The Slice: ‘Diva’ flair isn’t all domestic

Homemaking Spokane- style almost got to do a pirouette on the national stage.

Having made it through a couple rounds of eliminations, Spokane’s Joyce Cameron was one of 50 would-be Martha Stewarts from across the country brought to Los Angeles last month to try out for a planned CBS reality series tentatively titled “The Domestic Diva Project.”

The 12 finalists will compete in cooking, gardening, sewing, crafts, floral arranging and what have you. The idea is to have amateur style mavens with a flair for elegant living essentially duke it out.

Alas, Cameron was not selected.

“I am disappointed,” she said. “It would have been fun.”

The 46-year-old director of development and communications at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture didn’t formally meet her rivals. But she noticed that there seemed to be an abundance of young, skinny, blonde women everywhere she went during the week in L.A.

“How can they qualify as divas?” Cameron wondered.

Oh, well. That’s showbiz.

“Hey, kids: You don’t want to just shrug your shoulders and answer “nothing.”

So here are some alternative replies to the question, “What did you do in school today?”

1. “I came to the conclusion that the values espoused by my favorite hip-hop artists stand in stark contrast to those implied by the school board’s curriculum decisions.”

2. “I observed the early establishment of tribal hierarchies and winced in expectation of the brutal social injustices these meritless power structures will foment.”

3. “I realized in algebra that I’m really more of a liberal arts kind of kid.”

4. “I ate my peanut butter and jelly in a teeming pool of burgeoning sexual tension.”

5. “I grabbed life by the throat and shook it.”

6. “I invested my milk money in a high-tech start-up.”

“Memorable teacher: When Claire Hengen Freeze and her classmates first entered their fifth-grade classroom in the 1930s in Spangle, the teacher was writing on the blackboard.

I know just how homely I are.

I know that my face is no star.

But then I don’t mind it.

For I am behind it.

It’s the folks out in front that I jar.

“She then turned and said, ‘Boys and girls, my name is Kathryn Bernard. You may call me Miss Bernard. Please be seated.’ “

It was the beginning of a special friendship.

“Free psychoanalysis with every transaction: Joe Kramarz was over 60 when he went to the motor vehicles licensing office to secure his permit to operate a motorcycle.

The clerk noted his age and said, “Having a midlife crisis, are we?”

“Today’s Slice question: What happened after a business solicited feedback on your customer service experience and you told the truth?