1. Just thought I'd try to be one of the cool kids just one time.
2. Did you know that "inflammable" means "highly flammable."? I didn't. Probably never would have had I not been prepping Girl Weed for her vocabulary final a few weeks ago. Seems like an odd thing to miss.
3. I have re-discovered All Creatures Great & Small, the British sitcom based on the James Herriott novels. The first few episodes are a bit stiff and I've read that the last seasons (with replacement actors for some parts) aren't as good, but the first three seasons at least are wonderful. As a kid I came for the animals, but now I love and am fascinated by:
4. Adults and adult behavior. No sense of entitlement, profound desire to work and contribute, the pervasive sense of decency and the common good. Fulfills the Seinfeld motto, "No hugs, no learning," without nihilism.
5. Real faces. The homogenization of the human face in our time I find increasingly freaky.
6. Smoking and drinking. Not that I love them so much, but seeing them you realize they're GONE now.
7. No sarcasm or cheap one-liners, but real pranks and affectionate mockery of people's idiosyncracies. At its best, the program is hilarious, but the sources of humor are completely different than today's. It's a much tougher humor (no sympathy for people who behave foolishly), yet far less cruel.
