Pink perfection?

The color pink is very well. In its place. For instance, hollyhocks and showy sedum (above). Or strawberry ice cream. But, yikes! Our clever marketing men (and women, I suppose) are smothering an entire generation of little girls in an enormous pink miasma.

I mean, have you really looked at what's being offered in the stores and shops? There was this entire aisle of pink over at the WalMart the other day. Costumes. Dolls. Toys. Pink. PINK. PINK. The part that really frightens me is that the girls not only go along with this monolithic sales push, but they love it, if I am to judge from my familial experience. The youngest granddaughter even insisted on a pink bedroom, she did! And more pink in the hen house.

The theme is not just pink, but princess pink. Costumes, tiaras, the whole nine yards of cloying Hollywood-style royal frou-frou. And, oh yes, a proper backpack for the princess while we are about it!

Where are the ginghams ... the greens, reds and yellows ... the plaids, prints and stripes? The individuality (or, to be more PC, the Diversity)? You realize that when the kids grow a bit older and rebel, as rebel they will, they will simply choose to follow another mass-marketed theme. After all, what is a Goth girl but a pink princess rendered in black and white?

Forgive the rant. It's just that today I had one pink experience too many. Would you believe pale red marking pens over at Staples, hardly the home of your everyday princess? Or, below, pink kitchen tools at Tuesday Morning for the thoroughly over-grown princess. Eeek!

In the pink

I had promised myself to do a proper Scenic Alaska blog at this point, but (pause for excuses) 1) I hadn't prepped any pictures because 2) at this point I have so many beautiful scenes to share that it's too dang difficult to make the selection and, besides, 3) the dotter just finished the new John Scalzi paperback (The Last Colony), which she passed along to me & I was hooked. So I have to go with the pink pictures, already touched up and sized in PhotoShop.

To backtrack a little: what is at least as manly as a chainsaw? Earthmoving equipment, that's what. And, boy have I seen a lot of backhoes, blades & similar machinery, here, there and almost everywhere.

What I hadn't expected: a Pink blade. But then I looked at that Tew's sign again and it was in pink, reading "It takes Tews to tango...", which still doesn't explain the Pink. Maybe Mr. Tews has a little girl who, like the granddotter, is deep into the princess stuff, most of which is pink.

This beefy Pink Ford is about as expected in Alaska as those hanging baskets.

Here is the most muscular of all the Pink equipment my dotter and SIL pointed out to me on one of our trips, tho they were surprised by the non-Tews Pink Quonset hut that we discovered yesterday on our return from another wonderful backcountry adventure.

But this is typical of my great Alaskan adventure: contradictions everywhere. Restaurant offerings that would please almost any California foodie in a frontier world where there are less than ten (10 -- count 'em -- 10) numbered highways. Where a prickly, individualistic state which eschews zoning ordinances provides wide, paved bike/hiker paths along its handful of highways. Where taxidermists ply their trade cheek-by-jowl to espresso shacks. And he-man equipment might be painted pink. I love it!