzy Old Broad." However, a cute old broad. She certainly doesn't look like osteoporosis is getting her down, and I wish her well.

But there's one commercial that I keep seeing over and over, and it gets more irritating every time it shows up. It's the one in which Sally tells us a tale about her "girl friend" who has to set aside a WHOLE morning EVERY week just to take her osteoporosis medication. Poor dear.

Now to start with, I'll just have to ignore the fact that I don't really believe movie stars have such things as girl friends (colleagues, yes – personal assistants, of course – girl friends, no way). The question I really want to ask is this: Sally, have you ever actually TAKEN a PILL? Are you at all familiar with the mechanism? It works this way. You remove your pill from its container. You place it on your tongue. You take a swig of whatever expensive bottled water you favor. You throw back your head and swallow. And, voila, the pill is gone. Pouf! You've done it. And the whole operation has taken what, maybe twenty seconds?

So if this is something that your girl friend has to "set aside" time for, somebody should check her technique – she could use some pointers. Refer her to this blog.