Mamacity says: I took my 37-year-old sourdough starter out of the freezer and fed it. It’s still bubbling after all these years. When I stopped baking bread for local restaurants, I started keeping my starter in the freezer, taking it out and feeding it mostly before holidays or reunions. I last used it for Thanksgiving 2021. If you treat it right, it will never go bad, and the older it gets, the better it is. Kind of like. . . us.
Mamacita says: We used to live out in the country in a big house we hired Amish workers to build. We raised our children there, and loved the house and the property. In back of the house was a lovely big woods, large old trees, and a creek full of geodes.
We built a fire ring back there for our kids and their friends, and they often camped in the woods. HOWEVER. We had to put a stop to the camping because of the poachers and trespassers. Apparently, “woods” means “hunting” to a lot of people, and they do not understand what “private property,” “posted,” and “trespassing” mean.
We tore down several deer stands, and shouted these morons out of our woods so. many. times. Usually the poachers ran away when we approached, but sometimes they stood their ground and insisted that where there were woods, there was implied permission to hunt.
We encouraged the deer – set out salt blocks, etc, for them. Sometimes there were over a dozen deer resting on our basketball court. They were so bold with us, they didn’t even run away when we walked to our car and opened the doors. We were often awakened by the sound of dozens of deer running across our yard to the cornfield across the road.
I hated every hunter who trespassed on our land. I would have gladly seen all of them behind bars.
Was I too harsh? I think not. Poachers and trespassers are scum. (They also stole all our mushrooms and strawberries every spring.) What’s the deal with these kinds of people? They are thieves. Criminals. Is there a defense? I don’t think so. (Still holding a grudge.) (We also had problems with people stealing entire trees – a so-called preacher, in fact.)
I love people, but some people defy being loved. I suppose those people need love the most, but holy cow. So unlovable. Nasty pieces of work, they are. I hope the people who now live in our house don’t have these problems, but I’d bet money, if I had any, that they do. Sigh. Poachers and trespassers. . . . bah.
Mamacita says: When I was in the second grade, my teacher, Mrs. Herod (I adored her) introduced me to the world of unabridged fairy tales, for which I thank her profusely almost daily. The stories were dark, forbidding, forboding, creepy, horrifying, cannibalistic, violent, bloody, and absolutely wonderful. And then she read some Hans Christian
Anderson tales to us, and I went home and wept all night. How heartbreaking could a story BE? The Little Match Girl. The Fir Tree. The Little Mermaid. The Steadfast Tin Soldier. And more. I couldn’t wait to go to the public library and check out a book of unabridged fairy tales, and unabridged Anderson tales. No watered-down Disney version could ever compete; those versions are a category unto themselves, but that category is NOT an actual fairy tale.
But I digress, and you really don’t want to get me started on the abridged, edited version of ANYTHING because abridgements are of the devil. Anyhoot, unabridged fairy tales rock, and nobody can beat Hans Christian Anderson for stories that break your heart, and I mean into kazillions of pieces. They’re just that good.
Mamacita says: I just read a post wondering if returning one’s shopping cart was a viable test of ethics. I vote “yes.”
I returned my cart in the pouring rain, over ice and snow in the lot, with broken ankles whilst balancing on crutches, with babies, with toddlers, with children of all ages, with severe breathing problems, with arthritis, with muscular dystrophy eating away at my balance, and with two massive heart attacks in one year under my belt. Or above it, as the case may be.
My point? I don’t believe the excuses.
Other ethics tests? Not using turn signals, the “20 items” line with 21 items, handicapped parking spots (just running in for a minute), full stops at stop signs, driving over the speed limit, joining a drive-through line that extends out into the street, giving a complicated special order in the drive-through line, being rude to service sector employees, and not leaving a store immediately when your child starts to have a temper tantrum. Add to this people who hoard vital supplies, cheat (cheat at Candyland? Will probably cheat on taxes and spouse.) refuse to mask up, don’t believe in vaccines, and cherish Fox “News.” That latter might be more of an IQ test than an ethics test, but sometimes the two blend so thoroughly, it’s hard to tell the difference.
To go out in public at all is a risk and shouldn’t be done unless absolutely necessary now, but to go out in public socially, for no actual reason, and to do so without regard for the safety and lives of others should be a crime.
Mamacita says; If there had been such a thing as Elf on the Shelf back when my kids were little, you can bet something precious that I would have utilized it.
Oh, we had the Elf back then, but he wasn’t a tattle-tale at that time; he was just a decoration. Without a spy elf, I had to resort to other tactics; for example, the direct call to the North Pole. My kids, like every other kid, were excited and hyper as we got closer to Christmas, but they were never off-the-wall or disobedient, at least not very, so a tale-telling Elf wouldn’t have had much to report, anyway.
But honestly? ANYTHING that helps to monitor a child’s holiday behavior is fine by me. “The Elf had to give Santa an honest report, kids. Try harder tomorrow, okay?” Fine by me.
As for parents who don’t have the time or inclination to turn December into a magical fantasy for their children. . . . I taught middle school all day and waited tables all night. I worked every high school basketball game. I was the marching band secretary, and helped feed the teams before each game. I did all this while battling dermatomyositis, a debilitating and exhausting muscle condition. My doctor told me that my stress levels were so high, I’d probably still be able to walk even if I had no bones. But these stresses were only temporary, and they were for my children, so I did them cheerfully. And when I got home, I made magic.
Now that my own kids are grown, I pull names off Angel Trees and make magic for those kids. In December, I HAVE to make magic for children. It’s in my very soul. If I could do it, you can, too. And if you don’t do it, it’s because you just plain don’t want to, not because you can’t. I’m so sorry for children for whom December isn’t a magical month, made so by someone, even if their parents don’t do it. But I digress. Elf on the Shelf? Yep.
Mamacita says: Almost every store in this town has a “masks required” sign on the front door, but nobody is enforcing it and “those” people are stalking through the door and up and down the aisles touching everything.
A worker told me they didn’t dare enforce the rule because they feared the violence from the great unmasked. How sad, when our brave people who dare to wait on us and cash us out and otherwise take care of us are forced to endure the unmasked, unvaccinated hordes for fear “those” people will hurt them. . . . Shame on us as a culture. Well, not all of us. Just “them.”