Scheiss Weekly

Insensitive People Baffle Me

Posted on October 18, 2010 by Jane GoodwinOctober 18, 2010

Mamacita says: People who indulge themselves at the expense of other people are not nice people; they’re selfish and inconsiderate. I do not understand how their minds work. These people baffle me with their insensitive glossing over other people’s lives.

When my kids were tiny, and I was RIFFED from teaching for a year here, and a year there, and was actually a SAHM, I wouldn’t even take them to town for lunch, etc, until the main lunch times for working people had passed. Why should I, with time to spare, take up seats that a person on a strict schedule and not much time should rightly have first? My tiny children and I had the luxury of being able to eat lunch any time we wanted; working people didn’t.

I’m still that way. I just refuse to inconvenience someone else if I can help it at all. I’ve done my share of waiting for a table in a crowded restaurant at prime lunchtime, with less than a half hour in which to eat, while table after table was taken up by SAHM’s and their kids, leisurely kicking back and visiting, meeting friends, eating slowly, not in any hurry, savoring their time together, and apparently not aware of all the people with very little time for lunch, some of whom would be returning to their jobs still hungry because there just weren’t any tables during their only break time of the day. I’ll probably really hear it for saying that, but I’ve been on both sides, and I say, the people with time to spare should not use very much of that time when others with NO time to spare need it. Meet later in the day.

As for people who go through a fast-food drive-through with “special orders” during rush hour. . . . I’d like to tell you what I think of them but, to quote Auntie Em, “For twenty-three years, I’ve been dying to tell you what I thought of you! And now… well, being a Christian woman, I can’t say it!” She was, of course, referring to Miss Gulch, who became the Wicked Witch of the West in Dorothy’s dream, but frankly, that opinion of “special order during rush hour” drive-through people that I’m far too polite to say out loud is based on my firm belief that these people, too, would melt if water touched their skin.

I’m not sure which is worse, stupidity or base meanness.

Drive-throughs are for quick, easy, simple orders. Drive-throughs are supposed to be a fast way for busy people to get their food and go. Ditto for the bank. These things are not for leisurely laid-back jaunts; they are built and intended for speed.

And this was my opinion even when my kids were small; we ate “out” AFTER the busy people with little time to spare were finished, and all of my paperwork was filled out and ready BEFORE I pulled up to the bank window. It’s just politeness, plain and simple. Why is this so hard for so many people to comprehend? These drive-throughs are there for your convenience only if you pay it back in kind. Otherwise, you’re just a rude beast stealing time from working people. (I bank online now. No lines, no waiting. Awesome.)

Oh, and how about those people who bring bags of stuff to the post office, and proceed to pack their box right there in line, mooching tape and sharpies from the postal clerk and seeming not to even notice the glares from the nice people who did all that at home before driving to the post office. . . . I’m not speechless; I just don’t want to waste my choicest vocabulary words on people who aren’t worth it. I will say this, though: there’s a part of me that understands why postal workers sometimes go, well, postal. I also assume these are the same people who wait until they pull up to the window to root through a purse to find their stamps and proceed to peel and stick one on every envelope in the stack and then drop each one individually into the mailbox like Meg Ryan in “When Harry Met Sally.” That, too, is something nice people do at home before so much as opening the car door.

Am I being cruel? I’m betting you think so only if you’re one of THOSE people.

So, if it’s noon on a weekday and you’re in town for a lark, with all the time in the world, and you pull up to the drive-through window and utter any variation of “One hamburger, plain; one hamburger with mayonnaise; one cheeseburger with ketchup only, three small fries with absolutely no salt, and what kind of toy is in your kids’ meal today?” I don’t much like you.

But, but, but, “My kids are very particular!” So were mine. We didn’t eat out during rush hour.

If it’s not rush hour, order your personalized combos; nobody will care because you’re not inconveniencing anybody. Order your “four cheeseburgers, one with lettuce only, one with mustard and pickles, one with mayonnaise and onions, and one absolutely plain” at noon on a Wednesday with a long line behind you composed of people who have all of fifteen minutes to get their food, eat it, and get back to work, and you’re a self-centered narcissist.

Wah wah wah.

I dare say I’ve been insensitive about insensitive people. As to that, I’ll misquote Falco and just say, simply, “Bite me, Amadeus.”

A Few Things I Will Never Understand

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Jane GoodwinOctober 15, 2010

Mamacita says: When I was teaching in the public schools, the same things happened almost every day:

I rejoiced when my students did well.

I cried when my students faced insurmountable odds.

I laughed when my students were happy.

I was proud when my students worked hard.

I was angry when the decisions of adults made my students’ lives harder.

I was furious when my students were sent to school in rags and shards of shoes, while their parents had winter coats and, miraculously, money for cigarettes.

I was glad when CPS removed my students from dangerous homes, negligent/abusive/selfish parents, and filth.

And I was beside myself with disbelief and grief when my students were put right smack back into those same homes because a lying SOB abusive crack-addicted drunk who had baby-tantrums and took care of his/her own personal needs before feeding/clothing/loving the children in the house with anger management problems* and “addictive personality syndromes” promised** he/she’d do better next time.

Because, you know, people like that just do the same thing over and over again, and when “the next time” comes, they just screw up again. And who is the real victim? Who pays the price for our social and judicial systems’ inability to see through these people’s lies and whines and excuses and promises that mean nothing?

The children.

Shame on a society that puts the “rights” of an adult before the welfare and well-being of a child.

There should be no second chances for these people. One false move with a child, and that child should be removed from that “home” and put in a real home, with people who will feed, clothe, love, and care for those children before buying ANYTHING for themselves.

Few things made me madder than the sight of a well-dressed parent who sent a child to school in rags. And invariably, such people reeked of smoke and cheap beer.

And once a child is removed from trash parents and then put right back in the home again, do you really thing this child will dare “tell” what’s really going on at home again? Because if you think he/she will, you’re sadly mistaken. There is no safety for a child who knows that if he ‘tells,’ he’ll just eventually be put right back in the house with the perpetrator, and the perpetrator will be angrier than ever at being outed. The child won’t ‘tell’ again. Fear and threats are good silencers, and some of the worst people are the best at faking “rehabilitation.”

Take the children away. No second chances. Lock the parents up. Let them dry out ‘cold turkey,’ and I really don’t care if they sweat and scream. They didn’t care when their children did.

I do not believe that a home should be completely ‘child-centered,’ but a house wherein children are rendered second-class citizens, unfed, wearing dirty, tattered clothing, beaten, neglected, exposed to second-hand smoke and drunken/high parents on a regular basis, not taken to the dentist, sent to school with no lunch and no hope of any, who will then return, after school, to an empty house or a house with vicious selfish adults who will then take out any frustrations or “urges” on the child, isn’t a home. It’s not a house, either. It’s nothing but a repository for scum, and a child should not have to live like that.

Adults have choices in such things. Children do not.

Remove the children. Do not require them to EVER go back.

* euphemism for “things adults do when they are really nothing but big selfish arses. Also, adults with “anger management issues” are one of the ugliest sights in the universe. Grow up.

**the promises of such people mean nothing; they are lies, like everything else they say

Only the Stupid Fear Questions

Posted on October 10, 2010 by Jane GoodwinOctober 10, 2010

Mamacita says: Warning: I’m in a bad mood. I’m sick and tired of a handful of people taking all the joy out of the majority of our children’s school experience. I maintain that if a family is that insecure and unable to defend their own beliefs against a good honest question, or withstand any questions about or exposure to the beliefs of others, maybe they’d best take a good long look at those beliefs, because folks, something is wrong with them.

Read at your own risk. And if you want to fight, bring it on.

Dear People-Whose-Own-Personal-Beliefs-Far-Outweigh-Anyone-Else’s:

There is a big difference between “celebrating” something and “having fun with” or simply “experiencing” it. Or maybe. . . LEARNING about something? Perish the thought.

Buy a dictionary, you pompous twits. If your belief system will allow one in your home. . . . there ARE some controversial words in dictionaries, you know. And I’m sure you DO know.

You can always mark them out with a black sharpie. And I’m sure you DO know how to do that. You’ve had plenty of practice with book censorship. You probably don’t have a thesaurus in your home because – oh NOOOOOO – that would teach your children that there are other ways to express themselves, other words to choose among, other ways to say things. Can’t have it. I mean to say, we just can’t HAVE that.

There is much, much more that I’d really like to say, but my own personal beliefs which far outweigh anyone else’s do not allow me to waste my time trying to deal with the likes of you.

I’m too busy feeling sorry for your children, who have to deal with you on a daily basis, in your humorless, cheerless, sterilized-of-all-fun, devoid-of-all-experiences-which-your-pastor’s-pizza delivery boy’s-grandmother’s-neighbor disapproves of, always-winter-and-never-Christmas, house. Also known as the Valentine-free zone. The “all-experiences outside of our frame of immediate knowledge” -free zone. The shamrock-free zone. The sparkler-free zone. The childhood’s fantasy-free zone. The charm-free zone. The turkey-free zone. The diversity-free zone. The other-people-free zone. The tradition-free zone. If you’ve ever thought or said something to the effect of “I don’t know the reason, but it’s just how we do things here” or “We’ve always done it this way” or “The pastor said so” or “It’s always been a rule here,” then I’m talking about you, Gormless.

I was going to work “twilight zone” in there somewhere but frankly, such households are not classy enough to be associated with that reference.

Oh, and I take back the “turkey-free” zone comment. I bet you know why, too.

What a poor life for a little child, in a house cleansed of fantasy, play-acting, dress-up, dreams, fairies, anticipation, and traditions.

Poor, poor little children.

I suppose poor parents, too, but THEY’VE got a choice, while their children do not.

Not till they are old enough to move out, and start a nicer, smarter, far more interesting household of their own.

(Not judgmental much, am I. . . . .)

Yeah, well, bite me.

Very sincerely indeed,

P.S.

When I try to remember my own elementary school years, the clearest memories are of red and pink construction paper valentine hearts, hand-tracing turkeys, a tree covered with little pieces of glitter-covered artwork (some of them MINE), shamrocks hanging from the ceiling, drawing names for a fifty-cent gift exchange, learning about Hannukah (which my family did not celebrate, but which I was fascinated to learn about; it was my first glimpse into other people’s culture, and MY parents were smart enough to appreciate that.) and sitting out in the hallway day after day tutoring kids who probably STILL can’t spell ‘cat.’

Some of those memories are better than others. Guess which.

Honestly, I think some people never grow out of the obsession to always get their own way in everything. Too bad so many of them have children.

P.P.S. It takes brains to have imagination, and it takes guts to branch out. That pretty much sums it up.

P.P.P.S. If you’re the sorry type who has never read Harry Potter but condemns and forbids it anyway because somebody else heard it was evil, I shall assume there is no Disney in your home, either. Otherwise, you’d be a hypocrite on top of everything else.

Army of Women: Dealing with Life's Lumps

Posted on October 1, 2010 by Jane GoodwinOctober 1, 2010

Mamacita asks: What does an Army of Women look like?

It looks like you.

And why should you be interested?

Because it could have been you. Maybe it was you.

Women remove their bras for many reasons. You know them, so I won’t list them. But I will add this one: so we can check for lumps.

I would, of course, be participating in the Army of Women’s “Blog For Your Breasts” project in any case, since I am a human being, a woman, and an owner of breasts, but I have a particular interest in this project because I love my sister and I loved my mother-in-law.

Several years ago, my sister discovered a lump. She immediately contacted her doctor, who saw her right away, but even so, by the time her doctor saw the lump, it had grown bigger. He put her in the hospital, and the lump, along with pretty much everything touching or near the lump, was removed.

My sister underwent chemo. Our mother drove a hundred miles every few days to take her. My sister has very few memories of those trips; chemo takes it out of you in more ways than one. Her hair fell out, and even though she works for a big insurance company, that company refused to pay for a wig so she could continue to work. She finally did get one, however, and knowing my sister, I’m betting the company finally agreed to foot the bill. Harsh as the chemo was, it did the trick, and my sister has been cancer-free for several years now. She makes jokes about being lop-sided, but with the exception of her chest, everything about her, physically and mentally, including her hair, which grew back super-curly, is intact, for which all who love her, and that definitely includes me, are grateful. Every time I see her, I think about that time, those weeks in which we weren’t sure we were going to be allowed to keep her around, and I am so grateful she beat the odds that tried so hard to beat her down.

To be truthful, when it comes to this sister and any kind of odds, I’d bet on my sister every time. She’s tough and she’s good and she’s ALIVE. Love you, Teresa. Always have; always will.

My mother-in-law discovered her lump many years ago, but she didn’t tell anybody. By the time she showed it to her sister, it was huge. By the time she showed it to me, it was even huge-er – and black.

We had to bully her into going to the doctor; she was convinced that if she continue to ignore it and pray, it would go away without any effort on her part. I guess she forgot that God helps those who help themselves, because she put all the onus on God and flatly refused to do any of the work herself for years. Meanwhile, the lump put out roots and waxed strong.

Finally, she let us take her to the doctor, who, naturally, was horrified, both at the state of the lump AND at the state of her stubbornness. She underwent surgery; the lump was removed, as were as many of its clinging roots as possible. However, those of us who garden know what roots can do; they can live for a long time when the bulk of the growth is long gone; those roots can fester, evolve, and grow. Those roots can put out rootlets far from the original root. Think “strawberries.”

It was only when someone at work knocked her down and broke her hip that we discovered the extent of the malignant spread. The growth had grown, and poured itself forth throughout her entire body. Still, she upheld her claim that she would be healed without any help from humanity. I admired her faith, but I can’t admire her refusal to work along with her faith. (I believe that attitudes like this often dissuade others from “believing,” in fact. Sigh.)

Again, we bullied her into undergoing radiation treatments. From the very start, she was convinced that these treatments would not help her; I wonder still if that attitude was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In the fall of 2008, she was still getting around, driving, eating, and working three days a week as a newspaper reporter. She retired in December of 2008. In February of 2009, she was gone.

Many people, including me, firmly believe that if she’d had that lump taken care of back in the mid-nineties when she first found it, she’d still be alive today. I suppose part of it was a generational and upbringing thing; she didn’t want to expose her breasts to a male doctor, and breasts are a private part that aren’t supposed to be exposed at all. She was brought up VERY strictly, with many rules and regulations that were ridiculous. It’s a bloody wonder she was able to rise above many of them at all. Sigh. She was much loved, and will always be missed. She was a wonderful mother-in-law, and was always very good to me.

Both of these women were brave, courageous, and bold, just like Hugh O’Brien’s Wyatt Earp: “Long live (their) fame, and long live (their) glory, and long may (their) story be told.”

However, if “it” should happen to you, please follow my sister’s example, not my mother-in-law’s.

Want to know more about the Army of Women? Click here.

Want to get involved? Click here.

Quip Pro Quo: A Fast Retort

Posted on September 26, 2010 by Jane GoodwinSeptember 26, 2010

Mamacita says: First of all, I despise censorship. Banning books is akin to banning people; both are abhorrent to the collective intelligence, and both bring us down as a culture. It’s one thing for someone to decide that a certain book will not be allowed in his/her house – every parent has that right – but it’s quite another thing for this person to decide that a certain book will not be allowed in my house, or yours. Or in a library, or school; for one person, or a handful, to be allowed to dictate what the masses might be exposed to is ridiculous, cowardly, stupid, and evil. Someone is offended? There are choices. Such people can remove themselves and their children from the nasty thought-provoking sources. They could also grow a pair and encourage thinking and questions, but that’s too hard and scary for such people, I suppose. God forbid their children might come home from school with. . . . ideas. Brrrrrr, can’t have it. Besides, people who advocate censorship and book ~~burning~~ banning don’t usually know the answers; their thoughts are scripted by others.

This post is a rerun, but before Banned Books Week becomes just a memory, I want to share with you again this memo from a college-educated man who was in charge of a building full of impressionable middle school students.

I firmly believe that any memo, letter, or piece of written information that is sent by an administrator, should contain no idiocy or errors.

I also believe that any memo, letter, or piece of written information that is sent by an administrator that DOES contain idiocy or errors should be posted publicly and that the general public should be allowed to mock it.

I suppose that my belief that administrators should be required to be intelligent and able to proofread would be thrown out by the PC police.

This is the letter a principal gave me several years ago, ~~demanding~~ requesting that I take down my bulletin board about Banned Books Week. I had used that same bulletin board for over ten years, and in those earlier years, he had actually praised it for being timely and creative. That was, of course, before he saw Waldo on there.

This is the same school system that had a virtual meltdown because I was bringing in speakers; the curriculum director didn’t want me to bring in people from the outside to talk about careers because, and I quote, “it might give the students ‘ideas.'” These people volunteered their time, and would have continued to volunteer their time, and it would have been of enormous benefit to the students, but no. Ideas are scary, and, to the ignorant, dangerous.

A few years later, the same man who denied permission for me to bring in speakers for free, spent nearly a million dollars of taxpayer money to take all the middle school students to town and have paid speakers talk to them about the same thing I could have done for free. By this time, you see, the Trend Wheel had spun back around, and it was now permissible to give the students ‘ideas.’

One of those speakers represented General Motors, and her speech was excellent, although it didn’t sit well with administration. She spoke about high school ‘graduates’ for whom a diploma was nothing but a piece of paper that connoted untruths. She spoke about how an employer should have the right to assume that a diploma pretty much guaranteed literacy and general competence. She spoke about all the money big corporations were having to shell into remedial programs for employees who had diplomas, pieces of paper that represented four years of showing up and not much else. She spoke about how businesses would really appreciate a diploma that told the truth: that if a student had been graduated out of respect for really trying, the diploma should say so, discretely of course, but in terms that the business world would be able to interpret. If the student was just going through the motions of graduation for self-esteem’s sake, the diploma should say so. And if the diploma was rightfully earned because the student had become fully literate and generally competent and had genuinely and individually and truthfully learned how to care for himself/herself in the world in general, the business world should be able to see that kind of diploma and interpret it for what it was: a real diploma.

Oohh, the remarks that were scattered throughout the auditorium. And when we returned to the individual buildings, there was much talk of blueberries and self-esteem.

My friends are mostly lawyers, musicians, various businesspeople, and other educators. Before the edict went out, I often had one of them come to my classroom and talk about what they did all day, and then the students would ask questions. Silly me, I really thought it was helpful.

Sure, they asked my lawyer friends about their individual rights and stuff, but. . . . .

Oh. I get it.

We certainly can’t have our students understanding their basic civil rights and those of their fellow citizens of any age, now can we.

What a narrow escape.

P.S. A few years later, I dared to submit a speaker proposal for my classroom again, and it was again turned down, but this time the reason was different. Apparently, it was unfair to other students if one group got to have a speaker and others didn’t. I suggested that other teachers could just as easily invite a speaker into their classroom, too, but nobody else cared to go to the trouble, so I couldn’t, either.

Are our schools in trouble? Darn right they are, and most of it isn’t coming from the students.

Censorship and book banning, indeed. If our society gets any more politically correct, it will be so boring and insipid and cowardly, it will be indistinguishable from an ant colony.

Perfect Hoosier Persimmon Pudding

Posted on September 25, 2010 by Jane GoodwinSeptember 25, 2010

persimmons Mamacita says:

Mamacita says: By request (ask, and ye shall receive) here is the persimmon pudding recipe again.

Persimmons don’t grow in too many places, so chances are good that most of you have never heard of them. However, southern Indiana is a persimmon tree’s favorite home, and the trees grow healthy and prolific here. My fantastic and generous Cousin C gives me persimmon pulp, fresh from her parents’ back yard.

Hint: Don’t EVER taste a green persimmon, unless you like the sensation a blast of raw alum gives to your lips and tongue. Persimmons must be ripe before they can be used. VERY ripe. Asking someone you’re mad at to just “touch your tongue to this green persimmon for a second” is a fun, albeit cruel (depending on the age of the taster) trick to play on someone. Raw alum on the tongue. Yum. It’s a sensation vaguely akin to being turned inside out by the tongue.

Hoosiers can be very protective and possessive of their persimmon pudding recipes, but I’m not. People have been asking me for it, so here it is:

Jane’s Persimmon Pudding

First of all, preheat your oven to 325 degrees. NO HOTTER.

Get out a very large bowl.

Put the following ingredients in it:

2 C. persimmon pulp (Use fresh or frozen; the canned stuff is terrible.)

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 C sugar (I use Splenda)

1 C brown sugar (don’t use fake)

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt (don’t leave it out!!!!)(don’t use fake salt, either.)

2 tsp baking powder