TV or Not TV

On August 3 Steve Blow, columnists with the Dallas Morning News, wrote a column titled, “Free at Last from the Grasp of Bad TV.”  This is a nice thought.If only it was true.  Steve Blow was rejoicing in the fact that The Bachelorette and all of its drama are finally over.  I second his “Hallelujah” to that.  Unfortunately, I am sure that there is more bad TV out there.  In fact, a quick trip through the TV guide reveals that there may actually be TV that is even worse!!  Scary, but true.  I’m not even going to list the possible candidates for this distinction here because I don’t want anyone to actually put my assertion that there is TV worse than The Bachelorette to the test by watching these other “shows.”

Steve Blow also refers to an article in a recent issue of Time magazine in which historian David McCullough is asked, “We often can’t understand how people in the past could have owned slaves or not educated girls.  What do you think people will wonder about us?  McCullough’s response was, “How we could have spent so much time watching TV.”

Ouch!

Why do we as a society spend so much time watching television?  And more importantly, why do we seem to enjoy it so much?  I have several thoughts on these questions.

One of the reasons we spend so much time watching television is because TVs are everywhere.  They are like a great big germ that has caused a national epidemic.  Nearly everyone is exposed to the numerous strains of this infection - LED, LCD, HD, 3D, Plasma -many times a day and nearly all of us have been infected by this chronic, if not terminal, dis-ease..  There are televisions in restaurants, doctor’s office waiting rooms, train stations, our cars, and nearly every room of some people’s homes.  It seems that there are more televisions than there are those fancy hand sanitizing stations.  H1-N1 has nothing on HD TV with regard to epidemic status.  

Why are there TVs everywhere?  Are we not capable of sitting quietly while we wait for a doctor?  Do we have nothing of interest to talk about with those with whom we are dining?  Can kids not play license plate bingo or color or sleep in the car like we did before cars came standard with TVs and DVD players?  What has changed?  What is at the root of the TV epidemic?

I believe that what has changed is that, generally speaking, we are an unhappy society.  We watch TV to escape our own lives.  We fantasize about being the next American Idol, or The Bachelorette, or  the winner of an extreme home makeover.  Or, we feel powerful because we are not as fat as the people on the Biggest Loser or as pathetic as those on Hoarders.  For the hour that we are enthralled in these shows we think we are happy.  Unfortunately, as Steve Blow points out in his article, research shows that watching television actually causes depression.  Really?  Who knew? And I’m not even talking about the news.

I am not trying to pound the TV industry into the ground here.  TV is a business.  Like any business the producers are out to make money.  Money comes from advertisers buying time on shows that people watch.  People watch crappy shows.  Crappy shows then make the money.  Producers like the money.  They make more crappy shows.  People watch them.  Business booms.  As you can see, it is a vicious cycle.

As with many things, I suspect that I am in the minority with my perception of the quality of television these days.  That’s OK.  I’m content with not knowing who the latest Idol winner is.  I may be culturally illiterate by current standards, but I’m happy.

Oh, and FYI, Desperate Housewives is going off the air.  I suspect that depression will be on the rise!

What's Missing?

When I was redesigned my blog, I debated with myself as to whether I should change the description of what I do here from “musing on the life of a teacher, mother, writer, knitter, human being.”  My role as a mother has changed since I began writing my blog, but I am still a mother.  Fortunately for my children, they have moved on to college and beyond and no longer serve as an unending source of material for posts. 

 Though I don’t write about it much, I love being a teacher.  One of the reasons that I steer away from this topic is because so many teachers have gotten in trouble for posting comments about their students and their jobs on various public forums.  Granted, many of these comments have been less than complimentary.  That is not an issue I would have.  I love my job and love my students.  Enough said.  

Being worn down by the dreadful heat here, having a list of things I need to do, and worrying about various people and situations and knowing that I have no control over either, is making me feel pretty human right now so I guess I still can claim human being.  I am not going to speak one way or the other about  whether or not I can call myself a writer. 

 That leaves knitter.

I am still a knitter though admittedly I don’t knit as much as I used to.  In and of itself, that is not necessarily a bad thing; it is the result of having more (good) things to do - one of which is a heavier teaching load at school.  Did I mention that I love my job - and my students?  Anyway, the responsibilities of such cut into my knitting time.  For the record, let me state here that it’s not watching Clean House and Happily Divorced on TV, or doing crossword puzzles, or writing blog posts, or playing Angry Birds that is compromising my knitting time; It is definitely my school/job related activities.  Really.  It is!

I have knit.  I do knit.  I am knitting.  The problem is that I have not finished much lately so there isn’t really anything to write about or to show you.  My bag of unfinished items may be further confirmation of my humanity.  In my own defense, I have started and finished a few baby gifts.  I gave them away without photographing them so I can’t prove that.   They were cute.  Trust me.  I also have taught a couple of knitting classes but I myself have not yet finished these projects.  Does it make me a good teacher if I tell you that I have not finished my own sweaters because I have spent a goodly amount of my time at the knit shop helping others finish theirs?  I did finish one of Weber’s birthday socks in time for his June birthday.  Its mate is still unfinished. Well, truthfully, it is still un-started.  It is 105 degrees here.  He doesn’t need wool socks now anyway, right?  I know that wool has a wicking effect but trust me, he is not going to wear wool socks any time soon.

Despite the fact that I have several “overdue” knitted items to finish, I am looking ahead to holiday knitting.  The other day I committed one of the knitters’ deadly sins; I was looking at yarn at a “craft store” rather than at the knit shop.    Not only did I look, but I bought.  I bought yarn and a pattern book.  (More support for my human being status.)

While we were looking at the pattern books, Weber made a disturbing discovery.  Thumbing through a book he noticed that several pages had been ripped from its center.  We’ve all seen this kind of thing before - the page with the recipe ripped from the magazine in the doctor’s office waiting room, which is inevitably the page that, on its other side, had the conclusion to  the fascinating article that you were reading.  tThen there are the coupons that have been lifted from the Sunday paper and the missing journal article that you needed to finish your research in graduate school.  It’s all the same - selfish people doing selfish things.

The thing that made this whole scenario of the book with the ripped out pages at the craft store even sadder is that it was a pattern book of knitted prayer shawls, shawls that are made and given to those who are facing tough times.  The intent is that the knitter “knits” prayers into the garment as they work.  What kind of prayers does someone who has stolen the pages from a book knit into their prayer shawl?  Maybe Knit one prayer of hope and healing for you, Purl two prayers of forgiveness for me.  At least that would be a step in the right direction.

The mother, writer, teacher, knitter, and human being in me says, Please don’t steal the pages out of newspapers, magazines, journals, novels, or knitting patterns.  Thank you.

What's Up, Doc?

Despite the fact that my grandfather was a doctor and I loved him dearly, medical doctors are not my favorite breed of human beings. Many of them are pretentious. Most of them think that their time is more valuable than mine or yours. And, a good many of them would rather be at the country club playing golf that listening to their patients enumerate their ills. The truth is that I don’t respect doctors any more or any less than I respect teachers, food servers, cashiers, airline pilots, or you. This is both the good news and the bad news for doctors with whom I come in contact. It is bad news because I don’t put them on a pedestal and worship the ground on which they practice. It’s good news because I recognize that they are human like you and me and can’t perform miracles.

Having said all this, I do have several doctors that I like and respect. Both my dermatologist and the surgeon who removed the skin cancer on my arm a few years back are awesome. Based on my personal experience they are fine medical professionals, but this is not why I think they are awesome. They earned this praise from me because they have a great sense of humor. If a doctor has no sense of humor, he or she is not the one for me. I put them all to the test first crack out of the barrel.

When I had my pre-op visit with the surgeon regarding the removal of the skin cancer, he went through all of the possibilities - if we do this the incision will be this big; if we have to do this it will be a little bigger. I told him that I wanted the scar to look like a Smiley face. He promised me that he would do his best. When I came out of recovery he greeted me with an apology that the incision more resembled a “whatever” face so he drew a smiley face on the bandage as consolation. I was amused and he earned my respect.

Nurses are even more uptight than doctors. It is my experience that wit and a sense of humor are detrimental attributes for those applying to nursing school. Knowing this, I love to harass nurses, especially those that work for pretentious doctors. Here is an example.

When I first was diagnosed with lupus I was seeing a well respected rheumatologist in Dallas. His waiting room was always packed with people who sat for an average of three or four hours to spend fifteen minutes with him. He is one of those who thinks that his time is more valuable that mine. As is often the case, his nurse does the routine vitals when you finally get to the exam room. On my first visit she sent me to the restroom to give the obligatory urine sample. She didn’t give me the usual instructions. You all know what those are. When I looked around the bathroom I saw that there were both paper cups and plastic containers. Unsure of which to use, I stuck my head out and asked her if she would lprefer this in paper or plastic. Rolling her eyes and preceding her response with a grand sigh she muttered “plastic.” She was not amused and I was not impressed. I don’t see this doctor anymore. My choice; they actually didn’t kick me out.

I had a similar encounter with a nurse when I had my skin cancer surgery. As part of the pre-op procedures she had to do a pregnancy test. I told her that if it were positive I would be rich since I could sue the doctor who had done my tubal ligation and it would be an immaculate conception. Her only response was “the sooner you cooperate and get this done the sooner we can get you in and out of here.” Okay then. Definitely no sense of humor and possibly no personality of which to speak.

Weber had cataract surgery last week. The doctor who performed the surgery is the ophthalmologist that he has seen since he was fourteen and whom he greatly admires and respects. I had met him once, very briefly, but did not see him the morning of the surgery. I did however have my customary fun with one of the surgery center nurses.

For some reason when they took Weber into surgery they left his street shoes on rather than giving him a pair of those $99 hospital footies. So, when I met him in recovery he had on a hospital gown and his Toms. In her most serious voice the recovery nurse told me that he was awake and I could talk to him. The sight of him in the hospital gown and his shoes made me laugh. The first thing I said to him was, “Wow, if you were going to wear a dress you should have shaved your legs.” He smiled. As usual, the nurse was not amused.

He came home with a hard plastic shield taped to his eye. It was kind of an injured pirate look. I decided that we needed to have a little fun with the look so we found pictures of eyeballs on the Internet, printed them, cut one out and stuck it to the patch.

I asked Weber if he thought that his doctor had a sense of humor. He said that he thought so but wasn’t sure. You know what’s coming next. I was going to find out for sure. We left the eyeball on the patch when we went the next day for his post-op visit. As he signed in at the office the reception giggled. She passed the test. The tech who did the initial questioning in the exam room was not amused. She failed the test. The doctor got a good laugh and greatly appreciated our sense of whimsy. So much so that he had me text to him the picture that I had taken so that he could show it to his wife. It was hard for me to imagine that in forty plus years of practice that he had never had a patient do something like this; but, that seems to have been the case. This doctor moved way up on my acceptable doctor list!

New Look, Same "Stuff"

I started this blog on December 27, 2006, a day before my 45th birthday.  If you do the math, on December 28th of this year All In A Day will be five years old and I will be fifty.  What better way to celebrate both of those monumental anniversaries than to give my blog a makeover.  So, why did I do it today, July 23rd?  The simplest answer is because I could.  It is too hot here to do anything outside.  Even getting in the car and going someplace that is air conditioned does not have much appeal. I could think of no better  way to spend a hundred plus degree Saturday afternoon than wasting time working on the computer.

Nothing has changed here except the look.  For good or for ill the content will remain the same.  I wish I could tell you more specifically what that means but I really can’t.  Someone asked me the other day what I write about on my blog.  My response, “Stuff.”  Makes me sound real smart, huh?  I thought for a moment and elaborated by telling her that I write about things I find interesting, funny, sad, scary, intriguing, stupid, edifying, exciting, joyful and worthy of sharing.  If you are reading this, hopefully you agree and this is why you are here.

Thanks for being here!

KEB

Cookbook Confirmation

They (whoever "they" is) say that the way to a man's heart is through is stomach.  I've also heard it said that men want to marry someone just like their mother.  One conclusion that can be made from these two things is that men want a woman who cooks just like mom did.  In this era of frozen and packaged foods and three ingredient recipes, this is a tall order for modern young women.

I am definitely not a young woman; I'm not sure about the modern part either.  However, I am sure that I was nervous about the first meal that I cooked for Weber.  It was somewhat impromptu and therefore had to be pulled together from ingredients that were already on hand in the pantry.  I decided to grill steaks.  Does the fact that I can grill a steak on an outdoor grill make me a modern woman?  Anyway, steak was easy and a fairly safe bet since I knew that he was not a vegetarian.  As is often the case, choosing a side dish was my big dilemma.  Baked potatoes are the standard with steak but I was out of those. Maybe rice?  What other kind of vegetables did I have?  What kind of vegetables did he like?  I debated with myself for awhile and finally decided on a favorite at our house, broccoli and rice casserole.  It sounds healthy.  It sounds wholesome.  It sounds safe.  It's made with Cheez Whiz.  Cheez Whiz is neither healthy or wholesome.  And I'm not really sure how safe it is.  But, it is good, especially when you don't know that is what you are eating.  How much of a risk was I taking to use Cheez Whiz in the first meal I prepared for this guy?  I took the chance.  It all worked out.

Fast forward a couple of years to today.  As I was looking through Weber's mom's cookbook I came across a recipe for Rice & Broccoli.  It calls for one cup of raw rice cooked.  This means no Minute Rice.  Did I mention that my recipe also uses Minute Rice?  Another abomination in the cooking world.  Her recipe involves both cooking on the stove and in the oven; mine relies solely on cooking in the microwave.  As I continued to read through the recipe I suddenly felt redeemed!  It calls for Cheez Whiz!  Actually it calls for Jalapeno Cheez Whiz.  Is that still available?  It doesn't matter.  I learned that Cheez Whiz had been the secret ingredient of cooks from a generation past.

Here are our two recipes.

No. 1

Rice and Broccoli

from Weber's Mom's cookbook

1 C. raw rice cooked

1 pkg. chopped broccoli thawed

Saute 1 large onion in 2 T. butter.  Add 1 can of cream of chicken soup, ! C. milk, and one can of cream of mushroom soup.  Add broccoli and 1 small jar of Jalapeno Cheez Whiz.  Cook until it bubbles good.  Pour over rice in a casserole.  Heat in oven until good and hot.  350 degrees.

(This recipe was handwritten by someone other than Weber's mom.)

No. 2

Broccoli and Rice Casserole

I can cream of chicken soup

I soup can of Minute Rice

I soup can of water

I package of chopped broccoli

I small jar of Cheez Whiz

Place all ingredients in a microwave safe two quart casserole dish.  Microwave on high for 14 minutes.

(This is also good with chunks of leftover chicken added.  This recipe comes highly recommended by Offspring No. 2.)

In case you find yourself in a cooking bind I offer you this.

History In Recipes

At Mother's Day I wrote a post lamenting the fact that I had never met my mother-in-law.  As Weber remembers stories about her he shares them with me.  And as we unpack more boxes at the house, things that she owned, made, and collected are surfacing.  With each discovery comes another opportunity to come to know a woman whom I greatly admire and will never meet.

Today's discovery was her cookbook.  You know the one; we all have one just like it.  Most of us got it as a wedding present  - The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook or the Joy of Cooking or something similar.  There is no doubt that the information in these cookbooks has been a lifesaver at least once in our cooking careers, but it is the recipes that have been clipped from newspapers or handwritten on now yellowed paper and stuck inside the book's cover that give us real insight into the woman behind the cookbook.

My mother in law's cookbook is titled Household Searchlight Recipe Book, published in 1938 by The Household Magazine in Topeka, Kansas.  I have not yet had time to digest all that lies within the pages of this book.  I am looking forward to all that it has to offer.  Today I want to share one of the first clippings thatI I found when I opened the book.

Right inside the front cover, on that characteristic yellowed paper that I spoke of earlier, is a collection of favorite recipes from the First Christian Church of Carrollton, Texas.  It is an example of what desktop publishing looked like in 1975.  On the first page of that collection is the following:

At a time when this country is mourning the passing and celebrating the life of Betty Ford, I found this to be a synchronistic finding.  If you are interested in cooking like a first lady, here is Betty Ford's recipe.

Mrs. Gerald Ford's recipe for

RUBY-RED GRAPEFRUIT CHICKEN

(Quick Cooking)

2 ruby-red grapefruit

1/2 whole cranberry sauce

1 Tbsp. honey

1/4 tsp. cloves

1/4 tsp. salt

1 fryer, disjointed

3 Tbsp. butter or margarine

Peel and section grapefruit, squeezing all juice from membranes into saucepan.  Add cranberry sauce, honey, cloves and salt, mixing well, then bring to a boil.  Stir in grapefruit sections.  Brown chicken in butter in fryer, then place in a shallow baking dish.  Baste with grapefruit sauce.  Bake in 350-degree oven for about 45 minutes, basting frequently.  Serve chicken with remaining grapefruit sauce.  Serves 4.

I'm amazed at how many of our memories reside in food, both that we liked and disliked.  How many times have you heard someone say something along the lines of "Do you remember that awful jello casserole with the cottage cheese and walnuts that Aunt Lulu made?'  Or, "I have grandma's chocolate chip cookie recipe but they just don't taste the same when I make them."  I remember thinking the first Christmas after my mom passed away how much I missed the jar of bread and butter pickles made from cucumbers from my dad's garden that she always gave me at Christmastime.  And now I'm on the hunt for her cole slaw recipe.  Cole slaw was something that I didn't care for as a child so I never asked her for her recipe.  Now I love the stuff!  Go figure!

To all of you cooks out there who make a family favorite that has become a tradition, make sure you write it down.  Stick it in the front cover of your "work horse" cookbook.  It will make someone smile once you are gone.  I promise!

It's A Bird. It's a Plane. It's . . .

. . .A Cloud

I thought that this one cloud that, to me at least, looks like a plane soaring across the horizon was fascinating.  Thank goodness for the camera on my phone or I would miss many cool sights like this.