“Pull the stick out of your ass and lighten up!!”

That is all.

Ta ta for now!

But recently, with their Marry Bacon commercial, I am particularly disgusted. I almost can’t find the words for how horrible this commercial is to me. Many of my friends feel the same way. The Jack in the Box fan page has comment after comment about how disgusted people are by this campaign. There is a website against it.

I find this commercial offensive on a number of levels. First of all, it makes a mockery of marriage. Secondly, with the efforts to legalize gay marriage, it spits in the face of their efforts.  Thirdly, it makes me sick to my stomach when, at the end, the “preacher” says “You may eat the bride” which not only has sexual overtones, but the look the “groom” gets on his face when he’s about to take a bite reminds me of Silence of the Lambs. ::shudders::

Sadly, Jack in the Box doesn’t seem to care! I have heard nothing from them about it. When I Google this issue, I see post after post of people who have written and emailed Jack in the Box about how they feel this commercial has crossed the line and is in really bad taste, and how disgusting they find this commercial, and they get no response.

I feel that jack in the Box has no corporate responsibility, and zero social or ethical conscience. They are obviously out of touch with what constitutes good taste and what is good and right. I know that many of my friends and I all have banned Jack in the Box and will never eat there again. I honestly feel that Jack in the Box owes the American public a sincere apology for 1) exposing us to this vitriol and 2) insulting our intelligence and our sensibilities. Jack in the Box has no shame.

This commercial MIGHT appeal to a 12-year-old boy. it is reminiscent of the schoolyard taunt, “If you love it, why don’t you marry it?!?” But to the majority of the American people it is disgusting, embarrassing and just plain WRONG. It mocks what should be a sacred and solemn union. I feel that Jack in the Box has hit a new low in advertising.

Shame on you, Jack in the Box. Shame on you. I am embarrassed for you. I am embarrassed that other countries see this and think that this is what Americans think is clever, that it’s representative of American sensibilities. You’re an embarrassment not only to yourselves but to the American public.

I know that this sounds like one of those “I have a friend . . . ” scenarios where the person is really talking about themselves but pretends it is “a friend” in order to disguise the situation, which everyone knows is really them. But this isn’t that. Really. I barely get comments, and while that is sometimes depressing, it can also be a good thing. Sometimes, one needs to be careful what one asks for!

There is a blog I have followed for several years now, and indeed was friends with this blogger on Facebook. She is a minor celebrity of sorts in the mommy blogger world, and I admired her for years. She got her fair share of hate mail, She has several children, and is a single mom, and has gone through some tough times, which she has readily shared with her readers. I’ve had a good deal of sympathy with her situation, I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be a single parent to several children, then moving a thousand miles away from home, friends and family to take a job to support her children. She’s been given more than her fair share of bad luck in this world.  I am not going to mention her name or link to her blog, because I don’t wish her any ill will at all, and I don’t need to be another voice that is critical of her. She has enough on her plate to deal with each day.

This woman has willingly exposed her life to us, her readers, letting us follow her vicariously through good times and bad, through depression and victory. Some posts have been rather bleak. At one point, some of her friends got together and put together a donation site where her faithful readers could donate money to help her just survive. Her situation was dire, she had no health insurance, no money, two kids that were having mental health issues and were in and out of a very expensive behavioral health facility, she had no job and no means of support because her ex-husband lost his job due to alcoholism. I was thrilled that all her readers pulled together and donated over $11,000 to her cause. This enabled her to take a job in another part of the country and move herself and her entire brood. We followed her, cheered her on, supported her in many ways, not just financial but in the form of emotional support when some of the haters wrote her that she would burn in hell because of her sins, among other things.

Seriously! People can be so weird sometimes.

Ever since she moved, she continued to write of the travails of being a single parent to several children, how much time she was missing from work when one would get sick, then another, then another, ad nauseum. She wrote of one trip to the emergency room after another, because her boys were jumping off beds and tables, crashing their bikes, whatever. She bemoaned the fact that she came home from work to her house in shambles, because the kids had strewn cereal all over the floor, overturned the flour bin all over the kitchen counters, and left a sticky trail of syrup from the dining room to the living room. How tired she was because all she did was work, come home, work some more, do some writing to get some extra income, and then falls into bed each night around 2am.

I get it; I really do! I get how exhausting it is to be a single, working parent. I raised two kids on my own, and take that and multiply it several times over, and it would be overwhelming! I can’t even imagine what she has to do every day, thousands of miles from a support system, all by herself.

That being said, over the past year or so, I’ve become a little disenchanted with her. I realize I don’t walk in her shoes, and she has one ADHD child, two children who still deal with depression, and it is more than difficult to deal with all that. But from everything that she has shared, I’m beginning to think that she needs a serious intervention from Super Nanny. Apparently the inmates run the asylum, and her children are out of control and walk all over her. It seems to me, and again, I don’t walk in her shoes, but it seems to me that a little “no” and “stop doing that” with appropriate punishment is in order. I’ve found myself having a harder and harder time being sympathetic, when a little discipline might have avoided several of those trips to the ER. All six of her children are under the age of 18, by the way. Several of them are teenagers, I don’t know how many.

When you’re friends with someone on FB, and you have followed their blog for years, you sometimes forget that they are really a stranger, and you feel like they’re a friend. This blogger posted a comment on her FB page about something her children were doing, and bemoaned the fact that she’d no doubt be spending another six hours in the emergency room that night. Several of us posted a response to that, in the spirit of as if a bunch of friends were sitting around talking about our kids. Several of us mentioned that saying, “No!” to them might be a good idea. Because really? I don’t care to hear her moan and complain about mounting medical bills and taking more time off work on an already precarious attendance record. She seemed to be sitting there watching her kids do this, and did NOTHING to stop it! Nothing! I was appalled.

So after several of us commented about how maybe saying “no” might be a good thing, and none of us were snarky. Honestly! They were just comments that friends would make to each other in the course of a conversation. She writes in response,  “I should tell them to stop? Really? Hmmm, I never would have thought of that on my own. Gee, I’m so glad I have strangers to tell me how to parent!”

Wow! Strangers. Really? After all she has shared over the years, being very forthright and honest about her feelings, good and bad, and she “yells” at us, because we’re giving her parenting advice, and we’re STRANGERS? After many of us gave of our hard-earned dollars to help her out, we’re STRANGERS?? Is she kidding me???

That did it for me. I’ve been wondering about her for awhile now, and that sent me over the edge. After all we have done to help her, both emotional and financial support, and she says that? I refuse to listen to her whine and complain any more about how terrible her life is when she appears to do nothing to stop it, then turns her back on her readers and loyal supporters (read: “strangers”) when we try to give her helpful advice.

I unfriended her on Facebook and I took her blog off my reader. I’m done. I can’t be supportive of her any longer when she refuses to help herself. I mean, she didn’t have to agree with us, she could have explained a little more about why her kids were doing what they were doing, maybe (more than likely) there were circumstances which the two or three sentence post on her FB page didn’t reveal. But honestly, she can’t put something out there like that, as if she was just sitting there watching her kids court disaster, and then want us to sit with her again through post after post of ER visits, surgeries, etc.

I’m done. I’m still really sympathetic towards her; I feel for her I really do. But enough is enough. If I’m truly a “stranger” I have no business being friends with her on FB or reading her blog. I wish her the best of luck.

Ta-ta for now!

<—– Also the Leave a Comment button is rather difficult to find, unfortunately. It’s there on the left of the posts, underneath the list of tags. It all kind of blends in. Would love to hear from you!

Like I said last post, this is all “geek” to me, and I’m not sure how all this stuff works, the feeds, the feedburner… I dunno. I’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile the Midlife Chronicles URL is live! It’s at http://midlifechronicles.com

Thanks for reading; I see you’re out there, even if you’re not commenting!

Ta ta for now!

Ta-da!!

One of my readers pointed out awhile back that my blog was mis-named, as she came to it expecting to see a lot of information on menopause, when really it’s just the ramblings of my menopausal brain. I decided to try out a new theme and a new name. Not sure I’ll keep the theme, we’ll see how it goes, but I like the new name.

I even have my own domain now, so I will be switching to http://midlifechronicles.com very soon. If you’re subscribed to me, I don’t know if this affects that or not. I don’t have RSS feed on here right now, so I suppose you don’t have to update your readers.

I dunno, this stuff is all kind of Greek to me. Or should I say “geek”. If any of you out there have a clue about this stuff, let me know.

Anyway, I’d love to hear feedback. Do you like the theme? Do you like the name? I wish I were creative enough to come up with a unique header. The font choices they give us for this stuff are, well, boring.

I’ll write more later, but wanted to let this theme and blog name percolate for a few days.

And take this poll; I really want to know what you think!

Ta ta for now!

Now, I could have used something like this!!

When I broke my foot last fall (that reminds me of a joke you say to someone when they trip: “Have a nice trip; see you next fall! *rim shot*).

Anyway….

As I was saying, when I broke my foot last fall, I couldn’t go to fast food restaurants for lunch, because it was impossible for me to carry a tray. It was impossible for me to carry anything, let alone a tray of food. Unless it was in a backpack, I couldn’t carry it, although I did sling my purse over my shoulder and crutch around, and the jarring would knock it loose from my left shoulder in just a few steps, and then it would bang uselessly against my crutch until I stopped and slung it back up there. This repeated itself numerous times whenever I went anywhere, which certainly explains why I hardly ever went anywhere. I didn’t have a backpack, and I damn sure wasn’t going to wear a fanny pack. Otherwise I’d have to get big mall hair, wear parachute pants, leg warmers and a sweatband, and hum “Hungry Like A Wolf.” Ummmm no.

I have a habit of picking up fast food three or four times a week during my lunch hour. *short pause while you tell me that fast food isn’t good for me, and I should stop eating it. Got it. Thankyouverymuch.* Being on crutches really interfered with that. What I started doing was hitting the drive-thru, getting my lunch, and driving to a parking spot I found in a remote corner of the Target shopping center. I discovered a tree-shaded spot, with no other cars around, and other than the noise of cars driving back and forth, its very quiet and peaceful, especially if I leave the windows up. It is a perfect spot to sit and read my book and eat my lunch. Sometimes balancing my lunch on my lap, along with my book and the steering wheel is somewhat of a challenge, considering I’m 5’11″ and the seat is already pushed back as far as it will go, and my belly is pushed out further than I’d like it to be, because I’m seriously somewhat overweight. Okay, sometimes I use my stomach as a shelf. Happy now? Good.

After my foot healed and I no longer needed crutches, I started going back inside the restaurants. But what I found was I missed the quiet and solitude of my lunchtime car meals. We’ve been blessed with unseasonably warm weather, so I decided to keep doing it, as long as the weather holds out. So on a regular basis, you can find me in the corner of the Target shopping center, parked in the shade under my little tree, book propped on the steering wheel, munching and reading. Of course, this means no refills on the soda, so I always get the extra large and sip carefully so it lasts throughout my meal. It works pretty well, and sometimes, if I get sleepy I recline the seat back and take a little snooze. All in all, it’s a pretty sweet way to spend a lunch hour when I don’t feel like driving 15 minutes each way to get home.

No that's not me. Just a random Google image.

Today, I hit the Taco Bell drive-thru, which is across the street from the Target Center and my own little slice of lunchtime heaven. I picked up an enchirito, a soft taco supreme, an extra large diet sofa, and off I went! I settled comfortably into my little spot, turned off the engine, and enjoyed my lunch. I had the window down, since it was a little warm out. Kind of humid, and it was beginning to cloud over a little. About 30 minutes into my lunch, I got sleepy and I decided to recline my seat and snooze a little. I turned the key in the ignition to activate the accessories to power up my window so the noise from the passing cars didn’t bother me. I hit the window button, and the window slowly rose from wherever it goes inside the door, groaned like a 90-year-old and quit halfway up.

I thought to myself, “Uh oh.”

I turned the key on all the way to start the engine . . . and NOTHING.

Not a click. Not a whirl. Not a buzz. Not a doggone thing but the sound of the key turning in the ignition and my frustrated howls.

“No-o-o-o-o-o-o!” I want to bang my head on my steering wheel.

My son borrowed my last $60.00 before payday on Wednesday to fill the tank in his car so he could get to the job he just got (thank you, Jesus!!!) so he can quit borrowing money from me and sending me to the brink of bankruptcy. I’m already about $20.00 in the hole in my checking account, and I was praying that the rent check and my automatic payroll deposit land at the bank at the same time.

One of the perks of working where I work is that we have a fleet of vehicles. Meaning a staff of mechanics. Meaning that the mechanics will often work on employee cars as an unwritten perk because our salaries are so low (thank you, Jesus, again!!). I gripped my cell phone and dialed the mechanic’s cell phone. I explained my predicament, and thankfully he said, “I know exactly what’s wrong. I’ll be right there.”

Yay!! I did the happy dance in my car. Kinda. You know.

Anyway.

In about 10 minutes he came roaring up in his white truck (yes, literally), my knight in shining…umm…oil stained….coveralls. He had me pop the hood, looked at the battery, and was puzzled because there was some more corrosion on it. He’d cleaned the corrosion off the terminals just a couple weeks ago, and the battery had tested out fine. He was surprised that my terminals were corroding already, and that the battery had died. He tested the battery with his little portable tester thingy, had me start the car, and mumbled some mechanic mumbo-jumbo about why I needed a new battery. I was so relieved that I didn’t hear the words “alternator” or “voltage regulator”.

The mechanic jump started my car, told me to drive it over to his shop, and he would get and install a battery for me. Well, I would actually purchase it, but then he would do all the going to the store, picking out the right battery, hauling it back and installing the new one in my car. Hallelujah! My car starts like a dream now. My only fear is that the alternator might be overcharging, but more than likely it is just a bad battery. My car is three-and-a-half years old and that is the original battery. And I have a bad habit of leaving my iPod plugged in to my car when I’m not in it, which I’m sure causes a slow drain on the battery. Don’t tell the mechanic. It will be our little secret. Shhhhh….

The problem is, when you disconnect the battery, I have to re-enter the code for my audio system before I can use it. I don’t keep the code in my glove compartment because that would defeat the purpose of the code, which keeps thieves from being able to use the radio, should they decide to rip it off. Although why thieves would want a factory-grade stereo from Honda is beyond me. I mean, really. It’s a single-disc CD player, has the requisite four speakers, Am/FM radio, so-so sound, nothing special! And yet, I had to drive home in the silence because I didn’t have the code. Nothing works without the code. Nothing…not the CD player, not the radio, not my iPod. You have to have the code. The code that we, as upstanding, law-abiding citizens, have to input into the audio system to deter low-life, thieving thugs from stealing an audio system that wouldn’t be worth a plug nickel on the black market, or wherever they sell these things and they’d probably just toss into a field somewhere. It really ticks me off at the knots we have to twist ourselves into in order to foil would-be thieves. Not only do we have to enter a code into the audio system in order to be able to use it, but we have to have passwords, security questions, and practically a retinal scan to get into our own online accounts because hackers can’t keep their digital hands out of what doesn’t belong to them.

But that’s another rant for another post. Don’t get me started on how fucked up this world is. and how thieves and terrorists run the world because of everything we have to do in order to foil them.

The good news is, that during the silent ride home I came up with this post, so it was definitely productive time. It was just weird. Sitting at stop lights, looking around. Listening to my ears ring. Gawd I hate that. I have tinnitus, from too many loud concerts, school dances, etc. when I was growing up. I think that’s why I like a low level of background noise most times, because it helps drown out the “ringing” silence.

How about you? Do your ears ring? Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro? Oh wait. That’s a song. Never mind!

Ta ta for now!

*DIsclaimer: Not my actual grocery cart

Unless I confess, I am afraid I’ll be doomed to Grocery Store Purgatory, where the only parking space you can find is the one furthest from the store, every bag you put your groceries in breaks, spilling your groceries all over the place, and you endlessly search the grocery store and can never find a clerk to help you.

So, here’s my confession:

Bless me, Raley’s, for I have sinned. The first rule I broke was going to the grocery store hungry. The second was going without a grocery list. I went there to “pick up a few things” and $75 later, walked out of the store.

Being a rather overweight, tall woman, I tend to attract more than a few stares in the grocery store. Especially since I have gained most of my weight around my abdomen now that I’m at menopause and I look…well…pregnant. I get a lot of “OMG how OLD is that woman and is she really freaking PREGNANT?!?” looks from people. But it is what it is and until I am willing to work on my weight issues, here I am.

One of the difficulties of being overweight is you can’t stay away from the source of your addiction. If you are addicted to alcohol or drugs, you resolve to stay away from it forever and never let it pass your lips (or bloodstream) again. I realize that is a ridiculous simplification of the daily struggles that people with addiction go through, but my point is, you can never touch alcohol ever again and still be alive.

Not so much with food.

We foodies have to subject ourselves to our addiction three times a day, and sometimes more, with snacks thrown in. And if you’re trying to control your addiction (a.k.a. “dieting”), then you make healthy food choices and try to ignore the tiny voices that cry out to you as you pass by, as they wail about your abandonment and how you don’t love them anymore. Have you ever experienced the heartbreak of accidentally running over a box of cookies or package of cupcakes, smashing it beyond recognition, because it threw itself in the path of your shopping cart in an attempt to get you to stop and give it one last caress? And then you glance furtively around and lick the frosting that has mooshed out of the package? Not that I’ve ever done that.

And as I trundled my cart around the grocery store, I would justify my purchases of “junk food” with equal purchases of “healthy food.”

When you first walk into the Raley’s grocery store in my town, you first go through the bakery department. Naturally. I needed bread, so I walked over to the bread aisle, and picked out a healthy, low calorie, high fiber bread. Good choice.

Then, my cart was drawn by a magnetic force over to the bakery department (in other words, I turned around) and a package of ginger cookies jumped in my cart! I know! How crazy is that?? It sat there in my cart, next to the healthy bread, grinning at me. Awww. Look at the lil guy. I shrug my shoulders and walk on. Next, meat department. I don’t really need any, but I browse. Hmmm. Here’s a package of ground beef (only 7 percent fat!) that is $1 off. That means it’s about to turn, so I should use it tonight.

Moving along from the meat counter, I come across the bratwurst. Oy. Bratwurst. In the cart it goes. Then back to the bread aisle. Now I need hot dog buns. Mmmmmm. Then on to the snack food aisle, where a package of corn chips jumps right off the shelf into my cart, alongside the ginger cookies. I shake my head. Then, to balance them out, I put a bag of low fat pretzels into my cart.

“Humph!” I snorted at the corn chips. “Take that!” The corn chip bag just lays there and looks smug.

What? Your food doesn’t talk to you? Well… you’re probably skinny.

Then on to the bottled water…. oh I need my caffeine fix and a case of diet coke goes underneath the cart beside it. It’s diet. Right? Oh stop.

Then walking s-l-o-w-l-y through the candy aisle, all the puppy dog eyes of the chocolate bars, M and Ms, reese’s, cherry twizzler bites, hershey kisses tug at my heartstrings. I feel as guilty as if I were leaving behind a stray at the pound, but somehow I manage to resist temptation and pass through that aisle unscathed. Sweaty and breathing hard, but no candy in my cart. I wipe my brow and move on.

Salsa, deluxe mac and cheese next, for the meal I’m preparing with my bargain hamburger, then on to milk. The only stock they have in the quart size of nonfat milk expires on January 13 (two days from now!!) so I pass on nonfat and grab a quart of 1%, which expires January 19th. Much better. Then frozen vegetables, including corn for tonight’s meal, and swinging around the end of the frozen section to……… The Ice Cream Aisle.

(queue “Oh yeah” by Yello)

Everything slows to slow motion as my tongue passes over my lips, my mouth waters, my heart pounds, (oohhhhhh yeahhhhhh) I feel myself begin to sweat. Breathing hard, my heart pounding in my ears, my mouth suddenly dry (beaauuuutiful)

The moose tracks… beautiful
The Ben & Jerry’s… even more beautiful
Oh Yeah… Oh Yeah… Oh Yeah

Beautiful
Oh Yeah… Oh Yeah…

I almost make it. I am nearly out, the world starting to come back into focus, the ringing in my ears subsiding, the Yello song fading away…. then it happens. I can’t resist. I lunge, throw open the freezer door, and surreptitiously slip a box of “It’s It”s into my cart. Ohhhhh yeahhhhhhhh.

I glance around, let go of the freezer door, and straighten my shoulders. Putting my nose in the air, I walk serenely away. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Next is the produce aisle. I add bananas and celery to my cart. Hey, it’s all about a balanced diet, am I right?
Good times.

I have now come full circle, and I am back at the front of the stores, with the checkout lines. I have terrible luck in check out lines, I almost always pick the line that is going to have SOME kind of problem, so I just pick one. Any one. Miraculously, the man in line in front of me gets checked out smoothly, with nary a hitch. I can hardly believe my luck! As he moves out, I take my place at the little counter thingy where you rest your purse (you used to write checks there, but who does that anymore?!?) and slide my debit card through the machine. I glance back to watch the checker removing the groceries from my cart, as neither the checker nor the bag person seems interested in conversation. It was there that I spotted her.

You know who I mean. The person who stands in line behind you, reviewing the items in your grocery cart and JUDGING you!!

She watched the ice cream bars go by (wrinkled nose). Bananas. Small smile. Celery. Small smile. Bratwurst and ground beef. She looks like she is going to vomit.

Ugh. I think to myself. Vegan. Pffft.

Cookies. Wrinkled nose. Healthy bread. Small smile. Water. Wrinkled nose (must be a greenie, doesn’t like the bottled water because of the waste. Whatever.) Diet coke. Eye roll. Deluxe mac and cheese. Disgusted click of her tongue. Tsk.

And so on until my cart is empty. She doesn’t dare glance at me but I know what she’s thinking. “Gawd. No wonder she’s as big as a house. Does she think she’s fooling anyone by slipping the fruits and vegetables in with the junk?!?” More tsking.

They finish up the transaction, the clerk barely thanking me, and the bagger not offering to take my groceries out to my car for me, as she turns to help the Judger with her healthy food and skinny body. Not that I noticed or anything.

As I walked out to the car, the case of soda slipped out from underneath the cart onto the pavement. I heaved it back in, walked over to my car, and loaded my groceries. Drove home, unloaded the groceries and schlepped them into the apartment and put them away. Cooked my comfort food dish with my ground beef, mac & cheese, salsa and corn (it’s delicious), and ate three of the ginger cookies and an It’s It. Don’t judge. It was good. And there are plenty of leftovers for tomorrow.

But you know what? I’m happy with myself. I’m happy with who I am. If and when I decide to lose weight, I will. I might even learn to enjoy eating like that. Meanwhile, I am what I am, and at least I’m trying.

Ta ta for now!

I cyber-stalk this delightful woman from Tennessee, Stephanie Snowe. She posted an awesome post on her blog recently and I had to share it with y’all too.

Y’all. See, somehow, after I read her blog, I tend to channel my inner Southerner.

She shows the true spirit of the Christian attitude of “turn the other cheek.” I love her attitude.

I would have told him to fuck off and die, and that the pot was calling the kettle black, but I like her style. I like her way better.

Thanks, Stephanie, for the awesome lesson. You humble me.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,300 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.