Imelda The Sweet

Yes, my daughter Imelda is as sweet as sugar (which is not to suggest that the Angel is a hardened trull). She sees life through the filter of rose colored lenses and misses the mean and sordid underbelly of the world.

Fun Daddy and I first noticed this several years ago when we took both filles to Paris. After an morning walking around Sacre Coeur and Montmartre the girls decided that they really wanted to see the Moulin Rouge. We had allowed them to see the musical and they were very taken with it. To get there we had to walk down the hill and then down the boulevard for about a mile or so. Not bad.

Well, for those of you familiar with Paris, you know what the neighborhood is like... It is called Pigalle. The couple of blocks closest to the Moulin Rouge are filled with raunchy bars and sex shops. The Angel grabbed my hand and looked up at me fearfully..."What are they doing in there?" she whispered. "Exactly what is says they are doing," I replied.

Imelda on the hand, was focused much more immediate. Her main concern was that the French were not cleaning up after their dogs. She walked down the boulevard pointing wildly and exclaiming at the top of her lungs, "Dog Poop!"

Well she may be older now, but she is still fixated on items outside the main focus.

She spent the night at my Mom's last night. In the downstairs bathroom there is a container for reading materials. My father subscribes to Maxim but my mother goes out of her way to hide the magazine when the girls are at their house. For some reason, Mom forgot yesterday. After coming back from the bathroom Imelda reported to my mother that she had seen the funniest thing. There was an article in a magazine that could tell you how to live to be 130. Isn't that funny? Who would want to be that old? This is the cover that she was looking at...

Oh.. and were les filles pleased with their siting of the Moulin Rouge? Well, not entirely... they were disappointed that they could not see the apartment that the boy (Ewan MacGregor) lived in...