On the menu

The White House recently released the Thanksgiving menu that the president and his family enjoyed recently.

Thanksgiving at the White House has to be pretty classy, right? One might imagine that on the White House dining table there wouldn't be the tired old American traditional Jell-O salad. Usually green.

One might also imagine a rather sophisticated, high-brow menu. The president and family dined on
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Thyme Roasted Turkey, Honey-Baked Ham, Cornbread Stuffing, Oyster Stuffing, Braised Winter Greens along with mashed potatoes and Sweet Potato Gratin. Six kinds of pie were also served: banana cream, coconut cream, pumpkin, apple, pecan and cherry.

Just a little something the White House Chef sneaked past the First Lady who would have probably requested stuffed and roasted kale, and would never allow such good-tasting, fulfilling food in a school lunchroom.

Sounds like a pretty upscale Thanksgiving dinner. Macaroni and cheese were also on the menu, but it's unclear if the chef didn't get the memo and served the two turkeys the president pardoned named Mac and Cheese or if it were some gourmet version featuring several kinds of cheeses with unpronounceable names and Bechamel sauce. 

 What I never imagined was the President of these United States being served green bean casserole for Thanksgiving!

Green bean casserole is a cruel joke played on a wonderful vegetable. It's a fat-laden, sodium-packed insult to the lovely green bean.

Yet family feuds have been maintained over that horrible concoction of green beans, cream of mushroom soup concentrate and canned fried onions. 

I once attended a potluck dinner where the only vegetable offered was three versions of green beans smothered in that awful mess, and each woman who brought her offering insisted hers was different -- and superior.

News flash, ladies -- it's all the same recipe. Claiming to use "golden" mushroom soup instead of the regular cream of mushroom soup is delusional. 

You have no idea how sad it makes me to know that common green bean casserole was served in the oh, so elegant White House dining room. D.C. reporters -- here's your chance to be the next Woodward and/or Bernstein. Skulk around the White House garbage cans and locate the empty cans of mushroom soup and the empty cans of fried onions. It will be a national scandal. Beangate, if you must.

I'd feel more confident about the state of the country if I knew that our leader dined on grilled or sauteed green beans. Steamed green beans with brown butter. Or deep fried green beans. I'm sure that the reason our educational level is lower than that of other countries is because so many Americans are fed brain-clogging green bean casserole.

It's a conspiracy. And it's right under the president's nose.

Listen up graduates

It's the season for graduations and graduation speeches. Young people sitting in hot robes with tassels from their mortarboards hitting them in the face listen to people they've never hard of tell them that they are the hope for the future.

That's a helluva lot to dump on some poor kid in high school whose skin hasn't cleared up yet, or some college kid who majored in parties and is about to get a diploma stating he's an expert in art history.

Umpty some years ago I heard that same line in high school. I didn't go to my college graduation, but by that time I was 32 years old and wasn't about to fall for that hope for the future stuff.

In the time since I finished high school, the future -- now past -- included man walking on the moon. Didn't have a thing to do with me. Cell phones and computers, food processors, and microwaves  came during the future I was supposed to be the hope of, but all I do is use them. Eight-tracks came and went and I barely noticed. No one has ever cured the common cold. We're still hoping someone in some future can do that.

Should I feel like I missed out on being the future's hope? Should today's graduates?

Listen up, kids. People say that, but they don't really expect that much from you. It's kind of like saying "let me know if I can do anything for you." They say it but they don't have a clue.

The future lies ahead of you but you're on your own. If you want some good advice for the future, here's some from someone who's got a lot of it behind her.

Always be kind. Even if it kills you.
Worship the Lord and obey his teachings.
Find a job you love doing.
Don't should on yourself.
Don't be in a hurry to get married or have children.
Choose wisely.
Do your best.
Don't spend more than you earn or promise more than you can deliver.
Don't concern yourself with what others think.

You are a part of the future, but don't take it all on just because some windbag gets a stipend to say you can. Thousands of other graduates are hearing the same thing. Make the best of what you have and along the way enjoy the real things in life: good friends, small blessings, family, pets, chocolate, and being able to look at your reflection in the mirror without flinching.

It ain't rocket science; it's life. Enjoy it.

Cleanup in the Catfood Aisle!

It's interesting to observe people in supermarkets.

There are the hard core coupon users. You might want a jar of peanut butter, but someone with a load of coupons has just wiped out the inventory. You don't want to get behind one at the checkout. After the clerk has swiped every item that came out of the cart and rendered a total, the couponer triumphantly hauls out a three-ring binder, fishes out a wad of coupons and grins like a possum with a mouthful of glue as the checker mindlessly swipes the bar code of each and every single one. 

Once I saw a couponer haul out her book of coupons, drag out the ones she was going to use and drop them. They fell like confetti, and I cackled at her misfortune like I had no fear of karma coming back to get me. I also changed lanes.

Then there are the mothers on Valium (or bourbon). They have to be on some sort of substance if they can't hear the screaming children in and around their cart, their little sticky hands grabbing at everything within reach. They just blissfully push their cart up and down aisles as if in a trance.

The sorority sisters are the shoppers who apparently haven't seen each other since the price of gas was in two figures, and they have a reunion right there. In the middle of the aisle. And they are aware only of each other. 

Then there's the family that shops together. Every purchase has to be discussed, analyzed, compared, argued about -- in the middle of the aisle. If you're not careful, they'll jump you if you try to get around them. 

Most shoppers are in their own little world, a world that consists of a supermarket full of merchandise and no one else but the stocker and the checker. But the most social shoppers are the people who buy catfood.

People at the catfood aisle are courteous enough to move their carts away from blocking the Friskies while they're loading up with Fancy Feast. Cat people like to share stories about their cats while they're selecting cans of food. They're equally happy to listen to your stories about your own amazing felines. I've had conversations with total strangers who seemed like old buddies after we finished tossing cans into our carts.

I have never seen people in the dogfood aisle do this. People who create a cart jam at the yogurt case don't talk to each other, except maybe in the minds of those who must wait. Folks who buy frozen pizza don't even acknowledge each other at the freezer door.

Maybe young mothers in the babyfood section exchange information; I don't know. Maybe someone can enlighten me on that. I've also never seen shoppers comparing notes on laundry detergent or toilet tissue. 

Hang around the catfood aisle once in a while, and see if I'm not right. You might even meet some interesting people. And I've never seen anyone holding up a checkout line while running through coupons for Meow Mix.