Gnumoon's Stuff

Pretty Pretty Princesses Ate My Daughter?

OK, I've now left two posts hanging - the gingerbread one and a new one about some cookies I-man and I made last week that were biiiitchiiiiin (imagine I sang that all high-pitched). I'll do those soon, hopefully. 

But since everyone keeps asking me what I think of this "Cinderella Ate my Daughter" anti-princess book that just came out, I guess I might as well get down a few thoughts on it. As an aside, I originally thought the book was some kind of awesome zombie/fairytale crossover, and was very much interested in reading it. Imagine my disappointment. Braaaaaaiiiiinssss! Tiarrrraaaaaasss!

Evidently the author is doing the rounds on TV, which I missed completely (much like the whole "How to Be a Grand High Chinese Bitch So Your Child Makes Straight A's But May Eventually Stab You In Your Sleep"  brouhaha a few weeks ago). But in general it seems to be that there is a "new" culture of super girliness going around, spearheaded of course by the evil overlords at Disney, that makes our female children demand to be dressed in pink at all times and addressed as a princess and catered to and blah blah blah. The book offers no solutions to help a hapless parent counter this onslaught. 

Since I am not a girly-girl, and I do have a female child, people seem to think I might have some kind of outrage about this issue. But here's the thing: I don't. Despite the fact that we've taken the wee one to Disney World a few times and made wonderful memories, I recognize that The Mouse is there to make money. No money= no funding for Pixar or theme parks or Imagineers. I figure out how much money I am comfortable giving The Mouse in exchange for entertainment from Jessie, Tangled or the Haunted Mansion, and that's that. Sure, sometimes we go overboard and end up with a whole set of Cars-themed Matchboxes to race around our Ikea play carpet, but indulgences like that hardly worry me in the grand scheme of things. (And yes, oftentimes she'll go a several days at a time dressed as Buzz Lightyear, zooming around and requesting I "say the words" for Zurg. And in my defense, I bought the costume secondhand (but new in box, booyah!) for $2.)

But those are toys for BOYS, people say. Bullshit. Those are toys based on well-written, witty films (although with Cars, the premise was so silly we avoided it for years), that are accessible to both boys and girls. Sure, the Disney marketing machine has separated the playthings by gender, but that's to make sure they cast the widest net to pull in as many dollars from as many families as possible. Again, I understand that's just business, just Mickey Taggart intent on building his intercontinental railroad. Nothing to see here, move along. {Insert Walt/Galt line here}

So the Princesses. The Princesses. What's to be done about these princesses? When I was 7, my aunt found a dress pattern like the "make it pink! make it blue!" dress from Sleeping Beauty, and for my birthday that year we made it together. The experience was wonderful, the dress beautiful, and I have such grand memories of spending time with her making that magical dress. Apparently it is appalling to Disney that people might have HOME-MADE replicas of their costumes, so they launched this branded line of Princess schwag to address that perceived need. And as they make several BILLIONS of dollars a year doing it, I'd say their market research was spot-on. But hey, not everyone has an aunt Julie. 

So you have a daughter and she is demanding pink Disney Princess dresses and tiaras and movies and lip gloss and purses and related supplemental shit. And this bothers you, because you feel it may (1. give her unrealistic expectations about life and her place in it (2. set a dangerous precedent about one's perceived value being based on looks and bling (3. teach your daughter that only a handsome Prince Charming can save her from an average, boring life (4. eventually turn her into a slutty, poorer, trashier version of Miley Cyrus/Lindsay Lohan/Demi Lovato, or (5. do any combination of the above.

So, here is your silver bullet, the answer you have waiting to hear: just don't buy it for her. You are an ADULT, your child is a CHILD. Just say no. Decide to limit the exposure, or hell, opt out completely if you feel that strongly about it. So your kid whines and cries and says it's not FAIR and she's not your FRIEND. Tough noogies, pipsqueak. If your kid is smart/old enough, explain your problems with it, and provide alternate games/toys/costumes. If your kid is stupid, well, might as well buy her the shiny sparkly shit and get her on the Mickey Mouse Club. Maybe she'll be the next Britney. 

Now, I understand that some girls are just girly. Girly girly girly. This is nothing new, no matter how much this book would love for you to think it's an invention of the Walt Disney Company and Mattel. There are girls who would rather die than play in the dirt (some boys, too), and pulling the plug on their royal dreams might prove to be dramatic. For a lot of kids, the whole princess/fairy/tulle encrusted world thing is just a phase, but I know a lot of adult women who hold on to it a lot longer than they should and pass it on to their kids. They aren't reading this book, though, because they're too busy waiting for a callback from Toddlers & Tiaras. 

Just because a kid is obsessed with pink and princesses and sparkles doesn't automatically mean she'll turn into a 9-year-old eyeliner-wearing mallrat and then an entitled and out-of-touch 17-year-old. But it's worth paying attention to, just in case. I'm a firm believer in stopping bad behavior as early as possible; no matter how headstrong a four year old is, she can't hold a candle to a hormonal teenager. As a parent it is your job to weigh the risks, consider the options, and make tough decisions and stick with them for the good of your kid. Sometimes it sucks to be the heavy, but them's the breaks. 

So in our world, this translates to moderation. Sure, there are some princess-branded items in the mix, but how do you even "play" princess? Dress up and look pretty? That gets boring to my miniature Space Ranger pretty damn fast. Did she want to meet Tinkerbell at DisneyWorld? Sure, we waited in line for that, but it didn't hold a candle to dancing with Woody or revving up with Lightning McQueen. (We also got to meet Vidia, the bitchiest fairy...why do they even have her there? Don't hug my kid, I don't want your picture.)

What it all boils down to is media literacy. Little kids don't know they're being marketed to. As a parent, it is your job to be savvy enough to shield them from this, and teach them the difference between forming their own opinions and having them spoon-fed by those who stand to make a profit. Do we watch television? Sometimes, and never anything with commercials. Why? Because a three-year old lacks the ability to make the distinction between fact and crap. And when the shows themselves (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Dora, Spongebob, etc) are basically extended advertisements for merchandise, that's another reason to limit exposure. Again, this is nothing new...I have warm & fuzzy feelings about Rainbow Brite, a cartoon character from the 80s, but she was owned and marketed by Hallmark as a way to squeeze money out of kids. 

But then again, tonight my child asked me for a cake shaped like a dalek. So I may have no clue either. At least we're having fun, and not choking on pink tulle. 

Swine Flu! (that you can eat)

I love customization. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to make these "Pigs with swine flu" cookies for a Pandemic Response Team of tired nurses who are working round-the-clock to combat the H1N1. Apparently they were a big hit, and rumor has it that the Chief Medical Officer of the company might have taken one to a meeting with some bigwig at the CDC. You can damn well bet that if I ever have a resume for this stuff, it will say, "Clients include: Maggie's mommie, Teagan's mommie, and the CDC."

My favorite part is the snot. Ewwww.

(I'ma get vaccinated now, because making this set has def. set me up for "ironic punishment")

Also, this view is much different now, but it's been a gorgeous commute for us this October:

EVERYBODY PANIC ABOUT THE SWINE FLU!

I was playing with CS4 yesterday (read: cursing at it and trying to find things), and whipped this up for the panicked masses. Enjoy!

Barack O-lantern

So it begins. As you know, I'm really only in my element in the autumn, paring knife in hand, carving up some pumpkins (or as Pookie adorably calls them, "pop-keys"). I decided to go with "Current events" for my first effort this season, so here is my Barack-o-lantern. Or just the Oblantern, if brevity is your thing.
It is Obama's profile, with the campaign logo cut (backwards) into the back of the pumpkin, so that the candle lights the front while throwing the logo-shaped shadow onto a wall. It was a reasonably successful effort, but I may try again in a few days and see if I can't get it perfect.
Note: Someone asked why I didn't use the smiling headshot as my inspiration, and it's because when you're doing a person on a pumpkin, teeth tend to look rather grotesque. Last year's King Leonidas from 300 was an exception. He was supposed to look intimidating.
I've submitted it over at www.yeswecarve.com, so we'll see what people think.

Grand Cayman sunrise, pre-Gustav

I have no idea what the view from Eastend is like this morning, but Sunday it was like this at 6am. Which is to say, perfect.

One more Caymans shot, this time of a green sea turtle:

I'd also suggest "ruckus" and "kerfuffle"

This story is really scary. But I was distracted from the horror of it by the overuse of a certain word.

Dear writers: there is a wonderful resource called a thesaurus. You don't even have to buy one, there are several available FOR FREE, ONLINE. A quick google tells me that in addition to "commotion,"
ado, agitation, alarm, bouleversement, brouhaha, bustle, clamor, clatter, confusion, convulsion, disorder, disturbance, excitement, flap, flare, flourish, flurry, fluster, fracas, fray, furore, fuss, heat, hubbub, hurly-burly, hurry, pandemonium, perturbation, pother, racket, revolt, riot, row, stir, storm, tumult, turbulence, turmoil, unrest, upheaval, uprising, uproar, agitation, disorder, helter-skelter, stir, tumult, turbulence, turmoil, and uproar are all alternatives available for your use. Certainly, all of them are not applicable, but this list should help you avoid the use of the same word FIVE TIMES in three short paragraphs.

Screenshot:

*facepalm*, the South Carolina edition

Dear Idiotic Backwoods Southern Church -
      Thank you so much for further solidifying the rest of the nation's opinion that we in the South are racist rednecks who haven't even two brain cells to rub together. While you're at it, can you please add to the other side of your sign that Jesus rode to temple on a velociraptor (since the earth is only 6,000 years old) and that insolent wimmins should be beaten for daring to wear slacks? Thanks so much.

XOXO,
A Southern Lady

ps- Shouldn't you guys be losing your tax-exempt status right about now for voicing political opinions? Just curious.
pss- Since the congregation is so behind you in this matter, perhaps you could just cut to the chase and put "We don't want no negro president" on the sign next time. Saves some time in translation.

Scary economics and good bluegrass

This is scary.
I'm increasingly afraid that anyone who says we've already bottomed-out is either 1. On Chimpy McFlightsuit's payroll, 2. Selling something, or 3. a moran.
*hugs modest fixed-rate mortgage tightly*

I'm all for taking the good with the bad, so here's a taste o' MerleFest. If'n you're thinking of coming, I'd highly suggest Friday as the best day to come.
There will be Avetts:

And Carolina Chocolate Drops:

JordanJonDonnieDannyJoey *squeal*

I will not lie. I will not be cynical. I will tell the truth:

I am excited about the New Kids on the Block reunion tour, and I will be there, singing along to every bubblegum saccharine song they lip-synch.

I remember "discovering" them, I remember buying their tapes at the convenience store, I remember my dad standing outside East Town Mall all night long to get me tickets, I remember being completely convinced that Jordan Knight was saving himself for me.

So many memories, most of them embarrassing as hell. Some so painfully embarrassing that I can't even blog about them all these years later.

Some of the "less" mortifying ones (and if these are the ones I deem OK, imagine what I'm hiding?):

- When I was 10 or 11 we went to Gatlinburg, and I went to one of those photo-kiosk places where they superimposed a photo of ME with JORDAN and then printed it on a T-Shirt. I never actually wore the shirt, but I treasured it. Even back then it wasn't cool to be an obvious fan. (I think my brother found the shirt recently and wears it regularly.)

- For the aforementioned concert, there was a poster contest through a Knoxville radio station. Draw your best poster, and the Kids themselves were going to come to the station the day of the concert and choose the best one, then the lucky winners would get to MEET THEM OMG.
My best friend (at the time ... we had those heart necklaces and everything) and I worked for weeks on our poster and were SURE that no one had anything quite as special or as glittery or as fetching as ours. We got all dolled up, carefully trundled our precious cargo to Knoxville, and stood in the station parking lot all day with about a thousand other preteen poster-makers, squealing when anyone appeared in the station window. We, of course, did not win.
I still believe that we were robbed.

-  For some reason, I thought that my fluorescent orange and blue NKOTB tshirt went really well with these shoes. (My brother also found that shirt and wears it. He's a skinny hipster kid, though, so he gets to be "ironic" instead of "retarded")

- NKOTB is the reason I'm a Rush fan. Srsly.
At some point my older cousin had just had enough of the poppy madness, and one day we were driving around in his white convertible Miata, and he said something along the lines of "You're too smart to listen to such bad music" and handed me some Rush tapes and the Moving Pictures CD (one of my first CDs).

- My mother did not approve of my shirtless Jordan Knight poster.
Come to think of it, my brother has that too...

- I had the Jordan and Donnie dolls. Screw you, rest of the Kids. Who in the world would want a Joey doll? as if, gah.

The anatomy of an April Fool's Day joke

There is no one Loki in my family. We all are merry pranksters, but probably the head of them is my aunt. So if I get the snot beat out of me today, it’s all her fault.

Check your calendars.

Got it? Good.

So today I took a cake in to work. A homemade German chocolate cake, with buttercream icing. Yummy. Just for our student workers, vultures who descend upon anything left in the break room with terrifying speed.
Yeah.
Except it’s german chocolate Zatarain’s cake with mashed potato icing. Mmmmm.

Step 1: Make the cake.
I chose german chocolate because it smells very strongly, to mask the smell of anything else I might put in it. After mixing it all up, I added 6 tbsps of Zatarain’s. I hate to waste lots of spices, but I’m an Old Bay kinda girl, and someone once gave me a huge jug o’ Zatarain’s. I also hate to throw things away, so it’s been sitting there on my spice rack ever since. It promised to “Jazz up” my cake, so I let it. Then I added about 4 tbsps of red pepper for good measure.

I could have gone all out with the additions, but I didn’t want the flavor/smell to be so overpowering that my victims understood immediately that they’d been duped. I wanted a slow realization, fork in hand, mouth kind of hanging open, eyes starting to water kind of reaction.

*Note – although I knew damn well what was in the mix, I had an almost an overpowering urge to lick the bowl after I put the cakes in the oven.  It was just like that passage in “On the Beach” when the guy almost smokes the radiation cigarettes when he’s on the submarine.

Step 2: Make the icing.
I boiled a metric shit-ton of potatoes, because I wasn’t sure how many it would take to ice a cake, and also I made potatoes with dinner last night anyway. After removing those that we were actually going to eat, I let the Kitchenaid Stand mixer prove its worth. I, as my dad would say, “Cranked it up to 10 and let it eat”. Just so you know, potatoes, when overmashed, get really sticky and gluey and not unlike cake icing. Aces.

After a bit I checked the potatoes and was shocked to discover that despite looking like icing, they still smelled like potatoes. So I added some vanilla extract. And then some more.

Step 3: Ice the cake
Surprisingly simple. It went on easier than actual buttercream.

Step 4: Decorate the cake
I made some actual icing and decorated the cake as if it was a birthday cake for my buddy. Isn’t she a lucky girl?

Step 5: Complete the illusion
I cut out a big chunk of the cake, then put candles on it and lit them, then blew them out and took them off and put them on the plate in an attempt to make it appear as if we had a party, the birthday girl blew out her candles, and then the cutter of the cake removed the burned candles and placed them to the side.

The cake is now in the break room, with festive little plates beside it. Updates soon, hopefully.

UPDATE - 1:13 pm:

The first victim was Chandler, and I knew it would be, because that kid loves cake. He was wandering around his office muching on it, and apparently even got HIS boss to eat some to see if it tasted weird. Then he came back to my office to see what kind of recipe I'd used. I was in the loo at the time, and my officemates convinced him that it was a family recipe and that I was very sensitive about my baking abilities. So when I came back, he KEPT eating it.

He finally figured it out when I almost fell over laughing.
Then he got in on the action, telling everyone how great the cake was, and at lunchtime it got even better.

I've duped four other people with it so far, and each of them became part of the prank, telling others how fantastic the cake was and how they MUST try some. One guy even ate a SECOND PIECE to convince someone else that it wasn't an April Fool's Prank. That's taking one for the team right there.

Ahhh. *laces fingers behind head and leans back in the chair, savoring the moment*
That was well-worth the price of a 5-lb bag of potatoes and 2 hours of my life in prep time.