Top 10 Resolutions We Can All Keep

At this time of year we all set ourselves up for failure by making resolutions we know will be broken before the printer stops humming (if they even make it that far.)

This year I am making resolutions that ensure success.  Feel free to copy these for yourself.

Be it resolved that in 2013 I will:

1)  Think about the number of calories in that hunk of fudge (you may substitute any other fattening noun) as I stuff it in my mouth.
2)  Mentally  do12 jumping jacks as I pass by the gym.
3)  Place a bowl of plastic fruit on the dinning table to remind me I should eat healthy.
4)  Do more walking by making my shopping list in random order rather than organized by the lay out of Wal-Mart . (I heard really efficient shoppers can get in and out of Wal-Mart in less than 3 hours).
5) Increase my reading speed by grabbing a copy of National Enquirer in the check-out line and see how far I can read before the cashier is finished.
6) Carry 5 bags of groceries at a time from the car to the kitchen to increase arm strength.
7)  Spray Aqua Net on all mirrors to erase facial wrinkles.
8)  Tear out all the size tags in my clothes.  Ignorance is bliss.
9)  Eat whatever someone else is willing to cook for me.

and finally
10)  Laugh out loud every day, even if it is at the guy in the next lane.

With these resolutions I am sure 2013 will be a wonderful year.

Going to the Dogs, The Real Scoop

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for Christmas Past

It was time to take the seven-year-old and the tween ager to do their annual Christmas shopping or I guess now it would be called Christmas gifting.  The difference this year is that they have their own money as a result of some very hard working chickens and one lazy rooster.  They have mastered the income part but haven’t quite got a handle on overhead expenses which ain’t exactly chicken feed.  Well it is but the price of chicken feed makes for some very expensive eggs.

My job was to be chauffer and gifting consultant as needed.  When we arrived at…wait for it…Wal-Mart…they immediately headed for the toy aisle.  As they calculated their combined income to see how much they would have left for themselves once all others had been “gifted” I perused the array of toys.

Besides the usual array of baby dolls, Candy Land, checkers, and bikes, there seemed to be other toys that would have given me nightmares had Santa dropped them down my chimney.  There was a game where you arranged realistic spongy brains into some kind of skull.  There was a kit for making totally ghoulish edible intestines, livers, and other assorted body parts guaranteed to make you 
scream in sour delight.  G.I. Joe was tucked in the corner of the aisle completely surrounded and overwhelmed with alien beings spouting several heads, spikes, and assorted eyes.  Bey Blades, which I mistakenly called Gay Blades, are the new spinning tops.  These, however, were battling tops complete with pistol launchers and glorified expensive plastic dishpans that serve as combat arenas. 

From the next aisle over, I heard squeals of delight. “Here it is!”  “Just like on TV”.  The object of their excitement was the Doggie Doo toy.  Evidently you feed this plastic wiener dog colored food, and then pull its leash thus “walking” it until the inner mechanisms maneuver the food from one end of the dog to the other where it comes out as poop.  Color coded shovels were included to scoop the color coded poop.  Now these are the same two kids who will only walk their real life dog under threat of total electronic shut down.  And forget about scooping anything! 

 Now granted, my older children had a Baby Alive when they were young.  You could feed the baby special baby food that came with it and over time,  gravity and two size C batteries not included would create a poopy diaper for the little mommy to clean up.  I should have known this was going to be a forerunner of the Doggie Doo toy when, as they got older, they diluted the baby food and created life like throw-up and diarrhea.

The Doggie Doo toy reminded them to rush to the Pet Aisle in search of a gift for Tia Mia, also known as Miss Buffington, Kiwi, and other assorted names depending on who has to walk her. They spent a good hour there searching for just the right toy for her amusement and the right Christmas outfit for her to wear when somebody else is walking her.

“What about the people on your list?  I mean the people besides yourselves, like parents.” 

“Well, you’ve got everything at Wal-Mart already. “

 Ok, that’s semi-true.  “But what about sharing?”

“I know.  You can play Doggie Doo with us.  You can even have the red scoop and all the red poop.”

“That is very thoughtful.  I’ll meet you at the check-out counter. I have to stop by the CD area for another present.” 

 I’m sure the children will enjoy “Barking Jingle Bells” It’s such a canine hit

                                  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

The TALK, Part One, the Female

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved to purchase a Man Cave.

There comes a time in every family when the adult sits down with the child to have “The Talk.”  The parent will stall as long as possible, seeking advice from books, fellow parents, and Dr. Phil, but eventually the parent and child must have “The Talk”.  In our home it began with Dad and the age appropriate child.  It went something like this.

Dad:  Son, you may have noticed that Mom is different from us.  She is a female.  Females are different from males.  We are not the same.   We have different priorities, needs.

For example, I need the pile of papers on my desk to remain just that, a pile of papers on my desk.  For a long time when you would drop your winter coat by the door in December,   it would magically get hung back up by Mom, forcing you to ask her where your coat is. Twice a year, spring and early fall, you have seen Mom go into a cleaning frenzy, screaming and threatening to hold all clothing, toys, games, electronics, and piles of paper  hostage for the rest of your life if left scattered about .  Now that you are of that age, my advice to you is to just lay low.  It will blow over in a couple of weeks.

Females think differently from men.  Females are long range planners and they can see far, far, far into the future.  Remember when you came home with a C in Beginning Play Dough?  I said “Humph” and continued watching the football game.  Your Mom, on the other hand said “C, a C?  You made a C? Well, no more Sesame Street for you.  This is just awful.  What’s next?  C’s in Legos? Do you think second grade is going to be easy?  Do you think Harvard takes C students? I can see it all now. You will end up in community college and then what?  Transfer to an online university?   You will be taking remedial courses because you failed to challenge yourself in Beginning Play Dough and you’ll meet another remedial Play Dough person and you will get married, have children right away and never finish your degree.  You will become a stocker at Wal-Mart and they will schedule you to work every Black Friday and your wife and children will weep and wring their hands for fear you will be mobbed guarding the four available My Little Kitchens from rabid early shoppers!    A C, a C!  My brilliant child made a C in Beginning Play Dough.” 

For a female, food equals calories.  When the female goes on a diet, everybody goes on a diet. Start stock piling chips, dip, hot dogs and chocolate now before spring and the ads for bathing suits appear.  And never ever answer the question “Does this make me look fat?”  There is no correct answer.  Pretend to be deaf, change the subject, ask if you can do the dishes; anything to throw her off. 

I am printing out this talk for you.  Before you decide to bring one home to keep, read this again.  Mom is a female, whom I love, but she is different from us.  Remember that.

The Shopper Who Came in to the Cold!

By Jody Worsham

I have renamed Black Friday.  I am now calling it Blue Thursday.  Why, you may ask, as I am sure you are, so I shall tell you.  I’ll tell you even if you did not ask.

This was the year I introduced the Tween-Ager to the Thanksgiving shopping frenzy known as Black Friday only this year it started on Thursday.  We had finished our Thanksgiving dinner and it was truly a thanksgiving because I did not cook.   We prepared for battle:  store floor plans for location of all sale items, cell phones charged and ready, snack crackers, gum and water bottle in large purse, store flyers with high priority items circled, and final trip to the bathroom.  I explained that when it comes to Black Friday shopping, it’s every man, woman, and child for himself.  She must plant her feet, stand firm and under no circumstances relinquish her hold on any wanted item.   We were ready.

We said good-by to our loved ones and left for Wal-Mart, our first stop. We were able to secure a good parking place close to the door as we were two and a half hours early for the first event.  This also enabled us to canvas the store and locate the TV and trampoline lines and to sneak a peek under the black plastic wrapped crates for the “good stuff”.  At six-thirty the tween-ager took up her position in the TV line located next to the refrigerated beer and wine.  She was number eight in line for the sale that would start at 10 p.m.  I took up my position in the trampoline line which began between the frozen meet aisle and the frozen corny dog bins.   After the first hour, I realized we had made a serious tactical error in our battle preparations.  No jackets.  My “event” would begin at 8 p.m.  I promised to relieve the tween-ager as soon as I got the trampoline but she was not to leave her position.

By 7:45 p.m. I was freezing from having stood next to the frozen chickens for so long.  The tween-ager called to say she was also freezing, could I get her some hot chocolate.  At 7:48 my heretofore dormant teacher “fight’s about to start” antenna started to vibrate.  The noise rose and the first fight began on aisle three.  I left my position to make sure the tween-ager was not in harm’s way.  I explained it was just a fight over 700 thread count sheets.  “Sheets!  They’re fighting over sheets?  I want to go see.”  “No, maintain your position” and I sneezed and returned to the freezer line.

At eight o’clock I got the trampoline certificate, and then went to relieve the tween-ager.  Over the course of the next two hours we became friendly with the other people in line; some were friendlier than others due to the dwindling supply of Bud-Lite that had previously been in the refrigerator section when the line first formed.  We got reports from other shoppers of people shoving, pushing, elbowing their way to snatch an X-box and that was just the senior citizens.  I did notice that there weren’t any of the motorized shopping carts for the handicapped.  I guess Wal-Mart feared hit and runs.

Shivering and sneezing we left Wal-Mart at eleven o’clock with our TV, trampoline, and a buggy full of things we didn’t know we had to have.  

“This is great,” said the Tween-ager, “what are we going to do before the next store opens at mid-night?” 

“Get warm!” 

A Bird on the Desk is Worth....?

By Jody Worsham ,  grinsandgroans ( at) yahoo.com

All rights reserved for Big Bird

During the course of my half century married to biologist turned kineseologist Dr. Hubby, I have come to expect unexpected guests in our home, backyard, and even the bathtub.  One of his undergraduate projects included trapping a nutria, rendering him dead, and plopping him in my freezer until it was ready for skinning.  A note on the refrigerator would have prevented an early morning warning scream that sent the neighbors into their storm cellars.

Then there was the time he returned home late from calling a basketball game in a nearby town.  Two chickens had fallen off the Pilgrim’s Pride truck that was hauling them to the chicken processing plant.  The hens were wandering along the side of the road in the rain. He rescued them and brought them home.  With no readily available chicken coop, he put them in out bathtub.  Again no note to alert me to the fact that we had guests in the bathtub.  He did very thoughtfully, however, hypnotized the chickens (he can really do this) so that they would be still and quiet so as not to awaken me during the night.  The next morning the neighbors again headed for their storm cellars as the early warning signal sounded. 

Our next guest came from Lake Sam Rayburn.  Dr. Hubby’s day fishing trip had lasted longer than expected so I was already asleep when he got home.   Not wanting to return home empty handed without a string of bass or perch, he brought home what he had caught.. live… and put it in the kitchen sink.  I now know grinnels are about as close to a prehistoric fish as you can find in North America.   Again no note.  In the morning when I went into the kitchen to make coffee, I activated the early warning scream.  This time the neighbors called before heading for their storm cellars.

So I was not surprised when the Tween-ager and the seven-year-old came to the house from the Trump Chicken Condos carrying our next house guest.  It seems that one of the recently added twenty-four chicks was being picked on by the other chicks.  She was literally the butt of their beaks.  Since she was missing several tail feathers, nothing would do but separate her from the other birds.  So our next guest found herself in a cardboard box on the desk in the playroom.

My writing lamp was whisked off my desk to provide warmth for the chick.  My ceramic ramekins became the perfect sized feeder and water bowl for this bird.  Today’s newspaper, still unread, became lining for the box.  The shi tzu was not a hospitable hostess and let everyone know it.  She upset the chick so much that it decided to check out early.  Dr. Hubby caught her in mid-flight just as he came in the door.  He didn’t look surprised to see a baby chicken in a box on a desk in the playroom with my reading lamp.

All he said was “What? No note?”

If the Shoe Fits...

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for Dr. Scholl, podiatrists, chiropractors, and bunion pads for my friend Wanda at www.wandaargersinger.com

I say if the shoe fits, buy it.  If it feels sooo comfortable, buy two pairs.  If there is enough room for your little piggies to do the Happy Dance, buy six pairs.  If you feel like you are walking on clouds, buy a dozen.  If they happen to be stylish…. what the heck, buy one more pair.

You will note that I put stylish at the end of my list.  I know there are those who suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous pointed toes and platform soles for the sake of fashion like my friend Wanda in “The Land of Confusion.com” but I am not one of those.  My philosophy is “No pain, Good Thang”. 

The latest fashion to assault women’s feet are those super high heels with one to two inch or more platform soles.  These shoes are playing havoc with the world as we know it.  The driver’s license bureau is thinking of amending the height portion to read “Height without platforms.”  Insurance companies are hearing as an excuse for accidents “I thought I was pressing the brakes.  If felt like the brakes.”  Instead of digging in their purses for cellphones, they could be answering their shoe like Maxwell Smart.    No need for carry-on luggage; just pack your platforms.  I suspect the chiropractors, podiatrists, and bunion pad makers will see an increase in business over the next several months.  

 Given our current trends in government, you can also expect new government regulations concerning footwear.  Manufactures may have to include warning labels on the shoe boxes: “ Warning: Wearing platform shoes may be hazardous to your health.  Wear at your own risk.”  People wearing the shoes may be required to wear a sign stating “Beware of possible falling body due to shoes.  Maintain at least six foot radius at all times.” 

 With all the inherent dangers, you might expect them to be banned in California, but not so. Rhode Island, maybe.  Hollywood, no.

Ballerinas know the value of a good fitting pair of toe shoes.  Since no two pair ever fit the same, when a good fit is found, they will wear them till they are in shreds and the bare toe box is showing and then weep when they have to replace them. 

I know how they feel.  I once had a pair of Nike shoes that enabled me to walk fifteen New York long blocks with no problem.  They were my shoe of choice whenever taking students to New York.  They became so worn I had to wrap duct tape around them.  I am sure I am the one responsible for the decorative duct tape and trend in teenagers today to decorate everything with duct tape.  However, my students were appalled at their sponsor turned Broadway Bag Lady until we made the trek from the Plaza Hotel to Macy’s Department Store.  By the time we got to Macy’s, they all headed for the shoe department.

I wish I had bought sixty pairs of those shoes.  They stopped making them but I learned my lesson.  Now if I ever find a shoe that is close to being as comfortable as those Nikes, that’s all you will ever see on my feet…at weddings, funerals, church, the ball park, Wal-Mart, presidential inaugural balls...  So be careful if you send me an invitation to something.

 Remember:  Beauty is in the sole of happy Feet,  so if the shoe fits buy several pairs.

 Oh, and Wanda, your platform shoes are definitely stylish and you do look good, , but my Nike clad feet can’t be beat!

Can a No-cook Cook Teach Two Cooks to Cook, if the No-cook Cook can't Cook?

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved in order to be adopted by Betty Crocker

Over the past several years, we have all determined that I can’t cook.  There are numerous fire reports, hospital visits, and petrified casseroles posing as yard art to attest to that fact. 

Now the big question is (see title of this piece) can cooking be taught or is it hereditary?  It is the old nature versus nurture, heredity versus environment debate.  I hold to the theory that good cooking is hereditary.  My mother cannot cook, my grandmother could not cook, and neither can I…hereditary. 

To further support my theory, I offer proof from the adopted seven-year-old and tween-ager.  Both children entered the Spoon and Fork Cooking Contest at our local library.  Why, you say, enter children in a cooking contest when the only reference point they have for good food is school cafeteria food?  To support my theory.

The children each entered the appetizer and salad category for their age group.  The seven-year-old entered Hot Wheels, a cream cheese, picante sauce, pecan, jalapeno mixture rolled up in a flour tortilla, cut into chunks, and an olive stuck in the center, run through with a toothpick.  It’s more of an assembly thing than a cooking thing, but this was his first time out.

The Tween-ager found a recipe for Sunflower Salad made with ramen noodles (cooked), tomatoes, onion, cabbage, sunflower seeds, bacon bits, with a dressing of sunflower oil, sugar, bacon bits, and vinegar.  Assemble, toss, refrigerate.

Ok, I was smart enough to buy two of everything in case, you know, I helped her, whom I did, and we had to do it again, which she did.  In all fairness, it was an honest mistake anybody could have made.  I store my sugar and salt in separate clear plastic canisters and maybe storing them side by side isn’t a good thing and probably those who know how to cook would never do that, and yes, labeling might have been a good idea, but I didn’t.  So the first salad, I like to call it the “practice salad”, was a bit off and a whole lot saltier than it was supposed to be.  In my defense, salt and sugar are both granulated, white, and ok, I was in a hurry and gave her the wrong canister.

As a result, I was banished from the kitchen.  The tween-ager finished the second salad on her own using sugar and without me handing her anything.

I was limited to setting “the stage” for their dishes, something I can do. For the Hot Wheels appetizer, I cut out a racing track from black poster board and hot glued it around the rim of the black serving platter.  Then I hot glued two Hot Wheel racing cars to the track.  I typed the recipe onto card stock and glued two plastic racing flags on to that. Hot Wheels was ready for competition.

The Sunflower Salad needed a silk sunflower in a recycled Starbuck’s mocha frappe bottle.  Her recipe was mounted onto green, yellow, and red plaid wrapping paper backed by card stock and leaned against the silk flower arrangement.  A sunflower cutout was used as a placemat for the salad bowl.  I found a flower looking plastic bowl at Dollar Tree.  I added water to that and froze it.  The salad was placed in a taller bowl and set inside the plastic bowl.  Her salad was supposed to be kept cold.

If the children were influenced by environment, then I felt the judges would need something attractive and interesting to look at while waiting for the paramedics to arrive.  Fortunately my theory held.  My adopted children, because they are adopted, could not inherit my bad cooking gene and no paramedics were summoned to the contest.

Oh, and yes, both children took first place!  Somewhere in their family tree is a branch for Julia Childs, Paula Deen, and Emeril Lagasse.