Doubles

"Mother On Fire" by Sandra Tsing Loh Crown Publishers 298 pages $23

The inside flap of the book's cover promises a lot "including limo liberals who preach the virtues of public school, but send their children to fashionable private ones..."

The basic story line running through comedianne Loh's book is her efforts to get her older daughter into exactly this kind of school -- and then realizes that she and her husband can't afford it. The usual characters surface -- over-achieving Moms, rich Dads, etc.

As I don't have children, I found this topic rather uninteresting and, in fact, just thumbed through the final half of the book. In the end, Loh realizes that she is attempting to deny her daughter the kind of schools she herself attended and -- she thinks that's just fine! (Yawn.)

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Dubious Practices, an on-going topic
A friend was recently in Cabo San Lucas and told me that she and her four girlfriends were each offered a tequila shooter after dinner to celebrate her birthday. She called them "tequila poppers" and told me that the waiter puts the shot glass down, the customer picks it up, taps it smartly on the table and then throws it down at which point, the waiter grabs a napkin, holds it over the customer's mouth and violently shakes her head back and forth.

She said it was a good thing the waiter was holding a napkin -- she threw up her dinner. You've been warned...