Nothing going on here at the Mansion today. The high point so far was the catfight on The View between Joy and guest host Laura Ingraham. Like we didn't know that was brewing, what with Laura on there to promote her new book, The Obama Diaries. It had 'A Match Made In Not-Heaven' written all over it.
Oh, but it wasn't just Joy giving dirty looks to Laura during the reading of select passages. You'd think a comedian such as Joy would have a sense of humor, but apparently she let that go dormant when she sold her soul to Barbara. But I digress. It wasn't just junior-high eye-rolling and heavy sighing. Nope. Then this menopausal Mensa panel had to comment on that French deal about Muslim face-covering procedures. Upon which Joy proclaimed that all religions make women subservient to men, and Laura waved her crucifix necklace and shouted that she KNEW this would end up with Catholic-bashing.
Whew! I'm sure you can find it somewhere on YouTube.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Go Meat!
I am having issues with food preparation. Perhaps the issue is not so much with the actual preparation, but with the consumption. I feel like Mary Tyler Moore fretting over Veal Prince Orloff.
Farmer H is quite the carnivore. The most sensible way to feed him would be to hang a rack of brontosaurus ribs on the window of his $1000 Caravan and send him on his way, courtesy of his two feet. I know I've shared my previous run-ins with Carnivore H and his meat-eating behavior. For example, the time I brewed up a big pot of vegetable beef soup, using a roast, and caught him with a bowl piled to the rafters, of soup. That's what HE called it. To me, it looked like 7/8 of a roast with a few carrots and potatoes lining the bottom of the bowl. There was no liquid to be found in that bowl of soup.
Last week, I made a pot of sausage, cabbage, and potatoes. I put in FOUR Hillshire farms smoked sausages, of different varieties. GO MEAT! That's because I knew Carnivore H would be dipping extra meat, leaving only cabbage soup behind for leftovers. I normally chop that sausage into chunks, like maybe 8 pieces per sausage. But that doesn't fly at the Mansion, because I could toss in a whole Hillshire Farms sausage, and Carnivore H would put the whole thing in his bowl, and whine, "I only got ONE piece of meat!" So I chopped it pretty slim this time. To the tune of 32 pieces per sausage. When I dipped it up for the #1 son and I, we had 10-12 pieces of sausage in our bowls of cabbage and potatoes. That's a hefty amount of meat in itself, a third of a sausage apiece. Carnivore H serves himself from the communal pot after the young 'uns and womanfolk get theirs.
When I went to get the leftovers ready for Day 2 Of Cabbage Soup, I noticed how much sausage was missing. Granted, I had made small portions of it for #1 and I at lunch, and had ladled out a generous portion to take to my mom. But when I stirred it up, those sausage pieces were lonelier than raisins at the top of a Raisin Bran box. #1 and I deduced that Carnivore H had taken between 30 and 32 sausage pieces. THAT'S AN ENTIRE FREAKIN' HILLSHIRE FARM!
Don't think that I'm OCD, or count the food around the Mansion. I just knew Carnivore H was going to pull some crap like this, and I was ready to observe the evidence. Did I mention it to him? Nope. I learned that lesson with his leaning tower o' soup. It is unproductive, a waste of breath, burning protein calories that I can't recoup from the leftovers.
Yesterday, I made a nice pot roast with onions, potatoes, and baby carrots. I'm now on my way upstairs to warm up some onions, potatoes, and baby carrots to go with the chicken breasts that I must cook tonight for the protein part of our meal. The roast has gone missing, mysteriously.
Farmer H is quite the carnivore. The most sensible way to feed him would be to hang a rack of brontosaurus ribs on the window of his $1000 Caravan and send him on his way, courtesy of his two feet. I know I've shared my previous run-ins with Carnivore H and his meat-eating behavior. For example, the time I brewed up a big pot of vegetable beef soup, using a roast, and caught him with a bowl piled to the rafters, of soup. That's what HE called it. To me, it looked like 7/8 of a roast with a few carrots and potatoes lining the bottom of the bowl. There was no liquid to be found in that bowl of soup.
Last week, I made a pot of sausage, cabbage, and potatoes. I put in FOUR Hillshire farms smoked sausages, of different varieties. GO MEAT! That's because I knew Carnivore H would be dipping extra meat, leaving only cabbage soup behind for leftovers. I normally chop that sausage into chunks, like maybe 8 pieces per sausage. But that doesn't fly at the Mansion, because I could toss in a whole Hillshire Farms sausage, and Carnivore H would put the whole thing in his bowl, and whine, "I only got ONE piece of meat!" So I chopped it pretty slim this time. To the tune of 32 pieces per sausage. When I dipped it up for the #1 son and I, we had 10-12 pieces of sausage in our bowls of cabbage and potatoes. That's a hefty amount of meat in itself, a third of a sausage apiece. Carnivore H serves himself from the communal pot after the young 'uns and womanfolk get theirs.
When I went to get the leftovers ready for Day 2 Of Cabbage Soup, I noticed how much sausage was missing. Granted, I had made small portions of it for #1 and I at lunch, and had ladled out a generous portion to take to my mom. But when I stirred it up, those sausage pieces were lonelier than raisins at the top of a Raisin Bran box. #1 and I deduced that Carnivore H had taken between 30 and 32 sausage pieces. THAT'S AN ENTIRE FREAKIN' HILLSHIRE FARM!
Don't think that I'm OCD, or count the food around the Mansion. I just knew Carnivore H was going to pull some crap like this, and I was ready to observe the evidence. Did I mention it to him? Nope. I learned that lesson with his leaning tower o' soup. It is unproductive, a waste of breath, burning protein calories that I can't recoup from the leftovers.
Yesterday, I made a nice pot roast with onions, potatoes, and baby carrots. I'm now on my way upstairs to warm up some onions, potatoes, and baby carrots to go with the chicken breasts that I must cook tonight for the protein part of our meal. The roast has gone missing, mysteriously.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Who Pays The Piper?
I spent the morning haggling with the insurance company over payment on the free teeth-cleaning that we get every year. Yeah. Farmer H has dental insurance on all of us, which is not a great deal, but has $1000 of benefits per person, plus a free cleaning. Being a sensible person, I schedule both boys on the same day, at the same time.
Insurance paid $145 on The Pony's chompers, but only $95 for #1. They both had the exact same exam, with 2 bitewing x-rays, fluoride, and the cleaning. The services were billed in an identical manner. What's up with that? Surely they don't think The Pony is more cuddly and deserving of free teeth cleaning. I called the customer service number of Guardian, which is the company in charge of the dental insurance, and navigated my way through their automated format. Pity I no habla Espanol, or I would have saved myself five minutes before getting a live person.
First, I was told that the bitewings were not covered, because it hasn't been 12 months since the last x-rays. After pointing out that The Pony's were covered at 100%, and both boys have had identical appointment dates and exams, the rep changed her story. Seems that #1 is not a child, since he is over 12 years of age, yet his service was submitted as a child's fluoride treatment. And since he's not a child, it's not covered. However, it seems as if he's a partial child, because while The Pony's fluoride was paid at the full $27 rate, #1's was paid at $10, which doesn't sound to me like that child thing is gonna fly. An additional fly in this fluoride ointment is the fact that Farmer H's cleanings are always paid at 100%, so is there such a thing as an adult fluoride treatment, and if so, would #1's be paid if submitted as an adult treatment? The rep said yes. Or maybe she was just humoring me, in case the call was being monitored. Probably at a cost of $17.
The rep said she was researching it, and came to the conclusion that a child is a child until the age of 19, and she needs to do some further research to figure out where that missing $17 of fluoride payment went.
Shame on me. I have a mental image of one of those Mexican children who wait at the Arizona border every morning to ride the school bus to the Arizona public schools getting a fluoride treatment for free. Shame on me. I don't pay Arizona taxes. Bring everybody across! A round of fluoride for all of our friends from south of the border!
Insurance paid $145 on The Pony's chompers, but only $95 for #1. They both had the exact same exam, with 2 bitewing x-rays, fluoride, and the cleaning. The services were billed in an identical manner. What's up with that? Surely they don't think The Pony is more cuddly and deserving of free teeth cleaning. I called the customer service number of Guardian, which is the company in charge of the dental insurance, and navigated my way through their automated format. Pity I no habla Espanol, or I would have saved myself five minutes before getting a live person.
First, I was told that the bitewings were not covered, because it hasn't been 12 months since the last x-rays. After pointing out that The Pony's were covered at 100%, and both boys have had identical appointment dates and exams, the rep changed her story. Seems that #1 is not a child, since he is over 12 years of age, yet his service was submitted as a child's fluoride treatment. And since he's not a child, it's not covered. However, it seems as if he's a partial child, because while The Pony's fluoride was paid at the full $27 rate, #1's was paid at $10, which doesn't sound to me like that child thing is gonna fly. An additional fly in this fluoride ointment is the fact that Farmer H's cleanings are always paid at 100%, so is there such a thing as an adult fluoride treatment, and if so, would #1's be paid if submitted as an adult treatment? The rep said yes. Or maybe she was just humoring me, in case the call was being monitored. Probably at a cost of $17.
The rep said she was researching it, and came to the conclusion that a child is a child until the age of 19, and she needs to do some further research to figure out where that missing $17 of fluoride payment went.
Shame on me. I have a mental image of one of those Mexican children who wait at the Arizona border every morning to ride the school bus to the Arizona public schools getting a fluoride treatment for free. Shame on me. I don't pay Arizona taxes. Bring everybody across! A round of fluoride for all of our friends from south of the border!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Break Out The Cigars
Goatrude delivered a little chocolate-colored goatbaby this morning. She is taking good care of him--our third goatboy out of three births. Farmer H is boasting about it and asking the #1 son to put it on Facebook. I told him he acts like it's HIS baby. Farmer H declared, "Well, they are our KIDS, you know!" OK. For Farmer H, that was a major joke.
Goatboy has the floppy ears of his Nubian mama, and a little pug nose that we don't know who to blame for. Goatrude does not have the characteristic Roman nose of a full Nubian. The papa was just a mutt of a goat, a little bitty ol' thang that Farmer H sold back to the auction a few weeks ago. He's planning to band two of the three goatboy babies, and keep one for making some more babies.
Oh, for the days when Farmer H was all about building various structures around the Mansion grounds. Shacks don't eat as much as goats and chickens.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Lolling About
I am stalled in the Hillmomba doldrums. Hopefully, I will eventually escape without having to throw any goats overboard. We can't have the Goat Latitudes confusing a new generation of students.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Another One Bites The Dust
Another day of summer vacation day given to the service of catering to the #1 son. He had arranged a paintballfest with some cronies, even though I tried to tell him that paintball is not a good recreational activity in 96-degree heat. Lucky for him, the temp was only in the mid-80s today, after an evening of thunderstorms. You see, when boys play paintball, they drape themselves in excessive clothing so as not to feel the blast of the exploding paintballs on their tender skin. That means one young man was wearing camouflage coveralls. You know, coveralls, which are an insulated one-piece giant romper/sleeper kind of garb for adults, usually worn in the winter to (ahem) keep the wearer warm.
After a heaping lunch of corn dogs, chips, Little Debbie Nutty Bars, and multiple sodas, they did what any sensible youngster would do after gorging himself, and went swimming in Poolio. They called it swimming. From the sounds that penetrated the Mansion, I would have guessed that a team of Olympic squealers was practicing to defend its title. Not being one to shirk the care of other people's children, I cast a few glances out the kitchen mini-blinds at regular intervals. Though I found it disturbing that Charger was grabbed by both shoulders and unceremoniously shoved underwater faster than a BP oil spill cap, I did not dash outside and demand that they cease and desist. You can't exactly tell 15-year-olds that they can't dunk each other in a 4-foot-deep backyard pool. I considered myself ahead of the game because they were not jumping off the back porch rail into the pool, that being a height of 10 feet and horizontal distance of 6 feet.
Basementia Buddy called to announce that she would be picking up her son a bit early, due to a change in his baseball practice schedule. She asked, "What are those boys doing?" And I informed her, "Last time I checked, they were beating each other senseless with pool noodles." She gave her trademark HAW HAW HAW, and said how much her boy had been looking forward to the visit. Yeah. He's a world-class noodle-whacker.
Thank the Gummi Mary, my mom had asked if The Pony could come to her house. That could be the reason he's still kickin'. Those older boys are not Pony-friendly, though they do show a healthy respect when he's carrying his trombone case.
I am proud to announce that I survived the day without needing tranquilizers. The 15 trips in-and-out, tracked-in mud, left-behind wet towel, bathroom light/fan left on for 45 minutes, and detailed searching of every nook and cranny of the Mansion kind of put me on edge. But when a kid comes in, flops on the couch and puts his feet up, and sings the praises of Wife Swap to me...I figure I'm not as much of an ogre as #1 makes me out to be.
I'm still trying to figure out where these kids get the idea that my Mansion is their Mansion.
After a heaping lunch of corn dogs, chips, Little Debbie Nutty Bars, and multiple sodas, they did what any sensible youngster would do after gorging himself, and went swimming in Poolio. They called it swimming. From the sounds that penetrated the Mansion, I would have guessed that a team of Olympic squealers was practicing to defend its title. Not being one to shirk the care of other people's children, I cast a few glances out the kitchen mini-blinds at regular intervals. Though I found it disturbing that Charger was grabbed by both shoulders and unceremoniously shoved underwater faster than a BP oil spill cap, I did not dash outside and demand that they cease and desist. You can't exactly tell 15-year-olds that they can't dunk each other in a 4-foot-deep backyard pool. I considered myself ahead of the game because they were not jumping off the back porch rail into the pool, that being a height of 10 feet and horizontal distance of 6 feet.
Basementia Buddy called to announce that she would be picking up her son a bit early, due to a change in his baseball practice schedule. She asked, "What are those boys doing?" And I informed her, "Last time I checked, they were beating each other senseless with pool noodles." She gave her trademark HAW HAW HAW, and said how much her boy had been looking forward to the visit. Yeah. He's a world-class noodle-whacker.
Thank the Gummi Mary, my mom had asked if The Pony could come to her house. That could be the reason he's still kickin'. Those older boys are not Pony-friendly, though they do show a healthy respect when he's carrying his trombone case.
I am proud to announce that I survived the day without needing tranquilizers. The 15 trips in-and-out, tracked-in mud, left-behind wet towel, bathroom light/fan left on for 45 minutes, and detailed searching of every nook and cranny of the Mansion kind of put me on edge. But when a kid comes in, flops on the couch and puts his feet up, and sings the praises of Wife Swap to me...I figure I'm not as much of an ogre as #1 makes me out to be.
I'm still trying to figure out where these kids get the idea that my Mansion is their Mansion.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Covering The Hillbilly Butt
Ahh...the day I have been waiting for since last September. Tonight is the season premiere of Big Brother 12! I know! Try to contain your excitement. I am all jacked up on Diet Coke, ready to watch the houseguests move in tonight. Except that they already moved in over the weekend, but Julie Chen won't tell you that. That's a cat she likes to keep in the bag.
Also tonight is the Showtime show Big Brother After Dark, from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Don't you worry about Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. She is up that late every night anyway. But just in case, the magical elixir of Diet Coke with lime juice and a dash of sugar is coursing through her bloodstream as you read this. No fallin' asleep on the first night.
Don't you dare whisper over your shoulder that Mrs. HM is going a bit overboard. That's how the Hillbilly family does things. Why, it seems like only yesterday that the #1 son, upon awakening, announced: "I can't believe the day I've been waiting for is finally here! MAP testing day!!!" That's the Missouri achievement test that has since fallen by the wayside. And the little shaver was in 3rd grade when he made that proclamation. Or perhaps 2nd grade. He's one to wangle with specifics. So now I've covered my butt.
I'll leave you with that visual. You're welcome.
Also tonight is the Showtime show Big Brother After Dark, from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Don't you worry about Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. She is up that late every night anyway. But just in case, the magical elixir of Diet Coke with lime juice and a dash of sugar is coursing through her bloodstream as you read this. No fallin' asleep on the first night.
Don't you dare whisper over your shoulder that Mrs. HM is going a bit overboard. That's how the Hillbilly family does things. Why, it seems like only yesterday that the #1 son, upon awakening, announced: "I can't believe the day I've been waiting for is finally here! MAP testing day!!!" That's the Missouri achievement test that has since fallen by the wayside. And the little shaver was in 3rd grade when he made that proclamation. Or perhaps 2nd grade. He's one to wangle with specifics. So now I've covered my butt.
I'll leave you with that visual. You're welcome.
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