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Sunday, February 4, 2007

What We Can Learn from Monk

My youngest daughter loves "Monk" and has seasons 1, 3, and 4. It's a good thing because our cable subscription only pays for reception to feed our community-access stations and PBS in the area. I know we can get an antennae to provide this same reception but where we live, how we live, it just doesn't work for us. We like it this way. It's a big sacrifice not having cable, for her, because she has to wait to see season 5 spread out in distance measured by miles we travel to visit our relatives all of whom have HD, LD, and satellite. When I asked her one time why she liked watching "Monk," she answered because he is a good detective and solves problems for people.

When my daughter calls on one of her friends, an 86 year-old neighbor, she takes with her among other games and stuff, her mini-DVD player so they can watch "Monk" together. When I walked over to pick her up this past Friday night, she and Mrs. Badger were playing "Scrabble." While she was collecting her things, she stopped suddenly, and asked, "do you want to see what Mrs. Badger and I can do? Watch this."

She whispered something in Mrs. Badger's ear and they laugh. "Okay, Mom, watch this."

She snaps her fingers and she says, "Wipes, Please." And my neighbor leans over to pick up her plastic box of sani-wipes, plucks one out, and hands it to my daughter. As my daughter is just about to finish, my neighbor picks up a plastic bag in which my daughter places the wipe.

"Okay Mom, watch this." Mrs. Badger snaps her finger and commands "Wipes, please!" and my daughter leaps over to pluck a wipe from the box finishing the scene. After my daughter disposes the wipe into the basket, she leans over, and gives her friend a big hug to say good-bye.

There is much more to the character Monk and his story than his disability.

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