Mr. Selfridge Want Ads (Episode 5)

WANTED: The best physician money can buy! Must be board certified in the most advanced medical techniques, such as asking a coma victim if he knows his own name or who the prime minister is. The successful candidate will be a forward thinker who does not subscribe to the archaic notion of bed rest, but allows patients with traumatic head injuries to wander across town on foot.

WANTED: A voice dub for Harry’s mother, as listening to her speak is a painful experience for all involved.

WANTED: A Wig Maker for Lady Mae. Must be skilled in strategic placement of hair, post-relations.  Successful candidate will be adept at creating the “mermaid on a rock” look.

WANTED: Microchips for the Selfridge children who wander willy-nilly into the most dangerous parts of London.

WANTED: A more than two second look at the display window the entire second half of the show built up to.

WANTED: Storyline development on other more interesting characters than Miss Towler and Miss Love. Yawn.......

WANTED: Sucker of the Year award for Victor, who thinks Lady Mae is going to set him up in business.

WANTED: MORE MR. CRABB!!  He’s an adorable puppy you just want to take home!

Call the midwife! Mr. Selfridge has left me in a coma.

                                                                                       Click here to go to LOLSNAPS.com

The real life Mr. Selfridge died impoverished; a shadow of once great promise. So, too, dies his show. The only memorable moment in Episode Four was Rose’s cool-hand dispatchment of Ellen Love. Now THAT was laugh out loud funny! The rest of it….Snoozeville. Even the gifted Jeremy Piven couldn’t save last night’s episode. Thanks to his drinking and driving, Harry Gordon Selfridge is now in a coma along with the rest of us.

Rose Rocks!

Thankfully, PBS has also given us Call the Midwife. Now this is quality with a capital Q!  Based on the memoirs of the late midwife, Jennifer Worth, this show has the 3 h’s that make for great television: Humor, Horror, and Humanitarianism. The characters and their stories are rich and wonderful. It reminds me a bit of James Herriot’s veterinary memoirs. I am hooked! You can catch Season One on Netflix or Netflix Streaming.  Season Two is available on the PBS website.  If you haven’t watched it, give it a try. It won’t disappoint!

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I don’t think Priscilla of the Priscilla Willa, Party Planner children’s series I write will ever go into the midwife business, but she might be hired to throw a party for one of the well-deserving nuns!

Mr. Selfridge Owes Me Ten Minutes

So who caught Episode 3 of Mr. Selfridge? Here’s ten questions I need answered:

1.  Why is it that Mr. Selfridge and his entire management staff are able to figure out that Miss Bunting is stuffing tiny bits of silk and lace up her petticoats, but a HUGE unmarked blue truck showing up twice a day escapes everyone’s notice?

    2.  In a city the size of London, don’t you think it’s a little improbable that Tony would just happen to be in the same building where Roddy took Rose to meet his artist friends?

    3.  Did anyone else think Roddy’s female friends looked like hookers?

    4.  What is with Harry’s mom’s accent?  Sometimes it sounds Irish, sometimes American, sometimes like she’s about to have a stroke.

   

    5.  Do we hate Miss Ravelellius? Can’t decide.

    6.  The accessories department boasts 6,000 pieces of inventory and Miss Towler (who’s able to come up with brilliant ideas at the drop of a hat), so why can't anyone in the entire department come up with a single idea to present to Mr. Selfridge for promoting Anna Pavlova?  

            

***Side note: The actress who played Anna Pavlova is a dead ringer for the real person:

Anna Pavlova, the actress.

The real Anna Pavlova.

   7. How is Ellen Love managing to find and pay for all that cocaine she's snorting? 

   8. Regarding Victor: Why is it HIS job to check crates of eggs on the loading dock?  Doesn’t that stuff usually get delivered to the back door of the kitchen?  Odd.

   9. Didn’t it feel SOOOO GOOD to watch Victor hit Agnes' and George’s dad?

   10. Why were we shorted ten minutes in Episode 3? The actors’ commentary that filled the end was dull, dull, and more DULL!!

Enjoy your week and don’t forget to clap quietly like a real English lady!

If you have a 2^nd -4^th grade child in your life, Priscilla Willa chapter books would make a great gift! Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Give Mr. Selfridge a Chance!

Is it just me, or did Mr. Selfridge get a whole lot better in Episode 2?  To be fair, Episode 1 wasn’t bad….it just came in as David to Downton Abbey’s Goliath. Since I am now a fan of both, let’s compare:

Downton Abbey: Overflowing with Upper Crustians and their pampered lifestyles (Dowager: “What is a weekend?”)

Mr. Selfridge: Lady Mae is the only indulgence we get, and even she started out as a chorus girl. (Mae: “Why would you go on Public Day? There’s all sorts of riff-raff!”)

Downton Abbey: Lux setting and to-die-for clothes in every color. 

Mr. Selfridge: Lux setting with black clothes dominating every scene (except for those with Rose, Miss Love, and Lady Mae.)

Downton Abbey: Tradition vs. New Ideas (the lates, Matthew and Sybil; maybe Tom Branson once he quits mourning)

Mr. Selfridge: Harry Selfridge -vs- All of England and the  Edwardian Era. (How dare he sell perfume out in the open!)

Downton Abbey: Fictional Story.

Mr. Selfridge: Based on a true story. (This is perhaps what will keep us coming back every week. We know he’s going to self-destruct, and we morbidly want to watch it happen!)

Downton Abbey: Always mocking Americans. (Mary manages to work in an anti-American barb just about every episode.)

Mr. Selfridge: Americans welcomed, but with reserve.

Downton Abbey: Fantastic cast; the favorite, of course, being Maggie Smith.

Mr. Selfridge: Also well cast, but the deal clincher is Jeremy Piven. Genius!

All that said, it’s time to give Mr. Selfridge a chance. I wait with bated breath to see:

            -What red item will Miss Towler pick up next? (First the gloves, then the rose, now the hat…)

            -Is Lady Mae villain or friend? I’m starting to like her more and more. She definitely needs to give that loser, Tony, the boot. (“May I have a new suit?” Gag...)

            -Will the fires of Hell erupt when Selfridge’s starts selling lipstick “in broad daylight”?

            -Will Mr. Grove and Miss Mardle ever be free to love in public? (I could have lived quite happily without the bath scene…ewww).

            -Will Rose Selfridge actually have an affair with the painter? (She doesn’t seem the sort, and there’s no mention of her having elicit affairs in the history books.)

            -Will Rosalie Jr. be triumphantly launched into society?

            -Will hottie waiter, Victor, turn gigolo afterall?

            -Will someone figure out why Agnes and George’s dad looks like he fathered them when he was 12?

             -Will I ever stop envisioning Sponge Bob whenever Harry says "Mr. Crabb?"

So many questions!  Thank you PBS for making me look forward to Sunday nights again!  

If you have a 2^nd -4^th grade child in your life, Priscilla Willa chapter books would make a great gift! Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

           

Middle Schoolers: Too Much, Too Soon

Raise your hand if you want your 12 year-old to be in a relationship. How about having sex? Yeah, didn’t think so.

I recently finished a four-day volunteer stint at my town's Middle School Book Fair. It was all modern books, modern authors. The school didn't get to choose the books. The publishing company that sponsored the event did.  Wandering around, I didn’t see any of the classics I loved in junior high: Jane Eyre, Where the Red Fern Grows, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And that's ok. New authors aren't bad. I’m a new author and I believe in fresh talent. As I wandered around, however, I felt a growing sense of concern at a common theme threading through many of the new books (particularly as they're being hawked at 10-14 year olds): Love and Relationships.

I attended a writing conference last spring in Temecula, California. As a gift to conference attendees, we were each given one shot with an editor from a major publishing house, who would critique our work at length and provide us with honest feedback. I submitted Book One of my Priscilla Willa series to the editor I was assigned to. (Priscilla is a chapter book series I write for elementary students.) At the time, I created Priscilla to be a 12 year-old. The editor sent me a full page review, saying she loved the book and its story of a young, female entrepreneur.  However, she felt that being a smart, creative girl wasn't enough. If the book was to sell, Priscilla needed to have a boyfriend. I read the letter, shocked and bewildered. Priscilla was twelve!  I went to my computer and lowered Priscilla’s age to ten where she remains happily boyfriendless.

Value yourself. Get to know who YOU are.

What parent wants their 12 year-old daughter to have a boyfriend? Don’t middle schoolers have enough on their plates with raging emotions, changing bodies, and social awkwardness without having to add “steady relationship” to the mix?! The middle school years are a time of transition. Crushes are common, normal, and safe: they let kids put a toe in the shallow end of a very deep ocean. Yet what society is trying to do is get kids to skip the gradual “wade in” and go straight for the end product:  Fourth grade, Barbies. Fifth grade, Boyfriend. It’s like putting a t-bone steak in front of a six month-old: “Here honey, you’re starting to explore new foods, take this on!” It’s too much, too soon. No matter what the marketers say, the kids don’t want it, but what choice do they have when that's all that's being offered to them?

I got a lot of observation time while I monitored the Book Fair.  Our middle school is fifth through eighth grade.  99.9% of the time, the girls came in with other girls, and the boys came in with boys. There was very little intermingling. Several times I peeked out the library window at the commons area where the kids eat lunch.  The kids are allowed to sit wherever they want. The girls sat with girls. The boys sat with boys.  I asked one of my 13-year old twin daughters what the Middle School dances are like. She said it’s mostly girls on one side, boys on the other, and eventually someone gets brave enough to dance. That’s the nature of the beast: Awkward and Innocent.

One of the books featured at the Middle School Book Fair. Unfortunate title. If you bothered to look at the back cover synopsis, the storyline actually looks quite 

interesting; nothing remotely close to its adult namesake.

We, as parents, can't control that which targets our children on a daily basis: books, tv, magazines, movies, internet sites. But what we can do is teach and advise them on how to process the overwhelming amount of propaganda they're receiving. When one of my girls came home and matter-of-factly reported “So and So in our class (7th grade) just broke up with So and So,” I told her “So and So had no business having a boyfriend in the first place.” Then I go on to say as quickly as I can in the 1.5 seconds I have before she tunes me out: "Value yourself. Get to know who YOU are. And let me just make this clear: You are not allowed to have a boyfriend in Middle School. Period."  Of course I get the eye roll, but you know what? I just took the pressure off her. That's one less thing she has to worry about.

Discovery Girls is a magazine subscription I give my daughters. Its mission is to empower girls, not tear them down.

As far as books go, both my middle school daughters are voracious readers. I don't censor what they read, but I do ask them about their selections: "How's that new book I saw you reading?" I'm constantly amazed how brutally forthcoming they are: "It's good, Mom, but the girl in it had sex." Screaming inside, I keep my face neutral and casually ask: "What'd you think of that?" Then we talk. And talk. And talk..... PARENTS, DO NOT BECOME A MUTE DURING THE MIDDLE SCHOOL YEARS!!!!

If you don’t think you need to talk to your kids about this, read this little snippet from Iowa State University:

Low-income kids report first sexual intercourse at 12 years old in new ISU study

AMES, Iowa -- As a new mother herself, Brenda Lohman admits to being shocked by the results of a new study she co-authored. It found that among nearly 1,000 low-income families in three major cities, one in four children between the ages of 11 and 16 reported having sex, with their first sexual intercourse experience occurring at the average age of 12.77.

"So if 12 years was the average age here, that meant that some kids were starting at 10 or younger," said Lohman, an Iowa State University associate professor of human development and family studies (HDFS).  SOURCE: 

http://archive.news.iastate.edu/news/2009/aug/teensex

Shocking isn’t it? Makes me wonder if any of the parents of the kids in this study took the time to say to their kids, “Enjoy what’s left of your childhood. You don’t need to rush things.” We all need to send out that message LOUD AND CLEAR.

Priscilla Willa: A ten year old with brains and initiative! Our daughters need more of this!

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Post Note: Apparently this assault on our children is not limited to books.  Victoria's Secret is in on it:  Sexy underwear for the "tween" age. Check it out and decide for yourself: http://evandolive.com/2013/03/22/a-letter-to-victorias-secret-from-a-father/