FRIDAY FROTH...

A good friend (and fellow Southerner) with a knack for picking books that you are sure to be seeing on all the best beaches, recently recommended Kathryn Stockett's fiction debut, The Help.  The "help" in the title refers to the household variety, and, because this book is set in 1963 Jackson, Mississippi, the help is black.  My friend promised me that this book was not a white bashing, southerners-still-want-slavery book, and that in fact, it takes a fair and honest view of blacks and whites and their relationship during the time it was set--and it does, for the most part.  One of Ms. Stockett's main characters is a woman that is hell-bent on making sure that all of her Jr. League friends have separate bathrooms in their homes for their "colored" help.  The problem for me with this book is that this character is more "mean girl" than she is racist.  She treats her mother as badly as she does her black maid, and she browbeats her white friends into submission.   The Jr. League girlfriends go along with varying degrees of malice toward their help to keep in good standing with Miss High-and-Mighty League President.  I might have enjoyed this book more if memories of my daughter's Jr. High school run-ins with mean girls wasn't so freshly splattered across my mind.  Mean girls are still aplenty in our society but thankfully we've made some inroads on racism.  If I had ever suggested that our "help" use a separate bathroom the "help" would have spanked my bottom, but not half as hard as my daddy would have when he found out.  Pick up The Help-- while it's neither profound nor poetic, it is a quick and entertaining read for the beach or poolside.

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Robin Hood could have been a great movie.  Its star, Russell Crowe, and its director, Ridley Scott, have made beautiful music before:  Gladiator was an award-winning work of art.  But alas, Robin Hood could not keep me from constantly moving my legs around--the more my mind is engaged, the less my long legs move around looking for a comfortable place to rest and vise versa.  You would not have wanted to sit in front of me during Robin Hood!  It's not that the movie was bad -- it was an okay to good film; however, I expected better from the talent involved in its production.  Surprisingly, Scott's new movie has caught some criticism because it's a prequel to the story that we are familiar with.  This current version of the story shows the events in Robin Hood's life that eventually led him to his mission of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor--I liked seeing the forces that motivated the man.  The essence of Scott's Robin Hood is that the former king has spent the nation into poverty with foreign wars, and the new king wants to tax everyone into poverty to restock the coffers -- sound familiar?  Robin Hood knows that taking from the rich and giving to the government, um, I mean king, never works -- a concept that clearly makes me very uncomfortable as well.  Now that I think about it, maybe my flailing legs were more of a reaction to the idea of wealth redistribution than boredom.

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My fall fashion prediction is that over-the-knee boots will be a must-have come September.  This ever-so-sexy footwear is showing up more than traditional boots.  There are lots of styles to choose from so don't be afraid that you can't make tall boots work for you--you can, just keep everything else simple.  Above:  Manolo Blahnik's lattice-top boots would look great with a grey wool sheath and pearls or black tights and a slim tunic.  Ralph Lauren's flat brown boots would make a great statement with jeans and a t-shirt or cords and a sweater.  Come on...don't be shy!

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They've arrived!  College students are home for the summer and they are tired and hungry.  If you have the male variety then you're exhausted from shopping and cooking (and let's face it, you're still cleaning up after him) to keep the poor baby from starving.  If you have the female variety your clothes and shoes are disappearing, or either dirty when you want to wear them.  With either variety your car and credit card are being requested daily and cash evaporates from your wallet.  They like to go out when you are going to bed and go to bed when you are getting up.  Hang in there.  September will be here before you know it and someday they will have their own teenagers returning from college for the summer and you can laugh out loud with delight when they complain about them.

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And now for a non-frothy item (because there are some plain-old black coffee drinkers out there):

What do you think about Joe Sestak being offered a job by the White House to not run against Arlen Spector?  It's all very fishy isn't it?  You can bet the administration's delay in talking to the press was so they could all get their stories straight.  While what went down may be illegal, it's probably nothing that hasn't been done by both parties many times before, but the bottom line is that people are tired of this type of shenanigans in government and Mr. Obama said that he was going to change things--he hasn't.