ranting – Lori Cameron

a quick rant

November 11, 2023July 24, 2020

This morning, someone I like a lot in real life shared this on Facebook:

This person shares a lot of punny jokes and cute memes and, other than a bit of police worship I don’t agree with, would never purposely insult or hurt anyone. But this one, this stupid meme, has bugged me all day. I started to leave a comment on the post, then changed my mind and deleted it because (1) I don’t want to hurt this person by embarrassing them in front of their FB friends and (2) I’m not in the mood for a bunch of dudes to tell me I need to lighten up.

But because this is my space and I can say what I want and no dudes would be caught dead here, this is what I want to say:

-Criticising younger generations for not being as ‘good’ as us olds is lazy comedy.

-I don’t know the story behind these photos (and I’ll bet the person who made the meme doesn’t either), but chances are they were taken at a protest of some sort, where the point is to, you know, protest. Maybe they were protesting a Black paramedic being shot to death in her own home with zero consequences for her police officer killers. Maybe they were protesting children being snatched away from their parents at the Mexico/US border or protesting the fact that a racist, sexist reality show creep is authorising secret forces to beat up, tear gas and abduct people on American streets. But suggesting that these women are spoiled brats, screaming their heads off all the time about nothing is ridiculous.

-Speaking of women, have another look at the photos. Funny how it isn’t men being called out for this supposed bad behaviour. But women, no, women need to shut up, sit down and do what they’re told, right? How dare they open their mouths? How dare they have opinions?

-If I created a meme featuring a group of older, rich, ‘respectable’ white men totally losing it (and this would be so easy to do) with a snarky comment about how these raging grandpa-babies need a diaper change, would you share that, too? Or would that be (gasp) rude? Continually crapping all over young people for not showing enough respect seems like a poor strategy for ever gaining it, wouldn’t you say?

so many questions

November 11, 2023July 9, 2019

From a magazine that shall remain unnamed, may I present the absolute worst intro to a recipe section:

Okay,

Man berries? Seriously? That has to be intentional, right? If so, why? I do not want to contemplate what recipes I can whip up from man berries.
Manly recipes? What are manly recipes? Are there womanly recipes? What makes a particular recipe manly? (The answer, based on the recipes that follow: meat and booze.)
Maybe it’s time I snuck my boyfriend or husband into the meals? How on earth did this clumsily constructed first sentence make it past an editor?
If I find it difficult to convince my boyfriend or husband to eat more fruit, shouldn’t that be his problem? If he’s over the age of, say, three, isn’t it a tad insulting to trick him into eating something?
Speaking of insulting, what’s with the assumption that my boyfriend or husband isn’t handling or at least sharing the cooking duties? Maybe instead of thinking up ways to sneak things into meals, it’s time to quit thinking of men as clueless infants who not only don’t know and don’t care about basic nutrition, but have to be bribed into eating produce by burying it in bacon and beer?

irritation – it’s what’s for dinner

November 11, 2023November 6, 2010

Now that the kids are getting older and are having friends over more frequently, they’re also inviting those friends to stay for supper occasionally. This is both good and bad – good because it reminds me how much I like my children in comparison to all other children and bad because in order to make that comparison, I have to endure the presence of other children. Nah, I’m just being nasty. Mostly. The majority of the kids’ friends are nice and sweet and polite, if perhaps a little too honest by times. As in, “Wow! That’s a lot of dirty dishes!” Etc.

Charlotte had a dinner guest one night this past week who, when confronted with homemade bread – the bread seen above, BREAD, I might add, MADE WITH MY VERY OWN HANDS – asked, “How do you guys eat this stuff?” Uh, thanks, kid. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

The very next night, Anna had a guest – a lovely young lady we like very much – who asked me to please make the pasta with sausage dish I’d made the week before since she’d sampled it from Anna’s thermos at school the next day and thought it was delicious. Flattered, I re-created the recipe and happily served it, at which time our guest said, “Oh, I’m a vegetarian.” Um, you know what sausage is, right?

I’m thinking that our next dinner guest will receive any food of his or her choosing – from the backyard. Anything you can find, dearest, it’s all yours.

maternal pride and some white-hot anger

November 11, 2023July 1, 2010

The day after my last post, I accompanied Foster’s class on a trip to CFB 14 Wing Greenwood, where Foster promptly stole a parachute and tried to hijack the Hercules plane we were being shown:

That kid. Honestly. I can’t take him anywhere.

Two days later was this girl’s birthday:

Anna is twelve now. Twelve. Crazy. Because her birthday was a “marking day,” Anna had no school and instead spent the day going out for lunch and Frenchy’s shopping with Jam, then opening presents and going to Swiss Chalet for a birthday dinner with the whole family.

Two days after her birthday, Anna had a swimming/sleepover party with four of her friends. Yes, you heard me correctly: a swimming AND sleepover party. Are we not the world’s greatest parents? Yes, I think so. The Boy Wonder took Foster, Charlotte, Anna and four of her friends to the Acadia pool to swim for a couple hours, then they came home, decorated make-your-own pizzas for supper, ate homemade cake and then “slept” in the basement. I think I spent about eight solid hours just doing dishes that day. I won’t post photos from her party because I’m not sure how the girls’ parents would feel about that, but I can sum up my shots by saying the girls were JUST A LITTLE EXCITED.

Two days after that (see the pattern?) was the closing ceremony at Anna’s school, during which she won an Outstanding Effort and Achievement award:

Please forgive the photo; I was standing about a mile and a half away. That’s Anna to the left of the kid in the orange sweater. Her teacher is poking her head in between the two kids. The hoodlums in the back are the other Grade 6 teachers.

Anyway, this is what is printed on the back of her certificate (wording and random capitalization not mine, obviously):

This Award is presented to two students in each Homeroom

Who have Demonstrated an Outstanding Dedication to Learning.

These students have Shown Tremendous Intellectual and Social Development.

Both Exemplify the Academic Spirit and Work Ethic of

EMS to which All should Aspire.

Good God. I weep for the future. Seriously, people, just because you write something in italics doesn’t mean you can capitalize at will. I keep studying this little passage, looking for a pattern and I can’t find one. We have a few capitalized verbs, but not all. We have lots of capitalized nouns, but not all. I hate to be bitchy about it (not really, but let’s pretend), but shouldn’t EDUCATORS pay a teensy bit more attention to these kinds of things? You know, “setting a good example” and all that?

But maybe I’m just punchy because my medical situation has gone from bad to worse: a thyroid ultrasound I did about a month ago has revealed I have two nodules on my thyroid, one on the left side and one on the right. The good news is that the nodules aren’t necessarily cancerous and, even if they are, thyroid cancer is one of the easiest to treat. The bad news is I have to have a biopsy to find out for sure. Big needle in throat = no fun. So the revelation of this whole nodule thing combined with my whacked out hormone levels certainly helps explain my crappy health. Oh, how I’d love to take my ultrasound report and cram it down the piehole of that arsehole endocrinologist who said my problems were all in my head. Close, goofball – they’re in my throat, but better luck next time.