What Downton Abbey Can Teach Us About Effective Communication.

And we're off! Downton Abbey season 4. Everyone is looking refreshed. The men look thinner and even the older ladies' faces more pert. I don't know what benefits get written into the contracts after a series hits it big like this but let's just say everyone looks more awake, even playing sad people in mourning. I also love how the season opens on Valentine's Day. Reminds me of that season of Mad Men that did the same. Inbuilt drama always, on Valentine's Day.

Initial observations.
(1)
I love watching the clothing that everyone wears evolve. We have gone from the Edwardian era to the beginning of the '20's and we can already see the jaunty turns of flapper fashion working their way into the evening wardrobes of people like Lady Mary and Lady Edith. With the men I see more subtle shifts but of course Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess looks appropriately steeped in traditional garb suited to her.

(2)
Hello! Lord and Lady Grantham are sleeping in the same bed. Yoo-hoo, did anyone else notice this? Where have I been...did this start last season (I admittedly missed an episode or two). I always thought they slept alone - or was "sleeping in my dressing room" just a euphemism for "being in the doghouse"? Doesn't Lord Grantham look like a cardboard cutout sitting there? Strange. I guess everyone is just swimming with the tide of the times.

(3)
I am awash in the lush detail of the costumes and set design. I die for "period dramas" and thought, when I discovered Downton Abbey in its lull between seasons 1 and 2 that I would be among a very small cadre of nerds watching this show. Imagine! A PBS Masterpiece Theatre show garnering such a wide swath of the American audience! So great - now we're all in this together. Never mind that my husband just about fell asleep watching hour 2 of the premiere with me.

(4)
I love that Mary and Matthew's baby is named George. How fitting, given the little prince born in England last summer. Do you think that was a shout out to the Royals?

(5)
Speaking of George, don't you love how no one gives much of a look to the kids until it's time to throw Nanny (Wicked Witch of the) West out on her ear? That was a close call.

(5)
All this wariness and hullaballoo about electricity. So funny that Ivy is afraid of the blender.

(6)
Mr. Barrow is Templeton the Rat of Downton. His deviant, self-serving behavior is kind of fun to watch and it's in rare form in this episode.

(7)
Love that dinner gong.

(8)
Who is King Knut?

Alright. Glad to see Mary breaking out of her mourning clothes and getting a little more informed. Michelle Dockery played the deadness of her new widow depression perfectly though did anyone else chuckle at how even with her voice seeming one register lower, her depressive demeanor is not much different than what we knew to be her "normal" state of being? She's so deliciously melancholy and snarky.

Mary's life has largely been the pivot on which a lot of the action in the series turns. But boy she can't catch much of a break - remember her first fiancee was killed on the Titanic in the very first episode? And then Mr. Pamuk, the GQ cover model of a "house guest" who died in her bed? Who's next? At least now she is a recognized half owner of the estate. Didn't you love the chit chat with Thomas about selling off the farmers' land as she stood on the hill overlooking her inheritance? I enjoyed that.

What I love about this drama is how much anger and vitriol surfaces with beautifully British turns of phrase. In Mary's pulling up Carson's indiscretion by saying,

"Carson, this is my fault. I'm afraid I may have encouraged you to feel you have the right to address me in this way...I'm sorry you feel entitled to overstep the mark. We're old friends, and as I said I'm sure this lapse is as much my fault as yours..."

I need to remember how to put people in their place Mary style when next needed.

Also to be noted is how much goes unsaid. I mean, the amount of deception and running around taking place at Downton! From Lord Grantham kissing the staff girl to dragging a dead body around the corridors in seasons past?!

Another very telling line about what fabulous communicators the Granthams and co. are: Violet's line as she shepherds Mary through the machinations of her inheritance:

"There can be too much truth in any relationship."

Really, now! I loved the sparkle in her eye as she said that. It about sums up half the interactions in this series. But that's what makes drama! Leave it to Fellowes and the other writers to give Maggie Smith understated zingers like this. That was a great line.

My other favorite line was

"What the --- " when Jimmy sees Rose dressed as a staff worker to meet the Dance Hall guy who schlepped all the way in from town on foot to see if "she's alright." Got to keep an eye on that one.

Until next week...

What's on Your Fridge Door?

Did anyone else read this New York Times article from sometime last Fall?

Titled "What Does Your Fridge Door Say About Your Family" it refers to a book called Life in the 21st Century which focuses on the "material saturation" of our Western lives and how we manage to live with all our...well...stuff.

As if you as a parent didn't have enough to stress you out, like whether your children have enough grit, or if you are sharing too much about their lives online, here is an article about what dark aspects of your personality and lifestyle you have unwittingly projected onto your fridge door. Their extensive research has unearthed...

"a tendency for high counts of objects on refrigerator panels to co-occur with large numbers of objects in the house as a whole. Put another way, a family’s tolerance for a “messy” refrigerator may be associated with a fairly relaxed attitude about high density or clutter in public rooms of the house … Perhaps a place as seemingly unassuming as the refrigerator signals overall family tendencies regarding consumerism and household organization."

(Insert defeated sigh here).

One look at mainstream American media (other than, perhaps, the TV show Hoarders) would seem to indicate that many peoples' homes look like pristine pages out of a home decorating magazine, or one of those home organizing shows on cable, which seem to only exist to keep makers of stacking plastic bins in business. Not so, people, not so. Anyone with children who has that sterile a life certainly either has kids in college, kids in boarding school, or, any minute now, are expecting a visit from their in-laws -- in which case they have swept all the clutter off their fridge an into a box which has been thrown into the coat closet.

Our fridge is one surface in our home that does indeed tell the story of who we are as a family. Posted there are a rotating series of school lunch menus, calendars, the artwork of our children, triumphant spelling tests, notes from friends, snapshots of great memories together, our agreement about family rules, fun magnets and other ephemera of our daily lives. I like to think of it as a collage of our life.

Yes, we have clutter from art projects in process, school books, and too many coats and shoes in the hallway that haven't been put away properly because, frankly, usually the first thing one of us does upon entering is the "drop everything and hug" thing we all do around here. There will be time to clean and organize -- it's not always now. Like the late comedienne Phyllis Diller famously said,

“Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.” 

It is literally snowing as I type this!

After I read the article I did indeed do an organizational sweep of the fridge doors, I won't deny that the article gave me pause. But though initially it felt like a breath of fresh air had swept through the kitchen, after I'd cleared some fridge scraps away, soon my little people were making adorable drawings and handing them to me like jewels. They are jewels to me. Up they went on the fridge, the childhood equivalent of an exhibition space. Then came a few more snapshots. The fridge is crowded again -- but I love it.

Alight Into Nature!

Today we went to a nearby local park to get away from confined spaces full of coughing people. Our daughter's immunity issue was the perfect reason to take in the freshness of natural surroundings.

We skipped rocks, found the perfect walking sticks, intimidated Canadian Geese who were munching on the grass, played with the ice that had formed on the water in a tiny decorative fountain, jumped over thick, gnarly tree roots, and discovered a tree called a sweet gum that looked like it was made of corrugated cardboard.

We marveled at the stark beauty of bare trees and low winter sunshine. My husband was inspired to photograph the trees for use in future paintings. I am so excited to see the spark of an intention to paint again, because he is a amazingly talented painter!

Our daughters rolled sideways downhill not worried about Goose droppings, peeling off layers of sweaters and coats among the giggles.

Then my husband said to me: "Let's meet here in 30 years and watch our grandchildren play." We agreed it was a gold star moment -- i.e. one to never forget.