What Goes Together....

Peanut butter and jelly; cake and ice cream; vodka and orange juice; M&Ms and soft serve; money in my wallet (haha)....the list goes on.

We all know what goes together, or at least, what we feel goes together. I'm a basic person - I don't veer to far from the unusual, at least when it comes to food.  The Food Channel has opened my eyes to some weird foods.  My husband was watching some show the other night where the adventurous, wealthy patrons were paying to go to an event to eat things like snakes, mice, spiders, and other - in my opinion - nasty a** stuff.  I couldn't watch it.  I sat there for a minute and thought, "Ew.  Who the hell pays an exorbitant amount of money to EAT this gross crap??"  I mean, they are paying to eat it, not the other way around??  Watching starving contestants on Survivor eat cow intestines (or whatever) is one thing, but at least they are trying to WIN something - and watching that makes me squeamish. 

Clearly, I am just not that adventurous when it comes to food.  The most daring food I've tried was Uni (a type of sushi) and I spit it out.  My son, on the other hand, is definitely a daredevil who loves trying different things - that's what I think, anyhow.  Last night, he made this:

Check it out closely. 
That's stir fried veggies (in Sesame Ginger sauce) floating in miso soup with milk. 

And I may not be a terrific cook, but I promise you that I did not make that.  He mixed it all up.  One would think that after experimenting with the flavors, he would then push away the nasty combination; one would be wrong.  He continued to eat the mixture. 

It took every ounce of self-control not to stop him.  I want him to explore - and mixing foods and eating it is okay.  Obviously, exploring how the food looks on the wall or the floor would be too much exploration for this mother to allow, but I think mixing and eating things is pretty harmless.  And I think it's good to try new things.  Who knows?  He could be the next Top Chef.  The other night, one of the groups mixed chocolate with other stuff that most would not think would go with it....but that group won. 

So, even though *I* don't think it goes together, maybe Sesame Ginger marinated veggies in miso soup milk tastes good.  Maybe not.

To my darling son

It amazes me how much you've grown - all the things you can do by yourself, the little things that fascinate you.

One of your favorite things is dancing...to Justin Timberlake's Sexyback.  During Ellen DeGeneres' dancing sequence, you'll happily dance along with her.

You're also SO NEAT.  The other day, on our walk, we saw some rocks that had been pushed out of its boundaries (on someone's property) and you picked up the stray rocks and put them back where they belonged.  You also love to help clean.  The other day, when I was dusting, you wanted to help, so I gave you a rag and you started wiping things: the dishwasher, the cabinets, the refrigerator.

But I have to say that probably one of your most favorite things is CARS - anything with wheels.  You love to push the cars and trucks around the house.  Also, you'll change it up and push around the baby stroller.  Outside, you'll alternate from pushing the grocery cart and the bus on our walks.

You love opening and closing things.  Easter was a great example.  You wanted to open the eggs (the plastic ones) to see what was in there.  You happily ate the goldfish crackers you found in some and smiled when you found small cars in the large eggs.

At the park, you love to swing, and swing, and swing.  You also love to climb things.  The other day at the park, you wanted to climb the large structures rather than play on the 2-5 year old structure.  You definitely have no fear.

Carpool Cheater

Being that I am a regular driver in the carpool lane, driving my kids from here to there, I get to see carpool cheaters weekly.  You know the cheaters - the single drivers who think the cops aren't around, the ones who just NEED to get somewhere and didn't leave earlier, so they jump into the carpool lane, hoping they won't get caught!

They annoy me. Generally, these cheaters always choose to cut right in front of me.  Instead of waiting to go behind me (when there's no car there), they dive into the small space between the car in front of me...and me.  I assume they think this will help keep the cops off them, hiding in between two legitimate carpooling vehicles.

I had always wondered if they ever get caught, get ticketed.  The other day I found out.

As I was driving up the ramp in the carpool lane, I looked at the very long line in the regular lane.  All of a sudden, a car jumped right in front of me.  I thought, "STUPID!  And is there even a passenger in that car? Gah! I hope he gets a ticket!" A few seconds later, we make it up to the stoplight before getting onto the freeway. 

And guess what we see?

That's right, the California Highway Patrol!



Bwhahahaha.

Stupid a**. Served him right.  I see the driver pointing to the back of the car.  The patrolman looks more closely (he's standing on the side of the ramp with about five other cheaters' vehicles) and then tells him to pull over!

That's karma, baby.

That made my day.  Maybe it helped that he was a cute patrolman and he winked at me.  Whatever the case, I fought the morning traffic with a smile on my face.

More Things Kids Say

My daughter rented one of Hannah Montana's movies and was talking about Hannah Montana/Mylie Cyrus. 

I asked her, "Would you ever want to be famous?"

"NO!" she replied.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Well, then I'd never get to sleep," she exclaimed.

A child just like me - protecting her sleep at all costs! haha. 

Compliments

During a class discussion, we somehow got onto the topic of compliments.  One of the students shared what her sociology teacher taught in class: compliments actually degrade one's self.  For example, if I went up to a friend and said, "Wow.  What a cute haircut," I am also starting to think things like, "Why can't my hair look as good as her hair."  Thus, I would be degrading myself by complimenting another.

A fellow student spoke up and disagreed, stating that she gives compliments all the time - most of the time when she doesn't mean it.  She'll see someone wearing the most hideous skirt she's ever seen and will say, "What a pretty skirt!!!"  In the student's mind, she's making the ugly skirted girl feel better; the student also feels good about her own self, being that she isn't wearing the hideous skirt.

I think giving false compliments is wrong.  To me, there's no point in going up to someone with bad skin and saying, "What beautiful skin you have!"  I also don't think I'm degrading myself when I compliment someone, but I notice I have been hesitant to give out compliments.  As for taking them, it depends on the person.  I don't trust most of my students' compliments, thinking they are just kissing my butt to get on my good side. HAHA

Saying Sorry

My husband and I got into a bit of a tiff yesterday.  I won't get into the details of what the "tiff" was about, but it was like a cold war: we spoke civilly, but really we just avoided one another.  At the end of the day, he said, "sorry", but he didn't mean it.

How do I know this?  No, it's not my psychic abilities - so shush you guys out there being sarcastic and rolling your eyes at my female whining here.  He once said to me, "Well, I just say sorry.  One of us has to and I figure I might as well get it over with."
 
w.t.f.?

So, I know he sometimes just apologizes without really meaning it.  Last night, he said, "That's just what guys do.  We say we're sorry.  We try to get it over with."  My question is...why say something when you don't mean it?  Do you really think THAT is going to solve the problem?

Then, he said to me, "Well, why is it okay when you say you're sorry?"  Um, hello.  I only say it when I mean it.  And that is the truth.  I won't ever tell him sorry when I'm not...because what good is that?

His argument back is that someone has to resolve it.

Um, hello.  That is not resolving the problem.  That's just trying to end the argument...but it just pushes it under the rug until next time.  Annoying.

Sometimes I wonder about my husband's thinking.  It's a good thing I still love the butthead, because yesterday he was really getting on my nerves.

That's Life....Just Deal With It?

During lunch with an old friend of mine, she argued how it is unjust how attractive people get more attention.  She was saying that when her kids were babies, they were so cute that people had come up to her all the time, telling her how adorable they were, etc. etc.  She started talking about how unfair it is that attractive people get more attention.

And I sat there, pondering whether I felt it was unjust as well.  I didn't and I still don't.  My kids get all sorts of attention.  People come up to us on the street all the time, cooing "Ooooh, they're so cute," or "What a pretty girl."  I assumed most people did this to all kids because aren't all kids adorable in some way?

My friend continued to say, "That stuff never happened to me before, but with the cute kids, it happened all the time.  It's just so unjust that attractive people seem to get more." 

Sitting there, I kept wondering whether I was a bad person to think it wasn't a big deal: So what if attractive people get more? And before some of you start thinking that I must be one of the beautiful ones garnering the extra, undeserved attention, trust me, that is not the case.  While I may not be ugly, I am surely not in line with the likes of Heidi Klum, Catherine Zeta-Jones, or Jessica Alba.  And just because the beautiful people are apt to get more attention and/or stuff, I don't fault them for it...or see it as unjust.  I think that is just how life is and we have to deal with it.

I also think that beautiful people can turn ugly in an instant if they have a horrible personality.  So, while they may get attention in the beginning, if they don't have a good personality, it is doubtful others will pay much attention to them.