Saturday, December 25, 2010

'TWAS THE NIGHT AFTER CHRISTMAS

I saved this one for today. I am industriously writing new essays for the new year. If you have any suggestions let me know. In the mean time you can view me on demand reading from my blog at www.MVTV.org Go to on demand and look for Pretty Funny.


‘TWAS THE NIGHT AFTER CHRISTMAS

‘Twas the night after Christmas
Not a creature astir
(Even the escaped gerbil was nesting in the fireside chair)
The stockings were empty
The games were all played
Ma in her new nightgown (two sizes too small)
And I in my new pjs (two sizes too big)
Settled in to sleep off
All the stuff we did swig.
My eyes barely shut
There arose such a noise-
The damn kids were playing
With all their new toys
My eyes popped open
My face held a frown
I jumped out of bed
And hollered “Pipe down!”
The stairs were all littered
With torn paper and bows
I was tripping and cursing
And stubbing my toes
The boys how they fought
Over Playstation Two
The girls were both whining
Their gifts were too few
Why those miserable ingrates
Their behavior was shocking
What they really deserved
Was coal in their stocking
“Quit complaining,” I said
“Push those thoughts from your heads-
Dash away, dash away
Up to your beds!”
St. Nick was gone
Christmas was not without stresses
I heard a kid exclaim
As he disappeared from view
“Next year my list will have web site addresses.”

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

FOOD POLICE

This will be my last formal essay for a while. I'll be taking a rest but you can drop in occasionally to read more deep thoughts from a shallow mind.

FOOD POLICE

Is it just me, or are people I don’t even know trying to control my diet? I am being inundated by rules and regulations about what I can or rather should be eating and drinking. It’s not my fault that the Industrial Revolution and modern technology has turned us into a country of hippos. I find it incredibly unfair that the French continue to eat butter, cream and croissants and drink gallons of wine and their average weight doesn’t seem to change. They call it the ‘French gene’. It certainly insures that genetic engineering will get my vote.
I also feel that the ‘fattening’ of America is caused by an improvement in the taste of food. I don’t remember, as a child, food being so good that you didn’t stop eating it until it was gone. Don’t get me wrong. My mom was a pretty good cook but she was a non-working housewife, one of my favorite oxymorons, and in those days that meant you were lauded for taking the cheapest cut of meat you could find and making it edible. Only Italians had herb gardens, and you could only get vegetables in season, so even in New Jersey--The Garden State--that was pretty much June through September. The rest of the year we ate frozen or canned. My mother’s favorite flavor was butter. Everything I ate was drenched in it. So why was I such a skinny kid? She also liked to use sugar on fresh tomatoes and grapefruit and salt on green apples and melons. She baked every day. A meal on our table consisted of a relish tray (you remember--carrots, celery, olives and sometimes radishes or cottage cheese) or salad, meat, potatoes and gravy, at least two vegetables, bread and dessert. Dessert was usually pie or cake. We didn’t consider fresh fruit dessert like they do now. Unless it was in ice cream, of course. So how come we weren’t whales? I’ll tell you why. We ate a little bit of everything and let it go at that. We weren’t required to belong to the ‘clean plate club’, weren’t made to feel guilty because there were children that went to bed hungry, and weren’t interested in sitting in front of the TV all the time because we only had one and you can imagine the type of shows my father, who controlled the dial, liked to watch. (That was in the days when we children took the place of a remote. "Susie, put on channel 4.")
Another thing that the Food Police have become irate about is how much liquor we consume. In my parent’s day a cocktail or two or three a day was the norm. It gave dad a chance to unwind before dinner and mom a chance to tell him which child needed a talking to. Now it’s one glass of red wine a day for your heart, that’s it. Ha, Ha. I don’t know anyone who follows this rule. (It irks me that now that wine is good for your heart it gives me terminal GERD.)
I understand the concept of a ‘dry town’. I can appreciate that some people don’t want noisy bars in their neighborhood. What I don’t understand is the BYOB concept. These people want to control what is being drunk next door so they don’t allow liquor to be sold, but they okay the option of diners bringing coolers full of beer, wine and other potent potables to the local restaurants and for a few dollars corkage they can drink any or all of it. It seems to me that this takes all control of who drinks what out of the hands of the establishment. When selling liquor you can cut someone off when you perceive he or she has had too much to drink. If it’s the customer’s own liquor, bought and paid for, what can you do?
When did carbohydrates become the Pariahs of the food world? When I took health in school they were an important part of the food pyramid. I don’t think it’s fair that they bleached all the nutrients out of an entire genre of food to make it taste good then turn around and tell you it’s bad for you. I’m talking about white bread and pasta. The greatest comfort foods ever invented. They also turned the pyramid upside down and made the biggest part the broccoli and salad section. What’s with that?
As I was saying bread and pasta have become the wicked step sisters of eating. Now I can live without pasta (when did we stop calling it macaroni and spaghetti?) maybe six days a week but not bread. Bread, as you can tell from the description of what was on my family table, is a once per meal item. Toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and a roll or two with dinner. I don’t care if it’s made out of that hideous white flour, wheat flour or corn meal. As long as I can spread butter on it (of course we use unsalted for our health), I’m good to go.
My friend Jules and I went to a pretty fancy restaurant the other day. You know, ten dollar martinis and thirty to forty dollar entrees. After we ordered and got our cocktails Jules said, “I’m hungry. She must have forgotten to bring our bread.” The next time the waitress sailed by we caught her eye and asked about bread. “I’m sorry but it’s not our policy to serve bread.” Can you imagine? The chef must be an Atkins convert.
After cursing the person who recommended this place we enjoyed our entree and left. I said to Jules, “I guess this is a BYOB joint.”
“No,” he replied, “They serve liquor.”
“Yeah, I know. I meant Bring Your Own Bread.”

Thursday, December 2, 2010

DUST TO DUST

I just finished cleaning for Thanksgiving now Christmas is coming up. Does it never end???


DUST TO DUST


I like to get a bang for my buck with housecleaning. That's why I don't do it until the TV is so dusty I can no longer see the face of the anchor on the six o'clock news. Sometimes I have to invite people to dinner in order to have a reason to clean. Being a child of the sixties I've never really been into housework, which is, when you think of it, a misnomer since it isn't the house that works. It just lays around and gets dirty. I worked outside the home and so felt justified in hiring a cleaning woman. Now that I am retired I no longer feel justified. Ergo my dirty house. I must say I am very jealous of women who don't work but have a cleaning lady anyway. No, I guess jealous isn't the right word. Envious? No. Pissed? Yeah…pissed.
The Oxford Unabridged Dictionary defines housework as "the work of cleaning, cooking, etc. to be done in housekeeping." Even though this is a very large book I guess they didn't have enough room for all that needs to be done, hence the etc. It defines a housewife as "a married woman who manages her own household." I guess they figure when your husband dies you stop cooking and cleaning and doing all that other endless etc. It goes on to state that housewife has become a somewhat derogatory term in some circles so suggests houseperson since we now also have househusbands. I prefer houseperson since wife implies a marriage and I don't have that close a relationship with my house. Especially the parts that need to be cleaned.
Everyone's standard of cleanliness is different. I guess it's partially due to how we are raised. My mom stayed at home and had a distinct schedule of chores scattered throughout the week. A day for grocery shopping (payday of course), a day for laundry (which included ironing, bed linen change and sewing buttons back on), kitchen and bathroom cleaning (of which we only had one--can you imaging--a family of four with only one bathroom??) and all the other responsibilities of a housewife. Of course there was always time in her day for her soaps and a chat over the backyard fence with her neighbor. One of the biggest chores was ferrying the kids (both of us) around town to various activities and play dates. When we grew up and were no longer a factor she started celebrating cocktail hour with a neighbor lady since she had all that free time. That, needless to say, ended badly when, one night, she completely forgot to make supper and my father, figuring she needed something to keep her busier, got rid of all the formica and polyurethane covered furniture and replaced it with real wood which needed to be polished on a regular basis. But, as usual, I digress.
As I said, standards of cleanliness are different. Your standards even change as you grow older. Most people go through phases--sloppy youth, neat middle age and then when you age you return to your youth. I always thought that the homes of elders were not as clean as they could be because their eyesight was failing. Now that I'm older myself I realize it's just because we are tired and lazy, and our philosophy is 'it's good enough'.
I imagine for a young bride it must be a daunting task to shop for cleaning supplies. When I was starting out there were only a few choices. Now-a-days, unless you stick to the brands your mother used, it could take an indecisive person a week to choose her products, three quarters of which she doesn't really need. Dishwasher cleaner for instance. How dirty can the inside of a dishwasher get? I notice no one has imagined that the American houseperson is stupid enough to buy a cleaner for the inside of a washing machine, otherwise it would be there on the shelf next to the other unnecessary items.
Some things have to get done like laundry and food shopping but most of the other chores in my house get done on a need to do basis. Take ironing for instance. It is such an odious job that I only do it twice a year, spring for summer clothes and fall for winter clothes. In fact, I frequently shop for new rather than iron. My laundry room looks like the inside of a Salvation Army bin. My sister-in-law has never ironed. She informed my brother while they were still on their honeymoon that her wrists were too weak to iron.
I still can't decide whether she is a genius or my brother is a moron.