Back off, Barack

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:22:03 -0400

Wee Willie Winkie
Runs through the town
Upstairs, downstairs
In his nightgown.
Rapping at the window,
And crying at the lock,
“Are the babes all in their beds?--
For it’s now eight o’clock!”

So, I have always been a fan of Wee Willie Winkie, mostly for his old English charm and the fact that he wears a nightgown. And yet, ever since I have been a parent, Wee Willie Winkie has bothered me a little. It seems to me that it’s none of his business whether or not the babes are in their beds. Isn’t it up to the parents to say when the children go to sleep? Just why is Wee Willie Winkie so concerned about it? Perhaps he needs to get a life and worry about his own affairs before he starts criticizing other people over what time they put their children to bed.

I was reading this poem to Anne Miriam tonight, after getting all worked up over Obama this afternoon, and it occurred to me that Barack Obama is just a modern-day Wee Willie Winkie, with less mischevious charm and more totalitarian intentions. Y’all know that he wants to extend the schoolday to nine hours, and make students go year-round. And he has a group of bipartisan henchmen, ranging from Al Sharpton to Newt Gingritch, advocating for him. Basically his daughters go to Paris over summer vacation, but he wants to take the privelege of going to Paris, or Disneyworld--or the swimming pool--away from everyone else’s child. After all, parents are too dumb to do anything educational with their children on their summer vacations or after school...and the more hours a day a child is in school, the more hours he or she can spend learning about how socialism is the answer to all society’s ills.

I saw this on the five o’clock news with trusted news professionals Dawne Gee and Jackie Hays, and I got so upset over it that I actually turned on Glenn Beck. Like many sane people, I think Glenn Beck is a shameless fearmonger, but today I was looking for an antidote to the Oba-madness I had just witnessed. Glenn Beck was discussing the beating death of Derrion Albert in Chicago, and the fact that Derrion was killed with a railroad tie. Glenn was saying we should regulate railroad ties, and have a waiting period before anyone can buy railroad ties, and we should lock up railroad ties so that criminals can’t get them, and yadda yadda yadda gun lobby talking points. I was disgusted.

And it leads me to believe that there is no place for me in modern politics. I just want what most people want: to mind my own business and be free to raise my own child as I see fit. I want her to have a summer vacation, and I want the right to have my doctor give me a safe C-section if I have another child. I paid into social security those years that I worked, but I don’t ever expect to see a dime of it returned to me. In fact, I don’t expect anything from the government, and I’d like it if they just left me alone. I feel like I’m the norm, and yet there’s no place for me. One side is waving guns and demanding to see Obama’s birth certificate; the other side wants to regulate summer vacation and to ration health care like school lunches. Meanwhile, there’s no place for normal people who just want to live their own lives and mind their own business.

Well, I have news for Barack: nobody is taking summer vacation away from Anne Miriam. I would sooner home-school her myself.

I’m Boycotting Kraft. Who’s With Me?

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:10:51 -0400

It was bad enough when Kraft discontinued their garlic cheese rolls, leaving millions of Southerners without the key ingredient in cheese grits. Incidentally, Dolls Market now sells their homemade garlic cheese for all you Louisvillians looking for a solution to the huge problem Kraft created for the grits-loving population, so head over to Dolls and support a local business instead of a huge multinational corporation that cares nothing for individuals or their beloved regional recipes.

Now, Kraft has done it again, and this just puts me over the edge.

I was catering a little poker night for some of Scott’s friends tomorrow night, and I thought I’d make the Junyaleague’s famous Mi Casa Mexican Dip...always a crowd pleaser. I picked up all the ingredients today during a drama-filled trip to Kroger during which the fire alarm went off and the store was evacuated (but that’s beside the point). So anyway, I had a cart full of snacks and goodies, but one thing I didn’t get was shredded cheese. Scott had already stocked up, and there was a fresh pack of it in the fridge.

Back at home, I went to assemble the easy and delicious dip.

Frozen spinach: check.
Cream cheese: check.
Medium salsa: check.
Red wine vinegar: check.
2 cups grated Mexican blend cheese: not so fast.

That’s right, everyone. Kraft has adjusted their proportions, so when you buy the usual, 2-cup-looking bag of shredded cheese, it’s actually only 1-3/4 cup. Now, I ask you, what am I supposed to do with 1-3/4 cup of shredded cheese when virtually every cheese recipe known to mankind calls for 2 cups of cheese. Or if it doesn’t call for 2 cups, it calls for 1 cup, which would leave you with 3/4 up of cheese, which means if you were going to use the remaining cheese for any other recipe, you’d have to buy more cheese to compensate for the missing 1/4 cup.

I don’t know who was the cost-cutting genius who decided to reformulate the cheese into unusable quantities, but I’m here to tell you: Kraft has earned its last dollar from me. I’m more of a Horizon girl, anyway, but let me say this: the cream cheese I purchased this afternoon for the Mi Casa Mexican dip will be my last Kraft purchase. Keep your nasty singles, Kraft! Keep your Velveeta, your Shells and Cheese, your unusable quantities of shredded Mexican blend, and even your Philadelphia Cream Cheese. You certainly don’t have the patent on neufchatel.

I think it is particularly horrible to change the quantity of a familiar product that’s used for cooking, and not mark it clearly. The only reason I noticed at all was because it didn’t have the familiar picture of 2 measuring cups on the package. Scott was mildly outraged, but told me I sounded like the angry former Jimmy Dean’s customer. And I sort of did, with less cursing.

I don’t care if I do sound crazy. Kraft has sold me their last sub-par processed cheese product. I should have known better. From now on, I’ll take Capriole any day of the week.

Taking on the Insurance Companies

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:26:04 -0400

Y’all can probably guess that Obama’s proposed healthcare policies are terrifying to me, mostly because I’ve seen the way that government-run entities such as the DMV and post office work, not to mention the whole TSA ordeal at any airport (remember when they confiscated my Vic’s Vap-o-Rub?) The prospect of having a C-section under socialized medicine should strike fear into the heart of any pregnant girl (not that I am...that’s how rumors get started...but I don’t relish the thought of having #2 if Obama gets his way). And what about that facelift I plan on getting eventually? Will the anonymous board of directors approve it, and, if not, will I be forced to go to Brazil for my work? The prospect of health care reform raises all sorts of relevant questions, and their answers scare me.

So anyway, that’s my perspective on things, but I have to say I was appalled at insurance company procedure today at the Kroger Pharmacy.

As you all may know, Anne Miriam has had a cold (which she passed along to me) and minor ear infection, and you probably do not know that she spilled an entire bottle of ear infection medication on her apple green Strasburg bubble outfit yesterday morning. It caused mild morning drama...changed clothes, an unexpected bath, and a call to the doctor to refill the wasted prescription. Since I’ve been sick for the past day and a half--and since there was still enough medicine to get her through yesterday and today--I only got out to Kroger to pick up the renewed prescription this afternoon.

And I was told that my insurance wouldn’t pay for it.

Apparently it was too soon after the original prescription had been filled, and the insurance company doesn’t cover damaged meds. My reaction was, “That’s ridiculous. She’s a baby. She knocked it out of my hand.” That was all I said, and it was more of a reaction than anything. After that I said to the Pharm Tech, “I know it’s not your fault, but that’s ridiculous.” I didn’t even ask him to talk to his superior about it (I barely had a chance to internalize it), but he did, and she graciously called the insurance company.

And I can’t imagine that the $20 price difference between the full price of the replaced medication and my $10 co-pay was going to make or break the insurance company. But it is ridiculous that they want to quibble with me over that. And it’s even more ridiculous that they caved after the (very kind) Kroger pharmacist called them. It’s like they just want to extort every penny they can out of me. I think if the doctor calls in a prescription, and I have prescription coverage, they should cover it. End of story.

It just goes to show you there is no end to corporate greed.

Gardening and the Perils of Pacifism

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400

I think the squirrels are eating my tomatoes. I spied a certain little furry-tailed creature creeping up to the pots on my porch over the weekend. I let Wrigley out, and the squirrel scrammed. I think it came back, though, because several of my ripe grape tomatoes disappeared soon after. There was even a half-eaten one taunting me from the porch rail. I mean, if you’re going to gank one of my tomatoes, at least have the courtesy to finish it.

There’s nothing like gardening to make you want to wage war on woodland creatures. In the past, I felt nothing toward squirrels but mild indifference, and I welcomed visits from cute little cotton-tailed bunnies. I thought everyone--squirrels, rabbits, beetles, and spiders—played a unique and important role in the ecosystem. There were no pests—only misunderstood friends trying to carve out their own little bit of survival on the green earth.

My pacifist attitude to animals and insects was clearly naive. This is the belief system of a suburban teenager in the mid-nineties who has never once fought a thrips infestation on a calibrachoa plant. At my school I was a member of the “Save What’s Left,” club, an environmental group that I joined mostly because my friends were in it, the name of which I now find hilarious. I didn’t actually care about saving what was left, and my high school was located in the lush and over-manicured east end, not some barren nuclear wasteland like the name implied. A garden club would have been more my style all along, but that wouldn’t really have been about saving what was left. Thrips would have been the first casualty, with Peter Rabbit close behind. Gardening has made me just another mean Mr. MacGregor.

In theory, gardening is a peaceful pastime that fosters love and stewardship for the land. In practice, it’s not just me choosing my braided hibiscus over the Japanese beetles—it’s me getting medieval on their exoskeletons.

In a way gardening is like parenting--I choose to nurture my precious little plants at the exclusion of some other creatures (and maybe even to their detriment, if they mess with my babies). If I’m this hardcore about defending my plants, I’m going to be one formidable room mother.

Dramatic Conflict

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:59:46 -0400

Infidelity to a stylist rarely has good results, and it seems that my cheatin’ ways have gotten me into a bit of a predicament. It all started innocently enough, with a simple conversation with my cousin Melissa, a former customer of Joseph’s who followed a stylist to Raindogs, where the services are more affordable and the stylists still take home more. Melissa’s stylist is Aveda-trained, and I thought if Raindogs was less expensive and more beneficial for a stylist and the quality was the same, it was a positive situation for all involved. (Except, of course, my dear former stylists Jenn/Jill/Karen, and all the people I love at Joseph’s). The very idea of leaving Joseph’s was never one that occurred to me before that fateful play date with Melissa, but after chatting with her it made sense, and I started to think about it. I believe some people call this the “near occasion of sin,” and it’s to be avoided at all costs if we are to be chaste to our salon service providers.

Still...new economy. So I made an appointment with Ryan, of the purple mohawk, and trudged down Baxter Avenue to Raindogs in the rain. Ryan proceeded to give me the best haircut of my life. He’s well-read and fun to talk to, and Raindogs is an intimate space in a little Highlands shotgun. The highlights were so-so (because I was used to Jill spending hours on a perfect hairline/part), and the price difference wasn’t that significant, but the cut was so beautiful I went back the next month and received another great cut. The highlights were better this time, too. So I started considering myself a Raindogs girl, and the sweet memories of the time I spent at Joseph’s started to fade.

Until today, when my mother, aunt, and I decided to spend the morning getting pampered in Joseph’s gorgeous spa. I realize that places like Joseph’s exist on making customers happy, but it is a rare place where you walk in and are met with
a genuine smile, a personal greeting, an inquiry about your daughter, and a mimosa (easy on the oj) because they know that’s exactly what you like. Being at Joseph’s was like going home, and with my Paul Mitchell-trained cut and highlights, I felt like a prodigal daughter.

Luckily I got in and out without seeing Jenn, Jill, or Karen--it’s obvious by looking at my hair that I’ve been unfaithful, and I really don’t know how I would have explained it all to any of them. And I love them all, and they do beautiful hair. It was a decision based purely on economy...but the economic benefits turned out to be insignificant, and now I have the feelings of another stylist to consider, and I have to weigh the fact that he does beautiful work, too. It’s becoming a complicated web.

And this is all proof positive that no good will ever come from breaking off a stable, healthy relationship with a salon/spa. Or maybe it’s a bit like leaving Louisville and learning I could love someplace else, too--and dealing with the realization that maybe fitting in well in both places makes be belong to both of them a little less.