Family, Food, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Who’s Choosing the Menu?

50 Comments

After the great naan breakfast recipe last week, we had ricotta cheese left.  I hate throwing out food so I bought some lasagna noodles and told YA what I was going to make.

The morning I started to make the dish, YA wandered into the kitchen.  “Make lasagna rolls instead of regular lasagna” she said.  I whined and said this was a lot more work than just quickly layering stuff into one pan.  She whined a bit more and I told her (as I was putting the noodles into the boiling water) that I would think about it.  This is straight-up parent-speak for “No, but I want you to quit bugging me about it.”

She left me in the kitchen and a few minutes later, I heard the vacuum running upstairs.  I made the lasagna rolls.

Is there anybody who can push your buttons this well?

50 thoughts on “Who’s Choosing the Menu?”

  1. Vacuuming was a master stroke on YA’s part. I have a hard time saying “no” to my daughter, particularly when she requests special baking or cooking. I must admit, though, that I am more a button pusher than someone who has her buttons pushed.

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  2. The lasagna rolls look yummy, by the way. I use Barilla no-cook lasagna. There is no way to roll those noodles.

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  4. Nobody pushed buttons in my marriage. The asymmetric distribution of power made that unnecessary. One family member led, and two followed. Beneath the clarity of that dynamic it was possible to send messages of protest if they were sufficiently covert. We mastered the art of dish washing as a form of passive aggression.

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      1. Nobody wanted to wash dishes in our household. When a discussion got slightly testy, someone could walk to the sink and begin washing up. It was a way of claiming the moral high ground. It deflected bad feelings. And got the dishes clean.

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  5. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    I thought whoever arranged the underwear tree that was our topic yesterday, pushed the laugh button. That was enjoyable.

    No one can push my buttons like #45; therefore, I try to shield myself from TV news especially. I do my best to think about other things and just not go there. After 3.5 very long years, I still can’t believe this guy. Usually, I do pretty well with it unless I inadvertently run into a ranter. Next come his supporters, especially my uncle, so I stay away from him simply because He Will Not Stop upon request. You just can’t live that way all the time.

    In March, on our way home from AZ, we stayed overnight at the LQ Hotel in Trinidad, CO. In the morning we were packing up and walking the dogs. The car next to us had South Carolina plates. I was not paying attention to the car or the owners because I was busy. One owner walked up to me in a MAGA hat, pointed to my license plate, then his hat, and said, “I’ll bet in Minnesota you don’t like this.”

    It took me a minute, because I WAS PACKING THE CAR, and not thinking about this. When I finally got it I said to him, “No, but I am not talking about this with you,” and I left. Weirdly, he was a gay guy (rainbow sticker on the car) and his partner stood off to the side shaking his head, not at me, but at his partner, then he shrugged. He must have to live with that. Yuck. He was pushing buttons with relish.

    A client recently told me a story about Texas. People there apparently talk politics for recreation, while here in Minnesota, this is considered somewhat impolite. After a Pre-CoVID visit there to see her daughter, she was pretty freaked out by the entire tradition there.

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      1. The other way to do this is to grow up with a father whose favorite thing wants to play devils advocate. More than once he would around argue you around to his side and then he would switch to the other side and argue you around to that.

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    2. Jacque, you are probably right to think different regions have distinctive styles for discussing social arrangements. On the west coast unhappy citizens protest but do little more, for westerners do not believe in collective action. Similarly, east coast people often complain dramatically about society’s inequities, but complaining is its own reward because real reform is unlikely. In several midwestern states people believe protest needs to be followed by new policies because change, while not easy, is possible. On day three of the George Floyd protests in Minnesota, reformers seized control of the event and began planning ways to effect change.

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  6. A childhood friend I rarely see can still get a rise out of me if she starts being “bossy”… But the one I’ve noticed lately is this one high school acquaintance on Facebook, a diehard Trumpster, that I’ve decided to not unfriend, so that I can see what the other side is imbibing. Some of these are so rude that first my jaw drops, then I seethe, I rack my brain for some pertinent comment that will make her see the light… once I actually copied/pasted something from Snopes that said “pants on fire”, but of course it will fall on deaf ears. On my more lucid days, of course, I just ignore her, and know that she probably feels exactly the same about some of my FB posts.

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    1. I disagree with so many things on FB and I get the urge to respond… but as you say, deaf ears and all and I know I don’t have the time or energy to keep up with them. So I just scroll on by.

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    2. BiR, my liberal daughter finally realized she was not going to convert her conservative husband, nor was he going to convert her. Their resolution was the “five minute conversation.” When they disagree on some topic, they allow themselves five minutes to express the two points of view. And then that discussion is shut down. Having listened respectfully to other side, they move on to other topics because both know that more discussion will create more heat but no more agreement.

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        1. If her husband is conservative enough to be a DT supporter, I’d be surprised if they can pull that off for very long.

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        2. PJ he is as conservative as he could be without adopting the loony conspiracy stuff, and he officially dislikes DT. He is also a sweet, loving husband and devoted father. tim could be right, and yet those two work very hard on sustaining a positive relationship. George and Kellyanne Conway are still together. James Carville and Mary Matalin are together. So maybe it can be done.

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        4. I have a friend who is in the divorce process now, due mainly to political incompatibilities. It’s one thing if you’re liberal and your spouse is conservative. It’s a different situation if you’re rational and your spouse is a cult member.

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  7. Daughter certainly knows how to push my buttons. But I think I push hers too so I guess that’s fair.

    We’re good early in the day. Or when it’s just her and I. But later in the day we grate on each other. Or when Kelly is around so that we have an audience. I keep reminding myself I’m supposed to be the adult in this situation. And yet that doesn’t stop me from saying something snotty. I’m working on that… 🙂

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  8. My father was a great button pusher, especially for people who held strong beliefs, either liberal or conservative . He respected those who could express and defend their positions and still stay rational. If they couldn’t, he would tease and see if he could set them off. He honed this skill to perfection when he ran his coffee shop

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      1. My maternal grandmother had a decades long feud with her sister. When ever we went to a family gathering, my mom would tell my dad “Now remember, don’t bring up Aunt Emmy”. Dad would hold his tongue until later in the visit, and then ask “So, Dora,have you heard from that sister of yours lately?”. My grandma would then start holding forth about the perifidity of her sister, and mom would glare at dad and everyone tried to distract Oma and change the subject.

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        1. My COVID home project has been scanning family history into digital form. As I have sorted through old family papers, pictures, and documents from our family history, I found a feud letter, as well as its response from my Great-Grandfather (who I remember) and his younger sister, Mae. It was written in 1953 (as I recall) about events which occurred in 1920 or so. Yes, 1920. Great Grandpa Hess’s second wife, Cora, became ill which he could not cope with. So he kept her home and neglected her. The younger sister finally intervened and removed Cora to care for her until she died some weeks later. Louie never forgave Mae for this because, “I loved Cora so. She belonged with me.”

          This guy was famous for this kind of egregious, self-centered behavior. It was always all about Louie. The feud went on for years, and they talked about each other, but never to each other. This was such a dynamic that I even heard about the goings-on a generation later when the main figures were long gone.

          Mae wrote Louie to say she was thinking of him and that she loved him. He responded in so many words that he had never forgiven her and he still would not do so. By then he had outlived 2 more wives, for a grand total of four. A fine Christian man he thought he was. So aggrieved.

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      2. One of his final wishes was that I include in the slide show at his funeral lunch the signed glossy of Hillary Clinton thanking him for a donation to her campaign, just to annoy his deeply conservative Republican friends.

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  9. I am possibly the worlds biggest leave it to beaver fan this morning’s episode was from the final season when beaver is in middle school and Wally is in high school and beavers friend Gilbert points out to beaver that the oldest kid is always the favorite and always gets everything and the younger kid gets screwed
    Will beaver had never thought of that but the more Gilbert gave him illustrations as to how Wall-E got looked after just like Gilbert’s older sister did the more beaver became upset and it went on to become an issue where beaver was feeling very upset and got ugly with wiley and his parents and ended up feeling like a victim and having his whole life turn to a unhappy situation
    Will beaver had never thought of that but the more Gilbert gave him illustrations as to how Wally got looked after just like Gilbert‘s older sister did the more beaver became upset and it went on to become an issue where beaver was feeling very upset and got ugly with Wally and his parents and ended up feeling like a victim and having his whole life turn to a unhappy situation my button gets pushed when I’m at home and my wife gets after me with all the things that need to be done that she would like for me to have accomplished rather than sitting on the couch I know that these things need to be done but it drives me crazy that no matter how much I do there’s always more on the list and there’s never a recognition for what being done but always a added list of things that need to be taken care of she’s proud of the fact that she doesn’t have anything on her list but that’s because she writes her own list
    I thought about giving her a List of horrible things to do that would be things that she would be responsible for instead of me but whenever I attempt to ask her to do something she informs me of how busy she is and that I should look after my own needs I’m not smart enough to have figured out how to do that back but it’s probably what the answer to the challenge is wouldn’t you think

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    2. My marriage is far from anyone’s romantic ideal, but I know for certain that it would be over if either one of us took it upon ourselves to issue a to-do list to the other.

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        1. Oh, we have plenty of things that need to be done, and several of them are things that I can’t physically do. We have the option of hiring someone to do it, or husband will have to. We don’t always share the sense of urgency of what needs to be done, and that can be a source of friction. Sometimes we don’t even agree that it needs to be done. For instance, it’s been two years since we’ve had a working dishwasher. I have done all the dishes that I intend to do, but husband claims to like doing dishes. Fine with me, so long as he does them and they’re clean. Once dirty dishes start piling up, or I pull dishes out of the cabinets that aren’t clean, then all bets are off. We are both very clear on what acceptable standards are. I don’t have a mental list of things that I want him to do, and sure hope he doesn’t have one for me.

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      2. PJ I once helped a friend escape her marriage to a fellow with obsessive compulsive personality disorder. She woke up one morning to find a to-do list on her chest that he had left for her. It had 34 tasks on it for the day.

        She did eventually leave.

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        1. I’m not sure what your point is with that comment, Steve? Surely you’re not suggesting that everything had been fine and dandy until that day?

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      3. Husband is a compulsive list maker for groceries and for things he needs to do. He is a typical oldest son/brother who is compelled to do everything for everyone. He is lucky I like to do things myself, and I don’t take advantage of his excessive caretaking for others.

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    1. Hey Wes, I answered a couple of days ago but it was really late in the day so you might not have seen it. Your Juno email address is still listed under the user accounts so if you go to posts, you ought to be able to add a story yourself . If that doesn’t work out or if you’ve changed your email address just let me know my email address is Shelikins at hotmail.com. And I can always post a story for you as well.

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