The End of the Rainbow--Discussion Thread

Olympia's dad was an archeologist - met her mum while on a dig in Greece...that's why she was named Olympia. Her parents my have expected her to be a tall voluptuous blonde - but since they died in a motoring accident before she could toddle, they never had a chance to find out how wrong they were. I didn't approach naming my kids with any sort of philosophy--merely attempted to avoid the pitfall of unspellability (but why, Betty Keira?) and unpronouncability (but why, Betty Keira?). Sure, Olympia passes on both measures but it infers a certain...hmmm...full-bosomedness I would be loathe to hang like a millstone around the neck of any innocent 14-year-old girl. But then, having said that, I remember Olympia Dukakis is a fabulous actress who once said my favorite movie quote ever ("Old man, you give those dogs another piece of my food and I'm gonna kick you 'til you're dead!") and I love it again.


Olympia has to work split shifts for her aunt...7:30-10:30am, then 1pm until the night shift came on. These make for ridiculously long days. And not only long days but no (zero, zilch) love life. What kind of man wants a spread sheet of his lady love's off time?


The room she has in Aunt Betsy's house (Waldo's aunt) is pink, pink, pink. PINK. Now, I like pink--it's a friendly shade (hence all those flattering rose tinted lamp shades) on the skin but doesn't it have a shelf life for a grown woman? My own room is grey/blue but a man sleeps in there so it's not apples to apples. Maybe all that pink boosts estrogen levels and might increase ovulation...I'm just spitballin' here...


His dog has recently died so she suggests a new one. Does this seem callous? The Founding Bettys are notorious pet-free Bettys so don't have a feel for how soon is too soon. I suppose it depends on how beloved the pet was as I hear that they are not all created equal...

We get to meet cross over characters Gijs and Serena van Amstel from Uncertain Summer--a couple I always have particular anxiety about as his cousin (Laurens the Fink) was the cause of so much turmoil. I'd like to hear that those crazy kids have just returned from a funeral wherein they had to discretely memorialize the Fink as his body was unrecoverable in the Amazon rainforest airplane crash that claimed him and the blonde tartlet he was luring away from respectability...

"She picked up her knitting, attacking it with a ruthlessness which had no regard to the intricate pattern." Betty Kylene is an avid knitter and brings her knitting to things like Cub Scouts Pack Meetings. She is doing a complicated star stitch (whatever that means) and looks as though she might use some beastly Dutch oaths to get through it. I'm not much of a knitter myself, and like to take the position on some patterns of 'Just because you can doesn't mean you should.' (see right)