Its the little things.

 I tell ya, I dont get no respect.   

I know, its a famous line from Rodney Dangerfield, but one which seems appropriate for this post.  You try to be the best dad possible, but people usually complain about something and basically say your attempts were "less than satisfactory".    I guess it is criticism which I should accept and improve upon. 

However, the criticism amounts to, "do things exactly the way you have done them all the time and dont change a thing."   Even small things can upset the overall product. In fact it is the small things which often screw up your efforts, or bring complaints.  

Examples come mostly from cooking and food.  

After I have established several recipes of dinner foods I have to stick to them like iron and can not improvise or change at all.

Lasagne.  No black olives.  Only green.  Ham, not any other meat.  I once tried to substitute my famous spaghetti sauce to make a bolognese lasagne.  But after two tries, that brought "Dad, can you go back to the original recipe and stop with the spaghetti sauce recipe?"   No ricotta cheese. I want to try that, but ... not with my kids.  Spinach lasagne?  Are you kidding?  My one daughter recently repeated AGAIN that she does not eat anything green.  

Tuna spaghetti.  Made with black olives only.  Not green.  And with the twisty bowtie noodles, not any other.  

When I got my recipe fine tuned on the family spaghetti sauce, they loved it, until at one time I tried it with ground pork and not ground beef.  Wrong. Failure.  I only did that once.  

The worst one I have to say myself was a bit bad, though my intentions were good, was trying to make the Buffalo Hot wings better.  I only strive for crispier and spicier hot sauce.   I only looked for another recipe on the internet which could help with this, but admittedly I dont see how adding honey to the sauce can make the sauce spicier hotter.  I made the wings last night again and my daughter who loves them said, "yes they were fine, except..."   the song remains the same: they were not spicy hot enough.  So, I have to change the recipe without changing the recipe.  Go figger.  

I guess it is mostly food making which draws the criticism of, "You changed it, why did you change it?", but there is another area which brings great ire to my daughter.  Fashion.  Though my wife could throw me out of the house on that issue alone, I have to point out two fashion faux pax which "trouble" my younger daughter.  In these cases it is not a matter of "keep them the same," but in fact "they are strictly NOT ALLOWED".   

Currently I only have one pair of pajama bottoms.  When they get dirty I have to resort to these swim pants warmers I rescued from my archives and brought to my current apartment.  They were in storage before, but that storage had to be liquidated or transferred.  I was on the swim team in high school and for warm up pants worn when we werent swimming we got bright orange sweat pants.  Bright orange.  You know, sports colors.  I have them still.  I found them in my storage and was sentimentally nostalgic and brought them to my current house.  And they are my only other pajama pants I have.  

My daughter hates them so much, in fact my whole family does, that I have to put them on after everyone is asleep and change to my clothes in the morning before i even do my morning pee.  I wore them once or twice and got such derision that I was scarred.   Nobody can stand the sight of them.  I always feel comfortable and nostalgic in them, but, I have to hide them.  

Lastly, I am not allowed to wear t shirts in the US which have foreign writing on them.  I dont get that one, but I abide by that.  I mean people in the US often wear T shirts with Japanese characters on them or maybe some French.  But "es ist verboten"  (good joke) for me to wear other language t shirts in the US.  Stuff I got from not Paris or Tokyo.  

I guess the point being that I always think I need a big overhaul of my personality and have to rewire my entire being to make myself better.  When in fact my younger daughter says, "no dad," in fact, "dont change things one bit, not even one LITTLE bit."  That pertains mostly to food.  Once you get the recipe and the taste down, then you can not mess with it at all.  

However dads, if we want respect, we have to face up to the facts on another topic.  99.7 per cent of us know nothing about fashion and just have to let others tell us what is good or bad and what we should or should not wear.  Though I thought jeans and a t shirt were safe, dont resist at all if they are not.  Just go find the suitable clothes and change.   Its the little things that can save your life right?  

Or destroy it.  

I started listening to Tyler the Creator  "Igor" several months ago on advice from my daughter.  I finally got it in the store and sold it in one or two days.   Will get it again.  My daughter owns the vinyl courtesy of me.  I was listening to this more as i was editing as I cant write and listen to lyrical music so well. 

I was also listening to this band while editing upon recommendation of a customuer.  Wow, talk about Math metal.  This just does not let up.  10x Meshuggah.   CAR BOMB  "Mordial"  

"Poor Daddy" part 1. Sucker for the sick card?

 There must be some tool for measuring if you are being a sucker or being conned or not.   Dont they have something on the market?   

On Wednesday after Easter my older daughter was sick again.  Upset stomach.  That is the hardest sickness to confirm. A cough, they cough.  A runny nose, they blow their nose.  Maybe a headache too.  But an upset stomach?  Yeah yeah they are curled up and in pain.  "Dad, I cant make it to my first class".  Ok, ok.   sure sure. Skip that one and go later in the morning.  

Meanwhile I go to work.  I come back home.  "So, did you go to school at all?"   

"Well no.  See, I fell back asleep, woke up, got up at 11 and threw up.   Then I took a long shower and it was noon. I had a dental hygiene appointment at 2pm, so... just then I noticed that my room was a mess, that I had a big pile of clothes on the floor and my desk was messy.  So I spent over an hour cleaning it up."  

Ok.  Just one thing.  Well, maybe two.  Or maybe more.  Why does she suddenly notice now on Wednesday after we have been telling her on the weekend that she has clothes to put away?  And her  desk has been messy for months.  Suddenly she sees this, on Wednesday during school, and thinks that it would be a good idea to clean it up.  I have to say she really cleaned everything off her desk.  At least that part is good.  But it isnt too unobvious that it was an excuse.  And the throw up? Who knows.  No one was home.  She didnt take a picture of her spewing into the toilet bowl.  

Then of course she felt better.  She made it to her dental appointment with no problem and she even felt well enough and sunny to go out with some friends in the afternoon and come home for supper.   Fancy that.  

Now fine, maybe I am being unfair.  I dont know girls and womens pains coming on and how long they last. Many men dont.  Not their fault, but then men shouldnt second guess painful cramps and quick sicknesses, which in fact is what I am doing today.  So, my bad. 

I guess it boils down to whether your child has a good reputation or not.  If they are using the sick card quite often, you start to wonder how much and how many times they can really be sick, or in pain?   

But I think the father is between a rock and a hard place and will always lose.  1) If the dad says "no, this time you are going to school," you cant be certain you arent sending them into school to throw up someplace awkward or to send their germs all over, or just in general to suffer and be uncomfortable all day and in pain.   2) if the dad says, "yes yes, sure sure, you better stay home", you cant be sure that the child isnt calling him a sucker behind his back or something thereof and learning that the sick card can usually be used if asked of Dad.   Dad loses no matter what.  Poor Daddy.  

Cant we invent a thermometer that measures truth?  I guess a lie detector test which can be put under the tongue or shoved up the butt like a thermometer in the old days?   

Had this album when I was a kid.  Brother threw it away.  I "rebought" it this week used and have been listening to it endlessly.