Food edition, kids under 18 asked to leave.

What cost's more?  Cheese or meat?  I spend a lot on both and pay absolutely no attention at all to unit price or price per kg.  Who even used kg anyway?  And come on, no one is measuring by grams anyway, unless it's weight loss, in which case, off comes every stitch of clothing, earrings, and hair clips. Just can't take any chances with hair accessories you know.

So cheese is aged, and then becomes more expensive. When I do this in my fridge, it's called "going bad."  Meat similarly is aged, but again, when I do this, I'm killing my kids with food poisoning. Although to my knowledge, I haven't killed anyone with my cooking.

I understand the principle behind aging wine, but just can't keep it around long enough to support the claim that aging enhances the taste. And if you drink your wine with aged cheese, do the two aged items,  cancel out any net benefit? Like a double negative?  Good lord math is confusing.

Apparently cookies don't age well, so my son eats them as fast as possible to negate any negative affects of their lingering.

Fast food of course lasts forever, caught in the seats of your car where years later, perfectly formed little french  fries emerge from their hibernation to once again reclaim their title as top of the food chain, where people bow down and cry, humbled by their appearance.  Little packets of ketchup have a similar life span to nuclear waste. The half life is approximately 5000 years or sooner if you step on them when they are poking their little heads out from beneath the seats of your car, where they have taken up residence to guard the fries.

My philosophy is simple. When in doubt of something I have just pulled out of the fridge, stick it under the nose of one of my teenagers and ask them "Does this smell bad?"  It is important to keep a straight face during this process or the jig is up.  Tell them you value their opinion.  Really.

Just don't put the ketchup on the meat unless you watered it down with wine first.  Just sayin'. Alcohol makes it more palatable.

Glad I didn't spoil my kids (eye roll)

Well now that I'm back to work, I've started assigning extra chores to the spoiled teenagers.  This is a conversation with my 18 year old son.

Me:  "I'd like you to vacuum the house tomorrow please."

Son:  "I can't. I'm mowing the lawn tomorrow."

Um, what?  Did I somehow teach my kids that we only do one thing a day?  Where did I go wrong?  I have for some time now, been not complaining about the dishes being washed really horribly.  Honestly, I'm just happy they wash them at all. They don't seem to understand how to load and unload the dishwasher though. If I see dishes on the counter, they say, "the dishwasher is full," and just sort of shrug as if to say, "what can I do?"  It's sad to see them in such a powerless state.

Another example of my clueless behavior is when I ask them to take down their dirty laundry to the basement and the answer is usually "you mean right now?"  No, next Tuesday Einstein.  Why am I doing your laundry anyway.  They do manage to do their laundry sometimes which I discover days later cold and wrinkled and the dryer.  Makes no difference to me though. My clothes look fine.

I appreciate the extra assistance though, I'm just trying to figure out why I am the only one that takes the garbage out. I remember living in an apartment and when  bag was full, I took out to the garbage chute where it magically went to garbage heaven. Love that. The good old days when I didn't have separate organic, recycling and ordinary waste. Who knew taking care of the environment would be so gross and smelly?

The goal this week? Convincing one of the kids to make dinner.  I can't wait. Hot dogs are fine, as long as I don't have to make it. I remember when I used to pat myself on the back for not spoiling my kids.  Who was I kidding?

It's Prune Time

I understand that shrubs, hereafter referred to as the stupid bush, needs pruning, but who thought pruning could be so hard?  First of all, I don't give a flying flip when I'm supposed to prune. I prune out of necessity. This time I bought some lovely hanging baskets of flowers and the bush stuffed it's nose rudely up the flowers butt.  Sigh...time to prune.

I started hacking at the top.  The top was a flattop.  That's a style right?  No?  Ok, working my way down, and around and standing back periodically to assess my work.  Wait it looks like  fat guy with a fat head.  More trimming, more sweating, (who knew pruning was such hard work?), stand back and assess - now his head is slimmer but he's got fat bulging out on one side.  How unsightly.  This bush is ugly. Can plant life even be ugly?  Skinny down the head, the sides, stand back again......

Several smaller bulges but not too bad,  it's good enough right?  When did my standards become so shockingly low?  I agonize over my hair but this bush is a guy right?  Guys don't do that so good enough is good enough.

Bushwacking is a skill it turns out.  One more thing they don't teach in school, along with how to write a resume and how to housetrain your pet before killing it. Or yourself.

Next time - How to keep your hanging baskets of flowers alive despite all the prayers and fertilizing and kind words. I'm going to talk to a gambling addict. They always say they have a plan, and boy do I need one.

Undo and Other Necessary Evils

They say the kids today are more adept (which only draws further attention to my ineptness) at technology, not only because they are growing up with this new medium, but because they are willing to experiment and try things out. My 17 year old son said to me recently "I don't understand why you don't just try things on the computer."  This caused my eyes to roll almost out of my head.  In fact I do try things. I'm just very good at finding things.

Today, I was using Word.  A good, familiar word processing program.  I was was cutting and pasting from one document to another, when whoosh, my bolded section (the whole page) was deleted when I inexplicably hit delete by accident. Holy shit. Rush to the "undo" feature and re-wooshed it  back into existence.  There are so many things wrong with this scenario, I can hardly begin to list them all.

First of all, turns out my teenage son was wrong and I can cause bad things to happen on the computer, so my fear if justified.

Secondly,  who decides when "are you sure you want to delete this?" cautionary warning is used, and when it isn't?  If I'm deleting a typo, then I'm good, but it I'm deleting a whole page, a question would be nice.

Most importantly, why isn't there an UNDO button on actions I've taken in real life?  Can you imagine the differences you'd make to your life. Now I'm not talking about long term regret, like I should have stayed in school, or made a different career choice. No, I'm talking about short term actions that you can undo.  Something you just did like:

-  I think I will let that guy buy me a drink
-  I will not wear high heeled shoes when I know I'm going to be walking around and just want to look hot
-  no one will notice these socks don't match
- there's not THAT much cat hair on this shirt, I can still wear it again
-  I will eat my spaghetti on a busy NYC subway. No one will care or mind

Did you see that video on Youtube?  Oh geez, I don't want to watch strangers eating thanks. I'll decide for myself who I want to watch eat, I want veto power over that.  And don't eat chips beside me if you're not prepared to share.  It's just not fair. Have you smelled freshly opened chips?  Exactly.  It's bad enough I have to tolerate how people smell, let alone watch them eat.  When you smell like an ashtray from a big party and there is no smoking actually going on, I want to hit you with  the Lysol.  Seriously.  And don't smell like food either. That's no better.  Are people unaware when they reek?  How is that possible?  On a hot summer day, I load up on deodorant and pray I will go unnoticed if I step outside my air conditioned house/car/shopping venue.  I would be mortified if I smelled.  Have these people no shame?  Oh and keep your "fragrances" to yourself people. You aren't sexy when you just make my nose run.  Oh wait, I'm not sexy then either.  Especially when I'm eating spaghetti.

I had a good time, I'm sorry.

People have a long history of doing stuff for "fun" and then complaining about it when they're done.  Vacation stories are ripe for this, starting from mishaps at the airport, customs, hotel, restaurant, beach, and continuing through oceans removing bathing suits, sun burns and Montezuma's revenge.  Actual broken bones or obviously visable wounds are the best.  If you can arrange swelling and or pus, ooooh's and aww's will by loud and audible.

I have ton of these stories myself.  In Miami last November,  I had my friend take pictures of my very sun burned back to "prove" this to others.  Did I think they wouldn't believe me without pictures? Is this some unconscious attempt to justify our having gone off to enjoy ourselves?

Why does a night of drinking sound better when it's followed up by a morning after story?  You woke up with WHO beside you?  How did you clothes get OUTSIDE?

I went to a flower show on Friday night that I loved!  Canada is freakin' long and cold and wintery and nothing replenishes the soul like flowers, gardens, and sounds of water in the backyard when you need to pee.  The show started with the most gorgeous purple tulips everywhere (thank you Holland). There was flower art, backyard oases, food, and a WINE BAR.  Don't think that was a one time stop during the evening either, but like a guilt ridden moron, I start the story with  a tale of woe of being greeted at the entrance by a wall of grass that of course I'm allergic to.  Really the only good grass is dead grass.  Or no grass.  Why on earth do we have such high maintenance crap in our backyards?  And here's the kicker, I'm not allergic to most weeds, but every spring, I get down into the grass and hand pull all the weeds out. Yes, I stick my nose into the GRASS to pull out weeds that don't bother me.  What's wrong with this picture?

Shouldn't we just be able to say "I had an amazing time and wouldn't change a second of it?"  We should of course, but then we'd be ducking looking for that thunderbolt to strike....

Friends or not?

I love my friends more than anything, but have you ever had to fire a friend?  I did last summer. I tell my friends all the time how much they mean to me, so if you haven't heard this from me, you're on notice.

Sometimes I think there should be performance reviews like there are on jobs.  Goal setting, what needs working on, irritating habits, etc. The friendship  is "the company" and the conversation would go something like this.

"The company isn't pleased with your performance and think's you're not pulling your weight around here. Others have been compensating for your dullness/ obtuseness/ and using of others, and the company would like some changes.  No more, "oh thanks, I'll pay next time, I just don't have enough money this week" or "really, I need you to help me move." The company is not moving anymore.  The bar is closed.  If you won't keep your word, then we will promise you a raise and not pay up."  

Sometimes people let friendships slide or simply pray the person won't call anymore.  Isn't there some way we can submit a form telling them the friendship has been terminated?  I did it through texting. I know.  I'm a coward.  I fired a friend by text.  How 21st century of me.

But really, what other way is there?  You should just have to pull out your TBF (To Be Fired) form and fill out the blanks.  Actually a multiple choice checklist would be really handy.

- failed to return phone calls
-was always late
-failed to laugh at my jokes
-made instant coffee

This would avoid the unpleasantness of needing "closure."  Instead of "what happened?", you can say "please see the TBF form." Maybe people would monitor their behavior better if they new a review was coming up or maybe they would treat you like they do the dentist and just shape up close to the appointment. That might still be useful right?

Useless News? It's all news.

I can't keep small talk up for very long,  It's a chore and it's boring and gets old fast.  If I get too newsy, I may accidentally get some political talk going and the fact that I am only familiar with the first few paragraphs of a story may show. I don't like to get bogged down in the nitty gritty details; it just allows my poor memory to expose itself and opens up the opportunity for me to therefore, embarrass myself.

Am I the only one that has found errors on Google Maps?  I took my kids to a beach last summer, and an entire highway link was missing. Which oddly, is not the reason we got lost; I found the highway link as a sign was posted that way to Wasaga Beach. No the problem was,  I missed a LABELLED road.  Albeit, a very small sign but labelled still.  Not fair right?

I have some basic food rules that I follow.  No chocolate before breakfast.  No keeping stale coffee breath.  What the heck happens to that eh?  No salad dressing with enough calories to count as dessert. Nobody says, "geez, I was going to have ice cream tonight, but dang, that salad has kept me filled up and happy."  I don't abide by nutrition people telling me, foods aren't "good" or "bad".  Yes they bloody well are.  When I'm standing there eating uncooked chocolate chip cookie dough at the kitchen counter out of giant bowl, I'm not telling myself it's just food. I know it's crap. I just don't eat too much of it.

I'm still working my way through a library book that I"ve renewed once. It's due this Saturday and that will mean I've had it for 6 weeks at that point. Does anyone find the internet is eating into their book reading?  How can people say they don't have time for reading.  Try getting through the first hour of your day without reading the weather/ sports/ news/ Dear So and So/ or whatever.  Exactly.  I have my TV on mute right now, and it's all can do to not keep looking up and reading the closed captioning. It fascinates me.  I can't NOT read it.  Movies with subtitles distract me as well. I'm afraid to look up and miss the next bar of writing. It's like they might mention my name...