Some of my favorite posts from my previous blog, about…well…stuff.
Bottle Caps, March 2008
Oh, Laurie Berkner, how you torment me. Victor Vito is currently DoodleBug’s favorite CD and I’m about ready to lose my mind. You’re on every day, several times a day, much to the delight of the under 6 set in this household. Those of us over 6 are ready to take a sharp implement to the back of the CD to render it unplayable. It wouldn’t be so bad if I could forget your songs as soon as the CD player was turned off. But, no, they’ve taken root in my brain, and no matter how much I bang my head against the wall, they won’t fall out. You’ve produced a CD full of earworms. The most insidious is “Bottle Caps.” At 11:00 PM last night, as I finally lay my head on my pillow, waiting for blessed sleep to overtake me, BANG!, in popped “Bottle Caps”. I could have cried.
Oh, we’re partly to blame. As first time parents, we wanted to make sure DoodleBug had “cool” kids’ music to listen to, and not just tired re-treads of nursery rhymes. Along with our personal faves, the Muppets and Sesame Street, we added you, Bear in the Big Blue House, and the Wiggles to her playlist. We should have just stuck to the Muppets and Sesame Street, with some Beatles and disco thrown in for variety. And if we hadn’t been on a quest to contain the kids’ CDs to DoodleBug’s room, instead of wherever there was a component capable of playing a CD, Victor Vito would have been “lost” for alot longer. (Curse our compulsion to be organized!)
But now we know better. Unless DoodleBug is playing it in her room, ToddlerBug will not be exposed to insanity-inspiring kids’ music. He will be privy to mom’s and dad’s playlists – the first toddler on the block to be singing “Jump” by Van Halen as he splashes in a mud puddle.
All of which got me to thinking about what music I listened to in my formative years. For you young’uns out there, the CD didn’t come along until the late ’80s and an MP3 player was something out of science fiction. We had vinyl, or if we were really hip, cassette tapes. (I can vividly recall trying to tape my little sister’s Menudo LP onto cassette as it played on the stereo in the family room. Probably so my mother wouldn’t have to listen to it over and over again while she worked in the kitchen. Hmmm – I can see a theme here. Banish the crappy kids’ music to the kids’ rooms. Who knew little Ricky Martin would be a bon-bon shakin’ music sensation 20 years later?)
The music I listened to growing up was whatever my older siblings had on, as I had no control over the stereo in those days. There was alot of Peter Frampton, Steve Miller, Led Zeppelin, and the Doobie Brothers being played and sung around our house. Is it any wonder that those songs are still among my favorites? Which makes it all the more imperative that I destroy Victor Vito soon. Otherwise, in 30 years, DoodleBug will be getting ready for her day while listening to “Bottle Caps”. Or worse – the Wiggles. “Fruit Salad”, anyone?
Milk & Bread! Milk & Bread! December 2007
The snow is “scheduled” to start in a few hours. I say “scheduled” because the crackerjack meteorologists on the local news have shown the “storm timeline” at least a dozen times during each newscast. Hey, guys, we got it. It’s starting around noon time, the commute home will be a mess, (aka “LEAVE WORK NOW! LEAVE WORK NOW!”). How’s about giving us the info we really want – will there be enough milk and bread at Stop&Shop to sustain New England consumers until the roads are clear tomorrow?
I’m not sure if it’s a phenomenon particular to New England, or if it happens in other snowy regions of the country, but when news of an impending snowstorm is released, there’s a mad dash to the supermarket for milk and bread. Consumers who otherwise never eat milk and bread suddenly are possessed with having enough for a week or two. It’s like standing in line for Red Sox tickets on opening day. Perhaps I’m being naive, but if one is really going to be trapped in one’s house for a week, don’t you think that having a little variety might be nice as well as having some food on hand that isn’t so perishable? Ok, ok, bread will last up to a week before the mold starts growing on it, and theoretically, one could put the milk in a snowdrift to stay cold if the power goes out. (Just check it for squirrel poop first…)
When I was commuting to an office job, my office neighbor, Tiny Amazon Warrior Queen, and I came up with a list of food items that one really ought to have on hand in addition to the ever-present emergency supply of water, canned vegetables and Italian dressing (to make the cold canned vegetables more palatable). So, if you live in New England and are preparing for the storm arriving this afternoon, or for the one headed our way this weekend, here’s your shopping list:
1) Chocolate cake (to stave off chocolate cravings and low blood sugar)
2) Cheez doodles (or Doritos, if the doodles aren’t to your liking; to balance the sweet of the chocolate cake)
3) Applesauce (for vitamin C; to give the illusion that you’re eating something healthy; and most importantly, in case you run out of chocolate cake and need something to balance the salt in the Doritos or Cheez Doodles)
4) Ice cream (to be eaten first in case the power goes out. You’ll need the energy to start digging out to get to your nearest neighbor with electricity.)
5) Peanut butter (for protein, and because, really, plain bread? Puh-leeze.)
6) Two or three boxes of cereal (you need something to go with the milk that you know you’re going to buy because it’s hard-wired into our New England brains. Bonus buy – if you get granola, it provides good traction on slippery sidewalks or driveways.)
Now that you are armed with your list, run as fast as you can to your local supermarket. The milk&bread crowd is already there….
Edited to add: I was reminded by SuperGirl SuzieQ that I left a critical item off the list – alcohol. Specifically, one’s alcoholic beverage of choice. Apparently the St. Bernard rescue dogs only carry rum in those kegs, and if you don’t like rum, you’re out of luck. Oh, and we should add frozen pizza to the list, too. It would just be downright cruel to order pizza for delivery during a snowstorm, don’t ya think? So, you’ve been informed – BYOB and pizza….
