This Demented Life

My variation on the Muffin in a Minute a’ la Aktins.

Chocolate Muffin

1/4 cup plus one tablespoon of Flax meal (golden is best)

1/2 teaspoon of (FRESH) baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons cocoa

1 packet Splenda

1 large egg( just large. Not jumbo, not medium)

1 1/2 tablespoons heavy cream

Mix dry ingredients VERY well in a coffee mug

Beat egg (with much enthusiasm) until homogenized

Add cream to egg and beat even more

Add egg/cream mixture to dry ingredients and mix very well

Microwave for 1 minute.

slice, drizzle with butter and eat. while amazed at the near Chocolate Cake texture. Yum

This school year I have noticed an usually high level of hostility from the school office workers, including school prinicpals and the like. The subtext of every single conversation is basically “shut the fuck up and go away”. Conversations are very short, simmering with some sort of impatient rage and very VERY unhelpful.

For instance, this year my youngest wore her blue skinny jeans to school. Now they weren’t denim blue, but kind of a pastel powder blue. Please note that the dress code only specified BLUE. No shade caveats. Just blue.

I get a phone call from a crying, distraught 13 year old that she needs another pair of pants because her jeans are not dress code. I ask why and she said they were the wrong color blue.

Excuse me? The dress code page I PRINTED OUT 30 days before school started has no reference to SHADE of blue. It says all pants must be blue, khaki, grey or black.  I ask to speak to the office worker bee(which turns out to be a very hostile hispanic woman) and she tells me that all jeans must be DENIM BLUE. Uh, that isn’t on the dress code you have POSTED on the school website.

She informs me in the iciest tones that THEY had a school MEETING and INFORMED the students that blue means denim blue. Well happy days. Why the HELL didn’t you tell ME, yanno the one that PURCHASES school clothes? And how about you refunding the $60 bucks those jeans cost because I purchased them based on the FRICKEN POSTED DRESS CODE.

Oh, and when said daughter gets home, she tells me they had to round up 3 teachers to have a quorum to determine if the jeans were the wrong color.

Does anyone see a problem with this? How about the staff err in favor of the CHILD? Since when does school equal a police state? And how does this particular action “promote self esteem and a positive learning environment”? You just criminalized my daughter on the COLOR OF HER JEANS?

How fucked up is that?

Merry Christmas to me…

Merry Chirstmas to me…

Annoyed much? You bet. For the 3rd time this MONTH another so called “Green Energy *company*” has knocked on my door selling their “clean wind energy”. Funny how the companies names are different but their white and green polo shirts are nearly identical.
Anyway, they want to sell me Green Energy, for only 40% more than my *dirty non-renewable energy*.  I’m sorry, I will not participate in snake oil-greasy-guilt trip that I am using dirty energy. My first question to them(usually its my only question)
“How do you guarentee that I ONLY get the wind power? Are your power lines sequestered?”
This is usually met with a deer-in-headlights stare at me, almost always followed by a stammered
 “uh no, but your helping the environment…” and I cut them off right there with
“If my green energy is not delivered by sequestered lines, how are you PREVENTING the **dirty non-renewable energy** from co-mingling with my very expensive, completely unreliable *green wind energy*?
The second completely flummoxed stare is followed with my response of
“I thought so. Please go away and do not knock on my door again.”

You were a good hairbrush. By my side for at least 15 years or so, ever there when all the other hairbrushes would hide amongst the frippery in the makeup drawer. You served me well, never complaining about the times when my hair was so long that it took over an hour to work out the tangles. You smoothed my coif to shiny goodness when it was short enough to just comb with my fingers. Your wooden handle had begun to show age with little nicks and dents in the smooth polish, but you never complained. Your bristles stayed strong and true, unlike other more recent brushes who gave up the fight against wet tangly hair almost before it began.

Even more recently being the chewtoy of an overzealous house pony, you still performed your duties well. I am sorry that the aforementioned dog hurried you to the afterlife(or whereever old brushes go) You didn’t deserve the neglect from me.

You will be remembered for the true hair implement that you were.

Recently my oldest adopted a Great Dane.

Now as great danes go, he is a sweetie. Your typical goofy dog that is just too big to be graceful. Unfortunately, since she has a really busy life at the moment, he seems to have become my dog. He has a very gentle temperment, at least, until someone knocks on the door. And then he becomes Titan the Destroyer.

Is it wrong to enjoy watching door to door salesmen flee for their lives? Cause I do

So I saw a commerical on TV advertising the new Wingstreet, wings delivery now brought to us by the inept crew at Pizza Hut. Well it had been a decade or so since I ordered from Pizza Hut, and hoping against hope they they somehow cleaned up their act and actually learned something about the delivery business, I decided to give it a try. I ordered online via their new online order machine, and waited patiently for my order of “tender juicy wings just like I want them”.

And waited. And waited. And waited some more.

An hour and a half later the delectable morsels of wing goodness arrives. And thats where the fairytale ended.

The wings were so hard and dry that they were inedible. Even the DOG couldn’t chew them. On top of that, I had order fried cheese sticks. Yanno, the chunk of cheese coated in a crispy batter and then jacuzzied in the fat fryer. Well, that wasn’t what I got. I got these long chewy bread things. Just ew.

So I called the restaurant that I ordered from and complained. She OFFERED me a refund. I asked and she CLARIFIED that she would be crediting my CREDIT CART the amount of the wings. Okay fine, I can live with that.

Cut to this week. Today actually. I called and asked what happened to my refund. The new manager(I suspect it was the same one cause they have the same name) said that I have a store credit, that they don’t issue refunds. Well gee, why then, did your “other” manager offer me a refund as a credit to my card?

So I decide to give them one more try. I SPECIFIED that I ordered FRIED CHEESE STICKS, not the cheap cheesy bread. I made her REPEAT it to me THREE TIMES. Apparently that wasn’t enough.

The pizza arrives in a timely fashion, only 35 minutes this time. Only the FRIED CHEESE STICKS I order weren’t there. Oh no, I got that stupid cheesy bread. I told the driver that wasnt what I ordered. So I told the kids NOT to eat the cheesy bread and called the manager. I got the girly that took my order and I asked her to look at what I ordered. Made her read it back to me.  Then I pointed out that was NOT what I recieved. I asked to speak to the manager(heretofore to be known as the Liar) Whilst on hold the kids were complaining about the pizza. It was cold. Hard and Dry.

Plainly put, it was fucking inedible. This time the dog refused it and my dog eats ANYTHING. The girly comes back and tells me the manager can’t come to the phone that they will send out my FRIED cheese sticks. I was floored. The manager REFUSED to come to the phone. I was pissed.

Fast forward to an HOUR later. No cheese sticks. I finally got the manger on the phone and she said the cheese sticks left 30 minutes ago. LIAR!

It takes about 8 minutes in traffic to get from Pizza hut to my house even in heavy traffic and catching all the lights. I absolutely knew that she was lying. And the cheese sticks arrived 15 minutes later, thus proving that she lied. Oh and they were cold and hard too.

The moral of this story is to avoid Pizza Hut at all costs. They Still Have Not Gotten Their Act together, and no amount of online ordering or mobile ordering can fix a problem with their food or their managerial staff.

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So I’m on the phone yesterday, with a client. Its going well until I start getting the incoming call beep. I check the number and its someone I don’t recognize, but its local, meaning its for one of the kids. I ignore it because clients are more important that kids calls.

Only, this kid calls every two minutes. Hang up, call again, hang up call again, lather-rinse-repeat. This is the second kid that has done this. Why can’t parents TEACH their kids that if someone doesn’t answer the phone, then MAYBE just MAYBE
a)we aren’t home and can’t answer the phone
or
b) The current call is MORE IMPORTANT than YOU are you rude little carpet monkey.

When I finally answered the call(and the client was a little put out from having to repeat things 3 and 4 times) I pretty much reamed the kid. And tomorrow I plan on reaming the parent.

Oy.

My kids have to ASK to use the phone. And they are time monitored. They have proper manners for
a) Answering the phone and taking messages correctly
b) Being polite
c)They say “Yes Ma’am(sir) and Thank you when appropriate.

There is another kid that (thankfully) doesn’t call anymore. Quite frankly, the mom doesn’t deserve kids because her daughter is the most ILL mannered, RUDE little asswipe I have ever encountered. My kids REFUSE to answer her calls or to go anywhere with them. Sadie calls and the conversations go like this

Sadie: Is Katy there?(note, she did not identify herself at all)
Me: Nope.
Sadie: Well, where is she?!?
Me: None of your business. She isn’t here.
Sadie: Why won’t you tell me where she is???
Me: hangs up.

Sadie: Is Katy there?
Me: Yes and she doesn’t want to talk to you
Sadie: Why not?
Me: Because you are rude, you basically physically abuse her by hitting her or you verbally abuse her by threatening to hit or by emotionally manipulating her. She has chosen NOT to communicate with you until you develope some manners, grace and basic human civility.
Sadie. I want to talk to her now.
Me: Exactly..and I hang up.

And then her mom calls
Michelle: Hi, can Katy come over and play with Sadie?
Me: No and I told Sadie why.
Michelle: What do you mean?
Me: Your child has horrific habits of physical and mental abuse. You seriously need to spend some time with her so you see her absolutely unacceptable she is around other children.
Michelle: Can I borrow 30 dollars? We’re out of…
Me: Hangs up.

Nothing in the universe is worse than some quack hawking his newest “Miracle Cure” with a 30 minute commercial. Well, actually, there is worse. Waking UP to a quack hawking his miracle cure.

Now, I pay HUGE money for HDcable and yet 70% of the channels switch over to this paid programming crap after midnight.. Uh, Hello? Why the FUCK and I paying for this drivel? Who CARES if all the people in the world have dirty clogged colons. And why must I be forced to PAY to watch it?

Even more annoying, they are NOW pasting this crud as a “pre-commerical” on the VOD stuff.

Mebbe I just hate the old Guilt Pitch, but geeze, can they just lighten up a bit. I’m either dying of Clogged Colon, Cholesterol, PMD, Diabetes, Erectile Dysfunction, ad nauseum. No wonder Health Care costs so much. We’ve become a nation of Hypochondriacs thanks to Late Night TV.

Mixed Messages

After watching “The Devil Wears Prada” for the umpteenth time last night, it occurred to me there very disturbing mixed messages in this film. While I understand the film itself is meant for purely entertainment purposes, the insidiousness of the messages can harm it’s target audience, namely children and tweens.

First we see Andy desperately looking for a job. She is a young recent college graduate and barely out of the nest, so to speak. She is Fresh Faced, naive and idealistic(odd and ironic for a journalist major, don’t you think?) and dresses very “Girls School” frumpy. I’m a solid 25 years out of college and I never saw anyone dress like that even in my day.

By some quirk of fate she lands a job in the most important fashion magazine in New York, “as an assistant to the Executive Editor”. Can we say “not bloody likely”? I think you can. Andy thinks the women at the magazine are idiots for subscribing to designer couture(where did that naive idealism go?) and even comes up with a dispariging nickname, “The Clackers”.

In one swift stroke, she marginalized them into sub human, non-thinking lemmings, without even bothering to learn about them as individuals or their personal motivations. I fail to see how this example is something good or even worthy of imitation. In fact, this is the very reason we have such intolerance and racism in the world today.

As the movie progresses, you see Andy getting sucked into this “evil machine”. Her best friend pulls her aside and delivers a scathing diatribe about “how she is changed and she doesn’t know her anymore”. Oh good grief, every person on the planet grows and changes. How is it wrong to value a job or excel at a job, over a poor bohemian lifestyle? How is a poor bohemian lifestyle preferable to a high profile well paying job? The same friend is desperately trying to break into the glitterati with her art. The message they beat us to death with is compromising your ethics, but its a very bad example. People compromise their ethtics every day just to KEEP a job and KEEP food on the table. Somehow I don’t see Noble Starvation as better than positioning yourself as well paid and able to support yourself without governement funding.

And the boyfriend. Yes as Andy works dilligently at her chosen job, the boyfriend gets his digs in. “How can you work at that job if you hate it so much?” Yet we see him in a dead end job toiling away at a job he hates.

Just as an aside here, I find these to be very limiting and unhealthy relationships. GOOD friends and GOOD mates do not judge. They support. They listen. They don’t do lectures or cast the “you’ve changed” guilt trip on a friend.

The most devestating message in this film is that successful women are divorced women. The Executive Editor is going through yet another divorce. A marriage sacrificed because of her job. THis is so terribly misleading to children. We see Disney values(another ironic thing) imposed on girls and women. A woman with a job and a good job is doomed to fail at family. She is evil, self serving and less than human.

Nice Job Disney.