Weekend Update

This was a weekend for familial duties. My wife's father had gone through a medical procedure a few weeks ago, and while it was relatively minor as such things go, it did involve his heart, and he did need to recover for a few days in the ICU. On the other hand, he did play tennis this week, so it was not incapacitating, either.

But we hadn't seen him since, and this was the first chance we had had in a while, so we borrowed a car¹ and drove to Philadelphia. The trip turned into a see-everyone weekend, which was efficient, at least.

Arriving early Saturday afternoon, we met my wife's mother and stepfather for lunch in Manayunk. Manayunk is a trendy section of Philadelphia that may have passed its prime. The restaurant certainly had, although it was still tolerable.

From there, we went to my wife's sister's house in the suburbs. It's a comfortable place, and it's where we had been staying on most of our visits to Philadelphia. The sister is about to have her second child, though, and they are getting a live-in au pair, so this was probably our last overnight visit for quite some time.

We had plans for dinner and drinks with a good friend who we haven't seen for a while. But his girlfriend got sick--emergency-room sick, although I hear she's better now--so they cancelled. Our in-laws invited us to join them in seeing Old School at a nearby megaplex, but we declined. Instead, we caught Chicago at the same megaplex, at about the same time, then met them and some friends for a late dinner afterward.
( Movie review, few if any spoilers. )

The in-laws liked Old School. They said it was very funny. Dinner was at a chain called the Cheesecake Factory and was good.

Brunch this morning was at my father's house, and my brother and his wife and kids attended. The adults chatted about intra-familial litigation. The girls, ages 2 and 4, tried to break their new Valentine's Barbie dolls, but succeeded only in stripping off their dresses.²

We returned to the in-laws house. I napped, while my wife took part in a "spa party" with her sister and some of her sister's friends. They got massages and manicures and pedicures. After my nap, I escaped to Target for a while.

Finally, we ran the familial table by having dinner with my wife's father and stepmother. Then we drove back to New York, encountering remarkably little traffic on the way. And that is how I spent my weekend.


¹From our ex-roommate, who owes us some big favors.
²Did anyone else know that Barbie dolls now seem to have permanent panties? Is this a new thing?

Newsflash! Michael Jackson Is Creepy! Film at 11!

Driving south on the New Jersey turnpike yesterday, we heard an old Jackson 5 song on the radio. Listening to a pre-pubescent Michael Jackson sing about his love for some girl, I started to get creeped out by the whole thing. I mean, pre-pubescent girls have never been the audience for this sort of act; it's aimed at grown women. And the young Michael Jackson is not the only young boy who has been popular in this way.

But we nearly never hear or read about boys that young being molested by adult women, so I suspect these women aren't simply eroticizing these singers. Which only gives rise to the question, what the hell is going on?

I expect that fans of these boys would say something to the effect that the boys are "cute." I don't understand why it's cute, not creepy, for a boy to try to express passion and desire he has almost certainly never experienced and can't understand. Is it that he's a harmless male? Is it that male sexuality is so scary that women long to hear it expressed by a male who is harmless?

Or am I just way off base here?

Because I Don't Want to Search for RTF Toolkits

[Poll #100843]

Tonight

Well, my wife is currently watching the Westminster dog show on TV because she is deeply disturbedloves dogs. We have actually gone to the dog show a few times, and it really is just like Best In Show. Unfortunately, everyone blew off my wife this year, including me and her mother, so she's not going to make it.

Tonight, for my part, I went to a panel discussion at the City Bar Association on the Nike case currently before the Supreme Court. It was an interesting topic, and one of the panelists was my old Constitutional Law professor, so I went.

Since I'm not currently practicing law, most of the discussions I see of this case reduce to one or more of the following three forms:

A: Corporations are evil.
B: No they're not.

Or:

A: Globalization is evil.
B: No it isn't.

Or:

A: Nike is evil.
B: No it isn't.

But the case isn't really about any of those things. It's about the rule of law, and about the Constitution, and precedent, and policy, and poorly written and interpreted statutes, and trying to come up with a rule that will make sense in a variety of situations. Perhaps what suprised me the most was that despite my knee-jerk sympathy towards Nike in the matter, I was deeply troubled by the legal argument they were making. Then again, I was equally troubled by the alternative, too.

Still, Nike will probably win.

Tomorrow, I fly off to Rochester, New York, on business, then if I finish in time, maybe drive to Buffalo from there to catch another flight to Orlando. Oy.