In Which the Complaining Starts

So much to complain about. On a hyperlocal level, let me go on the record to say that mothers of small children annoy me very much.

I was rolling through the supermarket on a search for vegan face wash (not kidding) and a mother was pushing her 5-6 year old around in one of those car/steering wheel shopping carts. The kid was big and pretty crammed in there and he was totally engrossed in his video game as Mother shopped. Mother asked him to choose between two brands of the same product on a shelf. Without looking up, the kid let go of the video game with one hand, pointed to the shelf and returned his hand to the game box.

Mother was so pleased with his selection that she complimented him by singing out “GOOD JOB” in that high note/low note style so popular with complimentary mothers today. The child ignored her. If that lyric had musical accompaniment, it would look like this:

disclaimer: I am not musical in any way, shape or form.

Also, who came up with the idea of calling small children “littles”? I find that highly annoying. In the south, they make it even worse by referring to their “sweet littles”. Stop it, Mothers.

I am not all doom and gloom, though. Not entirely. To end things here today on a positive note, I’d like to tell you that I have finally located the perfect nude nail polish for me. After many false starts, dashed hopes and wasted money, say hello to the Sally Hanson Color Therapy color “Re-nude.” I thought it was perfect but after years of color-selection failure, I began to doubt myself.

But then, I went out into the open air to mingle with the GenPop. I was standing at a clip-board, signing in as one must these days, and the person watching me do it literally choked out “wait … what?” and then said “Oh! What a great nail color. It’s like it’s there and it’s not there.”

And that is how I know this is the perfect nude nail polish.

hello, perfection!

Personal Blogs

You know, the Internet didn’t turn out to be what I thought it was going to be. Remember way back when, you would make a post and then get a ton of comments from your regular circle and maybe a few from some random others who wandered by via a search term?  Personal blogs – and by that I mean regular people spewing forth whatever comes to mind – are a thing of the past . And I miss them.

Most of those blogs were lousy, boring or a combination thereof. But some were so interesting as to be hypnotic, some were instructive, intentionally or not, and some were just comfortable, pleasant reads from people you never met but you felt like you knew. The bloggers were a random mix of ages, locations and life experiences. Many had their own buzzwords or frequent topics and they became yours to the extent that just hearing that word in real life was the spark that could create your won sympathetic and linked post to be read, enjoyed or gently debated amongst your circle.  Where are those blogs now?

Without that community, there’s almost no point to a blog like mine. I don’t want to feel alone in the universe so through the magic of Google, I set out to find other personal blogs.

It is to laugh. There’s plenty of links for personal blogs but don’t even waste your time. Here’s what you get:

•  individuals that run their own businesses
• DIY blogs
• food blogs
• mommy blogs
• fashion blogs
• career advice blogs
• lifestyle blogs
• and an endless number so how to start your own blog blogs

Looking up my old blogger links is a fruitless exercise. For one reason or another, the links are dead.  I just want somebody who can reach out and share. Somebody who can entertain me about what happened when they went out for gas. Somebody who makes jokes with bad photoshop work. Describe your garden without being a big expert about it. And for God’s sake, don’t try to sell me anything.

I’d be more animated about this but I just microwaved 4 slices of bacon and then I immediately ate them, so I’m feeling pretty good about things in general now and can’t get worked up.

Peeves for 2020

subtitle: Welcome to Codgerville

Happy New Year to you, you intrepid old faithfuls who periodically check in here despite the very  infrequent updates. I love you!

I’m starting the new year off with the almost-required list of personal improvements that mean nothing to anyone except the authors. I’ve long ago abandoned any pretense of making resolutions to improve myself and instead have complied a list of things that other people need to do, in my opinion,  to improve themselves. A list of peeves, if you will. Not pet peeves because that would mean that these gripes are mine alone. No this is a list of what I believe are sore points for the great majority of human beings. If the offending others would take heed, we’d all be better off as a society.

In no order of importance, here they are:

Any recipe that includes the word “yummy” in the description Aside from the accepted fact that yumminess is a subjective opinion – but, really? Like we’re all 8 years old? I can’t take on everything that’s wrong about passing on recipes, especially online ones, but I can take on this one point.

Pedestrians who walk into the path of a moving car This happens 9 times out of 10 when I’m in pulling out of a space in a parking lot. Questions:

• why would a person upon seeing a car cautiously backing out of a parking spot continue walking towards, behind and/or in front of it?
• if a car and a pedestrian collided, which do you think would be damaged?
  • would the damage be reversed for the party with right-of-way?

I don’t know the answers to the above but I do know this has to stop.

People who humble brag that they are doing Dry January Incidentally, I’m doing Dry January. Not only that, but I started a day early so bonus peeve points if you’re playing along. It’s been about 38 hours so far and I have to say that’s its kind of boring. What bad timing to go dry because I just heard about cocktail recipe books that describe themselves a “featuring delicious drink recipes paired with wry commentary on history’s most beloved novels“.  Maybe it’s better off because it would be February anyway by the time I decided between between Tequila Mockingbird and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margarita.

Still, doesn’t relaxing with a nice little A Rum of One’s Own or Love In The Time of Kahluà sound so pleasant? The Unbearable Lightness of Peeing must be for beer drinkers but I’m not 100% certain about that. I guess for now I could content myself with the mocktail list (except for that Tang thing. Damn you, astronauts!) and the snacks. In fact starting right now, I might just call all the deviled eggs that I serve to the hapless few who have the bad luck to wander up to my table The Deviled Egg Wears Prada.  I don’t think it would be as amusing though without the alcohol accompaniment.

 

So that’s my peeve list for 2020. It is only 11 am on January 1st, so peeves are not limited to this short list alone. I suspect that I will  have to update as the year goes on.

Once again readers – I love you. And I don’t even need the courage found at the bottom of a gin bottle to admit that.

In Which I Flatter Myself

I like to think that I look younger than my years. It’s a harmless, pleasant fantasy that keeps me in a good mood. But every now and then, something comes along to shatter the delicate shell I keep around my ego. You wouldn’t do that , would you?

I didn’t think so. And that makes The Incident this week all the more annoying. Here’s a tip: If you want me to buy magazines from your 50 year old ass, do not take a quick look at me for the first time ever and then refer to me as your mother. This really happened. Sometimes I think you don’t believe the things I’m telling you here , so lucky for you that my Ring doorbell camera captured it.

You could tell this is going to be an event just from that knock, right? There’s a part 2 to this encounter where the solicitor and I get into an argument about whether or not he should be soliciting in a non-soliciting neighborhood but I’ll spare you that one.* That’s another tip: if you want someone to buy something from you, don’t get into a fight with them.

*Now that I’m thinking about it, I actually did sort of act like his mother when he was trying to give me the baloney how he had permission and I refused to let him wriggle away, point by point,  by calling him out on his bullshit. Apparently, I’m highly the suggestable type. I hope someone comes to the door today to tell me I look like a lottery winner.

Life in the suburbs can be rough if you are a hermit that wants to be the boss of their own time but mostly just wants to avoid being annoyed.  Also, I get all the magazines I want for free by taking quizzes about recycling at recyclebank.com 

As For The Rest Of Us …

I hope that you realize that America’s misbegotten fascination with balsamic vinegar has pushed Red Wine Vinegar and Oil salad dressing right off the shelves?

Yes, you can still sometimes find it on Amazon for nine bucks a bottle but you can’t find it in a supermarket. Go ahead and look. Anything with “vinaigrette” on the label is immediately preceded by “balsamic”. Don’t get me started with the burial of oil and vinegar as a descriptive phrase for a simple thing in favor of the more exotic (or possibly more expensive? definitely more snobby) vinaigrette. Likewise do not get me started about the popularity of olive oil. Olive oil is fine and I have no objection to it, it’s just that sometimes a girl wants a little Wessonality on her plate.

I know it’s easy to make your own red wine vinegar and oil dressing, but sometimes I like or liked past tense to pour a little from the bottle and then supplement with pure red wine vinegar then salt the whole thing up. Usually, when I start out making  my own RWV&O dressing, it morphs into the house Italian I used to get from a local Italian lunch place in NJ – red wine vinegar, oil, salt and a ton of minced garlic and oregano.

I want to hope that the balsamic craze will be short lived and out of my hair sooner rather than later but I’ve been wrong before about popular but aggravating food trends, namely overly decorated dessert plates and garlic mashed potatoes. They will not die.

In other grocery store news: there’s a big, blond and brawny manly man who works the early shift in the meat department* of the local Winn-Dixie. I’m an 8 am kind of grocery shopper so there is rarely anyone else around when he sees me rolling down the aisle towards the meat case. He always says “Mornin’, darlin’. Let me know what y’all want” in a very friendly manner. I wonder if he ever played football? I’m going to ask him next time. The only men I ever knew that used the term darlin’ were Talk Show Joe (Namath) and my cousin Ray  who at one time played for the Minnesota Vikings. And the only person that I heard Ray address as darlin’ was my old Aunt Natalie when he asked her for another beer.

*I originally typed meet department. Calling Dr. Freud!

Anyway. You don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’. Is that why I can’t stop singing this song?