Only in America (Part Two)

The holiday is going well now the weather has hit the mid 70s at long last!

It sure beats being on call in cold London, here are a few funny things I have noticed whilst being here in Florida.

One local news article reads that many people cancelled restaurant reservations at a local eaterie because the patrons could not park literally outside (something of an expectation here in SW Florida) and therefore went home again. Clearly walking ten feet to the door of the restaurant is acceptable but twenty is reason to abort!

Across the road from this restaurant is "Coldstone", my sister's reason for living (see previous blogs), we go in and there is an extremely pretty blonde girl behind the counter, we begin chatting, I ask her age, she is 16. I lose interest.

My sister continues chatting.

Jail bait - "Where are you guys from?"

Sister - "London"

JB - "Do you guys come here often?"

Sister - "Yes we come back every year for the icecream." She says jokingly.

JB - "Really!!!" She says in total amazement.

In other news my sister and I have been horrified to watch interviews with America's leading actor, Tom Cruise, slating psychiatry....

This is from an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today programme.

"Psychiatry is a pseudoscience," he told host Matt Lauer, later saying: "You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do."

Cruise looked like a man possessed -- or at least in need of some diazepam -- leaning insistently forward in his chair, hammering Lauer when the host suggested that some people were actually, you know, helped, when doctors prescribed psychiatric drugs. Lauer sparred with Cruise specifically over whether it made sense for Brooke Shields to have sought therapy and taken antidepressants for postpartum depression -- a decision that Cruise had previously criticized.

Forget medical research: "There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance in a body," said Cruise, who prescribed vitamins and exercise for depression. "The thing that I'm saying about Brooke is that there's misinformation, okay? And she doesn't understand the history of psychiatry. She -- she doesn't understand, in the same way that you don't understand it, Matt."

Moving on - There I am driving along the twisting Everglades road when the ad comes on - "Do you want your license to carry a concealed firearm!?"

Thinking back to the Tom Cruise interview, I ponder it for a split second. Interesting.. but surely a joke. This is America though. No joke.

That then led me to the society of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership!

http://www.jpfo.org

Yes this country is truly nuts. Nuts but a hell of a lot of fun.

Do you take this woman?

Firstly before I begin a dissection of what it's like for my friends and I to be going through a quarter life crisis, I want to say how cool the last few weeks have been with no blog, loads of unexpected people have come out the wood work and told me how much they miss it!

So thanks.

Anyway I digress.

So Sunday I went to a wedding with my best friend. You will know him as JTU, Jez the Usher.

His new name as there has barely been a jewish wedding South of the Watford Gap in the last 12 months where Jez has not been an usher, we think maybe he gets costco to sponsor them or something. If that is true, when it comes to mine I'll have the Haribo pick and mix for the reception please!

Neither of us have settled down yet it must be said, we do not have cold feet as so much as frozen to the point of needing amputation when it comes to thoughts of "the begininng of the end" as my mentor Dad, once put it. Only joking Mum!

"And we are done" Jez said as we took a seat for the ceremony.

To most people that aren't on our wave length that would suggest we were about to leave, but no.

"We're done" in this setting meant that he had observed all eligible females on the other side of the synagogue and had come to his conclusion. No further mental power was needed for the rest of the day.

"What are we looking at here? Give me a figure?" I said, already knowing the answer having scoured the synagogue for myself.

"One, possibly two depending on how old that one is." Jez said pointing over to the girl that scrambled in late.

Things were looking very bleak. Only one!!!

Interestingly things were not looking so bad for everyone's favourite usher JTU. His dice had rolled 6s, for that one girl was sitting next to him on his dinner table.

I, on the other hand was stuck with the religious jewish girl so unfriendly that she had resigned herself to the fact that no jewish guy would be so stupid unless under the effects of mind altering hypnotics and had moved in with her non jewish partner.

I hasten to add that the fact her best friend was this night the bride, and was marrying someone of THE faith, was pushing her stability into Chernobyl like safety.

After having had enough of her sourness, I suggested to her that she looked like she needed to go on holiday and didn't she know she could get a good last minute deal to Baghdad this time of year.

That was pretty much the highlight of the evening for me.

Without the bride having a younger sister and younger sister's friends therefore in tow, the wedding was basically split into 2 conventions, those there in just married or soon to be sooo smug as you like couples.

And those girls who are of similar age to me who are sat on the shelves with no amount of Post Yuletide sales going to shift them if you know what I mean.

All in all weddings are crap, you are never sat next to the single au pair from Sweden, (although the Jez did do well on this occassion) and if I must go to another one, I either want to be best man or the groom.

Needless to say the bride and groom don't read my blog, and if by chance they do, may I say what a wonderful night I had and how beautiful the bride looked.