Yosemite!

After hearing students mispronounce Yosemite for months (they say it Yo-see-might (yes, those are fake phonetics. I don't care much for phonetics in a general way...)) finally I got to go see it for myself! Martin and I went for his birthday, leaving Thursday afternoon and driving into rush hour traffic, extending our together time in the car perhaps just a bit more than ideal. I hate the stop and go of rush hour; and then it was quickly dark with nothing much to do and miles to go.

Luckily, Martin isn't only good-looking, he's also smart. So he suggested we play a game: someone picks a letter and then we both look for words beginning with it. I was skeptical, but quickly became very good at it. It was a theme of the trip, with a new letter either in the morning or after a long time being out of the car. There are lots of words that start with c, for example, along highway 49. Who knew? It was a fun way to watch the road as I navigated our way on twisty bits of highway and byway.

Because it was a last minute trip, we ended up staying in Sonora, a very tourist trap looking town with some nice people in it. Our Days Inn even turned out to be in a historic hotel building on the main drag (the soundproofing was less than ideal). It was a little over an hour's drive to Yosemite itself and then lots of time in the car once you get inside the park... I'm truly tired of sitting down.

Thankfully there was lots to see outside. We took some mini-hikes, enjoyed looking at incredible configurations of rocks, trees, and waterfalls that were endless in their combination, yet never boring. It's a magnificent place. I felt like I was in an Ansel Adams photo album pretty much the entire time (but in color!). There was a frightening moment when we were debating lunch options at the food court at Yosemite Lodge. Suddenly, a busload worth of European (mostly French) tourists comes flowing in like a torrent, swarming over trays and working to get into lines in a layout that is not well-designed for traffic flow. We were slightly scared, and so got out while the getting was good, fighting against the stream for the door and then outside to comparative safety. Unfortunately the next lunch possibility was a 20 minute walk back to where we'd just been, but the deli at the end made it all ok.

This weekend adventure means that I've not quite gotten my reading done for classes tomorrow, but look for a post with photos soon! Summary sentence: Yosemite is gorgeous beyond belief, though one acclimates after a few hours. Kind of. And then it gets dark... incredible stars at night too.

It even defies a summary sentence. How's that for a plug?

Baby Beauty Queens? Really?

I’ve been listening to a lot of the Savage Love podcast here recently. I like Dan Savage’s advice (usually), the quirky things that come up on the show, and how it is often sane, sensible advice given to folks who sound like they really and truly need it. (He's also frank and often raw, so if your workplace a is a quiet one, ummm, put on headphones if you're sneaking in a listen there).

It also is a way to get through unpleasant tasks – building Ikea furniture, sorting through that mound of papers I keep needing to sort through, even cleaning out my closet in my parents house full of memories from the first 20-odd years of my life.

So, channeling Dan Savage and my own honed ranting ability, I must confess how shocked and, well, shocked I was to see this tv show called “Toddlers and Tiaras” on TLC today. Yes, there is a show that is about beauty queens under the age of 9. This episode followed a few lovely “ladies” whose ages ranged from 3 to I think 6?

Every scene brought new horror. The mother who says that sometimes you have to be tough, but she supports her daughter and really just wants to be a supportive mother. Her daughter is 3. And is told that her “smile is fake” and that she “won’t win with a fake smile” repeatedly. This girl also gets fake spray tanning done, wears fake hair… has a makeup artist…

Perhaps I’m so riled because these women (there don’t seem to be many dads pushing their young daughters to be beauty queens that I could see) spend OBSCENE amounts of money on their little girls. Dresses, teachers, tanning, hair, nails, entry fees – thousands of dollars. One had spent over $35,000 for the initial “investment” of beauty shots, costumes, etc. Ummm, why don’t you invest that in her college fund? Or make a savings account for future need, a nest egg so that she has options when she finishes high school? Or buy her a toy tiara or two?

Another girl was distinctly bratty, spoiled totally and completely with a-need-to-win complex. She flounced, she rebelled, she fussed. Her mother said over and over “She has a lot of personality.” No. She is stubborn and spoiled and you encourage this behavior. I want to see the show in 10 years where the girls have eating disorders, body image issues, sleep with everything that breathes, get into partying, drugs, alcohol and other acts of rebellion and hear the mothers say they just "don’t understand" what could have caused this. Staring earnestly into the camera: "I’m a good mother, I’ve supported her decisions but I don’t get why she doesn’t think she can ever be good enough."

I’m positive that it was the girls themselves, naturally, who proposed the idea of being mini beauty queens to their mothers. Not the other way around. That instead of praise for what’s been accomplished, the mothers all seemed to hold their breath for the next bigger, better prize. Even though several of them admitted they didn’t understand how the crowning system worked – they still wanted that next big one.

The sight of the little girls wearing rhinestone crowns literally almost half their size… there are no words. Well, there are some. But they aren’t very complimentary ones. These rooms decorated with crowns, sashes, glitter and glitz – the girl who is the youngest of 8 and the only daughter – what are these girls learning about self-worth and looks?

That they obviously go hand and hand.

Perhaps that’s not so insidious, one could say. Our society has long honored the beautiful woman over the plain, over the smart, over the athletic (unless she is both/and of course). These girls are no worse than others who have mothers who push them to have boyfriends at 8, to idolize the Barbie image, to, to, to… I’m still reeling from the images of that show though.

Exploitation anyone?

Because I think it’s wrong. I don’t understand how those judges can do their job, how folks can think that this is a good idea. And I probably never will.

But at least my sister and I can agree that whatever weird or potentially terrible things our parents may have done to us in our youth (when she writes her life story you’ll get all the gory details) that was one thing that they didn’t do – we weren’t toddler beauty queens.

I made the mistake of telling them this. Their response: there are always the grandchildren.

Compassion and its lack

Yesterday brought with it a blinding realization. True, I had often expressed hatred for Yelp and other online review sites (but especially Yelp), but I never had a concrete, iron-clad reason for it. It was more of a miasma of unease, of bad taste left in mouth. Of not liking something because it's cool not to like a popular internet phenomenon (see twitter for more details).

Yelp doesn't promote compassion. In fact, it holds the distinction of doing exactly opposite. Places like this promote critical, unforgiving, unmitigated nastiness. Because there is never any recourse, there are never any repercussions against what might be false, exaggerated, or otherwise untrue.

I was talking with the woman who owns the shop next door about how reading Yelp reviews alone is a bad idea (just like drinking). It makes one angry and upset. She added that it's also a bad idea to look at them before going to work for much the same reasons. Because folks can say things like "you're just a glorified girl scout," on the internet, perhaps thinking they're funny. And maybe they are. But seriously? Really? What is that going to change? Why does the world need to know that you think I have an attitude problem after working a weekend in a busy store basically alone? How will that guide them in their cookie quest? Why do you care enough to post this? Conversely, why do I care what you think of me? (Because I liked to be liked is one reason.)

I mentioned this conversation to Mike and he riposted that I am just as critical. Especially of customers. Fair. But there's a difference between treating someone like a fellow human being and like a subhuman creature. I also don't post my nastiness on the internet but let it die a natural, oral death (most of the time). Thus speaks the service industry worker. What I also like is the idea of a reverse yelp where baristas and other service workers can follow customers to their important office buildings in financial centers or whathaveyou and rate their performance there. 3 stars because you slacked on your copying and phone call responding. 2.5 stars because you were a terrible kiss ass to your boss and she could totally tell.

And then we can post it on the internet for all the world to see.

I think this all comes into perspective as a new bakery/restaurant has opened up nearby. I went on the first day (Saturday) and had to wait a ridiculously long time for my sandwich because, hey, it's the first day and the kitchen is slammed. I get it. I went back yesterday with Sarah for breakfast and things were much smoother. And delicious. Also supernice counter help, even if one guy tried a little too hard to be smooth. Maybe he's new at this waiting game. Maybe that's his style and just not mine. Maybe I'm thinking too much. But what I will do is tell folks with my actual mouth about places I think are worthwhile and listen to what they have to say as well - it's called word-of-mouth I think. You do it by talking.

(She snarkily typed.)