Kids follow clueless summer carbohydrate diet

 

I called home mid-summer break from an out-of-town appointment and asked my kids to photograph my grocery list and text-message it to me so I could pick up groceries on the way back. Scanning the rather scant contents of the list, all were in my handwriting, except those I had dictated to the child standing nearest the grocery pad while I busy cooking and depleting my pantry.

Thinking of their ongoing accusation that, “Mom, you never ask us what went want to eat,” I inquired if there was anything they wanted me to pick up for them while I was at the store.

“Some tortilla chips, please.” Pleased with their politeness, I ignored the empty content and nutritional void of their request.

“Sure, no problem.” And it wasn’t a problem – until I noticed the next day they had not consumed the chicken, cheese and three-vegetable casserole I had left them a note to re-heat for lunch. Or the following day, when they’d neither touched the casserole nor eaten the alternative roast beef wraps I had left for them. The situation bore investigation.

Nancy Drew found her first clue in spotting red-coated cereal bowls next to the most comfortable pieces of furniture, respectively, in the two TV-containing rooms of our home. A glance inside of the refrigerator revealed a half-empty half-gallon container of salsa: the supply I keep on hand for making black bean soup, which, incidentally, is nutritionally-dense and notably healthy, except for the flatulence factor. I confronted my kids.

“Yes, Mother Dear, we have eaten chips and salsa for the past two days, but there are a lot worse things we could be eating,” defended my son. Well, yeah, but there are also a lot better things: the more nutritious and perishable things I have gone to the time and expense of acquiring and/or putting together.

I looked forlornly at the bag of once-fresh grapes now shriveling in the fridge, alongside the unopened bag of pluots and the dark cherries which were close to starting to mildew from idleness. And let’s not forget the browning bananas on the kitchen counter – able to attract the attention of fruit flies only. Probably not teenage fruit flies, mind you, just the mature adult ones who know a good thing when it’s available.

My children ate chips and salsa every day for two whole weeks, resorting to purchasing their own tortilla chips while on an outing with friends after I had refused to purchase more. They dipped them in salsa acquired from the pantry of their late father when we were clearing out his home. Yes, it is possible to keep playing one parent against the other posthumously.

Two new items popped up on the grocery list in handwriting that wasn’t mine: plain potato chips and snack crackers. And so the carbohydrate fest continued, exacerbated by the appearance of other white flour products, including, but not limited to saltines and plain white bagels. It goes without saying that microwave popcorn also made the top-ten items on the grocery list.

I decided to crack down, without announcing my intentions. I left Granny Smith apple slices with caramel on a plate to greet them one morning; I placed a box of Raisin Bran, two bowls and spoons conveniently in the middle of the kitchen table; I enticingly displayed a twin pack of Greek yogurt at the front of the refrigerator, with sharp cheddar cheese sticks, a bag of baby carrots and container of humus close by. But they penetrated my nutritional perimeter promotional items to reach the plain white bagels behind the healthy stuff.

The thought my teens would most likely put some type of dairy product on the bagels didn’t fully quell my concern. It was going to be a long, hot, carbohydrate-laden summer. I didn’t help things by unthinkingly making a starchy batch of waffles one rare Saturday morning when we were all at home. The sausage links I served as accompaniment only further contributed to my children’s dietary delinquency. Nuts!

Wait, that was it! I tried leaving out whole almonds and peanut butter on the kitchen counter and they bit! While the battle’s not over, it’s a start. Take that, Pop-Tarts!

Get rid of the smiles on driver’s license photo

_{I hadn’t listened to National Public Radio (NPR) in forever. But when I found myself alone, unsupervised in my car for a long stretch of time recently, my fingers instinctively reached over and tuned in 104.1 out of Ann Arbor.}

_{Fortunately, it was at a good time to listen, unlike when Terri Gross, that vastly untalented host of Fresh Air, is pathetically trying to interview a guest. Talk about lame. She is so out-smarted and out-classed by her guests that she sounds like some school girl interviewing a worldly celebrity on whom she has a crush. NPR must be in desperate need of radio talent for Gross to have emerged as top interviewer. I feel embarrassed for her. Milquetoast to the max!!}

_{But when I tuned in, they were running one of their short, between-segment, quirky blurbs that occurred in another country. For those who don’t listen to NPR regularly, international news tends to be of the National Enquirer variety, culturally interesting only because it features Jerry Springer-like snippets that revolve around foreigners.}

_{On this particular day, they were interviewing a 33-year-old man, whose name I did not catch, and isn’t especially important to the context. But it will suffice to say he was a Brazilian who had been at his country’s equivalent of Michigan’s Secretary of State (SOS) office, attempting to renew his driver’s license, when he was admonished for smiling while they were photographing him for the picture on it.}

 _{After several re-takes for photobombing his own likeness with a smile, the department of motor vehicles (DMV) person asked why he kept smiling despite being told NOT to smile. The man responded that his father was a dentist and had always told him a smile was a person’s most prized possession, so it should always be present (or something to that effect).}

_{This did not amuse the DMV person, who replied that the man needed to stop smiling while his picture was taken because it was against the rules to smile for a DMV license.}

_{“Where does it say that?!” demanded the man. He was informed those rules were contained in internal departmental documents, but all that the man really needed to know was that he was in violation of those mysterious rules.}

_{Hmm. A long time went by and the man continued to challenge the issue. He made a scene by demanding he be shown exactly where it stated one was not to smile for a driver’s license photo. Turns out, as you have probably already guessed, that it doesn’t say that anywhere. Smiling victory!!}

 _{Unfortunately, as it turns out, this incident was not specific to South America. It’s also been happening in recent years among states within North America. In 2016, the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles began telling driver’s license applicants not to smile when their photos were snapped. Why? The facial recognition software used in the new, highly-digitalized identification process did not do as well when faced with smiling faces. No kidding.}

_{Color turned out to be another barrier, so the photos on the licenses reverted to more old-fashioned grayscale likenesses of the drivers pictured. People were also asked to remove their eyeglasses prior to being photographed. While technologically helpful, these changes were not well-received by driver’s license applicants.}

_{According to Colorado DMV employee Lynn Granger, new cameras take a photo that enhances specific features on each person’s face. With encrypted information on each license, it makes it nearly impossible to copy. But an unobstructed view is needed, so glasses must be taken off and a serious expression presented before the camera.}

_{“I had to take my glasses off and then when I smiled, he asked me not to smile, and that again is to enhance those facial features as they’re laser engraved in grayscale on the document,” Granger said.}

_{Laser, smaser! Nobody wants an old-style-looking, glasses-less driver’s license that doesn’t even look remotely like them. Screw security! Cheesy as it sounds, consider my son, who is both in line to get braces and to get his official picture driver’s license this fall. I fully expect him to be smiling his fool head off in front of that SOS camera! Just say cheese.}

Struggling with title of great white bat hunter

“Mom, I really need to talk with you,” came the terse, midday July 5th phone call. We were playing catch-up at work after having July 4^th off, so I didn’t appreciate the interruption.

It had better be important or someone bleeding, I thought. But typically, my “urgent” summer phone calls are requests to food-officiate: someone wanted the last cinnamon roll someone else imagined was his. Or last week’s shrieking emergency dispatch the world should stop revolving because someone ate someone else’s leftover Taco Bell chalupa. The nerve!!!

“Okay, who ate what?” I questioned the caller. “Do you need me to declare who gets to ride shotgun to Battle Creek tonight?” Fortunately, that situation’s been easier to mediate with my son doing parent-supervised driving. Legally, I have to ride shotgun.

“We found a bat.” It didn’t immediately register.

“Softball or baseball bat?” I questioned. We’d been clearing out my children’s father’s house following his passing in May. My mind went to sporting goods.

“Bat, bat. You know, the flying kind you don’t want in your house but have to deal with, anyway, because you are stupid enough to live in an 1875 farmhouse, so what can you expect?” he twisted the knife.

“Then deal with it,” I hollered back. “When I last checked, I’m at work and can’t just leave to take care of something ridiculous.” But he would have none of it.

Possibly, my son’s bat-dealing refusal stems from when he got up off the couch and put his (slippered, fortunately) foot on a bat and had to keep it pinned there until I came to the rescue with bat removal tools. Not long after that, he racquet-whacked a (circling in his bedroom!) bat so hard that it died on impact against a door. Scarring moments.

Plus, according to his description, the bat was hanging in the hardest to reach corner of the kitchen ceiling. That translated to our mainstay “batmitten” racquet bat-riddance tool would fall short of usefulness. An eight-foot ladder and broom needed to be substituted, adding a layer of complexity.

When I got home that night, my son was long gone to jiu jitsu class, but the bat was still hanging around. Temperatures were in the high 80’s, so I cringed as I donned a long-sleeved hoodie and heavy protective gloves.

Sweat dripping, I placed the broom over the bat and slowly slid him down the wall to my awaiting bat tongs, but couldn’t simultaneously do broom-pressing, tong-operating and ladder clinging. With a loud “Crap!” I necessarily swiped him onto the floor for re-positioning.

However, our normally docile, non-mousing, declawed and neutered male cat “Molly” pounced and pinned the bat by its wings for me. A welcome assist! I seized the moment with the bat tongs and flung Mr. Bat out the back door.

The heat and humidity messing with bat radar also kept me awake that night. At 3 AM, I officially gave up sleeping and went downstairs to write a news release about an upcoming blood drive. The fact I was engaged in community service didn’t deter my flying friends from harassing me.

At 4 am, Molly dragged out something squirming and chirping from behind the dining room door: Bat #2. Scooped it with the bat tongs. A third bat had the audacity to circle my kitchen at 5:30 am, when I was trying to toast a bagel. Duck! This meant war! I got the big guns (broom) off the side porch, but had to walk outside around to the front door to re-gain kitchen entry. Swatted the intruder like a mosquito. Molly retrieved him.

The next night, I went to bed at 8:30 PM, exhausted from the previous night’s rodeo. But at 10 PM, I was awakened by my son’s whisper of “BATTTTT! Sorry, Mom.” An encore performance followed.

I feel like the seasoned, Great White shark hunter, Quint, played by Robert Shaw in Jaws, “I’ll catch this bird for you, but it ain’t gonna be easy.” It never is, but for some reason I’m good at doing life’s scary, difficult and inconvenient jobs. Someone’s gotta! Clear the beach and get me a boat and a bottle. Here comes the great white bat hunter!

Casino can’t compete with youthful rink lessons

Driving on Michigan Avenue between Marshall and Battle Creek the other day, I couldn’t help staring at the now defunct business I grew up knowing as Midway Roller Rink. Time has not been kind to the facility in the four years since its closure. After 57 years of delighting, it’s now in the business of blighting the neighborhood.

The roof’s collapsed and the elements have taken their toll on the wooden structure. But they can’t diminish my memories of being in my element back in the day when it was THE place to play on a date. When going to the movies seemed too impersonal, bowling too competitive, dancing too socially awkward, dinner (with required direct eye contact with the other person) too intimate and mini-putt out of season, roller skating was the go-to when you needed somewhere to go on a date.

Roller skating was relatively inexpensive and a highly-public, large-group activity that gave you a built-in excuse to hold hands with someone under the guise of helping them to skate better, unless, as was often the case with me, your date was a far better skater, so no guise, just guidance, was required.

In the event your parents feared that your date might get fresh and the hand-holding likely to lead to possible horizontal action beyond the vertical activity of skating, they could always send along a younger sibling date-spoiler for you to “supervise,” when in reality, it was you who was being supervised.

I was allowed to drive to the skating rink at 16, provided I brought along my 12-year-old, eagle-eyed little sister, allegedly to get her socializing more. Yeah, right. I knew exactly why she was there: to curb MY socializing. But I was too polite to mention it. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was alive and well even back then. I remained mum so my mum wouldn’t revoke my license to skate.

Regardless of your motives and who you were forced to drag along, skating dates were good exercise, improved your coordination and allowed you to spend time with both the person of your teenage dreams, as well as your friends who were there, intentionally or not. Skate dates allowed them the opportunity to size up your latest romantic find without it being too obvious.

I can remember one roller skate date who drew heavy criticism for the ever-present comb in his back pocket during the era when big combs were the latest thing for guys. “All he cares about are appearances,” sized up one of my friends, “There’s more comb than money in his pocket,” said another. I took their evaluations with a grain of salt and acted later, only after a third friend caught him flirting with the cute snack shop cashier.

Not only was such friendly observation helpful, but if/when things didn’t work out between you and your date, you could always ditch him/her to skate with friends. That was probably a good idea, as I needed skating practice much more than I needed a man. While I could launch with ease and steadily gained speed, skating remained like walking on eggshells for me: I was never fully at ease.

Eventually, I taught myself to skate backwards and could do so in a couples skate, but relied upon hitting things or other people to get stopped. Not a solid plan or a transferable skill to other areas of life, such as driving a car.

Nevertheless, my parents always felt safer knowing I was on a roller skating date, despite the guarantee I would end up on my back sometime during the evening. Usually at the bottom of some kind of mass-skating accident, the equivalent of a 25-car pile-up on the highway on an icy day. Caused by my carelessness. Did I mention my skating nickname was “Helen Wheels?”

Ironically, the iconic, caved-in building that once housed the innocence of Midway Roller Rink sits opposite the glitz of the FireKeepers casino, which modern era people visit in similar hope of getting lucky. I smile as I skate by, still confident with the life lessons money can’t buy, garnered during youthful skating rink experiences and stored in the Midway of my heart. We’ll never part.