Thursday Treat

Today I decided to do something different.  Instead of posting a personal story or an opinion piece, I'll shake things up and write about something yummy.  So here's a Thursday Treat.

Fruit Fool

A fool is a traditional English dessert made from puréed fruit and custard, although a more modern version replaces the custard with whipped cream.  I frequently make this light and fluffy confection during the summer when local fruit is plentiful.

To make this you will need:

Blender or food processor
Electric mixer
Medium-sized mixing bowl
4 small serving dishes

One cup berries or diced soft fruit such as peach or cherry
Half-pint (240 ml) whipping cream, also called 35% cream
1/3 cup or 5 tablespoons+1 teaspoon confectioners sugar, aka icing sugar

If the room is very warm, chill the bowl and the mixing beaters for 1 hour prior.

Purée the fruit in the food processor and set it aside.
Pour the cream into the bowl and beat it on medium-high setting for about two minutes or until the cream forms peaks.
Slowly add the confectioner's sugar and blend it in, about 30 seconds.
Add the puréed fruit and blend it in, about 30 seconds.
Spoon mixture into serving dishes, chill for half an hour.

Everybody Loves a Train Wreck

"Fame makes a man think things over; fame makes him loose, hard to swallow; fame puts you there where things are hollow, fame!" -- David Bowie

The headlines are everywhere. "Drunk Mayor of City Caught on Video" "Celebrity Arrested for Drag Racing" "Singer Dies from Drug Overdose".

These events tend to set off a huge outpouring of sentiment, both positive and negative. Some of the comments that I have seen in various places inspired me to write about why there tends to be such a large to-do about such things.

The first thing one needs to understand is that being in the public eye is harsh. Your every move is flashed around the world. People intrude into your private life. You are viewed by many as a hero, as an inspiration. Some can't live up to their image all the time and try to banish their demons through alcohol, drugs, or risky behaviour. The strong ones survive the pressure. Unfortunately others don't, despite whatever their families or friends might have tried to do to help.

That said, we are partly to blame also. We are the ones who put these people up on pedestals and expect them to be perfect. We vote politicians into office expecting them to keep their promises. And then we are disappointed when they prove to be human after all. What gets me angry is the lack of compassion that some people appear to show.

Quote: "Let's talk a little less sadly about the woman who self destructed and threw her entire life away through drugs and alcohol for fifteen years, and let's talk a little more about the poor mixed up young lady she left behind."

Quote: "I have been a fan since I was a little girl. But, I am already tired of hearing about (it). We are celebrating as though she was doing everything right."

Quote: "Why are we wasting our time with this? We should forget about their poor example and devote our time to more important things."

I like to think that celebrities and people in high positions were good people before the pressures of fame and their own stupid choices brought them down. For part of their lives, they gave us happiness for part of our lives. Do we cast their works aside just because they made a mistake? Do we forget them because they showed themselves to be human and not superheroes? Certainly not. After all, aren't those who forget history doomed to repeat it?

Against all reason, we love flawed people. If a person is very creative they are often also flawed. It might not be an addiction to drugs or alcohol, it might be a behavioural thing, but we tolerate it because they are creative - just look at the artist Vincent van Gogh. We sort of expect it and we love them "anyway". But let's be more careful about who we choose as role models because they don't always meet those expectations.

Acceptable Length

As the weather finally warms up and people remove the layers of clothing, many schools are clashing with their students concerning appropriate attire in the classroom.  Recently in my area a girl was called out in front of her high school class because the jean-shorts she wore were deemed too short according to the school's dress code.  When she protested, she was suspended from school for a day.

Calling a student out for what he or she is wearing is tantamount to bullying by the teacher and/or administration.  They should have simply taken the girl aside or spoken to her in an office, instead of shaming her in front of her peers.

Aside from that, a classroom is a place to learn, not for ogling members of the opposite sex because they're wearing skimpy outfits in hot weather.  Young people are ruled by their hormones and they don't need the extra distraction of bare flesh.  I know some will say that they need to control themselves better, but the fact is that most can't or won't.

My high school didn't have a dress code as such, as I found out in my senior year.  (There was a uniform for gym classes and sports teams, but that was all.)  One hot day in June one of my fellow students was sent home by her math teacher because he was of the mind that what she was wearing - cutoff shorts and tank top - was inappropriate for class.  The teacher in turn was scolded by the principal for doing so because the principal believed that the students could wear what they wanted as long as they did their schoolwork.

The math teacher figured that if there was in fact no dress code and the students could wear what they wanted, then the staff could also.  He decided to bolster his argument by showing up for work the next day wearing an honest-to-goodness dress - borrowed from his wife, or who knew where he got it.  He taught his first two classes of the day in that dress, much to the amusement of the students.  The principal was furious and insisted that he change back to regular clothing, but the point had been made.  Whether the incident actually effected changes in the dress code, I never found out.

To me, this should be the norm: no tank tops or spaghetti straps that allow a bra to show, and shorts that cover from the waist to mid-thigh.  Better yet, use school uniforms.  Then nobody has the right to complain. Those low-rise, belly-button revealing, butt-hugging things that show your crack are NOT shorts; save those for the beach.  If you wouldn't wear it at an office job, you shouldn't wear it in school.

Special People are People Too

"I may be an idiot, but I'm not stupid." -- Roger Rabbit

When I was in grade school back in the 1970s there was a classroom down the hallway with the number JO4 above it.  Nobody knew what the number actually represented, other than it was different from all the other classroom numbers.  But everyone knew that the students in that classroom were different from all the other students in the school: they were special.  Special, meaning slow.  Special, meaning retarded.

This was in the days before young people with mental disabilities were put into the mainstream classes.  So most of the time my peers never gave them a second thought; it was like they didn't exist.  A few of the JO4 kids (as they were known) had the unfortunate circumstance of also being physically different in some way - there was one boy whose face looked normal on one side and droopy on the other.  When they were seen outside of their classroom they were met by stares at best and derogatory comments at worst.

I never thought that way.  I could see in their eyes how much the stares and taunts hurt them, so I would greet them kindly.  And I happened to know that one of them was no less intelligent than any of the other kids, but she had a form of cerebral palsy that made it hard for her to control her movements, and so she was placed with the special kids through no fault of hers.  Heck, I had even been called "retarded" a number of times because I happened to enjoy reading books that were under my grade level or hanging out with kids younger than me.  So I could totally relate.  Which was why, when my teacher asked for volunteers to read books and record them onto audio cassette for the JO4 class, I had no qualms about raising my hand.

Just because someone is less intelligent, or has some form of illness or disability, is no reason to be harsh toward them.  But the sad truth is that many people fear what is different, and those with special needs are certainly different.  They can be hard to live with, hard to take care of, and might not have the capacity to be self-sufficient.  But they are human too, and they deserve as much respect as anyone else.

Which brings me to another person that I knew from middle school.  His name was Alan, and he came to school in a special bus that was adapted for his motorized wheelchair.  He had cerebral palsy so severe that he could barely walk, and his face and body would sometimes contort into scary expressions despite his best efforts to control himself.  But there was nothing wrong with his intelligence - he graduated top in his class.  Now he is an artist who specializes in storytelling and comedy.

Alexander Graham Bell, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney were dyslexic.  Geri Jewell, Thomas Ritter, Josh Blue have cerebral palsy.  Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Thomas Gore are blind.  They and many others have proven that the world would a better place if we embraced the diversity of our fellow beings.

Mental Freedom

Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. -- Khaled Hosseini

There's a group on Facebook of which I am a member, called Psychopath Free. The admin is the author of a book by the same name that offers advice to mentally abused women. I was introduced to this group by a friend after I had mentioned that my ex husband had almost driven me to a nervous breakdown. It's full of stories of broken hearts, broken trust, and advice on how to leave the pain behind and move on. While I have been free for 14 years there are many others who still suffer, and I don't hesitate to share my stories as a warning as well as a message to others to say, you are not alone in going through that.

Some abusers don't even realize that what they are doing is abuse. Others are well aware and every move is calculated to bring them the biggest advantage. Still others are immature children in an adult's body who cling desperately to anything that will help them get their way. My ex was all of the above, which made him the most dangerous kind of person. To everyone else he was a great guy, and his family thought the world of him. But in private he made my life a living hell.

One of his favourite tricks was to step quickly on the brakes while driving, which had the effect of jerking the vehicle. He knew that it was dangerous but it scared me speechless, which effectively allowed him to have the last word if we ever had a disagreement while on the road. He would just jerk the brakes to shut me up.

Another of his quirks was this: if another driver cut him off in traffic he would tailgate the offender and flick the high-beams at them, at the same time grinning like a teenager playing a video game. I was riding with him during one incident where he took things further. When my ex flicked his high-beams at another driver, the guy sped up and pulled ahead - obviously not wanting to get into a confrontation. However my ex refused to let it go and chased after the other driver at high speed through a residential area until the person pulled into a driveway. By the end of it I was terrified and sick to my stomach. From that day forward I feared for my life every time I had to ride in a vehicle with him.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

My breaking point came when he accused my friends of brainwashing me against him, and he refused to let me go anywhere unless he was with me, or unless I agreed to a list of demands that he made. I realized then that I had to leave him, or else I would go insane or turn into his slave, or both. As if to spite me he told his family that I had been having an affair, and they almost immediately cut me off - to their Catholic upbringing, cheating on one's spouse was one of the worst crimes. My attempts to explain fell on deaf ears.

So I left all that behind. It took years for me to recover, financially and emotionally, but it has made me a stronger person.