Betty and the Real World

The Most Marvelous Summer:

Roseanne the Pock-Marked meets her future husband in The National Gallery--Here's an interesting wiki snippet: In a rare example of the political protest for which Trafalgar Square is famous occurring in the National Gallery, the Rokeby Venus was damaged on 10 March 1914 by a campaigner for women's suffrage, in protest against the arrest of Emmaline Pankhurst (right) the previous day. Later that month another suffragette attacked five Bellinis, causing the Gallery to close until the start of the First World War, when the Women's Social and Political Union called for an end to violent acts drawing attention to their plight.

Dear me. I know voting is awesome and whatnot but vandalizing priceless art? The Humanities major in me revolts. They didn't balk at arson, violence, bombings, martyrdom and vandalism. A particularly nasty bunch. This is like that feeling I have when I think about the Reformation. I support one side (hooray for religious freedom!) but can't stand the protagonists (down with hacking your wife's head off!). Who to root for?

They also visit the Tate which houses a more modern art collection. I think we all know La Neels' opinion of that sort of thing.

When Matilda waits with Lucy for her godfather to arrive, they play 'I spy with my little eye'. There is absolutely nothing fun to relate about this game, however, I employ it shamelessly from time to time and sometimes lose on purpose. (Shocking, I know.)

Matilda reads The Secret Garden to a sick Lucy. I love that book. My best friend in middle school gave it to me in the 6th grade. Thanks to the wonderful world of wiki, here's what we've got: The author, Frances Hodgson Burnett, was a practitioner of Christian Science due to the premature death of her son as well as personal illness. As a result, The Secret Garden espouses the concepts of New Thought and thoesophy as well as ideas about the healing powers of the mind.

Victory for Victoria:

The book mentions one large bottle of Roger et Gallet's Jeu d'Eau (discontinued), then Dioressence (was once a deep, green, milky Oriental with tons of sillage. It was divine to me, the mixture of greens, citrus and "cream", like a key lime chiffon cake for my nose), then Balenciaga's Quadrille ( has chypre notes. One blogger says this about personality types and perfume choices: Emotionally stable, extroverted women are typically attracted to chypre fragrances that combine oak moss with, say, bergamot freshness).

She is nearly choked to death by a drug overdose case. He OD'ed on cannibus and something stronger...but they don't know what. Let's just say for the sake of argument that it's LSD. I looked it up on wiki and the history of LSD is interesting as it was discovered in a lab (for a pharmaceutical company in Switzerland that my old college roommate still works for!). The first acid trip was taken at high doses by one of the drug's discoverers:
He asked his laboratory assistant to escort him home and, as use of motor vehicles was prohibited because of wartime restrictions, they had to make the journey on a bicycle. On the way, Hofmann’s condition rapidly deteriorated as he struggled with feelings of anxiety, alternatingly believing the next-door neighbor was a malevolent witch, that he was going insane, and the LSD had poisoned him.

At the National Gallery, they study a Gainsborough in contemplative silence. Here's an example (right) of the artist's daughters with a cat. Now, can we have a moment of silence?