Today's Dear Abby made my day

One of of my favorite sections in the newspaper is the "Dear Abby" column. While the questions written in are usually not all that relevant to me personally, it's interesting to see what the "official" etiquette is for whatever social trouble is going on and to see what kind of "comebacks" she has for some rude situations. Today's column, however, included something I would have liked to send in myself because I have been unsure of how to handle it. A reader wrote:

"I am a 29-year-old female who would like to know why people feel compelled to tell random strangers to 'smile.'"

She then goes on to describe several situations where random men have asked her to smile in a variety of comments, and how their remarks were offensive to her.

Dear Abby's response:

"The man who asked if you had "lost" something may have been making a clumsy attempt to pick you up. That sometimes happens in markets. As to the "older people" who comment on your expression -- or lack thereof -- they may consider themselves so "senior" that they can "coax" you into doing as they would like -- like "coochy-kooing" a baby to make it laugh on cue.

Making personal remarks to strangers is, of course, rude. My advice to you is to distance yourself from those individuals as quickly as possible. Speaking personally, if I was approached the way you have been, the last thing I'd be inclined to do is smile or engage them at all. I'd be offended, too."

I am so glad to know this is a more widespread problem than just affecting me and a couple of my friends who have had the same thing happen. It really does feel insulting, and I usually want to say something nasty in response, like "I'm not smiling because I'm looking at your ugly face", but clearly Dear Abby would not approve of that.

So thank you, Dear Abby, for confirming that I should just continue to ignore these annoying individuals.

Snow's melted

Well, it seems we're free of snow for a while. It's nearly all melted, so on Saturday we took Binsey to McCormick's Creek park down the road from us. The weather was great - in the 50s and sunny! Yes, finally sunny!

The park had some great things for retriever puppies, like sticks


and big leaves (note how suspicious she is of the leaf)


You may also notice that she's got a loose leash in the top picture - an important thing if you've been through any basic dog training. Well, it's not because of training. It's because we got this device for her from Yuppie Puppy. It's a harness that goes over her head with loops attached that go around her legs. If she pulls, the loops tighten and she stops. It is sooo much better than the nose harness we were recommended during the puppy training classes (she'd just freak out and rub her nose all over the ground trying to get it off). So for the park, we attach the Yuppie Puppy to the expandable leash and she can check out all the leaves, etc while still being able to keep her close if other people walk by.