Having grown UP in the dark ages, when we all ate dinner together at the same time at the same table in a room without a television, I’m sure I’m often considered a dinosaur.

But, alas, I often long for the days of yore when we all sat down to dinner, had a conversation, talked about our day, and Daddy read the Bible after we ate.

Things just aren’t that way any longer.

Simply because times change and the acceptance of bad-ish behavior increases, wrong doesn’t stop being wrong, and proper doesn’t stop being proper.

I’m not saying to use the right fork for the salad, and quite frankly, using one fork for salad and dinner does not bother me at all.

But there are some things that do.

Harking back to the dark ages of my youth, hats came off the heads of men the second they crossed the threshold.  Not so any more.  Men rarely remove their ball caps to eat in public, and it isn’t just at the Waffle House, it’s everywhere.

Here are some tips that will make MY dining experience more pleasant in the event you have the good fortune to dine with me or in the same restaurant.

• Don’t blow on your food, let it cool on it’s own.
• Never, never, never, never, never talk with your mouth full.
• Please don’t point at me with your knife.
• Don’t polish your teeth after dinner with a napkin, it’s to protect your jeans, and wipe that bar-b-que sauce from the corners of your mouth.
• Break your bread, don’t cut it, unless it’s toast…that’s OK according to Miss Manners.  And don’t slather butter on an entire piece of bread, butter each piece as you eat it.
• If you’re dining at someone’s home, don’t salt your food until you’ve tasted it.  A. It’s insulting to the cook, and B. they may like more salt than you do, and you don’t want to over do it.
• Don’t get drunk, it’s just tacky.
• Don’t spit food out into your napkin or onto your plate.  Miss Manners says to “remove it with what ever you used to put it in your mouth”.   If it’s finger food, take it out with your fingers.  And be careful with that fork!

Oh, yes, take your hat off!

I’m really tired of the fuss about the fact that President Obama went “shirtless” on the beach.

Don’t most men?

Granted, many should not.  But, The Prez, is toned. 

Physically, we’ve had worse in the White House.

William Howard Taft comes to mind. 

Weighing in at 335, he could serve two terms at one time and had a special bath tub installed in the White House.

Teddy Roosevelt:

John Adams, his son John Quincy Adams, and William Jefferson Clinton

were all “morbidly obese” at one time or another during their presidencies.

But, the press is making a fuss about the fact that the President was kept out of the camera’s way on this trip to the Gulf.  Official photographs were distributed to the vultures news crews sent to cover the latest Presidential publicity stunt.  He was trying to let the vacation going American public know that even though BP screwed UP royally, the beaches of the Gulf Coast are as pristine as ever.  He wasn’t there to show off his worked out pecs anyway.

So, let the man swim, shirtless or not.  It’s his vacation and if he wants to, then he wants to!

Isn’t there a war going on they can report about?

There’s a point to this, and I get it.

Model Kristen McMenamy is featured in a new 24-page fashion spread in the September issue of Italian Vogue.  She wears oil-soaked black feathered outfits and looks as though she’s dying on the beach. Photographer Steven Meisel shot the controversial Gulf disaster-inspired images of McMenamy.  The photos show her caught in nets, flopping like a dying animal, and spitting UP oil.

Is good taste dead?

I thought fashion magazines were supposed to show women what they should look like.  And I’m sure someone will show UP at the Emmys wearing a BP inspired dress.  Fashion statements and political statements often pose as one. 

Hey Vogue, most women want to look pretty…that’s why they’re buying your magazine.  Powerful and disturbing images like the ones in September’s issue are designed to make consumers feel badly for consuming.  I find that a tad hypocritical coming from a magazine – after all, isn’t about 100% of the content aimed at consuming, and isn’t about 80% of magazine taken UP by advertisements?

Actually, Vogue, you’re on a par with BP!  Hey,  if you’re worried about the environment so much, save a tree yourself once in a while…skip issues like this

 After seven years of working two jobs, seven days a week, I find it difficult to keep myself busy when I have days off.

I know, I know, A. what a problem to have, and B. The house is a mess, and I could clean it, paint it, organize my books by genre and alphabatize them by author, and clean out the Tupperware cabinet.

But that didn’t happen this weekend. 

I went to a movie…in a theater…a real one.

Fashion being one of my favorites, I went to see “Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky”.  It’s pretty obscure, didn’t get a lot press, but seems to have won a truckload of awards already. 

Since paying $11 for a ticket and $12.50 for popcorn and a diet coke made me feel like I’d just been mugged, I was hoping for a winner.

It was. 

Although, it’s in French, with subtitles.

The movie is based on a book based on a rumour.  Purely hearsay – a Parisian rumor stating that Chanel and Stravinsky had an affair. 

And by the looks of the movie, a pretty steamy (Oh My Cow!) one, and a very complicated one as well.

But, I suppose all affairs are complicated.

It’s a great presentation of what might have been, or even what may have been.

Two of the most influential people of the 20th century, Chanel and Stravinsky broke new ground, charted new courses, and changed fashion and music.

She had a burning desire to change how women were forced to dress, and he wanted to change musical tastes world wide.

They both succeeded.

Born in Czarist Russia, Igor never went back after the Russian Revolution of 1917.  He was broke, composing for the Ballet Russe in Paris when Coco supposedly met him.  They may have met, and she was a patron of the Ballet.  She was world famous, and enormously rich at the time.

She was also the first woman to have her own fragrance, Chanel No. 5, which, the most expensive liquid on earth, would sell for $9,000,000 a barrel. 

Makes oil look cheap!

Coco, beutifully portrayed by Anna Mouglalis, comes off amoral, heartless, and broken.  But there are moments of tenderness, passion, charity, and kindness.  Mouglalis is the perfect Chanel.

This is the real Coco.

And this is Anna,

Mads Mikkelsen looks about as much like Igor Stravinsky as I do.  But, he’s great in the role, and he does a terrific job of making one believe he is Stravinsky.

This is the real Igor.

And this is Mads.

The movie isn’t for the kids, it’s rated R, and the sexual content is “off the chain”!  Seriously, my glasses fogged UP – more than once!

Beautifully filmed with authentic sets and locations, it’s a keeper, almost as good as “The Red Violin”.  Knowing a little French will help.  It’s a date movie, and really a very sad one.  The music alone is worth the eleven bucks! 

The best line from the movie comes as a response from Coco to Mrs. Stravinsky.  Mrs. S:  “You don’t like color, Mlle Chanel?”  Coco:  “Only if it’s black.”

I knew I liked her for a reason!

I put it on the “must see” list fo 2010!