Rage of the No-Bake Cookies March 21, 2015

I was so pissed tonight when I went to make No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies, aka Cowpies, aka Pooper Cookies, —and there was almost no sugar! In a fit of rage,  I wrote “SUGAR” in Sharpie ink, many times, on the grocery list.  Then I told the dog to shut up. What the fuck is so hard about putting words on the damned grocery list? This is, after all, the definition of a sin of omission. A Seven Deadly Sin of Omission.

There is no question that this is disproportionate rage. I suspect that there may be hormones prodding at me with sharpened mini-spears, but then I think about the dismissal that accompanies hormone-related rage, and that just pisses me off more.  I am a good time today, for sure.  Then someone messes with my chocolate therapy.

As I was ascending the stairway, laptop in hand, I was asked if I was “going up?” No, I thought, I am going down in a massive fireball, and if you dare to make a comment about “going down,” you are going to experience post-fireball nuclear winter of biblical proportions.

I believe that I fall into the category of “peri-menopausal,” which means that I get the menopaus-ish crap AND the PMS-ish terrorism, only twice as often. This probably is why going to work on Mondays feels like the Bataan Death March (in addition to the fact that I am a teacher, and therefore responsible for the Pipeline to Prison}.  But, dude, don’t say a word about the hormones, because the result will be that I will, as the youngsters say, cut you.

I’m a good time, in case I didn’t mention it, or you missed it. .

I make up for it by making nice treats for the fam.   Unless someone has used up the sugar and failed to utilize the list that could be  employed  by a lobotomized chimpanzee.

For those of you who do keep the most basic of ingredients on hand, here’s the recipe!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/katie-lee/no-bake-cow-pile-cookies.html

image: http://thebestcookierecipes.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/peanut-butter-oatmeal-no-bake-cookie-recipe.jpg

Drinking the Kool Aid of the Cult of Inadequacy March 15, 2015

Everyone likes a good shortcut, I suppose.  In the era of multitasking and inadequacy, I fear that things are getting out of hand. When the hell did Hints from Heloise morph into life hacks? I know that it emerged from the geek world, but if you find  yourself bringing a Magic Eraser® into the shower to multitask/hack in there, you might very well be drinking that Kool Aid®, and chances are that you have been Pinterest-shamed out of ever purchasing that powdery pack of sugar and color again.  Cuz that is not clean food. That is hair dye.

And another thing: the word “hack” brings to my mind images of a saw, used to escape dark and dreary prisons (as opposed to the light and airy prisons where they keep the criminally adequate), 0r something I might find in the bottom of one of my second grade students’ backpacks.

Have you ever clicked on a link to a video of three hundred hacks for apple cider vinegar? No. No, neither have I. All of these opportunities to become better than ever before through the miracle of life hacking have made me feel less together than ever.

That damned eraser displayed no magic, by the way. Kool Aid man, take me away!

‘Tis Fried Fish Season March 5, 2015

I don’t give up special things for Lent, because I have relinquished my sanity, permanently. I figure that should cover it.  Additionally, fish sometimes makes me puke, which is very dramatically Lenten, but a situation I, curiously, strive to avoid.

Today, as I wandered, comatose, around my classroom after the longest instructional day permitted by law, I puzzled over a student name for minutes on end. The best I could discern was that the paper had been generated by my unknown phantom student named “Man Call.”  He’s not on my roster, but that was as close as I could get. There was an identifiable gun in his masterful illustration, which clued me in to the fact that Man Call has an interest in becoming either a police officer or a soldier. The assignment, incidentally, had to do with students making a choice of a “community service worker” that the students might like to be someday.  They were light on veterinarians, heavy on cops and soldiers (one would think that we were under the National Guard and martial law; I think that there has been too much media coverage of our men in uniform removing truckloads of snow from northeastern cities).

I don’t think that Man Call is going to be a police officer.

He is going to become the premier James Brown impersonater in Vegas.