The Upside to the Writers Strike

Ok so this week I watched the first episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that I actually found funny since the mid 90s. Unfortunately for Jay it was a replay of a show from 1993.

I don't know when Jay Leno gave up and decided being funny wasn't his thing anymore but seeing him in old form brought to light how dull his show is now.

The 1993 Lineup:
A good opening monologue

Chit chat with Branford Marsales who is better than what's-his-name on the bass.

He did Headlines - this was before people started faking them to get on tv.

His first guest was TOM HANKS! Who was plugging A League of their Own. Only he didn't just plug the move, play a clip and leave (like they do today). No way! He did 3 segments! Is this Jay being lazy or are today's celebs just to vapid to do more than 5 minutes? (Probably some of both.) Tom talked about an actors strike in the 80s which seemed to fit in well with our current strike. Then he shared a story about Tom's failed stand up career, which he left "to become a global celebrity"

Then Dilbert McClinton performed some song. It wasn't great but he walked over to the couch immediately after to talk with Jay. This was funny because he couldn't stop sweating profusely through the whole thing. He couldn't catch a breath. I kept thinking, "Jay, say something longer than 3 words so he can breath!"

Then they interviewed newsman Brian Ross.


Anyway, what happened to Jay? Good news is this is his LAST YEAR! Hurray! My man Conan O'Brien will be taking over. But will the Late Night pressure and old people audience sap the life out of him as well? Time will tell. This will probably be the best year to watch Conan as he has nothing left to lose!

Turkey Day and other causes of Type II Diabetes

Turkey day was good, I had two in fact, one on Thursday and again on Saturday, I basically started over eating on Wednesday night and didn't stop until dusk Saturday. Consider it my last hurrah because going to get healthier.

Ok, so next week I'll be breaking my decade long streak... I'll be going to a doctor when I'm relatively well. Usually I have to be bedridden for 48 hours before I consider going to see an MD. And then when I do I go to a McMD like Primacare. I like those places because they don't want a relationship or to know about my personal life. Just the facts and get out of here with a Rx. (Also, they don't weight you.)

Anyway, if you haven't figured it out already I'm an overweight hypochondriac. I also verge on Christian Science thinking: God will heal me or he won't. I have a tendency to self-diagnose. So if its a cold, I'll just ride it out. If its something worse, I'll suppress it and hope it goes away.

What caused my sudden change in disposition? My sister told me she was concerned about my health. 5 Years ago I would have ignored her. 10 years ago it would have been an argument. This year, I figure its time to try out my insurance card and see if it really works.

My list of diseases/syndromes I think I have but have no medical proof of:

• Type 2 Diabetes
• Hypothyroid
• Cancer
• Heart Disease
• Heart Worms
• Tapeworm - Actually that would be good, I might loose weight.
• Mono - It can lay dormant.
• Heart Arrhythmia
• Dunlop Disease*
• Sleep Apnea
• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
• Munchhausen Syndrome
• and Stockholm Syndrome

List of things I'm worried about at the doctors office:

• Catching something from all the sickies
• The scale
• My doctor is female
• Them confirming anything from the first list
• Them suggesting something involving my back door. (I've looked up a Bible verse and I'm prepared to refuse for religious reasons, I'm a proctological conscientious objector.)

I've probably worried years of my life away worrying about a check-up. I know I'm probably as healthy as an ox who over-ate at Thanksgiving.

Well, wish me luck and feel free to comment here but when you see me IRL^ please act like you did not read this blog post. Make no mention of the doctor or how my visit went. If you do, I will infect you with my Stockholm Syndrome!

^ IRL = In real life.
* Dunlop Disease: In case you didn't know this is a dangerous disease common to members of the CofC where cheese covered dishes and fried chicken are commonplace. Dunlop disease is when "your belly dun lopped over your belt."

Blog Labels

I just discovered these things. I can attach a label to my posts and they get grouped accordingly. I've started with my most recent posts and then went back to the first 20 or so from the beginning. I'm working towards the middle. If I label a few posts each week it won't take too long.

I need to work on my labeling skills, I don't want 300 posts with 300 separate labels. I want like 20 labels that all the posts fall into. So far that isn't working. I plan on going back and any label that is only linked to one post I'll relabel.

I'm labeling this blog "Blog" because its about blogging.

I'll get back to the lunches soon.

School Lunches Pt. 2

A lot of reactions to Pt. 1. It seems I was oblivious to the Vinyl bags being the final stage of evolution. How could I, I was a Buyer? Mags filled in some details for my last post and reminded me vomiting in the lunch line, but I think I've said enough about that already.

Today I want to focus on the contents of the school lunches.

As a Buyer, I can recall exactly the FDA approved lunches I used to get served. They often tried to add things like peaches to make something seem healthy but they were always out of a big can in heavy syrup. Being a Buyer taught you the important lesson: "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." You had no control on the menu, the portion or the temperature of the food. Each day you show up and take your beating. Somedays, yak, creole spaghetti and other days Pizza!

Us Buyers really resented you Bringers when you crossed the line and bought your lunch on Pizza day! This was our line, our lunch lady! But sure, when its convenient for you come Buy a lunch and make the line super long!

The Bringers lunches seemed much more interesting to me:

* A sandwich wrapped in that plastic bag with a flap. (This was before the proliferation of ziplock bags.) The sandwich was usually bologna on white, PB&J on white, or ham and cheese on white. Wheat bread meant a sure fire beating I was sure. Occasionally there was one leaf of lettuce on there for some reason.

* Carrot sticks - I never knew why so many kids got these, but they seemed to like them. They ate them, and I still don't know why.

* Drink - Sometimes moms sent a quarter in the bag to buy milk but more often they sent Capri Sun or used that awesome matching THERMOS! The best was one soda wrapped in Tin Foil! The tin foil didn't keep it "not cool, but palatable... not cool, but palatable." (That last quote was for Ms. Patty.)

* Chips - I usually got a handful of chips in a sandwich bag, pre-crunched. But some kids got those proportioned little bags of chips. I also recall how horrible it was when the 20 count variety bag was down to Frito's how horrible that could be. You'd eaten all the Cheetos and Doritos and were down to corn toe nails.

* Fruit - Apple or Banana standard. An orange was too much work. Most of the Bringers I knew often threw away the fruit still in the paper bag. (Touch luck starving kids in China.)

* Dessert - It was always an odd number of cookies. No self respecting mom would give their child 2 or 4 Oreos. It had to be 3 or 5, rarely 1 if it was a big oatmeal creme number.

* The infamous note - I remember little notes being written on napkins. I was envious of them, but the Bringers were shamed by them. They desperately didn't want anyone to know that they had a mother who loved them and who drew little hearts on their napkin.

Clearly the moms of America sat down each morning with the food pyramid and did their best to live up to it.

But what about the wild card of school lunches: Dads. I could always tell when for some reasons a dad had been forced to make the school lunch of a friend. It would be like a comedy of errors. Instead of ham and cheese you got Pimento cheese. Or they tried to make PB&J and had used Apricot instead of Grape, what a scandal. An even number of cookies, usually too many, like 6. No fruit, instead whatever was prepackaged around the house: granola bars, pop tarts, croutons. Thankfully they left no note.

School Lunches Pt. 1

A universal American experience is the elementary school lunch. A lot of thought and preparation went into slapping bologna on bread back in those days.



I was 99% of the time a kid who bought their lunch. I envied those brown paper bags and Ninja Turtle Lunch box kids, the Bringers. So I did what any anxious kid did, analyzed them out of the corner of my eye so that one day, if I brought a lunch, I could blend in with the brown baggers. But that was a rarity, we were a buy-your-lunch family not a bring-your-lunch family.



Today, I think I'll focus my jealous nostalgia on one aspect of the school lunch experience. The container. I had no choice in my container, just a plastic tray and they only came in one color, tan... or was it faded blue? (Maggie might remember.)



Anyway, the Bringers always had a lot of variety in their lunch container. My favorites were the lunch boxes with coordinated thermoses! Genius! Oh, what I wouldn't have given for one of those. (Of course, I had one but there was never a lunch inside it so it stayed at home.)



The lunch box gave you a chance to declare you allegiance to something too. There was the G.I. Joes, the Ninja Turtles, the A-Team! There were also female equivalents, but since as a 1st grader girls were just a buzz on the periphery of my mind I don't remember them as well. (Like I said, Maggie will probably remember. She's entrusted to keep my memories for me, for example, what's the name of the teacher who had us sing "Texas our Texas" every morning? I don't know but guess who will.) But I digest (ba-dum-ching).



I also remember the fickle winds of fate that blew through the lunch room sometimes. It seemed one semester you had to have Ninja Turtles, then suddenly after Christmas the turtles were lame! Only dweebs still had that kids show. Now you had to have the Power Rangers.



Upon reflection on this topic with Jeffro, he said, "Nothings said maturity like a brown paper bag." I hadn't realized this. I was a Buyer, Jeff was a Bringer. As an outsider, I never realized there was a hierarchy. But its clear to me now. When you finally rose above the petty childish plastic lunch boxes (with awesome matching thermos) you brought the brown paper bag.



But there is nothing like a lunch box! When I got my current employment I bought this lunch box for myself.

I hope to one day have my last meal served in my Last Supper Lunch box.




I guess I have a lot more to say about lunches, like what goes in them so I've added that "Pt. 1" to the title. I'll get back to you after lunch. I'll leave you with my parting bit of angst.

As all of you Bringers opened you boxes and bag I had to carry that tan/blue tray to the table. And everyday somebody had to say: "Hey, nice tray, Trey!" Every single day of my life! It happened a week ago at the Casa Linda Cafeteria! It's a wonder I'm not on top of a bell tower somewhere with a painball gun and a thermos full of chicken and stars taking my revenge on the world.

And now you know the rest of the story... mmmmm, Good day!