Corona Virus Pandemic Cooking

There are always some good things that come out of bad things.  Right?  I mean, as George Carlin said: "within every silver lining there's a dark cloud".  So my silver lining around the dark cloud of the Pandemic was playing sports with my kids - football and two square,  AND cooking more.

This last week I cooked even more than my wife.  She wimped out and got them chicken nuggets  on Friday and then took them out to a restaurant for lunch on Saturday after they went to an aqua park which had just re opened.  Well, you have got to eat a lunch out after the aqua park, so that was nice.

Anyway

Cooking blogs and cooking magazines are always the biggest sellers.  So I thought I would try to gain some cooking viewers to my blog.  But really I am very proud of my expanding cooking repertoire that I just wanted to share a couple "Dad at home" cooking meals.  Really nothing spectactular, very easy stuff.  But stuff that is yummy, decent food and works.  Well, if the chicken is correct.  So please don't scoff or laugh at my selection and my description of what to do.  Very easy stuff.  When you start at close to zero on cooking knowledge (well, maybe ten), you are proud of a ten point jump to making meals.  I won't be writing it like a recipe, but in regular writing format.

1. BBQ pork chops with potatoes.
Very easy stuff, but I started adding the potatoes underneath the chops to cook in the BBQ and those are very delicious and makes the whole meal much tastier and "fuller".  For three people I get 10 or 12 medium size chops, not huge and baste one side with BBQ.  Small, couple grains of salt on each chop and even less pepper, just a bit on the first side. Put in oven at 180 or 200 C depending on the strength of your oven.  You have to be pealing and then boiling the potato slices while you cook the first side of the porks.  I boil the slices of potatoes to soften them up.  After cooking the chops for about twenty minutes, I put the potatoes underneath the chops, turn the chops over and gently salt and peppr the other side and baste the other side with BBQ sauce too.  If the chops are real thick, you may want to hammer them down in thickness a bit.  I dont think the real thick ones cook as well, but actually I haven't tried those yet.

2. Vegetable Soup
Ingredients you will need (but it can be varied)
cube of vegetable bouillon
one onion
one carrot
can of peas or frozen or fresh of course (about 12 ounce can amount)
jar or can of stewed tomatoes without peelings
fistful of rice noodles wide length
4 pinches of salt
Other vegetables to your liking, such as corn or beans.
I usually spice it up a bit with some sort of hot sauce like hot wing sauce or tobasco, a bit.  But maybe IF the kids would eat it, I would lay off these spices.

I have been making this one when the kids are gone to the cottage with Mom and I am home alone in the city and trying to save the money or very little to spend at the end of the week in the budget.  The kids don't like some ingredient or another in the soup.

1 liter of cold water with the bouillon cube in the water. Start to cook.  I have the Isreali vegetable bouillon cubes left over from our trip to Isreal and they were very tasty. But I used the last one last night.
Right away when you start to boil the water, chop up the one carrot, the smaller the cube size, the softer they ll be. I am making them medium size now and still they are cooking down.  Cut the onion too. I am cutting the onion slices bigger and bigger it seems.  So I can get more taste out of it in a piece.  Put them in whenever you have them chopped up.  The carrot and onion need to cook longer than the peas and noodles.  The first part is going to take 10-15 minute to boil.  When it is boiling put in the peas and the can or jar of stewed tomatoes.  My mother in law is making those so it is very good and healthy.  Put a fist of rice noodles in at this time too, last.  Then with four pinches of salt (or less maybe if you dont like salt, I do) and you are going to cook it all now at a low boil for at least another 15 minutes, maybe twenty or even thirty .  Test it out to see everything is cooked to softness and the noodles are not hard at all. I tend to overcook a bit, too soft, but I seem to like it that way.  So maybe just 15 minutes of cooking from the boiling.  Maybe I even cook it for 25 minutes since it boiled.  That is possible.

But oh my goodness it is a thick soup.  Almost a stew.  And it is so so good.  I mean it should be enough for four people each with a big helping.  But I can eat the whole batch in one evening after I have made it and I am writing or reading on the computer. I just keep going back for more. I guess that is how Westerners get fat.  They sit in front of their computers and just keep eating.  But this is good wholesome vegetable soup.  I just can!t stop eating it when it is there. It calls me.  I would even say more than a pizza. I can get enough of pizza, but this soup, I just keep taking more bowls.  The only way for me to stop is to put it in the fridge, or just go to bed.  Seriously.  I even had the leftovers cold at work today because I didn't have a cooker. It was still good even cold.

3.  Buffalo style Chicken Wings.
Having grown up outside of Buffalo I have been eating these for decades.  When we were teen agers we used to have competitions on who could eat the most of the suicide chicken wings.  This Danish school buddy dude, Nils, was the winner all the time and he was quite proud about this. The trick is to not let the sauce touch your lips.  That is where it burns the most.  The lips are too sensitive for suicide wings.

I have actually been making these for over a year now since we found the sauce to put on them.  I am not going to say which sauce it is, though it has the word "Buffalo" in it.  Kind of demeans the whole recipe just knowing that the sauce is from a bottle. I guess you could make your own sauce.  Tobasco sauce. I tried to make a chipotle hot wing the other night, but it didnt have much taste.  Mind you, I am oven cooking these.  Other people deep fry them or something else, so maybe that makes it a bit different.  I ought to try to read how other people do them soon.

Easy.  10 -12 wings for three people.  Baste one side with the hot wing sauce.  I am using about a half bottle of 354 ml hot sauce per dinner.  a dab, a small dab of salt on the wings.  No pepper. It doesnt work with these wings.  Put in oven 200 Celsius.  Cook one side up for about 20-25 minutes.  Take out and baste another helping of hot sauce on the other side of the wings with a couple granuals of salt per wing.  Put back in the oven and cook another 25 minutes or so.  Its going to be at least an hour from start to finish.  After making these for more than a year, I still don't have it down on how to make the skin crispy and the sauce really sticking to the chicken.  But I think I make em well enough and I have enough sauce in the pan that I spoon it over the wings after they are on the plate.  Which gives them extra sauce, and watery sacue, which is good. I should only eat 4, but if I can get 5, that is enough to fill me.  Oh, but they are just so heavenly that if one is left over, I ll eat that one too.

I am not fat, but my wife says I eat too many portions.  And this WILL get me fat.  Tummy is rounding out more.  But seriously my tummy is as round as others who are twenty years younger than I am.  But.... I should cut out those extra helpings.

Sadly I probably won¨t be able to do the chicken wings anymore, or just for myself. My older daughter was mad at me when I made the chickent wings the other night.  Mostly because the chicken label is or was owned by this politician here who is corrupt and very bad.  He should have divested his business interests when he got into office, but it is very probable that he did not or still has strong connections to them. So, I agreed to stop buying chicken from that supermarket and get it from the local butcher.  I should buy more from small stores anyway, as I have a small store.  I will try from now on.  But then she said she didn't like the wings anymore.  That would break my heart.  I think of tall Nils eating his suicide wings every time, and all the wings I ate as a teenager.  Oh well, different people different tastes.

But really once you have the sauce, it is just a matter of basting the sauce on  and sticking them in the oven to cook. Easier than spaghetti.  I love a spicy, hot food, so I could eat these every week. 

In fact I love all my recipes.  The soup took a couple weeks to get right, but now it is so tasty as I already pointed out.

I have more recipes in my repertoire.  Chicken Cordon Bleu, a good easy lasagne which the kids really like, a spaghetti of course and a couple others.  The point is to find some recipes that your wife or spouse IS NOT making. Otherwise you are just copying and your kids will compare your food with the food their mother makes.  But actually they said I make a better lasagne now. I am going to try a frankfurter soup, but Grandmother makes a good version of this, so I have to find a different version.

So, there I hope it was an interesting little cooking spiel I have presented.  Please please this time, if you want to send over your recipes, Dads, please I would really love it this time.  I dont care what they are.  The simpler the better.  Salads, eggs, pancakes, whatever.  By the way, I am sorry to say that these pictures are not mine.  I am not one of those who takes pictures of his meals.  BUT for these I really should have my own creations pictured.  So, I am going to put in these stock photos for now and hopefully exchange them sometime for my own creations, once I make them again and get a picture of them.  Its just kind of stupid hype pretensiousness to me, but... I ll do it.

Bless all of you and if you read this that means you made it, so far, through the pandemic and you are safe.  Don't drop your guard completely now.  Still keep a distance from strangers.  It is still going around.  We still have to wear the masks inside shops, but I really don't mind that.  Rather safe than dead by disease.  Excuse me now, I have to make my dinner salad.

Love

Still listening to the bondage label (I hate that label name).  This is bondage 12053 Alex Ranerro with a remix by the Pornbugs (another bad name), which just grooves very nicely. It makes you just nod your head back and forth and tap your foot. This is 2020 deep house, quite different from 2000 aughts deep house.  That was more housy with more vocals.  This 2020 stuff is more minimal house and techno sounds.  I am partial to dub techniques which there are more of.  Also echo and minimalism in the techno and house.  Reverb too.  Less vocal and a nice steady easy tempo.  Very good music for writing, especially at night.
I ll be getting in 12053 and 12054 soon.  Both very good.

The Internet Schooling Pandemic

This

I sat in my kitchen last week having a "lesson" with my one student who stayed on during the pandemic.  He has two teen age sons so his experience is a bit different from mine.  His kids are on some form of internet application in school for at least 4 hours a day. Then they are finished and they "retire" to their rooms and continue on their own.  My student seemed to think that this type of school would be the school of the future.

ugh. agh.  I shudder to think.

If you didnt notice I was being ironic saying that I had my lesson with him over skype then I "agh" school on the internet.  This is not lost on me.  But I still would hate to think that this type of school would be the future.

Why?

vs this

Well my kids are a bit younger, in sixth and 3rd grade and my experience with them with internet schooling is quite different.  First of all, I hope you have been reading my pandemic posts (well geez, there was lockdown, what else have you got to do?) because all of them had some comment, usually negative about my kids with internet schooling.

First and mainly, this just seems to me another example of transferring more work to parents from the source.  You know, like on line banking?  Before you handed the form to the cashier and they did all the money transferring and sending it to the parties to do whatever.  Now we do all the work on online banking. It takes us more time.  Otherwise we get charged in the bank.
The loss of a travel agent and booking ourselves is the same thing. No matter how many times you have done it and don't mind doing it, it is still a task of several hours that we didn't do before.

I can tell you both my wife and I have put a lot more time into our kids with their schooling during the pandemic time.  Now you may say, "great" more time with the kids and with important things like schooling.  uh, no.  Because much of the time was not spent with tutoring them.  Helping them with school I did not mind and liked.  But the other thing we had to do was watch them and make sure they were  paying attention and doing the work.  This was work  either the teacher would do or would not have to be done.  Really my kids are NOT bad students but at home I had to yell at them quite often to get off the video games and pay attention to the class or save the video games till after 3pm.  In school my daughter would NOT start playing a video game at any instance in school.  She knows better than that. But at home..... .  She can turn the school class camera off and even the microphone off and just pay attention when she is called on, otherwise she might be playing a video game on her phone.  Royal pain.

And several times a day: "did you do your math homework?  You want me to help you with something?  Can you show me that you sent the work in?"   In physical school the teacher says, "ok, hand in your assignment", and the kids do. If it 's not done, they have some sort of penalty and besides they usually really feel bad for not doing the assignment.  Not so with school from home. 

This vs

From the likes of it, I don't think I am the only one who was dissatisfied with internet schooling by far.  Even my student who said his kids were fine with the school at home told me later that his wife was staying at home every day (she also worked at his company) because she had much more work with their kids and their schooling AND preparing more meals at home, which we also had to do.

The national at home dads network (NAHDN) in the U.S. has a video out that gives you pointers with helping your kids with schooling while they are at home.  There are probably other resources or DVDs on home schooling current and from the recent past.

Now I won't deny that there are some advantages and some room for internet schooling in the future,

this

like one day or half a day or something, but I put my foot down and object if it were to be more than 2 days.  Especially for basic school 1 through 5. I don't believe that it can work well.

My wife was so put off by our daughters not learning well enough that she will be taking some longer time off from work in the near future to make sure they stay up with their school work.  Basically she will spend more time supervising them.  I can't decide if this is good or bad.

And for those kids whose parents both have a job. or I shudder to think about single parents,  who have limited free time with their kids, usually families of lower income, it will just be another dividing mechanism between rich and poor.  Not to mention the technology equipment that has to be purchased.  It isnt so easy for EVERYONE to put up the money. 

And of course just more tech stress.  My older sister is a professor and her university was closed, but she did internet teaching and she mentioned just the extra time she had to spend dealing with the tech aspect of teaching was such a pain and probably very time consuming especially at first.  Granted once you do it for a year you can iron out the problems, but it is just another 10 to 50 hours you are going to have to spend to learn something which probably has nothing to do with teaching. But now in these days it has to be learned.  For those who just want to teach but aren't good with tech, it will just mean more tech stress which... isn't fun. Let's put it another way.  What if you had to learn the piano or violin to teach kids.  Many teachers do know how to play and incorporate it in their teaching, but not all.   But if you HAD to and you weren't musically inclined wouldn't it just stress you out and make you angry? Maybe it was your dream to teach, but you can't play an instrument which you must, so you can¨t teach.  Does this make sense?

I had a parents meeting on the internet with the teachers of my older daughter.  School MIGHT open up on June first.  But nobody knows.  Maybe there will be a combination of school at school and at home.  OK.  My wife and I and even my daughter ALL want her to go back to school.  The teachers said, yes, one day in school and 4 at home.  One day? 

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Pandemic be gone.
Internet schooling be gone too.  Shoo .

How I nearly died during the Covid 19 pandemic. Dad 90% at home during covid-19

I was inspired by an article in the New York Times last week that was about all the people who were writing about their experiences during the Corona pandemic.  There are now several sites set up in the US recording peoples' lives during the pandemic. Some just telling how they feel and their emotions.  Others more.  Most of the stories seem anxious, angry, or sad.  
 Though I have lost all my income during the month and a half and my children have school at home and that takes a lot more of our time up and more money taking care of them and watching over their work, in fact no one even caught the common cold.  Thank God my wife still had her job.  But  I can't say it has been an emotional time for me. I already have a couple posts up documenting daddy 90% at home during this time, so I will just write about this one day I had..... where I nearly died. 

Well, part of the problem was that I did not get a good night sleep.  I very rarely do.   But get this, I

got woken up at 5.10 am  by an alarm that sounded like a rooster crowing.  And then you hear "let me sleep, let me sleep"  over and over until it is mixed with the morning doves coo, which is warped to say, "let me sleep, let me sleep".  This going off every minute.  No kidding. At 5.15am!  Whose mind is so evilly creative? 

At 8am I am making tea and eggs for my daughters.  I guess I should have guessed by the bad 5am start that I might end up dying today.  Who thinks that near death can strike any day. 

It's not that I had to get my youngest daughter connected on a voice over company to her teacher quickly before her class started at 11am.  I did, you know.  Ha, and my wife calls me computer illiterate.  The adrenaline gets going even for stupid things like that.  Is that the fight or flight mechanism also? 

Its not that I had to get the lunch prepared AGAIN and I had no idea what I was going to make.  So I fell back for the nth time on my beloved melted cheese sandwiches, version 3.  And that worked too.  My older daughter said, "daddy, I am so hungry for lunch, please make me 7 cheese sandwiches".  She ended up eating 4. 

It's not that I had to clean the house, or at least the dishes and bathroom, because there are some household chores that have to be done every day.  They don't get done by themselves.  And if you don't do them, chaos sets in very quickly especially in a small house. 

It's not that I had my own work to do that I didn't get to. 

It's not that I was playing a really strenuous game of two

Not my daughter but both play 2sq

square (pictured twice) with my youngest daughter which we played for nearly an hour.  The problem was that I did not believe that, ME, the four square champion of the school yard when I was ten years old with Paul K could no longer play like I was ten years old!  That really confused me.  But it wasn't that. Even though I felt that something was wrong and I couldn't walk straight and I felt a little unbalanced afterward.

It's not that right after that it was getting to six pm and I had ignored the dog all day and she needed exercise too.  I was throwing the plastic chicken, her favorite toy, back and forth to her and running after her and playing tug of war with her growling with the plastic chicken in her mouth.

 IT WAS THAT I realized that I was way, WAY TIRED and it was EVERYTHING all together now.

I had to sit down on the bench and rest.  I felt that I could have a heart attack any minute.  It just was all too much for me.  Here it comes...?    


It's not that I am out of shape, although I should work on that bulge called a tummy. 

Imagine that.

It is that it takes a lot of energy to be a father. 

Imagine that.

During Corona it has taken even more energy.  

Imagine that too.  I wouldn't have. 


A morning dove flew overhead and starting cooing "Let me sleep, let me sleep". 
No kidding. 

I have gotten my house albums in order now.  This is Tribal UK 037.  The DJ Vibes B2 track "out there dub" is fantastic.  From 1995, incredible.  Still one of my all time favorite tracks.  

I was also inspired by episode 39 of the Dick van Dyke show in which Mary Tyler Moores' character had an especially trying day at home as a parent.  You could just as well have substituted daddy in that role.

Daddy 90% at home! Laborious tale of my days during the pandemic. (Trite and banal, but SO WHAT)

Wish I could be as great a teacher as this guy
(pic used by authors consent)

Funny thing is, I am working more and longer hours during this pandemic.  Although my kids just laughed at me when I told them that, "hahaha, what are you doing? Writing more emails?", I am usually working 12 hour days.  I am just getting up a bit later in the morning because I go to bed between 1am and 2am.  But the thing is, probably none of it would be considered "on the books" or creating value in this economically monetized system we live in these days.  Everything is measured by how much value it is worth.  (But if it is like that, how much value do all those facebook posts create? )  In other words, I probably won't make a dime on most of the work I am doing.  Hopefully some of it in later times, but a lot of it: nothing. 

So kids, let me tell you that I am working harder spending more time with you!

With the children in school at home, I am spending a couple hours a day being teacher.  I

Doesn't it look like a happy camper beachball?

do math and english with one daugther and sometimes math with the other daughter.  Then for at least two weeks, since my wife still has a paying job and has to concentrate on that, albeit most of the time at home in a separate room, I was doing all the shopping, and lunch and dinner meals.   I tell you, the week after Easter it was a wonder I pulled off enough good meals.  I have to pat myself on the back that I did it.  It meant doing the shopping every day, and getting the timing right.... well, we usually had lunch around 3pm and dinner at 8 pm, so um,  my timing was not exactly on.  

Morning time was always busy.  Ok, like I said, I could get up at 8am or even 9, 9.30 because I didn't have my classes to get to.  I did still have one class on skype with a student.  In any case by 10.15 my younger daughter had scheduled help with me on either math or English.  Then my older daughter perhaps requested my time for help with math at 11.15, though it didn't take long.  I didn't even get in English classes with her because she was trying very very hard to keep up with all they assigned her.  As it was and is, we have to watch over her shoulder and make sure she is sending in the homework.  And when she had a virtual class at 11 or 12, regrettably I had to come in more than once and tell her to pay attention fully to the class and put away her phone (where once she was playing a video game which made me very angry).  So I had to be school monitor too.  

At 12 or 12.30 I had my first chance to check my emails and do some reading on pre open of the stock market.  A little bit of an escapism waste of time on my part, rationalized that I have to keep up on my stocks in this volatile period.  

I hate geometry.  What to do with this?

At 12.30 my younger daughter was done and she either wanted help on TOMORROWS homework or wanted to play a game a bit before lunch.  I should go to the store NOW, but it was still only 12.30 and so I put it off to sit with her with work or play.  

By 1.15 I really needed to get to the store for what I am planning for lunch.  That could take half an hour to pick it up.  But when I got it back, it was a success.  OK, i know, making melted cheese sandwiches in various forms is not the haute cuisine I could cook or aim for, it is rather low class.  Then again, getting your kids to be artistic with simple  rolls (not baguettes) and what food goes well in them, is sort of like making a pizza, which is very creative.  It has much more value than playing a video game, in my humble opinion.  And baking  is fun and easy.  Hopefully my kids got the idea and they will be able to survive in college with their daddy's book "20 ways to make melted cheese sandwiches and never be bored with them".   I, um, haven't actually written the book because as of yet, I only have seven ways, but I am getting closer every week. 

Lunches were relaxed and fun and tasty, but when we finished it was 3pm or after.  Now my daughter got back to work or if she was done with school I hounded her to practice her guitar.  My younger daughter took the dog for a walk.  She was out with the dog till 4.30 or so.  My older daughter was really trying to catch up and stayed in and sat at the table I was at and did more school assignments.  I had to help her with some math homeworks she still had undone.  If they weren't too hard, I could take my second break to work on my stuff and see how the stocks were doing on opening.  I had some real volatile stocks that I  wanted to unload but then use the money to buy some other stuff. A lot was happening so I had to pay attention to that, though I am strictly an amateur on stock picking. In recent years I have been a rather bad one at that.  I think

My stocks

I am getting the hang of and learning the secret of how to destroy wealth.  It isn't as easy as you might think it is. It has taken me several years to see it happen and another several years probably for me to understand why.   That will be my sophomore book published after the grilled cheese sandwich bestseller. Admittedly, a book on how to destroy your wealth might not be a big seller.    

At 4.30 pm my younger daughter was home with the pooch  and she wanted to go out and play catch.  I said yes yes, in ten minutes.  At 5 pm I finished and we got ready to go out.  Masks on.  It is very nice that my older daughter also wanted to join us outside.  She actually picked us over a video game of BRAWL, which by now, I despise (more on that in a later post).  

I have to say it has been one of my greatest successes and pleasures so far this year to start to teach my girls how to play touch American Football.  Excuse me, I have to call it American football as I know I have a lot of European readers who know football as soccer. So my girls, 8 and 11 really got into learning how to play football.  The downfall NEARLY came when they learned that in fact you can have a repeat of the four downs if you make a first down up 10 yards from where you started.  My older daughter was quite disappointed by that.  "But then you can have endless four downs and always make a goal."  She had first liked it and assumed that you only got four downs to make a touchdown.  Then the other person gets four downs to get a touchdown.  We had played it that way on the first day.  But by the second day they had so progressed that I had to clarify and expand the rules.  

Well needless to say, it is schooling in process.  It will take a while yet.  Maybe we' ll get more chances, or in the summer more games.  It was 6.30 at the end of the game and I had to do the shopping for dinner.  You might ask, why didn't I get the dinner stuff at lunch?  Well in fact I did get stuff on Tuesday which I had planned to have in the fridge till Friday, but when it came to the day, I had either changed my plans or something was lacking that I had to run down to the store to get still.  Bad planning, or just inexperience.  It still happens to my wife though.  Also, i can't carry a lot. I am not driving because the grocery store is two blocks down the street.  So, I get what I can carry.  

Since the lunches had been successes, I wasn't as concerned if I failed for supper.  And in fact Wednesday was a real winner with just a simple meal of a really good klobassa with potatoes.  And I actually made the potatoes so they were done at the same time as the meat.  I may have graduated to a higher state of cooking consciouness with this accomplishment. It isn't so simple.  I think destroying wealth is easier to do than getting the potatoes done at the same time as the main meal.   

Even the next night's dinner was a success with a bachelor's version of chicken cordon bleu (just plunk the ham and cheese on top of the breaded chicken).  I think I failed Friday though because they said Mommy would cook that night, but when she came home, she said, "no way" and I had to throw something into the oven but I did it wrong.  I always mess up with pork chops.  

The thing is, I was cooking from 7 and it was done by 8 or 8.30 and then by the time we were done, it was about bed time.  I had to acquiesce and give in for a bit of TV watching because I guess it had been my bad planning and my love to teach them Football, which had thrown us way off schedule.  So they were going to bed by 10 pm or a speck after ... which is a bit later than I would prefer.  But they get up a bit later these days also, so...

I still had to push them, make sure they brushed their teeth and had things ready for tomorrow.  It was after 10 pm  now.  

All in all these are 12 or 13 hour days we are talking about, with a bit of a break for half an hour in the late morning and another in the mid to late afternoon.  12 hours dude, all week.  Why don't you work all week in the office for twelve hours and see if you come home able to stand.  I know, some of you are saying, "but I do", well, but you don't do 12 hours with your kids sonny.  And let me tell you man, THAT is a whole different kettle of kilbasa!   Not to mention that after my kids are in bed, I either will still be walking the dog or looking at emails and trying to do a bit more of my own work which is on half hold, but is also keeping me busy in alternate weeks.   

Anyway. I am not complaining.  I just want to pat myself on the back a little and say, "yeah, you can do it".  And even though many people  won't consider it worthy of payment, unless they have to get a nanny, then they see how much it costs, anybody who spends any amount of time, and probably more time during this pandemic, with their kids will know that it is worth a whole lot more than so many peoples' worthless button punching jobs.  Here, put this casserole in your pipe and smoke THAT!


I wrote this for the first time at the weekend cottage. Saturday night, so I was not listening to anything.  But upon returning and correcting, I listened to a new label I really like.  I will get this single on vinyl.  A real beaut of a deep house ep. 

Sascha Dive: Detroit Sunrise ep

Easter egg hunting which method? A typically banal and trite tale by Max

I have been looking for and then hiding Easter eggs from the Easter Bunny for so many years that if I still had the eggs from my first hunt they would be fossils now.   So I am so shocked as to how this problem never ever came up in all my years of Easter eggs.  Such a big problem that it will cause me to change the methodology of Easter egg hiding in future years to see if something works better. 

I don't know.  Maybe since I was the youngest, my older sisters let me find some eggs even though they found them themselves first. Maybe. I dont know. They never said anything if they did. And as far as I recall we never compared how many eggs we each found and cried if we found less than our siblings. But then again, maybe my selective memory is blocking out problems which did occur when I was young, but I don't remember.  Maybe. 

Let me re create this sad sad tale. 

Last week from this writing was Easter.  As a tradition that stretches back to time immemorial, or at

A picture of me coloring eggs with my dad in the 60s...
wait, that might not be me.. or my father

least the 1960s in my family, the Easter bunny gave me stuff to hide for my daughters.  I think this was the first time we were out at the weekend cottage so I was given chocolates by the Bunny to hide both in the house and outside in the expansive garden.   I have always been the contact for the Bunny and he (or she) just gives me the contents, and it is up to me to hide them.   Me and Easter Bunny have, from prior years, worked out a long contract which I could post here as exhibit A, but um...its not in digital form, so it would be a lot of time to do so. 

At any rate, I hid an even amount of chocolates inside and outside.  I mean the Easter Bunny couldn't hide them overnight outside or they would have been eaten by animals or something.  Just one reason he has me do it.  Anyway, I digress again. 

It was meant and hoped that each girl would  find the same amount of chocolate pieces but somehow it came to be that my younger daughter had 2 more than my older with just one more chocolate to find.  So, a little too soon, I said, "and one more bonus is hidden in the hallway."  They both raced out there and again my younger daughter found that one too (placed in the dogs food bowl... while there was still food in it.  Wasn't that just plain nasty of me?  It was an ugly joke).   And then the mood of my older daughter changed to sulking and anger.  She started to yell at her sister that it was meant for her to find and it was no fair SHE had found it.  Not only that, but the younger sister,  very competitive when it comes to getting chocolate one would gather, was not playing by any "fair" rules and subsequently ALSO found the last chocolate in the other room.   Now my older daughter was just plain depressed with the situation, and furious with her sister.

"No fair.  No fair.  I should have found those last two.  The bonus was for me, AND the last one too.  No fair.  You shouldn't have found those.  They were for me." 

My family pose for the Easter egg hunt.  Oh wait
those aren't my daughters.  Mmm, that's not me either, but it is...
oh, not my wife either.

But her sister didnt pay any attention. 

There were still all the chocolates out in the garden, but to make a longer story shorter, my older daughter was angry and sad and she sulked the rest of the time and didn't care about looking for the chocolates anymore, or so it appeared.  The atmosphere was very damp, the game was not fun and the whole Easter tradition ruined this year.  If Niagara Falls had been near, I would have jumped into the river to go over the Falls.  And for anyone who has stood at the precipice of Niagara Falls before the water drops, on the Canadian Falls side, and has seen the water going over the edge, will know how scary this is.  But I would have jumped, just to end it all. I was just so sad the whole tradition this year had come off like this. 

I tried to surreptitiously help my older daughter find more chocolates outside, but she just sort of moped through it all and that didn't work either.  She was just so angry that her little sister had not played by fair rules of the game. And I had had such great hiding places out in the garden too.  Lost cause. 

What made matters worse was just two days ago, my older daugther had said she couldn't wait for the annual egg/chocolate hunting this year.  She was really looking forward to it.  All gone down the drain.

So, I repeat my question from the beginning: How is it, this problem has never occurred before?  When i was young, I really dont recall any fights or sadness that so and so found many more eggs and so and so didnt find as many.  Or maybe I am not remembering?  Maybe it did happen?  Should I ask my sisters?  I really dont want to. They'll think I am nuts.  Or they won't remember or care. 

And to the best of my knowledge it hasn't happened with my daughters before.  Maybe in all years passed they always found equal amounts?  I doubt it..  How have I overlooked this problem before?
Really you can not imagine the heartbroke I experienced because my older daughter was so devastated with her meager findings at the hands of her sister. 

stock photo fron internet of girls looking
for Easter eggs.  eh.... yawn.

So next year I am going to use methodology hunting instructions B or C.  Either B, they will each have their own chocolates (or whatever) to look for.  Daughter older will look for red and blue and younger daughter yellow and green, or whatever.  The only problem with that I keep thinking is that if one sister finds an egg of the other, they may rehide it where the other sister wont find it, like throw it in the toilet or in the garbage or something.  Then what?  I guess I could say, I dont know where that one is and hide another right away? 

OR method C,  I will have a communal pot and all product either daughter finds will go into one bowl to be divided equally after the show.  I can imagine that they may not like this method and will object because they would rather be competitive with each other and say, "I have four, how many do you have?"  Some of the fun will be taken out of it if they will have to pool the findings.  But I may have to squelch their dissent if they dont like this. 

Any ideas out there?  Any suggestions?  Any stories?  Don't overwhelm the system and all answer at once.  But I would appreciate any comments on what worked best for you if you have experienced this problem, or have in fact not because you had a good system. 

A couple weeks ago when we started lockdown because of covid-19 I first started finally organizing my whole record collection and putting some order to my Techno and House records.  I got the Techno stuff in order, but not the House music yet.  So while I have been writing I have been stopping every 7 minutes to turn over a House single or put a new one on.  Some of this stuff I haven't listened to in fifteen years and have forgotten what it was.  It is a very pleasurable rediscovery.  It feels like (listening for) the first time. 

NRK was a great label for deep house and house.  Miguel Migs "Laptop Excursion" on the "Feel It" single I really love.  Sadly I dont have any Ian Pooley on vinyl, just some on CD. I ll have to listen to the CD ep "The Allnighter"  I have tomorrow.  Really have a taste for that.  He  had the sound nailed.  What is he doing now? Answer: still mixing. The MAN!

Why yell? It does not help at all. It just leaves everyone angry

Even on the fifth floor when the windows were closed I could hear this guy shouting on the street.  What a complete moron.  I looked out the window and see this guy walking back and forth on the corner and yelling into his speaker phone.  A) He was a drug addict waiting for his fix and the fix was late as usual and so the guy was getting the shakes.  Or B) he was a mental case and wasn't really talking to anyone, just shouting.  (I am sure you have heard this at least once where someone is having a heated discussion on their phone but when you listen carefully you realize there is no one on the other end of the phone?)

The guy was a jerk, but really what was he going to accomplish?  His dealer wasn't going to come running over there post haste because the guy was yelling at him.  If anything it would

just slow the dealer down, give him a good laugh that the fix is going crazy.  If the shouter WAS mentally unstable, well then it wasn't meant to accomplish anything besides .... besides, um, give the mental guy some sort of relief? 

Unless you are a very abusive father and back up your yelling with physical abuse so that your children are afraid of you, yelling at your kids is of limited value. 

Take a friend who has a retail shop. The landlord comes to yell at him if the rent is one day late.  What good does it do?  My friend hates his landlord even more and he tries to devise  plans of how to cheat his landlord.  Granted he makes sure his rent is mostly paid on time, or to warn the landlord if it will be late, but if he sees some hole or loop where he can cheat his landlord, he takes it.  He has no respect for the landlord.  The landlord offers him no benefits in return for his early payment.  IF the landlord would lower the rent, my friend would respect him more and feel that he was fair and pay the rent on time, I am sure of that.  OK granted, the landlord doesn't care about charity he just wants to get his money on time as he probably has his own payments to make.  But unless it is backed up with a penalty, the equivalent of abuse, what good does it get the landlord?  What does he care, he doesn't need respect.

Maybe it is a bad example. Most people dont deal with a person when they have to pay something these days.  It is all computer operated and the amount is due and if it is late the computer sends a late notice and or a penalty.  No arguments.  Only hackers can mess with the computer.

But we are dealing with personal contact with kids and parents, not heartless computers.  So the example makes sense. 

Really do you have good standing and do you or your kids feel comfortable around you after you have been yelling at them?  Yes you too.  Do you feel good around YOU after you have been yelling?  It just makes them want to avoid you for however length of time it takes to get back to better atmosphere or the whole thing has been forgotten or sort of brushed under the rug.  How long can that take?  And again, if you are just a bag of yells then your kids will avoid you all the time and then where will your yelling have gotten you?  It could come down to alienation of you from your kids.  I dont know.  Maybe that is what you want.  So you won't have to deal with them anymore.  I could think of better methods, but if this is what your goal is... why did you have kids in the first place? You didn't want them in the first place and now you are trying to get rid of them?  I dont know. This is leading us down a spiraling hole to nowhere.  You just want some peace and quiet?  Do you want peace and quiet in a household with a really bad atmosphere? Or lots of good feeling and good atmosphere?  You have your kids, so maybe wouldn't it be better to find a positive solution of parent and child rather than an aggressive loud mouthed one?  

Take my example of the last few weeks where for some reason I had been yelling at my older daughter more than usual.   It would just get my adrenaline going and when it got going it had trouble stopping.  So you sit there and yell and yell, longer than you meant to or you had words for.   It developed that she would say whenever I came in her room that she was working on it, or that she was finished and she had only now started playing a game, just for a break.  After a week or so, she just started yelling back at me and then we both didn't like each other.  Then you can't even be in the same room, or you avoid each other.  Then what?  It was an impasse.  

I stopped it. I stopped yelling.  Now I just ask her if she needs any help from me if there is something I can help her with or if I can make her a cup of tea. I have heard they have full class skype meetings at least once a day and that has made me happier perhaps that she is actually still being schooled in this difficult time when we all have to be at home.   While it isn't "soothed" over, I think my adrenaline doesn't increase and I stay more relaxed.  Fight or flight among family members is not ideal.   

Next week if I get the chance I will look into why perhaps we do yell and see if there is an answer for it, alternatives to yelling.  

To tell you the truth. I have been home alone this week and working very hard.  I have had to listen to the Gratefull Dead to relax and smile.  I used to own these albums.  

Happy Easter everyone and stay safe and please wear your masks when you go outside or are in contact with people you dont know or aren't sure are safe.  

Walking on a rug of nails. Life during corona virus time.

How can I go wrong with melted cheese sandwiches??  Why should I worry so much?

So last week was the second week of being at home with the kids. You must know the schools are closed and the kids are just given school work to them from an online site.  They have a connection with the teacher sometime once during the day.  My wife is at home too, but she works at her job from home.  My job is on hold, erased for the time being.  So I try to be the caretaker exemplar. 

Man,  I have gone down hill since the kids have gotten older.  I used to be better at it.  Am I out of practice?   What happened?  

To go back further and explain.  I admit, I notice it myself that I am nagging and even yelling at the kids more.  Even before we had to stay at home because of Corona virus.  I started nagging my older daughter.  Now 11, I nag her more about getting her work done first and practicing guitar before she plays video games and watches TV.  That had to be law. That is reasonable and found in many homes I would think.  But, sadly, if the law is rammed down someone's throat, I guess it has less of a chance of being followed.  Or more of a chance of it being broken.  I still want her to have fun and be a kid.  

By the time Corona virus came around and we have been inside every day, I feel it is useless to tell her what to do and what she has to do during the day.  It is either met with "Yeah yeah yeah, I know, I ll get to it."  Or, "I did it already and I only started watching TV (or playing video games) five minutes ago."  

So, a couple days ago, I decided to try to forget it.  I would do stuff for them, and still ask what they had to do and say, I hope you are doing it, but not yell or say anything more.  I dropped the vegetables issue and have reverted to just putting a plate of veggies on the table for meals and if they eat some, great, if not, well they see I eat them all the time and they are there.  A bowl of fruit is always on the table.  But, I am not going to push or yell.  Or at least try hard not to.  

In fact I have turned 180 degrees the other way.  I want to be on their good side and try to be a loved parent, again.  Maybe.  So I try to make everything perfect, even the small things.  Do you like this? Is it ok if I make... for lunch?  Do you mind that?  How do you like that food done?  Maybe I can try making that food again with your help and you can show me how to make it the way you like it and think it should be made.  

Pandering.  
But is that such a bad thing?  
Maybe 
Maybe not

I wont be a slave. I tell them.  Admittedly sometimes I have to be.  I wont let their dishes stay in their room longer than a day. So if they are there a long time,  arggggh, I have to clean them up.  

So, on Thursday I was in charge of making lunch.  And this is how it went.  

"Girls, do you like the melted cheese sandwiches?" 

Have always loved gouda cheese

(Emphatic) "Yes," from my older girl.  
"Whats that?", asked my younger daughter.  
"I only have gouda cheese, is that ok?" I asked.   
"Yes.  Which is gouda?"
"Do you want anything else on the sandwich?  Any ham?  Or paprikas (joke because they hate paprikas) or anything?"
"No!  Just the cheese."
"Well, I will put some extras on mine.  You can try them if you want. They will be ready in 40 minutes. Is that ok?  I ll start them in 10 minutes and then it will be half an hour.  Ok?"  
"Ok, that is fine."  
"Oh, sorry if I forgot to knock on the door this time to your room. I thought I did, but I am sorry if I did not."  

Bake bake bake. 

"Hey girls, letting you know the food will be ready in about 5 to 10 minutes.  Ok?   Maybe finish what you are working on.  Lunchtime soon. Will you be done with your work, can you take a break?"

Seriously, I sound like the hired help don't I?    

"Wash your hands.  Do they look done? Or maybe cook another couple minutes?  Yeah, I think, another two minutes to cook." 

I went away to wash my hands again and when I came back they were sitting at the table. I felt like I had to tiptoe. I felt like I was walking on a bed of nails.  I couldnt walk so hard. I had to be careful or I would hurt somebody or something.  Me.

"OK, which sandwich do you want?  You can have 1.5 of Mommy's leftovers.  Maybe you like them better.  And 1.5 for your sister.  Then which one of these do you want?  ........"

Basically I tried as hard as possible to make my children happy. I tried to do things in a nice way and to keep them comfortable. I didn't want to yell at them for anything. I would accept any criticism they dished out for the food (pun intended).  I was calm, cool and OK with everything.   Treat them like princesses. 

The cheese sandwiches came off fine.  But how can you go wrong with melted cheese sandwiches?   You may ask that.  I asked that, but it can.   Forget the vegetables. I put a plate of lettuce and carrots in the middle but said nothing about having to eat them.  They were there  if they wanted them.  When I was a kid we had to.... No no no, dont start that again.  That sets you in the wrong direction.  Times have changed.  

Its just that the whole ordeal exhausted me.  Have you ever been exhausted by making melted cheese sandwiches?  No of course not.  But the whole situation just got my adrenaline going as if I was in a fight or flight situation.  I could have run away any minute.  Flight was an option.  I was dead tired after lunch.  Let me lie down for a bit.  

Got to listen to Paul Desmond.  He always relaxes me.  

(Disclosure:  I own this CD and listened to the CD itself, not a computer version of it)