mad for the men (and everything else)

My newest Netflix obsession is Mad Men.  I started from the beginning this summer, and just finished Season 3.  And now I will have to wait, as patiently as I can, for season four to come out on dvd.

Oh, it's so good.  I love the costuming, the little details that they get right.  Perfectly selected desk accessories, and kitchen items, and ashtrays.  The characters are really well developed, although the majority of the men are not very nice, (or devoted to their wives...) 

In season 3, it is 1963, and the Drapers have just had a baby.  Since I was born in 1962, it's almost like getting to watch what life was like around me during that time.  Except my dad wasn't an ad executive, who regularly cheated on my mom., and even though Don is extremely handsome, he is a total jerk haunted by his life.  I am pretty sure that my mom didn't have Betty Draper's wardrobe either,   But I do recall her owning the same earrings Betty had on when she was in Rome-only my mom's were bright orange.

A few nights ago,  I dreamt that I had been transported back in time, and was at a party with women from that era.  Everyone was DRESSED, hose, and gloves, and bouffant hair.  There were snack sets, and cigarettes, and cocktails in really neat glasses.  But I felt out of place, and when I told them I was running to the store to get milk they looked at me like I was nuts.  "But the market isn't open on Sundays!".  So then I told them I would just run to the gas station to get the milk, and again they looked at me as if I was crazy.  "But you can't buy milk at a service station!". 

I can't remember now, the rest of the dream, but I kept wondering when they were going to figure out that I was from the future, and have me arrested.  And the police would show up in this huge cop car and take me away. 

When I woke up this morning, I stopped to think about all of the amazing changes in our world since the era that Mad Men starts out in, not the least being 24 hour grocery stores and the ability to buy milk at the gas station.  Really great things, like more equality for women in the work place ( you will just be amazed at how women are treated in the offices of Sterling Cooper ), and husbands in delivery rooms (rather than smoking and reading Life magazine in the waiting room).  And having worked in a corporate office, the days of smoking at your desk and keeping bottles of liquor in your office, that are often opened long before the lunch hour, are pretty much gone.  (at least in the retail world, I can't speak for the advertising industry...)

I could blog about this for days, but I won't.  Sit for a bit and just think about how much the world has changed, and appreciate the good parts.  And if you haven't already, start watching Mad Men.  It's a treat!