Hard To Take

I feel pretty badly for Christopher Ratte and his seven-year-old son, Leo, of Ann Arbor, Michigan. They were having a great father-son outing the other day at Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers. Rushed as they arrived at the ballpark and in a hurry to find their seats, dad and junior made a quick stop at a concession stand where Christopher bought Leo a refreshing bottled lemonade.

I think the authorities at the ballpark in Detroit were right to step in when they saw a seven-year-old drinking alcohol throughout the game.

Fast forward a few hours to the top of the ninth inning. Father and son had snacked throughout the game on the usual -- hot dogs, peanuts -- and Leo had managed to finish about two-thirds of his lemonade. That's when a security guard approached the pair and asked Christopher if he had provided the beverage for Leo. "Of course," Mr. Ratte responded.  At that point they took Leo away from his dad, trundled the terrified boy into an ambulance, transported him to a local hospital's emergency room, and removed him from his parents' custody for at least two days.

See, his father had unwittingly given Leo an alcoholic beverage: specifically, Mike's Hard Lemonade. It happened to be a product he had never heard of, much less purchased, before that day at the ballpark.

I had to chuckle when I saw this news report, and not because I'm mean or anything. As I already said, I feel terrible for Mr. Ratte (who I'm convinced made an honest mistake).

What I found amusing was that I know someone -- well over the legal age to consume alcohol but a teetotaler by conviction -- who made a similar mistake a few years ago on a hot summer day. He was at a friend's house and reached into the fridge, grabbed a lemonade, and chugged it down. He said it didn't taste out of the ordinary, but for some reason after he'd drained the bottle, he looked more closely at the label and realized what he'd done. It was a bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade ... a product he'd never heard of until that day, much less bought, been offered, or imbibed. He was embarrassed because, like I said, he has a religious conviction about abstaining from alcohol. We, his friends, got a good laugh out of it and still tease him about it.

As for Mr. and Mrs. Ratte, the understandably heartbroken, frightened, and perplexed parents of Leo, social workers at the hospital said that while they believed Leo had ingested the alcohol by mistake, they still had to do their job and retain custody of him until a more thorough investigation could be carried out.

Ostensibly this would be to satisfy themselves that Leo's father did not take him to the Tigers game to get him drunk in front of thousands of people, make him sick, and possibly kill him.

As Leo's father himself pointed out in a news interview, if he was going to feed alcoholic beverages to his seven-year-old son on purpose, why would he do it over a period of several hours while sitting in a packed stadium?

Do me a favor. The next time you go out for dinner at a restaurant where alcohol is served, look around. Chances are you'll see at least one table where there are a set of what appear to be parents in the company of what appear to be their own small children. They'll all be eating a meal, and both parents will be drinking beer or wine. Unless you happen to be in Beverly Hills or Manhattan, you cannot believe they have a chauffeur waiting outside to drive them home or that they plan to call a taxi. One of those parents is going to get in the car after drinking and do the driving.

Remember to buckle those kiddies snugly in their carseats!

Don't get me wrong; I think the authorities at the ballpark in Detroit were right to step in when they saw a seven-year-old drinking alcohol throughout the game. But when the powers-that-be realized a terrible mistake had been made and that the whole thing was unintentional, once they confirmed the child had not been adversely affected I think they should have let him go home with his mom and dad. No harm, no foul. Truly. People mess up sometimes; dire consequences do not always ensue.

But what about parents who knowingly drink and drive ... and do so with small children in the car? Even if they say they are not impaired after one or two beers or a glass of wine, studies show that after consuming only one drink a person's capacity to make split-second decisions can be diminished. How much (or how little) impairment is "safe" when it comes to your own children? If someone had a teensy drink and wanted to drive my granddaughters around the corner, I'm pretty sure I'd do my impersonation of godzilla on the hood of their car. Complete with chest-beating and a bloodcurdling rebel yell for added drama.

And I'd tell them, hey ... when life hands you lemons, don't take it so hard.

Make Fritzl Into Schnitzel

He drove a Mercedes-Benz, wore natty jackets and crisp shirts with ties when he ran errands, and was every inch the dictator of his Austrian castle. 

For proof of that just ask his daughter, Elisabeth ... she being the one he has kept locked in the dungeon for the last 24 years, during which time she bore seven of his children.

Where exactly did Rosemarie think the children were coming from? Did they arrive by mail?

(Austria, did you say?  He must be paddling around in the same sadistic gene pool as Adolf Hitler.)

His name is Josef Fritzl, and for him as (grossly inadequate) punishment for his crimes may I suggest castration, followed by boiling in oil, toenails being removed with white-hot pliers, and that drawn-and-quartered thing ... in public.  To be posted on YouTube for his profound and repeated humiliation.

The news accounts of this sordid story are some of the most nauseating I have ever heard or read.  If the accounts are to be believed, Mr. Fritzl's wife, Rosemarie, thought her daughter had left home long ago "to join a cult" and was therefore unable to take care of her children.  Am I the only one with this burning question: Where exactly did Rosemarie think the children were coming from?  Did they arrive by mail?  They were being fathered by her own husband and born practically under her nose ... or quite literally under her feet.  One of the children, mercifully born dead, was thrown into an incinerator by dear old dad ... make that granddad ... er, dad ... hmmm.  I give up.  Let's just call him a prince of a guy.

Stockholm syndrome never kicked in on this one, either.  When the eldest of Elisabeth Fritzl's children, a 19-year-old daughter, was hospitalized this week and the sins of the father consequently at long last revealed, Elisabeth did not try to protect him.  She got free and is now in psychiatric care.  One can only hope she'll be able to remember and accuse papa of each and every atrocity in open court.

After he suffers all the other painful indignities I've lined up for him, how about let's make Fritzl into schnitzel ... and feed him to the neighborhood dogs.

Hope those dogs have very strong stomachs.

Let's Give Her A Hand

In my weakened condition (I've got a bad cold), and in a time slot when I would ordinarily have been arranging my bonnet for church, yesterday I was cuddling Melanie and watching CBS Sunday Morning ... a TV news magazine hosted by Charles Osgood.  Between sneezing and blowing my nose, hoping against hope I wasn't infecting Melly, I became captivated by a segment involving one Ellen Sirot, a woman apparently famous in the advertising world for being a hand supermodel. 

What on earth are foot models not allowed to do? Do they walk all over town on their hands?

It seems there are models for many body parts; I guess if you don't have the wherewithal to succeed as a cover girl for Elle or a Victoria's Secret angel, you can offer up your feet, hands, knees or elbows for intense photographic scrutiny.  If you won any kind of a genetic lottery, some part of you may be deemed worthy for use in the never-ending quest to sell more stuff to the rest of us. 

Such is the case with the fortunate Ellen, who describes herself as "the 'it' of digits."

Any relation to Cousin Itt?  No, wait ... he was all about hair!  Ellen is more like "Thing" ... the Addams Family character who was nothing more or less than a disembodied hand in a box with a hinged lid.

If the way she poised her perfect neutral-colored hands as she was interviewed is any indication, Ms. Sirot appears to have taken lessons from Thing.  She constantly held the hands aloft, fingers separated delicately, posed as if just waiting for a product to be placed in her gentle grasp.  A very dignified ... if a little spooky ... mode of hawking wares.

When the interviewer, seemingly fascinated, shyly requested permission to touch the hands of the smiling Ms. Sirot, she was told that she could experience this tactile wonder if she used only her fingertips to very gingerly feel one hand, near the wrist.

"Aren't those the softest hands?"  Ms. Sirot wanted to know afterwards.  The interviewer conceded in an appropriately awed voice that the hands were indeed soft. 

I hardly expected her to say they felt like sandpaper.

Ellen the hand supermodel was shown walking down a busy street in Manhattan, her hands gloved to the elbows and held away from her body, fingers pointed heavenward, like a surgeon who has scrubbed for twenty minutes and is ready to be gowned.  The purpose of this unusual posture is to facilitate "draining" (as in blood), something Ms. Sirot does as often as possible.  It's enough to break a vampire of thumbsucking. 

Ellen says that her hands have not seen the light of day for fifteen years, and that she owns over 500 pairs of gloves to cover them with.  I have nearly that many shoes and I'm not even a foot model!  I couldn't model a toenail.

Ms. Sirot says that the list of things she's not allowed to do with her hands is endless.  She can't cook, clean, take out garbage, open a can, open a window, or open a door.  She can't work in a garden, play sports, or buckle her own shoes (her daughter does this for her).  Indeed, Ellen does not use her hands even for something as innocuous as pressing a button to call an elevator (she either uses an elbow or asks someone standing nearby to do it for her).  Mr. Sirot gladly does all of the housework and says he doesn't mind because she's beautiful and he loves her.  And because she sometimes makes thousands of dollars per hour for hand modeling.

But in my mind this begs the question: what on earth are foot models not allowed to do?  Do they walk all over town on their hands? 

Speaking of the lower extremities ... like actress Betty Grable, whose flawless legs were reportedly insured by Lloyd's of London for one million dollars, Ms. Sirot has hand insurance.  Unfortunately, however, it does not cover "the mundane, like a paper cut."  Wha ... ???  Sorry but it seems to me that if you have hands nice enough to require insurance for them, you could probably afford the kind that covers "the mundane."  And what about airbrushing?  As pluperfect as Ms. Sirot's hands surely are, I don't believe for a second that the photos taken of them never have to be enhanced.

At least one photographer who has had the pleasure of working with Ms. Sirot's hands says that she has figured out how to "make a hand a little prettier, a little happier, a little more aggressive." 

Shoot girl ... I just looked at my hands and realized that they are never happier or more aggressive than when I'm writing.  But alas, not nearly pretty enough to be photographed for advertising purposes.  I gladly leave that to the carpally superior Ellen Sirot, the self-proclaimed "it" of digits.

Melanie Plays Dress-Up

Update on Friday, April 25, 2008 at 05:44PM by Jennifer

Melanie and I, instead of leaving home for an adventure today, decided to raid my closet for outfits Her Highness might enjoy modeling.  My bed was heaped with shoes, hats, scarves, necklaces, bracelets, pins, shawls, tops, and purses by the time we were finished with our photo shoot.  The Melster was a good sport and it's always nice to know she's got what it takes to show off for a living, heh heh ... should that ever be necessary.

Click on the pic to view the full album at webshots!

Melanie Visits The State House

Update on Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 06:44PM by Jennifer

Melanie and I went downtown today to visit the beautiful South Carolina State House.  It was 85 degrees with a light breeze, and a delightful day to be outside.  We bought Melanie a South Carolina flag at the gift shop and she happily waved it the whole time.  If you click on the photo above, it will take you to the album at webshots dot com where you can see all the pictures of our trip!