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Boxing Day not-too-sweet Apple Pie/Breakfast Treat:
1 can extra-apple pie filling
Chopped Granny Smith or Braeburn apples (tart)
Oatmeal
Cinnamon
A little flour (envision a handful)
A little margarine
(Optional: leftover applesauce from Hanukkah)
Use the margarine to rub the pan. There is enough sugar in the pie filling to spread out; otherwise you can serve it with berry sauce, or ice or whipped cream. It’s sort of an apple crisp but for breakfast, or as a side dish.
If you want it to be a dessert, add brown sugar and Mexican vanilla, which if you put in anything, people will think is a transcendant traveling experience. I use both Cinnabon (Korintje) and Watkins (Makara) cinnamon, which are better than the Rite Aid brand.
I never measure anything, because that releases joy and hilarity in it for me. I’m sort of like those Mythbuster guys who like experiments, but I lack the Y-chromosome fetish with explosions, and I’m afraid of fire.
I just thought of something funny: instead of CollegeHumor.com, we should start ProfessorHumor.com about all the funny things students really do and say. I’m too empathetic with my students to really do it: they’d be too scared to take my tests or try to get answers.
Students have filmed me doing field trips, but they’re always too busy to give me a copy. If I ever do Geography Field Trips on TV or for the Internet, I want to have a dyslexic student in the cadre, perpetually perplexed, and an artist who draws everything quickly. Everyone can do this if he/she tries, and nature is so beautiful.
Dr. Melanie Renfrew, 12/26/09
Boxing Day is a British thing from before they invented bags.
People are jealous. They don’t like individuals who stick out, because sub-consciously, it makes them feel they haven’t done enough, especially if the individuals appear to be harnessing more resources which they have not competed for.
It partly has to do with temperament, whether one is a go-getter with vision, or likes to “play by the rules” in an organization with tight boundaries. We just watched a movie about William Wilberforce’s efforts to abolish the slave trade, and abolitionists were lied about and called “seditionists.”
When I was cleaning up, I found the L.A. Times article I’d saved from last summer where former NBC Co-Chair Ben Silverman said it was too hard to change the corporate culture from within. I couldn’t even get NBC to look at the flags, after how many letters and e-mail? I don’t count; I just keep trying to influence people to see true things until they “get it,” and I’ve never been lied about to silence me before. It’s still so ludicrous, it’s hard to believe: “Is this North Korea, now?”
There is a really good CNBC special on these days, “Inside the Mind of Google;” and my son liked the book, “The Google Story” (David Vise), as he wants to be a computer engineer in that kind of environment. That’s the type of corporate culture that Ben Renfrew, Ben Silverman, and their likes would find freedom to “be themselves” in, because they promote individuality and “thinking outside the box.”* If you are ever in the Bay Area, the Computer History Museum and Intel Museum chronicle some of these stories.
On an airplane one time, there were some cute kids next to me drawing, so I started talking playfully with them. At the end, they handed me scrawled pictures, signing “Love;” and one said, “You’d make a great teacher,” and another said, “Think outside the box,” in a child’s handwriting. I made a photocopy of this one for when I was pleading with the 4 Your Health Doctor at NBC, to see that dry weather, people’s habits with sodas and diuretic drinks, and extreme High pressure and dehydration were causing the whole city to feel sick, even if he wasn’t taught that at medical school. This sheet, “Think outside the box,” is included as part of the crime file against me, as if it is not allowed in the NBC corporate culture or City of Burbank, and the cult at 3000 W. Alameda is territorially excluded from the U.S. First Amendment.
If you’ve never seen the movie, “The Firm” with Tom Cruise, don’t watch it if you become frightened easily. They “took out” employees who wouldn’t cooperate with lies and immorality the company practiced.
Sometimes, one person can make a difference; but a common theme is it takes a terrible toll on their health and morale. It’s like salmon swimming upstream; there are many casualties with bears nearby.
I’m sure the weatherman was terribly jealous I wouldn’t kowtow to his egotistical whims. I didn’t care if he didn’t want me to write him, but lying and trying to forbid a professor from writing a doctor about an epidemic she sees daily? Really, now.
They get F’s.
Dr. Melanie Renfrew, 12/26/09
*There is another good book with this theme, Jonathan Mantle’s “Companies That Changed the World; From The East India Company to Google Inc.”
The Christmas tradition at our house is to sleep in, open presents, relax, eat, walk on the beach, and play new games or watch a movie. My son gave me “Amazing Grace” about the abolition of the slave trade in England, and it’s really good.
Then back to my project: I’m sensitive to dust, mildew, and mold, so a book collection is not the wisest to have, but I like 3-D pages and the spatial act of holding a book. I write a new journal about every week, and my fingers have writers’ bumps. J.K. Rowling likes writing by hand, too.
Alas, when my books outgrow my cases, I can’t justify my children’s book collection when friends have toddlers, and this is a surgical season for me, ousting things that don’t need to be in my home or my psyche. I can never fulfill or carry out all the ideas I have, so have to let go of some of the art and craft creation possibilities.
I pray about everything, and God and Google can answer questions faster than some old textbooks. I keep changing my teaching because the world is always changing.
Melanie Renfrew
12/25/09 A special day
12/25/09 From The Messiah:
“And He shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.”
“For He is like a refiner’s fire.”
“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given;
and the government shall be upon His shoulder;
and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor,
the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”
“Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows;
He was wounded for our transgressions;
He was bruised for our iniquities;
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him.”
Even if it’s a promise to save money for spring break or July, take your kids on trips.
My dad has kept a record of all his trips, the flights and hotels, and it’s all coded. When he and I met up in Singapore a few years ago, we found a deal on Southeast Asian airlines from there, so we hopped to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Kuala Lumpur, Brunei with a funny city name, and Jakarta (Indonesia), all with coupons. He likes to email and taps my brain for memories, as we had other adventures together in Africa and Eastern Europe, some with free airfare.
I remember there was a soccer team on the Vietnamese airline, for their first time. It was crowded on the tarmac shuttle to the terminal in Malaysia, and when one young guy was sort of thrust into my face, he acted like he was seeing blue eyes in 3-D for the first time, and got all dreamy-looking. It was sweet.
I used to work in rural Africa where Mzungus* are few, and Turkana children used to like to touch the skin on my arm to see if I’m like them. Also, one time at a Red Cross blood drive, a rural Kenyan in the next bed was studying the sac attached to my arm and how it looked just like the blood coming from his, and asked me in Swahili,
“You mean it’s the same?”
* “Wazungu” = plural, from the verb, “kizunguzungu” — to run around in circles, the dizzy ones. Swahili for “white people.”
12/24/09
Guys like big mugs, and most like travel and blue. Fill ‘em with chocolates that their wives won’t give them, and they won’t give it away.
I have a lot of brother figures in my life, and they’re not into the girl stuff their wives like. When asked what’s their wife’s favorite color, some go, “Huh?”
Yesterday I was trying to make the case that I was really trying to be traditional by planning a Christmas dinner, but it only lasted about an hour (to when I got home from Ralph’s). Nonconformity overtakes me with divine power.
Lake Wobegon in Minnesota has Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery: we should have that chain here, and people would cook better.
A big hit
So when I got through at the dentist’s this morning (trying to maximize my benefits before Dec. 31), I thought, we had an international Thanksgiving, maybe I should do a more traditional Christmas meal with (turkey) ham. The other day I smelled some cloves, and instantly I saw my grandma’s ham with cloves stuck in it, the kind with red cherries in pineapple rings? This is the grandma in Palo Alto who always forgot the rolls in the oven at holiday meals; who also, by the way, fed me with canned milk at 6 months old when my parents ditched me to go to New York, or at least that’s what they said. It was something about how station wagons were cheaper there, but I think they just wanted to get away.
So maybe this is where my abandonment issues come from, and for sure, it’s why I’ve had a lifelong love affair with Ultra-pasteurized (UHT) milk.
So Ralph’s was there, and as I studied the meat selections, I decided against trying a roast because it’s really hard to get it and keep it medium rare. When I got home I was hungry, so decided to have some of the ham. What’s great about being on vacation is we can eat whenever, and then some.
Some of my neighbors give us baked treats and fudge, but I like to give real food –
Meatloaf made with raspberry salsa;
Kugel made with Star of David pasta, raspberry syrup, Mexican vanilla, and Makara and Korintje cinnamon (spices are so geographical!), but with enough plain yogurt to have that sort-of-sour-sweetened-cheesecake taste;
Russian Caravan tea.
I got the pineapple rings, but I’m not really sure what we’ll have Christmas Day because I might think of something even more “American” to create.
Having fun, blessings on ya!
(Enlarged to show burnt blurry texture.)
Bonus Irony Points for pairing meat and milk. (My neighbors lack kosher dietary exclusion restrictions.)
It’s the difference between night and day.
I’m sorting my hundreds of books on this sunny day. I am not looking forward to going back to teaching because I don’t feel fully healed inside. I didn’t catch up with everything and I’m still not as energetic as tissues re-grow. We are all exposed to countless germs, and the darker days inhibit stimulation of serotonin.
That’s really an excuse for not wanting to face the hurt of the slander and libel against me, and doubts in the faces of ambivalent students. Education is only successful if students want to learn and try, and if their parents are making them be there, some will find any excuse not to study. It hurts when I see people at Christmas parties, and they’re worried about my health. I’ve always been 100% trustworthy, so it’s “damages” to have someone public lie.
However, I may have a new following because people like new controversy and daring, and want to be in on it. A psychotic weatherman does not a stalker make.
In the Bible, death or humiliation always prefaced greatness and resurrection. They’re paired.
Dr. Melanie Renfrew, 12/22/09
See you in class, and no spitwads.
A lot of my humor is based on instinctual and behavioral differences between genders, and that’s partly because I’ve been friends with boys and girls my whole life. Only really close ones, I let call me “Mel,” because that was from an earlier era of my life, or my mom.
I’ve taught Cultural Anthropology twice at Woodbury University (in Burbank), and I couldn’t find the table online, but in the text I used, there was a cross-cultural chart showing jobs, All men do, All women do, Most men do, etc. Of course I know about diversity and the fallacy of composition in stereotyping, but wanted to say I think our culture is really lost when it comes to chivalry and manners. It’s partly because there is so much sexual brokenness, men don’t develop courtship skills (or they lose them). They want to “try a woman out” on an early date, and are not attracted viscerally to someone they’ve already slept with, OR to win one who has slept with other men, so singleness is rampant.
Men have a visceral attraction to both “out there” (a drive to hunt), and a nurturing hearth, a home to make a family in. Introverts and extroverts, thinking-dominant and feeling-dominant, intuitive-sensing, and perceptive – judicial are attracted to each other instantly and viscerally: it’s “chemistry,” and that’s why “love at first sight” marriages and movies are common. No movies are made about e-harmony-type couples who are similar: it’s no plot.
My parents are both extroverts, a bit unusual, my dad has been to >100 countries, and all my siblings are international. My geography colleagues are all like this, too: we’re “out there.” It’s not that we don’t have fears; but that we have a habit of working through them.
I believe God designed the scientific world, every atom and within, every galaxy and beyond, with loving intent. We live in a “fallen world” (see Genesis 1-3 
), and I like to joke as a way of helping others see,
“It’s not just me,” or
“It’s not just my wife,” or “the guys at work.”
I was pondering how marketing teams usually lack a female perspective (my dad was in marketing and advertising, and then taught it). Not as many women choose this field because at the instinctual level, it feels aggressive, manipulative, and a woman’s instinct is to nurture and create family.
I don’t understand why ads are still geared toward 18-49-year old males, because women are programmed to go to the market and socialize, this age group is now broke and in debt, and what arouses guys turns off women. We want to protect children, so can switch channels quickly on TV remotes. Slutty commercials do not belong in our living rooms. If men go hide their porn, they have a habit of stifling their true selves, and wives don’t become aroused if the real men are psychologically hiding. Waiting around also gyps them of their normalcy. It’s not healthy.
Instead of opening a door for a woman, if I pause, some will walk through ahead as a way of trying to hide their sexual feelings. It’s rampant: some men are rude because they’ve lost honor for women, and blame us for their lack of courtesy. It’s self-sabotage, and “so L.A.”
In other countries, men are instinctually chivalrous depending on the population density. Singapore, yes; Tokyo, no: this is my experience. Austria – yes, India – some. I can’t stereotype, but I can report that instinctually, when men overseas have treated me as a sister to protect, or as a “California girl” to shyly flirt with, without jocularity but honor, I think all women on the planet would feel inwardly romantic as a response. It’s a respect and honor and treasure that is communicated, an attitude instead of words.
