which_chick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
which_chick) wrote2022-12-15 06:16 pm
which_chick) wrote2022-12-15 06:16 pm
Entry tags:
Spite chocolates, pumpkin contest
Mom liked them. Cousin Heather (who got some just by asking) liked them. Cousin Heather's husband liked them. Trys liked the ones she got (if you ask for "Just espresso flavor" then you just get espresso flavor). Lala, of course, liked them.
Different people were gushingly enthusiastic about different flavors, but y'know, tastes differ and not everyone likes the same stuff.
Did Mom know what they were about? Of course. She's not actually an idiot.
We had a talk that didn't involve any yelling by anyone. Yay! During the talk, mom came out with the following statement: They were really good. What did you do, go online and search for filling recipes?
Damn, mom, and the whole talking thing was going so well, too. How could you throw THIS bullshit at me when you were the woman who NEVER, NOT ONCE, EVER, let me turn in anything other than my own fucking work. No, which-chick, this is your project, so you need to do the work. This is your project, your grade, your paper, your work. I am not in school anymore. I already did all the work for school. Now it is your turn and you must do your own work. It ALWAYS had to be my own work. ALWAYS. This whole "You just googled for recipes, right?" pisses me off, at the base of it, because of the stupid fucking 1980 Halloween Pumpkin Decorating Contest at my elementary school.
Grudges, I hold them.
Allow me to explain.
I was in fourth grade, ten years old. You had to decorate (adorn, paint, whatever, but you couldn't cut) the pumpkin, however you liked. My pumpkin decorating contest idea (helpfully suggested by my brother Roy, both less effectual and more creative than I am) was After-the-Ball. You know, how Cinderella's coach turned back into a pumpkin? Like that. With mice for the horses. And still it would have wheels so that people could see that it was a pumpkin coach because otherwise it would have just been mice and yarn and a pumpkin and nobody would have gotten it.
To enter the contest, I had to make my own pumpkin coach. I'm not the one who wants to enter the pumpkin contest, which-chick. You want to enter the contest, you do your own work. I had to design and execute my own made-from-cardboard-and-dowels carriage wheels that would support a real pumpkin, make my own little cardboard mice (they were 3-d, not profile cutouts -- painted gray with pipe cleaner tails and I'm not sure why because mice are brownish with white bellies and I knew that at ten, even), make my own little brown yarn harnesses for the cardboard mice... all of it done with my unskilled and shitty ten year old hands. (Let us not forget that I was TOTALLY provided with materials and generalized encouragement and time and a clean, well-lit space to pursue this shit along with reasonable parental nudges along the lines of "Why don't you work on your pumpkin project?" and so forth. I wasn't, like, set adrift here. I had parental support and scaffolding to help me get on with it, but the work... the work was my work. Given that I've basically been as biddable as a cat for my entire life, it probably would have been easier for mom to just make the fucking thing herself, except that she is completely nonmechanical and I'd have stood there the whole time telling her how she was doing it wrong because her execution was not matching my vision. Kind of a wash on which way would have been more unpleasant.)
But anyway, the IDEA was a goddamn baller, even I could see that, and it could have been SO FUCKING GOOD. Hell, it WAS so fucking good in my mind -- my mind's eye version looked fantastic. The reality, though, was me doing my best and ruining an absolutely baller idea with the incompetence of a ten-year-old on the arts-n-crafts front. You know how people do Pinterest Fail and ... it's funny? Except it wasn't funny. It was infuriating. When I got done, about the only thing I could see was the gigantic canyon between my mind's-eye vision and my created reality sitting lopsidedly on the dining room table.
So my misshapen and shitty crafting effort that was super frustrating, that one, MY MOM MADE ME ENTER IT ANYWAY. Okay, whatever, I don't care anymore anyway. (This was a lie. I cared a lot.) The contest entries were displayed in the school library (on top of the book shelves) for like a week, WITH YOUR NAME ON YOUR ENTRY so that everyone in the entire world could see how bad I was at crafts. It was a horrible week during which OTHER PEOPLE'S PUMPKIN CONTEST ENTRIES LOOKED WELL-EXECUTED AND COMPETENT and mine looked like it was made by a bear wearing oven mitts. I did not enjoy seeing my clumsy, stupid, poorly-executed entry sitting there next to everyone else's ... everyone else's... mom's crafting expertise. I was ten, not blind. The difference in skill and execution was not small.
My mom tried to explain to me that my entry was not shit. She explained that it was just the only entry that had actually been done by a ten year old. She explained that the other entries were done by thirty-something moms and that OF COURSE they would look more polished and competent than mine because the moms WERE ADULTS and had twenty years of skills over me. She tried pretty hard to explain the qualitative difference between "the pumpkin is a head" decorating ideas and "the pumpkin is an ex-fairytale coach" decorating idea and so forth and yet I did not find any of her explanations comforting and remained frustrated as hell that my entry looked so clumsy and stupid compared with everyone else's entries.
Sigh. The virtues of doing my own work were not readily apparent to me during the pumpkin decorating contest. However, the same lesson was repeated and repeated and repeated. My project, my paper, my grade, my work. Always my own work. I must do my own work. Even an obstinate and unbiddable child will eventually learn the lesson if it's presented often enough.
No, mom, I didn't just google for recipes, that has NEVER EVER been the acceptable answer for you and acting like I'd stoop to that at this late date is a bit... wow. No, mom. No.
I came up with MY OWN PLAN. (You must do your own work.)
I THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT I WANTED TO DO. (It's your project. What do you want to do? Let's brainstorm some ideas.)
I thought about what I knew about candy and flavors and textures. (What do you think might be a good starting point for this project? What kinds of ideas are you having?)
I DID SOME FIRST DRAFTS AND EXPERIMENTED. (Why don't you give it a try and see what happens. If it doesn't work, you can still get some good ideas from how it went wrong.)
I wasted an entire quart of black raspberries on failure. I wasted like twenty apricots, a block of cream cheese, a smallish bag of rice flour, several hot peppers, some powdered sugar, and a bag of white chocolate chips. I did not go on about these failures in the progress reports because Hell, I fucked up again and have no idea what I'm doing. This sucks. I suck. I hate this. is not a narrative that I enjoy sharing. Just because you don't see the glue-y and horrible efforts I made trying to turn black raspberry juice into a non-fondant, not-overly-sweet substance that is NICELY TEXTURED, moldable-into-balls, and sturdy enough to COAT IN CHOCOLATE doesn't mean they didn't happen. (Okay, that didn't work. So, think about what went wrong. What changes could you make for next time?)
AFTER I GOT THINGS RIGHT, which did NOT happen on the first try except for stuff I already knew how to make, I MADE MY OWN SPITE CHOCOLATES using MY OWN kitbashed recipes and decorated them with decorations I thought of and designed myself.
I TURNED IN MY OWN FUCKING WORK. (You must do your own work.) Again. Always.
How
Dare
You
Suggest
I
Would
Even
CONSIDER
Doing
Otherwise?
*sigh*
Also, for what it's worth, I won the pumpkin contest.
It really was a baller idea.
Different people were gushingly enthusiastic about different flavors, but y'know, tastes differ and not everyone likes the same stuff.
Did Mom know what they were about? Of course. She's not actually an idiot.
We had a talk that didn't involve any yelling by anyone. Yay! During the talk, mom came out with the following statement: They were really good. What did you do, go online and search for filling recipes?
Damn, mom, and the whole talking thing was going so well, too. How could you throw THIS bullshit at me when you were the woman who NEVER, NOT ONCE, EVER, let me turn in anything other than my own fucking work. No, which-chick, this is your project, so you need to do the work. This is your project, your grade, your paper, your work. I am not in school anymore. I already did all the work for school. Now it is your turn and you must do your own work. It ALWAYS had to be my own work. ALWAYS. This whole "You just googled for recipes, right?" pisses me off, at the base of it, because of the stupid fucking 1980 Halloween Pumpkin Decorating Contest at my elementary school.
Grudges, I hold them.
Allow me to explain.
I was in fourth grade, ten years old. You had to decorate (adorn, paint, whatever, but you couldn't cut) the pumpkin, however you liked. My pumpkin decorating contest idea (helpfully suggested by my brother Roy, both less effectual and more creative than I am) was After-the-Ball. You know, how Cinderella's coach turned back into a pumpkin? Like that. With mice for the horses. And still it would have wheels so that people could see that it was a pumpkin coach because otherwise it would have just been mice and yarn and a pumpkin and nobody would have gotten it.
To enter the contest, I had to make my own pumpkin coach. I'm not the one who wants to enter the pumpkin contest, which-chick. You want to enter the contest, you do your own work. I had to design and execute my own made-from-cardboard-and-dowels carriage wheels that would support a real pumpkin, make my own little cardboard mice (they were 3-d, not profile cutouts -- painted gray with pipe cleaner tails and I'm not sure why because mice are brownish with white bellies and I knew that at ten, even), make my own little brown yarn harnesses for the cardboard mice... all of it done with my unskilled and shitty ten year old hands. (Let us not forget that I was TOTALLY provided with materials and generalized encouragement and time and a clean, well-lit space to pursue this shit along with reasonable parental nudges along the lines of "Why don't you work on your pumpkin project?" and so forth. I wasn't, like, set adrift here. I had parental support and scaffolding to help me get on with it, but the work... the work was my work. Given that I've basically been as biddable as a cat for my entire life, it probably would have been easier for mom to just make the fucking thing herself, except that she is completely nonmechanical and I'd have stood there the whole time telling her how she was doing it wrong because her execution was not matching my vision. Kind of a wash on which way would have been more unpleasant.)
But anyway, the IDEA was a goddamn baller, even I could see that, and it could have been SO FUCKING GOOD. Hell, it WAS so fucking good in my mind -- my mind's eye version looked fantastic. The reality, though, was me doing my best and ruining an absolutely baller idea with the incompetence of a ten-year-old on the arts-n-crafts front. You know how people do Pinterest Fail and ... it's funny? Except it wasn't funny. It was infuriating. When I got done, about the only thing I could see was the gigantic canyon between my mind's-eye vision and my created reality sitting lopsidedly on the dining room table.
So my misshapen and shitty crafting effort that was super frustrating, that one, MY MOM MADE ME ENTER IT ANYWAY. Okay, whatever, I don't care anymore anyway. (This was a lie. I cared a lot.) The contest entries were displayed in the school library (on top of the book shelves) for like a week, WITH YOUR NAME ON YOUR ENTRY so that everyone in the entire world could see how bad I was at crafts. It was a horrible week during which OTHER PEOPLE'S PUMPKIN CONTEST ENTRIES LOOKED WELL-EXECUTED AND COMPETENT and mine looked like it was made by a bear wearing oven mitts. I did not enjoy seeing my clumsy, stupid, poorly-executed entry sitting there next to everyone else's ... everyone else's... mom's crafting expertise. I was ten, not blind. The difference in skill and execution was not small.
My mom tried to explain to me that my entry was not shit. She explained that it was just the only entry that had actually been done by a ten year old. She explained that the other entries were done by thirty-something moms and that OF COURSE they would look more polished and competent than mine because the moms WERE ADULTS and had twenty years of skills over me. She tried pretty hard to explain the qualitative difference between "the pumpkin is a head" decorating ideas and "the pumpkin is an ex-fairytale coach" decorating idea and so forth and yet I did not find any of her explanations comforting and remained frustrated as hell that my entry looked so clumsy and stupid compared with everyone else's entries.
Sigh. The virtues of doing my own work were not readily apparent to me during the pumpkin decorating contest. However, the same lesson was repeated and repeated and repeated. My project, my paper, my grade, my work. Always my own work. I must do my own work. Even an obstinate and unbiddable child will eventually learn the lesson if it's presented often enough.
No, mom, I didn't just google for recipes, that has NEVER EVER been the acceptable answer for you and acting like I'd stoop to that at this late date is a bit... wow. No, mom. No.
I came up with MY OWN PLAN. (You must do your own work.)
I THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT I WANTED TO DO. (It's your project. What do you want to do? Let's brainstorm some ideas.)
I thought about what I knew about candy and flavors and textures. (What do you think might be a good starting point for this project? What kinds of ideas are you having?)
I DID SOME FIRST DRAFTS AND EXPERIMENTED. (Why don't you give it a try and see what happens. If it doesn't work, you can still get some good ideas from how it went wrong.)
I wasted an entire quart of black raspberries on failure. I wasted like twenty apricots, a block of cream cheese, a smallish bag of rice flour, several hot peppers, some powdered sugar, and a bag of white chocolate chips. I did not go on about these failures in the progress reports because Hell, I fucked up again and have no idea what I'm doing. This sucks. I suck. I hate this. is not a narrative that I enjoy sharing. Just because you don't see the glue-y and horrible efforts I made trying to turn black raspberry juice into a non-fondant, not-overly-sweet substance that is NICELY TEXTURED, moldable-into-balls, and sturdy enough to COAT IN CHOCOLATE doesn't mean they didn't happen. (Okay, that didn't work. So, think about what went wrong. What changes could you make for next time?)
AFTER I GOT THINGS RIGHT, which did NOT happen on the first try except for stuff I already knew how to make, I MADE MY OWN SPITE CHOCOLATES using MY OWN kitbashed recipes and decorated them with decorations I thought of and designed myself.
I TURNED IN MY OWN FUCKING WORK. (You must do your own work.) Again. Always.
How
Dare
You
Suggest
I
Would
Even
CONSIDER
Doing
Otherwise?
*sigh*
Also, for what it's worth, I won the pumpkin contest.
It really was a baller idea.