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"