Month: April 2023

Ode to Fast Food

Standard

In honor of today’s roll out of the limited edition Big Mac Sauce, I thought I’d share a recent writing I did for my memoir workshop class. Following the ode, there are two links to some news articles about the Big Mac sauce debut. As I understand it, the sauce will be free with chicken nuggets, and there will be a limit on how many one person can get as well as only being able to order it through the app. May the odds be ever in your favor.

I sit at my computer, sipping a large Diet Coke from McDonald’s and I wonder why we love fast food so much. I have no doubt there is something in the composition of fast food that keeps us coming back for more, dare I say, something that makes it addicting, and I think that’s a chemical reason, and not so much a psychological one. There have been times that I’ve gone quite some time without a McDonald’s cheeseburger (or in my case the quarter pound with cheese burger), but once I return, it is like a valve on a water hose that just won’t shut off. I want it morning, noon, and night. Of course, I don’t indulge that much, but the want is there.

I just found out that McDonald’s will be coming out with a limited-edition packet of Big Mac sauce. I found this hilarious. A couple of weeks ago, I stopped in the drive-thru for some free fries and I actually asked for a cup of Big Mac sauce. They put it in a small chicken nugget box. It was great on the fries. I have always wondered why they’d never done this before, but I know where I’ll be in seven days [seven when this was originally written] when they are released. Expect it to be Instagrammed and blogged about.

I told my husband the monumental news, and he said he doesn’t like the Big Mac. Really? Who doesn’t like the Big Mac? He must be a heathen. Or a Communist.

Continue reading

Yom Hashoah

Standard

“If we wish to live and to bequeath life to our offspring, if we believe that we are to pave the way to the future, then we must first of all not forget.”

Prof. Ben Zion Dinur, Yad Vashem, 1956

A few links to follow to learn about this day as well as reflect on it. In addtion to Holocaust Remembrance Day, which began at sundown last night, it is also 80 years since the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I have a well-worn book about the Uprising that I’ve kept since childhood.

Public Domain

Yom Hashoah is specific to commemorating the Jewish people who perished in the Holocaust.

Click photo to be taken to the Twitter thread that explains this.

Information from Yad Vashem about today’s remembrance day.

Mental Health Monday – Overwhelmed?

Standard

I don’t know about you, but at the very end of Passover and Easter, I crash mentally. There is still so much to do, but it’s not scheduled between multiple church visits per day and cooking from scratch for Passover most nights, I still have to continue with life. And until this coming Thursday, everyone in the house is working, and we’re trying to save money by not eating out, even cheap fast food, which isn’t so cheap anymore.

I have returned to my lists (especially for today and the rest of this week), and on days like today, I needed a very specific list to make sure I hit every place I needed without too many, if any, U-turns.

The first thing I would recommend is a multi-level list when you’re beginning to get overwhelmed:

Draw a horizontal line across the middle of a piece of any-size paper, and then draw two columns from the top to that middle line.

Like this:

Fig. 1
(c)2023

The left is for the must-do’s, the right is for the would-like-to-do’s, and the bottom is for everything else. I’d also draw a line on the bottom right for a running shopping list.

I’ll give you an example for today and tomorrow.

Continue reading

Inspire. April.

Standard

Adventures in Writing

“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.”

Winston Churchill
Colored pencil sketch with top and bottom borders. There is a green feather quill that has the ink flowing into the lower word. It says: It's a good day to Write.

Let’s try that again. The entire essay is gone. No recovering it, and we’re off to the races again. It won’t be as witty or a breathtaking example of fine writing, but it is what it is.

I woke up this morning with a ton of stuff on my mind, and in my mind, and my mind would not settle down. I thought of a great story to write about the holidays, but it would also make a great blog post, and it might be a good memoir essay for the prompt of “details, details” that I’ve been struggling with, but it was also a good piece of family history, and it was probably prompted by a conversation I had with a friend about the balancing of Passover and Easter. As an aside, I happened to look at a calendar, and next year Easter is March 31, and Passover is near the end of April, so that should cause less balancing and juggling and stress, but of course, we’ll see how it goes. The best laid plans and all.

The thoughts and memories were coming fast and furious, one thing after the other, and I tried to filter out other unrelated memories that happened in the same space I was writing about. I had twenty minutes before I had to leave, and I could use that time to get it down before it was gone forever. I’ll remember it, I told myself. No, you won’t. You never do. And to make matters worse in my head, I knew that NO ONE in the history of writing remembers when they say they’ll remember and will jot the thought down later. No. One.

You know it’s true.

Continue reading

Friday Food. April.

Standard

Passover, Easter, Spring Break, Prom Season. So much to do, including cooking. Holiday cooking plus the regular everyday cooking that we’re expected to do. These last few weeks had me teaching, my daughter working practically every day after school, my son trying to break the world’s record for most movies seen in a month (kidding), my husband’s job is one person short, and no one wants to cook dinner. They also don’t want to pay for take out or fast food, and frankly, I don’t blame them. I thought I would take this Friday Food to share some shortcuts and new things to try.

Everyone knows about cooking two meals on Sunday and then eating leftovers. I try to make one big meal a week, like a roast beef, a pork loin, or a whole chicken. They make a great meal, and then they make great leftovers. All of them can be eaten as sandwiches later in the week with a side of chips and cole slaw. If the first night is mashed potatoes, the next night can be rice. My daughter likes Minute Rice, but regular rice is very easy to make. I got the recipe from The Kitchen Survival Guide by Lora Brody and while I’ve changed some things, the gist of it is the same.

Continue reading

Election Connection – Book Banning/Challenge Update

Standard

This is specific to a Texas school district, but challenges are happening across the country.

A federal judge has ruled that the books in question be returned to the library within twenty-four hours and left accessible while the case is ongoing. They are prohibited from removing any books while the case is in litigation.

According to this CNN article, while the Texas school said the books were removed as part of their normal weeding procedures it is clear that there were outside influences at play based on the subjects removed, including topics of race and LGBT+.

Disagreeing with the subject matter is not a reason to remove the books from the library. I also disagree with the comment in the article that pastors should be involved. Absolutely not. The separation of church and state is critically important both to the founding of this country and its ongoing evolution of welcoming all, despite the recent contradictions to that.

Part of the problem is the ignorance of those complaining about the books. They call many LGBT+ books pornographic when they are not sexual in nature and simply talk about feelings and gender as any adolescent character in a book would do. They are also trying to restrict CRT (critical race theory) which none of these books teach despite perhaps being written by a person of color or are about a person of color. As has been explained over and over again, CRT is not something that is taught in the schools, not even at a high school level. It is typically a subject in post-graduate and law schools.

As a writer, I understand that not all books are for everyone, and I agree that parents can determine the appropriateness of books for their children within reason (as I have done for my children without banning books for everyone), but I expect that we should trust in the schooling and expertise of librarians and teachers who have studied this field for a number of years.

I am also concerned about a random group of uneducated people coming in and removing books rather than letting individual parents and children make the determinations for their families on what is age-appropriate.

I hope the country steps back from the abyss; we are well beyond the slippery slope, and we need to offer modern books with timely subject matter while also encouraging the reading of classics while explaining the reasons that some of the material isn’t appropriate, and maybe never was.

Times change. We should change with them.