The Big DumpTruck – Page 27 – Throwing Little Thought Pebbles at Your Windshield Since 1996

Showbiz

Posted on March 11, 2011December 20, 2015 by The Jody

My son, the previously mentioned 13-year-old who owns all the socks festooning my home, is an actor. He gets this from his father. I tried to act in high school. My God, I wanted to be a great actress so badly I could taste it. I took theater as an elective and I tried out for all the class plays and the musicals. I was never more than chorus in the musicals, and was only cast in one of the class plays. I still remember one of my lines from it, and I’m not even going to mention how many years it’s been.

Water, water in the kitchen
All around the sink
But you are in the living room
And not a drop to drink.

I played Lettie, an insane poet. It was a murder mystery. I’ll give you two guesses which insane poet was the murderer.

I don’t know that I did a good job. I made people laugh, but that’s because I was the comic relief. I’m pretty sure I spent a lot of the play wearing a shiny yellow raincoat. I don’t think I screwed anything up so badly that I destroyed the production, but I probably chewed on quite a bit of scenery. I think I’d be a much better actress now, because I understand how it’s supposed to work, if someone wants to give me a chance. I’d prefer not to be typecast as a psycho poet, but I’m sure if you happened to SEE me in that production, you might be tempted.

Where was I going with this? Oh, I was discussing my son, whose father used to have an Equity card . He is the tree from which this apple fell. The boy has the lead in one musical (The Sound of Music) and a supporting role (with 4 songs) in another (13: The Musical). He memorizes lines like there’s no tomorrow; another difference between us. (This paragraph could use more parenthesis.) He played Scrooge in the Middle school production of A Christmas Carol and was really good. And I’m not just saying that. Well, I did just say it, but I meant it, you know?

There are rehearsals for one or more shows 5-6 days a week. Tomorrow, he has SoM rehearsal from 9-11 and 13 rehearsal from 1:30-5, which is actually nice because it was supposed to be 12-5 and the drive between rehearsals is about 35 minutes. He’s at 13 rehearsals until 10pm tonight. This child is BUSY.

I can’t wait until he starts getting paid the big bucks for acting because I would REALLY like a house down on the Cape. Maybe something that looks like a castle with turrets and ramparts and whatever else a castle has. But made of glass so I can see the ocean. Ya, that sounds practical! Well, except for the bathroom. Maybe we can have real walls for the bathroom. But everything else should be glass. I don’t want an obstructed view. Also, he’ll have to make enough money for us to invest heavily in Windex. I’m just sayin’.

parenting

Hope for Parents of a Fussy Eater

Posted on February 24, 2011December 20, 2015 by The Jody

Hi, my name is Jody and I am the parent of a recovering fussy eater.

For years, my son would only eat one or two foods. Those foods would change over the years: where once he would only eat chicken fingers, he switched over to pasta with red sauce and never wanted chicken fingers ever again. He basically loved beige foods: chicken nuggets/fingers, french fries, dinner rolls, apple sauce, bananas, green grapes, dry Cheerios, toaster waffles, pancakes. All beige/yellow. All carbs (excepts, I guess, for the chicken, but really, processed chicken is probably more a carb than a protein.)

The boy was breast-fed (for 11 months), made the transition to solid foods at the normal time. He’d eat anything. Green goo, orange goo…it was all good. He loved his rice cereal mixed with apple sauce. To the point where he had it for breakfast every day for about 4-5 years, until he made the switch to toaster waffles, where he stayed until they discontinued his favorite brand a few years ago.

When he was being fussy, we worried and took him to the doctor. He was off the charts for height and weight (but in proportion) for his age, ate a ton of fruit, and only had red sauce (tomatoes) on his pasta, so the doctor declared he was actually a pretty healthy eater, all things considered. So he told us not to stress about it, because making food a source of stress is never a healthy thing to do. So we didn’t.

My son didn’t like hamburgers or meatballs until he was about 10. Then he loved them. He suddenly started loving salad with Italian dressing. No creamy dressings. Nothing creamy. In general, he rejected all dairy as something he didn’t like. We later learned he’s lactose intolerant, but seriously, when we went out for ice cream he would pick sorbet because that’s what he wanted.

I remember going to Disney with him when he was four, and planning every meal around whether or not the restaurant could serve pasta marinara. Any restaurant that has ANY kind of pasta dish can usually pull it off. Disney is the greatest place to take people with food allergies, etc., because they go so far above and beyond to make sure there’s something for you to eat. I will ALWAYS remember we went to the buffet at Crystal Palace and they only had mac and cheese on the buffet. Our server went down Main Street to Tony’s Town Hall restaurant to fetch my son a plate of pasta with sauce. (My friends, THIS is why Disney rocks my world.)

We had heard people say their kids outgrew being fussy eaters, but when you live with one for 10+ years, you start to think maybe they just meants small changes; and quite frankly, those were welcome. He added steak to his list of okay foods, which opened up a LOT of restaurants. Hell, even adding burgers did that.

But then something happened last spring. He was 12, and we were again at Disney, traveling with my sister’s family. My sister’s kids were always bottomless pits for trying new things. My BIL had a hard time understanding why we couldn’t just force my son to eat new things. He never lived with a fussy child so I suppose I shouldn’t have expected him to understand. Prior to the trip my son and I talked about the restaurants we’d be visiting, and my son declared he’d use this trip to “try new things”. I thought that was a great idea.

What happened during that trip was that I had to start a log of all the new foods he’d tried, because nobody could believe it. Sushi (he loved), scallops (he loved), bison (he loved), etc. etc. There was NOTHING he wouldn’t try. We were all floored. And then it continued. He went on a trip with his father and tried pot roast and lamp chops – loved both. He continued the trend by ordering things even I thought he wouldn’t like. Trout at Longhorn Steakhouse. On another trip this past January, he ended up trying 4 different kinds of new fish (flounder, mahi-mahi, smoked salmon). He’s since ordered mahi-mahi at the local Mexican place. He orders these dishes and cleans his plate. Last Saturday we went to a Tapas place in Waltham and he tried everything – including a cold crab and mango salad, a shrimp and lobster ravioli, ceviche, duck, an onion and potato omelette and goat cheese. He loved almost everything he tried. He’s starting to freak me out! He orders his burgers (previously plain only, not even ketchup on them) with onions, pickles and mustard! He’s also become quite the expensive date compared to the days of chicken fingers and ziti with marinara sauce. But my God, the options for restaurants!

I’m not saying this will happen to every fussy eater; my son may have be a statistical aberration. But his father is now officially fussier than he is, and food is no longer the biggest issue in our house. It’s really a different world now.

humor, stuff

One Million Little Things

Posted on February 20, 2011December 20, 2015 by The Jody

My hard drive is full. Well, it was full. One of my external hard drives was also full. (As are all my closets, drawers, and countertops. I am nothing if not consistent.)

So I decided this is the weekend I clean up my hard drive, make some badly-needed backups, etc. You know, the kind of thing I should be doing in my house, but it requires so much more work and possible dishpan hands. So I’m focusing on my computer storage issues. I think that’s fair, and if you don’t, you can only tell me/bitch me out if you first provide me with gifts of some sort. For the record, Girl Scout Cookies are currency in my world.

I set up a different external hard drive, and actually dusted off the Time Capsule server that we have and I hadn’t been using (probably because I hadn’t figured out the benefit yet) and looked at my Time Machine backups to make sure I was in a good spot to start removing things. I wasn’t; it had been a year since I’d run a Time Machine backup. Okay, so I’ll use the Time Capsule to store my backup (because the drive I had been using is full and full is bad and useless). I set it up and tell it to run a backup. It parses my computer’s hard drive and tells me how many things it has to back up.

997,759 files

How is that even possible? There are almost a MILLION files on my hard drive that have to be backed up? Oh my Lord, no wonder it’s full. How can it even function? How can I find the files I don’t need to delete them?

In the mean time, the biggest problem is moving 109 gig of backup over my wifi network. It almost looks smokey in here, there is so much data floating over my head. I wonder if the people who do those ghost-hunting TV shows would get a reading off the air in my living room? “I’m getting the image of a child playing on your kitchen floor with Matchbox cars, and a Finn Brother’s song…” “Yes! Yes! Those are being backed up off my hard drive!”

997,759 files. I laugh at your attempts to get me to lead an organized life!

complaint department, photos

Flowers, Damn It!

Posted on February 3, 2011December 20, 2015 by The Jody

There’s an interesting thing about going to Florida in January. They have flowers. THEY HAVE FLOWERS! They don’t have 10 feet of snow plow residue at every street corner. Not once did I have to scrape ANYTHING off the rental car. It’s like this place was build so that I could pretend it was spring for a few days. And I did. And now I am back.

There is nothing good about this winter’s weather. We’re due for 3-6 more inches Saturday. It’s gotten to the point where my reaction is “oh, only 3-6 inches,” said with the same tone I’d use if someone who regularly shot me with a nail gun was only going to hit me with a board. We are all destroyed. I have reached the “I don’t want to ever leave the house again” stage of winter.

This picture was taken on Friday, January 29th. See the flowers? There were flowers. I want flowers!

humor, lists

Useless Writing Advice

Posted on January 17, 2011December 20, 2015 by The Jody

I do not have the ability to give advice on being a better writer. I have the ability to give advice on just about anything and everything else, including how to choose a tomato (no skin flaws and it should smell like a tomato), but being better writer? Well, I suppose I could try, if that’s what you’d like.

Expensive Equipment Helps Create Better Prose

I think this is a gimme. You need the most expensive writing equipment you can find. Take out loans. You need top of the line everything. There’s a pen for sale at the local mall for $10,000. You need that pen. Everything you write with that Bic you stole from a waitress is pure crap. Gerbils can’t even be bothered to shred the paper you write on with your less-than-10k pen. You’ll also need a top of the line Mac laptop, iPad and an iPhone 4. As for the latter, if it isn’t white, you should go turn in your MFA.

Live in a Home with a Real Working Fireplace

If you can’t simulate the working conditions of Charles Dickens or Emily Bronte, what hope do you have of ever convincing a soul that your writing is even passable? You need the sound of a crackling fire as background noise. You need to poke at the embers when you’re having a hard time trying to come up with a new way to describe the angst of the twenty-something. You should just stop writing and call a Realtor. Now.

Burn Candles that Smell Like Lemons

This is a controversial one. I know there are people who would argue with me on this, but you’ve come to me for useless writing advice, so you had best listen to me. Get some lemon-scented candles. You see, what these will do is to trigger strong memories of your mother/aunt/grandmother with the Lemon Pledge obsession and you will get some great material out of remember how much you hated that your mother/aunt/grandmother couldn’t cook/clean/express love. It’s great stuff!

Buy New Camera Equipment

I don’t know that it will really help your writing, but I’m trying to justify a few purchases I’ve made in the past year, so just indulge me, would you?

Get a Metric Ton of Sleep. Nap Like You Mean It.

I can’t say enough about naps and sleeping. I bought flannel sheets and I could live in my bed for the rest of my life. I could be Grandma Georgina, and we would start to wonder again how the four elderly people who never left the bed went to the bathroom after eating cabbage soup 3 meals a day. I promise not to eat cabbage, but I still will probably need to go to the bathroom. Some things can’t be helped.

I think this will help you write better. I won’t know, because I’ll be too busy sleeping to read your book.