Dearest Mary Jane--Discussion Thread

I too like Dearest Mary Jane. She's an utter failure at business modeling but seems to be propping up the village spinsters single-handedly. [Betty Debbie] They reciprocate by buying a cup of tea. " Thank you Mary Jane for closing your business for the entire day so that you can accompany us to the doctor and thus lose much needed income, can I have a cup of tea?"

Lard. Lest we lose sight of what the difference is between a book that rates, say, a mince pie and another that rates a lashings of whipped cream. Lard. She chucks lard at her cousin. One of the Venerable Neels' weakest points is in the ritual punishment of the villain. A lifetime spent with a horn-rimmed American millionaire seems a fate worse than death but a sufficiently shallow character (which our villainesses are) would let the thoughts of his millions soothe their platinum heads while staring across the luncheon table each day at a pair of horned-rims. But this villain gets lard. In the kisser--after which he is allowed to recede into tacky opulence...

Didums. One of the dogs (Miss Potter's) is named Didums. Call the ASPCA.

At one point, Miss Mabel Potter is asked to bring a nightie to the hospital for her surgery and recovery. And further, in the Land of Neels, whenever anyone accidentally lands in the hospital the list of must-haves is, in descending order: a nightie, some lip stick, some fashion magazines. Having given birth four times and spending more than a week at the hospital in the course of my life, I can heartily approve the lip stick (I'm a very low maintenance Betty, but when you're feeling grotty (British word alert!) any little tarting up helps) and the reading material but the nightie is always a bit of a head scratcher. Sure, hospital gowns are unattractive with an abysmally low thread count but they have undeniably handy gaps. My favorite part of hospital gowns (especially post-partum) is the fact that I don't have to wash them.

Of Mary Jane's sister it is said, "Very few people took Vogue or Harpers and Queen but those who visited their dentist or doctor and read the magazines in the waiting-room were well aware of her fame." I wish for Vogue at my doctor's. Here are some magazines I find at the medical professional's office: Treacle-y earnest Parenting (That has nothing to tell me about parenting that I haven't already learned the hard way), Sports Illustrated (an obvious sop to the men but I doubt my Mijneer has ever picked up one in his life), People (the neutral catch-all of fashion, celebrity gossip, au courant scare mongering (Toxic mold!) and profiles of obscure cults (They wear fish on their heads!)), and a so-bland-as-to-be-offensive political magazine like Newsweek or Time. Maybe I need to shell out higher premiums to rate the places that have Architectural Digest and British Vogue. Alas, our recently retired dentist had the most comprehensive magazine collection ever. Not only did he have a great variety, but they were also current!

Fabric mice. Betty Kylene, our most crafty Betty could get on with this. She's done some things with felting that would Blow. Your. Mind. She'd have to re-work the price point though as I'm pretty sure the time spent by Mary Jane making them, divided by the money got would be sweat shop compensation...I love when one of the village spinsters buys one of Mary Jane's mice and says that "it was just the thing for a birthday present for her niece. Mary Jane thought it rather a poor sort of present but perhaps she didn't like the niece very much."

The flu. This last year I'm fairly sure I contracted The Fashionable Flu...so much nicer than saying, the swine flu, don't you agree? I had four kids home with me, one of whom was a nursing baby who had just discovered how to crawl up the stairs (and not safely crawl down them). Mijneer was off being a code monkey when it struck with speed and ferocity. As I lay there praying for death I would have been transported with joy to know that the only charge in my charge was a cat named Brimble. I'm not saying that Mary Jane should suck it up...where are those village spinsters when you really need them?

I didn't bring up the biker episode...it sounds a bit like the lead up to an off colour joke: Three leather clad bikers walk into a tea room......after refusing to pay their bill, they proceed to trash the Tea Shoppe. Enter heroic Orthopaedist. He then proceeds to soundly thrash all three. I'm not sure but what he didn't drum up a little business for himself.