The poor and the fantasy

It has been my experience, and I'm perfectly willing to admit that it may be only my experience, that there is a socio-economic link to supernatural beliefs. If I'm wrong, let me know. But if I'm right, I want to know why. Is it just a simple case of poor people wanting to escape their relity with magic and mysticism? I don't know. But in case I need to, let me clarify and explain.

The only people I know who genuinely fear Ouija boards are dirt poor. The only people I know who believe fairies are real, who are Wiccan or believe druids built the pyramids or think that somewhere in Ireland is a foggy forest of unicorns, are poor. Not just "the economy is rough we need to tighten our belts" poor but "welfare checks come out on the first so we're eating cheese sandwiches and wiping our asses with coffee filters until then" poor. Tarot cards, palm reading, vampires existing in reality. These seem to be things that tween girls and the poor have exclusive domain over. So why? Why are poor people so willing to spend their money of ceramic statues of generic Native Americans, dream catchers featuring neon turkey feathers, and sparkly velvet paintings of elves and fairies?

Again, I may be wrong. I may have proof that I'm wrong in my own memory but just not remember it now. But in general, past the age of 25, people who say they are "spiritual" or "in tune", often just tend to be really dirt poor.

Lady Gaga and Pepper Spray

My life has been a series of slapstick comedy born entirely of bad judgment. Seriously, I look back on just about every memory before my 30th birthday, embarrassed to have done any of it. It all reminds me of the way Lady Gaga lives, but if she weren't a celebrity and instead just some schlub who walked around going to the bank and picking up her kids from daycare looking the way she does. I never wore a meat dress to my job soldering ignition coils, but then again it never occurred to me either.

Just out to pick up her dry cleaning

Sometimes I think about what I'd say if I could go back and talk to myself. What would I say to my high school self? (For the purposes of this fantasy I pretend a 16 or 17 year old me wouldn't have been horrified at what I look like now.) Unfortunately I think I'd spout the same (true) platitudes everyone else was spouting at me back then. Be yourself, don't try so hard, concentrate on your schoolwork, stay away from penises, blah blah blah. The thing is, I have a 12 year old daughter now. And if all I can think of to tell myself is cliches, what can I tell her? How do I get her to concentrate on her studies and run from penises (after pepper-spraying them, that is)?

So. Damn. Hungry!

Sitting here looking at the Schwan's catalog while trying to lose weight in a house without snacks. It's like porn to a man with no hands!

Baking, and a recipe!

So far my weight loss plan to not eat any junk food I haven't made myself has led me to rediscover my deep fryer, as well as baking. I crave potato chips SO bad, yet I have none to eat. Tom bought me a mandoline, though, so I will have chips soon. I just hope I can keep them from becoming the burnt-tasting brown chips. Wish me luck, whenever I get around to making them. Today's experiment was chocolate biscotti. Here is the recipe I used, with a little secret baking information I have*:

Chocolate Biscotti

INGREDIENTS:

half cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 cup white sugar (splenda won't work; I tried it)
2 1/2 cups white flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking powder


DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 375 and line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In mixer (you can use a bowl but I used my mixer with the paddle attachment) blend oil, eggs, and sugar until well blended. Add cocoa powder until it resembles fudge sauce. Add baking powder, wait a few seconds, then add flour. Knead on floured surface until workable (it will be sticky and your hands will look like you strangled a chocolate statue) and then split into halves.
3. Roll each half into a log about 6 inches shorter than your cookie sheet and place in middle of parchment paper. Then fold the paper over the dough (like rolling sushi) and smash down, form each side in turns, to get a 3/4ish inch thick rectangular slab. (If my paper folding instructions don't make sense, don't worry. It's the thickness that counts.)
4. Bake for 15 minutes and then remove and place on racks to cool. When it's cool enough to handle, cut into 1 inch slabs and place slices on their sides back on cookie sheet and bake for 5 minutes, flip and bake on other side for 5 minutes. Let cool completely and they should be hard as a rock.
5. Now feel free to dip them in melted chocolate or whatever. I kept mine plain and gave them to the baby as teething cookies, but I plan to dunk them in coffee too. You can add nuts or chocolate chips or just about anything else with a burning point higher than 375 to them, too.




*Secret baking information is that as long as your recipe has a significant amount of sugar in it, you can make just about anything chocolate by replacing a quarter or so of the flour with cocoa powder. Chocolate angel food cake, chocolate sugar cookies, chocolate biscotti. Cocoa is just chocolate flour, if you have sugar to sweeten it. But don't tell anybody or they won't envy your secret recipes. shhhhhh!

Those poor babies

I have been told that I tend to over-think things. And it comes as an honest surprise to me that the rest of humanity just takes everything at face value and doesn't think about things any more than they have to. And that's sort of how I explain this current practice of sexualizing toddlers. Yep, you heard me.

I hate little girl bikinis. The whole point of choosing a bikini over a one piece is to show more skin, and then people put them on their little kids. What purpose is there (unless you're a pedophile or out shopping for a pedophile) for putting a 4 year old (or younger) in a revealing swimsuit?

Make up on little girls is almost as bad. I understand a little concealer if your kid bashed her face on the stairs the day before family pictures, but some people put their daughters in full war paint. Mascara, blush, lip gloss. Not only does it make the child look different from how she usually looks, which seems to be the opposite of why you'd take a photo of your child, but make up is generally accepted as making a woman look more attractive, sexually. Lip gloss makes lips look pouty and plump, mascara makes women look heavy-lidded (bedroom eyes), blush makes them look flushed. Why do mothers want their children to look heavy-lidded, flushed, and pouty-lipped?


And on another, non-sexualized, rant against children's fashions: What is with the giant satellite-dish flower headbands people put on their kids? A polyester daisy or dahlia that looks like it's been plucked from a Memorial Day grave arrangement, hot glued to an elastic and yarn headband. When my daughter was little, female babies were identified with ridiculous velcro barrettes. Now you have to staple gun a ridiculously disproportionate "silk" flower to them. And still people pierce their ears anyway so what's the point?

the bells, again and always

At first it's almost nice, the tinkling bells playing music every now and then. The wind catches the sound just right and it's kind of pretty. For a while.

Then it gets to the point where it's a little annoying. You're watching TV and the wind only catches every few notes and it doesn't quite make a tune, but you can still hear it. But you assume it sounds better to people who actually listen for it.

Then come a few months where it's getting real old real quick. You can pick out certain songs now and they're the same hymns you hear for sale on CD box sets on TV at 3:00 am. But the church has a new toy and they're bound to play it to death and it's only 20 minutes twice a day. You suppose you can live with that.

Then comes winter, and you can't hear it unless you happen to be out. And when that happens, it does raise your hackles but it's only during this one errand so you bite your tongue. After all, who are you to try to shut down music that for all you know, everyone else loves.

Then the weather starts to turn nice, and you open up the windows, and then you hear the bells. Those godawful bells. And you call the church and find out that they'll never stop. They will play every day, day after day, over and over for eternity. When the Rapture comes, all the good little Christians will be swept away and the rest of you will be left with these infernal never-ending bells. Nuclear war could break out and all that would be heard for eons afterward would be the skittering of cockroaches and those obnoxious eternal bells, twice a day, every day, for ever.

It's like Chinese water torture. Just a little thing, the music twice a day, but when a little thing never stops it gets to be a big thing. Like a mosquito in your ear, or Kim Jong Il.

The movie 2012, as seen through the eyes of my 2 year old son

Act One:
The fire and the cars and the fire and volcano and the cars. What happened?


Act Two:
Fire and airplane and trees and airplane boom and car jump and airplane crash and fire and water. Oh no!




Act Three:
Water and boat and daddy and boat and water and boat and water. They're okay.

The end.

A horrible sense of foreboding

The weather has been unseasonably warm here the last couple days. I have turned off my heat and opened my front door. But overriding the joy at finally having fresh air in the house is a sense of dread. Because in 2 hours and 40 minutes, I will have to close my house up. That church up the road, the one I am often (by a few people, actually) accused of singling out unfairly, will blast the first of it's twice daily play lists. The thing is, the people who accuse me of overreacting to it don't live here. They don't have to hear it every single day, twice a day. And also, the music suits their tastes so they don't see it as being that obnoxious. And while I am loathe to use my own personal taste in an argument on policy (that it should be against some sort of law or rule to blare music all over town), the fact is that that's exactly what the church does. They subject everyone who is outside or dares to open up their windows to their own personal taste in music.

Ugh, I had to feed the baby so now there's only 2 hours and 15 minutes left.

I have a neighbor who races his car on the weekends. When he tinkers with the car in his garage, it is loud. Drag strip loud. It is an unfortunate consequence of working on his car. But it is a side effect, not the goal. The church music is the goal. I have been thinking about this for what, a year now, and I cannot fathom any goal other than to make people listen to the music. This isn't like the pastor is inside his house watching TV and I am outside on his sidewalk and happen to hear what he's watching. This isn't like they're having choir practice or a concert at the church and I live across the street and can hear it. They are playing the music out of some sound system up in the bell tower and projecting the music into the open air. They are playing it (I can only assume) for and to the town at large. Why? How on Earth can anyone, individual or organization, be so presumptuous as to just take for granted that all people would be grateful for this? I like Carrie Underwood. A lot of people like Carrie Underwood. She won American Idol, her concerts sell out, she has Number One hits. But I wouldn't purchase a sound system to play Carrie Underwood songs out to a city full of strangers every day. Would anybody?

If I don't like what's on TV, I can turn off the TV or change the channel. If I don't like the radio station, I can turn off the radio or change the station. And even there, the FCC gets to regulate which frequencies TV or radio can broadcast at and, to an extent, what content they can broadcast. If I want to get away from the church music (and I do) I have to move or soundproof my house.

Why don't I call the church, or the cops, or do anything more proactive that whine on a blog? Because I am also not presumptuous enough to assume that everyone else hates this as much as I do, and just as I don't think they should be pushing their taste on me I also don't want to try to push my taste on them. And I don't want to be the godless heathen who ruined it for the church, assuming I could even get them to stop. Here's what I fear:

Imagine a Sunday morning church service. The pews are full of families and congregants, all dressed in their Sunday best and feeling warm and cozy and full of Jesusness (I'm not really sure how this works). The pastor walks up to the front of the church with a sad little smile on his face and says this. "Before we start with the praising and worshipping and happy feeling today, I have an announcement to make." (Again, can you tell I have no idea how sermons start?) "I'm sure you all remember when we purchased the Obnoxo 12000 last year and how we made it our mission to share spiritual music with the community through it. Well, we've had a complaint, and it seems that someone doesn't like our glorious message and songs of praise." (Church people talk like that, don't they?) "So beginning today, we're going to shut down the Obnoxo 12000." (Okay, here's where the astonished gasp is heard, as well as shocked murmurs of what, and how, and whyever.) "So I'd like to take a moment to thank JesusChristOurLordAndSavior (is it only my family that says it all as one word like that?) for the time we did have and to apologize to all of you whom I know loved the daily callings to God."

And then of course they would all know it was me and I would be hated forever for shutting down their religious freedoms and being the Godless Babylonian whore, or whatever people who don't like unsolicited daily concerts are. So what would you guys do, my literally few readers? Because I'd love to call or email the pastor and just ask him to stop. But I have been stewing on this for a while now and I fully realize that I might just be jumping him from out of nowhere about a problem he didn't even know existed. I'm also not sure that a person who decides to play DJ for the whole town every day actually cares what anyone else thinks. What would you say, if anything? I need help here because I am so not good at social niceties like tact.


I realize I try to lighten things up with humor a lot, but aside from my one year of attending a small church here in town, I have little to no experience with churches or sermons or religious people. I do, however, have some family who (in my opinion) ten d to over-do it. As in, give the tithing and then be unable to buy medicine for the children. And bring random church members uninvited to family events hosted by others. And look at people who disagree or question anything the church does as if they just transformed into Satan, complete with goat feet and forked tongue. I have literally been to college graduation parties featuring my uncle dunking his daughters in the family swimming pool in a celebratory baptism. So when I try to imagine how a pastor would talk to his parishioners, I realize that I may come off as exaggerated or offensive, but I really don't know. I get facebook posts daily that say things like this "About to meet Daddy for lunch. Praise Jesus that we get to share this meal together. God is good and I love my family! The Heavenly Father provides!" So if this is how people talk about a cheeseburger, I can only imagine how they would talk about their sound system. Obnoxo 12,000 is just what I call the sound system personally. I don't know what it looks like but I imagine shiny brass organ pipes, the computer from Wargames, and the giant sound system in the back of a lowrider.

It's not the airline

Overweight people are treated like shit every day in this country. Hell, I went to Lane Bryant's website and found models not nearly big enough for a plus size clothing store. Even the fat-lady store is pushing the beautiful=skinny agenda! But I have to say, if you are morbidly obese and a flight attendant asks you if you have purchased 2 seats, the flight attendant isn't the one who humiliated you. Your weight is what has humiliated you. Just like if I ask a store employee if they have pants in my size and they direct me to the Plus section. The employee isn't embarrassing me, my size is.

Gray Hair

There are actually people who think that by virtue of not going gray, that this woman:










looks younger than or better than this woman:









I understand that these are just opinions. I simply cannot understand why so many people insist that gray hair is so horrible, or that any woman who has gray hair and wears it rather than covers it is "letting herself go". In my ever so humble opinion, once you reach a certain age (an age neither I nor Jamie Lee Curtis has yet reached), coloring your hair looks a little ridiculous. It ceases to fool anyone. I really don't fault anyone for covering their grays in their 20s, 30s, 40s, or even their 50s or early 60s. But once they eyebrows start to gray it becomes readily apparent that the hair color is no longer real. And if a woman in her 20s, 30s, 40s, or even her 50s or early 60s chooses not to color the gray, people should be more accepting and less snarky than they currently seem to be.

edit: I don't object to anyone dying their hair any color. Brown, blond, red, black, green, purple, blue, etc. I just resist the idea that everyone should dye their hair. And the difference between a 70+ year old lady dying her hair bright red and a 22 year old kid dying his hair blue is that the old lady expects people to believe, or at least pretend to believe, that the red is her natural hair color. When the kid dyes his hair blue he is attempting to deceive no one; his color is artificial and he doesn't pretend otherwise. When a 35 year old woman dyes her hair red, the deception is believable. When a 70+ year old woman dyes her hair she is not only attempting to deceive people but anyone who doesn't pretend to believe the deception is rude if they admit it. We are forced to either become complicit in the lie or to be rude about it. I don't dislike the hair color or the choice to aquire the hair color. I dislike the presumption that I will accept the hair color as natural. For the record, I also dislike the presumption that teeth are naturally flourescent white, that midwestern women in February are naturally 3 shades darker than the rest of their families, and that my local TV news anchor's forehead just happens to be wrinkle free and immobile. Hey, I have changed my appearance plenty. I even dyed my hair for years. But I never asked people, even by implication, to believe the unbelievable. I never claimed my tattoos were birthmarks. And even if the woman whose picture I swiped off google never pretends her hair color is natural, the implication is there nonetheless. Her hair isn't gray because she doesn't want to look old, and she is supposed to look younger somehow because she has a hair color not naturally found on old people. She isn't, like a 30 or 40 year old woman, trying to avoid looking prematurely old. She is trying to keep from looking her actual age. And that is the lie.

I had to laugh

After my talk with the school about pajama pants and being told that all schools have rules against "distracting" outfits, I read this about the high school in the next town over. I don't think it will actually happen, but there is no way that letting kids wear pajama pants in class, even the brightest yellow Spongebob pants, could ever be as distracting as this. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/15/flavor-flav-high-school-reality-tv_n_823479.html

CLINTON, Iowa — Now he's opened his first chicken restaurant in Iowa, rapper Flavor Flav would like to earn his high school diploma in the state and record his efforts for a new reality TV show.

Flav, whose real name is William Drayton Jr., grew up in Freeport, N.Y. He says he dropped out of school in 10th grade.

He opened Flav's Fried Chicken in Clinton, Iowa last month – his only connection to the Mississippi River town.

Last week the 51-year-old pitched his idea for "Flavor Flav Goes Back to High School" to the local school superintendent and a school board member. He says he'll approach the full board in a couple of weeks.

Flav was in '80s hip-hop group Public Enemy and has since found new fame on reality shows.

In response to a comment

I recently got a comment on one of my breast feeding posts that made me think. It was from a friend of mine, with whom I would like to stay friends, and it basically said that both she and her husband were formula fed and they're all right, and their daughter was formula fed and she's fine. (For the record, I don't doubt that any of them are fine.) And it said that breast feeding's not for everyone and that formula was good enough for her daughter. My first instinct was to reply with "Oh I totally get what you're saying and you're right," because that's how polite I am. But the fact is that I don't get it. And to stop short of saying she's not right, I don't happen to agree with all of her statements either.
Formula isn't, at its core, toxic. It can be, if the water it's mixed with is bad or if there's some problem in the manufacturing process, and those possibilities are part of my objections to it, but it is not toxic. A baby fed infant formula will turn out just fine. But, they will still not get everything that a baby fed breast milk gets. And I just cannot fathom how that is good enough for a baby. I understand if a parent doesn't realize the discrepancies, but not if they don't care. My mother was fed, exclusively, sweetened condensed milk. The kind that comes out of a can that you make fudge with. That's what she got in her bottles until she was old enough to be weaned onto whole milk, which was at about 9 months. It was the 40s and she was adopted, so that was what she got. And she grew. She lived and gained weight and met all of her milestones. So will a baby fed whole milk out of a gallon jug. But we don't feed whole milk, or even sweetened condensed milk, to babies because it is lacking in so much. What was good enough for my mother was NOT good enough for me, or for my kids. And I'm not sure, but I think it might actually be illegal to give a baby sweetened condensed milk.

Not everyone can breast feed. I freely admit that. But, while I know that it's a relatively common opinion, I cannot understand sexualizing my breasts to the point where I'd deprive my baby of their milk. There are a LOT of things that were good enough for me that aren't good enough for my kids, some because we know better now than they did back then. Smoking, going without a seat belt, carcinogenic sun burns, and baby formula. It's a parent's choice to make, but I just can't see making that choice. I don't propose that the choice be taken away from anyone; I just can't see going in that direction. And while my instinct will always be to apologize for offending and back down, my opinion won't change.

Valentine's Day

Don't you hate when you're fighting on Valentine's Day? And maybe the fight has sort of ended, but without anything getting resolved so it's just kind of hanging there in the middle of the room and everybody's walking around it, pretending it's not there, but eventually it will fall and splat open again. And even though you know/hope it will all be over with and you can move past it, and maybe if you're lucky some real actual issues will get ironed out in the process, it still absolutely sucks that the sincere and heartfelt card you spent a lot of time choosing at the card rack now smacks of unintended irony.

Just to clarify

I think I've mentioned before my latest attempt to eat healthier and hopefully lose some weight. We are not going to buy snack food or junk food any more. We can eat all we want, as long as we make it (Wafernusse gifts notwithstanding). I am trying to get away from processed foods because I am just not good at knowing which unpronouncables are okay and which are toxic additives. But either way, processed foods are full of sugar, salt, and preservatives, so hopefully this is a healthy strategy.

I asked a friend how to make tortilla chips and the instructions were basically to cut up and fry tortillas, which is what I was expecting but I didn't know if she baked them or not, or if she salted them or anything (Alton Brown rubs them with lime juice). So I suppose a stickler could say that since I'm buying the tortillas that I'm still using processed foods, but then again if I bought flour I'd be using processed foods. My strategy isn't just to avoid processed snacks but also to make it harder to snack. I can't tell you how many times in the past week I've wanted potato chips. But I didn't want to make potato chips so I didn't have any to eat. See how that works? Yay for me. Now, I need to go to sleep so I can wake up and make nachos, and possibly buy a slicer to make potato chips with.

And he wonders why I'm fat.

I know my husband love me. I know it intellectually and at times I know it in my gut too. Today was one of those days when Tom did so many absolutely sweet things for me that I wondered who he'd slept with. (just kidding)

First, he bought me oatmeal. But he bought me the good kind of oatmeal. I eat steel-cut oats every morning and McCann's Irish Oatmeal is supposed to be the best but I never bought it because it costs twice as much as the cheap stuff and really, how different could raw oats be? But last week the store was out of the cheap stuff so he bought the McCann's and let me tell you, raw oats can vary a lot. Oh these are good. And today, he bought me two big cans of the McCann's. Now I not only have the yummy oatmeal but I have the decorative cans as well. He loves me.

He also bought me Wafernusse, which is my favorite candy. It's only a dollar at Aldi but still, he thought of me. If you haven't had Wafernusse I highly suggest trying it. It's like a kit kat but not as hard, and with hazelnut flavor in it.

Then he went uptown tonight to buy chicken breasts, because he has a thing for chicken breasts, and when he came home he made supper and wouldn't let me in the kitchen. When supper was ready I was surprised because it was fish and rice, which is nothing special. I mean, I love Tom's fish and rice, but we have it fairly often and it's not really a secret-worthy meal. But there was a dish on the table with a paper towel on it so I went and peeked and . . . . he made me mussels! I didn't even know you could buy mussles in town here, and he made them. In garlic butter! And they are my favorite food and I love them so much and he made them for me and I ate them all. And in the fridge, for me to make possible tomorrow, is a brisket. I have wanted to make a brisket for a while now and apparently today was the day I get all the food related things I've ever wanted, is there it is atop the chicken breasts.

On a serious note, though, I really do wonder if he slept with somebody.

Don't get too clean

You know what I think is hilarious? Things like this:

I am definitely not a germaphobe. I only worry about sterilizing grocery carts and washing up before eating, and I only sterilize toys after a major sickness or stomach bug.

Perhaps I am a slob, but that sounds germaphobey to me. Sterilizing toys? I went through 3 pregnancies and my doctor was reaching up into my cervix weekly with unsterilized gloves, and this person sterilizes toys every time a kid pukes?

Remember the first time you were told that a yeast infection was an overgrowth of a fungus that naturally lives in the vagina? Remember how yucky it was to realize that there's a normal amount of fungus in there even when everything's okay? Or how about when you read that douching is bad because it washes away the good bacteria too? Good bacteria?! See the problem is that a lot of people never realize that we are not alone on the top of the food chain. When public school teachers give examples of symbiosis, they often mention birds living on rhinos rather than the bacteria living within all of us.

Many bacteria living in our mouths (no, brushing doesn't kill them all) are there only to prevent more dangerous bacteria from moving in. And so many different enzymes and bacteria live in the intestines that in a very real sense, every single person is a giant walking petri dish. But the thing is, all that stuff, the gut flora, serves an important purpose. It helps us digest our food. Enzymes and bacteria break down food even better than stomach acid. And as it's broken down, nutrients are released and can be absorbed through the intestinal walls. Without bacteria living inside of us, parasites squirming around in our bellies, we would likely starve to death, or at least die of malnutrition if not outright starvation.

So the next time you start to feel all superior and independent and like you don't need anybody or anything, remember that you might just be one bout of cleansing diarrhea away from severe vitamin deficiencies. Humanity as a species is not a solitary one. We not only need each other, but we also need some of the lower links on the food chain, and not just to kill and eat. I wonder if people really understand that, that we would die on our own. I wonder, when people vote to screw the little guy, or exhibit the "Not my problem, every man for himself" attitude, do they realize that they only exist because they are involuntarily hosting billions of parasites, which are also involuntarily keeping them alive?

Sanitary does not equal sterile. Next time you're coating your hands with Purell or soaking toys in bleach, remember that. The cleaner we get as a society, the higher the rates of asthma and allergies get. It's not a coincidence.

It's just so dramatic

I hate drama. I abhor it, can't stand it, loathe it. One of the reasons I have such disdain for reality TV is that it's all alliances and schemes and all sorts of drama. I used to have drama; I fed into it and I fed off of it. But one night (I remember it well) as I sat in my car with the windows rolled up to keep some chick from punching me in the face, the thought suddenly occurred to me; I'm too old for this shit. I was 19 at the time, but from that night forward, I had no patience for it. If my ex was calling me all the time and wouldn't stop, I didn't plead and beg him to leave me alone. I threatened to call the cops and after the very next call, I did. If a male friend's girlfriend got jealous and acted all bitchy to me, I just walked away and wished him luck. I didn't get up in her face and demand respect.

At a couple points in my life since then I've worried that I've taken my intolerance of drama too far and just shut out all emotion. Where is the line, I wondered. But I smile when my kids do cute things and I get upset when my husband is selfish, and I feel remorse when I am selfish. What I don't do is get wrapped up in my tween daughter's social life, or take differences of opinion as personal insults. And I'm basically proud of that.

But I am, at heart, shy and insecure. It is why I mutter, and it is also why, if called upon to be any kind of aggressive, I will be passive aggressive. I hate confrontation. If somebody says something stupid that pisses me off and I respond to it, they are just going to say even more stupid stuff and then I'll hear it and get more pissed and then I'll get mad at myself for caring what they said and it's not even worth it. Or maybe I do care what they think, and they have just offended me, am I going to want to get into a huge fight before waiting to see if the insult rolls off my back after a good night's sleep? Ahh, it's just too much trouble. I am better off muttering.

I bring this up because I am trapped, held against my will, in family drama. Maybe it's my fault. There seems to be within me some defect which doesn't allow for loyalty. If I like something I like it for actual reasons I have thought of in my head, not just because it is mine. My country, my high school, my family. I don't tend to like blindly following along with something just because fate plopped me down in the middle of it. I assume my family can see that and that they don't very much appreciate it. Whatever the reason, there is a small handful of family that I actually would choose to associate with, and the rest is collateral damage at holidays. Sadly, this leaves me out of the loop for the most part, so I don't hear much gossip and never seem to know what's going on. Apparently one of my cousins had a visit from DCFS a few months back and blames me for it. I told her I didn't do it, but then I never heard any more about it so I have no idea how it turned out. Did she ever find out who called them, did she get them off her back, are they still bothering her? I will probably never know because if I ever asked anyone, it would only look like I was the one who sicced them on her. Ugh. Drama!

I have another family member who is apparently (I hear it all third and fourth hand) going through some very rough times. I would love to reach out to her and let her know that I'm here for her, but I'm not sure I can. I wouldn't know how. And then I think, would I just be taking on her drama? Could I actually offer her any help, any advice she couldn't get a hundred other places? Does the fact that we are related and I can stand her actually earn me a pass into her life? And while I sit here pondering these heavy questions, I realize that it's all drama.

I'm a pretty cut and dried person. Either it's worth worrying about, or it isn't, or it is but it's none of my business. I'm not the kind of person to cry at the evening news. I'm not going to go to a candlelight vigil for someone I've never met. I am always shocked when I read that some kid got killed in a high profile case and 1000 people went to the funeral. Who goes to a stranger's funeral? I mean, that involves taking off work or arranging child care, all so you can go stress out relatives who are already grieving. Yes, I understand that the death was tragic, but do you need to overflow a church to let it be known that you are not heartless? Send a plant! But when it comes to family I'm never sure. And when friends try to lean on me for things, I always have to blurt it out. Do you want someone to just listen, someone to advise, or someone to be supportive no matter what? Because otherwise, I'll tell them I think they're being stupid. And friends don't always want to hear that, oddly enough.

Snowpocalypse Update 2.1

Tom took this picture of the sidewalk at my mother's house.

I just need to get it off my chest

I'm a mutterer. When I used to work at a factory, bosses would shovel shit at me all day, and I'd take it. Yes sir, no sir, whatever you say sir. But I'd mutter into the machine about it later. I am real good at talking back to people who aren't there. And I am currently on a message board where everyone is so supportive of each other and we all get along, and it's great. But it means a lot of muttering, on my part, to keep up the niceties. So I'm going to do my muttering here, now, because I simply can't keep it in any more.

Safety is great. Safety for children is the most important factor I take into consideration every day. But, like everything else, it has to be mitigated against real world considerations. Some parents "err on the side of caution" to the point that they become paranoid and over protective. Being a parent is scary stuff, especially when you consider just how many ways there are for a terrible thing to happen to a kid, and how many terrible things there are. And for those parents, following "rules" to the letter often helps them feel as if they can prevent terrible things. But at what cost? I've known parents who went months without sleep because no matter how many people told them to swaddle the baby, the books said never to put anything in the crib, and swaddling involved a potentially deadly blanket.

Parents wait months and months to let a baby have a single lump in his baby food, or a blanket in his crib, or any toy small enough to fit through a toilet paper roll. (Newsflash: a garden hose will fit through a toilet paper roll, and a garden hose is not a choking hazard.) Parents who wash toys in bleach on a weekly basis, or who refuse to let a child sit in a shopping cart without a preposterous looking flouncy cover, or who won't let a toddler use a public bathroom without bringing a toilet seat from home. I am not kidding; people carry toilet seats with them.

My point is that some people have to follow every rule ever laid out by anyone, out of a mistaken belief that as long as they do everything right all the time, no harm can ever come to their children. And frankly, it annoys me a little. Because then when I don't follow a rule I am recklessly putting my child in danger and therefor I am a bad mother. Here are examples, muttering as I am, that drive me nuts.

Did you know that everyone under 4'9" needs to be in a booster seat whenever they are in a vehicle? Sounds logical, right? Well, this is everyone under 4'9" regardless of age. Also, regardless of why they are under 4'9". So every adult with dwarfism should be, for their own safety, driving from atop a booster seat. But here's the thing: dwarfs often have average sized torsos - you know, the part of the body that the booster seat actually elevates - and are only short because of short limbs. But they are under 4'9" so they must be in a booster seat, preferably in the back seat away from air bags! There is no room for interpretation. I can only assume that means that a formerly 6'5" double amputee would need a booster seat as well, since people tend to lose height without their legs. Welcome home, Soldier, and thank you for your service and sacrifice. Here is your Evenflo Big Kid Booster Seat!

Car seat safety is of the utmost importance. That is why, no matter the temperature, car seat straps are never to be fastened over a coat. It seems that a coat, any coat, that comes between the straps and the baby will compress in an accident and leave space for the baby to fly out. I have no doubt that this is true. But when it is 20 below I am less inclined to fear a head on collision and more inclined to fear hypothermia or frost bite brought on by me standing there taking the baby's coat off with the car door open. Although I have been told that it is okay to merely unzip the coat and fasten the straps against the child's chest that way. Except that I have recently learned that car seat covers and BundleMes are unsafe because they come between the back of the car seat and the baby. So how on Earth is the back of the coat safe to be behind the baby? And if a thin cotton cover is unsafe, then a onesie must be a death trap. And diapers! Diapers fit between the crotch strap and the baby. In fact, a diaper keeps the baby an unsafe distance from the center of the entire 5 point harness system. So it stands to reason that the only safe baby is a naked baby. In 20 below zero temperatures, in Snowpocalypse.

I'm sorry for all that ranting. It just bothers me when the same people who circumcise (over a hundred dead baby boys a year in the US alone just from complications of circumcision) and formula feed (how many babies die from diseases that breast feeding might have prevented or from tainted formula [or water]?) throw fits about car seat covers and buttoned up coats.

And the dwarfs! We must think of the dwarfs! The aren't tall enough to be allowed to touch upholstery!

I just need five minutes!

The lack of sleep I expected. The inability to keep any portion of my house clean for more than thirty minutes wasn't a surprise. The elevated noise level, the refusal to eat anything but fruit snacks and popcorn, the need to buy 5 gallons of milk a week. All of these are relatively easy to tolerate. But I do so look forward to the day when I can go potty in peace, without hurrying myself to the point of hemorrhoids.

Snowpocalypse Update 2.0

I sent Ryan out to play Roving Reporter and photograph the snow. Here are the photos she brought back from what is apparently Northeastern Russia.

Dommy Chakla Cannies

Tommy made brownies.

He stirred he batter.

He broke up most of the lumps.

He refused to stop stirring even after the batter was in the pan.

He cried when it went in the oven. Poor Tommy.

Don't worry. He got full credit for the brownies and got to eat most of them himself. As he said, "Dommy chokla cannies ahsum."

Snowpocalypse 2011 Update

There are 3 1/2 foot drifts outside my house. My daughter had to crawl through 18" of snow to uncover the door to the doghouse and let the dog out. My furnace vent was buried and the heat went out. Local police departments were asking snow mobilers to help rescue stranded motorists last night. My husband spent 2 hours shoveling our sidewalks and ten feet of driveway. And yet, Punxsutawny Phil has predicted an early spring. Yay for the accuracy of groundhogs!

Snowpocalypse! Run for your lives!

http://abcnews.go.com/US/winters-fury-monster-snowstorm-hits-midwest-northeast/story?id=12808710

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41365053/ns/weather/

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-31/us/winter.storm_1_blizzard-warnings-massive-winter-snow-plows?_s=PM:US




update to follow

dress codes

In 20 years, I will be interested to see how this whole home schooling trend turns out. On paper, it seems great. You teach your own kid at their own pace in ways that interest them, and then you get them their socialization elsewhere. And it seems like basic math. Individual attention + personalized curriculum = a lifelong love of learning and respect for knowledge. But then there's the stereotype, which persists no matter what the advocates try to do. You know how sometimes you can kind of tell a gay person in a crowd by how they act? Well the same can often be said of home schooled kids. But instead of over-sized gestures and snazzier clothes you get twitchy kids freaking out whenever anyone kisses in front of them. Okay, so that's an exaggeration, but some kids don't do well having everything catered to them personally. Or rather, they don't do well when it ends.

I kinda hate the school system. They take wonderful little kids full of potential and energy and trim off all the fun bits and interesting edges until they get cookie cutter conformists. I hate that PE class is mandatory. As far as I'm concerned it should be illegal to force kids to undress in order to pass a class. I don't really care about the reasons for it, adults are telling kids from the age of 11 up to take off their clothes twice a day or else fail the class. And I do have an issue with dress codes. At work is one thing; if you don't like the dress code at work you can go get another job. But I live in an area where the next closest middle school is 15 miles away, and exactly the same. In my opinion, unless it is dangerous (high heels, shorts in winter) or vulgar (too revealing, sexual innuendo) or promotes illegal behavior (pot leaf graphics, alcohol brands, tobacco), it should be a matter of expression. Yes, I really mean that. Bathrobes, Cindy Lauper clothes (wow, I'm dating myself there) whatever. If there's a kid who wears a wedding dress every Monday, it's only going to be news the first couple minutes of the first couple Mondays. After that, it's just Tyler being Tyler. I really don't believe in a vague sense of "appropriate attire." Who gets to decide what's appropriate and how did they get to be the ones to legislate taste? They say kids need to dress for success, but success in what industry?

Chicken Stock Day!

Today is my third favorite day of winter. Next to Christmas and Christmas Eve, Chicken Stock Day is my favorite cold weather day. I wake up and put a whole year's worth of chicken carcasses in a pot of water and spend the day stirring and cooking. This year I have a gallon bag of chicken legs we never got around to eating, Thanksgiving's turkey bones, the carcass of a rotisserie chicken we ate one day, and the skins of all the chicken breasts we have eaten all year. That, 3 carrots, 3 celery stalks, an onion, herbs and a head of garlic, and now my house smells like soup. The reason this is a cold weather activity is because A) it will heat your house (it's not the heat, it's the chicken-scented humidity!) and B) you can't put the finished stock right in the fridge or you'll heat up and spoil everything else in there so instead of buying or making tons of ice we just bring in tons of snow to pack around the stock pot in the sink. And no matter how long any recipe says this is going to take, plan on at least 12 hours. It takes time to simmer everything down enough (you'll know it's done when you can take out a leg bone and it snaps like chalk) and then cool it enough to put it in the fridge. And then the next day you skim the fat disc off the top and divide the stock between quart freezer bags and store them in the basement freezer. All year, when anyone in my house gets sick, I cut open a bag or two of stock and boil noodles in it. We all get healthy (no bubonic plague yet!) and eat yummy stock that is NOT msg and artificial flavoring. Win-win!

Okay now they're just fucking with me

still hungry so still thinking about food

One hundred years ago we weren't a fat nation. We also weren't a nation of cake mixes, refrigerated pre-made cookie dough, and marshmallows in a bag. If you wanted a marshmallow, you had to make a marshmallow. I don't even know if you could do that 100 years ago. Was there gelatin, or is that only in the newer recipes. I don't know! But you couldn't just run down to the store and get potato chips and frozen hot wings and a self-rising pizza. I want to go back to that time, but in a health food Democrat way, not a Constitutionalist Republican way (a future rant, can you tell?). I want to live in a house without candy and cookies and junk food. I would love to live in a house where everything was homemade. I would wake up and make my own bread if Tom would buy me the ingredients. (Would he really buy a bag or more of flour every week?). I would love to do all I could to eliminate preservatives and artificial flavors if I could. It's not realistic to think I could do it all, but why not do as much as possible?
No, I will not eat potato chips! Not until I get a thin slicer, at least. And sour cream. mmmmmm, sour cream.

I'm a gluttonous pig!

I want to eat healthy, I really do. I want to feel superior in the way that gluten-free vegans do. But I have a weakness, a horrible gluttonous weakness: beer and potato chips. I drink a beer*, and then I want to eat Ruffles chips dipped in straight sour cream. I crave it. I want crunchy, greasy, fatty foods. I know it's bad and horrible and I can visualize the grease and oil literally settling in my aorta, yet I crave it anyway. I want to commit suicide by potato chip. I try to pacify myself with popcorn (crunchy and salty) but it's not the same. And you know what's even better, but no amount of beer can break down my defenses enough to eat it? Hostess Suzy Q's and then Ruffles chips.
Damn I'm hungry.





*Alcohol is considered a drug compatible with breastfeeding, if used in moderation. [source]

I'm having a bad day, alright?

I am a stay at home mom, and no matter how many catchy little emails get forwarded into my inbox telling me that my job costs $100,000 a year to hire out (nannies, cab service, maid, etc) I still bring nothing in. I may very well save money, but I do not earn money. And I am accutely aware of this fact. My husband provides for the family, I just clean up after it.

Some part of me, no matter how feminist I try to get about marriage being an equal partnership and me being a stay at home mother, not a housewife, still feels like I have to be a martyr in order to earn my keep. I mean, let's face it, emotional pain and trauma aside, the family could survive a lot better without me than without Tom. I could be replaced with a case of baby formula and a day care; Tom pays the bills and he parents. So, to defend my existence and expense, I over compensate. I bake and I (at least attempt to) cook, I sew, I wear old clothes with holes and I don't ask for new. Part of this is because I actually like baking and sewing, but part of it is because if I'm not going to earn money the least I can do is try not to hemorrhage it either. To tell the truth, the bra I'm wearing right now is 13 years old and expense is a big part of the reason I decided to let my hair color go natural. But also, I hold out eternal hope that one day somebody will appreciate all that I did that went unappreciated. Sadly, the thing about being an unsung hero is that you often remain unsung. How many early Christians were crucified and they're not the ones we think of when we see a cross. Not all martyrs are remembered.

Here's a secret, everyone at soccer practice already knows you're a soccer mom

If you have 3 kids and need a bigger vehicle, a minivan makes sense. If you need to be able to buckle 2 kids into car seats, store a backpack or two plus extra diapers and snacks for on the go, and still have space for groceries, a minivan sounds just about perfect. If you're an adult who needs an adult car, doesn't drive in dangerous or off-road conditions, and wants to save money on fuel, you should look into getting a minivan.

So why do these people always buy SUVs instead?! Here's an interesting little known fact; a minivan will not actually castrate a man. It also won't age you, or give you back pain, or impregnate you with more children than you currently have. It's just a vehicle, and a pretty practical one at that. It's not just for den mothers or soccer moms, but even if it were that's a pretty sizable demographic anyway, and also happens to be the same target audience that resists it so much. And driving your kids to soccer practice in a Trailblazer because you're too cool or sporty or whatever to drive a minivan makes you look ridiculous. Everyone at soccer practice already knows you're a soccer mom. And what's more, they're insulted that you think it's something to be ashamed of since they are also soccer moms. Embrace it, because to do otherwise is idiotic.

Yes, that's right. The denial looks worse than the truth. You end up looking like this guy, who is similarly ashamed to admit he is bald.

Linkety links!

• Bike lock fails
• Literal photographs (funnier than it sounds, trust me)
• more to come......
  

Down With Cup Cake Haters

How dare you not teach about cup cakes in science class?! Are you anti-cup cake? Are you threatened by the cup cakes? Do you ignore the existence of cup cakes?

How about when I go to a restaurant and there aren't any cup cakes on the menu? They are clearly violating my right to cup cakes. They are giving preferential treatment to people who hate cup cakes. I won't stand for this kind of anti-cup cake behavior!

When I go to the grocery store, I see aisles and aisles of ingredients for other foods, but only maybe one or two aisles containing cup cakes or cup cake ingredients. This is discrimination!

By refusing to coddle, suck up to, and fear the cup cake lovers of the world, you are discriminating against cup cakes and those who like cup cakes! If you are not for us, you are against us! There is no neutral area, no room for ambivalence. It is either all cup cake or no cup cake, and we cannot let it be no cup cake!

Replace cup cake with Christianity and you will see how absolutely stupid stuff like this strikes me.

Why University Scientists Refuse To Discuss Religion

The War On Christmas

Walmart Ratings For Christmas Displays

Tort reform, my ass

What do you think is in seasoned beef? When faced with that food, seasoned beef, what do you imagine it contains? Beef, seasonings, maybe a tad of the ubiquitous preservatives? One person found out, and is suing Taco Bell for false advertising because their seasoned beef is only 35% beef. I am opposed to frivolous lawsuits, but this I agree with.

I believe in truth in advertising laws. I want my juice to say 100% real juice, or artificially flavored, and I want to know what it means when it says one of those. And when I order a beef burrito, I want the brown lumpy fatty stuff to come from a cow, not a chemical plant. And if this lady wins her lawsuit, restaurants might be more truthful in their descriptions and that's a-okay with me. If not, at least other places will know that there are folks out there willing to pay a lab to test fast food.

And, although I've already mentioned it here before, I want to reiterate that the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit lady had to have her vagina skin grafted because McDonald's company policy was to only serve coffee hot enough to give 3rd degree burns if sipped. Plumbers cannot legally set your water heater temp as high as the coffee that McDonald's handed to people every day. [source]

I find it odd that the Republican rallying cries are simultaneously tort reform and free market. To me, lawsuits are the epitome of free market. The bad guys are bad, they get sued, and a jury of their peers determine the damage. Be bad for as long as you think you can get away with it and then pay up when it catches you. The free market determines the penalty for bad behavior rather than the government. Isn't that exactly what free market is supposed to be about? Republicans should shun tort reform for what it is: government trying to regulate and stifle the peoples' wills in the free market.

teach your kids life, really

Can I just say that in my opinion, if you are 30 years old and the parent of 2 children and you blush and giggle when buying toilet paper and pads and make your husband buy all condoms and lube, you need to be put in a supervised care facility or group home. I seriously have to question your maturity and judgment if you get embarrassed buying hygiene products. I just read this on a message board for personal advice after pregnancy:

Wow! As embarrassing as all this is to me, it is SO stinking helpful!! I thought I was the only one that sex was this painful for. I hate it sometimes, more than half the time, the reason I don't want to do it, is because I don't want to deal with the pain it causes after. So lube helps huh?? WOW. Now the problem is buying it!! I still will not even buy condoms!! I can't take it, I get so embarrassed. I am just to stinking modest. I tell David if he wants to have sex, then make sure he buys condoms. We are not doing it without them, and Im not buying them!!! My favorite part of pregnancy is not having to buy pads! I ALWAYS make sure to go to a female checkout stand, even if the line is twice as long, just because it helps me a little bit!

I used to think this particular woman was just a normal housewife but now I think maybe she has some high-functioning disability, like mild Downs or something. Or maybe she was home schooled.

Back when I was single, I had a test for guys. If I thought things were getting serious, not just exclusive but really "Is he the one?" serious, I would ask him to pick me up a box of tampons at the store. Usually I'd call while I was at work or whatever, but I'd find a way for it to be a reasonable favor to ask. If he bought them for me, he was mature enough to keep considering. If he freaked out and acted all 8th grade about it, he wasn't. (What is the check-out person going to think, that some guy is putting tampons up his butt, or that he's buying them for a girl?) For the record, I found out years after my ex passed the test that he'd made his best friend go in the store and buy them for me. Not surprising, knowing what I now know.

Douchenozzle, an update

Had a meeting with DN last night, during which he never could definitively outline what pants were okay and what weren't. Finally he just said "If you buy them as pajamas, they're pajama pants." That's when I countered with, "But see, I don't buy them as pajamas, I buy them as school clothes. I actually prefer that my daughter wear the most shapeless and baggy pants possible." And he said that if they're not her pajamas, she can wear them. So today, at my insistence, she is wearing the doggy pants to school.

Oh, DN also threw out an, "Unless you want to be on the Handbook Committee this spring yourself?" I told him to just email me the when and where because I would love that. I happen to have non-douche-related issues with this part of the dress code. In my opinion, the "dress for success" mentality is a little outdated. (Go ask the Detroit auto execs what they wore to work as their companies went under, and then go tour Google and see what they wear there.) But also, the definition of acceptable school attire has always been evolving. My mother couldn't wear pants to school; it had to be a skirt or a dress. And forget about jeans or athletic shoes. Way too casual for school in the 60s.

But it seems so arbitrary! That's what really bugs me. They're legislating taste, and without cause. I understand dress code rules regarding revealing clothing, and the rules against cigarettes and alcohol branding, but other than just not liking it in a vague way, what is the specific issue surrounding pajama pants. When pinned down, I want to know why they ban them. They don't show too much skin- far from it. They aren't disruptive; it's not like pajama pants of even the loudest print are going to cause a commotion for more than the first few seconds of class; the presence of a substitute teacher causes more murmurs than that. It is simply that it's not what they're used to and no one has challenged the policy. But now I am challenging it. So I hope they can defend it.

. . . . and dis one

"Mommy mommy mommy! The bug, it gwoke."
Sure enough, he's crouched down over an immobile box elder bug. "How did it break?"
He holds up one finger. "I poke."
I had told him over and over to stop "poking" (squashing) the bugs but he never stopped. I think he thought he was petting them. He just wanted to touch them, but he always ended up killing them, or at least critically injuring them. I would explain it to him and he would nod and solemnly agree not to poke them, and then two minutes later, another bug would be gwoke.


There's a TV in Tommy's room. No channels, just a tv and dvd player, so that Tom can watch televised poker games in the living room while Tommy watches Cars or How To Train Your Dragon in his room. I was against it, but I lost that one. Tommy knows which button turns the tv on, but the tv seems to be set up that if you change the channel it disconnects from the dvd player. Then you have to push the button on the dvde remote to get the movie back. No big deal, except that I'm short and the remotes have to be kept out of Tommy's reach, so it's a hassle for me to go get the remote to fix it every time Tommy hits the channel button.
So this morning he comes to me, "Mommy turn dragons on." So I did, and then went to change the baby's diaper.
"Mommy dragons bzzzzzzt," he makes a noise to let me know the tv is just static.
I finished the diaper, set the baby down, grabbed the remote off the top of my desk, and went to fix the tv. I found him in the bedroom turning the tv off and on and off and on, trying to fix it himself.
I fixed it and then pointed to the power button. "Only touch this button. Just this one. None of the other buttons."
"Okay." I turned to leave. "And dis one." And then I heard static.
"No. Don't touch that one, because it makes the movie go away. Only touch this one." I showed him the power button again, fixed the picture with the remote, and left.
"Mommy!"
"What?"
"Dis button bzzzzzzt." He'd pushed it again.
I went in and fixed it. "Never touch that button. Only touch this button. Only this one. Ever. This is the only button you push!"
"Okay. . . . and dis one."

Trust me, a nozzle is worse than a bag

I really really try to get along with those people in life that I am forced to associate with. I make more concessions than I might like, and I bite my tongue a lot, stuff like that. But my daughter's principal is one that I am actually willing to have a confrontation with. To protect his identity, I will henceforth refer to him as Principal Douchenozzle, Douchenozzle, or just DN. Let me start by just painting a picture here, so you know who I'm talking about. Remember Lumbergh from Office Space? This guy doesn't look like him, but he talks just like him. "Yeah, well, um, I think we just need to work together on this and then, you know, we can decide what would be best for Ryan, okay?" And he does that thing where he says "we" when he means "I", as though whatever he is saying is so obviously right that of course you would agree with it. "Well, I mean, we want for Ryan to of course excel at the curriculum and do what it takes to make that happen." What if I don't? What if I am actually calling to tell you that I think "what it takes" is extreme and I would rather she not do it? If I agreed with everything you do, I would not have called you in the first place, would I?

It started last year when Ryan didn't do an English assignment. It was a presentation thing and she put it off until she ran out of time and didn't get it done. I had seen it coming but you know what, the kid does this shit all the time and I decided it was about time I let her fall on her face and get the zero rather than nag her for the whole last weekend to do it all. Then I got a call from her, with her teacher standing close enough that I could hear her feeding the kid lines, telling me that she hadn't done it (which I knew) and that for every day she continued to not turn it in, she would receive a detention. I called the principal to argue this because hey, the assignment wasn't done on the day it was due so give the kid the grade she earned (a zero) and maybe she'll learn that actions, or the lack of them, earn consequences. What I got was a big spiel about how second chances are important (so is learning consequences, Douchenozzle) and how about I just have her do the thing late for some credit (because she had her chance and blew it) and do I actually want my daughter to get a zero (what I want is for her to get the grades she earns, which in this case is a zero). I ended up having her whip something up quick the next day but it soured me on the principal (and that English teacher), that they would rather give a kid a detention every single day than give her the grade she earned, even when the parent called to request the grade. (Remind me someday to do a post on why I get to sick of second chances.)

So then fast forward to a couple weeks ago. It was cold. Really cold, and it wasn't getting any warmer. The projected high for the day was five, with a low of -10. The bottom of the local TV channels was a ticker tape of school closings and delays, but not our town, never our town. I kept checking the school website, too, right up until I went to bed, and no closing or delay. While browsing around on the site, I found the district policy on adverse weather conditions and it said that even if school is open, if a parent feels the weather is too bad they can choose to keep their child home and the absence will be excused and homework will be accepted late. I told Tom that if I didn't get a text alert on my phone of a delay I was going to call her off. The next morning, I called her off. I left a voice mail at 6:00 a.m. saying it was too cold and I was keeping Ryan home. I got a call at 9:00 from good old Principal DN telling me that Ryan's absence was going to be unexcused since she wasn't sick. I told him the district website said it was okay to keep a kid home for weather and he asked where. Of course, I couldn't remember where I'd found it, and it wasn't in the 'absences' part of the handbook so he didn't believe me. Furthermore, he said that if that was the policy, he was going to have to see about changing it. When I got off the phone, nothing was resolved and I still couldn't find the paragraph I knew I'd read just the night before. So I called the district superintendent, explained my problem to her, and she found the passage for me and promised to call DN and tell him about it. I thanked her and emailed him the link myself, just for good measure. But a few hours later, after cooling down a little, I realized that was had really bothered me was that he didn't even know the policy, and he was the one charged with enforcing it. I had to go over his head to his boss to mount my own defense and find evidence. And on top of that, the asshole had just assumed he had the authority to make up rules as he went along. He didn't think a parent should be able to supersede the district's decision to stay open, so he was deeming it an unexcused absence. I really hadn't occurred to him that there could possibly be any rule out there stopping him form doing that. His power was, in his mind, absolute. So I fired off an email to the superintendent, and I CCed DN, thanking her for her help and reiterating who awful it was to have to go to such lengths to prove my case just to give my kid a chance to get credit for her homework, both what was due and what was assigned that day. And I also slipped in there how disappointed I was that even after being proved wrong, he still hadn't called to apologize, and I suggested he might benefit from some more training in school policies and in dealing with parents. When he called to apologize, I let it go to voicemail, so as not to dig myself a hole.

So, my most recent beef with DN is over the school dress code. I have read the thing 3 times just today and I know what it says and what the rules are, and nowhere does it mention pajama pants, lounge pants, or elastic waist cotton, flannel, or fleece pants. And yet, my daughter tells me that she can't wear several pairs of her pants to school because the principal says they violate the dress code. So I sent an email asking him to explain to me why she thinks this, since I have read the dress code and they don't violate anything. I can't wait to see what the answer is, or to hear how he justifies trying to outrank the district rules with his own personal and arbitrary preferences. And don't think I'm above using the phrase "what you personally think 12 year old girls look good in". For the record, Ryan has worn paint stained sweat pants to school and had no problem. The pants he objected to were Grandma Pants with pictures of dogs on them. Straight-leg fleece pants with an elastic waist and drawstring, just like the Hanes sweats she's been wearing since Christmas, but in a patterned double-sided fleece instead of black one-sided fleece.

It makes me sad for humanity

In the comments section of an article about scientists' plans to clone a woolly mammoth, I read this:

This animal is extinct for a reason - the earth warmed back up. This animal would be miserable today, and when the earth warms further to return itself to normal, this animal would be even more miserable.

I can barely fathom all that is wrong with this. For one thing, if the heat of the Ice Age ending was responsible for the mammoth's extinction then it goes to reason that today's temperatures would pretty much kill any newborn mammoth instantly, not make it miserable. An entire species doesn't just go extinct from being miserable. If it did, there'd be no old people in Florida; they'd all be killed by the act of wiping their brows at outdoor cafes.

But also, and this is the part that makes my jaw drop, the commenter seems to believe that global warming is just the Earth warming itself, presumably from the Ice Age, to return itself to normal. Now, I don't know what the guy thinks normal is, but maybe he means the good old days before life, when the planet had acidic oceans and sulfuric air. But also, he is crediting a planet with intent, which is odd but hey, maybe it's just how he says it and not that he really thinks Earth is doing anything for any reason or purpose. As for the whole concept of it, I guess the fact that the Earth is warming at a rate almost unheard of ever before is just like when a marathon runner slows to a walk at the end of a race and then breaks into a sprint once the finish line is in view. Earth was warming slowly, because it was tired, but now that 200` days are finally in sight, with no help from people or industry at all, it found a renewed sense of purpose and decided to really push forward. Sure.

You know what's sad? Not just that people really believe that the Earth is warming on its own for some purpose only knowable in its planet-mind, but that they vote. They sit on school boards. They actually affect the rest of us with their preposterous notions of things. And sometimes, when a concept has been so over-simplified and dumbed down that they can actually sort of understand it, they argue against people who understand the original unabridged truth, and the dumbed down folks have followers. And sometimes, they even elect themselves royalty who declare the educated to be elitist.

No you don't have a loophole. EVER.

Okay, I hate the argument people make that men need sex and that if they don't get it at home they'll get it elsewhere. That is bullshit. I also hate the (similar) argument that if sex is so unimportant that it's unnecessary to have it with your spouse then it should also be unimportant when they do it with someone else. Both of these arguments are forms of emotional blackmail, usually against women. The basic idea is that if you don't have sex, for whatever reason, then he is completely within his rights to cheat on you. Sometimes the claim is that even if you refuse sex because of illness or disability, he still gets a free pass to fuck around (read this guy's Rule for Cheating). Again, I call bullshit.

Sex is not food, or oxygen, or anything else that human's need to survive. It is not something anyone needs, only something everyone wants. There is a biological urge to have sex, but not a survival instinct. It is insulting to imply to women, or even just outright tell them, that unless they relent with the sex no matter how angry, neglected, sick, dying, hospitalized they may be, you're going to run out and give to some other woman the intimacy and companionship you swore never to give to another woman. And it's just as bad when women do it to men, or men do it to each other. It's a douchey thing no matter who does it. It's emotional blackmail, it's manipulative and controlling, and just saying it makes you an abusive partner even if you never act on it. Even if orgasms were integral to survival, you can do that without cheating. I mean, if guns can go off while being cleaned . . .

There is no loophole. EVER. You don't get to cheat because you got cheated on, or because you're in Vegas, or because your spouse is sick, or hurt, or just too tired. If you absolutely have to go fuck somebody else, finish what you started first and divorce. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too just because you're so self-important that you demand the taste of cake.

Stop dressing trashy!

Where is the line between being happy with your body no matter the size, and realistically seeing that some clothes are only for the 1% of the population tiny enough to wear them appropriately? Here are some pics I've snatched from google image which illustrate my point.


I also found a photo of a girl with her ass crack hanging out but I can't seem to post it here so here's a link: link. I know a few girls who dress like this, and they're not even hugely fat girls. Maybe a size 14, which is big but not bed-ridden or anything. It's just that they either A) do not see in the mirror the same thing other people see, B) actually think that tight clothes clinging to fat rolls is a genuinely attractive look, or C) feel that being able to physically wedge themselves into size 8 jeans makes them a size 8 person. I really truly do not know if what I feel is disgust or envy. I would never have the nerve to wear clothes that accentuate my fat. I might actually err on the side of too baggy, but not on the side of too tight. It seems, though, that this look is an actual trend, that it is now fashionable to wear tight clothes over chubby figures. You are supposed to be a size 14 in a skin tight t shirt. I feel like, by thinking it's obviously a mistake or oversight, I am the modern day equivalent of the old women who used to gasp at visible bra straps. I just think that clothes should, no matter the figure of the wearer, skim the body, not cling to it. If your bra digs in, your shirt shouldn't be tight enough to show it. And if you have fat rolls, your top does not need to delve in between them. Am I sizist just for thinking that this:
looks better than this:

And by the way, I totally prefer big women and have a huge crush on Brooke Elliott, the woman in the suit up there.

They're Not Important People!

A McDonald's worker was fired recently for letting a man in to use the bathroom after hours. Later she was given her job back after the press reported that it was NFL superstar Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings (the McDonald's was in Minnesota so the team matters, I guess). The rule was not to let people in the store after hours, she broke the rule, she got fired. That much I agree with. It's the part where she got her job back because he was a football player that bothers me.

If it was the president, or the first lady, I'd agree she should get her job back. If it was her congressman, I'd agree. If he was a uniformed police officer who rolled up in a squad car, I'd be fine with it. These are people who might outrank company policy, the people you defer to. But he was a football player! Football players are not important people! They play a game and they play it well. A game! Like Monopoly or tag. They get paid disproportionate amounts of money to play what is basically organized nationwide tag! They should not get to violate company polities at will just because they are good at a game. He's not even an Olympic star or anything. He hasn't beaten the rest of the world, just the rest of the people who wanted to play one specific position in one specific team. There are what, maybe fifty, other people out there with the same job and prestige as him. Basically, he's the vice president of a company that has fifty vice presidents. And for that he gets some woman her job back after she was fired for breaking a rule she never claimed not to break?! Because he plays self-important tag really well (but not well enough to go to the Super Bowl or anything- there are other better tag-players out there) the rules literally don't apply to him.

If you believe in quantum theory, then there are an infinite number of Earths out there which differ from ours in ways both large and small, and in some of them, a woman just got her McDonald's job back after letting a Dungeons and Dragons champion pee, as well as a dodgeball whiz, a badminton celebrity, and a star Civil War reenactor, and none of these situations is any more preposterous than the one that happened here.

How to feed babies from outside of the bra

Danny ate avocado today. I just scooped it out of the peel and mashed it through a strainer and he ate it, and he LOVED it. No yucky face or spitting it out or anything. I skipped cereal altogether because it's just empty starch and carbs and why bother developing a taste for that? But now I'm looking down a long road of baby foods and the diapers will turn bad (I do not mind poopy diapers at all as long as it's just breast milk. Anything else and it's awful!) and I realized that I do not look forward to hearing about well-meaning friends' irrational fears of chunky foods. Sometimes it gets so hard to bite my tongue when I hear people say things that I know just aren't true. Here are a few of my pet peeves:

1. Gagging is not choking. All babies will gag at some point. Whether it's a puree, lumpy food, or an actual bite of something, the gag reflex will be triggered. When something gets too far back on the tongue, the throat gags. And it's a good thing! It means that they have the reflex they need in order to bring food back to the front of the mouth rather than just let things slide down into their windpipe. Gagging means their reflexes are preventing them from choking.
2. Choking happens when something blocks the windpipe. Hot dogs, grapes, round throat-sized foods are good at this. Small foods aren't that good at it. I almost laugh when I hear about someone who once tried to make their own baby food but couldn't get it smooth enough and didn't want their baby to choke on pea skin. How on earth is the skin from a pea going to block the windpipe? Is it going to stretch across like a dental dam? Smooth food is easier for babies to get used to after an all-liquid diet, but lumps are not safety hazards. Baby food does not have to be ketchup in order to be safe.
3. Babies don't often like new foods. It can take 15 tries before a baby likes a food, and after that it cam become their favorite food. Even if they eat and hate it every day for 2 weeks, try it again later. "My baby doesn't like green beans; I tried them last month" is a sure fire way to end up with a kid who won't eat vegetables. Because every time he makes a face at a flavor he's not sure of, it disappears forever. So try it again and act like he's never expressed an opinion before. It can't hurt.
4. It's not hard to make your own baby food. Do you cook for yourself? Do you own or can you get a food processor or blender? If yes, then you can make baby food. Steam vegetables and then pulverize them. Bake a sweet potato and then mash it up. Hell, all you have to do with avocados and bananas is let them get overripe and then mash them with a fork. I only put the avocado through a strainer today because it was Danny's first try at food ever. The only baby food I've ever bought is the meat, and I'm considering not even doing that this time. Oh, and that baby cereal I discounted earlier? It works great to thicken things that puree too thin. Canned peaches and pears make great baby food if you add the cereal to it, although I'd personally try to get fruit canned in plain juice, or at least rinse off the sugar.

A couple tips I've learned and like to pass on. Use ice cube trays to freeze the food and then just thaw one or two at a time in the microwave. And to fill the trays, put the food in a plastic baggie and cut a corner off. You can pipe it out like frosting.