Motherwise Cracks

I decided to check out my Facebook page and noticed that my niece had some new photos posted. I looked and low and behold, the moldy bread we found in my fridge yesterday was there. This loaf was dated to be eaten before June 23.

See what happens when your child goes off to college? All the foods they like , but you don’t , go uneaten and before you know it, you are growing penicillin. And family members show the world what’s in your kitchen – growing mold – on Facebook.

And she tagged it with my name too. Lovely child.

It motivated me to check the rest of the stuff in my refrigerator, which is when I discovered that orange juice can actually get chunky,  with curdles like milk. I was always fascinated with science.  Not  so much with housekeeping.

Being the health-conscious type, I don’t eat white bread and I eat whole fruits rather than juice so the stuff my son likes, aged a bit. I hate to throw good food away, so I wait until it’s not good  anymore. Then I have no problem tossing it.

I think I have removed all specimens from the fridge now. Just in time for my  son to be home for Thanksgiving. I put white bread and OJ on my list.

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“When nature made you, they broke the mold. Rumor has it they beat the hell out of the mold-maker too.”

Even my kids, who LOVE Christmas, agree that is a bit much. We were riding home from Christmas shopping and saw through a window, a Christmas tree up and decorated on November 10. Sorry but that is crazy, and that is coming from someone who loves the whole season.

While I love Christmas because everyone is home, and warm and happy, I think that Thanksgiving is a close second. If you begin celebrating Christmas before that, it takes away from the only holiday that is strictly about giving thanks. There are no gifts given but those from the heart (and to the stomach). Why dilute it?

Obviously, this household did not have any young children living in it to become crazed and excitable at the sight of a decorated tree for such a prolonged period of time. I couldn’t even use pine cleaner at my house for years for the same reason. Mass hysteria.

And besides that, if you start that early, your tree turns into a dry, crumbly mess that drops brown needles from a simple breeze when you walk by that are hard to vacuum up. And I am all about making housekeeping easier. Just ask the pine needles from last year still stuck in my rug.

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“The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree:  the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.”  ~ Burton Hills

I was sent on a mission.  My daughter’s computer died and I was to get the system restore disks to her. Following the directions to find them in her things was like being on a Lewis and Clark expedition, but I found the box in her closet.

No disks in the box. As I read the manual, I noted she was supposed to burn them first thing. (Note: way computer companies save money is not including the CD and just adding the files for you to burn, IF you do so.)

Well, she was “disappointed” but I saw in the manual how to reset it but lose some information and sent her a pdf of the directions. It worked.

This followed the even more “disappointed” call I get the week before when she lost 6 hours of work at her new job. I have no aversion to pressing the “save” button every 15 minutes or so, and have tried, unsuccessfully, to pass that along.

Maybe now my words will have more meaning?

Yeah, I know. The eternal optimist.

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“This manual says what our product actually does, no matter what the salesman may have told you it does.”    — In a Californian graphic board manual, 1985.

I haven’t decided. Just like I haven’t decided if I am going to give up my high fat Greek yogurt or not.

My daughter and I have a competition to each lose 10 lbs. before Dec. 16. She would then be at her goal weight and I would be, let’s just say, closer to mine. I bought the book, “The Thyroid Diet” as I do have an issue but not enough to get medication (damn) so this diet says to eat only 1-2 carbs a day and I might die. What’s a girl to eat for lunch if she can’t have a sandwich? And sorry, but the low fat Greek yogurt just isn’t the same.

My son finally called and talked to me for quite a while from college. While I was banned from visiting him this week as I would crimp his style for Halloween, I am happy that he is adjusting. It’s strange. My girls were very homesick and whiny and this kid loves school and has friends, activities and more going on. What did I do wrong with that one?

Went out to dinner last night with friends, which makes the status of my $100 a bit precarious. I will be using my extensive library of diet books that I have accumulated over the past 20 years (this was the same time period that I have coincidentally accumulated 20 lbs.) to come up with some meal ideas that don’t involve a phone, delivery service and extra cheese.

I had for a time, considering that I lost 5 lbs. from the flu, thought about hanging out with my friend’s little children or volunteering at day care but I read that now I would now be immune to it so that’s out. I did order some brown seaweed supplement that’s supposed to boost your metabolism and if I remember to take it I will let you know how or if it works.

In the meantime, me and my thyroid will be trying to work hard so that my daughter doesn’t end up with my $100.

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“If you want to look young and thin, hang around old fat people.”  ~ Jim Eason

Sometimes you just can’t make these things up. Like this story in last night’s paper where a man in a cow costume drove nto the river (after some partying). I had to laugh several times as it was just a comedy of errors complete with the video surveillance copy of his drive into the drink accidentally erased. After a lot of effort to find out if he was alone in the car and no one else was in the river, the rescue workers must have been relieved to find only the empty bottles and a cow head in the car. Only in my neck of the woods.

I made sure to tell my kids about this scary story as they prepare for their Halloween parties. I was going to visit my son this Sat. at college, but was told I would interfere with Halloween plans. I offered to dress as a witch but he asked it I would postpone by fly-by until the week after. And this after I  made and shipped him cookies – Priority Mail no less.

I will let them have their fun as long as they don’t end up in the river.

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“All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.”  ~ Grant Wood

Finally watched the Netflix movie that’s been cluttering up my counter top for the past three weeks, Twelve Angry Men. I can tell it’s a good movie when we don’t fall asleep after the first ten minutes. So far, the oldies have been the goodies.

Henry Fonda was really good, of course, but the other jurors were all faces that we have seen in movies over the years in a variety of flicks, even though we didn’t know exactly who many of them were. Lee J. Cobb plays a good angry man – has a naturally sour face and demeanor.

When we told the kids we were watching it, they mentioned that they had seen it in school as part of a history class or government class.

Had to stop off to feed my daughter’s cat as she is out of town, and she thanked me by hissing at me when I went to pet her. Almost thought I had a teenager again or something.

When I was leaving her house after I fed the ingrate, I ran into her new neighbor. His uncle was helping him move in and I recognized him almost immediately. He was my friend and co-worker when I was in college and had a part-time job at a drug store. I can’t believe I remembered him and that he remembered me – after thirty years. Small world. And what are the chances that he, who now lives in Las Vegas, would happen to be there the one time I go to feed the cat? I guess it was worth getting hissed at.

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“Coincidence is the word we use when we can’t see the levers and pulleys.”  ~ Emma Bull

Yep and it wasn’t pretty. Sure, just when I decide to kiss my girlfriend’s baby on both cheeks, I get the flu. I spent half of my fever-induced stupor hoping I didn’t pass it along and wanting to research the incubation period so that if it passed, I could let let my guilty feelings go, but I was too bad to even go online.

I don’t think I have ever looked or felt worse and I sure hope that at the very least, I have some immunity. I realize that sounds like someone on Survivor or Biggest Loser and coincidently, I am down 5 lbs. and look as crappy as those people on Survivor. Never watched the show, but they sure look pretty rough on the commercials.

I told my kids to all get the H1N1 shot but then found out it’s backordered at both their college and at work locations so I can worry until early Nov. when they are expected to have more in.

My son’s mid-term report card in the mail on Sat. – he is doing pretty well – and I didn’t have to cook meals for five days straight. (And by cook meals, I include being the one to place the takeout order.) Every cloud…

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“I’m so ugly – My mother had morning sickness – After I was born.” ~ Rodney Dangerfield

The recent happenings in regards to “zero tolerance” and kids with Boy Scout equipment reminded me of one of the more stupid things I had to endure with a elementary school principal who shouldn’t have had a job that required thought.

My son was really into robots and took things from around the house to make them. He found an old casing from a car lighter and used it to make a robot, making the body section from it. Mind you, this was just the casing – a metal cylinder.

I get a call from the principal asking if I knew that my son, a happy-go-lucky fourth grader, had brought a weapon to school. My heart started to race. Then I realized who I was dealing with and started asking questions.

It mattered not to her that this was totally unable to light anything as there was no innards and it was not attached to a car. It was an “incendiary device” and most definitely a weapon. When I begged to differ, I was shutdown, rudely. I told her she could throw it out and my son would keep his robots at home.

Then I wondered why she didn’t mention taking it to a higher level at the school if this really was considered a weapon, so I did. She assured me that wasn’t necessary. I insisted as I knew the Superintendent and felt pretty confident that this would get dropped and considered a waste of time (as that person did have common sense). She must have agreed as she became suddenly nicer, downright sweet and understanding.

Meanwhile, the kid, with a rap sheet a mile long, playing with bullets and using a pen like a knife stabbing people on the bus, got a pass.  Silly me. A pen is a writing utensil, not a weapon!

I support a zero tolerance policy for those who forget to use common sense.

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“It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll