On Street Fairs, Weather, and Bad Parenting

There are certain days when I wish I wrote a food blog.  Like today, when my stomach is full of delicious Richmond Greek Festival moussaka and duck fat french fries from a place called Rox, who had a booth at a street festival called Broad Appetit.

But the fact is that I don't run a food blog, and even if I did, that's still probably not what I would be talking about today.

Because, well, I need to rant.

This was not a place for your infants or pets.  It was 90 degrees today in Richmond (which is, admittedly, not all that unusual) and is, honestly, perfectly fine weather for a street food festival.  It is not, however, fine for babies and dogs.  The National Weather Service points to any temperature above 82 degrees with high humidity as a reason to use extreme caution for risks of heat stroke, dehydration, or hyperthermia.*  These risks are significantly greater for children and the elderly.  Also, I'm sure your poodle in full winter coat isn't appreciating it either (although, shoutout to the SPCA for having an air-conditioned RV and water for all the dogs who were out there in this heat anyway).

I also don't know where people get the idea that large crowds, particularly large crowds where people will be drinking, are a good atmosphere for a small child or pet.  They could get tripped on, spilled on, or in any way hurt extraordinarily easily in those kinds of situations, and aside from that, it's incredibly overstimulating.  Your child is not appreciating the street food and craft beers that you are currently purchasing beer tickets for.  As a matter of fact, he's red in the face and on the verge of unconsciousness and I'm pretty sure you should go find a doctor.

Hire a babysitter.  Leave the dog at home with water and air conditioning.  You're not doing anyone a favor by bringing them to events like these.

Yours in frustration,
Rachel Leigh

*http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/heat/index.shtml#wwa

On Emily Post and the Antiquated Art of Etiquette

Sitting outside on the grass today was a challenge. As spring has sprung, I have gotten into the habit that many girls my age adopt around this time of year: embracing the skirt and dress (sans tights or stockings) as the most fun and weather-friendly clothing option.


Needless to say, when one is wearing a skirt, her sitting options are severely limited. Especially if she is insistent on sitting on the ground. Basic etiquette says a young lady wearing a skirt must sit up, on a chair or other raised platform, with knees crossed. Let us return to our dear ground-sitting friend who wishes to be comfortable on the groud. Her options seem to be as follows:

1. Become a nuisance by stretching her legs out completely in front of her.


2. Risk the hopefully-avoided panty-flash by sitting either cross-legged or with her knees up in front of her.


3. Take a page from the Marilyn Monroe Book of Narrowly-Avoided Social Faux Pas, and use her hands to strategically hold down her skirt.

Why is it, though, that in 2010, we feel the need to characterize all of these sitting positions as "un-ladylike" and un-befitting of a young lady? I blame Emily Post. Born in 1873, and formally published as a "philosopher" of all things proper in 1922, Emily Post has been the go-to source for good manners for almost the last century. Though she died in 1960, the Emily Post Institute continues to release guides for proper manners and etiquette in social settings, at work, and even online.

It makes perfect sense, I suppose, to allow the 19th-century guidelines of someone who was born a decade after the Civil War to dictate the 21st-century Netiquette. After all, when much of interpersonal communication is now done over a screen, it makes sense to base its laws and rules on a set of standards established in the early days of the telephone.

Personally, I think Emily Post's world has been dead for years now.

When Playboy bunnies, rather than being hidden in paper bags in the back shelves of skeevy magazine racks, have their own television shows watched by over 2 million people, and the stars of Disney movies can continue their careers after naked photos of them have been leaked to the internet, it's time to stop judging girls by 1920's standards of propriety. So what if I want to wear a skirt without sitting like I have something shameful to hide? I'm not suggesting that girls should go around showing off their lady-bits to everyone they see. I'm just saying maybe it's time we stop judging girls who don't feel the need to subscribe to the old world etiquette of Emily Post.

Always lady-like (regardless of how I'm sitting),
Rachel Leigh