Christine the Curmudgeon

Christine the Curmudgeon is a bit disturbed by a commercial that Quaker Oats is running.  It features a family with four kids, and Dad is in charge of “cooking” the oatmeal for them, in the microwave.  You see, each kids likes a different flavor of oatmeal, so they buy those boxes with the individual packets of microwaveable oatmeal.

Okay, so at least it’s good that these kids are eating a healthy food like oatmeal, as opposed to some sugar-laden cold cereal, or, worse, some greasy crap from the McDonald’s drive-through.  But what disturbed me was when Dad was handing each kid their bowl of oatmeal, and the kids, with their coats on, marched out to the family minivan.  Then they are shown eating while being driven to school or wherever.

Has our society gotten so *hurryhurryrushrush* that people can’t even make the time to sit at the table and eat meals?  They are already saving time by using the microwave oatmeal, would it really kill ‘em to get up even half an hour earlier, and have breakfast, AT THE TABLE, AS A FAMILY?

I think that a big part of it is that children’s schedules are too micro-managed these days.  In addition to school and homework, kids spend a lot of time being shuttled to and from various activities.  There’s soccer, ballet, karate, music lessons, Little League, swimming, Scouts,  yak-shaving lessons…the list goes on and on.

Would it really kill people to cut back on some of this, and slow down a little?  Actually, I fear that it WILL kill them if they don’t.  Why can’t kids be allowed to have some unstructured time, to just hang out at home, or with their friends, and just be kids?  This would give the parents time to relax a bit, too, since they would not have to shuttle the kids to and from all of this stuff.

How about just letting kids pick maybe one or two activities that they truly enjoy, and dump all of the other ones?  If Little Johnny is getting a lot of joy and satisfaction from his yak-shaving lessons, let him continue those and give up soccer and T-ball and everything else that he’s lukewarm about anyway.

Life is MUCH more enjoyable when every single second of time is not scheduled and accounted for.  Sometimes it’s nice to have the time to cook a nice meal, and have the whole family sitting at the table to enjoy it.  In this hectic world, the true pleasures of the table are often forgotten.  We need to bring this back!

Also, there are practical matters about that commercial that disturb me.  Are those kids using real bowls and silverware when they eat in the minivan?  If so,  are they left in the vehicle all day?  Have YOU ever tried to clean dried-up oatmeal flecks out of a bowl?  I have, since Mr. C loves oatmeal, but often does not bother to at least rinse out the bowl and spoon afterwards.  And then you get these petrified flecks that stick onto the bowl and spoon, and you need a blow torch to get them off.

Or perhaps these people use disposable bowls and spoons.  This is bad, too, not only because of the extra expense, but it’s just more crap going into landfills.  I can see using these once in a while, but every day is just too much.

I also have a bit of an issue with individually wrapped anything.  If these people budgeted their time better, they could just buy regular Quaker oatmeal, which is much cheaper per serving, and doesn’t take all that long to cook.  Dad could just cook up a pot of that, and then have sliced FRESH fruits on hand, and let the kids take what they want to dress up their oatmeal.  Apples and bananas are usually pretty cheap year-round, at least they are around here.  Strawberries, blueberries, etc could be offered when they are in season and less spendy.  A bottle of good maple syrup goes a long way.  So does a shaker of cinnamon sugar.  This would not only be less expensive than the overpriced individual packages, but healthier for the kids, as well.

Quick tip – if you want to slice the apples the night before to save time in the morning, put them in a bowl of water with a dash of lemon juice thrown in.  Refrigerate.  This will keep the apples from getting that nasty brown discoloration that occurs when they are sliced and just left out for too long.  And when they look nasty and all, the kids will not eat them.

Anyhoo…I KNOW it’s just a commercial.  But all too often, commercials do reflect the way that some people live today, and that is a very sad thing!

You know that woman in California who just had octuplets?  Well, Christine the Curmudgeon almost knocked over her tv stand when she saw on the news a few minutes ago that this woman not only has six other kids, but lives with her parents as well.

No mention of any father of the octuplets, it sounds like she isn’t married.

Although the article says that there is no confirmation that this woman used fertility drugs, it is also highly unlikely that she managed to conceive octuplets naturally.  Twins and triplets can come naturally, more than that, usually not.

IF she was using fertility drugs, and IF there is no husband, and IF she can’t afford a place of her own…WHY HAVE MORE KIDS?  Isn’t it already hard enough to support the six kids she already has?

Even if she wasn’t using fertility drugs…WHY HAVE MORE KIDS?  If she wanted to just go out and screw around with some guy, there is such a thing as birth control.  And I don’t want to hear any crap about birth control being against her religion or anything.  I mean, if it’s true that she is not married to the father of these kids, well, that is usually against the same religions that are also against birth control.

It’s one thing if you have money and a large enough place to live, then you can have all the kids you want, I suppose.  But it doesn’t sound like this is the case here, it sounds like this family’s home is way too small for the six kids, never mind eight more.

I hope she will at least have the sense to get her tubes tied now.

…because Christine the Curmudgeon needs to cry in one over this.

I am watching the local news, and they had teasers throughout the show about how kids in one town’s public schools will be wearing winter coats in class.  I was prepared to be outraged over this, until the story finally came on.

Public schools in the town of Harvard, MA, will now be setting their thermostats at 64ºF, as opposed to the previous temp of 69º.  This, of course, is a move to save money.  And everybody needs to save money these days, right?

But the way the teasers were done, I imagined some Dickensenian scene, with little kids freezing in their classroom, with the teacher being too cheap to throw one more piece of coal in the fire, no matter how much the children begged and pleaded.  But 64 degrees?  Hardly a frigid temp at all!

Someone interviewed for the story (which is not yet online as I type this), said she was concerned that little kids would not know to dress properly for those frigid 64º temps.  This is ridiculous.  Letters were sent home to all of the parents, and it is THEIR responsibility to be sure their kids go to school dressed properly for the weather.  If they feel that 64 degrees is too cold, make the kid wear a sweater, dammit!

The Curmudgeon thermostat is kept as low as possible in order to save money on heating oil.  We’re not sitting here freezing, we just put on a heavy robe or sweater or something.  It’s good enough for us!

It seemed that most people they talked to didn’t think that this was unreasonable.  But to anyone who whines…would YOU be willing to pay higher taxes so that the school thermostats could be set higher?

***cue chirping crickets***

Didn’t think so!

93-year old froze to death, owed big utility bill

Christine the Curmudgeon just can’t fathom the idea of anyone being so heartless as to allow somethng like this to happen.  I nmean, I realize that the man did owe the money.  But surely something could have been arranged.

I STRONGLY suspect that the utility company did NOT attempt to make personal contact with this man.  The city manager had the stones to put the blame on the neighbors for not checking in on him sooner.  Well, in an ideal world, neighbors do look out for each other, and it was a neighbor who found this poor old guy dead.  But it’s not always like that.  I mean, if Mike and I both were to drop dead in this apartment, the only reason anyone would notice would be when the landladies didn’t get their rent check from us.  Or, since they live upstairs, they’d start to notice the smell.

But if not for the landladies, nobody else would notice or care.  Most of our neighbors are not nice people, all they seem to want to do is try to take anything they can find that is ours.

The utility worker who installed that device should have spoken directly to the man, and when he saw that it was a senior citizen, he could have arranged for the man to make contact with some sort of senior assistance agency.  Perhaps a counselor from such a pace could have helped him to make payment arragements in order to keep his power on, and perhaps even directed him to whatever financial assistance programs are available for seniors.

It should NEVER be ASSumned that an elderly person has neighbors or family to assist him or her.  Not only would have it been the right thing to do, for the utility company to intervene, but it’s also good PR for the company.  As it is now, they are seen as cold and uncaring.  But I guess they don’t care, because in many places, the power company is a monopoly.

I bet that the CEO of Bay City Electric Light & Power is not sitting in his house freezing his ass off.  I wonder how he sleeps at night.

Christine the Curmudgeon loves it when Judge Judy seriously reams someone a new asshole.

Today she heard a case where some woman was suing her ex-boyfriend for abuse, and is destruction of her cell phone, which cost $350.  The ex was a serious jerk, and JJ wondered aloud why the plaintiff stayed with him for as long as she did.  She also gave the plaintiff hell for moving in with this guy when she had only known him for a couple of weeks.  JJ said that the plaintiff could NOT sue for *abuse*, only for the cost of the cell phone.

So Judge Judy asked how much the cell phone cost, and the dumb chick told her the amount.  Then JJ asked her what she did for a living.  She said she was a cosmetology student, getting an “allowance” from the government.  In other words, welfare.  JJ asked how much, and it added up to something like $340 for herself and $200 something for each of her kids (I didn’t catch how many kids she had).  She also said she did some hairstyling *on the side*.  She claimed that the welfare people knew about this.

Oh, boy, did Judge Judy ever go off on this chick.  She said that if this bimbo was getting money from the good people of the state of Illinois, it was her responsibility to see that this money was used to buy the best possible food, clothing, and other necessities for her children, as well as provide a safe place to live for them.  Welfare, she said, was not for buying $350 phones.  If she really felt she needed a cell phone, there are much less expensive ones out there, JJ said.  If the dumb chick were making enough money from hairdressing to support herself and her kids, enough to afford such an expensive phone, she had no business collecting welfare anyway.

So JJ asked the dumb chick why she spent so much on a phone.  Dumb chick replied, and I quote, “I likeded the phone.”  That is not a typo, that is what she said.  JJ and Byrd the bailiff just looked at each other, exchanging a WTF? look.

I am not on welfare, but I can’t afford a $350 cell phone.  The one I have cost $70 when I bought it, the price has since come down.  There is another phone that I saw and likeded, and that costs about $90 right now.  I’m still thinking about it, I’m hoping I can find it on sale someplace and get it for less.

Judge Judy did have to rule in favor of the dumb chick, but only because the dumbassed loser ex did damage the phone.  But I sure did enjoy JJ’s asshole-reaming!