McDonald’s: an Evolution of Perception

          When we are children and don’t know any better, we believe that McDonald’s is the greatest thing.  Oh, sure, perhaps we’re too busy at the play center or enjoying the toy that falls apart long before we have finished whatever lame meal was ordered.  What did we know about nutrition?  It wasn’t even in our vocabulary.

          Teenagers seemed divided.  It’s fast, it’s cheap, close enough to the high school or jr. high.  Given the right time of the day . . . not that I think of it as a hangout – not in your larger cities anyway.  Not with a playland and 30 screaming kids.

          “It’s not where you take a girl on a date,” says Randy.  Although I could picture Tony doing that very thing – and not with a limo and candles (which Randy said was too cheesy – why spend the money on a limo?  Why not just better quality food?  Have to agree with that part.

          Biff likes the yogurt parfaits.  That’s about it.  Even at thirteen (when he was seriously a better eater than he is now) he saw McDonald’s food as something that would clog the arteries.  And it would take years and years to undo the damage.  I think Biff views McDonald’s as the gateway to suicide.

          As adults we would prefer NOT to go to McDonald’s.  It’s fine to take the kids when they’re younger, but as they get older?  Come on.  Surely we can come up with better food – even if McDonald’s does seem the only thing in the budget.

          Children don’t seem to   appreciate home cooked meals.  Going out just seems so much more prestige – even if it is McDonald’s.

          I recall the first time the boys had Alfredo sauce.  Neither Biff or Tony (who literally eats anything but chicken) seemed unimpressed, but Randy (who always expressed his gratitude and appreciative thoughts and anything to be the center of attention) said (and he genuinely did mean it as a compliment) "This tastes like restaurant food”

          Randy was grateful to eat something other than the budget meals that they had before I met Roland.  And he really did like it even if Biff and Tony weren’t all that impressed.

          I think it is the prices at McDonald’s that draw in the senior citizens.  I remember dad thinking McDonald’s was pretty good.  And mom, who, for so many year has said, “I don’t want to eat at McDonald’s.” didn’t seem to mind it the other day when Jenna announced that’s where she wanted to go.  I certainly wasn’t up for McDonald’s food, but that’s where we ended up and “grandma” didn’t seem to mind. 

          I guess by definition of the AARP I turned into a senior citizen at the end of May this year.  But my love for McDonald’s (should I ever have one) is so far into the future that I think my taste buds will have to be further gone than I am.

          On the up side: McDonald’s does provide housing for families for children who are in hospitals closer to the hospital than their own houses.  The paper products used by McDonald’s are supposedly all recyclable.  Big Macs, for instance, used to come in a Styrofoam carton.  Styrofoam is not recyclable. Therefore it was changed to cardboard.  Though I think more ends up in the “garbage” than in the “recycling” – how can a product all covered in fatty food possibly be recycled?

          There are a lot of pluses to McDonalds – possibly more than down sides.  They may have a bad rap with many.  But there will always be that genuine love among the children and senior citizens.

Congratulations to all of those who made it passed junior high

Being a youth (Jr. High age) is such an awkward part of our lives.   Everything is taken literally and there is so much tragedy and devastation.  Too young to be adults but yet too old to be considered children – or treated as such.  Often being told to “act your age” when it’s so obvious that people that age have never been that age before and have no knowledge of how to act.

          As adults we can literally look back upon all those "painful" memories and realize that what we thought was so important really isn't.  I think if a person can make it through junior high, he or she has put behind the most awful part of their social lives behind them, and can move on to become actual human beings.

Recently I read the juvenile fiction The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger - written from the students' point of view. I laughed so hard – not just at the words, but at the illustrations.  But you really do have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy it. 

I tried to read it to Jenna, but there’s too much of it that she has yet to go through and just doesn’t understand my laughter at this time – and may not get it when she is that awkward stage of her life.  I hope that I can help her overcome her struggles so that hopefully she can deal with the “pain” a lot better than I did.  But then she has always been a lot more mature academically.  Perhaps with my encouragement she will be socially, too.

Late Bloomer

I was thirteen when I got my first period.  I was with my family – on vacation.  Ugh!  I told my mom that there was blood in my pants.  She explained what was taking place inside my body and how I could look forward to this special gift each month.  Yuck!  Seriously.  Wasn’t at all excited about having this piece of womanhood.

          I didn’t receive my second period until two and a half years later.  I was at school thinking, “Okay, this is not so bad.  Every two and a half years.  I can handle that”  But there was no two and a half year wait for my next one.  They started coming in perhaps every five or six weeks.  Soft.  If it weren’t for the disgusting smell, I could have probably gotten away with just a band-aid for my entire period.  I have never been a heavy bleeder.  I have never been regular.

          I didn’t get married until I was thirty-nine.  I had joined a ready-made family and was quite okay with it as I didn’t plan on bearing any children myself.  Roland wanted more children, but I told him I was too old.  Plus our financial situation was so unstable, I didn’t think it was a very good idea. 

          Now I know the only sure method of birth control is abstinence – which I knew would not be happening with Roland’s strong desires.  I did take birth control in the first year of our marriage – never knowing whether I really needed it or not. 

          I’d been instructed on how to take them and what was expected from the cycling process.  Instead of my usual four to five weeks, I would be ovulating just every four.  And although my period did come more regular than it ever had in my entire lifetime – it was every three.  And so I was still irregular.

          Before I got pregnant with Jenna, Roland and I were told that there would be a 25% chance of my getting pregnant IF I took frailty drugs.  This was due to my age and having only one tube. I had finally convinced Roland that I would not be able to bear him anymore children.  So that was that.  Or so we believed.

The boys were out of town the summer of 2003 and Roland and I had gone to a health fair to donate blood.  I don’t know whose bright idea it was to have the registration so far away from the blood bank – but it was.  We filled out the forms at the school and walked half a mile across the playground to the trailer where the blood was drawn.

Roland has excellent blood.  He has marvelous health and was hooked up right away.  Well, by the time I walked all the way from the school to the trailer in the unbearable beating sun, my blood pressure was too high.  My efforts were rejected  (though I did get a piece of red gauze to wear on my arm so that it would appear that I had donated)

We went to another exhibit.  I was tested for diabetes and told my sugar was high – but because of the heat it might not be accurate.  I was given a card that had the address and phone # of a medical research and was told I should make an appointment – which I did.  I was feeling sluggish. 

On the morning of my scheduled appointment I questioned some pain I had in my breasts – like rubber bands snapping.  That was a familiar pain I had had before the major pain that had taken me to the hospital the previous year.

“Could I seriously be pregnant?” I wondered.

When I arrived at the clinic I told the staff that it was possible that I might be pregnant.  So they did two tests on me.  I tested negative for diabetes and positive for pregnancy.  My obstetrician was in the same complex, and so I left the medical center and went right over to make an appointment.

The first thing my Dr. did was send me downstairs for an ultrasound.  He didn’t believe in the test results I had taken and wanted to see what was really going on.  And if I was pregnant that my baby was growing where she was supposed to be and not in the remaining tube. Sure enough I was pregnant.  Blew my doctor away!

Babies seem to arrive early in my family.  Like so many others, Jenna was born  before the intended due date - eight days.  My mom and sister and I were just about to leave the house to attend a birthday party for an eighty year old we had all worked with.  But then my water broke.  Surely I wouldn't be able to drive myself to the hospital.

I had just finished eating a tuna fish sandwich – which came out shortly after we had all checked me in.  My mom and sister stayed camped out with me in the birthing room.  And Roland joined us after a while.  I was starving, but they wouldn’t let me eat anything.  And Jenna had certainly taken her time. 

23 ½ hours!  23 ½!  I had to be induced (I never did contract on my own) and Jenna’s head was guided out as I was told to push or not push and I was so loaded up on epidural I didn’t know if I actually was pushing or not.

Short of seven weeks Jenna and I are nearly 42 years apart.  My first one.  My only one biologically.  I had had some weird symptoms with her.

I couldn’t drink water without getting sick (even that summer when Roland had donated blood and I had been rejected; before I even knew I was pregnant I would get sick just drinking water) I developed a really numb case of tendentious. 

Every time I mentioned an odd side effect, my mom would just look at me with a puzzled expression and state, “I don’t remember ever getting that when I was pregnant”  Nor did my sister-in-law.  But they were also 20 years younger when they had their first babies.

Jenna keeps me young at times.  But at the same time I feel so much older as I am theoretically old enough to be the mother of some of her friends' parents.  I will be sixty when Jenna graduates high school.  And at the rate I’m going I probably won’t experience menopause until I’m in my late 70”s.