more on the fridge

[first part written 3/30/07 4:34 PM]

i called my daughter up friday afternoon to see if she wanted to go out for supper with son and i. she had just come in from school. while she's yakking at me about school and things she's going through the fridge looking for stuff to eat.

she says "there's nothing to eat in this house except some yoghurt"

i say "nothing?"

she says "except for this roast - but it's gross - it tastes funny and it's fatty all over"

so i ask what else is in the fridge - she names off all the stuff she sees.

milk, juice, yoghurt, roast, a few carrots, 1 red bell pepper. she says in the cupboard there's only cereal. some bread in the freezer. no peanut butter or stuff like that. she says that the only stuff in the house that could be made fast is all cereals or carbs - and that her mom freaks on them when they make a carb based snack after school - yells and calls them "carbohydrate junkies" and says they're addicted to carbs.

daughter says that anything in the downstairs freezer worth eating (like a big dinner sized lasagna) would take at least a half hour to make.

i give her instructions on how to cut up and re-cook the meat to make it taste better. i tell her that if she's short of food she wants to eat she should make a list and tell her mom. she says she already did that - and told me that's what i told her the last time this happened. she says that she makes her list but her mom just eats all the stuff that's supposed to be reserved for after school snacks (microwave dinners [like michelina's and stuff], burritos, blah, blah) - or cooks the stuff that is easy enough for the kids to cook first, and then they're left with nothing (sound familiar? - remember me talking about buying fast cook pre-prepared for the couple of nutty nights with lessons and then she'd cook it first, leaving me scrambling on the busy night - same pattern as while we were married).

i told daughter i didn't have much more advice than that, and that they would have to approach their mom on the subject and make their own voices heard because she sure wasn't going to listen to me.

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[this part written 3/31/07 9:40 am]

as for this being a new ploy to play me by the kids, i thought about that carefully and decided that it was real. i appreciate the warning, and have been warned by many a child of divorce about that. please do not stop warning me when you think you might be seeing it - i can be a little dull that way.

this isn't the first time on the food in the fridge thing:

from "Preparing For Their Arrival"

"Both son and daughter phoned me on the weekend before they left (without knowledge of the other's call) to complain that there was no food. There was food - but we're talking kids here - scroungable food."

from "Sunday Morning Coffee With Mrs_C"

"I told her I was pissed at the state of the house and the refrigerator since I left. I told her she bitches at the kids to eat healthily and then doesn't put any food in the friedge to eat - much more healthy food - they're home for summer vacation."

from "Round and Round we go..."

"Eventually we agreed to alter houshold schedules somewhat and change part of their diet so that there would be more crossover with my food so that they were eating more healthily too (more on the pre-prepared food crossover later)."

"On the dietary crossover. Last night Mrs_C tells me part of the reason that she wants to have their diets fit closer to mine is so that she can just heat up the food I make for myself instead of cooking if she's in a hurry or doesn't feel like cooking."