Tired Trends and the Kitchen Cabinets
Aren't the candy canes a nice touch? It makes my cupboard look staged.
That was one super scary cabinet full of secrets and guests and scruffy bags and I'm just embarrassed for it. Even though it's clean now. This picture reveals so much about my state of being.
This week was delivered to me by satan wrapped in tar. Indeed. It has mostly been hell week for dealing with an incident that occurred in October at Max's school which I only found out about a week ago. Max broke a gourd instrument that belonged to one of the music teachers and apparently didn't seem to think it was a big enough deal and so the teachers tried to get him to write a written apology, his regular teacher held him in for a few recesses to get him to do it, and then gave up. It's been two months and suddenly the music teacher, whose precious gourd instrument Max broke, sees Max in the hall and remembers that she never got the written apology and mentions this to him. He doesn't respond with an apology and she decides it's time to get the special needs teacher to intervene. He called us with an ultimatum to produce the written apology by this Tuesday or Max will lose a recess for every day he doesn't bring it in until it is given to the music teacher.
I was livid with rage that they never bothered to tell me about this two months ago when taking Max's recesses away wasn't working. I could have expedited the matter in one single day. But there were many things wrong with this whole incident and how it was handled and I'm too tired, after a week of sludging through it all, to detail everything for you. You don't really want to know anyway. All I can say is that it has been made clear that I need to be even more involved, more vigilant, and more of a bitch to everyone to keep my world running smoothly and to keep Max from getting trampled.
This incident also uncovered the horrible inconvenient fact that Max's 504 plan never became active because I failed to get the paperwork filled out by Max's teacher last year that the doctor needed in order to sign his name to a diagnosis. I handed the papers in to the teacher once and they came back in Max's back pack unfilled out with no explanation. I then tried to connect up with the teacher on the cleanup day after school ended but she had left early, as my luck would have it. So the torturous months of summer convened and I forgot all about it.
Grrrrr.
On to other fun topics...
I actually read a Replican ass call our current health-care system "the finest in the world".
!!!
I could just about have a heart attack rereading that. Maybe I shouldn't have repeated that in print. I can't even discuss that statement it is so outrageously wrong.
Trends I am getting so tired of my eyeballs are burning from having to see or read about them AGAIN and AGAIN:
I am off to research Indian Cookbooks on Powell's Books and to plan what food I will be preparing for the week ahead. I hope all of you have a great Sunday with family, friends, and good honest food.
P.S. I'm so excited to have made another local friend who is not religious and is, in fact, an athiest! I'm not exactly an atheist but I love people who are because I get it. I understand it and respect it and science ROCKS!! (It's also such a pleasure to have met someone else who loves to read Georgette Heyer! I've met a couple of people online who know who she is and enjoy her books but I don't believe I've met a single person in my everyday life who has read and loves her. I know, small thing, but really so exciting to my geeky self)
*No, I have not forgotten that my kid eats mostly packaged food but I don't call that anything it isn't, and I don't call it cooking to pour him a bowl of mixed crackers.
Trends I am getting so tired of my eyeballs are burning from having to see or read about them AGAIN and AGAIN:
- Bacon in everything
- Salted caramels (had some for Christmas and didn't like them at all)
- Calling your baby boy your "little man" (I never hear mothers call their baby girls "little woman" which would equally creep me out.)
- Rampant use of the word "yummy". Worst ever was seeing a recipe title that included "ummy nummy" in it. Gross. Are you an adult or a baby? I've occasionally used the word "yummy" myself, but in great moderation. There are many words that can be used in it's stead that don't make you sound infantile such as "delicious" "so fucking good I could cry" "tasty" "outstanding" and "savory" to suggest just a few.
- "Cooking" with highly processed things like candy bars, velveeta "cheese", or packaged crescent rolls. I read recipes where you're baking a cake but the main ingredient is 7 Snickers bars. Or where a casserole consists of a package of frozen tater tots smothered in a Velveeta sauce with some canned pimentos. This is not cooking. This is assembling crap into one cooking vessel and calling it "food".*
- Crocheted apple cozies (I mentioned this about a thousand posts ago but I keep seeing them!)
- Crock-pot cooking. I love my crock-pot for cooking plain beans. That's it. Crock-pots don't make good food. Not only did I work hard to make good food in my crock-pot a century ago (and failed to be impressed) but before I gave it a go under pressure from my mother, I ate lots of my mom's crock-pot food and the only thing I ever ate from a crock-pot that was truly good was my mom's vegetarian split pea soup.
- The rampant use of the deliberate ghetto grammar "I love me some..." or "I want me some..." At first it didn't bother me but now that every blogging woman on earth speaks like that I want everyone to stop. Also fascinating that I never hear men use that ghetto affectation.
I am off to research Indian Cookbooks on Powell's Books and to plan what food I will be preparing for the week ahead. I hope all of you have a great Sunday with family, friends, and good honest food.
P.S. I'm so excited to have made another local friend who is not religious and is, in fact, an athiest! I'm not exactly an atheist but I love people who are because I get it. I understand it and respect it and science ROCKS!! (It's also such a pleasure to have met someone else who loves to read Georgette Heyer! I've met a couple of people online who know who she is and enjoy her books but I don't believe I've met a single person in my everyday life who has read and loves her. I know, small thing, but really so exciting to my geeky self)
*No, I have not forgotten that my kid eats mostly packaged food but I don't call that anything it isn't, and I don't call it cooking to pour him a bowl of mixed crackers.
Comments (7)
oh good LORD I love Georgette Heyer....and you're right....I don't think I've ever met anyone in person that agreed with me (or admitted it)....
Posted by The Sandwich Life | January 24, 2010 9:35 AM
Posted on January 24, 2010 09:35
My husband Philip has read all of our Georgette Heyer collection and so when people cringe at the new tawdry covers the reprints inevitably have, I tell them this. Philip would never read a bodice-ripper. Anyone who reads Georgette is, in my opinion, a class-act!
I think if you're not reading one right now you need to go grab your favorite and sink in. Sounds like you're kind of having a rough time right now.
I'm reading "Cousin Kate" right now which I haven't read in quite a while. So soothing and funny and such a great antidote to the heaviness that has weighed down my week.
Posted by angelina | January 24, 2010 11:12 AM
Posted on January 24, 2010 11:12
There is one recipe we have for our crockpot that makes me want to marry whoever makes it, but it is definitely more assembling than cooking. Anything else I've had from the crockpot that has turned out well could just as easily have been made in a regular pot, since it required sauteeing ingredients before putting them in the crockpot. That's actual cooking, so I don't see how the crockpot is saving me all this time. The only advantage is that I don't have to pay quite as much attention to the crockpot as I do the regular stove to keep things from boiling over or burning - which is what often happens when we cook plain beans on the stove, actually, so perhaps we have reversed everything around here and that's the problem.
Posted by Skye | January 24, 2010 11:42 AM
Posted on January 24, 2010 11:42
You have hit on the one true beauty of the crock pot that I have come to appreciate- which is that I don't have to worry about my beans burning. I never was very good at making beans on the stove top because they must cook so long and I inevitably fail to put enough water in the pot as they begin to absorb it and I scorch them. The crock pot cooks them perfectly every time. Since I make a lot of beans from scratch I love my crock pot for this service. But during the months I experimented with the crock pot for regular cooking I found that everything became mushy. Perhaps this is different for people who eat meat, but I would put vegetables in my crockpot before I went to work on low and come home to complete tasteless mush.
I have many friends who swear by their crock pot for their daily cooking. I just don't share the love.
By the way, Skye, I meant to respond to the last cabinet post- I want you to know that there is always hope for you!!
Posted by angelina | January 24, 2010 11:52 AM
Posted on January 24, 2010 11:52
Hi Angelina
I agree with you about salt on candy - I just don't get it, tried it once and was completely underwhelmed. The two things I use my crockpot for are making applesauce(which is supposed to be mushy), and making soup stock. I save veggie ends (and cooked meat bits and bones) in the freezer till there is enough to fill the crockpot, then cook it overnight. That gets another meal out of scraps, which is good (and tasty)
I hope that things improve with Max and the School. He is lucky to have you for his Mom.
Right now there isn't a room in my house that doesn't look like your "before" picture. I am feeling rather completely overwhelmed by it, actually. I keep making an attempt to start dealing with, and it only ends up transferring the mess somewhere else in the house, like in the Cat and The Hat...
Posted by alison | January 24, 2010 2:38 PM
Posted on January 24, 2010 14:38
First off, I am vicariously angry with you about Max's school situation. Even though I don't have kids myself, every time I hear a story like this, my momma bear instinct totally comes out. Grrr! Also, having spent a few years working in the school system, I absolutely don't get why stuff like this happens. I can't understand what Max's teachers were thinking. (In theory, yes, I understand about the initial disciplinary action that was taken...but then not telling you about an ongoing and escalating situation for two months? Grrr! Momma bear all over again!)
And secondly, I'm totally with you on the list of trends that you're sick of seeing. I would also add that I'm BEYOND tired of the whole cupcake obsession. I like cupcakes as much as the next gal, but...c'mon. Enough is enough.
Phew. Glad I got that off my chest.
Posted by EmmaC | January 24, 2010 5:39 PM
Posted on January 24, 2010 17:39
Totally agree with you about the way the school handled, or didn't handle, the situation. I've just found out about a situation my 6 year old is involved in at school that has been going on for weeks. What is it with these people - do they not have phones or brains?
I like to cook a whole chicken in my slow cooker, it is so tender and moist....and yummy!!Ha ha.
Posted by French Knots | January 25, 2010 3:31 AM
Posted on January 25, 2010 03:31