Covert Evil

The first post on this blog was about my hatred of peanuts in peanut butter cookies.  If you have not yet read it I'll give you a few minutes to click around...

There, now as you are now aware, I am THE authority on all things cookie.
Today the weight of this responsibility weighs heavy as I will now discuss another snack related topic.  
I speak of the horrid happening of raisins masquerading as chocolate chips in muffins, cookies, scones, and other snack type things.

Would you care for a mouthful of disappointment?

 First and foremost, no one likes raisins in things.  A la cart, or in trail mix, raisins are barely passable, which is to say that eating them is preferable to starvation.
If someone tells you that they like raisins they are lying or living with oppositional defiance disorder or depression.  In other words, they are being contrarian because they were abused as a child or do not believe that they deserve good things in life

A grape may be thought of as any high school graduate; full of potential and life and dreams, and excited about what tomorrow may bring.  The raisin is that same graduate fifteen years later with an amphetamines problem working as a bagger at Winco.

Raisins being a terrible excuse for food can be traced back to biblical times.  I mean the word sin is right in the name.  For generations scientists and philosophers have debated as to whether evolution or a higher power is responsible for the mouth crime that is Raisins.  The Hopi Indians had a legend that the grape had bested the Sun at Mario Kart, and was thus punished.

 
Yeah it may be a bit sweet, but it's the wrong kind of sweet, like the little kids in the video for Black Hole Sun. 

Creepy

Not only are they the wrong kind of sweet, but they are small and dark and, due to my general optimistic nature, when I see something small and dark embedded in a treat, I expect it to be a chocolate chip.  Much in the same way that when someone hands me a glass filled with a clear liquid I expect it to be water, or vodka, not hydrogen peroxide.

More evidence of the guile present in raisins is their wholesale attempt at gaining mainstream acceptance by attempting to leech off of the innate coolness of African American culture.

This is basically fruit in black face.

Allow me to take this time to remind you that if you find yourself disagreeing with me then you may take comfort in the fact that you are incorrect as I am THE cookie authority.  Yes, they may be frequently found in the company of oatmeal.  I have warned oatmeal several times that people WILL judge you by the company you keep.  I feel that in this way oatmeal is like a misinformed Luke Skywalker.  Oatmeal senses that there was once good in the raisin.  But unlike Vader, all the righteousness and virtue has been baked out of the snack formerly known as tasty.

I have my own theory. Raisins may suck due to their origin.  A grape is plump, juicy, and sweet.  Wine is a classy way to get drunk.  If you take all the fun out of a grape by sucking out it's nectar and robbing it of the ability to get you tipsy, then you are left with a husk of all of it's awesome potential.  A raisin reminds us on a psychological level of what may have been.  You are not just tasting the raisin, but also the dream of you playing center field for the Red Sox, or your band hitting it big, or that attractive person that you were going to ask out and never did.  You are tasting your failure.

L&P

Ode to my 14 Year Old

First I would like to apologize for the lack of activity on the blog as of late.  However if you have been keeping up with our downward spiral as of late then you would have been able to predict of that of course the battery to the laptop would crap out.  So really you only have yourselves to blame.

If these things are real then I need... all of them.

Moving on...
We spend a lot of time on this blog speaking to the challenges of special needs parenting and trying to manage our toddler.  We spend a lot of time greasing our ill lubricated wheels since they are the squeakiest.  I wanted to spend some time complimenting the wheel that helps keep us traveling smoothly.  I am speaking of my oldest child.
 Whenever I take my kid to school late (which is often) I have to walk her in and fill out a little form that states that I am excusing her tardiness and the reason for the late arrival.  I assume that the motivation for learning why we are late is so that they can make some kind of spread sheet or bar graph depicting how many kids were late and for what reason in order to determine what, if any action can be taken by the school to reduce late arrivals.
One may safely assume that the heavy hitters on such a study would be; slept in, traffic, and alarm clock malfunction.  Due to the radness of my child, there will be a few new categories that must be added to this study. Included in our reasons for being late are; had to destroy Deathstar, zombies, elves, all that jazz, ninjas, dragons, the mummy, sparkly vampires, tardis malfunction, and bears.

True, it is more likely that all of these crazy awesome, if not 100% accurate reasons for arriving at school late will probably be swept under the excuse rug under the heading of "other", but this is just a small example of the all consuming coolness that is my daughter.
When I look at her I am struck with an emotion which can only be described as equal parts pride and envy.  I call it Prenvy.  Pride at how mind bendingly, reality splitingly, life changingly amazing she is.  Envy at the fact that she is miles ahead of where I was at her age.  My kid is 14 years old and is already better at everything that I wanted to do when I was 18.
At 14 years of age she is surfing, winning archery tournaments, playing Dungeons & Dragon's on a regular basis, and en route to becoming a legitimate professional entertainer.  At 14 years of age I was still pretty sure that there was some way that I could become a real life Batman.

Without the nipples though

She has lived her whole life knowing that her sister's health is fragile and any plan that she has made may be shelved due to Maggie's crap immune system.  She has taken this reality of her life with grace and minimal whining.  Well, much less whining then I would have done... still do.
It's weird looking up to someone that you are raising, but it is something that I find myself doing regularly.  

L&C

Adventures in You Can't Make This Shit Up Volume 4...Sigh

It would appear that fate, much like the Hells Angels, Bears, and Muslims, does not appreciate being called out.  We closed our last post recapping our hellacious week with the words, "bring it on" directing this taunt at the coming days.  Oh how we have lived to regret that decision.

At about 9:30 this morning we received a call from Maggie's school informing us that she'd fallen and had a seizure.  We still do not know how she fell but I have my suspicions.

I'll get you you sumbitch!

   This was particularly scary because even though Maggie does have Down Syndrome, chronic pneumonia, asthma, a history of recurring periorbital cellulitis, has had three heart surgeries, a diaphragmatic hernia, extensive dental surgery, ear tubes, adenoidectomy, and is non verbal, a seizure is a new trick for her.

Long story short, we are home and she is fine as far as we can tell.  The last few posts that we have put up have been about how life has crapped on us.  I don't want to do that today.  Today I am going to try to be thankful for what I do have.  This may be because I watched part of "Half the Sky" last night and I am very aware of how lucky I am in most things.

Also, apparently there are advantages to educating women.

 I want to talk a bit about how thankful I am to the paramedics who rushed to her school. I am also thankful to the doctor that busted her ass in medical school and I am guessing accrued a crazy amount of student loan debt, that assessed my daughter.  I am thankful to the nurses that have also worked hard through school and most likely accrued a crazy amount of student loan debt.  I am also thankful to the scientists that developed the medications that were used today.  I am also thankful to the scientists and engineers that developed the and built the CT scan that we would have used had Maggie been able to sit still long enough to use them.

Thank you for the long hours you spend away from your families, for the long nights you spent studying, for the times that you get soaked in any number of bodily fluids, for the verbal abuse that you must endure from angry and frightened families when the news that you must deliver is not good.  Thank you.

So please, next time you talk to a doctor, give them a hug.  If you are in your local coffee shop behind someone in scrubs and can afford it, buy their drink for them.  If you are at a party and you meet someone that states that they work in a lab and are researching medications, offer that person a hand job.  Assuming you have consent and it is gender appropriate.  Also, if they work in a lab, odds are they need the love'n.

L&P