No More Reality TV! Bring Out the Gladiators!

AA HA! I knew it! I have total prescience. This is just the beginning of Oprah and Obama and their one world order. B.O.O.W.O.W.O.

Oh yes, my clairvoyance knows no end. I heavily bear the responsibility of this sagacious gift. I am an oracle. I've been playing with the thesaurus again.

Thanks to the Hollywood writer's strike we may see the scowling, snarling, overly tanned faces of Earth, Wind, Fire, Ice, Heat Wave, Turf Builder and Space Heater aka the American Gladiators. Oh yeah, the joust. My favorite.

To avoid a glut of reality shows, I hear we'll be seeing some older stuff...The Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider, Fame, Columbo, Hill Street Blues, Kidd Video...What other good shows were there?

Free Rice, but not for fat Americans.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, some students recommended checking out a great website: www.freerice.com. It's a fun little vocabulary game. (Yes, an oxymoron for some). For every correct definition the rice people will donate 10 grains of rice to a third world country.

Kinda sounds like some sort of Internet scam, the way I described it. Of course, on the actual website they specifically say who they are and how the rice is donated and to whom. Besides, what kinda of scam artist would want to trick Americans into getting smarter? Unless our own government is behind this... Condaleeza...RICE.

It's the best of both worlds. Literary, sophisticated and eloquent word mongers hone their craft while the math geek inside my computer factors in the complex grain addition theory. You can easily earn a couple of thousand grains of rice in one sitting.

I, of course, glutton of Thanksgiving dinner and overall glutton, donated three thousand grains of rice to developing countries all while I stuffed my mouth with Pumpkin pie leftovers. Oh yes, I did. I don't recommend it; eating while nonchalantly affecting someones daily nutrition, or finishing off the pumpkin pie.

Both will give you heartburn.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving-day again is here,
And turkey is the leading question;
I wish, with heartiness sincere,
That you may have a good digestion.

Album Verses, J. S. Ogilvie (editor), 1884




I love Thanksgiving. Turkey, friends, triptifan, all the usual suspects. In doing some research, I found a few interesting tidbits about Thanksgiving which I may or may not force feed to my family tomorrow. My intentions are good. This culturally exclusive piece I discovered at http://http//barbarah.wordpress.com. It says author unknown, but it reeks of Jeff Foxworthy.

You Might be a Redneck this Thanksgiving if...

-you’ve ever had Thanksgiving dinner on a ping-pong table.
… Thanksgiving dinner is squirrel and dumplings.
… you’ve ever reused a paper plate.
… if you have a complete set of salad bowls and they all say Cool Whip on the side.
… if you’ve ever used your ironing board as a buffet table.
… your turkey platter is an old hubcap.
… your best dishes have Dixie printed on them.
… your stuffing’s secret ingredient comes from the bait shop.
… your only condiment on the dining room table is ketchup.
… side dishes include beef jerky and Moon Pies.
… you have to go outside to get something out of the ‘fridge.
… the directions to your house include “turn off the paved road.”
… you consider pork and beans to be a gourmet food.
… you have an Elvis Jell-o mold.
… your secret family recipe is illegal.
… you serve Vienna sausage as an appetizer.
~ Author unknown



If you'd like something more refined for after dinner recitation, check out this web site http://www.blogger.com/www.apples4theteacher.com. There's some great 17th century quotes from the Mayflower man himself, William Bradford.

In reminiscing upon the colony’s success, Mr. Bradford wrote, “Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled has shown unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of [God] have all the praise.”
Fall, 1621

If you relish the opportunity to stuff your kids' minds while you stuff their little tummy's, consider this lesson plan from http://www.teachervision.fen/.

You can see all 103 names on the Mayflower Passenger List. It includes familiar names like William Bradstreet and Myles Standish and lesser heard names like Remember Allerton, Resolved White, and brothers Love and Wrestling Brewster.

If crafts are more your forte, consider these family crafts from http://www.family.com./



I think you can even eat them. Or at least one of them, the other one is paper. Don't ask which one. I'm going to be making crafts that look like this:






As far as Thanksgiving meals, I prefer the traditional: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, more turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy. Pumpkin pie. My mother, however, is known to spring the exotic recipes like wasabi brushed coconut turkey kabobs. That goes over like a pregnant pole vaulter, or just like the infamous 'Tofu Plankton Nutloaf' idea.


My neighbor is a vegan so she's busy preparing her tofurkey with leeks and sliced fennel. I can't see Squanto and friends gorging on tofu but if you need to feed your inner vegan, check out this site: http://www.blogger.com/www.Vegetariancelebrations.com.

"Your premier source for a great meatless Thanksgiving! Remember Thanksgiving's roots as a festival meant to give thanks for the abundance of the harvest. Enjoy, share the blessings, and spare the turkeys!"

Thanksgiving
(From The Turkey's Point Of View)
by Gunslinger
Thank God! It's finally over -
And now I'll get some rest…
It's been two weeks since I have dared
To go back to the nest.
I trust my mate is still around…
My lovely hen, dear Mabel -
I hope she wasn't dumb enough
To grace some human's table.
I'll never know why human folk
Think it's so much fun
To hit the woods and murder -
We turkeys with those guns
I'm six years old, last hatching -
And friend that's quite a feat…
With open season on us birds…
When we become…just MEAT!
I'll strut my stuff, and gobble loud
For just awhile…again!
I'll hide deep in the forest…
For it's Christmas coming then!
So why did I hen-scratch this out?
And post it here for you?
That you might see Thanksgiving
From the turkey's point of view.
http://poetry-magazine.com/poetry/poetry-006/03page.htm#Turkey


>

Likewise, a meal without meat is automatically disqualified as a meal. Meals + meat=happy hubby. Lots of meaty ideas here:

"A meat lover's dream and a great combination of vegetables too. ... Recipe from Rachael Ray 30 minute meals Episode: Thanksgiving leftovers. ..."
http://a/%3Ca%20href= >

Lastly, to intelligently defend your decision to nap following your Thanksgiving meal (carnivores only), read up on triptifan at: www.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061017213938AAdqMHf

http://www.smsnoveltiques.com/postcardsholidayfancy.asp#Thanksgiving

Let's Hear it for the Boys...Again

I'd like to offer up the first Thanksgiving praise of the holiday season. (If you're reading into this, you should).

Those who are forced to share occupancy with me (husband)know all too well my alma mater is near and dear to my heart(fanatic). Also of note, my husband is a Michigan fan(had I known how severe his condition before we married, I would have insisted on therapy).

So when The Ohio State University defeats (humiliates, degrades, de-pants) the University of Michigan for the fourth time in a row in their 100+ years of rivalry, I am compelled to spread the good news (gloat obnoxiously). Thank you Lord for yet another Big Ten championship. With a score of 14-3 (one of the lowest scoring games in UM history) the mouth of Mike Hart was silenced as it has been the last four years. As immature as it sounds (as immature as it sounds) I'd just like to say, Hahahahahahaha..haha.

Amen

"Meat, please."

For the record, I have survived yet another atrocious Feast Day. Having recycled last year's costumes, I squeezed one more use out of them. The only faux pas came in the eyes of my six-year old son, Hudson. It involved face paint.

I have the artistic skills of Al Gore; I can barely draw stick people, let alone intricate cave drawings on human cheeks. But I make do. My speciality is arrows and stripes. After just finishing an exciting series of dots, suns and dashes, Hudson steps up and requests...meat.

I sit there with my row of brightly colored paints and a little paint brush in my hand, staring at this strange child with the stranger request. What do you mean?

"Meat. On this cheek."

"What do you mean, like a T-bone or a hamburger patty?" Seriously, where did this kid come from?

"Both."

So I attempt to draw some sort of meat gathering. It looks like Frankensteins spleen.

He looks in the mirror and disapproves. "That looks like a bridge."

I found myself apologizing for my lack of carnivorous painting skills, but promise to practice for next year. After some smooth talking on my part, he was good with the bridge, this year.

Right now, my cousin Holland is cringing with embarrassment, probably wondering how the genetic "Martha Stewart" gene completely skipped me. This Halloween she posted pics of her girls dressed in their cotton pickin' HOMEMADE, handwoven costumes. Holly Hobbie, Raggedy Ann and some sort of princess taffeta thing I can't remember because I was so dazed by the craftsmanship of the first two. I'm sure if her kids asked for meat on their face, she's whip up some highly detailed fillet mignon wrapped in bacon with a side of veal.

Note to Holland: next year the girls should be savage Indians. Then ship those
costumes to me.

A mother who is proud of her work would take lots of pictures and post them on her blog. Which is why you'll see none here.

Clean Up on Aisle 'What was I Thinking?'

Phew. It's a few minutes after midnight on the day of Feast Day. Costumes are presentable. The house is not. There's unwashed dishes and a broken vacuum leering at me. My nine year old daughter is having a birthday slumber party tomorrow (no school). I should probably start preparing for it but instead I sit here in a tête-à-tête with my monitor and cordless mouse thingee.

Starting to panic now...excuse me while I inhale whipped cream straight from the can.

Time Flies When Your Life is Hard Cheese

I'm so happy to be back in cyberworld! It's been a looooong time; I'll write more about that later. It involves a giant beaver, two car repairs and my mother on a motorcycle.

For awhile there my life seemed like one empty roll of toilet paper. I was trying to find a synonym for 'bad luck' so I consulted a thesaurus. Perhaps I really am lactose intolerant but I've never used 'hard cheese' as a synonym for bad luck. I will now though. You should too.

Anyway, tomorrow is the school Feast Day. Elementary kids are encouraged (read universally exiled if you don't) to dress up as either a Pilgrim or Indian. Unfortunately for my children, they have the hard cheese to have a mom who HAAAAATES crafts or crafty things.

The Indian costume seems to be the simplest. One year I tried the loin cloth route. Nope, not enough costume. Once I tried the small pox blanket route. Nope. Too hard to explain to kindergartners.

So now I've resorted to recycled Halloween costumes. Indian costumes I can find, Pilgrims-not so much.

A couple of years ago, when I had to make five costumes (I started sewing fringe on everything) I wrote a letter of protest to the school administration. I'm including it below. It got no results but I do think I garnered some sympathy for my kids.



To; Joyce J-----, elementary principal
From: Christina -----, mother
10/25/2005



Proposal to Disseminate the Traditions of Feast Day

I saw the announcement in the school newsletter. The words made my blood run cold. It’s beckoning so casual and carefree: “Children may come dressed as a Pilgrim or Indian at school today.”

These words so inviting to a child only camouflage the social injustice that is about to take place in the halls of an institution that prides itself on education and edification. It is a crime perpetrated against the most loving mothers and paid for by their innocent loved ones. The costumes themselves become a tool by which all measure of womanhood is measured.

“Children may come dressed…” Naïve mothers beware. This is not a suggestion. Your child must come dressed as a Pilgrim or Indian or become fodder of “the gifted” about maternal impostors.

For those among us who have no home economics skills this is not Feast Day but Beast Day. Those we counted as friends will rise up around us to flaunt their superior craftsmanship and mock our paltry attempts. We must clothe our children in futile replications of the first days and throw them in front of the slanderous offspring of the Beasts themselves.

They, who live by the code, “Craftiness is next to Godliness” parade their wares in animal skins, loin cloths, moccasins, tomahawks, papooses with newborn children all speaking fluent Iroquois.

Worse, my children will be made to feel inferior, less valuable and lowly of thought next to the children whose mothers have raised sheep, sheered them for wool and then spun on a homemade loom, blankets of vibrant school colors. Their spotless and shiny black shoes with perfect gold buckles are family heirlooms passed down from the first Pilgrims.

When I tried to make Pilgrim shoes for my sons, the displaced giant buckles made them look more like giant Leprechauns than Pilgrims. It is a painful memory.

They that languished with Martha Stewart while behind bars, gear up for this competition all year. The showmanship, the pageantry and the parading of all skills culminates on Feast Day each year. The least among us are made to slink off in the halls, weeping over the homemade Indian costume sheet with a head shaped hole, covered with what looks like a giant Tic Tac Toe game.

We are shoved into the cinder block hallway, nearly trodden in the stampede to gather around the mother that gently caresses her cultivated Petri dish of the “first small pox pandemic.” Of course, her daughter has translated the Mayflower Compact into an easy to ready haiku.

For mothers, who during the year, hem their sons pants by rolling them under and securing with duct tape, Feast Day is a day to dread and disparage, when all one’s insecurities are forced into the light of day for all to critique.

There should be a 12 step recovery program offered to those who must suffer the atrocities of Beast Day. It is my proposal that we abolish the traditions of representing the people groups present at the First Thanksgiving. Or, secretly provide underprivileged mothers with access to fabulous costumes.

Please help.


Signed,

Christina ____
-On behalf of Victims of Beast Day.